So who's reduced their carbon footprint?

Seeing petrol hit 98 pence per litre in my home town I've decided to cycle the 3.5 miles each way to work and back a few days a week. More for fitness / destressing between work and home rather than "OMG I'm killing the world with my CO2 emmisions".

But I'll still use my 1.8L 186g/km car for leisure trips visiting interesting places for cycling / photography, and for days when it's wet and windy, no point getting soaked in the cycle in to work when I mostly work out of doors anyway.

I don't fly overseas either.
 
I use my bike to do short journeys. Not primarily to reduce my carbon footprint, more to keep fit and save a bit of money. Although I am aware it helps the environment.

I'm satisfied that climate change is occurring and that humans are the primary cause so I'll do what I can to help. I recycle what I can, turn stuff off, etc.

Here's a good video about whether we should act:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FjqikCEzP7w

I think it's unfair to say that we shouldn't do anything because China aren't. Surely they'll argue that the rest of the world aren't doing anything so why should we?

Also, it's easy for the rich western countries to demand the rest of the world do something when we've been pumping crap into the atmosphere for hundreds of years in order to get our economy to where it is now.

That said, I don't like to see policy changes that affect the average person too much, e.g. £1000 extra tax for using a 4x4.
 
Yes my household is doing it's part.

When an old light bulb blows, we are replacing it with an energy efficient ones.

All foil, paper, metal, glass, card is put out for collection.

Thats about it really.
 
Jet said:
I think it's unfair to say that we shouldn't do anything because China aren't. Surely they'll argue that the rest of the world aren't doing anything so why should we?

Also, it's easy for the rich western countries to demand the rest of the world do something when we've been pumping crap into the atmosphere for hundreds of years in order to get our economy to where it is now.
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It makes no difference, it's ppm that matter, which is linked to emissions. We can't lower emissions to stabilise ppm let alone reduce it. It's just not possible. So there rarely is no point other than to get money out of us.
 
I turn electrical stuff off in the house and recycle. I mostly drive economically and dont really do short trips.

But I do this to save money. Things like carbon footprint really annoy me, why should only the UK do it if China and USA who produce loads more CO2 dont have anything like this.
 
AcidHell2 said:
It makes no difference, it's ppm that matter, which is linked to emissions. We can't lower emissions to stabilise ppm let alone reduce it. It's just not possible. So there rarely is no point other than to get money out of us.
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Parts per million?

I'm not sure why that's an argument against trying to slow climate change.

We can never halt climate change and I don't think anyone has said we can but it's in our best interests to slow it down so it won't have as big/quick effect on the world. Slowing it down will give us time to adapt and create new technologies to help.

Here's an article by New Scientist:

Climate myths: We can't do anything about climate change

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11658

No offence but I'll trust people like New Scientist before I'll trust you unless you can advance some very persuasive arguments against.

If the majority of the scientific community think it's our fault and we can help then I don't see why we shouldn't try.
 
Jet said:
Parts per million?

I'm not sure why that's an argument against trying to slow climate change.
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yes part per million. Because it's impossible to reduce cot emissions enough to even noticeably slow the increase in PPM.

you have to remember taht new scientists is a magazine.

much in line with model predictions.
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That's laughable, I don't now one single model that hasn't over predicted global warming by several magnitudes.

However I do agree with the statement. That once viable alternatives start showing, we will be weaned of oil very fast. I'm all for reducing pollution, toxins in water, heavy metal contamination and less rubbish. Co2 however is way down the scale.

Also once you weight greenhouse gasses with there affect, co2 is not as big a problem as it first appears. Methane and water are far better greenhouses gasses.
 
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My wife helped massively in the reduction of my carbon footprint and was ably assisted by my area manager. Firstly, my wife spent more than the GDP of a small african nation on our wedding and my area manager increased my commute from 4 miles to 30 miles each way. How did this help??? I had to sell my GTO Twin Turbo :(
 
AcidHell2 said:
yes part per million. Because it's impossible to reduce cot emissions enough to even noticeably slow the increase in PPM.

you have to remember taht new scientists is a magazine.
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I know they're a magazine but the IPCC, AAAS and many, many more agree.

What's your source for the fact that there is no point in doing anything?

AcidHell2 said:
That's laughable, I don't now one single model that hasn't over predicted global warming by several magnitudes.

However I do agree with the statement. That once viable alternatives start showing, we will be weaned of oil very fast. I'm all for reducing pollution, toxins in water, heavy metal contamination and less rubbish. Co2 however is way down the scale.

Also once you weight greenhouse gasses with there affect, co2 is not as big a problem as it first appears. Methane and water are far better greenhouses gasses.
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CO2 is the one thing the average person has an effect on though. I personally don't emit much methane and I can't decrease what I do produce. Plus CO2 levels are increasing at a much faster rate than methane and only half of all methane produced is due to humans.

There is nothing wrong with decreasing the levels of other greenhouse gasses, but we shouldn't ignore CO2.

Here's what the IPCC says:

Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years (see Figure SPM-1). The global increases
in carbon dioxide concentration are due primarily to fossil fuel use and land-use change, while those of methane and nitrous oxide are primarily due to agriculture. {2.3, 6.4, 7.3}

• Carbon dioxide is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas (see Figure SPM-2). The global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 280 ppm to 379 ppm3 in 2005. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range over the last 650,000 years (180 to 300 ppm) as determined from ice cores. The annual carbon dioxide concentration growth-rate was larger during the last 10 years (1995 – 2005 average: 1.9 ppm per year), than it has been since the beginning of continuous direct atmospheric measurements (1960 – 2005 average: 1.4 ppm per year) although there is year-to-year variability in growth rates. {2.3, 7.3}

• The primary source of the increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide since the pre-industrial period results from fossil fuel use, with land use change providing another significant but smaller
contribution.

Since there isn't much agriculture going on in this country on the grand scale and we need it too live, I think we should concentrate on CO2.

It doesn't mention water vapour so I'm going to conclude it isn't a problem.

Do you disagree with the majority of the scientific community that we can do something about climate change? Which scientific organisation backs your opinion?
 
Jet said:
CO2 is the one thing the average person has an effect on though. I personally don't emit much methane and I can't decrease what I do produce. Plus CO2 levels are increasing at a much faster rate than methane and only half of all methane produced is due to humans.
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Less than 1% of co2 is made by man. The rest is natural. You produce a lot of methane, if you u eat meat.

The IPCC is an incompetent fools organisation. every year since there existence they have had to lower there predictions on global warming as the figurers do not match there models.
water vapour is 100X a better green house gas than co2, methane is 25x better a greenhouse gas as co2.

The reason it's pointless. Is none of these organisations have any plans or ideas on how to lower co2.
 
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I guess i have sort of, i have a car i get 50+MPG running on veg oil.

I think the other one doing 16-18MPG on 4-Star kinda offsets this though, i'm hoping to increase my carbon footprint next year with a new even less economical engine :).
 
Two points: the “no point ‘cos of China etc. argument” is absolute rubbish. Every individual person on the planet, on their own, is responsible for their own actions. Just because there happens to be a “political” line drawn around a large bunch of folk over there is totally irrelevant.

Anyway – more important from a UK point of view is energy security. Forget carbon, just look at the country’s energy supply. We don’t have enough. See this charts I drew earlier in the year:

cv_production_06.png


cv_prod_vs_con_06.png


From: UK Energy Descent Continues

The trends have all continued this year so the situation is worse. It will be ruinous to the UK economy to have to compete on the international market with counties like China (with their massive foreign exchange surplus) for oil.
 
AcidHell2 said:
Less than 1% of co2 is made by man. The rest is natural. You produce a lot of methane, if you u eat meat.

The IPCC is an incompetent fools organisation. every year since there existence they have had to lower there predictions on global warming as the figurers do not match there models.
water vapour is 100X a better green house gas than co2, methane is 25x better a greenhouse gas as co2.
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First of all it doesn't matter that only 1% is caused by humans. What matters is what affect the 1% has on the earth.

So you don't like the IPCC, what about the AAAS or nearly every other respected scientific body?

Carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere by a variety of natural sources, and over 95% percent of total CO2 emissions would occur even if humans were not present on Earth. For example, the natural decay of organic material in forests and grasslands, such as dead trees, results in the release of about 220 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year. These natural sources are balanced by natural sinks, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The increase in carbon dioxide concentration arises because the increase from human activity is not balanced by a corresponding sink.

Increased amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere enhance the greenhouse effect. It is currently the majority scientific opinion that carbon dioxide emissions are the main cause of global warming observed since the latter half of the 20th century.

Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change: A Scientific Symposium on Stabilisation of Greenhouse Gases - the participation of around 200 'internationally renowned' scientists from 30 countries.

Conclusions:

The conference concluded that, at the level of 550 ppm, it was likely that 2°C would be exceeded, based on the projections of more recent climate models. Stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations at 450 ppm would only result in a 50% likelihood of limiting global warming to 2°C, and that it would be necessary to achieve stabilisation below 400 ppm to give a relatively high certainty of not exceeding 2°C.[4] The conference also claimed that, if action to reduce emissions is delayed by 20 years, rates of emission reduction may need to be 3 to 7 times greater to meet the same temperature target.

If they think we can do it, so do I. If they don't mention Methane or water vapour do you not think they do that for a reason? Either we can't decrease it or there is no need to.
 
Jet said:
If they think we can do it, so do I. If they don't mention Methane or water vapour do you not think they do that for a reason? Either we can't decrease it or there is no need to.
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I think it's due to political and funding reasons.

I totally agree on energy security, but we don't achieve that though ineffective taxes.

Unfortunately I don't agree with everyone make s there own co2 foot print. The numbers just don't add up for that. reducing your foot print wont do anything, reducing the uk's footprint to zero, won't do anything. The only way to do something is for the entire world to cut co2 emissions, this isn't going to happen why oil is the easiest and cheapest form of power. China and other emerging markets are critical to reducing co2, how ever you can't acheive that. SO yet again the whole thing is impossible to achieve.

If they think we can do it, so do I.
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where have they said that? they said we need to. Not how.
 
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