Hot Air is Not Enough, Air Engineers will Rise

The only one of these ideas that seems remotely plausible and non-terrifying is the SaOH carbon sink idea. So many of these things are not reversible. It would be a truly pathetic statement if we're willing to go "all in" just so we can continue with biz as usual for another century.

 

Yeah, this is sounding more and more feasable---next, we can use 'atoms for peace' to build a new, wider Panama Canal...with nuclear bombs doing the digging.

Whatever happened to the 'power so cheap it won't be metered any more' folks? Are they involved with geoengineering now?

How about if we all just drive and consume a little less than we do now?

It's confounding to me, how we always think that we have to "take action" to fix a problem...when, really, an easier (and certainly less invasive) solution is to *stop* doing that which causes the problem in the first place.

To *not* do something we're doing currently.

Unfortunately, that's too simple, and bad for business.

Seeding the oceans with iron? Are they serious? Placing additives in the fuel of airliners...? Sure, yeah, let's give it a go!

It's like, the people who don't know if GW is real or not are now proposing solutions which may (or may not) successfully address a problem, the severity and nature of which is still being determined.

All I can say is that, one of the first things my flight instructor taught me was, if the airplane acts up or there are other problems, *figure out the nature of the problem and determine the appropriate solution...BEFORE DOING ANYTHING!!*

Don't go pressing buttons and flipping switches willy-nilly, or you'll likely make it worse than it is...or, in any case, disguise the nature of the problem itself and make it more difficult to diagnose.

All of these geoengineering solutions are just adding more variables to an equasion that currently has too many to begin with. I'm feeling like arrogant science gets us into problems; perhaps a bit more humilty will get us out.

 

Howay Pinto! Well put.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Jun 20 2007, 04:34 PM) [snapback]465444[/snapback]</div>

I've been thinking a lot about this lately.

Like...the amount of plastic used in consumeables. For instance, when I was a child we got our milk in bottles. Big, heavy, glass bottles. Yes, they were heavy to pour and smaller and a bit inconvenient. And when you dropped them, they broke. But the empty bottles were collected and washed, sterilized and used again. I don't remember any health problems with this.

Now we get milk in either paper cartons (which are mostly thrown away) or plastic bottles (which, be honest, are mostly thrown away not recycled.)

Perhaps we should look at distributing milk in glass bottles again.

Perhaps we shouldn't be selling candy in metal and plastic containers that are thrown away. I also remember when pantyhose used to come in little plastic eggs....for no reason except marketing related to the cutesy play on words in the brand; L'Eggs. Do I really need mints in metal tins? Do I really need gum and candy in a plastic container? Would I bet better off buying ketsup in a glass bottle that can be recycled than a plastic one? What are people more likely to recycle? The blue bins my city provides now accept plastic, glass and even metal food cans. But I'm wondering how many people would put those empty metal and plastic candy containers in the blue bins? How many people would be more likely to recycle a glass milk bottle than a paper milk carton or plastic milk jug?

How much of what we purchase now is packaged wastefully? Perhaps we should accept a little more inconvenience in our lives.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jun 20 2007, 10:06 PM) [snapback]465580[/snapback]</div>

That's how our dairy does it. We sign up for a certain number of bottles a week. They provide a cooler that they deliver the milk in and we put our empties in the cooler. The bottles are collected and used. There is the waste of the plastic cap.

The problem with glass (besides the breaking) is the weight. Trucking in loads of milk in glass bottles would consume a lot more fuel. Our dairy is local so the delivery costs aren't too bad, though the milk is more expensive. The quality is also WAY higher than the store bought stuff and they don't use all of the drugs that are common in other, larger dairies.

I agree that the amount of plastic is excessive and, frankly, a lot of it could go away and not reduce the quality of the product one iota. So much of it is packaging for the sake of packaging it seems. Going back to glass for a lot of things could very well result in the consumption of more resources than sticking with plastic (but we could easily cut plastic use by 25%).

 

We used to have local milk delivery in glass bottles too, but all of the local dairies were bought up by developers. I have no idea where it comes from now. Yes, glass is heavier. But hopefully the trucks would be using something other than gas at some point. I'm wondering if the savings in recycling the glass would offset the heavier bottle.

So....what about batteries. Look at the exhorbitant amount of frivolous stuff we now use batteries for. I've personally gone back to vintage watches that you wind up every day. I'm just annoyed I have to buy a watch battery so often and I am concerned about the amount of batteries I'm using and throwing away. And I don't own a cell phone or a gameboy.

Then there are appliances. Do I really need an appliance whose sole purpose it to heat a hotdog and a bun? Can't be used for anything else. How many other appliances run into the convenient but seldom used and too specialized for any other use category?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jun 21 2007, 01:53 PM) [snapback]465960[/snapback]</div>

I agree. We can also make plastic with biomass. We just need to stop wasting so much of it and recycle as much as possible. Yes, eventually we had better come up with a better way of getting around than burning petrol.

Funny, I had you pegged as the gameboy type.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Jun 21 2007, 08:40 AM) [snapback]465754[/snapback]</div>

Could, but won't. The bottom line is that consumer sheep respond to pretty packages. As long as people continue to buy the pretty packages more than the plain ones, this problem will continue.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Jun 21 2007, 03:55 PM) [snapback]466006[/snapback]</div>

LOL. Not only NOT but I can't stand any computer games. I've played a little with the old InfoCom games. Remember those? Text only. Bureacracy, Leather Goddesses of Phobos, Hollywood Hijinx. I never got very far but I preferred the text only games. Needless to say haven't played them in ....decades.

Not only not a gameboy, not a cell phone, not a pda....
Don't own a hair dryer, curling iron, flat iron, heated rollers, et al.

Even my mixer doubles up as: blender, chopper, can opener, ice crusher, sausage maker, ice cream maker,

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mad Hatter @ Jun 29 2007, 05:45 PM) [snapback]470314[/snapback]</div>

How did this happen? My take is, consumers were trained (by manufacturers and marketers and designers and advertisers) to respond to these packaging cues...wondering, now, what it would take to un-train 'em (and what market factors might be used to support this behaviour)...?

I fear that we have created a body of people who must now be provided with constant visual stimulation to remain interested...even when they walk down the aisle of the supermarket (let alone choose a political candidate, etc.).

If feels to me (and I almost hate to say it) that an intellectual approach to this won't work...only recourse is to make being prodigal un-cool (not holding my breath, though).

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Sidebar: I was previewing a rough cut of a short documentary, to be used for promotional purposes. There were a lot of interviews and there'd been some difficulty getting adequate footage...at many points, we were listening to people talking, while on the screen were abstract images that really had nothing to do with what was being said (the editor worked overtime, apparently)...but were there *only to keep our eyes entertained, so we could listen*...

It was, basically, a radio show with visuals. How odd; you'd think that *eliminating*other sources of input would focus people's attention...but, no...

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Sidebar II: I'm also concerned that the fancy and colorful packaging styles (which we're now accustomed to) have a very different tone and manner than how we've been taught 'green' packaging should look...this same perceived limitation might actually be a call for designers to re-think how a mainstream 'green' product should be packaged and presented on the shelves.

My point: there has just *got* to be a more sophisticated execution, over and above the brown cardboard, horsey typography, and unbleached paper that I have come to expect from green packaging. What other, design cues can be involked and ultimately owned by this movement, I wonder? The goal: Teach people that the brighter the package, the less environmentally sound it is.

Hmmmm....

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Sidebar III: Starbucks (in SF at least) has replaced their cellophane-wrapped premade sandwiches with ones in TWO PIECE, DELUXE PLASTIC CLAMSHELL CONTAINERS!! They're bellybanded and of course have more room for full-color graphics than the old style packages.

Note to self: sell remainder of Starbucks stock ASAP.