So whadya want me to do about it, smarty pants? - Ken Boddie - Australia

Ken Boddie

5 years ago · 8 min. reading time · ~100 ·

Blogging

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So whadya want me to do about it, smarty pants?

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Occasionally my blogs turn to Mother Earth and the plight we've put her in. What with all our take, take, take over the millennia, and our exploitation (without time for renewal) of her natural assets, our modern day existence on this planet has now become a tearfully tragic technical testament to rape and pillage. It appears to me that, as a collective race of humans, we've now become much worse than the Vikings!

Some of you may have sat up and momentarily paid some attention to my recent blog on the plight of the formerly magnificent, but currently sick and ailing, Great Barrier Reef, here in Oz:

https://www.bebee.com/producer/@ken-boddie/let-s-untie-some-reef-knots

Others may have tipped a knowing nod in agreement, but remained hopelessly passive, when confronted with my 'greeny' grunts and gesticulations in these blogs, and their ilk:

https://www.bebee.com/producer/@ken-boddie/plastic-man-goes-green

https://www.bebee.com/producer/@ken-boddie/starfish-enterprise

https://www.bebee.com/producer/@ken-boddie/the-land-of-oz-a-cautionary-fairy-tale

https://www.bebee.com/producer/@ken-boddie/dreams-to-sell-fine-dreams-to-sell

"But it's all to difficult", do I hear you complain?

And, do I hear you further hopelessly state, "What can I do?"

After all, we're only individual solitary souls carrying our candle in a sea of despair and disparity, to be snuffed out by surging waves of industrial greed; ignored by the politicians who pamper to the dollar vote from the same industrial greed that provides their very existence.

What if I told you that, as individuals, we can start to make an unbroken chain of contributions to the sustainability of our planet, and that, any group large enough to have a collective voice, merely comprises individuals, all driven by a simple and sustained set of goals ..... to REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE !!!

OK, let's forget the stirring words, and let's just quietly get on with some simple resolute actions.

What can I do?
Here's what you can do!

The following is a list of contributions which we can all take on board, varying from the simplest at the start (ie tasks requiring very little actual change to our daily lives) to more complex at the end (ie let's get off our backsides and actually show somebody we mean business). The choice is yours concerning how far you want to take this as a 'grunt' (my collective noun for nonpolitical greenies, willing to show some spirit, or at least some vague interest).

1. Switch Off What you Don't Need

This is the simplest goal by far when it comes to saving energy and reducing the power you use and hence pay for, while reducing our footprint on the planet. Whether at home or at work, all 'grunts' know .....

If there's nobody there, switch off!

This goes for empty rooms, toilets, and appliances not in use, such as kettles, TVs, stereos, computer screens. It's an easy habit to switch off when you go, or, in the case of the smallest room in the building, switch off when you've gone.

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2. Turn it Up or Down

The body tends to soak up heat in winter and crave for cold in summer and may not be a reliable thermal regulator, especially when heating and cooling are costing us money. We also react to how we dress, so if you're padding around in a pair of shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt in mid winter, then your heating bills will be astronomical. Hence, dress for the weather and the climate. If you have a thermostat on your air conditioning system, then use it to set the temperature to no lower than about 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) in summer and about 19 degrees C (66 degrees F) in winter. If you don't have a thermostat, then invest in a thermometer and hang it on the wall.

Incidentally, these numbers are based on a typical Australian Queensland climate. If you're an eskimo in an igloo or a bedouin nomad in a goatskin tent, then you may wish to make alternative arrangements. Just a thought, when re-reading this statement ..... I may be wrong, but, we don't appear to have many eskimo or bedouin participants on this platform, do we?

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THAT THIS GOES'IN (iG ECYCLING

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3. Re-use Water Bottles (see also 4. below)

Buying your drinking water in 20 or 24 pack cases of disposable plastic bottles is convenient, but these plastic bottles end up littering our streets, then our rivers, and ultimately the sea, and cost a relatively high amount of energy to supply and turn round. So, in order to reduce your carbon footprint and, at the same time, stop our marine life from chomping on plastic and throttling itself, why not invest in a water filter (at home and in the office) and buy a robust reusable water bottle?

Also, when you delve into the origins of some of these bottled water products, they may not come from that pristine mountain spring that you have conjured up in your mind, but may have a similar origin to your tap water, albeit possibly more finely filtered.

4. Pass, on Plastic Bags

There's been lot of noise about the evils of plastic bags recently, so what's all the fuss about, they're so handy to have aren't they? Well, not so much. Perhaps we should look at a few facts concerning our usage:

Estimates suggest that no more than approximately 3% of the 160,000 plastic bags processed, worldwide, are recycled. This leaves an awful lot of them going to waste and a helluva proportion of these blowin' in the wind and ending up on our countryside, rivers and oceans.
Plastic doesn't readily break down or degrade (at least not in this millennium) and only falls apart into smaller and smaller portions, eventually entering the food chain.
Wildlife, and in particular marine wildlife, dies a horrible death when plastic bags are mistaken for food.
The World Counts in 2014 reported that, following the demise of a beached sperm whale, there was "more than 22 kilos of plastic found in its stomach".
Texans read and weep, but the 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' comprises a predominantly plastic floating mass, reportedly twice the size of Texas.

The problem with plastic is clearly obvious and immense, but the solution lies with you and me.

Take your own 'eco-friendly' bags to the supermarket and other stores, and lobby your supermarket chains to stop providing plastic bags and start providing 'eco-friendly' re-usable bags.
Shop at businesses that actively reduce or eliminate the use of plastic bags and that minimise plastic wrapping and packaging.
Keep a supply of 'eco-friendly' shopping bags in the boot of your car (trunk for our US allies) and remember to take them with you when you go shopping.
Talk to your kids about the plastic bag problem, or, better still, ask them to Google "animals eat plastic" and "plastic doesn't degrade" and they'll end up knowing more about the problem than you do.
Try cutting back on, or even eliminating, your use of plastic all together.

You'll find more on this subject at the following links:

http://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/interesting-facts-about-plastic-bags http://www.loveyourearth.org/Plastic_Bag_Facts.html

https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-facts-solutions-2509675059.html

5. Have a Light Bulb Moment

The original electric light globe was doubtless a life changer and a great boon to society. These days, however, 'modern' incandescent bulbs are inefficient at producing light (with approximately 90% of their energy lost in generating heat) and are being replaced, worldwide, by LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs. Although, initially a little more expensive to purchase, LEDs are overall much more efficient and cheaper in the end than the old traditional incandescent wire filament globe. Here are a few interesting facts:

LEDs last more than 25 times longer than traditional light bulbs.
LEDs contain no mercury, and have a much smaller environmental impact than incandescent bulbs.
LEDs use energy far more efficiently with little wasted heat.

6. Give Less Head (?*?)

'Low-flow' shower heads save water (and money, of course) and are readily available in most western countries. Ask your local authority (and/or plumber) what other steps you can take in your region to save water. This helps to save our environment by reducing the energy required to process and deliver water to homes and places of work, and therefore assists in reducing pollution and conserves fuel resources.

7. Insulate

Ensure that your roof space and walls have adequate insulation and use weather 'snakes' at the base of your doors, have your builder (or handyman husband as a last resort, ladies) caulk all gaps in doors and windows. Also, keep doors and windows closed in rooms you are not using.

This will reduce both your heating and cooling bills. After all, do you want to heat or cool just your home (or office) or do you wish to attempt to heat/cool the whole city?

Check the temperature of your hot water heater and turn it down a tad. You can usually get some guidance here from your local authority on what may be optimum temperatures at which to run your water heater. In addition, ensure that your pipes are appropriately lagged (ie insulation wrapped).

Also, if you are in the business of building, renovating, or designing buildings (Claire L Cardwell and Lada 🏡 Prkic take note) encourage your clients to do likewise by adopting insulation best practice.

8. Drive Less and Drive Smart

Using our cars less (and our feet and bicycles more) is an obvious way to save petroleum and/or diesel fuel, but only if we live and work in areas served well by public transport. One other possible thing to consider is car pooling with colleagues, but this is difficult in large cities where most of us may work in the central business district and live in direct locations in peripheral suburbs.

When we must drive, however, let's ensure that our vehicles are running efficiently and have them serviced regularly, including oil changes. Also, keeping our vehicle tyres at the proper pressures will not only increase tyre life but will reduce fuel consumption. Other considerations for saving fuel when driving are to accelerate gently, keep a safe distance from the vehicle in front (a two second gap), and look ahead in order to avoid braking sharply.

When choosing a new vehicle to purchase, and an electric or hybrid vehicle is not within your budget, ensure that fuel efficiency is high on your list of requisites.

Drive Less, Drive Smart
Go Green, and
Hop to it!

9. Be a Picky Printer

We all print out hard copies of documents that we don't really need and which often end up in the recycling bin for shredding. So why not use a second screen and keep multiple work windows open, in order to permit reference to more than one document when working on another? Also, why not maximise electronic filing and minimise hard copy filing?

When you must print, do you really need to use colour (with the associated higher cost of colour cartridge replacement) or can you live with black and white?

Why not set your printer default to double sided and save some trees?

10. Root More (?*?)

Plant a tree or two and help get rid of some carbon dioxide while putting oxygen back into the atmosphere, creating shade and encouraging sun intolerant plants to grow in the micro atmosphere you've created.

Be careful, however, which trees you choose, and how close to building footings you plant deep-rooted or spreading root species, as shrink-swell problems can be aggravated by trees taking up moisture in some soils, leading to cracking of footings and walls from differential movement. Root jacking can also be a problem to footings and concrete paved surfaces. So take advice on tree and shrub selection and set-back distances from your local authority and your local soils or geotechnical engineer in conjunction with an experienced botanist or nursery.

11. Round and Round She Goes

Recycle paper, plastic, newspaper, cardboard, aluminium cans, glass, and if there isn't a recycling programme at your workplace, school, or in your community, ask about starting one.

12. Lobby a Pollie

Lobby your politicians, at local, state and federal level, to get on board with and encourage investment in alternative power sources, such as solar, wind, hydropower, bio-fuels, geothermal. You may perhaps do this most effectively by joining a local or national alternative fuel movement (Google 'solar', 'renewable energy' or 'alternative fuels').

13. Salute to the Sun

This brings us to lucky last, number thirteen (unlucky for some, but only if you play bingo).

Solar panels and inverters are becoming cheaper and more efficient worldwide. Do your research on line and explore the costs of installation and the long term benefits to your pocket of installing solar cells on your roof. Make sure that whatever system you choose to have installed is compatible with battery storage, which may not currently be cost effective, but which will undoubtedly be a serious consideration in the years to come.

Don't take a punt,
On what others want,
Make your own choice,
And use your own voice,
Change isn't hard,
And won't leave you scarred,
There's no need to fight,
Just do what is right.
REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE !!!

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

=======+++=======+++=======

When I am not researching the weird or the wonderful, the comical or the cultured, the sinful or the serious, I chase my creative side, the results of which can be seen as selected photographs of my travels on my website at:

http://ken-boddie.squarespace.com

The author of the above, Ken Boddie, besides being a sometime poet and occasional writer, is an enthusiastic photographer, rarely leisure-travelling without his Canon, and loves to interact with other like-minded people with diverse interests.

Ken's three day work week (part time commitment) as a consulting engineer allows him to follow his photography interests, and to plan trips to an ever increasing list of countries and places of scenic beauty and cultural diversity.

#RECYCLE #Mother Earth #Vikings #Google #Round

in Café beBee and in 2 more groups

Comments

Ken Boddie

2 years ago #33

Wish I could say the same here, @Lada 🏡 Prkic So many of my countrymen and women and really fed up with our present government's inactivity and . With a federal election coming soon, it looks like it's time for a change of roley poley fat cats at the top of the electoral food chain.

Lada 🏡 Prkic

2 years ago #32

A good old one, Ken! In Croatia, things are going forward, although slowly.

Ken Boddie

2 years ago #31

Ken Boddie

2 years ago #30

Javier Cámara-Rica 🐝🇪🇸

2 years ago #29

By the way @Ken Boddie , I don't know where you got that little bee from, but it's a very cool bee!

Javier Cámara-Rica 🐝🇪🇸

2 years ago #28

@Rafael García Romano what do you think of the "engineer" with the solar panel on his head? 🤣 He reminds me of some beBee users from Asia who are looking for whatever they can get at the cost of whatever they can get at the cost of what they can get.

Zacharias 🐝 Voulgaris

2 years ago #27

If you are into gadgets, I'd recommend the Remarkable 2 tablet (or any other tablet using e-ink technology). I rarely print anything anymore, while most of my book-reading I do it there (it works with both PDFs and EPUBs). I know it's probably a small contribution to helping mother Earth, but every little bit helps. Cheers

Joyce 🐝 Bowen Brand Ambassador @ beBee

2 years ago #26

Nicely done. Hey--did you know aborted fetal cells are in aquafina water now and all beer, too? It's a bit bigger than just us.

Ken Boddie

2 years ago #25

This is one of my larger posts from 3 years ago which suffered some unintentional information loss when being transferred from the old to the new beBee. What with transferring some 136,000 posts, I believe that beBee IT support did pretty well overall. Furthermore, when I noticed the data loss, the problem was fixed for me in a couple of days. Well done, @Javier 🐝 CR and your team! Congratulations 🥳

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #24

#29
Thanks for your support, Randy, especially when I'm talking 'rubbish'? 😊

Randall Burns

5 years ago #23

Great post with an important message Ken Boddie (Love the pictures), and YES! We can ALL do something to help. Well done sir!

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #22

#27
I still believe the best course, Lada, is to keep the conversation going and to encourage all those who are willing to listen, that we can all contribute to reducing this problem, by changing our own individual habits in line with the three R’s, and by lobbying our Politicians to commit to moving away from reliance on fissil fuels.

Lada 🏡 Prkic

5 years ago #21

#26
So far, my country doesn't use all its potential in renewables enough, which is to produce more than 40% based on renewable energy, especially solar and wind energy. For now, it's about 29%.

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #20

#25
There are many countries already seriously embracing renewable energy, Lada. You may find this link interesting: https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/11-countries-leading-the-charge-on-renewable-energy

Lada 🏡 Prkic

5 years ago #19

Thanks, Ken, for continuing spreading awareness. As an individual, I contribute by making most things you mentioned in your list. Because I live in a country where tap water is safe to drink, plastic water bottles issue is not on my contribution list. :) Since you've tagged me on an insulation issue, I can say that thermal protection of the building is crucial because of its high energy savings potential. In Croatia, most buildings have high heat losses. By improving thermal insulation, it is possible to reduce the total heat losses even up to 60%. That's why Croatian government adopted energy retrofit programmes. I am involved in the programme of energy renovation of existing old buildings at my university. I will repeat what I commented on Savvy's post " Our world needs us!" - We as individuals need to continue playing our part in combating global warming, but individuals cannot make a change without better government regulations on carbon emissions caused by fossil-fuel industries, deforestation and soil degradation due to agriculture.

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #18

#21
Thanks, Tim, for presenting a positively perfect point. 🤗

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #17

#20
..... and thanks for your poetic arrival. 🤗

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #16

..... and thanks for you poetic arrival. 🤗

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #15

#18
Thanks, Ian ..... Your kind words have indeed, Induced me to concede, That the three R's must be sold, And their virtues widely told.

Ian Weinberg

5 years ago #14

Insightful fair dinkum Ignoring this will sink'em Inspiration from the land down under Ignoring this will rip us asunder Thanks for a timely reminder Ken Boddie to care for our Aqulalung and all that sustains us and all those yet to follow.

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #13

#11
I'm glad you enjoyed this buzz, Ali. When we can only stir one sense (that of sight) when blogging, the addition of related images and some accompanying mirth or occasional belly laughter can, I suggest, assist in selling an ongoing need for change and for re-assessing our comfortable bad habits.

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #12

#10
Thanks, Gert, for boosting this message with rhyme, And help sell the three R's to all bees, with time. 🤗

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #11

#7
#8 Looking for volunteers, Pascal Derrien, to perform delicate bovine natural gas collection duties. Personal protective equipment supplied. Must have well trimmed finger nails.

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #10

#6
There can't be too many reminders on this subject, Bill, as change is always difficult to sell, and many of us languishing in our comfort zone of habitual obliviousness consider this is someone else's problem and not ours as individuals.

Zacharias 🐝 Voulgaris

5 years ago #9

#12
:-) The thing is that this phenomenon is quite common in many organizations, even in Greece. In fact, many people would catch a cold midsummer, because of this silly habit of some building owners to go wild on the AC...

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #8

#5
Glad you thawed out, Zacharias. I always thought that the objective of air conditioning was to turn an overly warm room into a comfortable one, and not to assist the building's owner to sell fur coats. 😂

Ali Anani

5 years ago #7

I enjoyed reading your buzz immensely Ken Boddie. More, I enjoyed so much the creative images. They speak to the reader. Small steps, may be, but they are affordable and meaningful to keep the environment healthy.

Gert Scholtz

5 years ago #6

Ken Boddie Good rhyme fails me As this is post so good Reduce, reuse, recycle It’s clearly understood Bard Boddie’s wise wit And well researched writ I will save and do what I can Ken Boddie: You're da’ man!

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #5

#4
I guess you were right in our previous discussion on this, Claire. Every little helps. But the more we do as individuals the better, since many will do absolutely nothing. 😢

Pascal Derrien

5 years ago #4

Some practical and easy advices to follow but what about the fundamental question of filtering cow farts ?

Zacharias 🐝 Voulgaris

5 years ago #3

I used to be an eskimo (during the time I was working in Atlanta), and I concur about the temperature settings. Of course, each person has different tastes in what is comfortable temperature but the human body is incredible at adapting. Now that I no longer have to work at a place that's so cold because of the AC that you need blankets, jackets, or even air heaters, I am no longer an eskimo (but I still agree on the temperature settings!).

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #2

#1
Just had another thought, Brian ..... If you really must live in a yurt, Close to camels and yaks, let’s be curt, All that natural gas, Coming out of their ass, Should keep you awake and alert. 🤣😂🤣

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #1

#1
In that case, Brian, stuff the thermostat and invest in yak skins.

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10 months ago · 4 min. reading time

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