Carbon Footprint

[UK]

@Halichoeres made a very interesting comment on my collection thread regarding the journey a recent acquisition made. Got me thinking about my collecting habits and the impact it might have on the environment. Both in the production of figures and their distribution.

A real conundrum to consider in these environment friendly days.

I cannot hazard a guess as to how much carbon I have caused to be released into the atmosphere due to my collecting and selling.

[paintingdinos]

Its an interesting topic, but I also think we (individual collectors) shouldn't be too hard on ourselves.

Almost everything we do has a carbon impact. A good balance is to try and support domestic or (even better) local whenever possible. That's obviously not possible with most items in a hobby like collecting toys, since most of the production is done overseas, but there are other things we can do. Consider buying produce or meat from local growers vs big box grocery stores. Buy durable clothing made from natural fibers and mend your clothing before throwing it away. These are not carbon 0 (is anything?) but they have small impacts that add up.

Not everyone can afford these things, but if you can, its a good place to start.

The average person being net 0 for carbon emissions isn't realistic, but we can all do little things to make improvements.

[stargatedalek]

The idea of an individual persons carbon footprint is a scam pushed on us by BP Oil trying to trick us into thinking it's our fault and wasting our time on "solutions" too small to have a notable impact instead of trying to hold big companies accountable.

If you have the money to install solar panels or heatpumps on your home, or buy a hybrid or electric car, you should. But otherwise, keep in mind your government throws out most of what you try to recycle anyway and are only offering recycling for most items as a false comfort, that parcel shipping often looks inefficient because packages are usually stuffed wherever they can fit making it look less efficient than it is, and that polluting industries would continue to exist off of subsidies even if you didn't want to buy their goods.

Refusing to engage with an ineffective system won't change that system. If you want change, vote for it. But don't feel bad if you can't afford to invest early in more efficient products or lifestyles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc

[paintingdinos]

The idea of an individual persons carbon footprint is a scam pushed on us by BP Oil trying to trick us into thinking it's our fault and wasting our time on "solutions" too small to have a notable impact instead of trying to hold big companies accountable.

I know you don't need to be told this, but taking individual initiatives to lessen our personal environmental impact and holding companies with bad environmental policies accountable are not two things that have to be mutually exclusive.

Just as it is not the burden of the individual to carry the full weight of the climate crisis on our shoulders, changing the bad habits of large global industry is also not the responsibility of the individual. There are 6+ billion people on this planet and only a small handful of them have the power to vote for meaningful change. You (general you) have the ability to vote for policy within the country you live in, but otherwise have little impact on global policy. A country can make changes to place stricter emissions standards on business that operate within their country, for example, but can do little to control that same industry internationally. In some cases, voting to improve those standards within such a county just means that said industry increases abroad in countries will less strict standards, functionally changing nothing from a global environmental standpoint. 

That doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying. But that also doesn't mean we can't make changes in our personal lives to lessen our impact on the world around us. Not everyone is able to change their lifestyle and habits, but many can, and I disagree with telling people to ignore their own habits in favor of only voting on policy changes. Do both!

Maybe all you change is that you don't impulse buy a plastic toy that you don't really, actually want in favor of only purchasing the ones your really like and know you'll keep. Its a small impact, but its an impact none the less.

[UK]

Consumerism drives demand. We all, collectively contribute.

As stated big business can make a significant difference without any impact on their markets. Just turning the lights out at night is a start.

And the cruise industry needs immediate regulation.

Great debate.

[Halichoeres]

The idea of an individual persons carbon footprint is a scam pushed on us by BP Oil trying to trick us into thinking it's our fault and wasting our time on "solutions" too small to have a notable impact instead of trying to hold big companies accountable.

I know you don't need to be told this, but taking individual initiatives to lessen our personal environmental impact and holding companies with bad environmental policies accountable are not two things that have to be mutually exclusive.

Just as it is not the burden of the individual to carry the full weight of the climate crisis on our shoulders, changing the bad habits of large global industry is also not the responsibility of the individual. There are 6+ billion people on this planet and only a small handful of them have the power to vote for meaningful change. You (general you) have the ability to vote for policy within the country you live in, but otherwise have little impact on global policy. A country can make changes to place stricter emissions standards on business that operate within their country, for example, but can do little to control that same industry internationally. In some cases, voting to improve those standards within such a county just means that said industry increases abroad in countries will less strict standards, functionally changing nothing from a global environmental standpoint. 

That doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying. But that also doesn't mean we can't make changes in our personal lives to lessen our impact on the world around us. Not everyone is able to change their lifestyle and habits, but many can, and I disagree with telling people to ignore their own habits in favor of only voting on policy changes. Do both!

Maybe all you change is that you don't impulse buy a plastic toy that you don't really, actually want in favor of only purchasing the ones your really like and know you'll keep. Its a small impact, but its an impact none the less.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

@UK I hope my post didn't come across as accusatory, I was just observing that a model made in Spain had to cross the Atlantic at least twice.

But this is an interesting topic that I think about a lot (I teach ecology, so I'd better). This hobby isn't really the most damaging one out there, but there are little things that can be done to reduce its emissions impact. I know some people in the UK wait for Everything Dinosaur to stock PNSO figures rather than order direct from China. That's almost certainly better from an emissions standpoint because boats are a lot more efficient per mile-ton of cargo transport than air freight. PNSO doesn't have much for local US distribution, so I do order them direct, but I wait until there are 3 or 4 releases I'm interested in so that they can share a parcel.

All this is leaving aside that our toys are made of petroleum. They don't enter the waste stream immediately after use like plastic packaging does, but they're still made from fossil fuel.

I don't know as much about the UK, but here in the US, the largest source of emissions is transportation, and the largest part of that is cars and trucks, so things like going car-free are more impactful than forgoing a hobby. Considering that the US political system seems custom-built to stymie meaningful federal action on CO2 emissions, I'd say that, fair or not, the onus on us as individuals increases. I haven't owned a car in 13 years, and I've stopped flying for anything other than weddings and funerals. I live in an apartment rather than a standalone house for the thermal efficiency and ease of walking to do most errands. I haven't gone completely vegetarian, but I eat meat pretty rarely. Obviously I can't escape the conclusion that my travel habits and lifestyle have failed to save the world, but apart from voting, teaching, and activism, I think this is about the limit of what I can do.

[paintingdinos]

I haven't owned a car in 13 years, and I've stopped flying for anything other than weddings and funerals. I live in an apartment rather than a standalone house for the thermal efficiency and ease of walking to do most errands. I haven't gone completely vegetarian, but I eat meat pretty rarely. Obviously I can't escape the conclusion that my travel habits and lifestyle have failed to save the world, but apart from voting, teaching, and activism, I think this is about the limit of what I can do.

This is a really cool perspective and I'm glad you shared it. People can take vastly different approaches to the issue but still all be working towards the same goal and that's so important to keep in mind. There isn't one perfect answer.

In many ways I've taken the opposite approach. My SO and I moved further out from the city to a home with a small but workable plot of land. We've been fighting for years to grow as much of our own food as we possibly can, which is a small thing in the big picture but touches a lot of places that are notoriously environmentally bad. Raising our own chickens, for example, has been a fruitful experiment. By feeding the birds as much table and garden scrap as possible we limit the amount of commercial feed (most of which are largely corn and soy based) needed, which is one of the biggest environmental pain points with large scale poultry. The chickens produce 100% of our own egg needs as well as those of a few family members (taking them out of the cycle) and produce enough compostable manure that we do not have to buy synthetic fertilizers (another big offender). Also, they make wonderful pet dinosaurs in their own right 

Its not a perfect system, and its impact may not be massive, but it adds up to help offset other things that we still rely on (like cars).

[UK]

@UK I hope my post didn't come across as accusatory, I was just observing that a model made in Spain had to cross the Atlantic at least twice.
[/quote]

No issue with your original post at all, just seemed a good opportunity to think about our collecting habits. Some very interesting views on the thread so far too.

[Crackington]

This is a very interesting thread on issues which I think about a lot, after all it's ultimately about the future of life on the planet. The worst case scenario isn't as some leaders state, a  hotter world with severe weather under more water, but a climate that goes out of control and leads to Earth getting an atmosphere like Venus!

I fear that @stargatedalek is right and that the oil companies etc have successfully been implanting the idea that it is ordinary people's fault. The reality is that the key decisions have been made by a very small number of people way back ( the oil companies knew about the danger of carbon emissions in the 1970s). Henry Ford actually made a conscious decision to choose oil over electric power for his Model T as he saw more profit from dealing with the young oil industry.

It's high time we stopped our reliance on fossil fuels and the oil and coal giants need to become wider energy companies, putting their considerable power and resources into renewables. I'm worried that they are doing the opposite though as can be seen by their response to the upcoming climate talks - increase production:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58971131

This is beyond politics folks, it's about survival and I suspect that collecting a few dinosaur figures makes no difference either way. We need to raise our voices.

[Halichoeres]

I haven't owned a car in 13 years, and I've stopped flying for anything other than weddings and funerals. I live in an apartment rather than a standalone house for the thermal efficiency and ease of walking to do most errands. I haven't gone completely vegetarian, but I eat meat pretty rarely. Obviously I can't escape the conclusion that my travel habits and lifestyle have failed to save the world, but apart from voting, teaching, and activism, I think this is about the limit of what I can do.

This is a really cool perspective and I'm glad you shared it. People can take vastly different approaches to the issue but still all be working towards the same goal and that's so important to keep in mind. There isn't one perfect answer.

In many ways I've taken the opposite approach. My SO and I moved further out from the city to a home with a small but workable plot of land. We've been fighting for years to grow as much of our own food as we possibly can, which is a small thing in the big picture but touches a lot of places that are notoriously environmentally bad. Raising our own chickens, for example, has been a fruitful experiment. By feeding the birds as much table and garden scrap as possible we limit the amount of commercial feed (most of which are largely corn and soy based) needed, which is one of the biggest environmental pain points with large scale poultry. The chickens produce 100% of our own egg needs as well as those of a few family members (taking them out of the cycle) and produce enough compostable manure that we do not have to buy synthetic fertilizers (another big offender). Also, they make wonderful pet dinosaurs in their own right 

Its not a perfect system, and its impact may not be massive, but it adds up to help offset other things that we still rely on (like cars).

Your approach is definitely doing it the hard way! Reducing emissions by working land requires a lot of mindful planning, but it can be done, especially if one or both of you works from home. Of course, either way you get better eggs than the rest of us!

I have students in some of my classes do a project where they try to identify characteristics that influence emissions in US ZIP codes. In general, higher-income areas have much higher emissions, comporting with the general idea that most carbon pollution is due to the lifestyles of the rich:

horizontal axis: log of median household income (log($))
vertical axis: tons of CO2 equivalent per person per year (this estimate is from the Berkeley climate consortium, and incorporates air travel, commuting by all modes, household utility use, and the emissions generated by production and transport of food and durable goods consumed in the target ZIP code)

Low-income ZIP codes have almost uniformly low emissions. But there's a lot of variation in high-income ZIP codes. In particular, high-income ZIP codes in suburbs emit staggering quantities of CO2. However, high-income ZIP codes in downtown areas of larger cities have emissions only a little bit higher than nearby middle-income areas. It's hard to overstate the efficiencies that come with an urban lifestyle, especially a car-free one:

Horizontal axis: log of population density (log(people per square mile))
Same vertical axis as before, but only showing high-income ZIP codes (upper quintile). The most densely populated ZIP codes actually have lower emissions.

This surprises many students, but it follows from thermodynamic first principles. There's a really thorough treatment of all of this in the book The Environmental Advantages of Cities (https://bookshop.org/books/the-environmental-advantages-of-cities-countering-commonsense-antiurbanism/9780262518468).

@Crackington You're of course completely right that we've all been bamboozled by propaganda from car, oil, and tire companies (it's happening again with 'autonomous' vehicles, with ride-sharing, and other non-solutions). But I always feel obligated to push back on that for the simple reason that a lot of people hear "this is the oil companies' fault" and conclude that personal choices don't matter at all. Oil companies are weakened by every mile not driven. Car companies are weakened by every car not purchased. Every mile not driven also reduces the rising tide that's going to drown island countries. It's harm reduction. So whereas the solution must ultimately be governmental, or even trans-governmental, I still believe that we as individuals carry responsibility as well. Polls find that people care about climate generically, but usually oppose any concrete measure that would reduce carbon emissions, like higher gas taxes, lower speed limits, removing 'free' parking, phasing out the mortgage deduction in the US, or relaxing zoning restrictions in existing neighborhoods to permit denser infill housing. In other words, "I want to stop climate change, but only if it doesn't inconvenience me personally." We have to overcome that disconnect somehow.

[paintingdinos]

@Halichoeres
Very interesting points. Thank you for sharing. Now I'll have some fun research to do with the Berkeley data!

Seeing that data point to more concentrated populations producing less emissions overall is certainly compelling. I'll have to do some digging to see what exactly is being calculated for the food production portion. Is it just transportation costs or does it account for the total environmental impact of the agriculture servicing those areas?

It goes without saying that the more you scale up agriculture, the worse its potential environmental impact. Things like phosphate mining have a detrimental impact well beyond just carbon emission, but are heavily relied upon by most at-scale ag. There is also a not insignificant amount of plastic waste created by the food industry, considering even food sold "fresh" (not prepackaged) still requires packaging to be shipped and transported. Then you start adding up things like importing food from all over the world for year-round access to seasonal crops, growing crops in areas that are not able to support those foods natively at a large scale (specifically in regards to water consumption), the long term impacts of constant land tillage, so on.

Speaking personally, giving up eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted felt like a big sacrifice. Sometimes you just want a strawberry, you know? But all the same I've worked hard to give it up and buy whatever I can't grow myself directly from a small handful of local producers. It means we mostly eat seasonally and have less variety, but in exchange for knowing exactly what went into the production of the food itself and taking our food-related plastic waste down to functionally 0. Shoot, we even have a collection of metal milk tins that we swap out weekly with our meat/dairy guy to get fresh milk with 0 plastic. A drop in the bucket (or the milk tin) to be sure, and certainly not perfect (still can't help buying a few thing we can't get local), but its something. 

To your point, we both also have the luxury of working from home and have enough income to pull it off. It's a privilege first and foremost, and I appreciate that its not possible nor practical for most people. But as you've already shown, there's more than one way to cook an egg! 

[Crackington]

Good points @Halichoeres , I'm sorry that my post came across as rather negative. I've been feeling at times rather depressed, angry and somewhat helpless about global warming. There's lots of green-washing and posturing going on over here for Cop26 and I find it infuriating watching politicians basically lie about what they are (not) doing about it.

On a more positive note, I should say that we Crackingtons actually do quite a lot of the things mentioned in the thread. We follow a vegetarian almost vegan diet, live in a flat (apartment), drive a hybrid car and use green electricity. We hope to change from our gas boiler and get an electric car once they are more affordable and available. I carbon store old plastic dinosaur models too 

I also enjoyed @paintingdinos post about growing your own food. We have an allotment where we are trying to follow re-generative farming techniques and grow some nice food. We don't use chemicals and have kept some space for wildlife, with regular visits from hedgehogs, frogs and a vixen and her cubs. I wondered if Paintingdinos has heard of Eric Toensmeier? He is doing some great stuff on urban gardening following re-generative methods: http://www.perennialsolutions.org/

Finally a positive tip - we've been using the Ecosia search engine which plants trees as you browse the web. I think we've helped them plant hundreds so far: https://www.ecosia.org/?_sp=1b4e0d91-087e-483d-905a-06a11aa26c15

[Halichoeres]

@Crackington no need to apologize! It's very hard not to be pessimistic as governments are completely failing in their duty on this issue. But it also isn't a binary outcome: it can get a little worse, it can get moderately worse, or it can get a lot worse, which means there's never a point where it's worth giving up.

@paintingdinos great questions on the food estimates. It uses average energy inputs for production and transportation of various categories of foods (tetrapod meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, grain) along with survey-based averages within regions of how much of a household's diet consists of each. So it isn't especially granular but it will reflect, for example, the higher proportion of vegetarians in cities. It's only evaluating carbon emissions, so it doesn't take into account things like water stress and phosphate runoff. Those are definitely complications that can make things like almond milk unattractive even compared to cow milk.

Expanding on what I was talking about earlier, this is the graph I was looking for the other day, and couldn't find. It shows a random selection of ZIP codes analyzed by my students this past winter.


Horizontal axis: population density (persons/square mile; log scale)
Vertical axis: emissions (metric tons CO2 equivalent/person/year)
They're stratified by income quintile, with the darker greens being higher incomes. The diamond-shaped ones are the highest incomes. Here the pattern is even more striking, showing that high-density rich neighborhoods have essentially the same emissions as high-density poor neighborhoods. Notably, the higher the income bracket, the more strongly emission levels are negatively correlated with population density.

If you want to play around with the Berkeley data, they are here: https://coolclimate.org/maps

A striking map is this one of the US east coast:


which shows how stark the divide is between cities (green is lower emissions) and their suburbs (red is high emissions). You can get low emissions in rural areas, but 1) it tends to be accompanied by high poverty and 2) it isn't really feasible for everyone to live in rural areas (we'd run out of land for farms, let alone forests, prairies, and other places that can support complete ecosystems). It's feasible for the vast majority of people to live in cities, however--in a sense it concentrates the damage, spreading each altered acre over a larger number of people.

Edited to add: Just to be clear, it is a viable option to grow a lot of your own food, tele-commute, and thereby reduce your resource footprint. All the data above are averages, after all. It's just a lot harder to do it that way, whereas cities are efficient more or less by accident. Like, people in Brooklyn and Richmond aren't all tree-hugging hippies, yet on average their lifestyle is just incidentally less resource-intensive than a suburban lifestyle is. In my estimation, things that are efficient without requiring conscious effort are probably easiest to scale up.

[Faelrin]

@Halichoeres This data is really interesting. Thanks for sharing it.

I actually checked out that site and plugged in my zip code out of curiosity. My zip code came back with a 44.7, which showed up as a pale blue color, and the surrounding areas are mostly a salmon pink sort of coloration. So like doing a little bit better then I thought perhaps?


This does have me thinking about perhaps what I could personally do better. I think changing my diet up when possible could probably use some modification, and could be healthier for me as well. I do recycle when I can (even went as far as to look up my regional guidelines on what is and isn't accepted). I don't have, and don't plan to have kids, which I've heard can contribute significantly to one's own carbon footprint (edit: come to think of it though, I do have several cats). I seldomly leave the house aside from the rare occasional travel to appointments, visits to the store, etc, so that means I rarely use any form of transportation, and that was pre-covid as well. I don't own a car or drive; my family helps me there. However diet aside, I do spend a lot of time on my laptop (my older one had a dead battery so had to be plugged in all the time, but at least my new one obviously doesn't), and I do shut it down (not sleep mode) and have it unplugged each night, and I have my aquarium light on most of the day (post losing my turtle last year, and all that was needed for his health prior). It's also the only light source aside from my phone's flashlight, as the room has no convenient ceiling light/light switch I had been accustomed to in pretty much every other place I lived in prior. I mean there is a switch but I'm pretty sure it controls an outlet I haven't used in so many years now. I also have a box fan on high 24/7 because I'd go insane without the white noise it makes (feeling cool aside), with all my sensory issues. I also charge my phone only when it is about dead or dead, and I use the same charger my switch does (which I'm only in the mood to play here and there).

Edit: To add the bulk of my collection has been generally obtained at local places (hence the large Mattel JW collection) with a few exceptions obtained online, such as from Safari Ltd, Dejankins, my friend in Germany, backing the occasional kickstarter (mostly just BotM and Paleozoic Pals), etc. When I do try to order online, I do try to get as many figures at once that's feasible (or at least enough to qualify for free shipping such as from Safari, often combined with one of their many sales). I rarely do single figure pre-orders and purchases online.

[Halichoeres]

@Faelrin interesting, yeah, 44 is lower than average for the US, although to meet our commitments we need to get down to about 18, and basically nowhere is that low. A lot of this is out of individual hands of course.

I also don't plan to have children, which is actually the single most impactful choice a person can make. It's not usually included in the discussion, though, because for most people limiting procreation is such a huge ask. Kind of the third rail of environmentalism, but not hard to see how a child not born in a high-emissions country like the US means enormous quantities of fossil fuel potentially not used.

[Faelrin]

@Halichoeres Yeah, that would take quite a lot of work to get to, and like you said out of individual hands unfortunately. At least my area is doing a little bit better then some others I guess. Come to think of it I wonder if the close proximity to Three Mile Island has had any particular impact, positive or negative. Hmm.