camelot-forum.co.uk

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... tudy-finds says

Six key lifestyle changes can help avert the climate crisis, study finds:
Research shows that governments and individuals making small changes can have a huge impact in reducing emissions

People in well-off countries can help avert climate breakdown by making six relatively straightforward lifestyle changes, according to research from three leading institutions.
The study found that sticking to six specific commitments – from flying no more than once every three years to only buying three new items of clothing a year – could rein in the runaway consumption that is partially driving the climate crisis.
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The research carried out by academics at Leeds University and analysed by experts at the global engineering firm Arup and the C40 group of world cities, found that making the six commitments could account for a quarter of the emissions reductions required to keep the global heating down to 1.5C.
The study was published on Monday alongside the launch of a new climate movement to persuade and support relatively well off people to make “The Jump” and sign up to the six pledges.

Tom Bailey, co-founder of the campaign said: “This ends once and for all the debate about whether citizens can have a role in protecting our earth. We don’t have time to wait for one group to act, we need ‘all action from all actors now’.”
Last week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its “bleakest warning yet”, saying the climate crisis was accelerating rapidly with only a narrow chance left of avoiding its worst ravages.
Bailey said as the world reaches the edge of ecological collapse, it needed a workable alternative to this ‘universal consumer society’ in the next decade.
“The research is clear that governments and the private sector have the largest role to play but it is also equally clear from our analysis that individuals and communities can make a huge difference.”
The Jump campaign asks people to sign up to take the following six “shifts” for one, three or six months:

Eat a largely plant-based diet, with healthy portions and no waste

Buy no more than three new items of clothing per year

Keep electrical products for at least seven years

Take no more than one short haul flight every three years and one long haul flight every eight years

Get rid of personal motor vehicles if you can – and if not keep hold of your existing vehicle for longer

Make at least one life shift to nudge the system, like moving to a green energy, insulating your home or changing pension supplier

Lets see how I am doing,

The Jump campaign asks people to sign up to take the following six “shifts” for one, three or six months:

Eat a largely plant-based diet, with healthy portions and no waste
Failing I'm afraid, apart from no waste.

Buy no more than three new items of clothing per year
I pass that one but SWMBO fails that one every week !

Keep electrical products for at least seven years
Pretty much pass that one and I repair things to keep them going.

Take no more than one short haul flight every three years and one long haul flight every eight years
Just about pass on the long haul, and currently passing on short haul but that's only because of COVID, not likely to pass that one in the future.

Get rid of personal motor vehicles if you can – and if not keep hold of your existing vehicle for longer
Fail on getting rid of them, keep for longer ?, done this in the past, but surely its better to change for a BEV and even changing a BEV would get them to the cheaper second hand market.

Make at least one life shift to nudge the system, like moving to a green energy, insulating your home or changing pension supplier
Mega pass on all those !, I hope that makes up for the ones I've failed.

Interesting read,

We do eat meat but have cut back a lot and we tend to manage two meat free days a week. Five days a week the meat portion is smaller and less beef and pork.

Clothes I manage but the boss doesn’t the kids tend to wear hand me downs so that helps.

We are good with electrical gear and I am always watching the freecycle pages for stuff to rescue fix and pass to my older kids or friends instead of getting new.

I haven’t flown for over six years and before that flight eight years.

Both cars are seven years old and over the hundred k miles and going strong - looking at BEVs all the time but not changing until the diesels have done proper service.

Lastly heading quickly towards eight months a year off grid maybe more and minimal gas use so ok there too

Moxi

Interesting read. I wish there was more pressure on governments and big businesses to make changes rather than consumers. I saw someone on Twitter complaining that they’d bought a tub of pineapple chunks in the US, the pineapples had been grown in Mexico, before being shipped to Malaysia for processing and shipped to the US for sale. The company had probably saved a few cents at huge environmental cost. This is one example, my point is that we as environmentally-conscious consumers can only make a tiny difference. If government mandated all new-build houses were insulated to passivhaus standards and have 1kWp of solar PV and 2kWh of battery storage per bedroom, then that’d make a huge difference. The reality is that most consumers will never care about the environmental credentials of the products they buy, the decisions are made for them by governments and businesses.

Eat a largely plant-based diet, with healthy portions and no waste

This is a contentious one! There is an almost-religious assertion by some that plant-based is best. But it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Monoculture arable farming is hugely damaging to the environment and the resulting ultra-processed foods are killing us. “Plant based” foods make billions for global corporations but they’re not healthy for us or the planet.

On the other hand ruminants have roamed the planet in vast numbers since before we came along. I frequently hike through fields with mixed grazing of sheep/cows I’d wager there is more biodiversity in one square meter of those fields that there is in 100 acres of wheat. It is proven that this kind of grass-reared meat is carbon-negative.

I eat a lot of red-meat and eggs. My health improved a lot when I cut out most plants (wheat, rice, potatoes, etc.).

Buy no more than three new items of clothing per year

Tick. I’m trying to remember an item of clothing I bought in the last 12 months. It is entirely possible I’ve bought no clothing at all in the last year.

Keep electrical products for at least seven years

Another tick. Buy cheap, buy twice. I tend to replace my phone after 5 years, but my laptop (a 2015 era MacBook Pro) is still going strong. In bought a new TV last year but the old one (I bought 10 years ago) has been passed on to my son.

Take no more than one short haul flight every three years and one long haul flight every eight years

I used to travel a lot for work. 3x short haul trips and one long haul was a typical month for me. I haven’t flown since before COVID and we like UK holidays these days. The financial cost of air travel has been out of step with the environmental cost for some time. How can London-Edinburgh return be £100 or less on a plane but £500 or more on a train? A week in Cornwall this year will run me £3k just for the accommodation, I could have gone to Spain for a fraction of that.

Get rid of personal motor vehicles if you can – and if not keep hold of your existing vehicle for longer

This one really annoys me! All well and good for some London-based journalist to see a car as a “luxury”. But the reality for the vast majority of us is that a car is a necessity. I don’t get the “keep existing vehicle for longer” part either. A car isn’t like a phone or laptop, it doesn’t go to landfill when you buy a new one, it is “recycled” and used by someone else. I’m sorry but this point is typical Gruniad: liberal, metropolitan, garbage.

Make at least one life shift to nudge the system, like moving to a green energy, insulating your home or changing pension supplier

My money is invested in index trackers that have very large holdings in FF companies. I’ve been uncomfortable with this for some considerable time. However I’ve always believed that stock-picking is a fool’s errand and that fund managers don’t justify their fees. I’m very sceptical about “green energy” tariffs, they don’t divert the horrid coal/gas electrons to my neighbour and all the nice wind/solar ones to me. My lights don’t go off when there is no wind/solar.