Heat tape and other cold weather band-aids

It's winter here in the northern hemisphere.  Climate change and global weirding has had our weather fluctuating between bitter cold and unseasonably warm.  During the really cold spells, energy consumption spikes as homes and businesses find their furnaces, boilers, and heaters running longer and more often in order to maintain comfortable living temperatures.  That is completely understandable.  While it is best to keep temperatures a bit low, and to add a clothing layer, realistically we all need to heat our homes.

What I would like to address is heat tape and other methods of preventing freezing.  In most cases, creating heat to prevent freezing with these products merely masks a problem that needs to be solved, and is not itself the solution.  The energy that is wasted is substantial and the solution is to correct the problem as opposed to reacting to it by using a product that constantly consumes energy.

Heat tape is used to prevent pipes from freezing, keeping ice from expanding and rupturing the pipe causing a damaging leak.  What is really needed is to correct the problem which puts the pipe in danger of freezing.  Proper location and insulation of water pipes and the walls they run through, should eliminate the need to use heat tape.  Most people do not use heat tape, so those that do should consider what they can do to fix their potential freezing situation.  There is obviously something wrong, but heat tape is not the answer.

Another use of a heat tape product is in order to prevent ice dams on the eaves of a roof.  These heat tapes zig-zag along the edge of the roof constantly heating the area in hopes of melting any snow and ice that may accumulate there causing ice dams.  Ice dams can be damaging and dangerous, but proper roof construction and insulation can eliminate the need for this wasteful energy waste.

As if heat tape wasn't bad enough, there is worse out there.  While radiant heat is fine indoors, there is an entire industry creating products to melt snow from on sidewalks and even driveways.  Pipes cast in to the concrete circulate heated water through the concrete heating it so snow and ice cannot accumulate.  This takes huge amounts of energy.  A shovel and perhaps an occasional bit of sand was adequate for centuries, there is no need for such a wasteful product.

So, please consider wasteful energy uses that relate to cold, snow, and ice.  There are alternatives and the planet needs us to use them.

I don't like freebies

I don't like freebies. Most people love freebies. Something for nothing can be nearly irresistible. One thinks, “I may need something like this, so why not take it.” Well, for one reason, because you don't need it now, and by accepting it you validate the practice of giving our wasteful freebies.

Companies use freebies to promote themselves and their products. It is understandable that they want to promote and advertise, but excessive freebies is a waste. When notepads, pens, and pencils are given out by companies to the extent far beyond any need, that is wasteful enough, but it gets worse. Permanent items like customized company coffee mugs are really bad. Assuming you even like drinking your coffee while advertizing a product you use in your business or personal life, a ceramic coffee mug should last for many years. So if you receive a freebie mug you shouldn't need another for a long time, but they keep coming.

There are many categories of freebies. Many freebies are virtually forced on you. An example is that of packaged condiments and white rice that is invariably included with Chinese food takeout around here and presumably everywhere else. When my order includes a large pork fried rice, why must I expect 2 containers of white rice as well, even when I specifically request “no white rice”? And 5 or 6 packets of soy sauce and duck sauce I don't use. These should be items free by request, not automatically included.

At this time of year, my wife and I choose which, of the many, freebie wall calendars we will use for the year. The unrequested rest go to waste.

The same goes for free add-ons. One of my least favorites is the “collectible vase” sold with flower bouquets. Really? We have way more collectible vases than we will ever use, but bouquets are often sold in them and I have to wonder how many of these permanent products are used during the life, or I guess more appropriately death, of a flower bouquet and then thrown out?

The list goes on and on: refrigerator magnets, key fobs, stickers, thumb drives (usually small capacity), drink coozies, “baseball caps”, etc.

Another one of my least favorites is the freebie given as a “reward” for purchasing or donating. “Renew your subscription/membership today and get a free” whatever. These things CAN be useful, BUT, if you already have more shopping totes (you should by now) than you need, or already have an umbrella, or whatever, accepting another one is wasteful.

So, you get the idea. Please decline any freebies that you don't really need. Our planet needs us to minimize waste.

A New Years Day look to the future

This blog post marks the end of my holiday break. I have been debating the theme for my first blog of the new year. I have purposely minimized the end-of-year fiscal cliff debate and deal from consideration. There are plenty of commentators on that subject, though I do have some opinions on the bigger picture and the implications that arise from that issue.

What I would like to start out with is an issue that I have touched on before and will continue to in the future. That issue is the impact of humanity on our planet, and how we can change our culture in order to minimize the negative results of that impact.

A long time ago, I remember hearing an environmental concept: “an environmental fight to save something can never be truly won, for threats to its existence will keep coming back; but once the fight is lost, in many cases it is lost forever.” I believe this is generally true. Sure, there are conditions where the loss is somewhat superficial and could be restored to a large extent by the abandonment of the threat and a plan to reclaim the lost condition. But, for the most part, environmental losses are not prone to being reversed, and when reversals are desired and attempted, they are usually very expensive.

2012 being a presidential election year in the United States, we endured a year of debate over policies covering many aspects of national policy. Many of those policy arguments were aimed at what was perceived to be the best interest of people. Sometimes short term best interests, sometimes long term best interest. I question the preeminence of the best interest of people in many policy debates. The reason for that is that I believe the tendency for self interest of the individual or group to trump the wider best interest of all of the people degrades the value of the argument.

There was much interest in Paul Ryan's obsession with Ayn Rand and her belief that if everyone acted in their own self interests the interests of the whole would be best realized. While that obsession was derided and even disavowed by Mr. Ryan himself, the premise was never analyzed to my satisfaction beyond the basic Randian versus Keynesian argument of government taxing and spending.

I would like to look at the greater picture. How does our system function, and how would it best function, to produce the largest long term benefit to humanity. In this context I would like to posit the argument that we should make policy decisions based on the impacts of those decisions on our planet, because I believe that would result in the best outcome for the people. We, as humanity exists today, have become an overwhelming over-consumer of the finite resources of our planet. Continued policy decisions based on the benefits those decisions have for people to enjoy, almost certainly means that the planetary resources will continue to be depleted. People will chose to ignore that fact and applaud that their lives have been enriched by the policy. This is how it generally works today, and that needs to change, because that is a loss for the environment and those losses are generally permanent.

What would be a better paradigm is if decisions were made in the best interest of the planet. Protecting what is left of our environment benefits everyone. We all (meaning all of humanity; past, present, and future) live better lives with abundant clean air and water, where our food supply and food production is safe and sustainable, and where our shelter is also clean, safe, and sustainable. Self interest does not promote these results. Powerful individuals and groups acting in their own self interest consume resources at an unsustainable level, whether they are aware of it or not. Failing to consider the long term results of our self interest will impact future generations in an immensely negative way. How many of us, when we consider our own consumptive decisions, include contemplation of whether or not our great great grandchildren will be able to share that type of consumption, and if not, consider that narcissistic consumption undesirable.

Economic growth is something that is generally believed to be necessary. I have wondered for years what economists think, if they do at all, about the long term future of our planet within the context of economic growth. Do they really think that Gross Domestic Product can grow infinitely?
GDP consists of the value of all goods and services produced. Well those goods and services are also consumed. So we might consider producing a metric for Gross Domestic Consumption. That is one way that might enlighten the consideration of the sustainability of our consumption. Production sounds like such a positive thing. We need to consider consumption, and in doing so include the fact that unsustainable consumption is a decidedly negative thing. As it is now the United States is consuming more than we produce, so that we are depleting the world's resources not just our own. And the larger threat is that we are exporting our consumeristic culture to countries that have the potential to consume at a level that could dwarf our own.

So, we must think of the future. We must cultivate a vision of that future where sustainability is the primary goal, supplanting growth as the stabilizer of the economy. We must see that the good of the planet is the good of the people.