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Green Scolding and Media Victim Blaming

Byoliveridley


Dracula Lurks in Your Set-Top Box – NYTimes.com

Most Americans are guilty of a similar if less costly squandering of
energy when it comes to their cable or satellite TV boxes. A new study
released on Tuesday by the National Resources Defense Council shows that
set-top boxes in the United States consume nearly as much energy when
not in use as when they are on, costing a cumulative $2 billion a year.

Dear media, let’s break down the choices consumers have with regards to set top boxes:

  1. Not get one, and hence lose access to encrypted channels, digital cable, etc, which are now de rigueur
  2. Get one, and unplug it every time, which means reaching behind (as you kindly mention), unplugging, and waiting for restart, etc. My Telus box usually takes a couple of minutes at least to reinitialize, and behaves a bit weirdly for another minute afterwards. So how many people will do this?
  3. Be scolded by you for not being environmentally friendly.

Now, let’s see what would happen in a real, and properly regulated market.

  1. There would be little connection between the set top box and the content. You would get a box, or use your computer, and just put in a card from your cable company for decryption. While cablecards kinda exist, the reason you haven’t heard of them is because cable companies want you captured by their expensive hardware. separate the two, box manufacturers are free to sell you fancy boxes like this one that can manage all your media, have a friendly interface, cost less, look cool, and consume less energy, and can use all these as marketing points.
  2. There would be sensible regulation on ALL electric devices to include standby mode, with automatic sleep mode. So, if something is not in use, it shuts off in 15 minutes. Seems difficult? Computers do this all the time, routinely. A set top box is just an underpowered computer.

So, let’s not blame the consumer here, shall we? If anyone is guilty, it is media and telecommunication oligopolies that don’t let us actually have free choice, while simultaneously claiming that any regulation is anti-  free market.

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    Screw ethanol, put all your energy into developing solar and wind energy, battery technology and electric vehicles. See how much better an idea that is compared to corn ethanol.

  • Update: Canada's Carbon Targets Survive

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    In a vote today, the Canadian Parliament voted to keep debate on Bill C-311 alive. The vote was 155-137. This is good news, though the bill likely faces an uncertain future even if it passes parliament, thanks to Canada’s nominated and recently conservative majority senate. It was heartening to see the liberals vote en masse in favour of realistic targets. I am also attaching in verbatim, an email received from Michael Ignatieff’s office this morning on the bill.

    On behalf of Michael Ignatieff, I would like to acknowledge receipt of your recent email regarding Bill C-311, The Climate Change Accountability Act.

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    The Liberals are taking the Harper Conservatives to task over their failure to commit to a principled environmental policy backed up by real action. We’re calling on the government to immediately put in place a national climate change plan with economy-wide regulations on emissions and strategic investments in renewable and clean energy.

    Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal Party are also supporting Bill C-311 as part of our staunch opposition to Mr. Harper’s laissez-faire approach to the environment and climate change. We support its central principle – that Canada needs to take immediate, ambitious action to get us back on track to reducing emissions and improving our renewable energy sources.

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    Thank you for taking the time to write the office of Michael Ignatieff on this important issue.

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    Byoliveridley
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    Byoliveridley

    Premier Gordon Campbell says he won’t bend to northern concerns about his carbon tax, but avoided saying so yesterday in a keynote speech to a meeting of northern B.C. communities, who have challenged him to revise the tax.

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    One of the loudest arguments being made against BC’s pioneering carbon tax proposal is that communities in Northern BC, much colder and much more rural than Vancouver and Victoria, will pay an “unfair” share because they need more carbon to heat their homes and drive their cars/trucks longer distances. The weather and lack of density ensure that they will pay higher carbon taxes, so it is unfair.

    Well, sorry! Victoria and Vancouver have been paying a fair weather premium for years in higher home prices, higher property taxes, higher prices on lots of things because that’s what city dwellers do without complaint. You can buy an average single family home in Prince George for $125,000, which may get you a garage in Vancouver!

    Cities are more efficient, and use far less energy per capita because of the density and transit options. Pricing carbon starts bringing some of these efficiencies to the forefront and that is a good thing.

    BC’s carbon tax is not perfect by any means. But, it is a start and it gets people thinking about consumption. Believe me, carbon’s on a lot of people’s minds here in BC. There’s tons of talk about carbon sinks and sources in the media. The carbon tax has definitely contributed to an increase in conversation about choices and their consequences. The funny thing is that the proposed carbon tax on gasoline has been dwarfed by actual market driven increases in gasoline prices. The important difference is that a carbon tax is a revenue stream that goes to funding carbon free energy sources. So, a tax, however small, is still preferable to the profits going to companies that deal in carbon.

    Hurray for BC and its carbon tax attempts. It is a decent start and one that I hope will be adopted by the rest of Canada and that wee country south of the border!

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    The NY TImes on India’s Water Issues

    Byoliveridley

    The New York Times starts a three part series on water issues in India.
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    The crisis, decades in the making, has grown as fast as India in recent years. A soaring population, the warp-speed sprawl of cities, and a vast and thirsty farm belt have all put new strains on a feeble, ill-kept public water and sanitation network. The combination has left water all too scarce in some places, contaminated in others and in cursed surfeit for millions who are flooded each year. Today the problems threaten India’s ability to fortify its sagging farms, sustain its economic growth and make its cities healthy and habitable. At stake is not only India’s economic ambition but its very image as the world’s largest democracy.

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    Vote Strategically for the Environment

    Byoliveridley

    via Vote For Environment / Voter Pour l’Environnement.

    This site wants you to vote strategically to avoid splitting the anti-conservative vote on the assumption that all things being equal, the conservatives are much worse for the environment than any of the other parties. This is not really how you want an election to be decided, but a party that represents the minority of Canadians should not get a parliamentary majority simply because of a flawed voting system.

    I would heartily endorse a preferential ballot system for us. How does this work?

    Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a voting system used for single-winner elections in which voters have one vote and rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first preference rankings, the candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated and that candidate’s votes redistributed to the voters’ next preferences among the remaining candidates. This process is repeated until one candidate has a majority of votes among candidates not eliminated. The term “instant runoff” is used because IRV is said to simulate a series of run-off elections tallied in rounds, as in an exhaustive ballot election.

    Under this system, if you like the Green Party the best because of their environmental policies, but know they cannot win, you can still vote for them. Just have the liberals/NDP as the second choice. It is overwhelmingly likely that if you like the Green Party policies, you like the policies of the conservatives more than the policies of the liberals or the NDP. With our current system, that’s exactly what your vote will say. Your vote for a Green Party candidate in this election is essentially a vote for the Conservatives.

    In the absence of the preferential ballot, or instant runoff voting, using web 2.0 methods to vote strategically is the next best thing, and a great idea!

3 Comments

  1. Yes! You are so good at spotting these moments where a systemic view makes more sense. It is so life-affirming to debunk the premise that people are unavoidably lazy and selfish 🙂

  2. Pingback: The significance of the news brand | Sherwin Arnott

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