Klímaklub

Gödöllői Climate Club

January 2011.

Minutes – English summary

People present:

Márta Kaszap, István Kaszap, Csaba Laurán, Móni and Pali Simó, Franciska Bogdányi, Gizella Keresztényi, Henriette Nagy and her two sons; Edina and Kristóf Vadovics, Gábor Veres and Gabi Baranyi.

Planned agenda:

1. Report about Edina’s presentation in the Green Kindergarten of Gödöllő

2. Discussion on meat consumption

3. Gábor’s presentation on the energy metering experiment

4. Story of Electronics - short film

5. Our bicycle demonstration on Earth day

Real agenda:

1. Discussing the details related to our planned bicycle demonstration on Earth Day
2. Introduction to the new members. The Kaszap family told us many interesting things about their initiative near Lake Balaton, so we asked them to give a presentation about it next month.
3. Edina told us about her visit and presentation in the Green Kindergarten. There were about 60 people in the audience, and everybody was very enthusiastic and interested. She talked about our climate club as well, and she took flyers. They also liked the idea of the bicycle demonstration
4. Discussion on whether we should eat meat or not:

· It was our “homework” to read an article on the benefits and disadvantages of meat eating. According to our plans we will pick an article for every club meeting, read it at home and then discuss it.

· Kristóf suggested that we divide into two groups. Women collected reasons for being vegetarian and men collected reasons for eating meat. After this we had a friendly, but lively debate.

Our main reasons on each part:

Eating meat	Eating vegetarian
Tasty	It’s more environmental friendly (Eating meat has much bigger carbon footprint.)
More energy, more protein	Growing plants needs less agricultural area than animal husbandry. (The poor, starving people could also be fed if we didn’t eat so much meat)
Animal manure supply our fields with nutrients.	Animal protection and animal well-being
The population growth of some animals needs to be controlled (whose natural enemies have disappeared).	Conscientious reasons
It’s difficult to organize a pure vegetarian diet	Medical reasons (Some illnesses are related to meat eating, e.g. gout.)
	Religious reasons

· It came up that it is difficult to convince people to eat vegetarian only based on environmental reasons. There are many misbeliefs related to this topic, for example somebody who doesn’t eat meat feels always hungry, because plants contain less energy than meat. Many vegetarian people in our group can prove the opposite and there are many successful sportsmen who became successful after they decided to eat vegetarian. We need such examples to dissolve these disbelieves.

· The other misbelief is based on historical reasons. Meat has been more expensive than vegetables, therefore eating meat is associated with prosperity in our minds.

· Many people think that if they don’t eat meat, they will have some kind of deficiency disease. This is not true (according to our experiences), provided we have a well-organized vegetarian diet, especially, if we eat diary products and eggs too.

· We talked about a few tips, which can make the switch easier from eating meat to being vegeterian. There are many types of meat-like vegetarian food, which can help us in this transition period.

5. By the time we discussed all the problems related to meat eating, it was quite late. After that we voted to listen to Gabor’s presentation on his experience with the energy meter.

A few things from his presentation:

· The fridge consumed 30% more energy when they were at home and regularly opened its door.

· It consumed about 11kWh in a month.

· Among the three laptops the mini laptop consumed less than half of the energy consumed by the big laptops. In the household these were the the second biggest consumers after the fridge (10 kWh/month).

· Additionally, their charger consumed energy when they were plugged in the socket without the computer, but the amount was negligible.

· Contrary to the rumours, the mobile chargers didn’t consume energy when they were plugged in. Their full consumption was 0,1 kWh in a month.

· Surprisingly, the central gas heater consumed a lot of energy, although only the water pump and the display are electric in it. Its consumption is about 10 kWh in a winter month.

· Washing at 90 degrees consumes three times more energy than washing at 30 degrees. The washing machine consumes 5,5 kWh in a month.

· The hair dryer consumed ten times more energy when it blows hot air on the strongest fan level than on the weakest.

· Surprisingly, the microwave oven has quite a big consumption when it is plugged in but not used. So it is worth to unplug it if we don’t use it.

Edina and Kristóf will report their energy metering results next time.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to watch the short film either, we will do it next time.

Next meeting: 16^th February 2011.