01-13-2024, 05:28 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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Master EcoModder
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Carbon footprint sectors
Has anyone seen good information on which sectors of our lives have the biggest carbon footprint? Transportation, diet/food, household, job, and hobbies seem to be the major sectors. Transportation should be obvious. Diet/food: consumption of animal products. Household: HVAC is probably the biggest factor. Job: I used to drive for a job. Hobbies: If one flies an airplane for fun.
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01-13-2024, 10:44 AM
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#2 (permalink)
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Corporate imperialist
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Transportation is nearly a third. Of that personal vehicles are only around 10%.
So buying an electric car is wholy ineffective as most of the emissions are being cranked out buy heavy trucks, planes and trains.
Agriculture is 11% so eat whatever you want it won't make a difference, if you eat a "climate friendly diet" you're getting more of your fresh green food shipped by air from south America or pacific islands. So most of whatever you think you'll save there is just going towards burning jet fuel.
Biggest energy user in homes is an electric vehicle if you have one and HVAC. For me I burn fire wood so I use hardly any electricity during the winter. If I didn't have my leaf my power bills would be about $30, 2/3 of that being the service charge.
For summer I have split air conditioners so I only cool 0 to 2 rooms of my house, weturn it off during the day while where away. The splits can cool down a hot living room in about 10 minutes. About 28 out of 30 days a month my central A/C stays off.
The splits and wood stove save hundreds of dollars per month in electricity during the summer an winter.
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1984 chevy suburban, custom made 6.5L diesel turbocharged with a Garrett T76 and Holset HE351VE, 22:1 compression 13psi of intercooled boost.
1989 firebird mostly stock. Aside from the 6-speed manual trans, corvette gen 5 front brakes, 1LE drive shaft, 4th Gen disc brake fbody rear end.
2011 leaf SL, white, portable 240v CHAdeMO, trailer hitch, new batt as of 2014.
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01-13-2024, 12:38 PM
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#3 (permalink)
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Master EcoModder
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Breathing emits CO2.
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01-13-2024, 12:52 PM
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#4 (permalink)
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Master EcoModder
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Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Transportation is nearly a third. Of that personal vehicles are only around 10%.
So buying an electric car is wholy ineffective as most of the emissions are being cranked out buy heavy trucks, planes and trains.
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Your pie graph must be for the entire US. I'm asking for and talking about on the personal level.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Agriculture is 11% so eat whatever you want it won't make a difference, if you eat a "climate friendly diet" you're getting more of your fresh green food shipped by air from south America or pacific islands. So most of whatever you think you'll save there is just going towards burning jet fuel.
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That's not true, according to the quote from the following link, which seems credible:
Quote: Transporting food by plane can come with a large carbon footprint. But very little of our food travels this way – just 0.16% of food miles are from air travel.
https://ourworldindata.org/food-transport-by-mode
Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Biggest energy user in homes is an electric vehicle if you have one and HVAC. For me I burn fire wood so I use hardly any electricity during the winter. If I didn't have my leaf my power bills would be about $30, 2/3 of that being the service charge.
For summer I have split air conditioners so I only cool 0 to 2 rooms of my house, weturn it off during the day while where away. The splits can cool down a hot living room in about 10 minutes. About 28 out of 30 days a month my central A/C stays off.
The splits and wood stove save hundreds of dollars per month in electricity during the summer an winter.
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I don't have an EV. I wouldn't mind having a Nissan Leaf.
I used to live in the foothills and burn firewood in a wood stove. I would use "mini splits" and not burn firewood. Some people say that burning firewood is carbon-neutral, and it might be, but burning firewood releases that sequestered carbon, and NOT burning it keeps it sequestered. And (some ways of) burning firewood creates a lot of particulate pollution.
I would like to have mini splits, but I was able to fix my old HVAC system for cheap, and the buy-in is more than we can afford.
How do the mini splits do for heating? I would think they'd do just as well or better than they do for cooling.
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01-13-2024, 01:02 PM
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#5 (permalink)
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Master EcoModder
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Also, one can do what they can to reduce the harms they cause and contribute to. I try to reduce my contribution to US militarism because it's horrible in several very important ways. I personally cannot stop nor slow US militarism, but I can take an ethical position and do what I can to not support it.
US militarism ("defense") is said to be the #1 institutional burner of petroleum:
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01-13-2024, 01:10 PM
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#6 (permalink)
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Master EcoModder
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard
Breathing emits CO2.
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https://www.nrdc.org/stories/do-we-exhale-carbon
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The Following User Says Thank You to sgtlethargic For This Useful Post:
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01-13-2024, 02:48 PM
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#7 (permalink)
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Corporate imperialist
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Mini splits kind of suck for heating that's why I might leave them on the lowest hest setting and use the wood stove.
Tonight it's going to be about 0f outside. Inside my house is going to be about 78f. If I used heat pumps it would be more like 59f and would take a ton of electricity.
Plus this is America you can have s centeral HVAC and splits. I have a centeral heat pump HVAC, splits, wood stove, coal furnace and propane heaters.
I highly recommend not consuming fake foods like soy or oat milk. If it's plant based what it really means is a chemical plant.
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1984 chevy suburban, custom made 6.5L diesel turbocharged with a Garrett T76 and Holset HE351VE, 22:1 compression 13psi of intercooled boost.
1989 firebird mostly stock. Aside from the 6-speed manual trans, corvette gen 5 front brakes, 1LE drive shaft, 4th Gen disc brake fbody rear end.
2011 leaf SL, white, portable 240v CHAdeMO, trailer hitch, new batt as of 2014.
Last edited by oil pan 4; 01-13-2024 at 03:01 PM..
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01-13-2024, 02:51 PM
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#8 (permalink)
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Corporate imperialist
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sgtlethargic
Also, one can do what they can to reduce the harms they cause and contribute to. I try to reduce my contribution to US militarism because it's horrible in several very important ways. I personally cannot stop nor slow US militarism, but I can take an ethical position and do what I can to not support it.
US militarism ("defense") is said to be the #1 institutional burner of petroleum:
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I looked it up once the military uses something to the tune of 300,000 barrel of oil per day.
More nuclear powered ships in the navy could reduce that. The army and air force aren't allowed to have nuclear energy reactors.
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1984 chevy suburban, custom made 6.5L diesel turbocharged with a Garrett T76 and Holset HE351VE, 22:1 compression 13psi of intercooled boost.
1989 firebird mostly stock. Aside from the 6-speed manual trans, corvette gen 5 front brakes, 1LE drive shaft, 4th Gen disc brake fbody rear end.
2011 leaf SL, white, portable 240v CHAdeMO, trailer hitch, new batt as of 2014.
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01-13-2024, 06:20 PM
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#9 (permalink)
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Human Environmentalist
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Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard
Breathing emits CO2.
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Most people don't realize that what they breath out is heavier than what they breath in. Loosing weight is a respiratory process, and that weight is going to be lost through the exchange of lighter weight air for heavier. The body literally burns calories and exhausts the combustion waste.
Hard to lose weight breathing harder, but easier to put less fuel in the tank in the first place.
Last edited by redpoint5; 01-16-2024 at 09:57 PM..
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01-17-2024, 09:15 AM
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#10 (permalink)
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Corporate imperialist
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jannickz
As you mentioned, this is often the biggest contributor globally, accounting for around 28% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Factors include driving cars, flying, and public transportation (particularly if powered by fossil fuels).
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The biggest thing that can be done is get more nukes producing electricity.
"Renewables" are struggling hard to make more than 30%. Now it's getting to where every state needs to reengineer their power grid, upgrade capacity and add thousands of miles of new power lines. We sure are cutting down a lot of trees, mining a lot of copper/steel and making a lot of concrete in the name of saving the environment.
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1984 chevy suburban, custom made 6.5L diesel turbocharged with a Garrett T76 and Holset HE351VE, 22:1 compression 13psi of intercooled boost.
1989 firebird mostly stock. Aside from the 6-speed manual trans, corvette gen 5 front brakes, 1LE drive shaft, 4th Gen disc brake fbody rear end.
2011 leaf SL, white, portable 240v CHAdeMO, trailer hitch, new batt as of 2014.
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