10:10 – Realistic Chance?

Posted: Fri 4 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Domestic, Green, Thoughts |9 Comments »

My initial thoughts on the Guardian’s 10:10 Campaign were pretty non-committal, but yesterday I read Charlie Stross’s full-size and well thought-out piece, so I thought I’d do something similar to his post, but based on my own life and/or carbon footprint, which might help fill out my own thoughts and ideas on it.

So, using The Guardian’s own “How to reduce your carbon emissions” list, here we go… (Click on the more link below)

Domestic Gas (Although really it’s “heating”, which in our case is oil)

• Major improvement in your home’s insulation – Did that last year on the cavity wall, with impressive results
• New boiler if yours is more than 10 years old – Our boiler is nearer to twenty years old, but on it’s test earlier this year came out at 97% efficient. We asked about any recommendations, and got told the newer ones wouldn’t be any better.
• Cavity wall insulation – See above
• Double glazing if you don’t have it – Got it
• Solar hot water – Unfeasible for us – the design of the roof would mean installing a second water tank, even more pipework, and some complicated management guff
• Increase loft insulation, seal doors and skirting boards, etc – the loft is a nightmare task to insulate, and we’ve already done the rest of it
• Better controls for boiler, hot water tank and radiators – Installed two years ago
• Buy a wood-burning stove – Installed two/three years ago
• Reduce your thermostat temp by 1 degree – Already done
• Heat one less room – Already done
• Slow-flow showers, not baths

Amount we can actually do : 1

Electricity

• Install 2 kilowatt solar PV panels – As per solar water heating, not practicable in our place. Plus inordinately expensive.
• Buy a new A++ refrigerator if yours is more than 4 years old, and only use a small-screen TV. – we bought a new fridge last year, which was as efficient as possible.
• Use LED or fluorescent lights where you currently have halogen lights installed – we’re doing this as the bulbs blow
• Buy an automated system to turn off appliances when not in use; get a meter that shows actual energy use and use it to monitor your household – Got the meter, and everything that can be turned off is turned off.
• Only use your washing machine and dishwasher when full to capacity and at lowest temperature – No dishwasher, but already do this with the washing machine. Who doesn’t?
• Never use the tumble dryer – Don’t have one
• Get rid of the freezer if you can, and replace your small appliances with “eco” varieties – when they break, we will. However, the freezer keeps our grown food/veg for use later in the year, rather than wasting it (See under ‘Food’)

Amount we can actually do : 1 (changing the bulbs as they blow)

Car

• Cut your annual mileage in half – Most of my mileage is related to work. If I can cut it, I will
• Sell the second car – In Norfolk, we need a car each. You can’t rely on anything without a car where we live.
• Buy a new car with emissions in car tax bands A or B, then scrap the old one – this one’s farcical. It’s greener to keep an old car running cleanly than to scrap it for no good reason, and tie up more energy/materials in a new one.
• Join a car club or set up an effective local car-sharing scheme – None exist round us.
• Share car to work – Nigh-on impossible, due to the way I change jobs/contracts and don’t always work away from home
• Go on a day’s eco-driving course, fit low-resistance tyres and check air pressure every month – I check the pressures. I’ve never even heard of an eco-driving course, FFS.
• Don’t ever use a car for shopping. Buy online – We do our main shopping online. If we drive to the shops, it’s normally part of being out doing other things.
• Work from home one day a week rather than commuting by car – Talk to my clients about reducing their obsession with “bums on seats”. It’s the 21st century.

Amount we can actually do? 2. Maybe.

Air travel

• Never fly – Already doing
• Restrict yourself to one short-haul return flight a year on a carrier with a fuel-efficient fleet – No plans for flying in 2009 or 2010

Amount we can do : 0

Consumer electronics

• Buy secondhand mobile phones and ensure that three of your electronic devices are recycled – How many devices do you think I’ve got? Most of my devices get used until they die. When they die, they get recycled if possible.
• Keep your electronic devices (eg phones, TVs, computers, DVD players, games machines) one year longer than you would have – already doing. The laptop’s lasted three years, my phone is already a year old (and Herself’s one is on a two-year contract now)
• Switch from a desktop computer to a laptop at home, and recycle the desktop – I’ll stick with using both. The desktop is off most of the time, but there come times when it’s far more powerful than the laptop.

Amount we can actually do : 0

Food

• Go vegan three days a week – we do vegatarian already. Vegan’s not going to happen. After all, we have chickens and eggs.
• Change to an almost entirely vegetarian diet, using mostly unprocessed wholefoods such as grains, seeds and nuts – Already do
• Never buy processed food or ready meals – Already do
• Buy more carefully and never throw food away – Already do
• Grow all your own fruit and vegetables for July, August, September – Already do

Amount we can actually do? 0

Clothing

• Buy 50% secondhand clothes – Unfortunately, being a fat sod, there’s very little that comes up in my sizes.
• Reduce purchases by a more than a quarter compared to last year (eg buy four new T-shirts not the UK average of seven) – I buy new clothes when I need to, when they’re too knackered and/or torn to be used any more.
• Buy only manmade fibres – Get stuffed. I’m not wearing nylon/polyester for anyone – and for good reason. I’d end up a) roasting hot, b) sweaty, and c) getting electric shocks off everything. None of that’s good.
• Focus on new fabrics made from bamboo, hemp or other cotton substitutes – If the stuff is decent/comfortable, I’ll give it a go.

Amount we can actually do? 1 (New fabrics)

Water, sewage and waste disposal

• Install a ‘grey water’ recycling system to take water from your washing machine into your lavatory
• Use showers, not baths. Install a flow-reducing aerator for the shower head – Already do
• Regularly use soap, a basin of water and a sponge instead of a shower – Already do
• Buy ultra-low water use cisterns, new water-saving dishwasher, washing machine. Recycle old ones – New efficient washing machine and cisterns in the last two years. No dishwasher.
• Install – and carefully monitor – a water meter. (Our supplier won’t do so) Put bricks in all the loos to reduce water. Carefully recycle all waste, compost all organic matter – Already do
• Install a composting toilet – Sorry, but no. We’ve put in a new toilet less than two years ago. It’s not getting replaced ’til it dies.

Amount we can actually do? 1. Maybe. (Grey water system)

Public transport

In Norfolk? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Our village has exactly one bus service per week. On Tuesdays.

• Cycle everywhere – If I lived in a city, fine. I don’t. I could (and plan to, eventually) cycle to the village shop. Anything else is at least four miles each way, and utterly impractical.
• Always use coaches instead of the train – Again, get stuffed. I can get the train from Attleborough, four miles away. I can be in Cambridge in an hour, and London in 2-and-a-bit.
  The coach to Cambridge goes at either 18:20 or 23:05, and takes 90 minutes. Commuting to Cambridge by Coach? Utterly impractical.
  For London it’s slightly better – but takes four hours instead of two.
• Work from home two days a week instead of taking public transport to work – I do work from home when I can. I should be able to do so more. However, clients seem to like ‘bums on seats’.

Amount we can actually do? 0

Paper

• Only buy newspapers, magazines, books, toilet paper and copier paper made from recycled materials. – I don’t buy newspapers except on Saturday, and it gets recycled by Monday. I’ll buy books and magazines on recycled matrials when they become properly available.
• Block direct mail, choose electronic bills and statements, buy secondhand books and share papers. – All of these have been done. But what’s the carbon difference between printing a bill and posting it, vs. having it online, needing to power up a computer to see the bill, and having the bill stored on servers somewhere, taking up power forever?

Amount we can actually do? 0. A-bloody-gain.

So the total list of things we can do, out of this list of 51?  6. At a push. Way to go.

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