Saving the planet

[ardcarp]

When I got home just now there was a truly ENORMOUS package waiting on our doorstep. It was from a certain insurance company (which I'd better not name) in which I somehow got to own some shares, years ago when it was trading under a different name. The package contained:

a) Numerous A4 sheets (all full of gobble-dee-gook...GDG in the following),
b) One A4 sheet with just my name and address...4 lines of print....to show through a plastic window for the postman.
c) 2 booklets, one of 16 pages the other of 24 pages...all GDG.
d) 2 enormous telephone-directory-sized books...all GDG.
e) Total weight 1.8 kilograms. Poor postman.

Now I am not a natural holder of shares (I got these without trying) and their worth... accumulated over at least 20 years... is £212.
And it would cost nearly £18 to sell them. (That was in tiny print.) I assume one must be at least a millionaire to make any money worth having.

But my main point is paper/trees/delivery fuel and SAVING THE PLANET.

[Old Grumpy]

Is there an option to receive material by email instead? I would fancy reading that amount of verbiage onscreen (or offscreen for that matter)! Another of organisations and companies are pushing the paper-free option nowadays. The RHS will only send you a printed 2023 handbook if you specifically log in and request it.

[oddoneout]

When I got home just now there was a truly ENORMOUS package waiting on our doorstep. It was from a certain insurance company (which I'd better not name) in which I somehow got to own some shares, years ago when it was trading under a different name. The package contained:

a) Numerous A4 sheets (all full of gobble-dee-gook...GDG in the following),
b) One A4 sheet with just my name and address...4 lines of print....to show through a plastic window for the postman.
c) 2 booklets, one of 16 pages the other of 24 pages...all GDG.
d) 2 enormous telephone-directory-sized books...all GDG.
e) Total weight 1.8 kilograms. Poor postman.

Now I am not a natural holder of shares (I got these without trying) and their worth... accumulated over at least 20 years... is £212.
And it would cost nearly £18 to sell them. (That was in tiny print.) I assume one must be at least a millionaire to make any money worth having.

But my main point is paper/trees/delivery fuel and SAVING THE PLANET.

Contact the company and ask for the paperless option for future communications. As OG says most outfits want you to do that anyway, and will repeatedly try to persuade you to ditch the hard copy. Some sell it as saving money (theirs, but they dress it up as yours) some as saving the planet.

[Ein Heldenleben]

When I got home just now there was a truly ENORMOUS package waiting on our doorstep. It was from a certain insurance company (which I'd better not name) in which I somehow got to own some shares, years ago when it was trading under a different name. The package contained:

a) Numerous A4 sheets (all full of gobble-dee-gook...GDG in the following),
b) One A4 sheet with just my name and address...4 lines of print....to show through a plastic window for the postman.
c) 2 booklets, one of 16 pages the other of 24 pages...all GDG.
d) 2 enormous telephone-directory-sized books...all GDG.
e) Total weight 1.8 kilograms. Poor postman.

Now I am not a natural holder of shares (I got these without trying) and their worth... accumulated over at least 20 years... is £212.
And it would cost nearly £18 to sell them. (That was in tiny print.) I assume one must be at least a millionaire to make any money worth having.

But my main point is paper/trees/delivery fuel and SAVING THE PLANET.

There is an argument that by using paper we give an economic reason to plant and husband trees. Were we to abandon wood products that would put more pressure on forests to be cut down and used for grazing / crop growing. As long as the paper is recyclable it’s not a problem.
If you really want to make an environmental impact use less gas and electric , don’t take long haul flights , use trains instead of the car , give up meat eating and buy (though this is more debatable) organic veg grown as near to you as possible. Or you could not worry about it all as nothing you do will make a blind bit of difference.

I agree the amount of paper the finance industry generates is ridiculous but it pales into insignificance compared to the environmental cost of the computers they run and the data they stream. Probably more CO2 than is absorbed by the Amazon rain forest.

[teamsaint]

There is an argument that by using paper we give an economic reason to plant and husband trees. Were we to abandon wood products that would put more pressure on forests to be cut down and used for grazing / crop growing. As long as the paper is recyclable it’s not a problem.
If you really want to make an environmental impact use less gas and electric , don’t take long haul flights , use trains instead of the car , give up meat eating and buy (though this is more debatable) organic veg grown as near to you as possible. Or you could not worry about it all as nothing you do will make a blind bit of difference.

I agree the amount of paper the finance industry generates is ridiculous but it pales into insignificance compared to the environmental cost of the computers they run and the data they stream. Probably more CO2 than is absorbed by the Amazon rain forest.

I predict that cloud storage space will be the next thing to come under pressure re effect on the environment from whoever creates the pressure.

In the meantime, we can keep buying endless stuff from China which powers itself with nice clean coal.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I predict that cloud storage space will be the next thing to come under pressure re effect on the environment from whoever creates the pressure.

In the meantime, we can keep buying endless stuff from China which powers itself with nice clean coal.

There’s a research paper kicking around which suggests that if you stream a cd more than twice you’d actually have used less if you’d bought a physical cd. In other words the carbon in streaming once is slightly less than half that involved in manufacture and transport of the same CD.,

[teamsaint]

There’s a research paper kicking around which suggests that if you stream a cd more than twice you’d actually have used less if you’d bought a physical cd. In other words the carbon in streaming once is slightly less than half that involved in manufacture and transport of the same CD.,

Undoubtedly an interesting area that needs more urgent research.

I was at an industry conference last year in a session led by Mike Berners- Lee, addressing the elephant in the room of environmental impact of the publishing business.
In the shell of an organic and locally produced nut, the transport element was what really ramped up CO2 emissions, in an industry which has some fairly dubious practices , EG pulping unsold stock, highly polluting cover treatments etc.
However, the effects of data storage and e- books , gor example, weren’t part of that discussion,IIRC, let alone the costs of an in- person conference for hundreds of people in central London. And much else besides, I expect.
CO2 is not the only issue that needs addressing.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Undoubtedly an interesting area that needs more urgent research.

I was at an industry conference last year in a session led by Mike Berners- Lee, addressing the elephant in the room of environmental impact of the publishing business.
In the shell of an organic and locally produced nut, the transport element was what really ramped up CO2 emissions, in an industry which has some fairly dubious practices , EG pulping unsold stock, highly polluting cover treatments etc.
However, the effects of data storage and e- books , gor example, weren’t part of that discussion,IIRC, let alone the costs of an in- person conference for hundreds of people in central London. And much else besides, I expect.
CO2 is not the only issue that needs addressing.

Believe it or not there’s also been research on e book vs .paper . It’s complicated because again removing an economic justification for trees means they are more likely to get cut down. What we really need is to be able to “price “ nature. Were we to do so we would soon realise we are spending our natural “capital “ at a grossly unsustainable rate - eroding soil, polluting rivers and the sea, killing species like plants that need for our survival. Eventually of course nature will bite back - the 250,000 year reign of Homo not-so-sapiens will end and we will become extinct while the longer living species like beetles will merrily chomp on.

[ardcarp]

Interesting replies. Thank you. However I wonder how many hapless 'shareholders' didn't want to know any of the information supplied, wouldn't even begin to read it all, and couldn't understand a word if they did. Even worse if it were online (but agreed, better for the planet) and I've never had a message from ******* asking if I wanted to 'go paperless'.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Interesting replies. Thank you. However I wonder how many hapless 'shareholders' didn't want to know any of the information supplied, wouldn't even begin to read it all, and couldn't understand a word if they did. Even worse if it were online (but agreed, better for the planet) and I've never had a message from ******* asking if I wanted to 'go paperless'.

Most reputable companies will sell a small number of shares fee free through Equinti and invite you to donate the proceeds to charity. Obviously if the shares were in Berkshire Hathaway I’d hang on to them.

[smittims]

Trees, now...

I was disturbed to see six large mature trees had been felled next to a local school so that they can build three new classrooms. This establishment which prides itself on producing the next generation of responsible citizens, clearly cares more about short-term prestige than about the planet. I told them so.

[oddoneout]

There is an argument that by using paper we give an economic reason to plant and husband trees. Were we to abandon wood products that would put more pressure on forests to be cut down and used for grazing / crop growing. As long as the paper is recyclable it’s not a problem.
If you really want to make an environmental impact use less gas and electric , don’t take long haul flights , use trains instead of the car , give up meat eating and buy (though this is more debatable) organic veg grown as near to you as possible. Or you could not worry about it all as nothing you do will make a blind bit of difference.

I agree the amount of paper the finance industry generates is ridiculous but it pales into insignificance compared to the environmental cost of the computers they run and the data they stream. Probably more CO2 than is absorbed by the Amazon rain forest.

I don't think the places used to grow wood used for paper for the most part would come into the "used for grazing/crop production", being mostly softwood in areas that don't lend themselves to agricultural use, either by soil or climate. If there is no economic demand to continue the monoculture and clearfelling involved those areas would have a chance to go back to a more natural vegetation cover. While that may not have an economic value there will be other, arguably more important values, arising even more so if the areas have some form of remediation to reduce the damage from the industrial forestry inflicted on them.
As you say the electronic alternatives are not guilt free as so many would have us believe.
https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/...ed%20to%2Ddate.
The narrow focus on swapping one undesirable action for another, possibly less damaging, alternative is not the answer. The "less damaging" alternatives are not damage free, although that is how they are sold much/most of the time; every action and choice has implications. Unfortunately governments and commerce don't want to address that. The announcement of the UK push to carbon capture systems demonstrates that with knobs on - going for the big gesture to deal with the continuing problem creation rather than the less high profile but much better approach of reducing and cleaning up existing demand and pollution creation. The fact that the scientific case does not currently support the CCS route, and may not in the future do so either, is of course par for the course with the current administration. It's reminiscent of the vanity projects that councils went in for years ago such as flashy leisure centres that went over budget, before long started to need expensive maintenance and repair work, but didn't address the needs of the community they were put in.

[oddoneout]

Trees, now...

I was disturbed to see six large mature trees had been felled next to a local school so that they can build three new classrooms. This establishment which prides itself on producing the next generation of responsible citizens, clearly cares more about short-term prestige than about the planet. I told them so.

Doubtless accompanied by the usual guff about how many trees are being planted to "replace" those felled - conveniently ignoring that there is no equivalence or like-for-like in such cases. A sapling is not a replacement for the mature tree with its ecosystem evolved over many decades - but the pupils and parents won't be told that, they'll probably be involved in an "exciting tree planting event", and the decision makers ignore it. The driver will be money - or lack of - as always. Cheaper to fell than accommodate.
And as for Plymouth https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-64974072 It's not as if the replacement is even attractive, with all those straight lines and sharp corners, with trees precision placed in regimented rows, carefully designed to create a wind tunnel, together with patches of high maintenance(with all the embedded costs of that) sward.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I don't think the places used to grow wood used for paper for the most part would come into the "used for grazing/crop production", being mostly softwood in areas that don't lend themselves to agricultural use, either by soil or climate. If there is no economic demand to continue the monoculture and clearfelling involved those areas would have a chance to go back to a more natural vegetation cover. While that may not have an economic value there will be other, arguably more important values, arising even more so if the areas have some form of remediation to reduce the damage from the industrial forestry inflicted on them.
As you say the electronic alternatives are not guilt free as so many would have us believe.
https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/...ed%20to%2Ddate.
The narrow focus on swapping one undesirable action for another, possibly less damaging, alternative is not the answer. The "less damaging" alternatives are not damage free, although that is how they are sold much/most of the time; every action and choice has implications. Unfortunately governments and commerce don't want to address that. The announcement of the UK push to carbon capture systems demonstrates that with knobs on - going for the big gesture to deal with the continuing problem creation rather than the less high profile but much better approach of reducing and cleaning up existing demand and pollution creation. The fact that the scientific case does not currently support the CCS route, and may not in the future do so either, is of course par for the course with the current administration. It's reminiscent of the vanity projects that councils went in for years ago such as flashy leisure centres that went over budget, before long started to need expensive maintenance and repair work, but didn't address the needs of the community they were put in.

Dartmoor has plenty of Sitka spruce plantations used in paper and musical instrument manufacture. They are ugly (in my view) but if the energy consultants are to be believed sequester more carbon per acre than broadleaf (twice as much ) . Hardly surprising as they are so densely planted. They are grown in areas which were historically grazed for sheep and cattle. Indeed if you go back far enough crops were grown there as they were on the Lakeland fells. Unfortunately our ancestors didn’t understand crop rotation and destroyed the soil ( and the carbon therein) . They also cut down the oaks that gave us the name Dart (it is derived from the Celtic word for oak). So we now have an historically massively over grazed moor dotted with spruce plantations.

You’re right about carbon capture but I think we still have to give it a go. Small scale nukes are also full of problems - what do you do with the waste and is it acceptable / safe to put even small reactors in population centres?
Carbon offsetting is a bit of a con as well - it isn’t reducing carbon anything like fast enough . Before lockdown I calculated our 2 person tally at 18 tonnes per year and that’s with no flying. I reckon I’ve cut it by third with less gas consumption, fewer night away in hotels , more train travel etc . But to hit net zero the average 2 person household need to hit 1.2 tonnes per annum . With current tech we can only reach that by substantially cutting our standard of living - buying fewer clothes and manufactured goods, minimal air travel , reducing meat consumption.

[ardcarp]

Most reputable companies will sell a small number of shares fee free through Equinti and invite you to donate the proceeds to charity. Obviously if the shares were in Berkshire Hathaway I’d hang on to them.

Thanks for the tip EH. (The shares were not in the company you suggested.) Hope the Equiniti route isn't too complicated for a dumbo like me!