The Big 'Let's sell our cars and take buses/ebikes instead' thread (warning: probably very dull)

focuszing723

rick_chasey

It’s more that I think the specifics of car use and the resources required for them to be used en-masse as they currently are are literally not sustainable.

As many have pointed out on here, this is a particular challenge because we have designed vast swathes of our society on the premise that cars are the primary way of travel.

So my entire point is that we need to radically rethink how travel works in the UK to account for the climate transition that we are all inevitably going to have to make.

Unless someone can find good reason to explain how cars can be sustainable with respect to the resources they require l, their omissions and the challenges of increasing population and urbanisation, which makes car driving increasingly inefficient (see London as an example). I think we need to reevaluate travel for the future.

If we can arrange our society around car usage like we have, then I think there is scope over the long term to arrange it in another way.

It’s not that I don’t like cars, it’s I cannot see a good case all way to make them sustainable. Either from a resource use perspective, or from a simple traffic perspective. We are becoming more populous and more urbanised and all of those make car driving lesson efficient in a sense that you all spend more time in traffic.

London is a good example of what the future of car driving will look like for the majority of the population.

Wheelspinner

Jezyboy said:

Do wonder how my 74 Watt xbox uses 1kw an hour.

How well does it work without connecting it to a display? :-)

pblakeney

focuszing723 said:

People who live off sailing boats are pretty eco friendly. Wind power, solar for electricity, deescalate the water, minimal storage space so their home isn't a shrine to China. Best of all they can live around the World.

I see that you've found the solution to rising water levels. 🤣

focuszing723

pblakeney said:

focuszing723 said:

People who live off sailing boats are pretty eco friendly. Wind power, solar for electricity, deescalate the water, minimal storage space so their home isn't a shrine to China. Best of all they can live around the World.

I see that you've found the solution to rising water levels. 🤣

I wreckon I could easily sort out the World's problems if I wasn't so stupid, useless n things.

Wheelspinner

pangolin said:

Wheelspinner said:

pangolin said:

WS you have said several times you don't care but you do seem to have awfully strong opinions about computer games.

Nope, I don't care about them, or if you use them, write them, sell them or anything else. They are an example I was using to try and make a point. Clearly I failed.

The point of this thread was (I think) that Rick and others think cars should be phased out, or people's usage curtailed because - amongst other things - environmentally they are bad. I don't disagree with that, incidentally.

I was trying to make the case that perhaps the arguments against cars might be more persuasive if it came from someone clearly committed to environmental causes in general. To me, anyone who is a keen/regular/committed computer gamer (that'll be Rick in this example) is... not that.

FWIW it's not intended as a personal thing against Rick either.

Gaming has a big carbon footprint. That's it. How big? Dunno exactly.

Does the precise number matter? If yes to you, why?

Just seems like tedious whataboutism coupled with a dislike for a particular hobby.

There will always be something else producing emissions, that's no reason not to aim for better in any given field.

Otherwise we should just give up.

Partially correct. I dislike gaming. For sound, rational, environmentally sensitive reasons as it happens... lol.

rick_chasey

briantrumpet said:

Pretending that everyone's lifestyle has a similar impact on the planet, so what's the point of *me* making any hard choices (or even the quite easy choices) *now* will doom the entire planet to oblivion.

I think this is the wrong way around to look at it.

Individually, we cannot actually make a difference that’s the whole point.

Instead, we need to create a social structure that rewards individual and collective sustainable behaviour and punishes, or at the very least discourages unsustainable behaviour.

Relying on altruism and unincentivised personal sacrifice is not going to work.

This does not get solved through altruism. This needs to be solved from the top Down by changing the entire levers and structures of our society in a way that is sustainable.

We need to accept that this is not a moral issue. People respond to incentives and so we need to make sure that those incentives align with the outcomes we collectively need to have.

briantrumpet

rick_chasey said:

briantrumpet said:

Pretending that everyone's lifestyle has a similar impact on the planet, so what's the point of *me* making any hard choices (or even the quite easy choices) *now* will doom the entire planet to oblivion.

I think this is the wrong way around to look at it.

Individually, we cannot actually make a difference that’s the whole point.

Instead, we need to create a social structure that rewards individual and collective sustainable behaviour and punishes, or at the very least discourages unsustainable behaviour.

Relying on altruism and unincentivised personal sacrifice is not going to work.

This does not get solved through altruism. This needs to be solved from the top Down by changing the entire levers and structures of our society in a way that is sustainable.

We need to accept that this is not a moral issue. People respond to incentives and so we need to make sure that those incentives align with the outcomes we collectively need to have.

I don't disagree in many aspects, but it's not an either/or. Every time we spend money on something/anything, we are having an impact on the planet. How much each one of us spends, and on what, can never be entirely driven by legislation (though I agree that can have a big impact).

pblakeney

rick_chasey said:

briantrumpet said:

Pretending that everyone's lifestyle has a similar impact on the planet, so what's the point of *me* making any hard choices (or even the quite easy choices) *now* will doom the entire planet to oblivion.

I think this is the wrong way around to look at it.

Individually, we cannot actually make a difference that’s the whole point.

Instead, we need to create a social structure that rewards individual and collective sustainable behaviour and punishes, or at the very least discourages unsustainable behaviour.

Relying on altruism and unincentivised personal sacrifice is not going to work.

This does not get solved through altruism. This needs to be solved from the top Down by changing the entire levers and structures of our society in a way that is sustainable.

We need to accept that this is not a moral issue. People respond to incentives and so we need to make sure that those incentives align with the outcomes we collectively need to have.

That'll be the dictatorship method then?

kingstongraham

Jezyboy said:

Do wonder how my 74 Watt xbox uses 1kw an hour.

Try looking at what a gaming PC uses.

Wheelspinner

pblakeney said:

rick_chasey said:

briantrumpet said:

Pretending that everyone's lifestyle has a similar impact on the planet, so what's the point of *me* making any hard choices (or even the quite easy choices) *now* will doom the entire planet to oblivion.

I think this is the wrong way around to look at it.

Individually, we cannot actually make a difference that’s the whole point.

Instead, we need to create a social structure that rewards individual and collective sustainable behaviour and punishes, or at the very least discourages unsustainable behaviour.

Relying on altruism and unincentivised personal sacrifice is not going to work.

This does not get solved through altruism. This needs to be solved from the top Down by changing the entire levers and structures of our society in a way that is sustainable.

We need to accept that this is not a moral issue. People respond to incentives and so we need to make sure that those incentives align with the outcomes we collectively need to have.

That'll be the dictatorship method then?

Yep, lots of precedents for where that's worked out well too, aren't there?

rick_chasey

pblakeney said:

rick_chasey said:

briantrumpet said:

Pretending that everyone's lifestyle has a similar impact on the planet, so what's the point of *me* making any hard choices (or even the quite easy choices) *now* will doom the entire planet to oblivion.

I think this is the wrong way around to look at it.

Individually, we cannot actually make a difference that’s the whole point.

Instead, we need to create a social structure that rewards individual and collective sustainable behaviour and punishes, or at the very least discourages unsustainable behaviour.

Relying on altruism and unincentivised personal sacrifice is not going to work.

This does not get solved through altruism. This needs to be solved from the top Down by changing the entire levers and structures of our society in a way that is sustainable.

We need to accept that this is not a moral issue. People respond to incentives and so we need to make sure that those incentives align with the outcomes we collectively need to have.

That'll be the dictatorship method then?

No?

I feel Brexit has ruined people’s idea of representative democracy.

pblakeney

rick_chasey said:

pblakeney said:

rick_chasey said:

briantrumpet said:

Pretending that everyone's lifestyle has a similar impact on the planet, so what's the point of *me* making any hard choices (or even the quite easy choices) *now* will doom the entire planet to oblivion.

I think this is the wrong way around to look at it.

Individually, we cannot actually make a difference that’s the whole point.

Instead, we need to create a social structure that rewards individual and collective sustainable behaviour and punishes, or at the very least discourages unsustainable behaviour.

Relying on altruism and unincentivised personal sacrifice is not going to work.

This does not get solved through altruism. This needs to be solved from the top Down by changing the entire levers and structures of our society in a way that is sustainable.

We need to accept that this is not a moral issue. People respond to incentives and so we need to make sure that those incentives align with the outcomes we collectively need to have.

That'll be the dictatorship method then?

No?

I feel Brexit has ruined people’s idea of representative democracy.

But you said - "This does not get solved through altruism. This needs to be solved from the top Down by changing the entire levers and structures of our society in a way that is sustainable."

Doesn't sound too democratic. People won't vote to lose their cars, their heating, their games... 😉

briantrumpet

rick_chasey said:

pblakeney said:

rick_chasey said:

briantrumpet said:

Pretending that everyone's lifestyle has a similar impact on the planet, so what's the point of *me* making any hard choices (or even the quite easy choices) *now* will doom the entire planet to oblivion.

I think this is the wrong way around to look at it.

Individually, we cannot actually make a difference that’s the whole point.

Instead, we need to create a social structure that rewards individual and collective sustainable behaviour and punishes, or at the very least discourages unsustainable behaviour.

Relying on altruism and unincentivised personal sacrifice is not going to work.

This does not get solved through altruism. This needs to be solved from the top Down by changing the entire levers and structures of our society in a way that is sustainable.

We need to accept that this is not a moral issue. People respond to incentives and so we need to make sure that those incentives align with the outcomes we collectively need to have.

That'll be the dictatorship method then?

No?

I feel Brexit has ruined people’s idea of representative democracy.

I'd suggest that cars are a tough nut to crack by consent. As with Brexit, I think the dial will have to move quite a long way past the 52/48 split to make it electorally feasible to change the paradigm.

That said, I'd never have believed that the culture on smoking would have moved so far, at least in the UK, for something that the majority of adults was literally addicted to.

I think that private cars are an addiction too, FWIW, and most/many people can't imagine what life would be without them as the primary means for transport in most scenarios.

Stevo_666

It's amazing how far ignorance of democracy and human nature can let some people get in their thought processes.

focuszing723

I think too many people in the World pontificate and don't practice what they preach. It's their virtual signalling that other people should follow.

You can't bang on about the environment then hop on a plane for a jolly japes holiday.

"Ohhh but there isn’t an alternative..."

Yes there is, buy a wooden sailing boat for starters.

briantrumpet

Stevo_666 said:

It's amazing how far ignorance of democracy and human nature can let some people get in their thought processes.

"Human nature" isn't an excuse to trash the planet though. 'Human nature" very definitely includes addiction to destructive behaviour.

kingstongraham

Conservative manifesto in 2019: "We will support clean transport to ensure clean air, as well as setting strict new laws on air quality. We will consult on the earliest date by which we can phase out the sale of new conventional petrol and diesel cars. "

First.Aspect

rick_chasey said:

It’s more that I think the specifics of car use and the resources required for them to be used en-masse as they currently are are literally not sustainable.

As many have pointed out on here, this is a particular challenge because we have designed vast swathes of our society on the premise that cars are the primary way of travel.

So my entire point is that we need to radically rethink how travel works in the UK to account for the climate transition that we are all inevitably going to have to make.

Unless someone can find good reason to explain how cars can be sustainable with respect to the resources they require l, their omissions and the challenges of increasing population and urbanisation, which makes car driving increasingly inefficient (see London as an example). I think we need to reevaluate travel for the future.

If we can arrange our society around car usage like we have, then I think there is scope over the long term to arrange it in another way.

It’s not that I don’t like cars, it’s I cannot see a good case all way to make them sustainable. Either from a resource use perspective, or from a simple traffic perspective. We are becoming more populous and more urbanised and all of those make car driving lesson efficient in a sense that you all spend more time in traffic.

London is a good example of what the future of car driving will look like for the majority of the population.

Will you at least cut down a bit on gaming?

drhaggis

Jezyboy said:

Do wonder how my 74 Watt xbox uses 1kw an hour.

Let me help:

74 W = 74 Joules every second
1 kWh = The total energy used over 1h by a device requiring a constant 1 kW power = 1000 Watts * 3600 seconds = 3.6 MJ

Your Xbox, without a TV, will use 1 kWh in 3.6e6/74 seconds or about 13h 30 minutes. Also, since the defaults sucked until recently, even just having the Xbox "sleeping" would use 1 kWh in under a week.

In any case, that California study is all wrong. Bioshock an RPG? Super Mario Oddyssey for the Wii U? INVALIDATED.

And obviously if Rick played on an Xbox/PS, he'd reduce his gaming CO2 footprint by a factor of 5 by switching to a, ehem, switch.

focuszing723

First.Aspect said:

rick_chasey said:

It’s more that I think the specifics of car use and the resources required for them to be used en-masse as they currently are are literally not sustainable.

As many have pointed out on here, this is a particular challenge because we have designed vast swathes of our society on the premise that cars are the primary way of travel.

So my entire point is that we need to radically rethink how travel works in the UK to account for the climate transition that we are all inevitably going to have to make.

Unless someone can find good reason to explain how cars can be sustainable with respect to the resources they require l, their omissions and the challenges of increasing population and urbanisation, which makes car driving increasingly inefficient (see London as an example). I think we need to reevaluate travel for the future.

If we can arrange our society around car usage like we have, then I think there is scope over the long term to arrange it in another way.

It’s not that I don’t like cars, it’s I cannot see a good case all way to make them sustainable. Either from a resource use perspective, or from a simple traffic perspective. We are becoming more populous and more urbanised and all of those make car driving lesson efficient in a sense that you all spend more time in traffic.

London is a good example of what the future of car driving will look like for the majority of the population.

Will you at least cut down a bit on gaming?

And tik tok

Stevo_666

briantrumpet said:

Stevo_666 said:

It's amazing how far ignorance of democracy and human nature can let some people get in their thought processes.

"Human nature" isn't an excuse to trash the planet though. 'Human nature" very definitely includes addiction to destructive behaviour.

I'm being realistc.

rick_chasey

Stevo_666 said:

briantrumpet said:

Stevo_666 said:

It's amazing how far ignorance of democracy and human nature can let some people get in their thought processes.

"Human nature" isn't an excuse to trash the planet though. 'Human nature" very definitely includes addiction to destructive behaviour.

I'm being realistc.

The cars aren’t gonna be very helpful or too expensive in the future.

By then it will be too late.

It literally cannot go on like it is indefinitely.

So you have to reorientate for the future. So places that are car centric will need to come up with new models for living.

Pross

drhaggis said:

Jezyboy said:

Do wonder how my 74 Watt xbox uses 1kw an hour.

Let me help:

74 W = 74 Joules every second
1 kWh = The total energy used over 1h by a device requiring a constant 1 kW power = 1000 Watts * 3600 seconds = 3.6 MJ

Your Xbox, without a TV, will use 1 kWh in 3.6e6/74 seconds or about 13h 30 minutes. Also, since the defaults sucked until recently, even just having the Xbox "sleeping" would use 1 kWh in under a week.

In any case, that California study is all wrong. Bioshock an RPG? Super Mario Oddyssey for the Wii U? INVALIDATED.

And obviously if Rick played on an Xbox/PS, he'd reduce his gaming CO2 footprint by a factor of 5 by switching to a, ehem, switch.

I'm not sure that really explained how his XBox uses 1kw in an hour when you seem to have calculated in would take 13.5 hours.

briantrumpet

Stevo_666 said:

briantrumpet said:

Stevo_666 said:

It's amazing how far ignorance of democracy and human nature can let some people get in their thought processes.

"Human nature" isn't an excuse to trash the planet though. 'Human nature" very definitely includes addiction to destructive behaviour.

I'm being realistc.

Maybe, but working out how to change even engrained behaviour will be key to salvaging something from the possible catastrophe we're facing. Your 'realism' sounds like an excuse not to challenge the status quo, or to consider better options, on a personal or societal level.

photonic69

Don't know if anyone has seen this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64641426

That's a pretty poor average speed. Bikes would be way faster in this situation. And this is with maybe 1/5 of people working from home too! Just imagine if everyone was back in the office.
Our neighbour's son in law works for the railway at the local station. He said that train numbers are right down for London-Bath/Bristol commuters compared to pre-pandemic levels. Seems most would prefer to take a car if they are not WFH?

Jezyboy

Pross said:

drhaggis said:

Jezyboy said:

Do wonder how my 74 Watt xbox uses 1kw an hour.

Let me help:

74 W = 74 Joules every second
1 kWh = The total energy used over 1h by a device requiring a constant 1 kW power = 1000 Watts * 3600 seconds = 3.6 MJ

Your Xbox, without a TV, will use 1 kWh in 3.6e6/74 seconds or about 13h 30 minutes. Also, since the defaults sucked until recently, even just having the Xbox "sleeping" would use 1 kWh in under a week.

In any case, that California study is all wrong. Bioshock an RPG? Super Mario Oddyssey for the Wii U? INVALIDATED.

And obviously if Rick played on an Xbox/PS, he'd reduce his gaming CO2 footprint by a factor of 5 by switching to a, ehem, switch.

I'm not sure that really explained how his XBox uses 1kw in an hour when you seem to have calculated in would take 13.5 hours.

Indeed.

Although clearly I made an embarrassing typo, my question was how does a 74 W machine use 1kWhr in 1 hr.

Even a chonky 55 OLED isn't contributing the >900 W we need to get to the 1kWhr per hour.

A high spec gaming PC might get you there, but my experience is casual gaming is basically completely dominated by consoles.

Now even if we use this extremely generous rounding, what does this mean in terms of CO2.

Well the carbon intensity of the grid varies, but taking a particularly poor week a few years ago, it was 300g CO2 per kWh.

Average petrol car is 180 g CO2 per km.

So if you make some pretty conservative assumptions, an hours gaming in the evening is less carbon intensive than a 2km drive.

Stevo_666

briantrumpet said:

Stevo_666 said:

briantrumpet said:

Stevo_666 said:

It's amazing how far ignorance of democracy and human nature can let some people get in their thought processes.

"Human nature" isn't an excuse to trash the planet though. 'Human nature" very definitely includes addiction to destructive behaviour.

I'm being realistc.

Maybe, but working out how to change even engrained behaviour will be key to salvaging something from the possible catastrophe we're facing. Your 'realism' sounds like an excuse not to challenge the status quo, or to consider better options, on a personal or societal level.

Let the city types do what works for them and we can do what works for us. Horses for courses etc.

Stevo_666

rick_chasey said:

Stevo_666 said:

briantrumpet said:

Stevo_666 said:

It's amazing how far ignorance of democracy and human nature can let some people get in their thought processes.

"Human nature" isn't an excuse to trash the planet though. 'Human nature" very definitely includes addiction to destructive behaviour.

I'm being realistc.

The cars aren’t gonna be very helpful or too expensive in the future.

By then it will be too late.

It literally cannot go on like it is indefinitely.

So you have to reorientate for the future. So places that are car centric will need to come up with new models for living.

That's what you think. Stick to solving problems for the bits you care about as they're not universally applicable.

Pross

photonic69 said:

Don't know if anyone has seen this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64641426

That's a pretty poor average speed. Bikes would be way faster in this situation. And this is with maybe 1/5 of people working from home too! Just imagine if everyone was back in the office.
Our neighbour's son in law works for the railway at the local station. He said that train numbers are right down for London-Bath/Bristol commuters compared to pre-pandemic levels. Seems most would prefer to take a car if they are not WFH?

I think you're encroaching into Rick's other hobby horse there in that the rail service is too unreliable so people drive to have a better chance of getting to work when they need to.