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Climate Change

“Stop reading this for a second and go and have a peek at one of your children. Is he sleeping? Curled up with his grubby teddy bear, tousled head on his pillow, blankets on the floor. Are you really going to trust his future to the possibility that some boffin somewhere might find a ‘solution’ to global warming?”

(Extract from “How to Win a Nobel Prize – A Stay-at-Home Mum’s Guide”)

What we can do as Individuals

Reduce our carbon footprint

This just means that we should reduce our emission of carbon dioxide – the primary greenhouse gas by taking small steps to:

• Reduce petrol consumption
• Reduce flying (especially short haul flights)
• Reduce electricity consumption

How to we do this?

Reduce petrol consumption

• Use public transport or walk sometimes.
• If you are buying a new car, opt for a hybrid of electric car.
• Lobby for incentives (like tax breaks for environmentally friendly cars, pedestrian only city centres, efficient, alternative-fuel public transport).

Don’t believe driving is a problem?

Use a carbon calculator to work out carbon emissions from driving!
www.terrapass.com

The responsible choice is easy!

Reduce flying

Short haul flights are very heavy on carbon emissions. Despite the temptation of all those budget airlines, take the train, drive a hybrid or stay at home!

Don’t believe how bad flying is relative to other activity? Check out the carbon emission calculators on www.climatecare.org.

Reduce electricity consumption

Have a look at the household tips on these websites:

• www.greenpeace.org
• www.seattle.gov

It really isn’t that difficult to make a dent. My suggestion is that you work out when your electricity meter is read. Don’t start changing your lifestyle until you know it is the first day of a new period (it might just be the calendar month) and then put your back into it for a month. Do everything you possibly can – you will be amazed and inspired to continue by the amount you save both in dollar terms and, more importantly, in climate terms.

Finally, if you want to find out your household carbon emissions – get your most recent electricity bill and use one of the following sites:

• www.climatecare.org
• www.terrapass.com

Assuming that we have reduced our carbon footprint by reducing our fuel consumption (whether in a car or plane) and electricity consumption to the maximum – what do we do next? Is this good enough?

Personally, I don’t think so. I believe that if we want to make a genuine impact on the problem of global warming to safeguard the planet for our children, we need to offset the rest of our carbon emissions to become carbon neutral.

Becoming carbon neutral

This is easier and less expensive than you might think!

As an example:

My family and I drive a Volvo C70 Estate about 12,000 miles a year. Our electricity consumption is about 2359kWh per month. We have one long haul return flight a year (for a family of five) as well as perhaps on average 8 individual short haul flights a year. You might all have noticed that our carbon footprint is pretty big! This is because my panic about my children is of recent date. I can’t change the car because the production of a new car has such a huge climate impact. I am working hard on the emissions and the flights.

Based on the carbon calculators set out above, my family and I emit A YEAR (excluding my husband’s business travel which I will address separately):

- 5.25 tonnes of CO2 driving
- 21.28 tonnes of CO2 flying
- 12.17 tonnes of CO2 from home electricity consumption for a grand total of

38.7 tonnes of CO2.

I have to say I am really ashamed of these numbers and will work very hard to reduce them (and inform you of progress).

The cost of setting off 38.7 tonnes of CO2 is approximately:

Sterling 290.27 or SGD$870.81 or US$540.15.

I have offset these emissions at www.climatecare.org!

Please join me – we could really make a difference.

Scaling up

We need to persuade other to join us in this attempt to reduce our carbon impact.
There are a few schemes including tree planting and carbon competition mentioned in my book. Do send me anything you would like to see highlighted here that might encourage those around us to become carbon neutral.

In addition, I attach a letter that you can send to your MP, Government, community group etc to urge them to take bold steps to reduce climate change. If they get wind of the fact that there is a large electoral group that will support them for taking aggressive action on climate change we may see the wheels of government speed up!

Letter on Climate Change      ( letter in Word format)