Is it worth being green.. even though industries create more pollution?

Question

I fully agree with being green, but do you think it wont make a difference compared to all the pollution that industries create? Should we still continue being green or will we just be wasting our time?

Answer 1

"Can one person make a difference?" argument.....of course. Things take time to catch on but big changes happen socially started by a small number of individuals..like a pebble thrown in the proverbial pond.

10 years ago people never gave serious thought to eating organic food but look at it now...

Plus, it's up to us to change the way industries think.

Answer 2

Good answers.

I'll add that industry won't be the problem, that it is now, when we have a clean energy grid.  

Scientific American had an article about a plan that has been developed to convert the U.S. to solar power in this century. Here's the link to the article.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-so...

According to them, we could provide 65% of the nation's electricity with solar energy by 2050. And about 95% by the end of the century. We can actually do better than that. They are being very conservative in their estimates. They're talking about starting to build solar plants in the southwest desert starting in 2020. We have already started. All it takes is the political will to do it.   Too see what is already being done in California, Green Wombat has several stories about solar thermal plants to be built there.

http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/

  There are now six or seven companies operating in the U.S .with plans to build such plants. A company called Ausra is building a factory in Nevada to manufacture the parts for solar thermal plants and another company is building a factory in New Mexico.  Ausra is to build a 175 megawatt power plant near San Luis Obispo, CA.   Another company has a deal for a 500 megawatt plant in the Mojave Desert and another one is for 400 megawatts. There are up to 2.6 gigawatts of solar thermal power plants on the drawing boards or done deals for California. PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Electric are all going for these. One gigawatt would power San Francisco.  One gigawatt = 1000 megawatts.

It's a good start.  Cars can all be electric when the grid is clean energy.

"Solar thermal power plants such as Ausra's generate electricity by driving steam turbines with sunshine. Ausra's solar concentrators boil water with focused sunlight, and produce electricity at prices directly competitive with gas- and coal-fired electric power."

"Solar is one the most land-efficient sources of clean power we have, using a fraction of the area needed by hydro or wind projects of comparable output. All of America's needs for electric power – the entire US grid, night and day – can be generated with Ausra's current technology using a square parcel of land 92 miles on a side. For comparison, this is less than 1% of America's deserts, less land than currently in use in the U.S. for coal mines."

http://www.ausra.com

"Ausra is developing thermal energy storage systems which can store enough heat to run the power plant for up to 20 hours during dark or cloudy periods."

The plan in the article, would include concentrating solar photovoltaic plants as well as solar thermal plants.

If solar alone can do all this, think what we can do with all the green types of energy combined.  Wind is cheap energy also.  

Fuel cells that run power plants on natual gas are on the market now.

Biomass to methane is an excellent idea.  It kills two birds with one stone, since methane is a greenhouse gas.  It is given off by landfills, sewage treatment plants, farms waste etc.  

Here's what one farm can do.

"Wild Rose Dairy in Webster Township, WI is home to an innovative renewable energy facility powered by cow manure and other organic waste. The farm is home to 900 dairy cows, and an on-site anaerobic digester creates methane-rich biogas from their waste, which is used to generate 750 kilowatts of electricity per hour—enough to power 600 local homes 24/7."

1 1/2 cows to power each home.

"Environmental Power’s Huckabay Ridge is the largest renewable natural gas plant in North America, if not the world. Huckabay Ridge generates methane-rich biogas from manure and other agricultural waste, conditions it to natural gas standards and distributes it through a commercial pipeline. The purified biogas, called RNG®, is generated by Environmental Power’s subsidiary, Microgy, and is a branded, renewable, pipeline quality methane product."

We don't lack solutions,  just the political will to take the right steps.

  This would save us over $800 billion  annually in hidden costs of our oil economy.  And the public money to do it would be 1/40 of that.  Or about 1/4 of what oil companies get in subsidies.

Answer 3

It helps with my personal moral and ethics.  By me trying to think green and act accordingly, I can keep a clean conscience.  As far as the corporations, it is up to the Citizens of the Earth.  If we as consumers use our "Purchase Power" we can place pressure on the Greedy Corporations to convert to a Greener way of thought and practice.

Answer 4

It is worth it. If EVERYONE does it (As in the whole world) we can "beat" the industries and save the earth.

Answer 5

idk care about being green

Answer 6

it's worth it - if we all work hard to make a difference, we can cut down our carbon footprint!  check out TIME magazine's global warming survival guide online article for ways you can make a difference:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/e...

as always, exercise your right to vote, and vote for a candidate who feels strongly about the environment and protecting it!

Answer 7

I decided to go green last year.

1. I took my Hummer to Earl Sheib and got ther nicest green paint job. It seems now all i get is honks from anti greens with silver Priuss

2 In order to show the Edison Co. how green I was I kept my a/c on 24/7. Therefore wh my bill I could send than a lot of green.  They then had the nerve to charge me more.

3. I painted  my house all green. Apparently the neighbor with solar panels on his house is not green and reported me to the Homeowners Association.

4. It seems that some municipalities are anti green. When I tried to keep both my front and back yards totally green by keeping my sprinklers on 10 hours a day I got a notice saying that I could not do that.

I have found that it is almost not worth the effort to go green.

Answer 8

It's worth it!  Really be green, though.   Some ppl wear a t-shirt and do a few little things.  Take it to heart. Try to consume less and help educacte others. Did u see this?

www.thestoryofstuff.com

Answer 9

Yes, because if we all do our bit, it amounts to quite a lot of difference.

Answer 10

Yes, BE GREEN. If a county were to group up and go green, then that would cut down on pollution and help the environment. You may be making a little difference where you live, but some where else, some people could be making going green too. And when it all adds up, you have a huge difference.

Answer 11

you never waiste your time.. someone has to be the first to start something new, in order for it to become common practice in the end..

Now, with green living, you might be surprised how many people are already doing that. And every extra person/household/industry deciding to join the green living, is one important extra!

So, by all means, start living green in any way you can!

(It is either that, or hit rock bottom anyway..)

Answer 12

yes it is. actually, in some places, the main sources of pollution is not industry, it's people like you and me. with the right regulations and processes in place, in many countries the main contributor to air pollution is not industry (even counting O&G), but our cars and vehicles. and in some countries the main contributor to waterways pollution is not from factory discharge, but from human sewage. certainly most solid waste comes from households, whereas industries tend to respond well to recycling with the right incentive because it keeps their operating costs low - which is critical to them. some places have regulations that require companies to take back packaging and spent waste from their products for recycling, but if you and i don't do our part by actually taking these back to them, they still end up in the landfill.

i think that there will be few people who will be able to really go to self-sustaining lifestyle. however, there are many things that one can do which is nothing more than optimising our combined resources, and requires nothing more than a change in mindset. recycling, for example, is simply throwing out rubbish in separate bins. and instead of driving out for errands several times a week because you didn't plan, it would make more sense to drive out once, and do them all. and instead of paying for heating that only dissipates outdoors, it would make sense to insulate the house, and thus pay only for heating that actually heats your living space. and if you're using something repeatedly, buy the bigger pack and save on the packaging and trips to the store. and really, how hard is it to bring a cloth bag to the store?

this level of greenness is simply non-wastefulness, and doing things in an intelligent fashion. people who don't want to stop being wasteful will cite extreme examples of people living like hermits, but technology and modernisation tends to be about doing things efficiently, and optimally. IMO, wastefulness belongs to the backward.