Climate change - what can you do?

[watervole]

I just ran myself through a carbon footprint calculator (it's a pretty crude one, but it doesn't require you to look up many figures).

I then added in one fictitious flight to Australia. That one flight emitted as much CO2 as my gas central heating does in a year.

A fictitious flight to America creates as much CO2 as the average household produces through electricity in a year. (Can't compare with me there as I'm well below the national average on electricity usage)

It's a no-brainer. Fitting low-energy light bulbs is good, but to make a serious impact on your personal carbon footprint, you have to give up overseas flights. Take your holidays in your own country and boost the local economy as an added bonus.

Comments

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

but to make a serious impact on your personal carbon footprint, you have to give up overseas flights

The last time I flew any where was to a christening in Dublin, the baby started school this year. I'm not boasting, giving up foreign holidays was more to do with my food allergies than my carbon footprint but it's nice to know it's done some good to the planet.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

You still get a gold star!

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Apparently, Brits spend more abroad than foreign visitors do in Britain. The air industry is a net drain on the UK economy even without subsidies.

In rough priority order...

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

The politically unmentionable list of top tricks to personally reduce climate impact:

Cease to exist
Have no children
Go local vegan-organic
Give up flying for yourself and all your consumables
Give up travelling except by human power

Re: In rough priority order...

[watervole.livejournal.com]

You're so right! Most environmental and government groups are guilty of underselling the problem. They all say things like 'reduce the number of flights you do, and buy renewable electricity'. They're scared that people will switch off totally if they explain what is actually needed. (I limited myself to two children though I would have liked another.)

Going vegan makes a big difference. I'll probably mention that one next week. I'm planning on one climate-related post each week. I figure that sticking to one issue on each post may make the point stick better.

And most renewables are NOT carbon neutral - that's a particularly dangerous fallacy.

I think you ought to have a 'save the planet' icon as your default. Got any good ideas for a design?

Re: In rough priority order...

[lexin.livejournal.com]

Unlikely to do 1 in the near future, though one never knows.

Have done 2. Unlikely to change my mind.

Eat organic (but not vegan or even vegetarian). Not going to happen, sorry.

Pretty much aim to do 4, but sometimes you're faced with a choice of locally produced or organic, and that's always a difficult one. Usually tend to go for locally produced, but not sure if that's the right decision.

As for 5, would do that if I could get a job locally, I use the underground daily. I don't drive, have never learned and have no intention of doing so simply on grounds of safety for other road users. Poor hand-eye co-ordination, limited depth of vision and only a hazy idea of the difference between left and right all combine to make me lethal behind the wheel of a car - but note that despite all these it is in no way illegal for me to drive.

Re: In rough priority order...

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Locally produced saves food miles. In terms of carbon, that will almost certainly be better than organic.

Even if you choose not to go veggie, just halving the amount of meat you eat can make a surprising difference.

Re: In rough priority order...

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

It's not a competition, just an objective list of how to have the most significant impact. As it turns out, the optimum diet for health and the optimum diet for the global environment closely coincide - I'll try to find the reference, comprehensive Italian paper just published. Meat and other animal products just a few times per week.

[lexin.livejournal.com]

What about internal flights? gloria1 and cushy thought me very odd when I said I would prefer to go by train to Northumberland (rather than fly to Newcastle as they both did) only because of the addition it would make to my ecological footprint.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I'd say you gained there. The calculator I'm looking at right now is pretty crude, but I put in one European flight (the only option for short-haul) and it produced more than three times as much CO2 as 1200 miles of rail travel. (I took the train to Concussion for similar reasons)

You get a gold star.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Flying short-haul is rarely much faster, so only makes sense because the fare structure is skewed away from ground-based transport. Therefore, it's an unnecessary luxury, even though a long-haul flight obviously emits much more climate change gas.

The impact of air travel is thought to be about 3 times higher than the raw tonnage of CO2 emitted,because of the net impact of the exhaust mix at altitude.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Short haul is much worse. Most airplane CO2 emmisions are on take off and landing. Flying to Cape Town is roughly equivalent to driving there; flying to Newcastle is much much worse than driving the same distance.

[steverogerson.livejournal.com]

If Brits stopped holidaying abroad we could become a very insular society, which I wouldn't like. I think that's a bigger danger, to be honest.

[lexin.livejournal.com]

Do you think that's true even with the level of immigration we have?

[steverogerson.livejournal.com]

Yes I do. I still believe in the old adage that travel broadens the mind.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

There are wonderful mind-broadening tools called conversation, books, the TV and the Internet, etc. which judiciously used are effective and low in climate impact...

[elfinessy.livejournal.com]

great - so what does that leave us with? Blackpool or Devon....

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

I admire your lack of imagination :-)

[watervole.livejournal.com]

The entire inland waterway network for starters. Glasgow (amazing art galleries), Birmingham (fantastic modern buildings), Winchester (old English history), New Forest, Dorset Coastal Path, Pennine Way, London (you could spend weeks there and not see everything), Cardiff and loads more. Visit the Peak District and amaze yourself at how much there is to do there. Go and buy books in Hay on Wye. See the VIking trail in York. Visit Sidmouth in festival week.

There's LOADS to do in the UK.

I think we need to see each other more, not less

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

There's a net issue in positive gain versus negative effect at play here. Granted, without an environment, all the positive gain in the world is moot, so since I think we should visit other countries more, not less, maybe the answer is some other mode of transportation? One of my own ancestors was born in a ship in the middle of the ocean, between Yorkshire and New York. Old sailing ships might well be a lesson in patience.

Maybe the key is to find another energy source, as someone else suggested.

My niece is hopping the pond for her first trip to our homeland, but that's the only trip abroad in our family. Most of us can't afford international air travel this year and, really, being Yanks it's probably safest for us to just stay at home (barring the stormtroopers coming in and dragging all the liberals away ... if that happens, it was nice knowing you) anyway.

Very little of this speaks to your initial point, but perhaps there is cogency in there somewhere.

Re: I think we need to see each other more, not less

[kerravonsen]

Old sailing ships might well be a lesson in patience.

Unfortunately, they also take so long to get anywhere, that nobody could sail on them until they got their long-service leave, once every ten years...

[hawkeye7.livejournal.com]

I had a look and an overseas flight apparently consumes more than my electricity -- but not my gas heating/water unless I've messed up the conversion from megajoules to KWhr. My electric bill is normally in Kg of CO2 but I found the KWhr on the back and the footprint's conversion back to Kg is correct. Frankly, the gas would probably just be burned off if I wasn't using it.

I'm with Steve on this one. I think there is a real danger of insularity here. And even a domestic holiday involves medium range air travel. Clearly, it would be better is if avgas attracted the same tax as mogas. This would encourage the airlines to switch to more fuel-efficient aircraft.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Okay, in what way is insularity dangerous?

Convince me that overseas travel (which is mainly used to go and soak sun on beaches and go visit tourist attractions) makes people any more aware of/sympathetic to world problems.

Tourists don't tend to visit places like Bangladesh and the poorer parts of Africa.

I don't travel overseas. Would you say that I'm unaware of world issues?

Would you say that your lack of insularity from travelling is in *any* way beneficial to the people of Tuvalu/Bangladesh?

Are you aware of what climate change will do to Australia? The prediction (well, it's actually already happening) for much of eastern Australia and the far southwest to have a decline in rainfall. The north may get wetter, but will that help farmers in the east?

In the case of Australia, the injunction to take holidays in your own country should be read as taking holidays in your own state.

I do agree with you that aviation fuel should bear the same tax rate as motor fuel - that's long been a problem and it's due to an old international agreement. It acts as a subsity on air travel at the expense of less damaging forms of transport.

(I doubt much natural gas is burnt off these days - it's worth far too much money!)

[naath.livejournal.com]

'holiday in your own country'... I don't think that's really true. When holidaying in the UK with my family we tended to drive to some out-of-the-way but pretty place; Pembrokeshire, central Scotland, Hay-on-Why (OK, less pretty, more books). In November I am holidaying with one of my partners in Paris - we are taking the train. I don't have the figures to hand but I'm fairly confident that the train to Paris is less bad than driving from Essex to central Scotland.

(I am guilty of taking the plane for financial reasons - I flew up to Glasgow for the 05 Worldcon at roughly half the cost of a train ticket; more like a quarter of the cost of a walk-on train ticket which one of my friends ended up buying having neglected to book in advance. I think it is scandalous that it was so much cheaper to fly and I shan't be doing it again now that I have income. We did contemplate taking the train to the 07 worldcon but decided that none of us had either the month's paid holiday or the few thousand pounds cash going spare and consequently shan't be going).

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I'd quite agree with you there. South of England to Paris by train would certainly beat going to Scotland in CO2 terms.

I think it's a total crime aviation fuel pays no tax and hence can make air flights cheapter than taking the train.