Reducing our carbon footprint...

Any news worthy story. Good things to watch at the Cinema, Theatre, on TV or have you read a good book lately?
AE-NMidlands
Posts: 2079
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2021 6:10 pm

Reducing our carbon footprint...

#1

Post by AE-NMidlands »

just found this:https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... -footprint (Readers reply: what is the single most effective thing I could do to reduce my carbon footprint?)
which includes amongst others
The most effective way of reducing your carbon footprint is to use contraception. Julie Day

Your carbon footprint doesn’t really matter, and neither does mine. Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of climate change. Solving this problem is easy. We just need governments with the cojones to do it. YesPrecisely

The UK’s carbon emissions are mainly from surface transport and heating, so get an electric car (or stop driving and stop getting deliveries) and get a heat pump. People get very hung up on flying, perhaps as a way of shifting blame to other people who are frequent flyers, but it’s a minor part of our problems. Randomusername222

The individual carbon footprint of an average European is about 10 tonnes of CO2e a year, more than twice the global average. Lifestyle factors affect the precise makeup, but broadly this splits into five equal components of about two tonnes of CO2e a year each. There are therefore five highly effective steps of broadly equal weight ranked in order of relative ease as follows:

1) Switch to a genuine renewable energy supplier for all electricity and heat requirements. Ideally heat is provided by electricity (via a heat pump) as this also avoids other emissions such as fugitive. Avoids two tonnes of CO2e a year.

2) Become vegan. Avoids two tonnes of CO2e a year (assuming avoidance of three portions of meat including one portion of beef a week).

3) Stop flying. Avoids two tonnes of CO2e a year (assuming eight flight hours per annum avoided).

4) Stop driving an internal-combustion-engined car. Avoids two tonnes of CO2e a year (assuming medium-sized car and 8,000 miles per annum).

5) Reduce consumption and waste focusing on clothing, electrical goods, plastic avoidance and food waste avoidance. Potential to avoid two tonnes of CO2e a year, but most difficult to achieve. Consider genuine offsets.
Which of them to believe? Both/all, really, allthough I don't accept the vegan bit.
A
2.0 kW/4.62 MWh pa in Ripples, 4.5 kWp W-facing pv, 9.5 kWh batt
30 solar thermal tubes, 2MWh pa in Stockport, plus Congleton and Kinlochbervie Hydros,
Most travel by bike, walking or bus/train. Veg, fruit - and Bees!
User avatar
Joeboy
Posts: 8272
Joined: Mon May 31, 2021 4:22 pm
Location: Inverurie

Re: Reducing our carbon footprint...

#2

Post by Joeboy »

I'll be honest, I have tried to do all I can in my day to day life but I do fly.... :o

Sadly I'm not changing that unless a transmission.portal becomes available. The rest I am in line with mostly. Although not vegan I have been upping my veg consumption for years.
15kW PV SE, VI, HM, EN
42kWh LFPO4 storage
7kW ASHP
200ltr HWT.
73kWh HI5
Deep insulation, air leak ct'd home
WBSx2
Low energy bulbs
Veg patches & fruit trees
User avatar
SafetyThird
Posts: 201
Joined: Wed Mar 23, 2022 11:32 am
Location: North Devon

Re: Reducing our carbon footprint...

#3

Post by SafetyThird »

I made the choice not to have kids.

Travel has been one of my luxuries though only 3 foreign holidays in the past 12 years though I'd like there to be more in the next 10 or so. Been abroad for work several times but someone's going to do that whether it's me or not.

Done everything possible while renovating the cottage to be as efficient as possible: solar PV, ground source heat pump, wood burning stoves etc.

My truck is 17 years old and good for another 10 at least. The other car is 15 years old and we'll probably change that for an electric at some point.

My real vice is my microlight but even that probably does more to the gallon that many ICE vehicles and I don't fly it often, at least not as often as I'd like :)

I think most of us on here are like minded and doing the best we can. I doubt we're 'typical' consumers.
6kw PV (24 x REC Solar AS REC 250PE)
Clausius 5-25kw GSHP
Luxpower Squirrel Pod
Pylontech 21kwh
Eddi Diverter
250l hot water tank with 2 immersions
2 x Woodwarm stoves
7 acres of old coppice woodland
Ripple Kirk Hill 3.8kw
Ripple Derril Water 3.963 kW
AE-NMidlands
Posts: 2079
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2021 6:10 pm

Re: Reducing our carbon footprint...

#4

Post by AE-NMidlands »

Agreed we are probably ahead of most of the population, but is
Your carbon footprint doesn’t really matter, and neither does mine. Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of climate change. Solving this problem is easy. We just need governments with the cojones to do it.
a valid answer?
Can it be true that All the people in the world doing everything they can, can only ever achieve 29% of what is needed?
2.0 kW/4.62 MWh pa in Ripples, 4.5 kWp W-facing pv, 9.5 kWh batt
30 solar thermal tubes, 2MWh pa in Stockport, plus Congleton and Kinlochbervie Hydros,
Most travel by bike, walking or bus/train. Veg, fruit - and Bees!
Moxi
Posts: 2344
Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2021 3:46 pm

Re: Reducing our carbon footprint...

#5

Post by Moxi »

Depends what those 100 companies make I guess, that’s the missing info that would allow us to draw a valid conclusion. If they make yellow plastic widgets that do nothing more than entertain them yes shut them dow but if they are for instance power companies then you cannot simply close them down as the knock on for many people could be catastrophic far sooner than global warming would otherwise be.

So the flippant examples aside is one of those companies responsible for massive deforestation to farm cattle for fast food ? If yes then you could argue that that company isn’t required to produce meat but should use a third of the land to produce cereal and root crops for food whilst releasing theme rest of the land back to mixed Forrest. I cannot remember the figure that is used for the extra land required to rear beef cattle compared to equivalent calorific value of root and cereal but it’s notably less efficient to raise cattle.

They really need to list the companies in the firing line.

Oh and everyone’s responsible for treading lightly where they can, it’s no excuse to say my efforts don’t matter - they do. I don’t fly I now don’t drive very much but I have seven kids so I need to do my best for them and everyone else that is to follow us, they may never know what I did for them but on my death bed I will lay content in my own knowledge 😎

Moxi
User avatar
Stinsy
Posts: 2989
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2021 1:09 pm

Re: Reducing our carbon footprint...

#6

Post by Stinsy »

AE-NMidlands wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 3:53 pm Agreed we are probably ahead of most of the population, but is
Your carbon footprint doesn’t really matter, and neither does mine. Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of climate change. Solving this problem is easy. We just need governments with the cojones to do it.
a valid answer?
Can it be true that All the people in the world doing everything they can, can only ever achieve 29% of what is needed?
I read that the 10 biggest cruise ships produce more CO2 than every car in Europe combined.

Don't forget that the "carbon footprint" thing was a creation of the FF industry. They wanted to shift responsibility from big business onto consumers.

Additionally I REALLY don;t buy the "vegan" nonsense. I hike through fields where sheep and cows graze. The landscape is beautiful with all sirts of abundant flora and fauna. It is easy the imagine the land having been grazed by ruminants for millennia. Monoculture arable crops are dead of all life except for the one "crop". 500 years ago 60million bison roamed North America, can we really blame ruminants for climate change?
12x 340W JA Solar panels (4.08kWp)
3x 380W JA Solar panels (1.14kWp)
5x 2.4kWh Pylontech batteries (12kWh)
LuxPower inverter/charger

(Artist formally known as ******, well it should be obvious enough to those for whom such things are important.)
Stan
Posts: 380
Joined: Fri Jun 11, 2021 10:45 am

Re: Reducing our carbon footprint...

#7

Post by Stan »

Bison may be the answer to wildfires and desertification in Spain, according to this video.
Forgive the hectares mis-spell. One of our collie pups went to a farmer who has called him Hector, as a pun.

User avatar
nowty
Posts: 5916
Joined: Mon May 31, 2021 2:36 pm
Location: South Coast

Re: Reducing our carbon footprint...

#8

Post by nowty »

Stinsy wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 5:03 pm
I read that the 10 biggest cruise ships produce more CO2 than every car in Europe combined.
Sounds implausible unless its on Xmas day.

I did a back of fag packet calculation.

10 largest cruise ships - 800,000 gallons per day, obtained from google.

All Europes 240m cars per day based on an average 5000 miles per year (uk is circa 7000) and 30 miles to gallon, comes to over 100,000,000 gallons a day. I know some are EV's but you get the idea.
18.7kW PV > 109MWh generated
Ripple 6.6kW Wind + 4.5kW PV > 27MWh generated
6 Other RE Coop's
105kWh EV storage
60kWh Home battery storage
40kWh Thermal storage
GSHP + A2A HP's
Rain water use > 520 m3
marshman
Posts: 614
Joined: Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:58 pm

Re: Reducing our carbon footprint...

#9

Post by marshman »

I suspect it was this "fact" that was being referred to....

https://www.transportenvironment.org/di ... ars-study/
John_S
Posts: 378
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2021 10:03 am
Location: West London

Re: Reducing our carbon footprint...

#10

Post by John_S »

marshman wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 7:45 pm I suspect it was this "fact" that was being referred to....

https://www.transportenvironment.org/di ... ars-study/
Appears to compare world wide cruise ship fleets with Europe’s cars. Journalists never let facts get in the way of a good story.
Post Reply