How much do you care about the environment

[Cowabungaa]

I care a fair amount, yes. It only makes sense considering I'd really like my living environment to be good.

So I don't have a car and even limit my use of public transport as much as possible, cycle and walk as much as I can. It helps preventing me from becoming fat as hell to boot so it's a win-win. Next to that I only eat meat, and mostly fish and some poultry at that, relatively incidentally as a treat and not as a staple food. And even if I do I try to keep an eye out for ecological quality labels and stuff.

In general I try to be durable in my consumption pattern. Not buy shit I'd use once or twice and then discard, make clothes and electronics last as long as possible, try to not throw away any food, stuff like that.

I think my biggest sins are in raw energy usage. Considering my geekness there's a lot of electronics running. And even though I try to keep my heater low or even off, it's hard considering I lack proper double glazing in my small student apartment. But sadly I don't have much influence on the energy company that supplies our building or how well it's insulated.

It'll be better when I finally finish my studies, get a job and get my own place. I really want to look into green energy and energy efficient housing. Hopefully holding a job would also allow me to buy really durable shit, as in buy better to buy less. [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/buying-less-by-buying-better/462639/] I'm also curious about getting bugs into my diet but they're not exactly catching on yet. And I hope that when I finally really need a car fully electric ones, hopefully then constructed as environmentally viable as possible, become viable for me. That'd be sweet.

In all, right now I don't even feel like I'm making that big of a concentrated effort. It takes some small adjustments and some conscious decisions but that seems to be it, really.

You can eat less meat I guess, but when you're the only one doing it, all you're really achieving is loss of weight.

That's a big problem in achieving progress with things like this. When a lot of people have that thought nothing happens. "My contribution would be tiny, it won't mean much if I'm the only one doing it so I won't bother." Thing is that in all honesty no big contribution exists, it's all made up out of cumulative tiny contributions.

So if people collectively aren't going to be okay with making a small contribution and realize that it's only because of that that we can ever achieve large-scale change, nothing is going to change. After all, farms and factories are only there because people want their stuff.

 

[JaKandDaxter]

I really like some of the suggestions people have brought up such as vertical farming. And the idea of someone holding in their poop to save water is sadly believable. I saw some concepts and pics of indoor farming before, and looked more into it. There's some great potential for vertical farming in countries that can afford it.

But growing food is only part of a long term solution, as only a small amount of the food we eat is unprocessed. And the factories and warehouses for food product production aren't avaliable locally. So future developments regarding VF will be interesting to watch. I would love the idea of getting a fresh ripped pineapple in New York on a consistent basis. Instead of being stucked with a batch that was picked too early.

So if people collectively aren't going to be okay with making a small contribution and realize that it's only because of that that we can ever achieve large-scale change, nothing is going to change. After all, farms and factories are only there because people want their stuff.

Realistically though, it would take diaster to move into the general population hearts for effective change in their consumption and personal bad habits. Just like the Minneapolis bridge collapse that forced the US government to take immediate action addressing our deteriorating critical infrastructure. And as someone who lives near a major American urban center, I honestly don't see a general positive attitude towards the enviornment. I can walk outside and see the empty junk food bags from the corner store, dropped by people passing by my parents house. And lets not even get started with public bathrooms.

There's also extensive issues outside of the individual's control, such as not all plastic containers actually being recyclable despite labels saying it is. And the lack of public transportation in some areas as brought up by other users. And since we do need to eat, there's not much we can do on a personal level to stop algae booms caused by agricultural runoff for instance. It would take an agricultural revolution, likely along the lines of vertical farming to change that.

 

[Wakey87]

Do I beleive in global warming? To an extent, Altho I think it's being blown way out of proportion. I do live in rainy old England tho, where one day you can be in shorts and t-shirt and the next in a heavy coat and thermals.

Other than that, I recycle, walk to work and like to keep the British countryside free from litter. But thats as far as I go.