Your say: is going green worth it?

I loved reading the Cap,ns ideas and for that matter all of the energy saving ideas that come up in the media. Does anyone realise that these hints and tips are not new ideas made up because the planet is in crisis but are the way our grandparents actually lived to save money. The curtains were always drawn on hot days or cold, we were told to put on ajumper until way into May or June if we were cold and I can't even remenber ever seeing a leaking tap cause Pop would have already fixed it. Nothing ever got thrown out but was repaired and reused until it was well and truly scrap, this included items that were not expensive to replace but who would waste the money! Now we see lifestyle programs telling us how cool we will be if we reuse and revamp second hand stuff - they think they just made that idea up! Maybe if we ALL lived a bit of a simpler life and stopped worrying about what other people think of our homes and things we will be eco friendly without a solar panel on the roof

Personally, as a renter and as student, i simply don't have the funds for any kind of expensive "green" investment. But you don't HAVE to spend a lot of money to be more environmentally friendly. In reality its about being an ethical consumer in your every day lifestyle. In my household we catch the bus instead of drive, have a permaculture set up in the backyard (which saves us buying veggies and eggs), and seriously think about where a product has come from, how it was made and how necessary it is before making ANY kind of purchase. If the product is manufactured in an unsustainable way, well i don't think i want to be financially supporting it. Honestly, if everybody just took some time to think about their lifestyle, the impact we have day to day and the simple power of where we put our dollar, everyone could be "green" for as little or as much money as they want.

We have gas hot water ,which was using a 45 kg tank every 3 months .By simply diverting the inflow water through a coil of black poly pipe fixed to the roof ,before it enters the system, our 45 kg tank now lasts 5 months .Total cost $40.Humans are lazy ,un imaginative ,and wasteful{in general}NOTme , even though i sometimes get labeled a tight ***,im proud of my efforts,of which this is just one .Recycling would take pages to view my thoughts.

Global warming is no more a myth than cancer, just because it's effects aren't all over the surface doesn't mean all of the symptoms and issues aren't about to kill. Anyone who does even the most meagre amount of research will have a stockpile of information in no time to aid them in the obvious conclusions that taking care of our environment is in our own best interests. The fact that there is still question as to the "profitability" of the topic just shows what a short attention span people have. Look at asian cities where there's so much smog that there are oxygen masks on street corners, or the drowning of polar bears due to the lack of ice for hundreds of miles around for them to stand on. How about the toxic chemicals that we pour into the oceans and then fish from? Does anyone really wonder why new diseases are appearing so rapidly? There is short and long term money to gain from being ecological for business' and individuals. Being environmentally irresponsible is suicide! Tah.

If you want to "Go Green" to save money, go right ahead. If you want to change the climate - forget it! Climate change is what the Earth does for a living. Unless you can have the impact of a volcano, you would just be wasting your time and money. We humans are so pitifully weak, no matter what we do, Mother Earth will warm or cool as she pleases.

I am a believer in that we have an impact on our planet. I am a realist though, our impact as a country is only a couple of perecent total pollution for the world at most. If we are serious about our footprint on the planet then we need to encourage nations that have huge impacts such as china and india and a number of 3rd world countries. If this fails to work then we need to impose import dutys etc, then using the new taxes we can pay our own industry to be more efficient.

This week I'm in Guagzhou Southern China. Flying from Bangkok in clear blue skies, over HK the same then on entering Chinese airspace visibility dropped with a thick haze covering the country. Thousands of factories and power stations in Southern China are constantly spewing out pollution and greenhouse gasses. Nothing our 20 million population does (in an area the size of China which has 1 billion plus people ) will have the slightest impact on climate change and we are being completely mislead by a radical greenie philosophy based on dubious, manipulated psuedo scientific data of less than 100 years statistics. It's time to challenge the mantra that CO2 is the cause of this, and stop acting like lemmings as we drive the country towards poverty and unemployment.

I dont believe in the ETS the goverment will not spend one red cent on the climate its another GST put on the people of Australia and lets be honest can the australian tax payer aford if.Australia is supposed to be only 1.5% of the problem at the begining of the so called climate change we have all done things to change our ways on the climate ie using our cars less, changing our lite globes, installed solar power the people of Australia have done many things to help the climate so what would our percentage be today certainly cant be still1.5% of the problem So Australians lets not let this Goverment stuff our Great Country with an ETS that will do nothing for the climate just empty the pockets of hard working Aussies so pollies can keep up there overseas junkets at our expence.They are given to much money now and they cant even fix the health system what makes you think they can fix the climate think about it Aussies say NO TO AN ETS.

See, Cap'n from Tassie is sensible. We rent, which makes it impossible to renovate or change anything about the source of our energy. However we can do things like reduce our hot water temperature, shorter showers, growing vegies, cutting down on packaging, etc. It's not the size of your contribution, but the fact that you're doing something. I'd love to buy a house and deck it out in sustainable energy, but first I have to crack the housing market, which might be a while. In the meantime I'm doing what I can, and so should everyone. Even if you don't believe in global warming, you can still contribute to stopping global trashing.

Yes it is worth it. Climate change is definitely real. We see the effects everyday in hurricanes, bush-fires, tsunamis etc and it's just going to get worse. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the way we live and think about the environment. We have used the earth for everything it has and now it's biting back. So what's an extra few hundred dollars if you know your doing your part to keep this planet habitable for us and future generations....