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Climate Change
I've been sort of promising myself that I'd do a series of posts on saving energy and the like. It's difficult, because when I'm stressed I find it very hard to deal with comments from climate change deniers.
I'm not sure if there are any reading my journal these days, but if you are, just consider this a series of posts on how to save money. Almost anything that helps reduce carbon emissions has good chances of saving money as well.
It's the Paris conference now. Whatever governments decide is unlikely to be enough to save us from a 2C rise in temperature by the end of the century. It may/may not be enough to save us from a 4C rise.
I have a granddaughter. This is the world she will inherit.
Governments alone cannot do it, but if we all act as individuals, then it becomes possible.
When did you last look at your carbon footprint?
There's a calculator here.
According to the calculator, I need 1.72 planets to maintain my lifestyle. However, there are some assumptions in the model that probably mean I'm a bit lower than that. In particular, our household uses very little hot water (there was no question of how often you bath/shower/etc). We also have solar panels (which don't generate masses but help a bit) and get all our electricity from renewable sources. (About 5% of our gas is renewable and Ecotricity hope to increase that over time)
I've just realised that I didn't factor in food grown on the allotment, so that will be a small gain as well.
I doubt I can ever get down to one planet, but I'm ahead of most of my friends.
The main reason is very simple, I haven't been on a plane since 2002.
I looked at the environmental cost and I quit. (I used to go to SF conventions in America, and I still miss the friends I made there)
Just one flight across the Atlantic emits as much CO2 per person as a typical year's driving.
I know many people (especially those with family overseas, for whom it's a particularly hard choice) who live very green lifestyles, but who continue flying. It's the environmental cost people try to overlook, and there's enormous social pressure to overlook it.
I have one friend who did attempt to give it up, and was pushed back into it by social pressure from friends.
Because the hard fact is that your friends will feel you're trying to guilt-trip them and they only way they can prevent that is by telling you that you're silly, that the plane will fly anyway, that you can offset the emissions, etc.
The truth is that the plane will use less fuel if you aren't on it (or won't fly at all if enough people decide not to go) and that carbon offsetting is often deeply flawed (I'll explain why if you want me to) and in any case does not remove the CO2 that you have emitted for that flight.
This is why I hate to post on environmental issues. My friends get unhappy. If I post about how to save energy with a new boiler, then no problem, but when it comes to flying, the vast majority of my friends fly, and those who have also chosen not to tend to keep quiet for exactly the same reasons that I do.
But, I have Oswin to think of. And millions of other little Oswins with friends and family who love them. I want them to have a future. I don't want them to inherit a world with droughts, erratic water supplies, ruined soils, pollution, extreme weather, vanished wildlife.
I'm not an environmentalist because I hate people.
I'm an environmentalist because I love people.
I'm not sure if there are any reading my journal these days, but if you are, just consider this a series of posts on how to save money. Almost anything that helps reduce carbon emissions has good chances of saving money as well.
It's the Paris conference now. Whatever governments decide is unlikely to be enough to save us from a 2C rise in temperature by the end of the century. It may/may not be enough to save us from a 4C rise.
I have a granddaughter. This is the world she will inherit.
Governments alone cannot do it, but if we all act as individuals, then it becomes possible.
When did you last look at your carbon footprint?
There's a calculator here.
According to the calculator, I need 1.72 planets to maintain my lifestyle. However, there are some assumptions in the model that probably mean I'm a bit lower than that. In particular, our household uses very little hot water (there was no question of how often you bath/shower/etc). We also have solar panels (which don't generate masses but help a bit) and get all our electricity from renewable sources. (About 5% of our gas is renewable and Ecotricity hope to increase that over time)
I've just realised that I didn't factor in food grown on the allotment, so that will be a small gain as well.
I doubt I can ever get down to one planet, but I'm ahead of most of my friends.
The main reason is very simple, I haven't been on a plane since 2002.
I looked at the environmental cost and I quit. (I used to go to SF conventions in America, and I still miss the friends I made there)
Just one flight across the Atlantic emits as much CO2 per person as a typical year's driving.
I know many people (especially those with family overseas, for whom it's a particularly hard choice) who live very green lifestyles, but who continue flying. It's the environmental cost people try to overlook, and there's enormous social pressure to overlook it.
I have one friend who did attempt to give it up, and was pushed back into it by social pressure from friends.
Because the hard fact is that your friends will feel you're trying to guilt-trip them and they only way they can prevent that is by telling you that you're silly, that the plane will fly anyway, that you can offset the emissions, etc.
The truth is that the plane will use less fuel if you aren't on it (or won't fly at all if enough people decide not to go) and that carbon offsetting is often deeply flawed (I'll explain why if you want me to) and in any case does not remove the CO2 that you have emitted for that flight.
This is why I hate to post on environmental issues. My friends get unhappy. If I post about how to save energy with a new boiler, then no problem, but when it comes to flying, the vast majority of my friends fly, and those who have also chosen not to tend to keep quiet for exactly the same reasons that I do.
But, I have Oswin to think of. And millions of other little Oswins with friends and family who love them. I want them to have a future. I don't want them to inherit a world with droughts, erratic water supplies, ruined soils, pollution, extreme weather, vanished wildlife.
I'm not an environmentalist because I hate people.
I'm an environmentalist because I love people.
no subject
Despite getting pressured, I have been on one round trip plane flight in the last 25 years. I think they think I'm afraid of flying. 9_9
I have no clue what the survey meant by "double glazing" and a "condenser boiler".
In the big furniture/appliance question, no allowance was made for buying second hand items. The only thing I bought this year was a glass cabinet. $50, second hand. Still smells like cigarette smoke, but that will fade, eventually.
We are the species that lives by made up rules, even rules that go against nature. To reduce our greenhouse gas production to sustainable levels, there will have to be legislation and penalties across the board.
no subject
I chose not to enter a piece of second-hand furniture as I think the question was aimed at new. Likewise anything second-hand.
I think you're right about legislation. A carbon tax is essential.
What part of the world do you live in? Sounds like terminology is different.
Double glazing is two layers of glass in a window with an air gap between them.
no subject
Oh well, I could have had a lower score, but living high on the hog on fresh food and manufactured everything trucked in from all over the world, we are all living well beyond what is sustainable. I can't get over how people buy bottled water when what comes out of the tap won't kill you, and how every last thing comes in a plastic container. And how low tech low risk incandescent light bulbs are being scrapped in favor of high tech higher risk compact fluorescents.
A carbon tax is a weak solution. There would have to be a downright draconian near elimination of plastics, transport and waste. 3.75 planets. That's a lot of high living.
no subject
Bottled water is just stupid.
Plastics are a menace, but the aren't the biggest problem. The big problem is carbon emissions. Climate change will kill us long before we die from pollution by plastics.
I try and buy British whenever I have the option. I can do it most of the time with food, apart from when the carbon footprint is greater growing it in the UK then it is to freight it in. There are times when the transport cost is less than the environmental cost of heating a greenhouse.
no subject