13
votes
What form of electrical lighting has the smallest energy-footprint?
i signed up just so i could make this comment. THelper♦ provided a good link to a DOE report on this topic, which i was researching because my roommate is skeptical about the advantages of efficient ...
- 231
9
votes
Accepted
What is the share of global human CO2 emission of cargo transport by ship?
From the first search I tried the first result says:
According to the Second IMO GHG Study 2009, which is the most comprehensive and authoritative assessment of the level of GHG emitted by ships, ...
- 3,755
7
votes
Accepted
Where can I find conversion factors for calculating Ecological Footprints?
The ecological footprint method does not directly convert consumed resources into global hectares, at least not via a single conversion factor.
Instead first the amount of required land/sea area in ...
- 14k
7
votes
Does responsible living leave more space to unresponsible living?
On the positive side economically you are expanding the market for sustainable products, which will help lower their price and make them more likely to be developed.
Another reason to make the effort ...
- 89
7
votes
Accepted
What is more sustainable, using a mechanical pencil or a pen?
It is hard to say because there is such a wide variation in ink formulations. Also, no company is going to tell you what is in their ink, as they will consider that a trade secret. That being said, ...
- 862
7
votes
What should I do with coal that I have been given?
Well, if you are really into it and quite handy, you could turn it into activated charcoal, and then add it to your soil!
Grind it into small bits, heat it anaerobically, then introduce high-pressure ...
- 190
6
votes
Lowest impact transatlantic crossing
Unfortunately--and I realize this is not very helpful--the best choice in terms of carbon footprint is almost certainly not to go. It's a good point that freighters are likely to be much more ...
- 61
6
votes
Accepted
Is canned fish more sustainable than fresh?
A study of canned mackerel and herring shows that the production of the aluminium can is responsible for most of the products carbon footprint (Buchspies et al. 2011). Impacts associated to transport ...
- 1,679
5
votes
How does footprint per dollar vs footprint per kilo compare for different methods of raising livestock?
I have an incomplete answer, but at least this is something to get the conversation started. At the bottom of your comments, you restate the question as "is organic any better because it costs more, ...
5
votes
Accepted
Why refrigerant cooler is more popular than evaporative cooler?
You have to also consider the climate where each type of cooler will be used and how each type of cooler works.
Refrigeration coolers transfer heat from inside a building to the outside. However, the ...
- 3,152
5
votes
How would one go about judging the sustainability of BitCoin or other cryptocurrency
Electricity is just a vector of energy: it is neither sustainable nor unsustainable per se. It depends how it is generated and how it is used.
No ponzi scheme is economically sustainable; and BitCoin ...
- 14.6k
5
votes
How can I use my own body as an energy source for greater environmental sustainability?
"Is there no significant consequence to how we use our bodies' own generated energy - from a resources sustainability point of view - or are there considerations one can put into use in terms of ...
- 273
5
votes
Accepted
What's the most environmentally friendly micro USB charging cable...if any?
Just buy a used USB cable. You can go to a computer recycler and they will have thousands.
- 383
4
votes
How can I use my own body as an energy source for greater environmental sustainability?
To answer this portion of your question:
"But what other ways can one use one's own body energy wisely, and in general what principles / themes can one explore to put it into practice?
"
You made ...
- 387
4
votes
Accepted
Does responsible living leave more space to unresponsible living?
Yes, to a certain extent. In economics this is called the 'rebound effect'.
The rebound effect is that the effectiveness of a new techology or measure is reduced because it is counter-acted by other ...
- 14k
4
votes
Does responsible living leave more space to unresponsible living?
The social signals you send might well be more important than the economic ones. Consumers are not rational. Look at what people spend money and time on - it does not make them happier. We know what ...
4
votes
Organic or packaging free food?
It's all a matter of how you do the counting! If you take into account how much diversity you destroy, non-organic food is worse than "too much" cardboard packaging. But how do you count this? Life ...
- 1,365
4
votes
Does human activity result in a net increase or decrease in co2?
Humans have released around 3 × 10^11 tons of carbon since the industrial revolution.
Agriculture, particularly modern industrial agriculture, releases massive amounts of carbon from the soil which ...
- 1,570
4
votes
Which global fertility rate would allow the human population to adjust to Earth's carrying capacity while maintaining an acceptable dependency ratio?
I think this is question is difficult to answer for several reasons:
There is no agreed upon carrying capacity of the Earth. The Global Footprint Network organization does a nice job estimating the ...
- 14k
4
votes
How does the S&P 500 ESG Index actually rank companies?
According to news reports Tesla was removed from the S&P 500 ESG Index because it no longer met minimum corporate governance requirements concerning: environmental, social and government standards....
- 3,152
3
votes
How does footprint per dollar vs footprint per kilo compare for different methods of raising livestock?
Since asking the question I have been thinking about this quite a bit, and I believe the fundamental difference boils down to the balance between preventing and repairing negative externalities:
...
- 11.2k
3
votes
Does responsible living leave more space to unresponsible living?
Your life is never worthless if you are setting a good example.
You can increase the worth of your efforts by spreading the word, by setting up programmes in your area to help people recycle etc, ...
- 405
3
votes
The best comparison of the relative ecological impact of personal choices?
In general these are non-trivial questions. I don't know of a single source of answers, other that possibly the SL branch of StackExchange .
Your best option, I think, is to learn how to reason about ...
- 7,009
3
votes
Accepted
Move to electronic documents
This is quite a broad question, but here are a few thoughts towards an answer. Some are more opinion-based than others.
Some people prefer to read some things on paper.
There was, for a long time, a ...
- 3,601
3
votes
Could global shift toward vegetarianism be a big step in solving food, water, health, ecological, and economical crises?
You must read The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Kieth:
http://www.bookdepository.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Lierre-Keith/9781604860801
It's an excellent book, well cited and rich in information, presenting a ...
- 39
3
votes
Accepted
Research conducted into local / regional currencies
I made a literature search and just present here all the significant results I could find with small excerpts from the abstracts:
Growing green money? Mapping community currencies for sustainable ...
- 238
3
votes
What form of electrical lighting has the smallest energy-footprint?
There is a lot of efficiency variation that depends on the quality of the LEDs. Cheap LEDs are no better than CFLs.
High quality LEDs from brands like Cree or Philips can be over double the ...
- 279
3
votes
Accepted
One single person's equal share in the world's resources
To expand on THelper's answer, and to provide an answer to just one part of the question:
How much land would each person have if everything were distributed evenly?
The back-up research to the ...
- 11.2k
2
votes
Should I use my wood fireplace?
Be careful with wood fireplaces — most emit A LOT of very bad particulate matter!
Burning wood in a common type of stove may result in more particulate matter than a diesel truck and may carry more ...
- 2,393
2
votes
How would one go about judging the sustainability of BitCoin or other cryptocurrency
You might use Life Cycle Assessment and existing data on global power mix, server requirements, and data infrastructure to model the life cycle of a bit coin. It's possible someone has already modeled ...
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