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Old 10th December 2019, 16:31   #61
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Re: Are you concerned about your carbon footprint? What are you doing about it?

Very relevant topic. I build these sort of models for a living, and it's very bad currently. Anyone who is a denier / non-believer - well there are still people who believe that the earth is flat, some races / sexes are superior to others. Takes all kinds.

A few data points may help here:
1. End of life and recycling cost of cars is high, as is their manufacturing. In countries with high mileage, 30% of the total carbon cost of a car is manufacturing and pre-ownership delivery. In low-mileage India, it is likely over 50%. So all of you who drive old cars, like a Thar, rest easy. Occasional jaunts are far less harmful than buying a brand new BMW every 3 years. Buying used also helps. My newest car is an 11 year old Swift Diesel which gives great kmpl.
2. Lovely to see the ostrich attitude of some esteemed members who are proud to not pay attention. Oh well, neither does POTUS.
3. Encouraging to see that a lot of us either pay attention, try and understand the details, or realise that we should start now.
4. Business / first class flights really increase carbon loading (someone mentioned they take a few a year). Currently working with some aerospace cos to see how this can be turned around, or at least mitigated.
5. Environmental cost of cotton / rice / steel / cement is insane. You could not drive a car your entire life and it's still the smallest and possibly most trivial step you can take.
6. CO2 has increased 40% since the pre-industrial age. Now a standard CO2 meter begins at 400 ppm which is the new normal. It was 270 or so in 1750. Methane has increased nearly 170% in the same time frame. Whoever is saying we don't have enough CO2 possibly doesn't understand how large-scale environmental models work.
7. Going vegetarian in India is not a big game-changer. Even non-vegetarians in India eat 1-2 pieces of chicken once in a while. Hardcore meat eaters are rare. Beef and cattle farming is a big source of GHGs worldwide, but Indians have possibly the world's lowest per-capita consumption of beef, and there is no beef farming. Poultry is relatively low on the emissions scale (70% of poultry emissions are from electricity for the farm).
8. Gotta love people who say 'it doesn't affect me'. When Bombay / Kerala / Chennai floods, doesn't affect you, I guess. Or when we pay increased taxes and surcharges as natural disaster relief, you're safe. Or when stock markets sway because of unnatural rainfall and depleted water levels for our agrarian economy, it's all cool.
8. Bashing the few public figures, teenage or elected representative, who actually care and are trying to make a difference (and have nothing to gain) is cheap and low. I thought as a forum, we were better than this.
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Old 10th December 2019, 20:21   #62
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Re: Are you concerned about your carbon footprint? What are you doing about it?

Quote:
Originally Posted by dark.knight View Post
Consider the Solar storm of 1859, an event that hit and damaged all power lines in America and destroyed them (basically a solar storm is energy/magnetic waves combining with the Earth's magnetosphere to work like a massive EMP cannon, blowing any and every radio wave, electrical device, power lines, grids etc).

What would happen if the solar storm took place today? Zombie Apocalypse no less, a world without power, internet, banks, transport, food etc.
Do you mean to say that a solar storm could kill us all? Or something like a huge meteor strike? Oh yes, absolutely possible. All am saying is that natural selection is not going to kill us.
Quote:
Dinosaurs, according to most zoologists and archeologists, had their time on earth for roughly 2 million years, 6.5 million years ago. Evolution of all of mankind put together - homosapiens go back hardly 2 lakh years, and neanderthals before them 5 lakh years (most religions are hardly 20k years old and scripts appeared about 25k years ago). We are infants, and we have no control on earth, the only thing we are good at is arrogance.
We aren't infants. We didn't start from scratch. We have cognitive ability to understand evolution, dinos did not. And evolution is a slow process. If climate change can make us extinct, it is only via natural selection, and we have been beating natural selection since centuries. All the medicines that we make, vaccines that we create, the weapons that we use, the food that we produce, everything mankind has achieved has been beating natural selections for years.

Well, socialism fights natural selection every single day.

Last edited by civic-sense : 10th December 2019 at 20:23.
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Old 10th December 2019, 20:39   #63
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Re: Are you concerned about your carbon footprint? What are you doing about it?

I reduced diesel consumption by 75%.
My apartment would buy 20 tankers of water a day. Each of 5000 liters by tractor trailer.

Water bill plus motor electricity was divided by 50 equally.

50 flats means some people who live permanently at home used more than those who left the house at 8am and returned 8 pm.

We installed individual water meters for each flat. It costed us 7k per flat. Water meter cost was 1200 (Itron make) and piping about 4-5k per flat.

All flats had 3-4 water entry points thanks to the original builder.

It took some planning but we installed 50 meters in the apartment.

Now our daily purchase is 5-6 tankers per day.

Note that I am not a dealer of pipes or meters. We evaluated many meters before settling on this brand. It has a very low least count. Leaky cisterns and taps are now billed to the owner.

Some meters didn’t record anything for low drip type flows.

Nobody is subsidizing heavy water users anymore. People are more careful.

We do have a common meter for general common area cleaning. That is not much.

Last edited by hangover : 10th December 2019 at 20:43.
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Old 10th December 2019, 21:01   #64
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Originally Posted by v1p3r View Post
7. Going vegetarian in India is not a big game-changer. Even non-vegetarians in India eat 1-2 pieces of chicken once in a while. Hardcore meat eaters are rare. Beef and cattle farming is a big source of GHGs worldwide, but Indians have possibly the world's lowest per-capita consumption of beef, and there is no beef farming. Poultry is relatively low on the emissions scale (70% of poultry emissions are from electricity for the farm).
Actually India has the largest cattle population in the world and we are also the second largest beef exporter after Brazil as well as the largest producer of milk in the world.
I would like to hear your views on how one can reduce the methane contribution from cattle. As a prospective dairy farmer, the best solution I have seen is using a methane digester/ biogas plant. I am also thinking of collecting the waste gas which is CO2 and then utilizing it in an indoor grow room and thus ending up making my endeavour in dairy farming as least responsible for GHG as I can. The only thing that would still be left is that cows also belch a lot of methane. The solution for that is that they should get as much diet in the form of green fodder instead of grains and concentrates as is the norm because of deficiency of quality green fodder. Cows that are fed a major diet of fodder or allowed to do natural grazing don't have the issues of indigestion and hence no issues of belching.

2) Even though all our electric supply comes from hydel power, I still want to go for solar power because even Hydel Power has huge carbon cost whether it is because of how destructive the process of building dams is on the ecosystem or the emission of GHGs due to the rotting vegetation in the dams. Although my major motivation for going solar is independence from government managed grid even though it makes less sense due to our tariffs being one of the lowest in the country.

3) We are going for delivering raw milk in glass bottles and within 2-3 hours of milking. Milk packets are the biggest source of single-use plastic in India. So we have decided to stay away from them. We will have to look at ways to recycle our water as going with glass bottles does increase the water consumption and a little bit of carbon cost. The carbon cost (electricity for heating water) will be negated by going for a solar water heater.
Selling raw milk because at least in North India, almost everyone boils milk at home, even if it is pasteurized milk because they want to seperate the cream. So it doesn't make sense to waste energy and increase carbon cost by pasteurizing. Also since we deliver within 2-3 hours and the cold chain is maintained in between, the milk does not get rancid, another reason why pasteurization is done by big companies. Also thanks to our model of direct sales, the carbom cost of 1L milk will be substantially less because it doesn't involve first collecting milk, then processing at a central facility and then redistribution of the same milk. This model has seen great success and helped the farmers a lot but is very wasteful because of so much diesel needed to complete the process.

4) My delivery vehicle is going to be electric. The price of a small 3-wheeler delivery vehicle is nearly the same. In fact e-rikshaws are somewhat cheaper that corresponding single cyclinder diesel alternatives. They will be charged using the solar panels, so no running cost as well apart from batteries.
Currently, doing research to decide whether to go for lead-acid batteries or Li-ion. Lead-acid batteries are easily recyclable but work is being done to reuse most of the components of a Li-ion battery as well. Carbon cost of Li-ion seems higher at the moment compared to regular lead-acid batteries due to them being less recyclable.
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Old 10th December 2019, 21:11   #65
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Re: Are you concerned about your carbon footprint? What are you doing about it?

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Originally Posted by rdst_1 View Post
Actually India has the largest cattle population in the world and we are also the second largest beef exporter after Brazil as well as the largest producer of milk in the world.
I would like to hear your views on how one can reduce the methane contribution from cattle. As a prospective dairy farmer, the best solution I have seen is using a methane digester/ biogas plant. I am also thinking of collecting the waste gas which is CO2 and then utilizing it in an indoor grow room and thus ending up making my endeavour in dairy farming as least responsible for GHG as I can. The only thing that would still be left is that cows also belch a lot of methane. The solution for that is that they should get as much diet in the form of green fodder instead of grains and concentrates as is the norm because of deficiency of quality green fodder. Cows that are fed a major diet of fodder or allowed to do natural grazing don't have the issues of indigestion and hence no issues of belching.
Agreed, we are the largest exporter, but most of that is milch cattle past its useful commercial life or buffaloes - rarely if at all do we actually breed cattle for meat. And notice I said per capita domestic consumption, because the talk is on reducing our own footprint.

I last remember the greener the food, the less the methane. The biggest leap was using seaweed, which brought down methane by 50%. Bill Gates talks about this a lot. However, I'm not an expert on the subject.

Kudos to your planning and strategies for your endeavour!
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Old 11th December 2019, 01:36   #66
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Re: Are you concerned about your carbon footprint? What are you doing about it?

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Agreed, we are the largest exporter, but
Actually native Indian breeds emit the lowest amount of methane.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List..._cattle_breeds

The flat back hybrids like jersey and Holstein consume 10 times the fodder and emit 10 times the methane. Especially the ones bred for beef.

One exception on cow methane output is the Brahmin cow. Which is a pure US breed from about 300 native Indian cattle exported there in the 1800’s.

Wikipedia says 300 but i remember reading someplace it was more like 5000 cattle exported for this purpose.

Basically the cattle with a hump on their back are environmentally friendly.

Speaking of methane it’s far more dangerous than co2. It persists for longer.
Leakage is 2-3% from oil field to your tank.
You may read more here:
https://www.edf.org/climate-impacts-methane-emissions

Last edited by hangover : 11th December 2019 at 01:43.
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Old 11th December 2019, 11:36   #67
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Re: Are you concerned about your carbon footprint? What are you doing about it?

A topic close to my heart, although petrolhead enthusiasts might sneer at me!
Measures I take to keep my footprint in check (as much as I can, at the expense of funny looks/comments from family members/friends):
  • Use public transport or car-pool (not driven by me!) for daily office commutes, almost 90% of time. Car is only for the times when the entire family goes out on short/long trips. For shorter distances that I need to go alone and can't rely on/use public transport, use my bike. As a result my usual monthly fuel expense is roughly Rs.3500/-, collectively for 2cars + 1bike - except when I go on long drives with family
  • Reuse the empty green wine bottles for carrying drinking water around, effectively never purchase bottled water (again, at the expense of hotel waiters curiously coming and checking the contents to ensure I'm not carrying alcohol while dining in). Average of 3 such wine bottles purchased in a year, and aware that glass is more resource-intensive than plastic to produce, hence reuse it as much as possible
  • Always carry cloth/jute bags for supermarket purchase jaunts, insist on NO one-time use & throw plastic straws/spoons/plates for juices/ice-cream/tender coconut to all family members
  • Strict vigil on switching off fans/lights etc. after use, both at home and office. Colleagues who leave multiple lights/TV/projector ON after concluding meetings -- a biggest pet peeve
  • Water heater used only during the coldest 1 or 2 months in a year, similarly A/C used only during the hottest 1 or 2 months in a year -- at home
  • Carry my own utensils to hotels when ordering food, no plastic "dabbas" to litter. To enable this, almost never rely on food delivery app services (incidentally tweeted the 3 major food delivery co's about their plastic usage menace, and got assurance from them they're working on green alternatives )
  • Strict vegetarian, aiming to be a vegan
  • Air-travel 2-3 times in a year, when possible use train

Fully acknowledging what I'm doing and probably what we as a society is collectively doing is a far cry from what's the need of the hour, yet my 2 cents!

Last edited by KrisTvpm : 11th December 2019 at 11:57.
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Old 28th January 2023, 11:59   #68
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Global Carbon Markets

Was trying to understand the carbon markets. I understand the carbon market are two types: Compliance or regulated market (~95% share) and Voluntary market. I am also reading that the voluntary carbon emission control market, though small, is growing very rapidly.

Related to the above, wanted to ask if anyone can explain that why in these uncertain times, with cost cutting pressures, when one would assume companies’ voluntary energy transition actions would start to slow, why should they be growing? What are the primal motivations behind this?

PS: My assumption is that companies will invest in ESG actions only when forced to, not on their own. Hence this question of mine (I realize in all probability, its an ignorant one)
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