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Climate Change Activists All Talk, No Action?
6 Comments | Posted by gimme-five in Environment, Politics
Interesting article from the Guardian about how many people who consider themselves to be environmentalists are just talking:
I know people who profess to care deeply about global warming, but who would sooner drink Toilet Duck than get rid of their Agas, patio heaters and plasma TVs, all of which are staggeringly wasteful.
To some extent, this is true. Jon H. posted an article on gimme-five expressing the problem with celebrities preaching about cutting emissions, but at the same time driving around in Hummers and living in multiple gigantic homes that drain tons of energy.
I can blame myself to some degree here. Although I do buy Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs and turn off my (and other’s) lights and bike instead of drive whenever possible, I do a lot of stuff that uses energy. I drive to visit my girlfriend a few times every semester, and she comes to visit me. This is something that I really find important, and I personally am willing to accept the fact that it is wasteful because I value the time with my girlfriend much more than the impact of my driving. However, others have expressed to me that I am being a bit of a hypocrite here. I disagree because I consider seeing my girlfriend something that is incredibly important to me. [don't worry, Jessica, I'm always going to continue to visit you on a regular basis! I promise!]. But I see the point, that technically I am not doing my best to reduce my waste to the minimum possible.
What we have here is a coordination problem. People who know climate change is a problem would like to reduce their emissions, but they know if they do it alone, the world will still seriously be harmed. There is no guarantee that other people will help to reduce emissions, so thus an individual is always “personally” better off by not doing anything to reduce emissions, besides that warm glow inside.
That’s why we need some form of significant reward for reducing our emissions. We need some sort of coordination scheme to allow us to benefit “personally” from reducing our emissions. I’m really busy with homework, so I won’t elaborate. The main point is: one of the biggest reasons people aren’t making personal choices to mitigate the climate change crisis is that they have no guarantee that others will, and thus have the incentive to do nothing.
Comments are welcome, but please don’t nitpick, cause I really banged this thing out and I have to do homework now.
6 Comments for Climate Change Activists All Talk, No Action?
Ben I | September 21, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Author comment by george | September 22, 2006 at 9:09 am
I am sorry. I am not going to take the time to respond to this comment.
Jeff Stryker | September 22, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Ben I’s post reads like he gets his information on recycling from a couple of comedians.
For example, recycling aluminum saves a lot of energy. It is takes a lot less energy to recycle aluminum than to produce the aluminum from ore.
Not all celebrities just talk. Yesterday, Richard Branson said he would donate 3 billion dollars over the next 10 years to anti-global warming initiatives.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/09/21/tech-branson-060921.html?ref=rss
Ben I | September 22, 2006 at 6:24 pm
And these initiatives would be….
Thats the problem with all people who donate enormous amounts of “x” to a cause, especially to one in which we have no real solution to.
The most plausible response to this is “R&D” which is a good thing so long as it is being done by someone who can do it. Most of the time, the initiatives are not effective such as hydrogen auto design by GM or hybrid powertrains by Toyota whose batteries, when disposed, are extremely caustic and cause global harm.
And just because I’m funnier than you Jeff, its no reason to get your panties up in a bunch.
who are you | September 22, 2006 at 7:51 pm
Ben I: Did you even read the link? Do you know anything about climate change initiatives?
I’m conservative, and I am truly disappointed that you identify with my political views. Your previous comments on this web site make it look like you have yet to acquire the ability to independently think. It looks like you have somehow just decided that you were going to become a republican, and it’s clear you have no personal opinions, but merely the official opinions of the republican party. Every issue you have taken on this site has been classic conservative and each argument you’ve made has been poor and looks like it was copied and pasted from different political propoganda websites. You sound like a total bigot.
That being said, I agree with this article to some extent. If climate change were a serious problem today, I wouldn’t do anything about it because there others aren’t going to. If other people don’t do anything, then what good is my effort?
However, I think we’re doing enough to reduce the effects right now as a country, so I don’t think about the issue so much. Kyoto is bogus – more on that later.
Poorly written article, though, like the author mentioned.
jon h | September 26, 2006 at 11:12 pm
hm… I’ll just chime in because george made reference to my earlier post.
Here’s another issue with personal conservation… I’ll just talk power, since that is the industry my company works w/. So, from a cheap and dirty google search, the average US household consumes something like 9000kW hours a year.
So, if we look at some of the biggest data centers powering large companies and their applications, the total supply to power that DC may be something like 5MW…add in duel source redundancy and that is 10MW.
So that is 10000 kW for 8760 hours a year. That’s the equivalent almost 9800 houses. @ 2.6 people per household, or around 25k people. So for every guy turning off their AC letting the breeze blow through their place, there is a CIO making a showcase datacenter way oversized causing Al Gore’s end of the earth to approach quicker…
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I think that ALL environmentalists are just talking. They do the most stupid things, like recycling, which has little to do with global warming which today has many a Democrat worried. I AM NOT saying that recycling is unimportant, but it is just doing something to substitute for not doing something else…that is critical to atmospheric health.
But aside from that, many environmentalists just pose a problem. They campaign and protest which as a result causes a slowed reaction and a buffeted result.
This also ties in with Democrats who happen to be the main faction of environmentalists. Democrats are the political extreme in the bi-partisan system representing Liberal beliefs, this extremism is often taken to extremes. For example, recently, George Allen was in a hotel in Dulles for campaigning purposes, and while he was sleeping, a rally of Democrats came and camped outside creating a scene not worthy of media attention. But as always, the Liberal “Washington Post” was quick to arrive on the dot, and a worthless article was posted.
The Times and Fox for me thank you.
By the way George, Mr. Brown is very dissapointed in you for obvious reasons.