Stuff

I completely agree and have found it really frustrating and time consuming trying to develop ways of measuring eco footprints in my project and then developing action plans for reducing it.
My best source is Chris Goodalls book: how to live a low carbon life…good calculations with easy to understand reasonings…all we need now if for some bright spark to put it all online!....

this is interesting to me – I recently did he wwf carbon footprint calculator and was astonished by how high my footprint was.. We recycle, reuse, compost, barely use a car, get a veg box, grow some food ourselves, barely travel anywhere – my husband works from home and occassionally travels to the nearest train station and once a month to a band gig, less than 100 miles away. We home educate our two children, so don’t do school runs. We have one car which is relatively fuel efficient and does approx 6 thousand miles a year. I and my children are dairy and meat-free. We all eat fish and my husband eats meat ~4 times a week. We haven’t been on holiday (anywhere !) for 4 years.

I’m still using about 2.5 planets – what should I be doing ? What are the big hitters in terms of carbon emissions ? I’m desperate to do the right thing..

Hi there I work for WWF and there are two points I would like to make:

1. There is a lot of embedded resource use in our infrastructure (hospitals, roads etc) that we can only reduce if government and business invest in low resource intensive infrastructure – we need to campaign against energy intensive infrastructure (to horrendous examples of this are Kingsnorth coal fired power station and the 3 runway at Heathrow). So you may be doing all the right things but if government and business don’t then your footprint will remain higher than you will want. And don’t forget that it is your money (taxes and savings) that they are using to invest).

2. We would be the first to say that if you are a committed green like all of you sound then you probably want a calculator where you can sit down for a good length of time with your utility bills, exact milage etc and calculate your footprint.

Our calculator was developed to be accurate and easy to engage with. While it looks like a Cosmo quiz believe me when I say behind it there is a vast array of algorithms and data.

However, I have been recomended another far more detailled calculator (I have yet to collect all the necessary background info for it and therefore haven’t done it myself). Try http://www.resurgence.org/resources/ and either click on house energy or carbon calculator.

Let me know how you get on as I am interested to know if I should be ready for a shock or not…

helen b
Many thanks for the information. I shall buy a copy of Chris Goodal’s book.
People at the Optimum Population Trust tell us that world population passed the level at which the earth could sustain it indefinitely during the 1980’s. There seems to be no prospect of our limiting world population. That is why I am so pessimistic.

MintGreen
You are certainly doing your best but are failing just as we are. I expect that you picked up helen b’s reply to my message. I shall get Chris Goodall’s book, but I’m willing to bet that, having read it and tried a bit harder, we shall still fail.

Apparently I am living as though there are 1.78 planets…

I grow all my own fruit and veg on an allotment so barely even see any packaging.
I eat fish/meat a few times a week which I get from a local farmers market.
I never take plastic bags from shops, only use canvas ones.
I compost everything possible for my allotment.
I recycle everything my council will allow me to.
I only need to put my main bin out about once every 5 or 6 weeks because hardly anything goes in it – even then it’s not full, just smelly.
All my bulbs are low energy and am a big fan of candles so often don’t even have lights on anyway.
I haven’t bought anything new for years – don’t watch tele, don’t have DVD player, MP3, any of that stuff. All furniture bought and clothes are 2nd hand from charity shops.
I barely put the heating on and wear jumpers when I get chilly unless it’s freezing.
I don’t drive – I walk everywhere unless i absolutely need to get the train ie to visit family in UK.
I haven’t been out of Europe ever and last left UK about 3 years ago.
I use eco washing walls and all eco friendly products.
I barely wear make up and use only minimal products – shampoo, moisturiser, deodorant.

Seriously, I can’t actually believe I am living as though we have 1.78 planets!! And if I am, well, what can I say? I literally don’t think I can be doing any more and feel very disheartened indeed.

Jem
Clearly, you are a heroine. I am really sorry for you . I really admire you. The Optimum Population Trust has relevant material on the web. They say that the world’s population first exceeded the earth’s ability to sustain it in the 1980s. It has grown considerably since then and there seems to be no practicable way of limiting it. I suppose that famine, disease, war, or something unexpected will do the job for us. As population grows, our share decreases in inverse proportion.
Eric

I think Jem is doing a great job and lots of others too. I think a lot of the problem is governments, big business, infrastructure issues, greed, selfishness, and the daft society we seem to have created. However I also believe that lots of ordinary people doing what they can in little things will help, both to reduce the damage and to change attitudes. I am not squeaky clean by any means – I have had two holidays abroad in my life but I am a musician and travel to gigs by car. Don’t have that many but that is something I wouldn’t give up. Can’t see buses running between villages in the middle of the night anyway. I run a small car and try to drive as efficiently as possible. Happy to eat veggie sometimes it that helps and will carry on recycling, composting, collecting water and switching things off. I do a lot of off-switching at work too. Lots of scope there.

Don’t give up people, the earth needs you.

A year ago an epiphany caused me to look at my life and what I was doing to myself and the environment around me. I believe if everyone makes one small change we are already winning, I believe in not blaming governments businesses etc, but myself after all I voted them in, I used to buy their products? If I want to see change on the high street and in the way the government runs things, then I have to demand change, by buying environmenally sound products only, by writing to my MP etc and demanding they make the differences I want., or simply by encouraging the people around me to make their own one small change. I know I’m preaching to the converted and it’s great to read the changes you have made and continue to make every day, I just hope that I can live up to all your excellent examples.

Eric, if you’re so worried about the population taking away our poor Gaia’s resources I sure hope you are single.

And if you’re so concerned about the evil poison of carbon dioxide, the earth goddess belches out more of it each year than human activity has produced since 1850. Maybe you should try and calculate the earth’s “carbon footprint,” for if you did you’d likely conclude that it can’t sustain itself.