Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

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Really, everything else is insignificant in comparison.

The problem with these sorts of statements is that nearly everything is insignificant compared to something else. The UK shouldn't bother about efficient energy use or renewable sources as China is a far greater consumer and anything we do will be insignificant. I shouldn't bother insulating my house because my neighbour owns a mansion and heats it to 25 degrees C all year and keeps the windows open. There's no point in fitting loft insulation as my car wastes more energy that that would save. There's no point turning the tap off when I brush my teeth because the tap at work drips all day and wastes just as much water ... you get the idea anyway.

Millions of people doing small things in lots of instances creates a large(r) difference. It's a sort of bystander effect that prevents such things; no-one acts because someone else could do more - like #6, if everyone signs up for the renewable then they're not going to be able to meet the demand and will have to bring online more sources of renewable energy.

The reusable nappies issue, #9, is that they assume the nappies are not reused. We bought most of ours 3rd hand on ebay (some 2nd hand) and also used moltex nappies that can be degraded completely by vermiculture within 1 year (though we simply composted them) - our second child is now using the reusables (4th hand) so that makes manufacturing cost just over a quarter (due to disposable paper liners) what they were considered to be in the study mentioned. If you use nappy liners then cleaning is easier. There are other benefits including end-of-life reuse (floor cloths) too.

"The problem with these sorts of statements is that nearly everything is insignificant compared to something else."

Yes. Yes it is. Welcome to reality, and engineering. The problem with your statement is that if you're burning a lot of time and mental energy on the insignificant things, then you are wasting your time.

If you, personally, have already taken the time to secure your housing's heating situation, already have an energy-efficient car and minimize driving anyhow, then maybe for you worrying about your kid's diapers is the lowest hanging fruit. I mean that completely straight, not sarcastic at all. However, if you're sitting here encouraging others to worry about their diapers while their homes sit there blowing 75% of their heat out a leaky door, then you're just wasting time.

It's the 80/20 principle, only when it comes to things like energy budgets it's more like the 95/5 principle; one or two things make up 95% of your energy budget and the rest is fiddling around the edges. Optimize the 95% first. Worry about the 5% later, if at all.

(Fiddling around making optimizations smaller than the noise threshold is also a waste of time. "Noise threshold" may sound like a weird concept to apply here, but it does; making a small food optimization that, even if applied by a million people, is still less than the daily variation in the amount of food thrown out by restaurants daily would be a complete waste of time. This is an example, I have no specific optimization in mind. The temptation is to say "Well, these things add up", but in fact when you're dealing with these sorts of distributions, sometimes they don't! Even ten .001% optimizations don't add up to much, and for the effort of getting those you probably missed out on a 1% somewhere else. These distributions can be very counter-intuitive, we don't do well with such large order-of-magnitude ranges.)

This is a brilliant comment. You should rework it into a blog post so that it can be shared with a broader audience. (That is, of course, if you don't consider it a waste of time!)

Well done.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=964020

Share away!

The problem with your statement is that if you're burning a lot of time and mental energy on the insignificant things, then you are wasting your time.

One has to buy nappies*, as a minimal impact example, and one has to choose the brand and type. I don't really think there is any greater thought-cost, if you will, in choosing the more ecologically sound option provided proper scientific research has been performed - amazingly it doesn't appear to have been (note major problem with UK gov study which is now widespread used as a reason not to have reusable despite them being lower impact; I'm assuming big pharma corps are invested against proper research).

Things like turning off the tap as you brush your teeth are just habitual it doesn't need thought once it has been done for a few days, ditto turning out lights. These are not major lifestyle changes and so, I'd argue, don't impact at all the possibility of promoting better resource use in the large scale situations.

Finally, ten 0.001% optimisations that compound over a zero change threshold can be extremely important - ask anyone who is in debt and bumping the bottom of their agreed overdraft, a few pence is all it takes to cycle you down instead of up.

Food optimisation: in the States, I read today, 40% of purchased food is wasted. That's got to be at least half of all food production when you allow for spoiling and other waste (I'd reckon more). A small change in lifestyle, simply choosing to care, can lead to a huge drop in this figure - there are 300 million people in the USA.

Ultimately I see that the 95% I don't have direct control over, eg building of renewable energy capture in favour of fossil fuel based systems, the 5% I do.

If I've got a cup and my boats sinking I'm still going to bail-out until someone else comes along and helps.

People who concern themselves with turning the water off while they brush their teeth also buy more fuel efficient cars, take public transportation, insulate their homes more efficiently, etc. The market responds to make the expression of environmental concern more efficient - but it only does so when it takes note of people wasting time on insignificant acts of efficiency.

[citation needed] - certainly I hear a lot of bitching about people who think economizing in small things gives them the right to take a plane flight to Tahiti. I would neither be surprised if you were right nor surprised if you were very wrong. In particular, people in the social classes wherein being "green" carries some sort of cachet are also very likely to do things like flying a lot more than those who don't, since that social class tends to have more money than most other social classes.

Ok - but they're also the same people that click the little button to plant a tree to offset their carbon footprint for the plane ride :)

Products are driven by people's concerns, and so concern about the environment is a good thing - it impacts products, it drives policy.

Conservation is (in America at least) definitely at the top of what most people can do. And they will, given time and good arguments. Water heaters used to be the #1 energy sink appliance in the average US home (early 1970s).

But drafts, single-glazing and inadequate wall/ceiling insulation continue to waste enormous energies every winter. And car engines, like light bulbs, continue to be about 15-20% efficient.

As soon as the calendar flicks over and you switch from using the air conditioner to using your heater, your lightbulb is 100% efficient.

(Indeed, if you have a furnace for your central heating, and the ductwork passes outside the heated volume of your house, it's more efficient for you to leave the TV on than it is for the furnace to heat your house, because none of the TV's waste heat escapes the heated volume.)

Most of what people consider to be "green" is irrational during the winter. They'll turn the lights out but run a space heater.

This is a common misconception.

1) reducing electricity consumption will reduce use of fossil fuels in power stations (in most parts of the world). Burning fuel in your own home bypasses the inefficient conversion to electricity.

2) if you are going to heat your home with electricity you can be more than “100% efficient” by using a heat pump, so you still wouldn’t want to do it with light bulbs and TVs.

How does using an electric heater instead of waste heat from electrical appliances reduce the use of fossil fuels? Same transport mechanism, same source, same efficiency.

The only way to reduce electricity consumption is improved insulation.

I agree with you if you have a wood-burning stove.

If you use a standard electric heater, like a bar heater, I agree with you.

Heat pumps can out-perform heaters (they seem to have >100% “efficiency”) by working in a different way. Rather than spending 1kWh to heat a room, you spend 1kWh to move 4kWh of heat from outside into the room.

What? Power stations are far, far more efficient at converting fuel to energy than home heaters. Large turbines are incredibly efficient, and their design has efficiency as a top priority. Power plants are designed to burn fuel efficiently and transmit as much energy as possible.

> The problem with these sorts of statements is that nearly everything is insignificant compared to something else. The UK shouldn't bother about efficient energy use or renewable sources as China is a far greater consumer and anything we do will be insignificant.

You were being sarcastic, but that is a very good point. I am tired of feel-good "stop taking hot showers" + "ask for paper bags at the store" kind of articles aimed at individual consumers. Sure it makes the writer feel good, it makes the consumer feel good -- they are all working together to save the planet. But if they really wanted to have an impact they should aim the article at the government and the big industrial giants. Instead of "stop taking hot showers" the article should say "write your representative".

Because even a million people taking cold showers might not make as much difference for the environment as installing a single scrubber on a coal plant, or forcing P&G to stop dumping tons of crap into the air. Those are the things that really make a difference. But somehow those things don't get talked about in the mainstream media.

Then we have China and it is a real big problem. How does one make China cut down on its coal plants? Can they claim that they are still industrializing, so they shouldn't adhere to the same rules as the rest of the 'already developed' world? Can we tell them what to do when we are also major offenders? Want to do something, talk to your congressman. Get involved, get the media involved...

And I am not advocating to start buying Hummers and letting our hot water run all night, but we shouldn't delude ourselves that it actually makes a real difference. We do it because it is a good thing to do, it make us feel warm and fuzzy but that is about it.

"ask for paper bags at the store"

Actually don't. Paper bags are MUCH worse for the environment than plastic. Paper bags are not just an example of a waste of effort, but actually have negative value! (Reusable is good of course, and on that note plastic is much easier to reuse as a trash bag than paper, but even if you don't, plastic is better.)

I am interested - why is plastic better even if the bag isn't reused?

A plastic bag uses very little oil (a quarter teaspoon or so) and some of them can even be made from renewable resources. The real problem is that paper bags are bulky. It takes a lot of energy to move those bags from where they are manufactured to where they are consumed. For the energy cost to get that stack of paper bags to your local grocer you could probably make and transport a hundred plastic bags.

Here are some numbers for you: http://www.reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=7

Paper uses more than 4 times as much energy as plastic. And releases much more pollution, and more water, and takes 85 times as much energy to recycle.

It looses in every way except litter.

Paper bags are reusable and [can] come from a renewable resource. You have a citation on your claim?

Paper bags are barely reusable. And they do not come from a renewable resource. The wood does, but there is a lot more invested in a bag.

There is all the energy AKA oil used to make them. From driving the machinery used to cut the tree, then transport the tree, mill it, process it, bleach, then color it, then you have to dry it (heat), and finally transport it. And paper is big and bulky and uses a lot more energy than plastic does to do all that.

Then you have the real problem: water. It takes a lot of water to make paper, and there is a MUCH bigger shortage of water compared to oil.

But even if you want to look at oil alone, paper bags use more oil than plastic ones do.

Some numbers I posted: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=965694

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