Climate change: what are YOU doing to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand?

Forums › Off topic › Climate change: what are YOU doing to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand?

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | ... | 19

Mad Scientist
29760 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1841037 8-Aug-2017 12:49

Rikkitic:

Geektastic: Nothing. I'm not concerned.

For the sake of the FUG, I will let others fill in what I think about people with your attitude.

He's got no children.

But I am told that the future generations will just accept pollution as normal. Which means Auckland house prices go up. More.

Rikkitic

Awrrr
18657 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1841038 8-Aug-2017 12:50

What we do in this country won't make much difference in the global scheme of things, but that is not the point. The point is that attitudes need to change, especially those of people like some of the posters here, who think they are being witty. When a majority of people feel strongly about environmental carelessness, this will affect political preference and product choice. If people reject plastic bags, they will stop being produced. If they demand clean rivers, the cow population will decline. If this results in a lower standard of living, that will be accepted if protecting the environment is seen as more important. All of these things are doable, but they all depend on attitude. Once that changes, everything changes. Someone has to be first to set the example, and there is no reason that cannot be us. Someone somewhere in the world doing the right thing will inspire others. It is a cumulative process.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

frednz

1467 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1841040 8-Aug-2017 12:53

Seakiwi:

frednz:

Great, and seeing that you're familiar with Kapiti, what's your view on beach access along the Raumati Coast? A long time ago, friends used to own a property at South Raumati right on the beach and even at high tide, you could enjoy a walk along a sandy beach. Now at high tide (and an hour or two before that) the beach completely disappears and you have to walk along the top of a concrete wall. I think global warming may have had a part to play in this?

Heard of plate tectonics and erosion at all?

East coast going up and west coast going down with a little bit of south to north movement on the as well.

How much closer to the North Island is Cape Campbell now compared to last year? Was that climate change as well?

What was once seabed is now land and at some stage will be seabed again, while current seabed becomes land.

Ok thanks, perhaps not the best example. Well, how about this recent report which says that:

They point to a recent bump in extreme weather events and describe the Pacific as a "canary in a coal mine" for the rest of the planet.

"In our work with vulnerable communities, particularly in the Pacific, we are already seeing the negative impacts of more extreme weather events, temperature changes, rising sea levels and disease outbreaks associated with climate change," they wrote in the letter.

"For the sake of these vulnerable women, men and children, we – as a well-resourced developed nation – have a responsibility to act in a bold and meaningful manner."

And this article about the massive iceberg that has broken off an ice shelf on the Antarctic pensinula has set alarm bells ringing right around the world. Global warming has surely been a major factor in this happening?

A giant iceberg twice the size of Luxembourg has broken off an ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula and is now adrift in the Weddell Sea.

Reported to be “hanging by a thread” last month, the trillion-tonne iceberg was found to have split off from the Larsen C segment of the Larsen ice shelf on Wednesday morning after scientists examined the latest satellite data from the area

kryptonjohn

2523 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1841043 8-Aug-2017 12:57

But it's not just about attitude and emissions. It's about politics, economics, profile and appearances.

For example look at the opprobrium heaped on the USA for getting out of the Paris accord. Nobody mentions that the USA is a rarity in reducing it's emissions steadily for a decade, while India and China continue to increase theirs.

kryptonjohn

2523 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1841068 8-Aug-2017 12:59

frednz:

Wiggum:

Planting lots of trees.

We have a large section in Kapiti and are fortunate to have lots of space. A few years ago we started planting lots of trees and are trying to restore part of our section to natural forest. Its not doing anything to reduce gas emissions, but trees eat carbon dioxide so thats a good thing.

Great, and seeing that you're familiar with Kapiti, what's your view on beach access along the Raumati Coast? A long time ago, friends used to own a property at South Raumati right on the beach and even at high tide, you could enjoy a walk along a sandy beach. Now at high tide (and an hour or two before that) the beach completely disappears and you have to walk along the top of a concrete wall. I think global warming may have had a part to play in this?

Not much of a part if at all. It's erosion not sea level rise.

dafman

3925 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1841073 8-Aug-2017 13:03

Single use plastic bags, they do my head in. You know, the ones that get made in China, get shipped all around the world, are used once for a matter of minutes or hours, then sit in the landfill for the next 10,000 years plus.

Some recent examples from the last week!:

A Mediterranean Food Warehouse in Kapiti purchased a small paella dish. It came with two handles, yet they insisted it be put into a plastic bag so they could carry it the 20 metres out to their car.
A Harvey Norman customer purchased a USB flash drive. It came sealed in plastic wrapping and was small enough to put in his pocket. Yet he insisted on a plastic bag.
At the supermarket, someone picked up a small bunch of bananas, then proceeded to shove them into a small plastic bag.

Rikkitic

Awrrr
18657 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1841076 8-Aug-2017 13:06

Those examples do my head in. Unbelievable.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

kryptonjohn

2523 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1841077 8-Aug-2017 13:08

Agreed. I'm sure >90% of packaging is a useless waste, a PITA and pox on the environment.

MarkH67

517 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1841088 8-Aug-2017 13:17

I'm picking up my first EV on Saturday, I'm going to use it to commute to work which will reduce my petrol burning by somewhere around 1,000 litres a year. I have replaced the most used light bulbs with 13W LEDs, plenty of light with a lot less energy than the old bulbs used to use, even compared to CFL bulbs the LEDs use half as much power.

I do understand that this is very little in the scheme of things, but if everyone in the world that has a car were to switch to an EV over the next decade or two then it really would make a significant difference. None of us can do much to improve the world, but ALL of us combined CAN make a difference. There are other things that should change which would be done at a much larger scale than the individual person - I'd love to see our national electricity production moved to 100% renewable (currently 80%) and of course it would be good if all other countries tried for the same thing, especially those currently using coal.

For those people that wont buy an electric car today - I would hope that they would reconsider within the next 5 years, there will be many more choices and better performance as time goes on.

allan

2043 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1841089 8-Aug-2017 13:20

dafman:

Single use plastic bags, they do my head in. You know, the ones that get made in China, get shipped all around the world, are used once for a matter of minutes or hours, then sit in the landfill for the next 10,000 years plus.

Some recent examples from the last week!:

A Mediterranean Food Warehouse in Kapiti purchased a small paella dish. It came with two handles, yet they insisted it be put into a plastic bag so they could carry it the 20 metres out to their car.
A Harvey Norman customer purchased a USB flash drive. It came sealed in plastic wrapping and was small enough to put in his pocket. Yet he insisted on a plastic bag.
At the supermarket, someone picked up a small bunch of bananas, then proceeded to shove them into a small plastic bag.

Countdown last weekend - bought a rack of lamb that was already vacuum sealed inside fairly thick plastic and had the price sticker attached. This had then (presumably locally) been placed on a plastic tray and sealed with clingfilm over top of that - why????

MarkH67

517 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1841091 8-Aug-2017 13:24

MikeB4:

As a nation we need to stop clear felling forests and carrying out selective logging.

Clear felling plantation forests and then replanting would OK, that's just taking CO2 from the air and turning it into wood which becomes houses (or whatever).

Clear felling native forest - not cool at all.

Dratsab

3946 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1841097 8-Aug-2017 13:31

allan:

dafman: Single use plastic bags, they do my head in. You know, the ones that get made in China, get shipped all around the world, are used once for a matter of minutes or hours, then sit in the landfill for the next 10,000 years plus.

Some recent examples from the last week!:

A Mediterranean Food Warehouse in Kapiti purchased a small paella dish. It came with two handles, yet they insisted it be put into a plastic bag so they could carry it the 20 metres out to their car.
A Harvey Norman customer purchased a USB flash drive. It came sealed in plastic wrapping and was small enough to put in his pocket. Yet he insisted on a plastic bag.
At the supermarket, someone picked up a small bunch of bananas, then proceeded to shove them into a small plastic bag.
Countdown last weekend - bought a rack of lamb that was already vacuum sealed inside fairly thick plastic and had the price sticker attached. This had then (presumably locally) been placed on a plastic tray and sealed with clingfilm over top of that - why????

Staying on the off-topic subject of plastic pollution, I think one of the elephants in the room is drinks bottling companies. As an example, there's been outcry recently about a company wanting to bottle directly potable water in the Waikato region to the tune of 2.5 billion litres/pa. While it's not a substantial amount in terms of fresh water available (both directly potable and not) it's a crapload of plastic that's going to be produced to contain it.

NzBeagle

961 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1841100 8-Aug-2017 13:35

What's the view on the recycling of said plastic, bags and bottles, is it futile? Does it absolve the production of such things? The plant based plastic bags don't do well at protecting my valuables on the motorcycle. I reuse what I do have, and then end of life recycle them.

Dratsab

3946 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1841101 8-Aug-2017 13:36

floydbloke:

frednz:

floydbloke: I've just invested some money in some more forestry (works out to owning about 3000 trees). Does that count?

Yes, I would say that counts if it helps NZ to increase its number of trees. Can you give any more details about this investment?

We use Forest Enterprises. They do all the work, we just paid the money. Initially in 1997 we invested in a forest from scratch, with an upfront payment and a yearly running cost, which is now $0, and just last week we invested in another already established one on the secondary market. Both are due to harvest in 2024 and we'll be cashing up, it's a retirement investment for us (at current log prices looking to return about 8% p/a compounded after tax). However, once felled and cleared the land will be replanted with the next iteration.

ETA: The yearly maintenance and admin costs are covered by the carbon credits that the forest earns, so our net annual payment is $0.

Out of interest, what's the emissions liability once those forests are felled?

Seakiwi

144 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#1841108 8-Aug-2017 13:40

MarkH67:

I'm picking up my first EV on Saturday, I'm going to use it to commute to work which will reduce my petrol burning by somewhere around 1,000 litres a year. I have replaced the most used light bulbs with 13W LEDs, plenty of light with a lot less energy than the old bulbs used to use, even compared to CFL bulbs the LEDs use half as much power.

I do understand that this is very little in the scheme of things, but if everyone in the world that has a car were to switch to an EV over the next decade or two then it really would make a significant difference. None of us can do much to improve the world, but ALL of us combined CAN make a difference. There are other things that should change which would be done at a much larger scale than the individual person - I'd love to see our national electricity production moved to 100% renewable (currently 80%) and of course it would be good if all other countries tried for the same thing, especially those currently using coal.

For those people that wont buy an electric car today - I would hope that they would reconsider within the next 5 years, there will be many more choices and better performance as time goes on.

Have you factored in the CO2 emissions and environmental damage caused by mining and making and then recycling the batteries in your EV?

Have you factored in the cost to the environment of producing the electricity to recharge your EV.

How many people need to buy EVs before we have to fire up Huntly with coal, or buy back and restart Marsden B, or perhaps another dam, cried the fantail as he flew into, flew into the sky......

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | ... | 19