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New Year Resolutions
We are now at a stage where the effects of climate change are starting to be really noticeable. In the UK: we have regular summer droughts, winter storms and floods causing serious damage, plus excess heat in summer reduces people's ability to work (and increases the death rate, especially among the elderly).
The damage to our food supplies, our natural world, our health is massive and continues to increase. In short, things are bad, and are going to get worse - how much worse depends very much on what we do here and now.
Apart from voting for the political party most willing to tackle the issue of climate change, the only things we can do are to reduce our own carbon emissions.
Society as whole needs to halve it's carbon footprint by 2030...
We all need to look at what we can do personally. There are many things we can do, and hopefully, you'll try something for yourself as a New Year Resolution.
The plus side of doing this is that people we know are more likely to go green if we do. For instance, two people I know have installed heat pumps after seeing how well our system was working. (one of my friends regularly comments on how warm the house is, and how even the warmth is - because heat pumps deliver a lower temperature heat, you don't fry next to the radiator and freeze on the far side of the room - the warm air circulates more)
What can you do that makes a difference?
There is a real lack of awareness of what is helpful and what is not:
I was recently talking to an acquaintance in Swanage. We were drinking tea and she offered oat milk (which I accepted, as I use it at home). I asked, out of curiosity if she ever use soy milk.
Oh, no! She'd been on a cruise down the Amazon and seen all the deforestation caused by soy plantations.
I mentioned gently that most of the soy in the Amazon region is grown for cattle feed, and that eating beef is far, far more environmentally damaging.
Ah, she wasn't aware of that, and was far from certain that she actually believed it, and didn't really want to eat less meat anyway.
I decided not to mention that her cruise, and the flights to get there and back (and she goes on a cruise holiday every year - I could see the photos on her wall) were MASSIVELY damaging to the environment.
A cruise holiday is probably the single most damaging activity that anyone can do in their lives (unless they own a private jet...)
The next most damaging activity is flying - even short distance flights carry a surprisingly high cost, as take off and landing are particularly bad. I get that some people need to fly on occasion. I have two friends with elderly relatives overseas who genuinely need help from their children. Also, some people will need to travel for work on occasion. But when someone tells me they are going to the Canaries for Christmas, it's very hard to just politely say nothing.... (I do as rule, but it's still hard)
After travel, it's heat and meat. Reducing your meat consumption, especially beef and lamb, makes a surprisingly big reduction in CO2 emissions. Bonus points for vegetarians (though cheese should be eaten in moderation, as that can rack up quite a score over time - if you're cooking cheese, blend in nutritional yeast, which is delicious and very nutritious as well).
Heat - anything you can do to insulate the house better is good. Also, if your gas boiler is getting near the end of its life, check out current government grants for heat pumps. They're expensive to install, but grants help with that. Operating costs are similar to gas at present, but as renewables increase (resulting in cheaper electricity) they should become cheaper to run than gas. (They were cheaper before the Russian invasion of Ukraine pushed up all energy prices.)
An oddity - if you're in a position to rent out a room, then this reduces your personal carbon footprint, as the costs of heating are spread between more people. (It's not for everyone, and it's not the reason we chose to rent a room - that was the Ukrainian war - but we're opting to keep our lodger long term, as he's no trouble at all - we have some very interesting conversations now and then - and the income is handy.)
Enough of me waffling!
What are you doing in your own lives? (I know some of you are already doing masses)
What would you like to do, but are currently unable to do?
Do you have useful tips to share?
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I have never really got my head around how air source heat pumps work (and even ground source ones differ fundamentally from geothermal technology), as it seems more akin to the way that an injector somehow uses steam *from* the boiler to accelerate water to a pressure *higher* than that of the boiler in order to squirt it in...!
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Lots of air gets a little bit colder, my house gets warmer.
Fridges are hotter round the back - one way to help your fridge work better in the summer is to remove the dust from the heat exchanger and also to ensure the air can circulate freely round it. There's a reason we keep our old free standing fridge rather than having a new one sealed up inside a kitchen unit...
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