The Green Thread

This thread is for discussion on personal level environmental conservation, e.g.: recycling, water conservation etc. - it is not intended for any political discussion on the environment or climate change.

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I have a portable air conditioner with dehumidifier. What I'd like to know is, how clean is the water that collects in the dehumidifier's reservoir? I'm not intending to drink it or anything, but I was wondering if it's clean enough to say use for my fish tank (in which case I guess I wouldn't need to dechlorinate it like tap water). And I'm guessing it would be clean enough to use on plants (not that I have any but in case anyone else is wondering or if I get some in the future).

My business refills ink and toner cartridges as there is, on average, three and a half litres in oil just in the plastic of a toner cartridge and that is not taking into account the oil burned in the production or transportation.

im doing an environmental course right now

its boring as!

Didn't dirge have one? I remember something at his old place, but not sure if it is the same thing.

I wouldn't recommend putting it into the fishtank - you don't know what sort of bacteria lives in the collector. You should be fine using it to water hardier plants, however.

I had a portable water evaporating air cooler once and it got really manky quickly. I was afraid of Leigonairs disease so i cleaned it often!

I spend $200 a month on petrochemical based toys.

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Originally Posted by TheDirtyDigger

My business refills ink and toner cartridges as there is, on average, three and a half litres in oil just in the plastic of a toner cartridge and that is not taking into account the oil burned in the production or transportation.

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I use laser printers. I effin hate ink.

BTW, start giving that poor squid you milk into the cartridges a holiday or I'll get the rspca on ya.

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Originally Posted by jaydisc

I spend $200 a month on petrochemical based toys.

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I just throw away and buy new printers when they run out. Makes more economical sense. There can't be a problem with this as the printer companies havn't been pulled up about it.

Also I fart a lot, it's too cold to not create an ozone layer. You'll all thank me for the warning now when we reach ice age within the next ~40 years.

I'm the jerk who turns everyones office computers off every evening after work.

You should be the guy who punches every jerk that doesn't shut down their computers after work. :)

The government made ours turn off by them selves!

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Originally Posted by Lint

I'm the jerk who turns everyones office computers off every evening after work.

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Good work, im surprised that there are alot of energy 'guzzlers' around in this century. And a simple thing like turning off the comp after work is not hard.

I find this thread title highly misleading - I was hoping to read about cannabis cultivation!!! :p

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Originally Posted by Fungal Infection

I find this thread title highly misleading - I was hoping to read about cannabis cultivation!!! :p

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no one does capital C anymore, its all about smoking raisins, raisins are like LSD...on acid!!!

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Originally Posted by Fungal Infection

I find this thread title highly misleading - I was hoping to read about cannabis cultivation!!! :p

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Well, there's merit in Australia switching from cotton to hemp. Why we irrigate cotton (and rice) in such a dry country is beyond me :eek:

Just thought I'd chuck this email I got in the Green thread...
It's not about cannabis........sorry.

Dear Squatters,

Dr Andrew Glikson from the Research School of Earth Science at the Australian National University sent a brief submission to Crikey yesterday. It crunches some sobering numbers:

According to leading US climate and paleo-climate scientists, the current CO2 levels of 387 ppm (433 ppm CO2 + CH4 equivalent) are dangerously close to the 450 ppm CO2 level at which the polar ice sheets formed 34 million years-ago. This projection is consistent with the current fast ice melt rates in the Arctic Sea, Greenland and west Antarctica, including melting of the Wilkins ice shelf last July -- one of the first times mid-winter ice shelf breakdown was observed.

The sensitivity of the atmosphere has been underestimated. Ice core studies of the Pleistocene (1.8 Ma to 11,700 years-ago) glacial-interglacial cycles display abrupt global warming and cooling events on time scales of few years to decades, including sharp climate tipping points at 14,700, 12,900 and 11,700 years-ago.

IPCC climate projections and plans for emission caps restricting temperature rises to two or three degrees and time tables for carbon emission reduction targets such as 15 percent by 2020 or 60 percent by 2060, take little account of the rates of ice sheet melt/water feedbacks loops and carbon cycle feedback loops, including release of methane hydrates from sea bottom sediments and from bogs.

Plans for climate stabilization at 450 ppm may not be able to prevent melting of the polar ice sheets. Plans for stabilization at 650 ppm may not be able to stop runaway greenhouse effects and associated extinctions.

Today Ross Garnaut has reduced expectations of Australian climate change action to a point below which anyone other than Andrew Bolt and a handful of suddenly sweating penguins could object. According to Garnaut, the best we can hope for is substantial international cooperation and an aspirational atmospheric carbon target of 450ppm.

550ppm is more likely and looks like being the mark the Australian Government will pursue. This constitutes surrender ... politically, to the forces that will rage against any diminution of their capacity to dig, burn, export and boil, and environmentally to the silent but more deadly forces that by scientific consensus are placing our eco-system in almost irreparable peril.

The Garnaut targets mooted today are as clear an indication as any that our political process seems incapable of delivering the stern medicine required to arrest climate change, even under the stewardship of a government elected with a clear mandate to act. They acknowledge that we will always move first to pursue comfort and compromise. It looks, sadly, as though we will do that to our cost.