warren d

I've seen it before.
Try turning off everything that is on standby in your house and see if you get a big reduction in your bills. It wont happen. Like I said, in winter all items on standby contribute to warming the house. If your heating uses a thermostat then your heating system works a little less hard when there are lights and other electrical items in use or on standby.
Some electrical items last longer if they are left on standby rather than switched off at the wall. The longer they last, the longer it is before they are replaced which means less pollution in the long run.

We can also try to look after things like Hi-Fi better which extends the life of them. Let it warm up for a few minutes before turning the volume up and don't crank it up to high too soon. The same goes for a lot of things. Try to buy quality and look after it better.

I think most if not all of us here are on the same side. I am sure we would all like to see a reduction in pollution but while many people continue to buy more than they need then some factory out there somewhere is going to be causing more pollution to keep up with demand for those goods. We could argue about the finer points forever more but if people keep buying so much crap then the pollution is going to continue as it is or even accelerate.

Cape Blue

Actually it is called trade and is the fundamental basis of the capitalist system - the theory is that competition allows for price reduction and innovation and that political barriers and the protectionism you desire cause a loss to the country as a whole in the long run. You would have people pay $500 for a DVD player rather than $50 just so it was made in the US, this makes everyone poorer and does not allow for the re-allocation of resources into the most productive sectors - its a little like propping-up loss making coal mines with tax payers money.

You have posted to Lord Monckton and now your coup de grace is Glen Beck I would do better discussing MMCC with my next door neighbors cat.

warren d

The forum will be pleased to know that there was a power cut in my area for several hours today so not only were those pesky standby lights off but so were all electrical items for miles around.

carter71

Last night I was curious so we took as many devices as we could and plugged them into a single lead today - then measured the current with a clamp on ammeter. Multiplying by the voltage gives VA - which (worse case) is also the number of watts.

So we connected: The dishwasher, the microwave, the hifi, two DVD players, 1 ancient VHS recorder, a washing machine, two phone chargers, three apple mac chargers (macbook, ipod and iphone), the hubby's company Dell charger, two TVs, the PS3, my iMac (sleeping), the apple 30" display a Nokia phone charger, and three more chargers we found in the drawer. Couldn't find anything else to plug in!

Total power consumption: 13VA (watts). Interestingly, the biggest user was the playstation - 2VA.

So, with my leccy bill of 1400kWh last month, my 22 appliances on standby are consuming a massive 0.6% of my electricity bill.

Of course, replacing all of these with "energy saving ones" that the politicians would like us to do, will cost the environment far more than any marginal saving. But we don't want to talk about that, do we?!

Cape Blue

Congrats - you obviously have some very low standby-power products in comparison to this laboratory-tested list. http://eetd.lbl.gov/EA/Standby/summary-table.html

Although you elec use at 1400KWh last month seems a little high compared to the UK average of around 4700Kwh per year - in fact around 3.5 times the average - I guess that must be due to Spanish houses using more electricity than the UK ones?
http://www.renew-reuse-recycle.com/s...icle.pl?id=311

cricketman

It doesnt matter for us who are in Spain anyway, a lot of the power is from renewables...guilt free energy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Spain

lardyl

indeed - I think our American friend has been reading this.....

http://co2isgreen.org/

warning - this webs(h)ite is pre-packed for the US market - do not watch this if you are of a sensitive nature and holding/drinking a hot beverage, serious to mild keyboard/monitor damage may result.......

Cape Blue

yep at 34% Spain is doing pretty well - it was significantly down to government support and feed-in tariffs, basically a different version of an energy tax.

carter71

OMG

So, let me get this straight. Because plants need CO2, and because no-one has reported ill effects from drinking carbonated drinks, CO2 is good for you and we should be producing MORE???

cricketman

Half of the USA live in the Dark Ages, the Ancient Greeks knew more than they do

chrisfromusa

Well seeing as I live on this side of the Atlantic where we actually get hit by hurricanes, I don't seem to recall Category 4 and 5 hurricanes springing up like weeds in the Gulf as per Al Gore. That to me discredits whatever he says, as I've mentioned before, we've had no big hurricanes make landfall in the U.S. since 2005. And 2006 there was 0-2 the whole season and since then it's been quiet. Warmer oceans breed more hurricanes and the 1990s spawned a lot of them, and a couple of them made their way to my house. It's still been years since Gore came out with his movie and he's been saying the earth is gonna get hotter and hotter fast, lot of record heat temps across the U.S. are still awarded to towns and cities during the 1930s to 1950s. I'm just saying if we can objectively look at the facts, both for and against, instead of treating AGW like some kind of religion....we can come up with a consensus. Like one piece of data I found on the NOAA's (National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration) website is satellite imagery of the ice caps. The Arctic ones are shrinking, yes we know that, but at the same time, and I never hear this on the TV or in the papers, the Antarctic ice shelf is increasing in thickness and mass. So net loss of the polar caps? Eh....less than Gore's estimate.

cricketman

The world isnt going to get hotter each and every year dumbo. the general trend is that over 50-100 years (and more) the earth will be getting warmer, but within that there are cycles of weather and cycles within cycles etc (a bit like the stock market!). So many things contribute e.g. if there are major volcanic eruptions in a year then temperature actually drops by a couple of degrees.

But over 100 years, the best bet is that temperatures are increasing, just by a few degrees on average - and the polar ice caps are melting, that is indesputable - which will mean a lot of the places where we are now living will be under water (including half the UK and entire countries like Bangladesh)

The truth is, it depends how much you care about the human race versus how much you care about yourself. You may not notice the difference in your lifetime, but your grandkids will - and so will their grandkids.

What kind of inheritance do you want to leave them?

chrisfromusa

Seeing as I drive a small fuel efficient Kia, use CFL lightbulbs, and keep my thermostat down, I've done all I can to reduce my energy use. I still think no matter what we do it's still gonna get warmer. Yes I think global warming is real, though the difference between you and me is the role human activity plays into the whole thing. The earth is gonna get warmer anyway, then it'll get cooler. Why are we thinking we can outsmart mother nature? Yes I'm all for a clean environment with clean drinking water for everybody, plenty of food to go around, same as the next guy does. But like I said I think human activities are overstated, and there are external factors involved. If there was no Medieval Warm Period (the earth was much warmer than it is today) and the human race didn't die) then yes I would believe that AGW is the real deal and we must do something about it. But the MWP did exist at a time when the only CO2 emissions came from us exhaling and burning fires, among other things. That is why my belief is, CO2 is not the culprit. We over here also think that, along with the scientific reasons why CO2 is not the culprit, we don't feel it is justified to sacrifice the little jobs we have left here so China and India get a free pass on climate change and we don't.

cricketman

Believe what you want, but dont take sciences name in vane.

You dont have a clue what you're talking about

carter71

Actually it's widely reported, to do with blowing that great big hole in the ozone layer. Not the recommended way of tackling global warming - removing a slice of atmosphere.

And what's Al Gore got to do with it? Is this a democrat/republican thing you've got going on?