this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 82 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Do you know what I learned during the pandemic? CO2 emissions by PEOPLE are a rounding number. The pandemic hit and CO2 barely changed.

It's industry and corporations and farms that output like 80 % of all CO2, yet we're made to believe it's "on us" to make a change.

It's the same with recycling, it's pushed like we're saving the planet recycling some bottles while a paper plant will pollute the equivalent of 200,000 homes...

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You are totally right, industry is the big polluter, but I think it's important to also realize: what we consume drives industry to produce polluting goods, the only reason they pollute is to produce stuff to sell us, if we want them to stop polluting, "part" of the solution is to stop buying their stuff.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

There is some truth to that, but you also need to be reminded that companies will look at profit before they look at environmental impact.

Yes, producing goods pollutes, but it could pollute way less if they changed the way they produce.

But corporations won't do that because it cuts into their profit.

So it is much cheaper to blame the consumers for wanting products.

(Products they try to convince you to buy through marketing I might add)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yep. Energy saving light globes only save you money, they do insignificance against the climate emergency

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Do you have figures for that?

If something consumes 8w of power rather than 60w that's a 52w energy reduction.

According to this site 1kw produces 0.94kg of CO2 if a coal power station is used. https://slightlyunconventional.com/co2-per-kwh-of-electricity/

What percentage of power comes from coal globally varies massively, but let's say 30% average as it's probably more https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-coal

Around 7.5 billion lightbulbs are sold in the USA alone. https://lightbulbatoz.com/articles/how-many-light-bulbs-are-sold-each-year/

So let's make a conservative estimate of 30 billion new bulbs per year globally.

Gives a global annual reduction in co2 out put directly from lighting at 1kw÷54÷0.94kg×3000000000÷1000÷30%= about 17 metric killotone.

Shit yeah, drop in the ocean. That's cumulative though, so 17 last year, 17 this year, 17 next year.

Also led bulbs should last a minimum of 12 times longer than incandescent, so unless they use more than 12 times the co2 to produce there's going significant savings there.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Big numbers, but tiny in comparison to transport, which itself is small compared to industry

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

As I said at the actual calculation, it was shockingly small. The biggest part of the savings would come from the bulbs lasting at least 12 times longer (thus less embedded emissions from production and transportation).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Valid, but let's not move the goal posts; new light bulbs were specifically questioned and, thanks to someone's willingness to do some research and number crunching, light bulbs were specifically answered.

Let's at least give thanks before we vault off to the next, existentially exhausting, item on the list of climate change issues.

It's not like we don't have time. Right xuys? Right?

[–] nihth 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Keep in mind also that the energy you save was previously heating your house. so depending on where you live, how you heat your house and how well your house is isolated you could be saving close to nothing

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I think to be honest that would very much be cancelled out by the fact it heats your house. So depending on where you live you may need to use power to apply additional cooling to remove that heat.