Save Energy – Stupidity Everywhere (unsorted rant)

Previously politics were mostly busy dealing with pseudo-problems¹… then some real problem came for a visit and said: "Booo." in 2020. Now, in 2022, SOME REAL PROBLEMS appeared and shouted: "BOOOOOOOHOOOOOO!"
I will try to not really get political here (see footnote). I'll just present my findings. If you find any contradictions: I found a lot as well.

"Our lifestyle isn't sustainable. We have to change something."
==================================================================

Everybody agrees… and continues using the car for everything that could be done by walking, using the bicycle or taking a bus. While typing the first lines I could here the mothers driving their kids to elementary school. Lately I've seen two elderly women enjoying ongoing chattering. Why this is certainly not extraordinary and nothing problematic as such, I want to emphasize that one of them was sitting in a car blocking the narrow road with the engine humming away. What the f…? I told her that gasoline obviously wasn't already expensive enough and she looked at me as if I was from mars.

The news are full of end time messages preparing people for catastrophic shortages. Many people won't be able to pay their heating and/or electricity. Giant housing societies announce limiting heating and warm water… and everybody continues as normal. One car after the other, excess light (wohoo, we have LED now, but illuminate five times as much as before). TV (or Netflix and the like) on 24/7 – no matter if somebody is watching. Streaming is hip. No plastic discs → that is environmentally friendly (cause I don't see the giant clusters working for the world-wide streaming).

Heating in winter to >25°C and cooling down with air condition in summer to <20°C. Makes perfect sense. For some people at least.

A new smartphone every year was a slogan by Vodafone some years ago. I think it made a great impression. Having a >1000€ iPhone stops people from having money for a protective flip cover (and nobody would see the Apple logo)… but they paid for insurance. Hey, if it shatters on the floor, I'll get a new iPhone sooner.

Fashion: I've never seen (hope they exist) any systematic studies about the ecological footprint of fashion. Wasting billions of clothes each year because they are out of style. Seeing brand new stuff, wrapped in foil, being thrown into cloth recycling

Battery-powered everything. Cables are so inconvenient! From the headphones to vacuum cleaners to power tools: Batteries for the win! Cordless, wireless, modern, hip!

Worldwide cryptominers: That is the most sensible usage of electric energy I've ever seen! Producing shortages in the GPU sector, wearing down the GPUs and keeping a lot of power plants busy just for Bitcoin and friends).
==========

Again: Everybody agrees that something has to change. Just not their own lifestyle. Nobody wants to start him/herself. I've been doing my best in this regard since I can think. I feel made fun of when hearing I should conserve more energy in the news.






__________________________
¹ I will no mention what, since many GBAtemp member would… disagree in unfriendly manner. After all my blog isn't the politics section.
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DinohScene
I am going to disagree in a unfriendly matter! and here it is!!

Ok.

I agree tho with most of it, however a car for me is vital, I can't exactly walk/cycle long distances but saving energy in general, I try to do my best.
I tend to the car as little as possible cus dinosaur squeezings are in limited supply.
 
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AmandaRose
In regards the two old lady's having a conversation whilst one left the car engine running your country should make a law about that. We have one here in Scotland that you can't leave your engine running for more than about 30 seconds if the car isn't moving. All the modern cars are even sold with a automatic engine cutoff so if the car hasn't moved in the 30 seconds allowed the car automatically switches the engine off. The police here are actually pretty good at handing out fines for anyone breaking the law that does it.
 
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UltraDolphinRevolution
I agree with many things you mentioned but just because you find crypto useless, does not make it so.
Crypto is a challenge to fiat money and gold. Nobody talks about the energy it takes for gold to be melted down and transported, for fiat money to be printed and for keeping banks operational. There are hundreds of thousands to millions of bankers in each larger country. What a waste.

You forgot to mention two major aspects: military and motor sports; the former is all abound US hegemony (imagine the amount of fuel just needed for test flights in hundreds of bases around the world; and I don´t need to say anything about the latter)
 
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KleinesSinchen
@DinohScene Yes, I also have a car (using it sparingly).
Whenever I bring on the topic "cars" and avoid using one if possible, I get presented a lot of examples for people who cannot because their job involves using it or are not healthy enough for some alternatives… or I get cases that can't be easily solved without a car. Well, yes. my point is not: "Ban cars!" but "Use the car consciously and prefer alternatives IF POSSIBLE."
====

@AmandaRose Pretty sure this is already forbidden… but who shall control that? There isn't a police officer in each road.
====

@UltraDolphinRevolution
Invalid conclusion. I criticized a lot of things, but declared non as useless. Blunt words.
The idea of cryptocurrency was appealing for me when I heard about it. That doesn't change the fact that it currently wastes a lot of energy. Comparing it to other forms of money (which exist anyway) will inevitably lead to a political discussion which doesn't belong into my blog. (I agree with you on the current financial system being suboptimal).
Military is a great example for BIG BIG BIG waste. But not something an individual person can directly influence.
Car racing did(!) make sense to some extend. It helped improving stuff. Inventions, tests. But… Pretty useless now.
 
UltraDolphinRevolution
If the American people decided to vote for sb like Ron Paul, they could directly influence defense spending. At least that´s what I want to believe.
 
N10A
Excuse my rambling please, I think out loud. Thank you!

People that leave their engine running just... baffle me. Like if you want the air conditioning to stay on you can do that without having the engine running in most vehicles I would imagine. Most of my clothes are second hand, and I use them for awhile, I prefer wired electronics for the most part, and I don't use crypto. My house also doesn't have air conditioning, but I live with my parents so that really isn't up to me. I also recently replaced my old android phone from 2013 with a used pixel 3a that I plan on using for a few years. I say this in order to prove the point that I dislike waste, I try to avoid it, especially where it is obvious to me. (I cannot claim to be super active in avoiding it, I just have good habits I suppose.)

An note on the fashion thing: I'm sure that there are many people that treat clothing as a hobby, and have massive piles of clothes, no differently from how many of us here on gbatemp may have massive piles of video games that we run on energy sucking computers. While I think that there is something to be said for reducing needless waste, simply labeling things as wasteful because one doesn't see the value in them seems... well I'm not sure what to call it but I don't like it to say the least. I have a feeling that that is not what you were talking about however, and instead were referring to the kinds of people who replace clothes usable clothes simply because they've fallen out of favor. Hopefully in that instance they are at least getting donated and ending up in thrift shops for people like me.

I think part of the reason that some people point fingers is because most of the pollution and energy waste is done by large corporations that are harder to avoid/have a tangible impact on.

If you want to talk about waste that is downright infuriating, look at what stores and supermarkets do with expired food: it all gets wasted. Perfectly edible in most cases, thrown away in the trash. imho, there should be a law that requires out of date but still edible product to be made available to places like public food pantries upon request. I would be interested to hear what you think about this problem.
 
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S
N10A said:
Excuse my rambling please, I think out loud. Thank you!

People that leave their engine running just... baffle me. Like if you want the air conditioning to stay on you can do that without having the engine running in most vehicles I would imagine. Most of my clothes are second hand, and I use them for awhile, I prefer wired electronics for the most part, and I don't use crypto. My house also doesn't have air conditioning, but I live with my parents so that really isn't up to me. I also recently replaced my old android phone from 2013 with a used pixel 3a that I plan on using for a few years. I say this in order to prove the point that I dislike waste, I try to avoid it, especially where it is obvious to me. (I cannot claim to be super active in avoiding it, I just have good habits I suppose.)

An note on the fashion thing: I'm sure that there are many people that treat clothing as a hobby, and have massive piles of clothes, no differently from how many of us here on gbatemp may have massive piles of video games that we run on energy sucking computers. While I think that there is something to be said for reducing needless waste, simply labeling things as wasteful because one doesn't see the value in them seems... well I'm not sure what to call it but I don't like it to say the least. I have a feeling that that is not what you were talking about however, and instead were referring to the kinds of people who replace clothes usable clothes simply because they've fallen out of favor. Hopefully in that instance they are at least getting donated and ending up in thrift shops for people like me.

I think part of the reason that some people point fingers is because most of the pollution and energy waste is done by large corporations that are harder to avoid/have a tangible impact on.

If you want to talk about waste that is downright infuriating, look at what stores and supermarkets do with expired food: it all gets wasted. Perfectly edible in most cases, thrown away in the trash. imho, there should be a law that requires out of date but still edible product to be made available to places like public food pantries upon request. I would be interested to hear what you think about this problem.
Click to expand...
You can't have air conditioning on without the engine running. Tried it didn't work..
 
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N10A
SG854 said:
You can't have air conditioning on without the engine running. Tried it didn't work..
Click to expand...
I would imagine that it's dependent on the vehicle. You might have to put the keys in the on position for it to work perhaps.
 
N10A
SG854 said:
I'm not stupid. I know how to have the car running on battery.
Click to expand...
I apologize if I came off as condescending, I tend to over explain and I don't like to assume that someone knows something by default. In retrospect that is probably something that most people already know, my mistake.
 

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