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Living a more sustainable life in a climate change emergency

Gangu

Living a more sustainable life in a climate change emergency

We are a small family in Dublin. Like many I have to come increasingly aware of the need to change our way of living (thanks Gretter, the guardian and Twitter). We have made some changes such as stopping buying plastic bottles, switching to keep cups, composting, recycling clothes et cetera.

I am sure we could do more. It would be great to have a thread here on boards giving practical tips to ordinary people and families about practical (as opposed to political) changes that they can make to switch to a more sustainable life.

Do you have any tips?

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Macha

Eat less meat and dairy and stop flying.

Those are the two best things you can do to help cut your personal carbon emissions. The rest is largely window dressing.

And the best thing you can do for system change, is be a climate voter, ie vote for candidates who have strong policies and PRIORITISE climate action. You said not political but we are not going to recycle our way out of climate breakdown. You either accept its an emergency and act accordingly or you don't.

Wanderer78

This is a very tricky one, but fair play to people like the op, but there's severe limitations that the individual can do to resolve these issues, its a mammoth task for our race to resolve, very deep global changes are required

denismc

Lawnmowers and petrol driven garden equipment are huge polluters, not just CO2 but pollutants such as benzenes NOx.
Figures from the U.S in 2011:

approximately 26.7 million tons of

pollutants were emitted by GLGE (VOC=461,800; CO=5,793,200; NOx=68,500, PM10=20,700;

CO2=20,382,400), accounting for 24%−45% of all nonroad gasoline emissions
(GLGE = petrol driven lawn equipment)

2 stroke engines seem to the biggest polluters.

So maybe consider changing to battery and electric powered garden equipment or better still let some of your garden grow wild.

Gangu

denismc wrote: »

Lawnmowers and petrol driven garden equipment are huge polluters, not just CO2 but pollutants such as benzenes NOx.
Figures from the U.S in 2011:

approximately 26.7 million tons of

pollutants were emitted by GLGE (VOC=461,800; CO=5,793,200; NOx=68,500, PM10=20,700;

CO2=20,382,400), accounting for 24%−45% of all nonroad gasoline emissions
(GLGE = petrol driven lawn equipment)

2 stroke engines seem to the biggest polluters.

So maybe consider changing to battery and electric powered garden equipment or better still let some of your garden grow wild.

That’s a great suggestion that I had not thought of. Thanks.

A lot of people are defeatist and say that there is not that much individuals can do. I wasn’t surprised to see it here so fast.

I don’t believe that.

Firstly it all counts, but also and more importantly mindset change at home influences thinking elsewhere. I hold down a high level leadership position, and I think that change at home prompts fresh thinking at work and elsewhere. We all influence someone.

4068ac1elhodqr

Maybe ask the gov why forest cover is estimated to be at its highest level in over 350 years (and also the lowest % in Europe).
Ask them why they missed their own target of planting over 7,000ha by over 20pc, all whilst now declaring 'mergency.

If you wanted to do something small, a few plants: such as Mother-in-law’s tongue in any house, can improve air quality greatly by converting CO2 into oxygen at night, and filtering formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, xylene, toluene, and benzene from the air (NASA study). Imagine what 7,000ha of broadleaf planting could have achieved in terms of both carbon absorption and air quality.

Selenophile

Gangu wrote: »

Living a more sustainable life in a climate change emergency
...
Do you have any tips?

My best tip for you is: be creative.
We are in a big trouble and we need so many things to change and so many problems to solve. That is why we need more and more new ideas, solutions and improvements of old ideas.

In last couple of days, some other people initiated similar discussions in some other forums. I shared some of my ideas, they shared some, and it is really a good thing that such discussions are going on.

Don't wait for politicians. They'll need time to propose and form a commission that will prepare a report; then they'll discuss the report; then they'll argue about the budget and legislation... by the time they come up with something, you'll be spending summer holidays on some beach in Greenland.

In general, what you want to do is to reduce energy consumption, CO2 emission, extraction of new resources and trash. This is too generic, but it actually helps you evaluate product or process in any given situation, and you'll be able to think about how to come up with a better solution. As an example, if you want to substitute some of those non-recyclable "single use plastic" items, you'll evaluate like this: you don't want single use recyclable item. First of all, not all recyclables end recycled. Then, recycling still needs energy and CO2 emission. For that reason, you're looking for items that are durable. The longer they serve the purpose, longer you'll have them, more time will pass before you'll need another one. Production of a new item also needs energy and resources. Once they can't serve their purpose, you want them to be recyclable, of course, or biodegradable, or in some way more gentle to environment.

And don't wait for others to start to care. If you're going to look strange with your choices, so be it.

Now, here is one thing that I introduced for myself that illustrates the above in practice, and actually answers your question. At my workplace, in toilets, we have paper towels and some inefficient electric dryers. Because of their inefficiency, people don't use them. The issue was presented to the responsible department, almost an year ago, but they need to evaluate, then they need to figure out if they'll buy new dryers etc... Now, I can use those dryers to save all that paper that is being wasted. But dryers still use energy. My solution to the problem was to bring my own hand towel to the office, and install a bar to my desk to hang it to dry. I wasn't talking to anyone, wasn't waiting for a management to turn it into some action across organization or whatever. I just did it. My towels are made of linen. This material has great properties for this purpose, but it is also natural, biodegradable and actually very durable. Adding them into washing machine with other cloths won't increase energy or detergents consumption.
By the way, I estimated how much paper I saved this way: it is between 3000 and 4000 sheets of paper towel per annum. It is a drop in the ocean, but the strength lies in numbers. I saved a drop, you'll save a drop, many other people will save a drop, so, we'll have some result.

In fact, drops are all that we can do for now. Entire world economy is based on a model that stimulates consumption and increases production. Business models are based on it. Now everything needs to turn into opposite direction and that needs time. That change is going to be much, much more disruptive than IT and internet.

LastLagoon

My advice would be to travel as much as you can and enjoy the nice things petrochemicals have allowed us to experience. We are not going to turn it around ,it’s already too late and people will not be able to make the sacrifices required which are extreme and not even really being broached by the protestors as they know it will put the majority off. Any political party advocating what actually needs to be done (as opposed to making empty gestures like declaring a climate emergency) would be destroyed.
I’m going about my life as normal but fully expect to experience severe hardship and to see people dying of starvation in current first world countries in my lifetime.

gozunda

The facts are that Fossil fuel use and Transport are the two single biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions on the planet.

With regard to individual responsibility - it has been suggested that for the purposes of "Individual consumer choices - the top (three) actions you can take to cut your own emissions, in order of impact, includes:

• Have fewer (or no) children (equaling, for someone in a rich country) an estimated 58.6 tons of C02 equivalent per child, per year
•Live car-free (about 2.4 tons per year)
•Avoid air travel (about 1.6 tons per round-trip transatlantic flight)."

With regard flying and eating meat btw - it has been shown that flying just one leg of a transatlantic flight is the equivalent of eating beef (as part of a normal diet) for a whole year. (Depending on meat type, region and production system - this figure may be much less than a TA flight*).Meat' is not even one of the top three tbh. Choosing dilfferent types of meat and dairy which have lower Impacts also makes sense if you wish to cut back.

greenhouse_DRUPAL_copyedited-01.png?itok=hNUV4xGc

greenhouse_DRUPAL_copyedited-01.png?itok=hNUV4xGc

The OP may not be able (for evident reasons) to negate impacts of having children as he states he already has a family - however the use of fossil fuel whether through transport etc is the next biggest factor in reducing environmental impact. Interestingly choosing not to fly (which the OP mentions elsewhere) is one of the single biggest and possibly easiest means of reducing your carbon footprint. For a family of four example - foregoing one round-trip transatlantic flight would cut a families CO2 emissions by an estimated 6,400 kilograms...

This is the data as an Infographic
fourchoices_1.jpg?itok=BU5_W2Os

Atlantic Dawn

Eat less meat (stops wasteful CO2 emissions)

And Green Party Policy circa 2008...
Drive a diesel car in a built up area (kills humans)
Get a wood burning stove in a built up area (kills humans)

gozunda

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

And Green Party Policy circa 2008...
Drive a diesel car in a built up area (kills humans)
Get a wood burning stove in a built up area (kills humans)

Maybe the idea was to kill off and have less humans- thereby reducing human impact on the planet. Makes sense ... :pac:

Conor20

Contrary to some posters above, I would say the last thing we should do is give up. If humans had given up when things seemed insurmountable, we would be long gone already. If we genuinely try to collectively solve climate change, we will be able to.

FWIW, this is the list we've been working through (with a rough diary here):

Use your vote. Contact your TDs today and tell them you want them to take action to keep your children's future intact. When the next election comes, make it clear that you'll be voting based on climate change. Make it clear to them you care more about your children's future than whatever tax/pension/etc gimmick they're offering.
Change all light bulbs to LEDs
Insulate the house / attic (SEAI grant for this)
Cycle instead of driving. Really, you can do it. No, really, YOU can do it. If you can't face cycling, get an electric bike. They're cheap and you'll get to work without sweating. (Half price under Bike to Work scheme)
If you must drive, replace your petrol/diesel car with an Electric Car. Second hand Nissan Leafs are dirt cheap these days
Install Solar PV Panels to reduce your electricity bills and emissions from the power plants generating the electricity you use (SEAI Grant for this)
Add a battery system for Solar PV Panels so you can use Solar generation you didn't use during the day at night (SAEI Grant for this)
Switch gas / oil / wood central heating to an Air Source heat pump and remove fossil fuels from your heating entirely (€3,500 SEAI grant for this)

The easiest thing you can do is let your TDs know that you will be voting based on Climate Change. Find their contact details here. Let them know that if they haven't taken meaningful action on climate change by the next general election that you won't be voting for them.

[Deleted User]

Definitely cutting back on, or ideally giving up, meat and dairy.

It’s a very simple and easy way to make a very big difference.

And if you’re an animal lover then it’s a double bonus.

Baybay

Our list includes trying to use locally or Irish grown produce, putting in bee & insect friendly plants, the last of the lawn will be planted out in the autumn, mending clothes or shoes etc before replacing & recycling, batch cooking where possible.
Any food waste is put out for the birds although I’m not sure if it’s the right thing to do now that we know bread isn’t the best for them but it somehow seems wrong to put it in the brown bin so my jury is still out on this one.
All small things but if we all do some small things, they might end up being big things.

Day Lewin

Eat local, not imported.

If you try to work out the environmental cost of importing your food, it is phenomenal: the clearing of ground, the ploughing, growing, watering, picking, packaging and above all TRANSPORT...by ship or plane or lorry...it is phenomenal: and moreover, we have little control over any of the above.
Whereas something produced in Ireland, we can control somewhat more, and the transport is minimal.
Of course, if you want protein, it will be meat of some kind, in winter: as it always was. When bovines eat a natural diet of mixed grasses and herbaceous plants, their emissions are much less.

WEAR local is another challenge: most of us are dressed from head to feet in plastic, these days.
The only local textiles would be wool and linen, maybe a little leather.

Think this through. It matters.

gozunda

Transport and fossil fuel usage still one of the single biggest and possibly easiest means to make a huge difference tbh

For example a return flight from London to Melbourne direct will use up over half the average persons C02.

Interesting article here:
https://www.wanderlust.co.uk/content/to-fly-or-not-to-fly/

Long-haul flights emit huge amounts of CO2 – and until aircraft use more fuel-efficient technologies there’s no getting away from that ‘inconvenient truth’....

driving a petrol car ...the emissions are about the same, kilometre for kilometre. For instance, a return trip from London to Bilbao in a 2L petrol engine car produces 0.26 tonnes of CO2, while a return flight produces 0.28 tonne

lawred2

You never buy plastic bottles?

one world order

Question why those that control the world are now pushing this climate change agenda. Why are they using the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program to cause havoc on the weather all around the world? It's unfortunate we can be so easily manipulated and mislead through the mass produced mainstream media, while we are so completely oblivious.

We will sleep walk our way to more taxes, pushing more wealth from those at the bottom to the evil at the top of the pyramid. I will continue to eat a healthy diet which includes meat and will do my own part to resist the climate change taxes coming down the line.

[Deleted User]

Saw this in Cool Vids & Pics & Links YLYL 9: So Vegan I forgot to laugh thread, HT Capt'n Midnight.

and it got me thinking..

The biggest cause of global pollution is excessive production for consumerism.
Put simply this is because they produce far in excess of what is actually needed the global needs can be sustained with production levels of at lease half of their current rates.

Why?

Because of the use of “planned obsolescence” a mechanism that artificially reduces the functional life of a product such that you are forced to replace it frequently , for example a washing machine can easily be designed to run for 25-30 years, but in fact fails in as tittle as sis years, just after the five year warranty runs out! This is deliberate design function to ensure future sales of replacement product.
It is also exasperated by the fact that spares are often difficult to obtain and with many products are impossible to repair due to the design of the product that prevent basic repairs from being carried out.

LED lamps are another example, after 40 years of electronics experience, I know that LEDs have an extremely long life if the electronics are properly designed 30,000 hours plus should be expected, but manufacturers are now bringing that down to less that 10,000 by designing the power supply to fail earlier with underrated components that will fail in about 10,000 hours.
These are just two examples of domestic devices that are designed to fail before their time to increase the profit margins for businesses and their shareholders.
In other areas, millions of plastic products are made with plastics that are designed to deteriorate far quicker than necessary to produce repeat purchases,
Shoes have soles made of materials that wear much faster than they should.
Cars used to be really bad before there was a consumer backlash in the 1970-80s after many deaths caused by cars that were designed to rust quickly getting involved in crashes and causing deaths by completely crushing as they were weakened by corrosion, or in some cases causing crashes by breaking up while being driven.
Then there is “perceived obsolescence” where consumers are being pressurised into replacing stuff that is perfectly functional with the latest and greatest model, which is usually the same as the previous one except for some more go-faster stripes or similar. The fashion industry is the worst offender here.
Then there is all the “single use” plastics to reduce costs in a fast food restaurant for example, to avoid paying for someone to wash dishes afterwards.
Finally to add insult to injury, there is a whole “recycling & waste management” industry created to get rid of all this rubbish.

So the third pane of the cartoon makes a lot of sense.
People just need to know what is happening in the world, whinging about climate change is a cop out, they need to be looking at their own consumerism and the corporate greed that is feeding it.

We should be lobbying our MPs, TDs or MEPs to try and outlaw the deliberate life shortening of products and ban manufacturers from making their products unrepairable or by preventing third party repairers getting parts.
One thing would be to mandate that products display a label with their design life and their ease or repair, similar to the energy ratings they currently carry.

“A” rated devices for example would have a design life in excess of 25 years and all parts are replaceable, it can be done.
Doing this will give the consumers a chance to demand longer life expectancy and repairable products by shunning those with a short design life or not serviceable.

Please share if you agree

Fourier

gozunda wrote: »

• Have fewer (or no) children (equaling, for someone in a rich country) an estimated 58.6 tons of C02 equivalent per child, per year

I just wanted to comment on this one, however this is not a disagreement with you gozunda just an expansion. The actual analysis behind that figure is very odd and not comparable to the others.

Seth Wynes and Kimberly Nicholas used a population model from an earlier 2009 paper to estimate the average number of descendants a single child contributes. Then they assigned a geometrically weighted factor to each of these descendants out to about 500 years into the future.

So basically 58.6 tons is the yearly apportioning of one's descendants weighted by generational distance to you until about the year 2600 under the assumption of (roughly, don't want to go into complete detail here for brevity) constant carbon emissions until that point.

This is not remotely the same kind of figure as the contributions from a car and it is very debatable to what degree they can be compared or that the 58.6 tons is even meaningful. The actual yearly emissions by a child are not anywhere near 58.6 tons. Several other researchers such as Bradshaw and Brook in this paper: https://www.pnas.org/content/111/46/16610.short don't agree with the conclusions.

Water John

There are smaller changes and bigger changes. The two biggest in anyone's personal life are transport and heating.
Electric car bike and walk. Electric car means central pollution point at least or at best renewable sources.
Space heating means house upgrade. If already on the natural gas network, hopefully more anerobic digesters (AD) plants will be injected into this and you can buy that. Otherwise looking to Heat Pump (HP), Air to Water (A2W).
As Conor above said; SEAI.

The biggest offender in air transport are the many weekend trips, sorry Mikey O'Leary. Our beef, whilst a contributor, is more carbon efficient than anywhere else in the world. The whole farming and soil carbon capture needs a lot of further research. Certainly high intensity farming has a negative carbon footprint.

ednwireland

totally agree with the consumerism bit, even when you buy expensive products even though they cost more you dont get the repairability, in the end a dishwasher is a dishwsher there are no new features a dishwasher has that is actually need, in fact mine is about 15 years old and has jsut had a pump replaced, my dryer is 10 my fridge about 7 (the previous one was over 20 years old).

although having replaced my car which ws 14 years old with a 6 year old one i obvioulsy had no choice of electric, petrol hybrid were out of my price range and of the cars available there were only 3 petrol cars available (none locally) - which doesnt resolve the fact that what the gov needed to be doing is investing as heavily in publc transport and cycle routes as they have done in roads in the last 20 years.

no reasonably priced options on replacing the boiler in january that could be done without huge cost and disruption - the alternatives to an oil boiler arent there for the mass market at the moment.

totally agree with in built obsolecence needs to be kicked to touch and fast

unfortunately our economies are built on increased growth wich doesnt fit with reducing emissions

Sir Guy who smiles

Macha wrote: »

Eat less meat and dairy and stop flying.

Those are the two best things you can do to help cut your personal carbon emissions. The rest is largely window dressing.

And the best thing you can do for system change, is be a climate voter, ie vote for candidates who have strong policies and PRIORITISE climate action. You said not political but we are not going to recycle our way out of climate breakdown. You either accept its an emergency and act accordingly or you don't.

Don't forget driving a car, if you live anywhere that's at all practical (i.e. not many places in Ireland).

" you emit as much carbon in one roundtrip flight (eg New York-London) as two years of eating meat, or eight months of driving a car). "
Kimberly Nichols

Associate Professor, Sustainability Science, Lund University Center for Sustainability Studies

Sir Guy who smiles

Water John wrote: »

The biggest offender in air transport are the many weekend trips, sorry Mikey O'Leary. Our beef, whilst a contributor, is more carbon efficient than anywhere else in the world. The whole farming and soil carbon capture needs a lot of further research. Certainly high intensity farming has a negative carbon footprint.

I am repeating myself from another thread, but we should remember that it is not just flying for pleasure that causes problems; there is an awful lot of business travel that might not be necessary in this age of video-conferencing.

Graces7

Fascinating thread; thank you.

what comes across most to me as a near-octagenarian is that many of the excellent ideas are how we lived in the 40s and 50s.

No " white goods" for most folk, and yes we washed by hand; no central heating, etc and foreign holidays if any were by ship not air.

Now I live much as we did then. No car . Washing by hand and in cold water. Growing as much as I can. No oil heating.

Just makes economic and environmental sense and is no hardship. second childhood.. oh and buying from thrift/charity shops

To those defeatist folk here, " many a mickle maks a muckle."

Gangu

Graces7 wrote: »

Fascinating thread; thank you.

what comes across most to me as a near-octagenarian is that many of the excellent ideas are how we lived in the 40s and 50s.

No " white goods" for most folk, and yes we washed by hand; no central heating, etc and foreign holidays if any were by ship not air.

Now I live much as we did then. No car . Washing by hand and in cold water. Growing as much as I can. No oil heating.

Just makes economic and environmental sense and is no hardship. second childhood.. oh and buying from thrift/charity shops

To those defeatist folk here, " many a mickle maks a muckle."

nice. What’s a nickel? Does it mean money?

Gangu

Sir Guy who smiles wrote: »

I am repeating myself from another thread, but we should remember that it is not just flying for pleasure that causes problems; there is an awful lot of business travel that might not be necessary in this age of video-conferencing.

Yes. There’s a lot of green washing at corporate level but then huge air use.

onetimecypher

Day Lewin wrote: »

Eat local, not imported.

WEAR local is another challenge: most of us are dressed from head to feet in plastic, these days.
The only local textiles would be wool and linen, maybe a little leather.

.

How? seen as you got rid of the sheep and cows

vladmydad

Oh so it’s climate “emergency” now lol. Folks just live your life and enjoy it. Drive your car, go on as many holidays as you can and eat all the wonderful food you can. I promise the world is not going to end and humanity will not destroy the planet. Human ingenuity and technology will solve any climate problems (if there is a problem). For example Carbon capture technology is already in development (google it). And above all please put down the Guardian and let go of your middle class guilt.

onetimecypher

https://www.google.ie/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj1qaqc3uXiAhUit3EKHTD5DtYQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fteslamotors%2Fcomments%2F4i3ohx%2Flithium_mine_vs_oil_production_this_is_going%2F&psig=AOvVaw2PDZEaXwzovF4lSMgpuXta&ust=1560490455385177

Wanderer78

vladmydad wrote:

Oh so itâ€™s climate â€œemergencyâ€ now lol. Folks just live your life and enjoy it. Drive your car, go on as many holidays as you can and eat all the wonderful food you can. I promise the world is not going to end and humanity will not destroy the planet. Human ingenuity and technology will solve any climate problems (if there is a problem). For example Carbon capture technology is already in development (google it). And above all please put down the Guardian and let go of your middle class guilt.

Anyhow, back to reality!