TVs Replacing Posters

We often see this kind of "what is best ... question." I have participated in many discussions about standards for using so called life cycle analysis and have argued the relevance or lack of relevance of them for many years. Unless you are looking at just one environmental media, energy, air, water, waste, or habitat then the analysis can be pretty meaningless. This is because the significance of any impact is in the eyes of the beholder. Is an air impact that occurs in Hawaii the same as an impact that occurs in the LA basin. How many tons of air pollutants equates to an acre of habitat loss. In most LCA I have seen they skip media like habitat. So when determining what is best, it is somewhat of an individual decision based on the relative sustainability of an individual company's production and distribution processes.

Rod Miller

Senior Environmental Specialist
City of Folsom - Hazardous Materials Division
50 Natoma St. Folsom, CA 95630
Office 916-355-8361
Cell 916-439-0445
Fax 916-355-8351
www.folsomhazmat.com
[email protected] 

Hi Rod,

You are right regarding the complexity and impossibility in making comparisons. But if this is the question regarding plasma TV's v billboards I think the question is simple - energy. Looking at it from a physicist's point of view, what uses more energy generates more entropy. This means the lowest-energy way (usually the simplest) of achieving your objective is best. So the plasma TV loses every time. Same argument shows why the NSW government are *just don't let me start* for spending over AUD 2 Billion and counting on a desalination plant when it continues to rain on the roofs of the majority of the population and minimal support is given for the installation of water tanks. Another example - friend of a friend drives to the gym in her SUV. If her objective is to fit some exercise into her busy day, why not just take a walk - along our stunning coastline? Meantime she wastes 1/2 hour of her time driving, as well as all the SUV, road and petrol- related energy. Anyone see a hole in this logic? I'd be glad to hear it! Meanwhile I'm just frustrated at all the dumb stuff that seems to make sense to "everyone else"....

cheers,
Lorna Jarrett

Lorna:

I think you get the point. It is an individual decision about, "What is best." The decision should be based on the best common sense information in the direct control of the user. However, this does not exclude having impact information about producers of products. In your example I might choose the Plasma TV if the energy is sustainably generated, the TV manufacturer has an aggressive and effective sustainability policy, and it plays a vivid Sustainability message every hour and I learn that the bill board will be manufactured from wood cut from a virgin tropical habitat.

Rod