Collection

  • Context
    • The way I look at it is that if you were on a sinking boat you wouldn't stop bailing water just because the person next to you has a bigger bucket to work with. We all need to contribute as much as we can. We have a collective responsibility.
  • A Masterclass in Manipulation - YouTube
  • Setting your thermostat to be a couple degrees cooler in the winter, and your air conditioner to be a couple degrees warmer in the summer, is a worthwhile change. If you can substitute a fan for the AC that's an even better solution for summer heat.
  • Why YOU Matter
    • Unlike an orange peel thrown out of a car window, carbon dioxide lasts for a long time – for centuries or even millennia. One kilogram of carbon dioxide (about the amount that would be generated from driving 7km in a mid-size vehicle) can melt 650kg of glacial ice over its long, long lifetime.
    • You can affect consumption by choosing how you live (what you eat, how you get around) and you can affect both technology and consumption by putting pressure on your government through collective action.
  • Cars
    • Cars are an extremely inefficient way to move people around because only a tiny portion of a vehicle's weight (about 5 per cent) comes from the passengers. A car burns most of its fuel transporting itself, not you.
    • Whether you're in an electric vehicle or a hybrid or an internal-combustion vehicle, fossil fuels were used at various stages of its construction (carbon emissions were released to mine the metals, process those metals, whether they are steel or aluminium, make the battery, and run the factory where the car was assembled). The car has a big carbon footprint before it drives off the lot.
  • Meat is Bad for the Climate
    • What if everyone in America swapped beef out of their diet and replaced it with beans? This one change would free up 42 per cent of US cropland and achieve about half of the greenhouse gas reductions that America needs to reach its 2020 target (which it will miss). One change with a huge difference.
    • Even if climate change wasn't a problem, and if biodiversity loss wasn't happening, eating more plants has been associated with: lower rates of cancer, coronary heart disease and Type II diabetes, lower BMI (body mass index); high BMI is a risk factor for mortality, even when researchers control for smoking and physical activity, improvements in mood (the evidence on this is still preliminary, but reasonable).