... you will hardly see the blood running from me as they staple their design in place
Red and orange is a challenging combination, but I have confidence in your ability to pull it off with great elan.
It will be done...
Recycling/Going Green
- Thread starter MetalPants
- Start date
It will be done...
Basically you're fail unless you live in a tent and eat only roots.
I think that there is nothing wrong with admitting that we need 2 or 3 or 4 Earth's for everyone to reach a Western standard of living. It is a simple truth. The only way about 20% of the world's people have this standard of living is because most of the other 80% of the world's population is living at a much lower standard.
Yes Miss Chicken but the push of these tests is not to raise the 80%'s standards but to lower the 20%s standards.
The idea that we will all happily meet in some middle doesn't work with these tests. What standard would you need for ONE earth? It doesn't tell you that but I bet it is very very low.. and if you raise the 20% up to that level (which for them means more consumption) it would be even lower.
The idea that we will all happily meet in some middle doesn't work with these tests. What standard would you need for ONE earth? It doesn't tell you that but I bet it is very very low.. and if you raise the 20% up to that level (which for them means more consumption) it would be even lower.
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I don't think that these tests' aims are to lower the 20%'s standards of living. One can actually lower one's carbon footprint without lowering one's standard of living. Using a recycling program doesn't lower one's standard of living. Walking or cycling to work, if it is possible, doesn't lower one's standard of living. Deciding to spend money on solar hot water heating instead of a supersized TV doesn't lower one's standard of living.
This tests' aims are to show just how wasteful we can be and encourage people to look at that wastefulness and see how unnecessary some of it is.
Edit to add - In fact, some of this wastefulness, lowers the standard of living. Compare to one of my friends who has a car. Both of us are on pensions but unlike her I am not constantly having trouble making ends meet. She often cannot go out because she can't afford petrol for the car. I always have money for a bus.
What eats away her income is the costs of running her car - the rego, insurance, maintenance, petrol, parking fees etc. The truth is if she caught a taxi every time she went out it would probably end up costing her less than running a car. If she caught a bus like me she would have even more money. She is paying a lot of money for a little bit of convenience i.e it takes her 5 minutes to get to the shopping centre instead of 15-20 minutes it takes me on the bus.
This tests' aims are to show just how wasteful we can be and encourage people to look at that wastefulness and see how unnecessary some of it is.
Edit to add - In fact, some of this wastefulness, lowers the standard of living. Compare to one of my friends who has a car. Both of us are on pensions but unlike her I am not constantly having trouble making ends meet. She often cannot go out because she can't afford petrol for the car. I always have money for a bus.
What eats away her income is the costs of running her car - the rego, insurance, maintenance, petrol, parking fees etc. The truth is if she caught a taxi every time she went out it would probably end up costing her less than running a car. If she caught a bus like me she would have even more money. She is paying a lot of money for a little bit of convenience i.e it takes her 5 minutes to get to the shopping centre instead of 15-20 minutes it takes me on the bus.
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Yeah but I do not have a car. I have saved a FORTUNE not having one and raised my standard of living dramatically. I also don't have A/C which has somehow become standard in the last ten years or so in Aus (not in Tas perhaps) and a zillion other things. I'm already living eccentrically compared to every other person I know but apparently I still take two and half earths.
I really don't care one whit about lowering the 20%. I'm much more interested in the 80%, the ones living in grinding poverty. I find all this angst over take away coffee cups and plastic bags (I remember Latham promised to ban them, LOL) and disposable nappies and all the other BS my peers spend their mental energy on just a big distraction from the real issues in this world. It's busy work that makes people feel good and doesn't engage in the real suffering of this planet.
I really don't care one whit about lowering the 20%. I'm much more interested in the 80%, the ones living in grinding poverty. I find all this angst over take away coffee cups and plastic bags (I remember Latham promised to ban them, LOL) and disposable nappies and all the other BS my peers spend their mental energy on just a big distraction from the real issues in this world. It's busy work that makes people feel good and doesn't engage in the real suffering of this planet.
But if doing one of these tests makes someone realise that they can have a better life without a car (and cause less pollution by doing so) isn't that a good thing?
My mother complains that her power bill (for two people) is significantly higher than mine (for three people). My mother has air-conditioning. When I was looking after her when she broke her hip she thought I was mad because I would open up the window to let the sea breeze in instead of putting on the air conditioning. She also uses her clothes dryer despite the fact that my brother is quite capable of hanging washing on the line. I haven't had a dryer since my kids were in cloth nappies (and even then the nappies were only put in the dryer during very wet weather).
I am naturally frugal.
My mother complains that her power bill (for two people) is significantly higher than mine (for three people). My mother has air-conditioning. When I was looking after her when she broke her hip she thought I was mad because I would open up the window to let the sea breeze in instead of putting on the air conditioning. She also uses her clothes dryer despite the fact that my brother is quite capable of hanging washing on the line. I haven't had a dryer since my kids were in cloth nappies (and even then the nappies were only put in the dryer during very wet weather).
I am naturally frugal.
A
Amaris
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Yeah, after working the application, I got it down to living in a 500 sq ft apartment with 5 other people, and we'd all have a compost heap outside, a large garden, no car, traveling about 100 miles a year by public transport, buying food only from organic farmer's markets and we would have to be vegan, recycling everything, taking cold showers, and my apartment would be ran on biomass instead of electricity. That took up only one earth.
I don't think anyone expects you to get your impact down to one.
My impact is about 1.9 Earths. My aim is to get that down to 1.8 or maybe slightly less.
So who is doing Earth Hour. It seems I'm the only one in my house who did. Turned off the TV, my bedroom lights and unplugged the laptop. Battery down to around 35%, as I've just plugged it back in to recharge.
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