Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 08/06/2008 9:30:37 AM PDT by Incorrigible
By SCOTT LEARN
To cut energy use, save money and, while you're at it, live a greener life, you can turn down the air conditioning, back off the accelerator, hop on a bike.
But when it comes to your personal energy tally, there's another big but not as commonly considered source: the stuff you buy. Every product, from televisions to teapots, takes energy to get to the shopping bag — energy to mine raw materials, make the product and ship it.
Yet that use goes unreported in the tracking of greenhouse gases and energy. Though some states may be trying to stabilize warming emissions, worldwide emissions driven by the consumption of U.S. residents and businesses actually are going up.
"From the perspective of John Q. Public, who's wondering, 'What can I do to reduce emissions?' saying certain activities count and others don't doesn't pass the laugh test," said David Allaway, the point man for waste and consumption issues at Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality. "And we need credibility with the public on this issue."
Downplaying consumption-related emissions in the U.S. greenhouse gas count is understandable, Allaway says. The numbers are tough to pin down. No state is formally tracking it. Neither is the nation.
At the same time, a pending U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study estimates half of U.S. global warming emissions are tied to material and food consumption.
Researchers say the national greenhouse gas count could jump by as much as 30 percent if the energy used to make rising U.S. imports — typically from countries such as China, where less efficient industries use dirtier energy sources — was taken into account.
Allaway is trying to make Oregon the first state to track emissions from consumption, in part by commissioning a new study to pin down the numbers.
The state's consumption is expected to fall in the current economic downturn, given rising commodity prices and a weak housing market. That direct connection to the economy is part of what makes targeting consumption so touchy.
But the state expects nearly 800,000 more people in Oregon by 2020 and says big increases are likely to continue long term without a change in consumer behavior.
From 1995 to 2006, Oregon's waste generation — the tail end of consumption — increased nearly two-thirds, driven partly by population growth and housing construction. Per-person waste generation jumped a third, despite a state goal to stop the growth by 2005 and shift from a "throw-away" to a conservation society.
In Oregon's global warming plan, stopping the growth in waste — and the related consumption — generates the third-highest greenhouse gas savings going forward, behind only boosting auto mileage and increasing renewable energy.
Consumers think about the electricity a product uses after they buy it. But that doesn't account for the energy used making the thing.
Depending on the product, that can be a big deal. One example: A 2005 study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory concluded that 58 percent of a personal computer's emissions occur before a customer buys it.
Allaway is leading his state's effort to encourage less waste production. The program encourages consumers to buy used instead of new, durable instead of cheap. It nudges businesses to use fewer materials, reduce packaging and make products easier to repair, reuse and recycle.
Some help is coming from the popular culture. The hit movie "Wall-E" opens with a robot alone (except for a cockroach) on an Earth devastated by rampant consumption.
The subject also is getting more scrutiny in Western Europe, where consumption is about a third less than U.S. levels.
In the United Kingdom, a government-financed study recently concluded that U.K. emissions, reported to have dropped by 5 percent from 1992 to 2004, actually rose when the greenhouse gases from imports were taken into account. U.K. supermarket chain Tesco recently stuck "carbon labels," a carbon price tag of sorts, on 20 products.
Stateside, the Maryland-based Center for the New American Dream started its "carbon-conscious consumer" campaign last summer, emphasizing such things as breaking "the bottled water habit." In September, Wal-Mart began asking suppliers to measure their carbon footprint and find ways to reduce it.
Environmental groups are pushing to make "sustainable consumption" as trendy as eating local and swapping canvas bags for plastic. The Sierra Club points to the consumption-fueled damage done, including decreases in forest cover and fisheries, and frets about the consequences if developing countries strive for U.S. standards of living.
So far, there's not a lot of comparative detail on the carbon footprint of individual products, though there are plenty of green claims being made in advertising.
In general, aluminum, concrete and electronics have relatively big carbon profiles, Allaway says. And a widely publicized 2006 United Nations study attributed 18 percent of global warming emissions to the raising of cattle, pigs and other livestock, counting the impacts of deforestation to expand pasture.
Last year, Carnegie Mellon University researchers estimated that including the "embodied emissions" of imports in the 2004 U.S. greenhouse gas inventory would have boosted emissions by 13 percent to 30 percent.
If analysts can nail the numbers, Allaway says, putting consumption in the national inventory would help focus responsibility on consumers, not just manufacturers.
Measuring emissions only for products made locally "is kind of flaky," Allaway said. "It's called 'global' warming, right?"
(Scott Learn is a staff writer for The Oregonian of Portland, Ore. He can be contacted at scottlearn(at)news.oregonian.com.)
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
Stop carbon dioxide production! Only breath in. Do not breath out!
I am planning to stop eating. Eating is not good. Eating bad. And I am withholding my farts too.
This sounds like a perfect formula for bringing the US economy to a screeching halt. That would be helpful/sarc
I think the author means John Q Gullible Self-loathing Idiot.
One thing these nuts don’t understand........we don’t need their permission to eat, their permission to buy stuff, their permission to drive, their permission to drill for oil, their permission to travel. That is why we are the United States and the most powerful country in the world. Other countries don’t like our freedom and some in this country don’t like it either. Especially if our neighbor next door has more than the next guy. They prefer total control over everything you do...........it’s called socialism.
Banning plastic shopping bags is trendy but the reason they are so inexpensive is because they use so little resources in their manufacture and distribution. Price is an excellent indicator of total greenness, a fact the envi-mentalists can’t accept.
As someone pointed out.. Life without energy would be brutal - and short.
This article is simply another in a long line of those damning Consumerism in general and Capitalism in particular.
I was visiting my left-leaning son and his flaming-liberal girlfriend recently in Pittsburg (they attend CMU).
Anyway, he and I went to the grocery store and bought, among other things, a couple of portobello mushrooms for his girlfriend. He was going to carry them in his hands for a couple of blocks back to their place rather than get a small plastic bag to carry them. I would have none of it and put them in a bag for him.
The engineer in me wouldn’t let it go.
So, I asked him: “How much oil do you think it takes to make a plastic bag like this?”
His answer: “Some, I guess. I don’t know.”
My response: “Here’s a hint. Consider the weight of this plastic bag. The weight is essentially the same before and after. You can measure the amount of oil needed to produce it in ‘drops of oil’.”
cheee
Also plastic bags are made of polyethylene which is a pure hydrocarbon, nothing but carbon and hydrogen atoms, so unlike other plastics it is safe to burn or re-use in a fuel. All the energy content of the original petroleum used to make the bag is still there. Possibly the waste heat of a diesel engine, such as a store’s delivery truck, could be used to efficiently turn these bags into diesel fuel. But like you said it would only be a couple drops of oil per bag.
Without a doubt, my stuff is contributing to global warming. I knew I should not have bought that last case of solar flares. Just one would have been fine, but nooooooo, I had to be greedy!
This “houseboat” is similar to ManBearPigs.
http://www.billaustinaircraft-yacht.com/2007fantasy/index.shtml
Have a friend who owns a new 85 footer very similar to this one. Trying to unload it due to lake level here dropping like a stone. He’d have made Algore a hell of a deal.
Probably have even given him something extra off for the radio controlled SEA COCKS.
I might have given a discount, but I doubt I would have listed it as that. LOL
As I’m typing this it’s 57 degrees at my house in Northern Virginia. We slept with the windows open last night. My wife needed a jacket while walking her horse this morning. The forecast high is 77 degrees. Global warming - bring it on!
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