World: Hold on

“Instead of messing with our future, open up inside”

The court case that took place in Sunnyvale, California (a part of Silicon Valley) was a dispute between two neighbours who were both doing their bit to be environmentally friendly. That is to say, two neighbours working towards a green goal have essentially been feuding over who was the better Greenie.

As reported by The Mercury News a month ago, one couple who consider themselves to be environmentalists planted some Redwoods in their backyard for privacy between 1997 and 1999. The couple own a Prius (don't get me started on how worthless those things are), and seem quite proud about their contribution to the environment.

Their neighbour, who drives a fully electric car, installed a 10kW grid-connected PV array (solar panels) on his roof in 2001, despite full knowledge of the trees, and seemingly also with full knowledge of just how tall Redwoods actually grow. This bloke claims his USD$70,000 solar array is so powerful he pays less than USD$60/year for his electricity.

The funny thing about trees is that they grow upwards and create shade, something that doesn't work well with solar panels, and by 2005 these Redwoods had grown a bit too tall for the liking of Mr. Solar Panels of Sunnyvale.

In 1978, a law was passed stating that any trees planted after 1979, and planted after an installation of a nearby solar array, are banned under law if it blocks more than 10% of that solar array's light between the strong daylight hours of 10am and 2pm. The law has a further clause which states that trees planted before the installation of the solar array that then grow to a point which shades said solar array are also banned. This is California's Solar Shade Control Act.

While these “illegal” trees are not marked for destruction, their owners are eligible for fines of up to USD$1000 per day, as if owning a tall tree with a thick canopy was such a terrible crime against society. Ultimately with such incredible fines, the trees would have to be destroyed for financial reasons.

The terrible thing about this case is that it could easily set a precedent that could bring about a rise in so-called “scorched earth policy” for the sake of electricity generation. In a region that's already so heavily polluted, are solar panels really considered better than trees?

Fortunately, the Prius-owning couple appealed the decision to ban their Redwoods.

Unfortunately, they lost and can no longer appeal.

“One day you will have to answer to the children of the sky”

Every few months I blow my top with people's lax attitudes to the environment. Everyone's so willing to help the environment that they'll separate their paper from their normal rubbish but won't be bothered separating their metal or plastic. They'll talk about electric cars but continue drive their petrol powered car two kilometres to go to the local shop. They'll support renewable energy but turn up the heating instead of putting on a jumper.

I left the office late tonight and was left to lock up. The procedure at the office is to walk around making sure that the windows are closed, the blinds are drawn, and the lights are switched off, and so forth. As usual, all of the lights were left on, including those in the toilets. As I wandered the building, one of the doors to the toilets was so hot that I thought there was a fire.

It wasn't a fire, but rather a dirt cheap electric heater, sitting there at full temperature under the sinks, chewing away electricity at 2kW, making the room so hot you could barely breathe. This was the women's toilets, and the last woman would have left the building at 6:30pm. I discovered this at 9pm.

I don't have a car, so when I'm not cycling to work I take public transport. I don't want a car, and I don't need a car. I walk the 1.5km from the Metro to the office, and almost every day I see a women napping in her car. She's napping with the engine on so she can be warmed by the most expensive and polluting heater ever created.

I was taught the waste hierarchy at school by way of the three “R”'s: Reduce your garbage, Reuse your garbage, and finally Recycle your garbage. This principle is a foreign concept to one of our suppliers who seem to always ship us “pass-the-parcel” style packages whenever we order IT supplies. We receive huge boxes, filled with plastic and paper padding, with boxes inside that contain more plastic padding to protect smaller boxes with plastic containers, padded by plastic, in which whatever we ordered exists.

Goods bought at the supermarket exhibit the worst packaging possible, though. Here in Belgium, you can buy biscuits from Lu called “Prince,” which come wrapped as a column of biscuits surrounded by corrugated cardboard, wrapped in a very thin plastic sheath. This somewhat traditional form of packaging seems out of place in today's individually-wrapped, not-for-individual-sale world, where a package of twenty biscuits could contain twenty individually wrapped biscuits, on a plastic tray, wrapped in more plastic, possibly even contained within a box, that might be shrink-wrapped to stop food tampering.

Urgh.

Tomorrow's world of commercial gain at the expense of environmental disaster has a bitter taste of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Stop being sheep and start thinking about what you're doing to the world.