Gentle Decline 2/32: Correspondence & Confidence

An assortment of writing, answers, and opinions, not even all by me.

Hello. This issue is a bit of a grab-bag of news items, answers to queries, a piece written by Cee about recycling, and also this: if you’re inclined to use the Ko-fi button or to sign up for Patreon, now would be an excellent time. One of my major clients has closed down during the latter end of the year, and while I have a few new things possibly coming up, none of them will be live until into the New Year. If you’d normally consider a Christmas card or a pint over the season, well, as the meme says, I’m really into utilities this year.

[Gentle Decline is an occasional newsletter about climate crisis, and - more to the point - how to cope with it. All issues are free! You can support the newsletter via Patreon (where there’s sometimes further discussion about particular points), Ko-fi, or by buying some of the seriously classy merchandise, including the new Plant More Trees t-shirt.]

(The wood-burning stove we installed this year.)

Positive Things

COP28 has created a loss and damage fund. Climate cookbooks are now a thing. A Nature Restoration Law is making its way through the European Parliament (opposed by right-wingers for no good reason other than Being Evil). And there’s a Solar Canal being built in Arizona.

Correspondence

“So I had a bit of a shock during the recent cold mornings when I came down and found no lights or kettle working - power cut? I thought instantly of you, and was kicking myself for not taking whatever advice you’d given for this situation. It turned out that an electric heater had tripped a switch overnight, so it was easily fixed, but I’d like to have a brief summary of what can be done to cope with power outages in cold weather.”

I’ve written a full issue on this before: coping with winter blackouts. The briefest summary is: make sure you have a way to generate heat that doesn’t depend on electricity. Gas heating usually depends on having electrical power of some kind, so it’s not a way around it. Either have a generator that you can plug into your house’s power supply, or have a solid-fuel fireplace or stove - the latter being better. We installed a wood-burning stove during this year (see picture above), and it is wonderful.

“How confident are you in either of the climate change outcomes - cold weather if the Gulf Stream stops working, or hot weather if things continue on trend?”

Well. I’m not confident of hot weather here; that scenario is mostly mild, damp and windy in Ireland, and the major concerns will be storms, flooding, and sea-level rise. I am getting a bit concerned that sea-level rise will happen faster and/or more suddenly than we’re expecting; there are a lot of ice shelves falling, glaciers melting and so forth which could feed to very fast feedback loops. The idea of a lot of the ice on Greenland and Antarctica melting quickly is becoming more and more of a possibility, and even if it takes centuries to melt all of it, 10% or so would still be devastating worldwide.

In terms of sticking a finger in the air, as it were, my current guess is about 65% in the direction of ocean currents shutting down, and cooling Ireland to be like the Norwegian coast, and 35% to a continued trend of warmer, wetter, stormier weather. And I think we’ll see one of those within the next 15-20 years - probably some warmer-wetter-stormier first anyway, and then the cooling. And even with that cooling, of course, we’ll still have more storms, flooding (if it doesn’t fall as snow) and sea-level rise.

My confidence that climate will change is 100%; it’s already, perfectly evidently, doing so.

“COP28 is in session as I write, and there were some very positive-sounding bits of news as it started. What do you think?”

I am not impressed. I mean, basically, look at this gobshite. Or take a look at the number of fossil fuel lobbyists there. It’s not really surprising that the Climate Change Conference has been overtaken by people who benefit from delaying action as long as possible, but I wish it was more generally recognised. There can be as many optimistic statements as they want to put out, but the reality is that very little at all is being done to slow climate change; we’re pretty much already at the 1.5C increase they previously hoped to be below, 3.5C is more realistic at this stage, and we could be looking at 5C.

Recycling

Cee recently visited a recycling plant, talked extensively to the people running it, and has some advice for the actual process of putting stuff in recycling bins:

If you want to know if you're doing the right thing with your recycling bin, the people in the know suggest "If we were to come to your house and tip the green bin out onto your kitchen floor, would it be a serious issue for you?"  So:

Does your bin have pools of wet in it? Having the dregs of liquids from cans or bottles or even water from washing them and pitching them straight into the bin can ruin cardboard or paper recyclables.

Are there food traces, blood splatter or pet food residue?  Gross; people have to handle these things and they're really not paid enough to risk infections.  They don't need to be washed like dishes but they do need to be rinsed out. 

Are there bags containing other things inside? Even if those things are recyclable, the machines and belts that sort materials cannot deal with bags of things. So don't put recyclables in bags; they'll potentially just cause issues in the system, or be lost as useful recycling.  Empty your bags of collected recycling out directly into the recycling bin.

Cardboard will be handled most efficiently if it’s flattened. 

Packaging like cardboard with glued on or built in plastic "windows" and plastic shiny films to make them look better are the most difficult to recycle because they are composites and can't easily be separated by a mechanical, efficient process.  Tetra Paks are made of card, foil and film and need to be handled separately in a recycle stream - they are more sustainable to make but a bit of a pain to recycle. Right now it's not a clear choice as to whether they or plastic bottles are better. 

The mantra goes reduce, reuse, recycle - It's meant to mean that you should reduce your waste in the first place by choosing sensibly or even foregoing some purchases; reuse where you can't; and recycle only as a last resort. But most people treat recycle as the primary pillar. Regarding packaging, try to choose products with the least actual packaging, then the most reusable type (glass jars for yogurt and milk if you can afford it)  and last the type that can recycle the best.   

Also do not put cloth or clothes for recycling into your domestic bin, it just gets contaminated in the process and is worthless for recycling. 

News Items & Media

The unreliability of seasonal weather is having effects on agriculture in general, but it’s worse for seed growers. ‘No normal seasons anymore’ details some of these effects. Most food producers no longer have their own seeds - even grain growers tend to ship out everything that’s harvested and buy in new seed to plant. Seed production mostly just runs in the background - when not controlled by entities like Monsanto - but that looks like it’s now changing. Monsanto (and what competitors still exist) are saying nothing, but presumably the same issues affect them.

One of the major objections brought up against wind turbines is that they kill birds. This has never seemed particularly realistic to me - especially compared to what fossil-fuel burning power generation does to wildlife - but it’s now been demonstrated that wind turbines do not kill birds in any significant numbers. Annoyingly, this is one of the claims that are touted on signs all over rural Ireland by idiots opposing them, along with claims that they’ll harm water sources. It’s particularly grating when they appear next to “Protect Our Native Bogs” signs, wherein the protection is so they can be cut as turf.

Not only are wildfire burning down houses and other buildings all across North America, but the systems that should help wildfire victims don’t. Banks and insurance are mostly to blame.

Closing

The Positive Things listing is back above. If you’ve more for it - and I’m particularly interested in stories about local or community success in dealing with or taking steps toward preventing climate change - let me know! I might be able to roll out an issue over the holidays, but it’s more likely that I’ll next be writing in January. We’ll see what’s come up by then. Keep warm!

[Support this newsletter (and Commonplace, its (more) food-related sibling) on Patreon or Ko-fi. Merchandise is also available. Major research contributions in this and all issues (and writing in this one!) by Cee.]