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John Beardmore

In message m,
writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message . com,
writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-11-29 00:25:37 +0000, John Beardmore
said:
In message , Andy Hall writes

More people,
equipment and road miles may be involved.

as may be less. Its really not difficult to see how that could occur.

Also you keep saying more vehicles, without offering any evidence that
this is the way it will go down in practice.

Well, equally, as Andy declines to give any detail, I don't see any
reason to assume it need be any lower footprint either.

It's really Andy who has pushed this agenda, but I'm not convinced in
the absence of a hard proposal, that he can know that there would be a
reduction in foot print, or that he cares much. It's not his priority.

Andys answered that one quite well.

Well... He answered it... More with words than meaning I think.

Another angle on it is that a
substantial percentage of British people are quite price driven, and
this translates to less frequent collections and motivation to develop
more efficient colelction systems - which really isnt too hard to do
once theres the money motive in place.

Maybe.

And as already said, once people
pay for disposal there will be a mass uptake of composting, which
clearly will reduce collection footprint.

It might reduce collected volume, but if the composting is done badly at
home, it may also give off a great deal of methane I suspect, so I'm not
sure the footprint would necessarily fall.

All the above factors contribute to reducing vehicle use. We dont know
for sure what might turn out when a market changes, but the evidence is
fairly one sided here.

The hunches may be. Not sure that there is "evidence".

I'm tempted to call the other examples of demonopolisation, such as
electricity, gas, phone.

Be tempted. But maybe this is more like delivered milk or groceries ?

And in both cases, private enterprise leads to improvements.

Take grocery delivery for example. One vehicle delivers to (at a guess)
lets say 20 customers, and each vehicle goes to a geographic grouping
of customers because of the profit motive.

Yes - delivering groceries might make more sense than all end users
driving to the supermarket, but that doesn't mean that each supermarket
having a vehicle fleet covering each area has a lower delivery footprint
than each area being served by a single vehicle from a single location.

We need some numbers here - so lets say the customers of one van live 1
mile from the store, and on avergae 0.15 miles from each other. Now,
traditional shopping means 20 cars each doing 2 miles, finishing the
job in say 2 hrs. thats 20 vehicles and 40 miles travelled, and 40
manhours of labour.

A delivery van travels the 1 mile to customer A, then 0.15 miles 19
times, then 1 mile back to store. It takes 5 minutes per delivery and
10 minutes in traffic between each customer. So thats 4.85 miles
travelled in total, or quarter of a mile per customer, one vehicle not
20, and under 20 minutes of labour per customer.

An analogy which would be utterly splendid if only we drove our own
rubbish to the 'waste transfer station' !

But we don't. So it's toast !

Now, we both know that under state monopoly control, supermarkets would
not have started internet ordering and home deliveries. Under private
enterprise, its been done and is a great success. And from one success,
many will copy.

And yet somehow the LAs still manage to come round and collect waste
once a week !

You picked a good example.

Indeed ! Better than yours anyway !

You would be at liberty to choose a supplier who operates in the same
way as your existing one.

Which guarantees nothing about the change to multiple providers as a

whats this preoccupation with guarantees? Clearly life doesnt give
guarantees, wise decisions just give us the best odds.

Yes - my point is only that saying "You would be at liberty to choose a
supplier who operates in the same way as your existing one" doesn't
guarantee anything about environmental performance or answer my concerns

so you said, and I answered that one.

Well - if you were setting out to be convincing, you failed !

in any respect, and indeed if other services are run as well, it's
impossible to see how the aggregate footprint of moving that material
could be lower.

well, see above, but theyre already points that had been brought up
before you wrote that, so its pretty well addressed really.

There are currently about 108 messages in this thread I haven't read and
may never have time to. None the less what I have read from you and
Andy among the other 932 messages hasn't been convincing so far.

What makes you think I'll regard your recent missives as the very model
of good sense ?

I also told you that the term "environmental impact" is whatever the
individual decides it is.

You may have told me that, but an MSc course in environmental decision
making tells me otherwise.

Which do you think I'm going to believe ?

I get the feeling its whatever you were told.

No - being told isn't enough. What you are told has to 'add up' and
make sense !

but you werent exposed to other views on the matter.

I wouldn't bank on that.

This is a basic
problem with school-like teaching. Students are left without anything
like the kind of expertise that results when one goes over the various
views and finds out whats right and what isnt, why, and what the pros
and cons of each approach are.

Well - it's certainly true that we all have our unique perspectives,
but that doesn't make you right any more than it makes me wrong.

That depends on what you mean by "environmental foot print"

Are you going to tell us you dont see any issues with that definition?

Well - clearly it is prone to underestimate, but it seems to be a
pretty useful and largely quantitative way of looking at the problem.

Uesful yes, quantitative yes, but properly addressing the issue I think
no.

The reason being ?

Or is this just the sweet voice of assertion and bluff ?

as long as the same definiton is used, the same errors will be present.

In indeed there are any - or at least any that aren't recognised as
inherent to the technique.

of course there are

Anyway - if you've got any bright ideas for better ways to work it out
that's fine. If not, random redefinition is probably petty pointless.

yes I have.

Go on then...

I'm not saying either system is perfect, but the
deficiencies in what you quote do seem a bit significant.

Well again, given that footprint calculations tend to underestimate, I'd
like to know how you think the sort of errors that the technique is
prone to strengthen your case.

To say "The definition is individual" shows a pretty complete lack of
understanding of the field.

it may be just an acknowledgement of the fact that not everyone buys
this approach.

Then they can say

'Footprint calculations don't work because...'

That's not the same thing as redefining what it is agreed to mean.

I think thats addressing a point no-one has made.

Well you seem to be decrying environmental footprint because "The
definition is individual". I'm suggesting that given that the
definition and concept are pretty clear, you might criticise particular
elements of the method for failing to accurately account for all the
impacts of an activity, and if you have a sound numeric argument, the
technique can be refined. But just to say "The definition is
individual", (which it isn't), or "not everyone buys this approach", (so
what ?), if pretty useless unless you plan to volunteer some better way
to understand the situation.

its not that the solution is non-trivial, right now the issue is that
the solution isnt available.

THE solution ??

the solution to climate change

But may things which may mitigate it are. There unlikely ever to be a
SINGLE solution.

No-one has even proposed any method that
would reduce the worlds environmental footprint - and by that I mean a
system based in reality that is likely to work. There is no such
solution today.

There is certainly no single solution, but there are many things that
can contribute to a reduction. Recycling is one such.

Nobody has ever said there is a single 'magic bullet'.

There isnt a solution full stop. I dont care if it has 1 or 100
components to it, there just isnt one.

There isn't ONE. But there are many that can contribute.

The popular notion of a solution
is to be a little more energy efficient at home, and that doesnt even
begin to solve the problem.

Wrong. It does begin, but it can't get all you need.

What most people in UK are doing today is
not the solution.

No - but it's a contribution.

No-one can stand up and say 'heres the plan sir, this will work and
stop climate change' and have their plan taken as realistic. Nobody has
a workable effective plan.

Indeed, but making the problem less bad less quickly seems smarter than
making it more bad more quickly.

With only 2% of the worlds population there is nothing Britain can do
today to solve the problem by acting within our own borders.

Except contribute.

Your arguments leads to the conclusion that

nobody should do anything because nobody can do everything

where as those with a little more presence of mind see that

if everybody does something, everybody can achieve anything.

No, they most definiately dont lead to such conclusions. I've already
explained what I see as the solution, and it sure isnt the above. Its
developing energy technologies that can be used around the world.
Britain-only solutions are never going to cut it.

But sensible waste disposal isn't a "Britain-only solution" any more
than switching lights off using renewable energy.

The whole geographical / administrative boundary thing is a total red
herring.

The notion that everyone can achieve anything is the stuff of Disney
films.

Indeed - you can't back thermodynamics.

The mass of people working 9-5 year in year out make it pretty
clear it aint so.

Depends what they work on and how they work.

The only
real solution si to devise methods that both can be applied
internatinally, and for which there is an incentive to apply them
worldwide. The real climate problem solvers are not footprint
assessments, but technology innovators.

Well - as I've said, fusion might get us out of a hole,

AFAIK fusion is not one of the promising energy techs in the pipeline,

Then I don't think you K very much !

so isnt part of the solution.

So what do you think will sort it ?

but it seems
dumb to 'bet the farm' on technologies that may never emerge while we
are already doing damage at an alarming rate.

Whether you like it or not we are betting the farm.

I agree that we are doing, and I don't particularly like it.

There is no better
alternative to that.

I don't think that view is universally held !

2nd we have no other solution today than research. So we need to follow
the R&D path, not waste our time money & energy on things that can
never do it.

The less green house gas we emit, and the more slowly we emit it, the
longer we have to get something half way decent out of an R&D process.

3rd there is plenty the average Jo can do to support such research.
They can ask publicly for more research, they can raise funds for
research programs, they can donate, they can set up prize funds for
anyone that comes along with an energy solution that meets a given set
of criteria - all these things accelerate the pace of technological
change, and all (but one) are within anyone's grasp.

Yes - sounds much like the sort of stuff Eurosolar do.

4th there are loads of new techs coming out every year, check the
patents if you dont believe me.

There are loads of new patents, but it's fascinating that you don't name
a single one that looks more promising than fusion.

5thly energy technologies are being developed and improved already. Its
already happening, so you cant say theres nothing ahead there.

I've never said there is no progress being made, but you have yet to
identify any progress that is significant, and seem dismissive of
renewables and fusion. So - among all the patents you refer to, could
you identify say 5 which you think really address the problem of climate
change ?

6th, we can combine 3 and 5 to reduce the private cost of research and
hasten the process.

So in essence, you suggest we do noting to reduce our emissions, but ask
for research to be done, make some donations, and offer prizes to solve
the worlds problems !

ROFL !

Just as awareness is now much better
than in the 70s, perhaps this interest group will come of age in the
future and come up with some real solutions.

This problem isn't going to be solved by a single interest group,

It only takes one technology. That will come from one lab, so yes it
will be.

Well - you just might be right. Had cold fusion worked, something
along those lines might have been a 'magic bullet', but I for one don't
think we can rely on that sort of single solution, and even if we get
one, we have a better chance if emissions are reduced in the mean time.

but by characterising the problems and
looking for opportunities to fix it at all levels.

Hmm. Thing is, there are no opportunities to fix it at almost all
levels. There are none.

Well - none you seem to know about. But I guess we can't help wilful
ignorance or disingenuous stance.

The present approach sure isnt going to do it.

It sure isn't going to do all of it at present rates of progress.

Its only when we can face these facts that one stops running about like
a headless chicken, and starts to look again at just where the solution
does lie. And its with research.

Well - I'm all in favour of research, but I'm also in favour of
allowing longer for it to happen with whatever mitigation we can achieve
as soon as possible.

The one thing that everyone will do
the world around is adopt a new technology that is cost efficient and
non-polluting. That is our solution.

It will be when there is one. IF there is one...

In the distant future, energy reduction is not part of the solution.
Its an interim measure only.

OK - so you concede that it has value as an interim measure then.

Once energy is cheap in bulk and
non-pollution, we can use much more than we do today.

Well - here you have much in common with the renewable energy community
who take the view that once using RE, being profligate isn't a problem.

This is a sound point, except that your postulated sustainable energy
source (TBA) doesn't exist, and the capital cost of existing renewable
energy sources is so high that it's more or less always cheaper to cut
consumption than generate more energy.

Which takes us back to cutting consumption and solar water heating...

Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore