10:10 – Realistic Chance?

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.


9 Comments on “10:10 – Realistic Chance?”

  1. Z says:

    It seems to me that the people most likely to fill in this form and act on the items in it are the ones who are likely to be doing what they can anyway. It doesn’t give credit for what you already do, only what you change. And too many of the things suggested are impractical for anyone who lives in the country and/or in a listed building – it’s very much geared up to modern town life in a house you own, and where you have spare capital for major changes to it.

    And I absolutely disagree with the suggestion of shopping online – I support my local shops, usually by bike. I don’t want to put yet more money into Tesco’s pocket and I think (haven’t checked but their lorries are the only ones I see) they are the only supermarket that delivers to this village.

  2. Clair says:

    Couple of thoughts:

    • Online shopping delivery can be better, but only if they’re doing multiple deliveries to the same location. If they have to drive an entire lorry/van to your town just for you, it’s not better. Try growing more of your own veg instead?
    • 97% efficiency on a boiler is astounding. Are you sure they didn’t say 87%? Also consider that oil has more CO2 associated with it per kWh than gas if there are possibilities of switching.
    • if you find that reducing your car usage is impractical (and I tend to agree with you about the stupidity of buying a new car when an old one still works well), could you consider switching it to use biodiesel?
    • you skimmed over the bit about small TVs 😉

    More importantly, you seem to be taking a very critical view of a campaign which is really meant to get those people involved who haven’t done much yet, which is a large part of the population.

  3. lyle says:
    • Re boiler – yep, definitely 97%. Oil boilers are apparently highly efficient in transforming fuel->heat. Who knew?
    • Gas heating is impossible where we are – no mains gas in the village at all
    • I’d consider bio-diesel if it were easily available. We don’t have a ‘person in the know’ for getting lots of chip fat/cooking oil etc., so I’m ambivalent on that one so far
    • Small TVs are fine – we’re still on an old CRT model. When it dies, we’ll replace with something else, probably LCD rather than plasma. But we’re keeping on using the old one ’til it dies.

    I’m not being critical of the campaign per se, it’s more that (in my opinion) there’s a decidedly insular feel to it. It seems very city-centric (and yet as Charlie Stross says, doesn’t accept some of the joys of living in those cities) so it’s more “Notting Hill” than “Southwark”. By which I mean no real addressing of (for example) flats – ever tried putting solar panels on the roof of a flat? Or installing a composting toilet? – or environs other than “semi or detached, own house, good non-car transport links” etc.

    To me, if a campaign like this is going to actually have an effect, it should be looking at what can be done across the board, so could look at community use of resources, etc. I suspect there’ll be another couple of pieces about 10:10 and the like – I know there’s one done for tomorrow already…

  4. Clair says:

    It has only just started, and has 18 months to run. There will be more and more information supplied over that time as to different things that people can do.

    In the mean time, you can always join my eco team 😉
    http://ecoteams.org.uk/og/subscribe/192

  5. I gave up my car in 2001, so I can’t give it up again. My TV is 20th century model. I wear extra layers in the winter to keep my gas bill low. I’m the only person in my block with a water meter, because I asked for one.

    But (like you) I guess none of this counts, because these are changes I’ve already made. I wonder what 10% of my existing frugal lifestyle the 10:10 campaign would like me to cut instead.

  6. Gordon says:

    Nice attitude there mate. So you are ahead of the majority of the rest of the country, well done!!

    Knocking this seems a bit pointless though. Just because YOU can’t do a lot of the things, doesn’t make it pointless.

    You don’t [half] have a strange view of the world sometimes!

    [Edited to add the word I think Gordon meant to type 🙂 ]

  7. lyle says:

    I’m not saying it’s pointless, Gordon – just that perhaps the suggestions could have been better thought out.

    After all, as in my case and that of Mr Stross, the people who actually believe in doing this stuff are already doing it.

    Now maybe I’m wrong on this, but I would have thought that it would be better to be looking at ways to get people involved who aren’t already involved, rather than the ones who’ve been contributing for a couple of years already.

    I don’t think it’s pointless – just perhaps a bit mis-targeted?

  8. Blue Witch says:

    “Oil boilers are apparently highly efficient in transforming fuel->heat. Who knew?”

    Erm… me!

    Buy only manmade fibres

    What, derived from oil? I don’t understand that one.

    LCD TVs use ten times the power of CRTs. And yet they are all being forcibly scrapped within the next 3 years by what the governmint has allowed/encouraged (unless one chooses to run another add-on gadget, and most people are viewing the switchover as a reason to replace their old TVs.

    I have no idea how I could save 10% more either. And, quite frankly, I’m not going to while I see people with kids driving round in gas-guzzlers putting out bins full of unsorted stuff that could be recycled. It’s their kids all this is being done for, after all…


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