first of all, the irony in this comment is incredible. Second of all, literally just start buying used shit first and foremost (it’s already out there, using it is better for the environment) and if you do buy something new, try and buy something that you know you can get a good lifetime out of.
have a proper sit down, and think about what you really need to keep going in life. Focus on that. I’m not saying you should drop every hobby you’ve ever had, but if you collect newly released shit, maybe pivot into finding older stuff that’s interesting to collect. If one of your hobbies has a consumable material/s maybe think about how you can better fill that gap. Perhaps try a different hobby every once in a while.
I’ve always enjoyed computer hardware, i recently got my hands on a few older thinkpad models. x20 series and an x50 series. Both used, both seen some shit in their day and age. Gave me a handful of usable laptops, most of the parts i bought for them were used. All of them are fantastic machines though.
E-Books are a thing, as are libraries, which allow you to borrow a book and return it. You also have the option of buying books second hand and then sell it again or give it away. That is really one of the key parts of degrowth. As soon as you share things, you need less things as a group. Hence the impact is much lower.
Besides a paperback book has a climate impact of 1kg of CO2. The average US American emits 4.6t per year just by driving their car. The impact of reading books is a complete joke against that and again no libraries, no second hand or anything else to reduce the impact.
Also books are really incredibly usefull resources. They are much better at actually explaining more complex ideas, then shorter articles.
So please do not just presume, somebody is going out to buy something. For the most part the big choices an individual can make on personal consumption are housing, transport and diet.
What's are some of yall's less obvious "always buy second hand" items?
Crockery, cutlery, pressure cookers and computer peripherals are some things I think it makes no sense to buy new. 2nd hand they're usually under a tenth the price and often better quality.
I've heard some arguments that buying 2nd hand cars is usually better for the climate owing to how much of a car's lifetime carbon generation is the manufacturing.
The better quality is the key here. The shit made today are intentionally made to be replaced.
Pyrex is the best example. The old-school Pyrex logo means it’s made from really tough glass whereas the newer logo means it’s shit and will shatter when going from hot to cold (oven to countertop).
Tools! With the exception of a few big power tools like a table saw or miter saw, where the new safety features make it worthwhile, I get everything I can used. I prefer stuff passed down from family with sentimental value, but I get a lot of my tools from Everything is Free, junk stores, yard sales, estate clean outs, swap shops etc.
Older tools tend to be simpler, easier to fix, and remarkably sturdy. I’ve read that the metallurgy wasn’t as good sixty+ years ago so they overbuilt them a bit to compensate, and then decades of use weaned out the weaker ones, so anything left still working is basically survivorship-bias guaranteed. I’ve got a drill press that’s been in the family for four generations and will probably outlast my grandkids.
They’re cheaper, sturdier, easier to fix, generally well-documented online (sometimes better than the new stuff), and they don’t come with sheaves of unnecessary styrofoam and plastic packaging. And they have history and stories in them, even if I don’t always know what those stories are.
applied science actually has a really good video about leaded glass. And it’s tendency to cause shenanigans, i don’t remember much from it, so you should just go watch it.
Even if you do need a truck, most of the models marketed here are stupidly oversized in all the areas that DON’T matter. As a builder, I don’t need to be lifted into the stratosphere and have a teeny-tiny bed! I want to be able to fit an entire sheet of plywood in the bed and two people in the cab… ideally without having to hoist myself up into the seat!
Oh that’s so true. I have looked through all the thrift stores in my surrounding and they all had really bad clothes for bad prices. When you can get a new top in a size that fits for 5€ at H&M it makes no sense to pay 12€ for an H&M shirt that has holes in it and doesn’t fit right just because it is from a thrift store.
I don’t buy clothes often, I have much more than enough from when I was a teen. But I think that when I do, in the future, I’ll just go straight to a normal store. I don’t see the sense in spending the time and energy if it isn’t worth it at all.
There’s also this thing now where “trendy” thrift stores go to regular thrift stores and pick them clean of anything worth buying, then they Jack up the price.
I look for thrift stores in or around proper rich neighborhoods. There’s one I go to that routinely has stuff from last year or that no one’s ever worn, tags and all.
I have never bought a car, I looked at prices for new cars last year and I was blown away. I didn’t know at the time that they were at an all time high
Interesting read. I’m inclined to agree with the author that the UN 2086 population peak is BS and humanity will hit population peak sooner (potentially in the first half of the century).
United Nations’ expert “model” appears to have picked an arbitrary long-term fertility rate out of who-knows-where to which all regions asymptote, abruptly abandoning their current declines to head for theory-land! I’m honestly a bit aghast.
What I’m about to type might come as a nitpick and missing the point so let me say this upfront: This post is very much true. Cars have gotten way too big and the loopholes in government laws and environmental regulations that allow this shit to happen need to be closed. Consumers should also be smarter and more diligent with their purchases.
With that said, there’s a small disparity with the car example. The car on the left (BMW 3 Series E30, I think) would be classified as a sedan. The car on the right (BMW X series, don’t know which specifically) would classified as an SUV, more specifically the (abysmal) crossover category.
Because there are still a lot of cars being made and sold. They’re a big part of every manufacturer’s product line. How many new dumb phones were released in the past 2 years?
not only does it have a larger battery… it also uses up that battery 10 times faster while doing 100 times less work :')
I would really like to have modern laptops at like double/triple the size for more battery space though, why can’t we have a normal laptop that lasts like a week on a charge?
I would really like to have modern laptops at like double/triple the size for more battery space though
Mainly because that would violate airplane regulations. You aren’t meant to go over 100 Wh because of what most Li-Ion cells do when damaged, overheated, and ruptured.
why can’t we have a normal laptop that lasts like a week on a charge?
Maybe because that’s impossible without using some really low power parts. Do you like having a black and white screen running at maybe 30 FPS with no brightness to speak off? That’s what you would end up with. Okay actually with modern eInk and transreflective LCDs we can do limited colour, but it will cost a fortune.
Even with triple the energy you are going to struggle powering a modern fast machine with a modern display for that long. Higher resolutions, better colours, brightness, and frame rate all demand more power.
Is that actually on and working for an entire week or in sleep mode? Obviously sleep mode uses less power. No one is disputing the fact that you can have long stand by times, even if modern laptops have actually gotten worse in this regard.
If it can manage 8 hours of screen on time everyday for a week that would be closer to what I mean and probably what the original commenter meant.
Definitely not 40 hours use, but I get about 20 out of it, unless I’m doing something particularly heavy. Like, I tested BG3 on it for shits and giggles, and got better performance than my 2070 machine, but it drained my battery by over 50% in Les than an hour
Not only are modern cars huge, they’re fuckin’ ugly as well. I can’t stand the “aggressive” look every car, truck, and SUV has nowadays. Sorry, but Mom’s minivan does not need to look “aggressive”. That thing is lucky to even reach a high speed to warrant such a look. The shapes of cars nowadays look like hideous blobs, especially most SUVs. Taillights taking up the whole rear end, weird headlight placement (who the fuck designed the Nissan Juke?) and other design choices that make the car look uglier every generation.
I know it’s because of studies showing people like “aggressive” cars (because people are fucking stupid, it isn’t aggressive if every car is aggressive) and aerodynamics are why cars look like blobs, but I sure miss when cars actually looked like cars. That died out in the late 90s/early 2000s.
Aggressive is definitely the current trend. Rivian is an interesting exception, imo. The front end has a lot of rounded features even though they are on trucks and SUVs. I hated the headlights at first but they are growing on me. They are a tiny player of course, but they have a lot of buzz at the moment.
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