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Nah. I actually read that part twice because I was so mystified by the absurdity of it. Light bulbs are not obvious. CFLs are efficient but produced with toxic
by totalZero 9y ago
Nah. I actually read that part twice because I was so mystified by the absurdity of it.
Light bulbs are not obvious. CFLs are efficient but produced with toxic mercury; LED bulbs are efficient but produced with plastics, semiconductors, and sometimes phosphor; and incandescent bulbs are inefficient but simpler to make, with fewer harmful materials.
If the choice is between a CFL and an incandescent, it's unclear whether the mercury in the CFL is justified by its higher efficiency. LEDs are the most efficient of the three by far, but production and disposal may ultimately be worse for the environment than is the case with incandescents.
I fail to see how any backpack can be a "green" choice. I have an Ortlieb waterproof bag made almost entirely out of synthetic materials. It has lasted more than 10 years. I could have bought one wax-impregnated hemp canvas bag per year instead. However, this bag has through-hiked the Appalachian Trail on a friend's back, ridden through several countries atop my motorcycle, and made its way through many other outdoor situations that would have proven too trying for a "green" bag. Ultimately those outdoor experiences have helped to solidify multiple people's appreciation for nature, probably resulting in a greater net contribution to conservation than a bag made by some hippie somewhere.
For batteries, you would have to consider lifespan, production, disposal, energy density, power density, propensity to leak, etc.
See where I'm coming from? For the reasons I mentioned above, it seems to me that they just took a subjective stance on largely arbitrary shopping choices. Note that they don't go into depth about the structure of their experiments, the isolation of variables (eg, maybe men are more frugal and "green" choices cost more, so how do we control for that) nor about the math behind their analysis, which tells me that they either (A) had some kind of length limit for their publication, or (B) didn't feel those details were flattering.
- tzs 9y agoI think you may be overlooking that in general when a consumer is considering whether or not to go for the "green" product, that consumer is probably not considering things like battery power density, or whether or not the mercury in a CFL is worse for the environment than the energy savings benefit the environment. Most consumers decide if a product is green or not based on whether or not it is marketed as such, plus some common sense. Whether or not that actually works for identifying the greener product is not really relevant to the research in the article. All that matters is that test subjects (presumably average consumers) believe that the choice presented as greener was greener. > Note that they don't go into depth about the structure of their experiments, the isolation of variables (eg, maybe men are more frugal and "green" choices cost more, so how do we control for that) nor about the math behind their analysis, which tells me that they either (A) had some kind of length limit for their publication, or (B) didn't feel those details were flattering. Or maybe that is in the peer reviewed journal article that the research was published in? The submitted article is in a popular science magazine for the general public, where such details are in general omitted. The journal article is not in a free journal, but here's a copy Googling turned up: https://huntsman.usu.edu/directory/documents/BroughEtAl_JCR2016_FINAL_-_Oxford_Press.pdf https://huntsman.usu.edu/directory/documents/BroughEtAl_JCR2...
- totalZero 9y agoI don't think it's so clear that most people are ignorant about what they are buying. I hope we can agree that at least some men are not. In today's world, people are commonly talking about dangerous substances in common products, so I would be surprised if I'm the only one who pays attention. BPA, styrofoam, mercury, artificial preservatives, GMOs, bovine hormones...there are many successful mass market products that are marketed as being free of these. I also think a lot of what the studies measure, if they measure anything at all, is virtue signaling. A countertheory might be that virtue signaling is a feminine behavior, and that when a man feels emasculated he tends to reject feminine behaviors like buying "green" backpacks (whatever those are). This is the second time you are insinuating that I either didn't read, or didn't understand, the literature. Not only did I read the article, I also read both versions of the paper and some or all of several of their cited papers. The link you just posted was available in a different comment, and I have access to severak journals through an institutional license. I would appreciate if you would stop making ad hominem responses. If you have disagree with something I said, tell or show me what and why. Don't assert that I can't read, or that I'm reading the wrong thing. Such assertions are logically useless and they run counter to HN's guidelines (see footer). If I'm wrong, show me where in the text of the paper you just linked. And if not, accept it: they aren't rigorous in explaining their experiments and their methods for isolating variables.