Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by imwithstoopid | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

imwithstoopid

live like its 1880

buy stuff as if the garbage man does not exist...in 1880 they didn't have trash removal

buy one set of clothes you wear pretty much every day until they fall off of you

buy a few tools that will last you forever

no more disposable anything, remember the trash man doesn't exist

wash clothes by hand

cook everything yourself, even better grow your own food

sorry no biking, rubber is an industrial process...you walk everywhere just like great grampa did

no need to worry about fossil fuels...you won't be using them in any capacity other than maybe a nice fire in the winter in your wood burning stove which will be the only "appliance" you own (good news - they last forever!)

etc etc

this is probably what sustainable living looks like until we get star trek matter synthesizers

you'll never get a date living like this but you'll also never again worry about 98% of the crap of modern life

View on HN

sorry no biking, rubber is an industrial process...you walk everywhere just like great grampa did

This is ridiculous. If petroleum were used solely to produce bicycle tires and things like seals for appliances, the world would be unimaginably 'greener'.

That entire list is just disingenuous, defeatist nonsense.

Nope.

Get the best minds in the world together and ask for an action plan for salvaging climate within two generations...100% chance it will be some variation of "live like its 1880"

Get the best minds in the world together and ask them and they'll say you're talking out your ass.

See how useless that argument is?

Biking is demonstrably more efficient than walking. And electric bikes are even more energy efficient than biking.

Sure, manufacturing a bike takes some energy, but there's huge value in people using e-bikes to get everywhere.

Walking = 0 emissions; Biking = emissions spent on manufacturing the bike and transporting it to you + trash from all the packaging it comes in.

Walking is more sustainable.

It takes ~50 kcals to walk 1 kilometer, and approximately 25 kcals to bike 1 kilometer, and approximately 10 kcals (electric + human) to use an electric bike to move 1 kilometer.

I put ~1,000 kilometers on my electric bike last year, which is a net savings of ~40,000 kcals. That's not an insignificant amount of energy saved per year. And many of those trips I had a passenger, a load of cargo (like plants from the nursery, soil, clothing, groceries, etc.) that was too large for me to carry.

So, while an infrequently used bike is probably a loss, sustainability-wise, there must exist a break even point. 40,000 kcals is not nothing. It's not huge, but it's not nothing.

And compared to owning a car? A car might be 500-1000 kcals/kilometer or more. Doing the same math with a car (1,000kms) is like, 500,000-1,000,000 kcals for a small car , 50,000 for walking, and 10,000 for electric biking. No matter what, the savings of walking or biking are monumental compared to a car.

And if we really, really had to we could find ways to dramatically reduce manufacturing, transport, and packaging costs for electric bikes.

This would mean massive deforestation to heat and build with wood. That means much more carbon than most people currently produce with less land taking it in. Burning wood ain’t the answer. Also, 1800s was the era where coal became available for businesses and the wealthy, and that’s also a bad idea. To suggest no major energy source would likewise be bad as billions would die.

Okay 1680

>live like its 1880

>sorry no biking, rubber is an industrial process

Bicycles had rubber tires as early as 1870 and before that, rubber was widely available in the 18th Century.

If you're going to snark, at least snark correctly.

You're guttaing his percha, but apparently he's rubber and you're glue.

> you'll never get a date living like this

There are plenty of people around the world that live like this and want to raise their family this way.

And lots of intentional living communities.

But location is everything.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com