PeakOil is You
Sustainable Population
Re: How do we attain sustainability?
by Ibon » Thu 09 Nov 2006, 22:20:12
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'Y')es, but my point is that is the approximate number now, as we live currently. I guess I'm missing your point....
I wasn't making any real point. I guess I meant that one shouldn't be daunted and fixed on a percentage that currently seems so hard to obtain even though this might be useful as a goal especially for mitigation and policy. In practice mitigation will result in many many small incremental steps through many years during which the dynamics will shift.
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
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Re: How do we attain sustainability?
by gg3 » Fri 10 Nov 2006, 09:01:03
One useful measure of powerdown is available in the form of the "ecological footprint" provided by WWF (World Wildlife Fund). This should give an approximation of the degree to which we need to reduce our consumption levels in the industrialized world.
I'm slightly disturbed that no one saw fit to directly call me out for the use of the phrase "I will not" in conjunction with powerdown and comparison with population growth. However, in case anyone was thinking "typical westerner!", a few examples may illustrate the degree to which I walk the talk, as well as the degree to which one can reduce ecological impacts without sacrificing basic creature comforts.
At this very moment I am comfy and cozy warm despite outside temperatures in the 30s tonight. The room temperature is 65 degrees Fahrenheit at chest level, and 62 at feet level. The secret to comfort is one pair of long underwear, and a heating pad stuffed between my T-shirt and my sweatshirt. The heating pad uses all of 50 watts (as measured with a Kill-A-Watt meter), or 0.5 KWH for ten hours of warm & cozy. Were I to heat the actual room air to comfortable temperature, that would require burning natural gas or using an electric heater at approx. 1,000 watts: 10 KWH per 10 hours. Thus I've reduced electric power consumption for heating, by a factor of 95%.
A half hour before bedtime, I stick the heating pad between my bed sheets and move it around a few times, thereby taking the chill out of my bed. A hefty pile of blankets and quilts assures that even when the room gets down into the fifties, I'm snug as the proverbial bug in a rug.
I always have an ample supply of clothes that are clean & fluffy. This by virtue of an ultra-efficient washing machine that uses 0.07 KWH per 6-lb. load (half the power consumption of comparable conventional machines), has separate motors matched to their respective tasks (wash/rinse, spin, and pump), and requires manually transferring the load back & forth twice between the wash/rinse compartment and the highspeed spinner. The latter results in clothes coming out only minimally damp, so they can be hung on an indoor clothes line and dry in a few hours. Thus, no need for the clothes dryer, saving 2.4 KWH per load.
Along with clean clothes, come clean dishes, conveniently washed with a machine the size of a large microwave. Using household hot water, this requires 0.03 KWH per load of 4 days' worth of dishes. Using the internal heater for a sanitize cycle, the power consumption is 0.43 KWH per load. It should be possible to obtain sanitize temperatures using solar water heating in the community we are planning to build starting next year.
I find the "conservation" practice of not-flushing the toilet to be stinky and gross, so I always flush. However, the water for more than half of my daily flushes is saved from the cold "purge" water that comes up in the shower before the hot water. I just pour some from the large bucket to the small bucket, and 1/2 gallon is sufficient to flush pee away cleanly. At some point in the future, in the community, all that human manure will be flushed with a tiny amount of water into a composting tank, which in turn will be maintained and emptied as needed by someone in the community as part of the routine work rotations.
And as for the shower, a variable flow nozzle with "almost-shutoff" position enables taking a delightful 20-minute hot shower with the quantity of hot water that would normally be used in a 3-minute shower with a conventional nozzle. And since low-flow showerheads are crappy at rinsing anything below about mid-chest level, another switchable nozzle on a hose takes care of everything down to my toes, thereby eliminating the need to turn up the volume of water for this purpose.
However I have also lately been experimenting with not taking showers on days when I expect to not be going out or seeing other people live and in-person. This tends to run about 3 days per week, and so long as one isn't hot and sweaty, one does tend to stay clean and comfortable on the no-shower days. Two days in a row with no shower is a reasonable possibility. In any case, four showers per seven days is about a 40% savings in water itself and water heating.
My commute most days of the week is about 40 feet: from the bedroom to the kitchen and then to the home office. I've been tracking my driving forever, for business accounting reasons. Since our company has gone hardcore about reducing driving, we have required clients to buy the remote modem components for their PBX systems, thus enabling me to do from desk what used to require going field. The payoff at the bottom line is measurable in terms of dollars of income per year relative to miles driven per year.
Though, due to the larger community planning group's monthly meetings being in Santa Cruz, we end up with added mileage for two of us together on the round trip, at about 25 miles per gallon in the minivan (a two-passenger plug-in hybrid would be nice but there isn't space to park it safely).
In any case, on work days, two laptops (one Mac, one PC) each pull about 35 to 40 watts depending on what they're doing. Some time next year, an Apple Intel machine will be able to run both MacOSX and WinXP or Vista simultaneously, with a second screen to partition the workload, at a savings of about 20 watts. Over a year that will add up.
This is eco-industrial design: sustainable comfort, and sustainable hightech livelihood. There is of course room for improvement. I expect to put one of my experimental fridge/freezers into service here shortly, which will save 1,200 KWH per year compared to the existing fridge.
Overall I suspect my energy and water consumption are about 60 to 75% below the average for the area. All of this with minimal inconvenience and only a slight bit more effort. And all of this on "working class hero" income: clever technologies done on the cheap.
But there is a limit. What I won't do, is eat "adventurous and exotic" things such as insects and jellyfish, run around feeling dirty, poop in a bucket, and live in a place where the sounds of my neighbors' personal lives are as loud in my bedroom as mine are in theirs. It does no good to conflate pain with virtue, or dull misery with righteousness.
I'm slightly disturbed that no one saw fit to directly call me out for the use of the phrase "I will not" in conjunction with powerdown and comparison with population growth. However, in case anyone was thinking "typical westerner!", a few examples may illustrate the degree to which I walk the talk, as well as the degree to which one can reduce ecological impacts without sacrificing basic creature comforts.
At this very moment I am comfy and cozy warm despite outside temperatures in the 30s tonight. The room temperature is 65 degrees Fahrenheit at chest level, and 62 at feet level. The secret to comfort is one pair of long underwear, and a heating pad stuffed between my T-shirt and my sweatshirt. The heating pad uses all of 50 watts (as measured with a Kill-A-Watt meter), or 0.5 KWH for ten hours of warm & cozy. Were I to heat the actual room air to comfortable temperature, that would require burning natural gas or using an electric heater at approx. 1,000 watts: 10 KWH per 10 hours. Thus I've reduced electric power consumption for heating, by a factor of 95%.
A half hour before bedtime, I stick the heating pad between my bed sheets and move it around a few times, thereby taking the chill out of my bed. A hefty pile of blankets and quilts assures that even when the room gets down into the fifties, I'm snug as the proverbial bug in a rug.
I always have an ample supply of clothes that are clean & fluffy. This by virtue of an ultra-efficient washing machine that uses 0.07 KWH per 6-lb. load (half the power consumption of comparable conventional machines), has separate motors matched to their respective tasks (wash/rinse, spin, and pump), and requires manually transferring the load back & forth twice between the wash/rinse compartment and the highspeed spinner. The latter results in clothes coming out only minimally damp, so they can be hung on an indoor clothes line and dry in a few hours. Thus, no need for the clothes dryer, saving 2.4 KWH per load.
Along with clean clothes, come clean dishes, conveniently washed with a machine the size of a large microwave. Using household hot water, this requires 0.03 KWH per load of 4 days' worth of dishes. Using the internal heater for a sanitize cycle, the power consumption is 0.43 KWH per load. It should be possible to obtain sanitize temperatures using solar water heating in the community we are planning to build starting next year.
I find the "conservation" practice of not-flushing the toilet to be stinky and gross, so I always flush. However, the water for more than half of my daily flushes is saved from the cold "purge" water that comes up in the shower before the hot water. I just pour some from the large bucket to the small bucket, and 1/2 gallon is sufficient to flush pee away cleanly. At some point in the future, in the community, all that human manure will be flushed with a tiny amount of water into a composting tank, which in turn will be maintained and emptied as needed by someone in the community as part of the routine work rotations.
And as for the shower, a variable flow nozzle with "almost-shutoff" position enables taking a delightful 20-minute hot shower with the quantity of hot water that would normally be used in a 3-minute shower with a conventional nozzle. And since low-flow showerheads are crappy at rinsing anything below about mid-chest level, another switchable nozzle on a hose takes care of everything down to my toes, thereby eliminating the need to turn up the volume of water for this purpose.
However I have also lately been experimenting with not taking showers on days when I expect to not be going out or seeing other people live and in-person. This tends to run about 3 days per week, and so long as one isn't hot and sweaty, one does tend to stay clean and comfortable on the no-shower days. Two days in a row with no shower is a reasonable possibility. In any case, four showers per seven days is about a 40% savings in water itself and water heating.
My commute most days of the week is about 40 feet: from the bedroom to the kitchen and then to the home office. I've been tracking my driving forever, for business accounting reasons. Since our company has gone hardcore about reducing driving, we have required clients to buy the remote modem components for their PBX systems, thus enabling me to do from desk what used to require going field. The payoff at the bottom line is measurable in terms of dollars of income per year relative to miles driven per year.
Though, due to the larger community planning group's monthly meetings being in Santa Cruz, we end up with added mileage for two of us together on the round trip, at about 25 miles per gallon in the minivan (a two-passenger plug-in hybrid would be nice but there isn't space to park it safely).
In any case, on work days, two laptops (one Mac, one PC) each pull about 35 to 40 watts depending on what they're doing. Some time next year, an Apple Intel machine will be able to run both MacOSX and WinXP or Vista simultaneously, with a second screen to partition the workload, at a savings of about 20 watts. Over a year that will add up.
This is eco-industrial design: sustainable comfort, and sustainable hightech livelihood. There is of course room for improvement. I expect to put one of my experimental fridge/freezers into service here shortly, which will save 1,200 KWH per year compared to the existing fridge.
Overall I suspect my energy and water consumption are about 60 to 75% below the average for the area. All of this with minimal inconvenience and only a slight bit more effort. And all of this on "working class hero" income: clever technologies done on the cheap.
But there is a limit. What I won't do, is eat "adventurous and exotic" things such as insects and jellyfish, run around feeling dirty, poop in a bucket, and live in a place where the sounds of my neighbors' personal lives are as loud in my bedroom as mine are in theirs. It does no good to conflate pain with virtue, or dull misery with righteousness.
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Re: How do we attain sustainability?
by jupiters_release » Fri 10 Nov 2006, 14:21:01
gg3, are you autistic?
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Re: How do we attain sustainability?
by Revi » Fri 10 Nov 2006, 19:29:10
gg3, I love all the exact measurement. That's the kind of thing that tells you how much you are actually using. We just got a Watts Up Pro, and it's been really interesting measuring the amount of energy different things use. The toaster was amazing. I know it only gets used for a short time, but I never realized that it drew about 800 watts when it's being used.
Very interesting to analyze energy use in such detail. I have heard that an incandescent light bulb burns the equivelant of 500 pounds of coal in it's lifetime. 500 lbs of coal is a lot. It has to come from somewhere, maybe a mountaintop was blown off for it. I think your awareness of it is great.
Very interesting to analyze energy use in such detail. I have heard that an incandescent light bulb burns the equivelant of 500 pounds of coal in it's lifetime. 500 lbs of coal is a lot. It has to come from somewhere, maybe a mountaintop was blown off for it. I think your awareness of it is great.
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Re: How do we attain sustainability?
by JustinFrankl » Fri 10 Nov 2006, 21:30:16
I would propose that anything short of extinction is sustainability. We somehow equate sustainability with a more or less level population. However, there are many examples of species-sustainable practices that result in wildly fluctuating (aka chaotic) population levels.
Unfortunately, while we are spelling doom, havok, and destruction to many of the other species on the planet, whether or not our species is at risk of extinction is still under debate.
Unfortunately, while we are spelling doom, havok, and destruction to many of the other species on the planet, whether or not our species is at risk of extinction is still under debate.
"We have seen the enemy, and he is us." -- Walt Kelly
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Re: How do we attain sustainability?
by Ibon » Sat 11 Nov 2006, 12:26:37
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JustinFrankl', 'I') would propose that anything short of extinction is sustainability. We somehow equate sustainability with a more or less level population. However, there are many examples of species-sustainable practices that result in wildly fluctuating (aka chaotic) population levels.
This is important to understand. There is no final magic sustainable global population number or even sustainable per capita energy consumption figure. The scale and fluctation of so many variables and parameters will never really make this a definable goal. That doesn't mean we shouldn't set goals but no amount of research will ever be able to claim a fixed value. What is definable is our cultural values in terms of what importance we give to sharing this planet with a rich biodiversity of other species and what limits we are thus willing to place on our growth and consumption. We are now at the point where ecosystems, both on the micro level (individual habitat loss) and macro level (global climate change) are degrading to the point that we are starting to lose species at an accelerated rate. It often happens that you start to value something once it becomes rare or endangered. How many species have to be lost for modern humans to feel that limiting their growth and consumption is worth the value of saving them?
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
blog: http://blog.mounttotumas.com/
website: http://www.mounttotumas.com
blog: http://blog.mounttotumas.com/
website: http://www.mounttotumas.com
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Re: How do we attain sustainability?
by DefiledEngine » Sat 11 Nov 2006, 12:52:54
Seems to me you never attain "sustainability" as defined by many. IMO intra and inter-species competition pretty much requires you to go all out or loose to those that do. So I'd say that it seems highly probable that that's how the genes have been designed through evolution. That is true sustainability works: bloomings and dieoffs.
Or damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Or damned if you do, damned if you don't.
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Re: How do we attain sustainability?
by Ludi » Sat 11 Nov 2006, 13:05:04
Looks good, gg3. Probably about how I live (actually my "commute" is a little farther, about 100 feet, I think). Pin a rose on our noses.
Defiled engine, there isn't a lot of evidence for your position as far as humans go, most human cultures didn't "bloom and die off" except agricultural (civilized) ones.
Defiled engine, there isn't a lot of evidence for your position as far as humans go, most human cultures didn't "bloom and die off" except agricultural (civilized) ones.
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Re: How do we attain sustainability?
by Zardoz » Sat 11 Nov 2006, 13:21:01
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', '.')..the degree to which one can reduce ecological impacts without sacrificing basic creature comforts...
...This is eco-industrial design: sustainable comfort, and sustainable hightech livelihood....Overall I suspect my energy and water consumption are about 60 to 75% below the average for the area. All of this with minimal inconvenience and only a slight bit more effort. And all of this on "working class hero" income: clever technologies done on the cheap...
...This is eco-industrial design: sustainable comfort, and sustainable hightech livelihood....Overall I suspect my energy and water consumption are about 60 to 75% below the average for the area. All of this with minimal inconvenience and only a slight bit more effort. And all of this on "working class hero" income: clever technologies done on the cheap...
Sounds like you'll soon be qualifed to write a book on the subject, if you aren't already.
Any thoughts on doing something like that? In the not-too-distant future, there'll be a hell of a market for guides to low-power, small-footprint living.
"Thank you for attending the oil age. We're going to scrape what we can out of these tar pits in Alberta and then shut down the machines and turn out the lights. Goodnight." - seldom_seen
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Re: How do we attain sustainability?
by Ibon » Sat 11 Nov 2006, 13:27:58
30 years ago when I firsts went to Mexico there was trash everywhere along the side of the road. Just chuck it out the window. Today things have changed and you can see that the culture has made major progress concerning littering.
30 years ago Europeans led the way with recycling and separating their garbage into separate bins of glass, plastic, metal etc. 30 year ago this did not exist in the USA. Today in most cities it does.
What gg3 is doing to acheive his sharp reductions in energy use is mostly behavioural and discipline in how he uses energy. It is bringing into the consciousness the value of energy. The greatest strides toward energy efficiency in a culture like the US will be acheived by behavioural change. Or you can say cultural change. AS in the examples of littering and recycling above.
30 years ago Europeans led the way with recycling and separating their garbage into separate bins of glass, plastic, metal etc. 30 year ago this did not exist in the USA. Today in most cities it does.
What gg3 is doing to acheive his sharp reductions in energy use is mostly behavioural and discipline in how he uses energy. It is bringing into the consciousness the value of energy. The greatest strides toward energy efficiency in a culture like the US will be acheived by behavioural change. Or you can say cultural change. AS in the examples of littering and recycling above.
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
blog: http://blog.mounttotumas.com/
website: http://www.mounttotumas.com
blog: http://blog.mounttotumas.com/
website: http://www.mounttotumas.com
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Re: How do we attain sustainability?
by DefiledEngine » Sun 12 Nov 2006, 03:47:06
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Defiled engine, there isn't a lot of evidence for your position as far as humans go, most human cultures didn't "bloom and die off" except agricultural (civilized) ones.
')Defiled engine, there isn't a lot of evidence for your position as far as humans go, most human cultures didn't "bloom and die off" except agricultural (civilized) ones.
Yes, I'd say you're probably correct in that aspect. How many of these cultures are alive and well today? How many are isolated? How many are threated by this successful expanding culture? How many, like the Tikopians or native americans, have become more or less integrated? How many will be around in a hundred years? Were they really sustainable?
Seems to me that the outcome when old empires would try to expand, would be the native americans meeting the europeans all over again, or the germanic tribes facing the romans.
Furthermore, just because smaller tribes were constrained by limiting factors such as diseases and food etc, this doesn't mean they didn't try to bloom.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')30 years ago when I firsts went to Mexico there was trash everywhere along the side of the road. Just chuck it out the window. Today things have changed and you can see that the culture has made major progress concerning littering.
Yeah, Europeans and a many other western countries simply allocate a lot of their trash to countries like Nigeria, where they pile up mountains of damaged computers etc.
Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean that it's gone.
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