[FairMaiden]

What do you think is one of the worst uses of energy in your community, country, etc??

Here in my city (of over 2 million), we truck every hospitals's dirty laundry over 500 miles to another city to get washed. I wish I were kidding!

Whats makes you cringe?

[Dreamtwister]

So yesterday in Toronto, it got up to 23°C (73.4°F). Not staggeringly hot, but definitely shorts and t-shirt weather. So I went out for an afternoon walk with my family.

I don't know how many buildings we passed with air conditioners blasting exhaust in our faces. IT'S ONLY 23 DEGREES OUT! What are these assclowns going to do when it gets REALLY HOT?

I know, I'll just go outside again today and find out. It's currently 31°C (87.8°F) and sure enough, air conditioners blasting away in every window. Oh, and the transit strike is really helping with the pre-existing smog advisory, too. Countdown to blackout, anyone?

Sorry for the rant folks, but when I see people being so wasteful, I'm torn between wanting to laugh at their inevitable demise, and blind rage at the catastrophy they are hastening.

Personally, I don't even own an air conditioner. When it gets hot like this, I just close my blinds and the temperature drops a good 5 degrees.

[Dreamtwister]

That is so odd...I was just ranting about that very issue here.

In addition to what I was talking about there, I also REALLY hate to look at the downtown core at night and see all of those office towers fully illuminated. You just know the only people in there at 3 am are the cleaning crews, so why is every light in the building still on?

BTW mods, maybe you could merge my thread into this one? It seems appropriate.

{Threads merged - TheTurtle}

[PenultimateManStanding]

I posted this observation before, but it is fitting here: I was in school on a cold day. The thermostat for the heat was set so high and we couldn't shut it off so that the kids were complaining it was too hot. So it's cold and rainy outside and we've got the windows and door open and the fan is on to cool the very temperature-sensitive children, all the while the central heat is blasting.

[Atlantean_Relic]

88°F here . I wouldn't have thought Canada would be so warm yet. You got dry heat or humidity?

[Dreamtwister]

Well being right on the lake, we normally get humidity as well. Right now, it's 33°C and the humidex is 42°C (107.6°F). And yes, this is unseasonably warm. We don't normally crack the 30's until late June, but the last couple of years have been abnormal in general.

[Armageddon]

It's been 90 + degrees F here in st.louis for the past week, way too hot for this time. I'm sensing a long, hot summer this year.

[Armageddon]

I take 5 dumps per day, so i'm wasting water and energy.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('armegeddon', 'I') take 5 dumps per day, so i'm wasting water and energy.

[Matrim]

"Whats makes you cringe?"
Virtually every facet of our society

[Madpaddy]

In Ireland we are busy building motorways at an enormous rate. €12 billion over the next 5 years. They'll be finished just in time for economic collapse. You could probably put solar panels and a wind turbine on every house in the country for that kind of money but hey it wouldn't be Ireland if we weren't doing something stupid.

An Irish doctor has just invented a cure for which there is no known disease.

At work, I am busy putting in lighting controls so nobody can turn on a light. The Passive Infra Red detectors with luxmeters and occupancy sensors switch off if there is no movement or/ and if the light level is sufficient. I am hoping to implement a policy where the main fuse is tripped in every building after working hours so no computers etc. can be sucking juice. At the moment there is a pale blue glow over the whole place every night from the dozens of PCs left on.

[Armageddon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('armegeddon', 'I') take 5 dumps per day, so i'm wasting water and energy.

[pea-jay]

In my old county, milk from the local megadairy (itself a massive energy consumer) 3 miles away was trucked to Los Angeles nearly 200 miles away for bottling before being returned for sale in my local store. 400 food miles for a three mile journey is a bit wasteful in my opinion.

Made perfect sense economically and therein lies the reason for many wasteful journeys.

[waegari]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FairMaiden', '
')
Whats makes you cringe?

[grillzilla]

I live in southern California, in my market are table grapes flown from Chile. 300 miles from my grocery store are thousands of acres of farmland growing...table grapes.

I work near the coast, it's paradise. Moderate temperatures even in summer. ... I have to wear a jacket a lot in my office in the summer because the AC is turned on to " hang meat" .

[eastbay]

The legions of countless fat ladies constantly driving around suburbia alone in SUV's while mindlessly babbling away on cell phones engaged in meaningless conversations while running meaningless errands.

That just so typifies the stupid energy waste in the US.

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ith 250,000 seats, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the largest sports venue in the world. Annual attendance generally draws more than 400,000 spectators.

[Kingcoal]

Just about every supermarket out there. I'd like to see each food item next to the hydrocarbons it's consumed getting to the supermarket.

[Kingcoal]

Just about every supermarket out there. I'd like to see each food item next to the hydrocarbons it's consumed getting to the supermarket.

[jeezlouise]

Check this out:

In my neighborhood and indeed all around Atlanta there is a major overhaul going on of the city's quite aged water infrastructure. I can see from my window as I type this a 40-foot deep hole in the street which has been there for several weeks (causing a huge detour which wastes gas)... I see no less than four of these situations on my 1.75 mile walk to work every day.. the point I'm getting to is that I have noticed that almost without fail every single truck sits idling with no one at the wheel, while construction of a new sewer and water system that has a good chance of being useless or unused in a decade or two goes on and on and on... What's even funnier is that my wife's grandmother called the city to complain about the wasted gas in the trucks... and since we don't drive she insists on driving us home whenever we're at her house... we live on the next block over. Sometimes we humor her and sometimes we don't.