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Doubt that electronic gizmos have much to do with climate change unless you’re running kilowatts for Dogecoin mining or whatever. It’s heating and cooling, tra

Doubt that electronic gizmos have much to do with climate change unless you’re running kilowatts for Dogecoin mining or whatever. It’s heating and cooling, transport, and food. Maybe cement as well. If you buy a new conventional car, I have more to question you on climate change over.

MikeKusold 6y ago
Electronics require lots of metals that are sourced through mining. Mining is an essential but dirty business that often leaves pools of toxic heavy metal water behind. These pools are damned up, but inevitably leak out into the surrounding environment. It’s important that everyone Reduce, Reuse, Recycle properly in order to reduce our impact to the environment.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  You know what requires a lot more metals? Cars and houses and apartments and railroads and highways. When we’re trying to reduce our impact on the environment, we’ve got to not waste time on the small fry while ignoring the elephants. Problems should be attacked proportional to their impact. Don’t think that using metal straws but driving a new gasoline powered SUV is making an improvement.
  - coldpie 6y ago
    We are now at the point where everything matters. Industry is responsible for about 21% of GHG emissions globally (more than transportation!)[1]. Reducing that by using simpler technologies is a good thing to look into. Do you really need to replace your perfectly functional doorbell with a big pile of electronics? Probably not. Would not driving to work every day make a bigger contribution? Yes. Would not doing either be best? Yes. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
    - Robotbeat 6y ago
      Using an incandescent light bulb is not “better” than an LED bulb, even though the latter is a “pile of electronics” while an incandescent bulb is just a little tungsten wire. So I really don’t think this is a good rule to follow. Simpler technologies are often far less efficient and often have a far larger ecological impact. LED bulbs are comically more efficient than incandescent bulbs (by a factor of 5-10), which in turn are comically more efficient (by 10-50 times) than like a candle or oil lamp. “Simple” is actually a terrible heuristic for “low ecological impact.”
      - coldpie 6y ago
        Are you really making the claim that a simple doorbell switch has higher environmental impact than a Ring doorbell?
        Robotbeat 6y ago
        It actually might. If the Ring doorbell allows you to avoid opening your door just once or twice a week, the energy savings could exceed the environmental footprint. A Ring doorbell has a 22Wh battery that lasts about a month or two per charge. Having the door open for 10 seconds on a cold winter day can easily waste that much energy. About 10kW of heat loss for 10 seconds is 100kJ, higher than that 22Wh. Likewise, the embodied energy of that 22Wh battery is about 22MJ, and might dominate the embodied energy of the Ring camera. So if it saves you from opening the door 200-300 times in its lifetime, that might be enough to pay for its own embodied emissions. Plus not having to drive home to pick up a package, etc, etc. Plus think of other smart devices like smart thermostats that might be part of the whole Ring system. Or perhaps if the Ring device prevents destruction of part of your home from theft. I don’t even own a Ring doorbell, but I can see how it could actually help. Also, traditional doorbells aren’t that efficient. Especially if they have a little light. Ring could also replace a window to see who is there, which is a big source of heat leakage.
        harpastum 6y ago
        The argument is that the "simpleness" of the doorbell isn't a good heuristic for the amount of impact. According to wikipedia [1], the transformer on a standard doorbell can use 2-3 watts of power at all times. That's 1400-2100 watt hours per month — about one hundred times as much as a ring doorbell uses (Less than 20 Wh per month). The cost and impact of the Ring includes more manufacturing, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Ring ended up having a larger environmental cost, but it's not as clear cut as your incredulity makes it seem. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorbell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorbell
  - stonesweep 6y ago
    > You know what requires a lot more metals? I believe the argument is about the refining process and the chemical waste it creates, which is substantially higher when trying to extract 99.99% pure copper, zinc, gold, silver and other industrial elements which are converted into electronics. I'm a hobbyist fan of silver and know just the basics - refining for 99.99% pure silver looks like making crack to my eyes. :) Breaking Bad level chemicals. I'm to understand the act of creating and "washing" circuit boards also uses a large amount of caustic chemicals, as does the attempted recycling/recovery (to basically eat away the coatings to expose the reclaimable metals). Refining for purity has a high environmental cost to get it from ore -> 99.99% and to reuse/recycle it, I speculate much higher than iron ore (train tracks, etc.) require/use.
    - Robotbeat 6y ago
      Interesting claim, but to justify a few milligrams of metals is worse than literally tons of metal and cement is going to require a quantitative argument. 99.99%, even if you’re right, only gets us to 10kg equivalent if you start with 1 gram. (And keep in mind that these processes to make bulk materials themselves use alloying agents and specialty materials in cutting heads, etc, to fabricate them.)
      - stonesweep 6y ago
        It requires tonnes of ore processed to produce ounces of gold (I read roughly 13 tonnes on average, but it's highly dependent on the quality of the deposit and refinement difficulty), there are metrics and studies: https://www.businessinsider.com/tons-of-rock-for-an-ounce-of-gold-2013-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/tons-of-rock-for-an-ounce-of... Edit as I'm curious myself, this study shows it's about 150 tonnes of ore input for one ton of copper output (with other minerals reclaimed during the process): https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk2/1988/8808/880811.PDF https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk2/1988/8808/880811.PDF
        Robotbeat 6y ago
        Keep in mind your conventional car’s catalytic converter contains grams of platinum group metals, worth about $1000 or so now ($3000 for older, larger catalytic converters). Due in large part to the spike in rhodium prices.
  - midasuni 6y ago
    Local odeon stopped using plastic straws in their drinks. Paper ones were awful. Bought some metal straws also awful. Ended up taking 2x500ml bottles instead - far more plastic than was used before. Yeay?
    - sixstringtheory 6y ago
      Stop using straws... completely unnecessary. Use a reusable water bottle. One can be had for the price of those 2x500ml bottles.
      - midasuni 6y ago
        I don’t want water. Charge me for the plastic for the 6 straws a year I use, which is far far less than the plastic others “waste”. Put a price in the pollution and let the market sort it out
matkoniecz 6y ago
gizmos in total probably have some noticeable impact and unlike heating or food are mostly useless/not needed/harmful.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  It’s amazing how after 2020 work from home and school from home orders, people still insist “gizmos” are mostly useless.
  - matkoniecz 6y ago
    nonative speaker, by I thought that term "gizmos" excludes actually useful devices
dkersten 6y ago
Using them maybe not, but producing them and then shipping them across the globe? Also, as with all things, its not like one iPhone in isolation is a problem, but millions, year after year, that does add up. Maybe that's still not much compared to other industries, but in the context of the conversation here, its still something that an individual who might complain about climate change does have a little control over. I mean, if I complain, but then don't change MY behaviour, even if that change wouldn't by itself change anything, why should I expect companies to change theirs?
madpata 6y ago
I'd just say that both contribute and stop this whataboutism.

MikeKusold 6y ago

Electronics require lots of metals that are sourced through mining. Mining is an essential but dirty business that often leaves pools of toxic heavy metal water behind. These pools are damned up, but inevitably leak out into the surrounding environment. It’s important that everyone Reduce, Reuse, Recycle properly in order to reduce our impact to the environment.

Robotbeat 6y ago
You know what requires a lot more metals? Cars and houses and apartments and railroads and highways. When we’re trying to reduce our impact on the environment, we’ve got to not waste time on the small fry while ignoring the elephants. Problems should be attacked proportional to their impact. Don’t think that using metal straws but driving a new gasoline powered SUV is making an improvement.
- coldpie 6y ago
  We are now at the point where everything matters. Industry is responsible for about 21% of GHG emissions globally (more than transportation!)[1]. Reducing that by using simpler technologies is a good thing to look into. Do you really need to replace your perfectly functional doorbell with a big pile of electronics? Probably not. Would not driving to work every day make a bigger contribution? Yes. Would not doing either be best? Yes. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    Using an incandescent light bulb is not “better” than an LED bulb, even though the latter is a “pile of electronics” while an incandescent bulb is just a little tungsten wire. So I really don’t think this is a good rule to follow. Simpler technologies are often far less efficient and often have a far larger ecological impact. LED bulbs are comically more efficient than incandescent bulbs (by a factor of 5-10), which in turn are comically more efficient (by 10-50 times) than like a candle or oil lamp. “Simple” is actually a terrible heuristic for “low ecological impact.”
    - coldpie 6y ago
      Are you really making the claim that a simple doorbell switch has higher environmental impact than a Ring doorbell?
      - Robotbeat 6y ago
        It actually might. If the Ring doorbell allows you to avoid opening your door just once or twice a week, the energy savings could exceed the environmental footprint. A Ring doorbell has a 22Wh battery that lasts about a month or two per charge. Having the door open for 10 seconds on a cold winter day can easily waste that much energy. About 10kW of heat loss for 10 seconds is 100kJ, higher than that 22Wh. Likewise, the embodied energy of that 22Wh battery is about 22MJ, and might dominate the embodied energy of the Ring camera. So if it saves you from opening the door 200-300 times in its lifetime, that might be enough to pay for its own embodied emissions. Plus not having to drive home to pick up a package, etc, etc. Plus think of other smart devices like smart thermostats that might be part of the whole Ring system. Or perhaps if the Ring device prevents destruction of part of your home from theft. I don’t even own a Ring doorbell, but I can see how it could actually help. Also, traditional doorbells aren’t that efficient. Especially if they have a little light. Ring could also replace a window to see who is there, which is a big source of heat leakage.
      - harpastum 6y ago
        The argument is that the "simpleness" of the doorbell isn't a good heuristic for the amount of impact. According to wikipedia [1], the transformer on a standard doorbell can use 2-3 watts of power at all times. That's 1400-2100 watt hours per month — about one hundred times as much as a ring doorbell uses (Less than 20 Wh per month). The cost and impact of the Ring includes more manufacturing, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Ring ended up having a larger environmental cost, but it's not as clear cut as your incredulity makes it seem. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorbell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorbell
- stonesweep 6y ago
  > You know what requires a lot more metals? I believe the argument is about the refining process and the chemical waste it creates, which is substantially higher when trying to extract 99.99% pure copper, zinc, gold, silver and other industrial elements which are converted into electronics. I'm a hobbyist fan of silver and know just the basics - refining for 99.99% pure silver looks like making crack to my eyes. :) Breaking Bad level chemicals. I'm to understand the act of creating and "washing" circuit boards also uses a large amount of caustic chemicals, as does the attempted recycling/recovery (to basically eat away the coatings to expose the reclaimable metals). Refining for purity has a high environmental cost to get it from ore -> 99.99% and to reuse/recycle it, I speculate much higher than iron ore (train tracks, etc.) require/use.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    Interesting claim, but to justify a few milligrams of metals is worse than literally tons of metal and cement is going to require a quantitative argument. 99.99%, even if you’re right, only gets us to 10kg equivalent if you start with 1 gram. (And keep in mind that these processes to make bulk materials themselves use alloying agents and specialty materials in cutting heads, etc, to fabricate them.)
    - stonesweep 6y ago
      It requires tonnes of ore processed to produce ounces of gold (I read roughly 13 tonnes on average, but it's highly dependent on the quality of the deposit and refinement difficulty), there are metrics and studies: https://www.businessinsider.com/tons-of-rock-for-an-ounce-of-gold-2013-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/tons-of-rock-for-an-ounce-of... Edit as I'm curious myself, this study shows it's about 150 tonnes of ore input for one ton of copper output (with other minerals reclaimed during the process): https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk2/1988/8808/880811.PDF https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk2/1988/8808/880811.PDF
      - Robotbeat 6y ago
        Keep in mind your conventional car’s catalytic converter contains grams of platinum group metals, worth about $1000 or so now ($3000 for older, larger catalytic converters). Due in large part to the spike in rhodium prices.
- midasuni 6y ago
  Local odeon stopped using plastic straws in their drinks. Paper ones were awful. Bought some metal straws also awful. Ended up taking 2x500ml bottles instead - far more plastic than was used before. Yeay?
  - sixstringtheory 6y ago
    Stop using straws... completely unnecessary. Use a reusable water bottle. One can be had for the price of those 2x500ml bottles.
    - midasuni 6y ago
      I don’t want water. Charge me for the plastic for the 6 straws a year I use, which is far far less than the plastic others “waste”. Put a price in the pollution and let the market sort it out

matkoniecz 6y ago

gizmos in total probably have some noticeable impact and unlike heating or food are mostly useless/not needed/harmful.

Robotbeat 6y ago
It’s amazing how after 2020 work from home and school from home orders, people still insist “gizmos” are mostly useless.
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  nonative speaker, by I thought that term "gizmos" excludes actually useful devices

dkersten 6y ago

Using them maybe not, but producing them and then shipping them across the globe? Also, as with all things, its not like one iPhone in isolation is a problem, but millions, year after year, that does add up. Maybe that's still not much compared to other industries, but in the context of the conversation here, its still something that an individual who might complain about climate change does have a little control over. I mean, if I complain, but then don't change MY behaviour, even if that change wouldn't by itself change anything, why should I expect companies to change theirs?

madpata 6y ago

I'd just say that both contribute and stop this whataboutism.