Unsustainable Me

Renewable energy isn’t bad. It isn’t good either. Renewable energy just is. Well, you can probably argue that renewable energy is better than energy derived from fossil fuels. Or at least you can say that it pollutes less. But every type of energy has an impact. It just matters which impact you think is the least invasive. Personally, I’m a big fan of run-of-the-river hydroelectric dams, or of hydropower where there is a naturally occurring waterfall…

… but, I’m getting off topic…

… the big lie about renewable energy is that we can switch our entire economy to a renewable system and function the same with all the nonsense about continued growth, and consumption etc.

What? You think politicians are going to tell you that you can’t have your cake and eat it too? Of course not. They are going to tell you that you can continue to live the way you do, have a great future for your children, make some stupid gestures to some lobby groups, and continue to kick the can down the road. And you know why??? Because all they give a shit about is getting elected. And that’s the truth. And you know what else? We elect those idiots because we don’t want to face the reality of being grownups and actually do something that is hard. Don’t believe me? Look at what happened to Canada’s Stephane Dion when he ran on shifting the economy to a low carbon future. He was leading Canada’s dominant political party and got hammered in the election.

The truth is that, regardless of the energy we rely on, human beings will have to scale back their consumption. You are a fool to believe that you can continue living the way you are living, flying somewhere, buying something when you want it, etc, and still get to a post fossil fuel economy with net-zero unicorns etc. You might be able to do some of those things in the future, but they are going to be a hell of a lot more expensive.

And that’s ok, don’t fret. Life is already pretty good for most of us in the western world. You’re telling me you are not willing to have your standard of living kicked down the ladder a few notches if it allows more people to climb up some? This is where you spew the nonsense about how you deserve this, and how you worked hard all your life, and picked yourself up by your bootstraps, or your ancestors built this country… blah blah blah… Tough shit. This is the reality. Suck it up, take one for the planet and your grandchildren and deal with it. Poor people… this doesn’t apply to you. This is for the rich and middle-class assholes like myself.

Politicians drive me crazy. Particularly when they virtue signal, which for some is all the time.

Consider the following. Paul Manly of the Green Party recently tabled a private members bill to stop exports of thermal coal from Canada. You want to know how much thermal coal Canada exports?

Canada exported 37 Mt of coal in 2019, 95% of which is metallurgical (used for steel-making; thermal is used for electricity generation). So the export ban will limit ~1.85 Mt of thermal coal from being exported. Is that a significant amount you ask? The world produced 7,591 Mt of coal in 2018 (both thermal and metallurgical). This bill is a drop in the bucket and is simply meant to virtue signal which side he is on without doing anything.

Another example?

The Canadian Liberal government recently tabled a new bill (Bill C-12) to reduce Climate Change. The minister who tabled the bill had the nerve to tweet this.

What is reprehensible about this is that the bill sets the first target for 2030. Now I don’t really care what your thoughts are on climate change, but if you are going to put into effect legislation, at least have the spine to put it in so you’ll be around when it comes to actually have the rubber hit the road. Promise kept, my ass.

All these politicians seem to do is present solutions that will feather their resumes and stroke their egos without having to actually govern and lead through hard times.

Makes me sick.

Let me get right to the point. I’m a hypocrite and so are you. I don’t want this place to be a place of virtue signalling so I’m going to come right out and say it. I work for an oil company. I work in oil and gas. I drive a car with an internal combustion engine. I produce waste, and I buy things that come in packaging. Sometimes I drive to a place when I should walk, and I take planes (or at least I did) to fly to places on vacation. I take small pleasures in buying little things and I probably buy my kids too much crap. Like I said, I’m a hypocrite. I used to take solace in the fact that our household produced so little garbage, until I realized that I had been duped by the people who told me that recycling worked. I am a create of convenience and buy too many things to make my life easier, and I don’t try hard enough to buy things second hand. Here’s the thing. I know you are a hypocrite too. You rely on oil and gas and electricity to make your life work. We both suck. We are all on the spectrum of pieces of shit. So… let’s all try to move further up (or is it down?) the spectrum of being pieces of shit to being somewhat less of a piece of shit. No judgement here. I’m trying, but sometimes I don’t try hard enough. Let’s call it what it is and move forward.

So, we’ve learned that recycling is bullshit. Well, mostly bullshit. It turns out that all the efforts we were being asked to make, putting jars and cans and paper and plastic into a blue bin and setting it out to the curb really isn’t doing much at all.

The first domino fell when China made the decision to take our trash that was intended for recycling. Turns out they have enough trash they can recycle. Good for them. They shouldn’t be the garbage dump of the world. The governments of the western world started panicking. ‘What do we do now?’ The sham was up. All the lies they had been telling us have now become apparent. Turns out, they are just taking the ‘recyclable material’ and moving into the dump.

And you know what? I’m glad China stopped taking our trash. Why the hell are NIMBYing our recycling over to them? We should be looking after it ourselves.

Why is recycling so hard? It comes down to a few things.

1. The blue bin that takes everything is actually a crap idea. Sure, people don’t have to sort at home which encourages more to go into the blue bin, but it results in contamination. People need to learn to sort their recycling. More on that later…
2. Standardization… Governments need to force manufacturers to standardize the use of materials.
3. We are lazy pieces of shit who are addicted to convenience. We are all hypocrites in this. You, me, everyone.

So, now that we have accepted that we suck, and are lazy pieces of shit, what are we going to do about it? Let’s break it down.

First off, what is easy to recycle?

1. Aluminum cans… Apparently it takes 95% less energy to recycle aluminum than it does to produce aluminum from ore. Approximately 36% of all Aluminium produced in the United States comes from old recycled scrap. Hooray for us.
2. Paper… easily done. The paper recycling rate in the US is 63%. Pretty good. You know what screws up paper recycling? Getting the paper wet. You know what gets paper wet a lot? Unsorted recycling blue bins. Paper can be recycled up to 7 times.
3. Glass… infinitely recyclable. The beer companies that use the industry standard bottle (good job Beer Store in Ontario!) can reuse bottles over and over again. Those that are not the standard are converted into cullet.
4. Plastic bottles… sort of… most people throw them in the trash (remember what I said about convenience?). Some are more recyclable than others.

I’ll keep revisiting recycling. Greenhouse gases isn’t the only environmental issue you need to worry about.