AS and the Environment...

[Rust Collector]

I only commute 3 miles each way Monday to Friday, but on the weeks that I was working from home I barely turned the car on. I agree that remote working where it is practical is definitely an environmentally friendly thing to do. I think the hardest part is breaking the mentality of 'you're being paid, you must be here a set amount of time otherwise we aren't getting everything we've paid for', and my gut feel is that employers with that mindset probably won't give a crap about the environmental aspect.  I do think employers should be looking at the quality and quantity of work people are producing and making a decision from that perspective - I generally find happy people get more done, and people are usually happier with a bit of leeway, so for me I'm happy for my team to work from home as long as I don't see their work suffer, and in return they're happy that they can do little bits round the house or run errands in work time rather than try to get that stuff done in the evening. I'm not going to be pissed off if you took 30 minutes to walk the dog because the sun was out, or you tidied some of the house, pulled some weeds in the garden etc. provided you still produced the work that I would've seen in your shift at the office. Productivity should be the focus, not just people's ability to turn up and be in a place for 8 hours straight.  Maybe I've always just worked in poorly managed places, but I don't think of myself as a massively productive person but I do turn up and put my hours in and nobody has ever flagged an issue with the work I put out and I suspect it's mainly because I'm always 'there' so I must be doing something... I'm largely back in the office now to keep other people happy who think that home working is a doss, and as a result I'm not enjoying my job so much now and again producing less work than I was when I was sat in my home office. I do get more done on Autoshite when I'm at the office though so there is that, however the environment does suffer an extra 768g of CO2 per day from my Insight as a result 😅

[TheOtherStu]

26 minutes ago, R1152 said:

Now... my commute frequently takes me along the A1 when I'm working. Since 3/20 I have noticed that the jams that were so common around junction 7 (Stevenage south) at about 7 am have gone and have never returned. Sadly, I can't WFH but I'm hoping to retire in just over a year and thus take a hammer to my motoring carbon footprint.

Fish farming (especially salmon) attracts a lot of opprobrium from environmentalists because of run-off and antibiotic use, plus there are those allergic to fish.

Similarly, the mass production of chicken attracts severe criticism - someone tried to open a massive chicken facility in the village where my family live primarily to feed the chicken shops of London and Birmingham. Even the local supermarket raised an objection! - if you've ever cycled past a chicken 'farm' you'll know why. Again, massive chicken production facilities cause huge environmental damage - a 100,000 chickens generate an awful lot of waste products.

If anything, food has become far too cheap and that, tied in with "BOGOF" offers from supermarkets, just encourages wasteful practices.

Any chance of you posting your recipe in the AS cookery thread?

I certainly will

Chicken does stink - we store stuff at a chicken farm and that smell is just awful. My main point above though is not actually what we eat as to how much of it!

 

[BorniteIdentity]

3 hours ago, TheOtherStu said:

My current gripe is office working.

Yes, I understand there's an economy problem there (goes back to economy vs environment - one of the first posts in the thread).

My company (some IT, some banking) is giving everyone the option to work from home. It's being encouraged only from a "work-life balance" point of view rather than genuine cost saving for office space (although clearly, that's something that is happening).

Nearly everyone is happy to work from home. As a manager, I'm happy for my team to take whichever option suits them. Some of the bean counters though are being told by their senior management that they're expected in the office every day and can "have the occasional Friday from home", even though this goes against company policy (the CFO is the main culprit). My sister also works in this industry and her boss has made her come in every day, insisting that she's an "key worker" (She isn't - she works in pensions).

 

So for those of you wondering why the roads have been so pigging busy since last September, this is the main reason. Those people clogging up the M25 aren't manual workers. They're mostly in the financial sector.

 

I'm not looking at those of you who work on farms, or in a garage, or indeed even a shop, but those of you office drones like me who could work from home even a day or two a week and save 40% of our fumes, not to mention time (which is priceless).

 

Difficult subject indeed. One of the problems with vegan is that it's not what you and I think it is - lots of interestingly cooked vegetables, stews, chillis and so on. Most vegan protein is provided by soya. The other sources are mostly nut,  cereal and grain based. Neither of which the human body is particularly adept at processing very well. I'm sure we all know gluten and nut intolerant folk who genuinely get very ill.

If anyone is interested btw, I have an amazing Vegan chilli recipe. I genuinely prefer it to the meat variety. Unfortunately, my wife doesn't.

So if we just go vegetarian, Dairy products aren't really the answer either. No other animal consumes another animals milk in nature, hence why so many have dairy allergies.

For me (and I'm aware this is probably unpopular, but hey, it's my opinion), the answer is chicken and fish. Fish can be farmed properly, but needs careful management. Chicken is considerably lower in environmental harm than red meats. Both are very high in protein and low in fat.

 

But for all of the above, the biggest thing we need to fix is consumption. We all waste food. We nearly all buy and use processed food. And over 70% of us eat too much (I'm very much included in this statistic).

Had this discussion with a few people over the last couple of months.

Whilst businesses ask staff not to print emails unnecessarily, and to book appointments in clusters so you're not racking up unnecessary miles, why the fuck make everyone drive to the same place at the same time every day?  

The answer is nearly always (mumbled under breath) that we want our staff where we can see them.  

Well, employ the right people and it's not a problem.  

[ETCHY]

19 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Sounds like a nice nv200! Yup, keep the carbon brushes changed and it'll go on forever! Wheras the 620w motors they use now like to blow a coil wire off one of the terminals, usually with a nice big flash and bang. Same with the 620w motors in miele vacuums actually 🤔 My beautiful white Miele C3 silence was free because of that. Used it for a month or so, stuck it in the loft for 6 months and pretended I wanted to add it to the collection then flogged it for £70 on facebook... 

Sometimes their repairable but sometimes their too far melted. 

Here's the aforesaid vacuum cleaner, I put a taller stability base on it but do have the original tub.

Lovely old thing, it just works. The folding carry handle on top is actually made of wood it was like that when I got it, quite skillfully made to look like the original, i've left it on as it's somehow more "Autoshite" !

Perhaps we need a garage vacuum cleaner thread ?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

My journey to and from work depends on electrically powered public transport. The power for that has to be generated somewhere, somehow.

Much of the stuff I eat (fish, seafood, veg) comes in some form of packaging, sometimes quite a lot of packaging.

I do like plenty of veg, but that's mainly because farting is fun, and that's all there is to it.

I take the view that there is virtually nothing I can do that is environmentally acceptable to the likes of Guru Grater Thunberg (she's not the Messiah!), so I carry on with two cars aged 17 and 33. The 17-year-old runs on dirty diesel, whilst the 33-year-old still has tetraethyl lead added to its fuel.

We all have to die sometime. 

[R1152]

3 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

We all have to die sometime. 

We do: but should we leave behind a literally toxic legacy for our descendants to deal with just so we can have a bit of fun? I know this seems so old-fashioned to say these days, but isn't it just a bit, y'know... selfish?

[New POD]

Let's face it humans have messed with the planet, and our time is doomed. When we are All. gone mother nature will sort it out. Until then let's party like it's 1999. 

[R1152]

54 minutes ago, New POD said:

Let's face it humans have messed with the planet, and our time is doomed. When we are All. gone mother nature will sort it out. Until then let's party like it's 1999. 

I'd kinda rather we didn't accelerate our demise though... I think something like Marburg Virus will 'do' for humanity. That makes Covid look a veritable pussycat.

[Dick Longbridge]

By default, humans were always going to utterly ruin the planet. It's just unfortunate that we're at a turning point next to a very slippery slope, and there's no realistic way of avoiding it. Yes, we can slide down it a little more slowly, but ultimately the damage is very much done. 

[bigstraight6]

4 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

My journey to and from work depends on electrically powered public transport. The power for that has to be generated somewhere, somehow.

Much of the stuff I eat (fish, seafood, veg) comes in some form of packaging, sometimes quite a lot of packaging.

I do like plenty of veg, but that's mainly because farting is fun, and that's all there is to it.

I take the view that there is virtually nothing I can do that is environmentally acceptable to the likes of Guru Grater Thunberg (she's not the Messiah!), so I carry on with two cars aged 17 and 33. The 17-year-old runs on dirty diesel, whilst the 33-year-old still has tetraethyl lead added to its fuel.

We all have to die sometime. 

I think the humour is lost here in general these days,  and I’ve always thought us true devotees running old cars daily are doing their bit as a most of the environmental damage is done making the things in the first place. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

3 hours ago, R1152 said:

.... isn't it just a bit, y'know... selfish?

Our very existence is selfish. Population reduction is something that really needs more support. 

[HMC]

[loserone]

43 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Population reduction is something that really needs more support. 

It's got loads of support, just look at all the dickheads who think the pandemic is over and the vaccines are for improving mobile signal

[Tadhg Tiogar]

7 minutes ago, loserone said:

It's got loads of support, just look at all the dickheads who think the pandemic is over and the vaccines are for improving mobile signal

Yes, they just need a bit more pushing....

[bunglebus]

16 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Our very existence is selfish. Population reduction is something that really needs more support. 

An Austrian bloke had similar ideas in the 1930s. 

Not that I disagree with you but it's a difficult subject and probably outside of the subject of this thread.

The topics of environmental change, deforestation etc have been discussed my whole life, but I get the impression a lot of it is political point scoring while simultaneously letting industry giants do what they want to keep the economy rolling.

I'm sure I've said it before but the heart of the problem is no-one wants to be worse off, so we won't ever fix the problem while human population continues to grow

[fraser.innes.3]

Before I was a shiter, my local councillor was from the green party, and drove an old Morris minor. I asked how a green party member could drive such a polluting car. As per comments above, he pointed out that the car's carbon footprint had been paid for years before.
Age of my vehicles are 39, 20, 15, 13 and 10, with a total mileage of 680k. Surprisingly, the 2 oldest, have the lowest mileage!

Sent from my EML-L29 using Tapatalk

[R1152]

11 minutes ago, fraser.innes.3 said:

Before I was a shiter, my local councillor was from the green party, and drove an old Morris minor. I asked how a green party member could drive such a polluting car. As per comments above, he pointed out that the car's carbon footprint had been paid for years before.
Age of my vehicles are 39, 20, 15, 13 and 10, with a total mileage of 680k. Surprisingly, the 2 oldest, have the lowest mileage!

Sent from my EML-L29 using Tapatalk
 

Long before the environment was fashionable, I had a colleague at work who was very much into the "Green" movement, CND and the like and he drove a Moggy Traveller... Best bit was his-then CB "handle" - appropriately, "Tudor Traveller". 

As for "population reduction":

DO. NOT. GO. THERE. 

[R1152]

10 hours ago, loserone said:

It's got loads of support, just look at all the dickheads who think the pandemic is over and the vaccines are for improving mobile signal

Worse than that, there are now a growing number of "germ theory" deniers.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/08/deep-dive-into-stupid-meet-the-growing-group-that-rejects-germ-theory/

[Rust Collector]

53 minutes ago, R1152 said:

Worse than that, there are now a growing number of "germ theory" deniers.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/08/deep-dive-into-stupid-meet-the-growing-group-that-rejects-germ-theory/

I always wonder how much money you can make by coming up with a bullshit conspiracy theory that appeals to people who want to be contrary or are in defiance of something they don't want to believe, and then churning out content on youtube and other social media for your audience of believers. I mean it's completely unethical, but I can only assume that people more morally bankrupt have latched onto these denial theories as a money spinner as I can't see any other reason to start these movements other than being completely delusional.

[R1152]

2 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

I always wonder how much money you can make by coming up with a bullshit conspiracy theory that appeals to people who want to be contrary or are in defiance of something they don't want to believe, and then churning out content on youtube and other social media for your audience of believers. I mean it's completely unethical, but I can only assume that people more morally bankrupt have latched onto these denial theories as a money spinner as I can't see any other reason to start these movements other than being completely delusional.

"Loads" is the answer.

[R1152]

Also pointed at this from elsewhere:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07034-4

[bezzabsa]

changing the subject slightly.....in the 1980's i worked in an office and the buzz back then was PAPERLESS OFFICE, that was set to happen SOON......well 40 years later and it's still being banded about....Imagine the shitstorm in a paperless office when the Computer shits itself over an incorrect input!!

[FakeConcern]

Not really AS style, but certainly the environment, have a look at this futuristic tidal turbine so much better than all the wind turbines set in a million tons of concrete in the sea near where I live. I know nothing really about it except if it looks wrong, it is wrong and building them in the sea with all the problems that entails and the same again for maintaining the things, never mind that the wind doesn’t always do what you want. Contrast them to the tidal turbine which (I assume) is stand alone (or float alone anyway) with a power source of two tides every day come what may, this has to be the way to go.

 

[Richard_FM]

I worked in a solicitors office that was supposed to be paperless, but the solicitors didn't think twice of printing out a 500 page document to take into court without bothering to check if the were was a hard copy already filed away for them to take.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

12 hours ago, Richard_FM said:

I worked in a solicitors office that was supposed to be paperless, but the solicitors didn't think twice of printing out a 500 page document to take into court without bothering to check if the were was a hard copy already filed away for them to take.

Mmm, going paperless tends to involve even more paper.

[cort1977]

Ebay press release written up in the mail.  Us scrapyard wallahs are using 'Green Parts' (TM) apparently.  Don't read the comments obviously.

'Solve Brexit delays by buying green parts', eBay urges motorists | Daily Mail Online