[napoleon]

The number waste of energy I see every day are 'newspapers'.

The amount of energy that is invested in each newspaper to provide a bundle of news, propaganda and advertising is staggering when you think about it (not to mention the natural ressources invested). The newspaper is then read once, about 5% of it AT MOST, and thrown away.

What a dumb waste of energy.

[gg3]

Agreed, newspapers are right up there. They also consume vast amounts of forest. All to provide a medium for delivery of information that, with rare exceptions, is only read once and then thrown away.

Newspapers should be printed in quantities sufficient for archival use at libraries. Aside from that, put the whole thing online and sell terminals to subscribers. A fully functional laptop uses 30 watts; it should be possible to develop a basic terminal that uses perhaps 20.

[Aimrehtopyh]

As it exists today newspaper circulation is definitely disgustingly wasteful; but the same could be said about organic foods or bottled water and milk. It's just like agriculture and ocean travel where we've used fossil fuels to turn a very natural and beautiful practice into a supercharged clusterf*#k.

The paper production, printing and distribution of a town rag could very easily be adapted to localized and sustainable practices. The same could not be said for the laptops and wifi nodes it would take to attain the same amount of access and user-friendliness. Newspapers are easily recycled on a local level and laptops are not.

Lets say I have 10,000 readers spread over five square miles. We're going to need 10,000 laptops, possibly more because my wife likes to clip coupons while I do the crossword. Then we're going to cover the entire area with wifi connection. How much fossil fuel will be required to accomplish this? The power is out and Zombie hordes are coming? How am I going to find out about it? Hackers from east Germany have filled the server with porn, now what do we do?

The cost of acquiring a laptop would be prohibitive for alot of your readership. If they have a laptop already, you're golden, but what senior citizen is going to shell out the equivalent of five years of subscription payments for a piece of equipment that isnt very coffee-proof?

Newspapers existed for hundreds of years before fossil fuels became a big deal.

[napoleon]

1. Limit the size of the papers. Start by limiting the quantity and amounts of publicity they can contain. True, this limits the income of the paper, but if you reduce 20% of the publicity in the newspaper, increase price of advertisement accordingly.

(Advertisement in itself is a very wasteful practice as well - leaflets, flyers, junkmail; all pretty disgusting to my standards)



2. Limit the amount of articles to pertinent ones only. I don't care if the firemen saved a kitten from a tree dammit; shoot the little parasite down next time and tell no one. Who cares.



3. Instead of printing out 10,000 papers, install strategic printing-coin operated machines around town. Pay 20cents - get the sprtssection printed out, pay 30 cents, get the city section, ect... Point being, people will print and pay only for the section of the paper that interest them.



It used to be that somone who had 10 books in his home had to be rich. Papaer used to be a precious commodity. Overabundance has caused paper to be disposable in nature nad in many forms (newspapers are just the summet of this waste).

The only paper that shouldn't be kept long term is the paper you use to whipe your arse. Now that is the only modern use of paper I won't oppose. Sanitation is extremely important.

[kokoda]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lighthouse', '
')Oh yeah I love this "My dick is bigger than yours" cars. The best one in this category is still the classic E-Type Jaguar ...

[Lighthouse]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kez', 'I') just saw a commercial for a refrigerator with a pretty large TV/LCD screen built into the door. I am guessing it is replacing all the notes that people place on their frig to remember things.

That is nuts.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lighthouse', '
')The best one is the model with the camera inside the fridge. You don't have to open the fridge door to see what's inside. This feature actually saves a lot of energy ...

[napoleon]

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/beds ... bed-011933

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,375 ... 60,00.html

Magnetic floating bed, only 1.2 million euros. A must have in every home!

[birchm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mistel', 'O')ne word "Swiffer"

But I can't stop my wife from buying them.

[hippiegunlover]

The amount of paper that is wasted in public schools is shameful.

Mistel, dh bought me a "swiffer" and I just stuck a wash cloth under it, and used a spray bottle of soap and water, he now cleans the floors but uses a mop.

Another useless product, heated outdoor pet beds. Build the mutt a dog house and fill it with straw. At least you can compost it.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ingenuity_Gap', 'W')ow, Kez, now that was fun. The automatic windshield wipers are supposed to be energy saving devices. The automatic feature consumes so little, it's almost impossible to measure compared to the automated device itself.

[Denny]

Heard on Buffalo radio station WHLD, Wednesday, Aug. 30:

"Erie County Sherriff Department, using aerial reconnaissance, made an arrest at XX ST., and removed 12 marijuana plants. The plants, left to mature, would have a street value of about $2,000."

You have to wonder how much fuel, paid by the taxpayer, they are using in that helicopter, looking for pot.

[smallpoxgirl]

One of the biggest energy wasters around here is the medical helicopter. They love to dispatch it for any sort of medical problem big or small.

I just got home from my volunteer fire department getting toned out. Here's the story: 40 something year old male is in a motel room. Starts to have chest pain. Calls 911. They dispatch an ambulance which has to drive maybe 15 miles to the motel. They also dispatch the Quick Response Unit which is a group of volunteer medical responders that has to drive maybe 8 miles in the opposite direction. Before any of them get there, they dispatch the helicopter which has to fly 25 miles from the nearest hospital. Then they tone out my volunteer fire dept. to clear a landing zone for the helicopter. So four of us drive down and clear a spot for the helo. The helo and the ambulance get to the landing zone at about the same time. The flight nurse evaluates the patient and decides that he's not sick enough to need the helicopter. So the helicopter flies back to the hospital empty. The ambulance then has to drive an extra 15 miles or so to the hospital, drop the patient, and drive 15 miles back to it's home base. All of this for what will probably turn out to be a bad case of indigestion.

[Omnitir]

The western war machine. Compared to that monumental waste of energy, everything else is trivial.

[sm5]

If you want to say the war machine is a big energy waster, try the entertainment (sports, movies, radio, etc) industry. Not only do they waste resources, but they also waste our time as well.

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sm5', 'I')f you want to say the war machine is a big energy waster, try the entertainment (sports, movies, radio, etc) industry. Not only do they waste resources, but they also waste our time as well.

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', 'Y')eah, stupid energy wasting popular culture and free-speech. Who needs it?!

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', 'S')peaking of the war machine, for that matter, all arms and munition manufacture and their associated results are a rather considerable waste of energy also.

[mike3]

Well, I think we should not use fossil fuels at all because eventually they will run out. If we want civilization for thousands, perhaps more, of years, oil and fossil fuels are not the way to go -- at any rate of consumption, because they will eventually run out. If we cut our energy consumption to 1/10 of what it is now and still continue to use fossil fuels then we'd have 500 years instead of 50, but then once that 500th year (probably before then due to the "peak", but just for illustrational purposes I'll say the 500th year) rolls around, whoever is alive then will be faced with the exact same crisis we are facing now. Ultimately, we should reduce energy consumption to a level where zero fossil fuels will be needed to source it.

But why do we consume so much, ANYWAY? Well there's a lot of reasons, including laziness (ie. driving a 1/2 mpg monster truck just to go down to one's friend's house on the next block, or taking an elevator 1 or 2 floors when one does not have any sort of handicap!), fear (feeling safer in an SUV vs in a car), bad (ie. "car-dependent") community planning (suburban sprawl, farms distant from cities, etc.), petro-agriculture (petroleum-based fertilizer, pesticides, and that type of stuff), greed ("disposable" cameras, etc. look at all that wasted petroplastic, but you can get a lot of money because people have to keep buying more cameras), to name just a few. Then of course there is that stubborn resistance to change, as well: "The American way of life is non-negotiable". WHAT?! Does it say in the Constitution that we have a right to guzzle and consume with reckless abandon?! I DON'T THINK SO!!!

[mike3]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kez', 'I')t seems like once a week I'll see some new device or gadget that finds ever more ways to take energy, usually electric, and waste it.

For example, I was watching some car commercial (Mercedes?) and they were hyping up the fact that the windshield wipers will now turn on automatically when the windshield senses rain. Is this really what customers are demanding?

Also, American Express blue cards used to be mailed to me once a week. I always took everthing, put it back in the pre-paid envelop, write really big in black to stop filling up my landfills, and sent it back to them. It took them 20 or so mailings to stop sending me that crap.

I wish I could remember all the absurdities like this. If anyone has some, please share.

It's also becoming more evident that people want little handheld, electrical gadgets instead of pen and paper. Each one of course requires batteries that only last so long and must be recharged constantly. While electricity isn't such an issue as oil/transportation, it seems to be getting pretty precarious to me, even if it is only a watt or two here and there, still, it adds up quick with waste, cheap cost (just throw it away and get another one), and 300 million people.