Guest guest Posted July 9, 2007 Report Share Posted July 9, 2007 http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/body_and_soul/article1694062.ece Yesterday Polly Ghazi and Rachel Lewis showed how to calculate your carbon weight and slim down in the home. Today learn how to change your travel and shopping habits to lose more carbon calories TRANSPORT The commute If you work within 2km (slightly less than 1¼ miles) of your home, try getting up earlier and walking or cycling to the office Before you know it, you’ll be able to cancel that expensive gym membership. If you have a longer commute, take the bus, Underground or train. Use the following table to work out your weekly carbon calorie savings if you switch from driving to alternative modes of transport. Multiply the CO figure for travel by train, bus or Underground by the number of kilometres travelled each month. Then calculate your savings by deducting this figure from the total you would have incurred if you had driven. Car emissions during rush hour, by the way, are much higher than the daily average — 339g/km rather than 180g/km for an average-size petrol car — so you’ll be shedding significant calories by taking the bus instead. The carbon commute — CO² emissions* By diesel train — 98g for 1km By Underground — 65g for 1km By single-decker bus — 66g for 1km By foot/bicycle — 0g for 1km * emissions during peak commuting hours If you’re not sure how long your journey is and you live in London, visit www.walkit.com which will work out the distance for you. Outside the capital, use the AA’s handy web-site at www.theaa.com/travelwatch/planner_ main.jsp to get distances between destinations nationwide. Keep up your resolve by recording your monthly savings on the diet masterplan (see timesonline.co.uk/carbondiet). Here are some sample savings if you leave your car in the garage: C = carbon savings per year C For a daily 12km round-trip commute: train = 51kg, bus = 57kg; Tube = 58kg C For a 4km round-trip walk to work: 24kg C For a 12km daily round trip by bicycle: 71kg The school run Easy one this. At 8.50am almost one car in five in Britain’s towns and cities is on a school run, creating a giant mushroom cloud of carbon dioxide. If your children’s school is 2km away or less, use your legs or bike. Research indicates that more active children are likely to become more active, healthier adults. So get up 20 minutes earlier, prepare the kids’ lunch the night before and do whatever it takes to get out of the door with enough time before school starts. If ditching the car every day is too daunting, try a two or three-day-a-week commitment. This way you have a get-out if it rains. Sample savings: C 26kg a month for a 4km round trip, twice a day (if you cycle/walk to school three days out of five) Other short hops To the local shops, the library, friends’ homes, your health club. If you find walking dull, make it interesting. Put on headphones and an iPod. If you’re carrying things, take a backpack or use a bike with a pannier. Sample savings: C 11.5kg for 20 short trips a month out of rush hour (64km total travel) Want to know more? www.transport2000.org.ukwww.eta.co.uk Top 5 carbon-light petrol cars Toyota Prius — 104g/km Honda Civic Hybrid — 109g/km Citroën C — 109g/km Toyota Aygo — 109g/km Peugot 107 — 109g/km FOOD Food production, processing, packaging and transport account for at least 20 per cent of British greenhouse gas emissions and a sixth of the carbon emissions produced by a typical household. What action can you take? The answers are not all simple or obvious. Organic food is not always a good option, especially when delivered by aircraft. Food miles are bad, but long-distance delicacies do not generate the most food-related emissions. That dubious prize goes to animal rearing, which means that eating meat is bad for a low-carbon diet. Other culprits include food processing, refrigeration and supermarket storage. To keep it simple, we suggest you follow these five food rules. 1 Buy local and in season The closer to home your food originates, the smaller its impact on the atmosphere and the more carbon calories you shed. Good choices, because they’re usually British grown, are carrots, parsnips, turnips, potatoes, cabbage, sprouts, broccoli, apples and pears. A majority of supermarket chicken, pork, beef and lamb is also home-grown, but always check the country of origin. By buying British instead of foreign produce, you can save almost 54kg/CO² on the contents of a single shopping basket. For example: Basket made in Britain: cauliflower, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, carrots, onions. Total = 0.18kg CO² . Basket flown from abroad: limes from Brazil, pears from Italy, avocados from Chile, peaches from the US, pineapple from Costa Rica, baby corn from Kenya. Total = 54kg CO² . 2 Eat less meat This could be the single biggest difference that your eating habits can make to your carbon diet. Rearing animals and processing and refrigerating meat products uses much more energy than growing crops, fruit and vegetables. Livestock releases vast quantities of methane. Cows are the worst offenders. Each 1lb (0.45kg) of reared beef on your dinner table has cost 5.2kg of CO² to produce. C 2.6kg for every beef meal you cut out. 3 Eat all the food you buy Over a year we throw out a fifth of the fresh produce we buy — £424 worth — according to the Food Climate Research Network. If we ate all that, imagine the effect. Demand, domestic production and imports would all fall and so would national food-related CO² emissions. So do your bit. Plan your shopping carefully, meal by meal, don’t buy more perishables than you can eat in a week and pay close attention to those use-by dates. 4 Buy UK organic food Unlike buying local food, organic food is already a national habit. However British demand far outstrips supply, which means that most organic products are imported. The transport involved almost always produces more CO² emissions than those saved through organic production — 235 times more in the case of organic produce flown from New Zealand. Even transporting fruit or vegetables from Southern Europe generates twice the energy saved during organic production. Buy organic products made in Britain. 5 Buy in bulk We each drive an average 130 miles a year just to buy food. The simple solution is to buy in bulk. Nonperishables — cereals, rice, pasta, etc — are cheaper to buy in bulk and as a bonus you’ll cut down on packaging waste. Home delivery is another option, with the supermarket doing the work and saving food miles by delivering to several customers in one trip. C Do one weekly supermarket shop instead of three — 4kg a month, 52kg a year. HOLIDAY It’s impossible to ignore the impact on climate of cheap flights. With opportunities for global travel never greater, carbon emissions from international flights by Britons rose by 85 per cent between 1990 and 2002. Domestic air travel (often cheaper than the train) reached six billion passenger-miles in 2002. No surprise, then, that air travel makes up a third of the average Briton’s direct carbon emissions. To make matters worse, the climate impact of flying is proportionally greater than that of any other personal activity. This is because carbon dioxide emissions have a greater warming effect when they mix with other greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere. Just one return trip to Los Angeles will pile 5,216 kg/CO² on to your figure, 50 per cent of the average Briton’s annual emissions. We’re not going to play Scrooge and tell you to give up your hard-earned holidays. But we will show you how to cut down those air miles and find more climate-friendly destinations. Cut your air miles Almost half of all flights over Europe cover less than 300 miles (483km). While jumping on a plane may have become second nature, this is a distance easily covered by train. And the carbon benefits are huge. Flights from London to Paris or Brussels generate ten times more carbon dioxide emissions than taking the train, according to independent research for Eurostar. Carbon savings to holiday hotspots Trips from London by train/bus instead of plane: Paris C 222kg Prague C 756kg Edinburgh C 232kg Make a fly-less pledge As a basic rule of thumb, the fewer flights you take the better. Start with a realistic commitment, perhaps cutting long-haul flights to one every two years instead of one a year. Or limit yourself to two budget-airline trips a year to European cities if you normally take three or four. You could always substitute a planned week abroad for two long weekends exploring Britain by train or car. If you love to shop in New York, why not cut out the jet lag and security checks, save lots of cash and carbon calories and order online? C Cut out one return short-haul flight a year — 405kg; Cut out a return flight to the US East Coast — 3,317kg; Cut out a return flight to the US West Coast — 5,216kg. Pay guilt money: offset your air miles Carbon offsetting may sound technical, but it’s hitting the high street as concerned consumers seek to “cancel out” their impact on climate change. Most schemes work by paying towards energy-saving projects in developing countries, such as installing wind turbines or rooftop solar panels. Travel offsetting, especially by air, is generating the most business. Offsetting is a feel-good move rather than a real weight-reducer, like substituting saccharine for sugar rather than cutting out sweet foods. But it’s better than doing nothing: we suggest that you consider these options, but don’t deduct any payments from your own carbon-calorie total. Book with the Travelcare high street chain and offset your flights when you buy tickets. Eight price bands reflect the distance travelled — £3 to mainland Spain, £50 to Australia. Customers receive feel-good luggage tags that help to spread the word. Next time you fly by British Airways look at their carbon-offset scheme at www.ba.com/ offsetyouremissions. A return flight to Johannesburg will set you back £13.30. Climate Care, one of the most established offset companies, is a partner with Travelcare and BA and also takes individual donations at www.climatecare.org.uk. Read about its overseas projects and get payment estimates for your travel plans over the next month or year. To work out your personal saving to any destination, you need to do one quick calculation. For every 1km that you travel, simply count 0.31kg/CO² saved if you take the coach and .37kg CO² saved if you take the train. FOUR GOLDEN RULES OF CARBON DIETING 1 Save energy and money The biggest diet-buster is home energy use. Heat, hot water and electricity account for 43 per cent of the average family’s direct carbon emissions — more than any other activity. But much of this energy is wasted, by millions of tonnes of CO2 a year. There is plenty of room to trim the fat, simply by cutting out careless habits and investing in a few home improvements. The key is to get into a mindset where it becomes second nature to save energy rather than squander it. After all, how hard is it to switch off a light? Here’s an added incentive: using less energy can also save you money. For example: £7 a year for each low-energy light bulb installed; £37 for switching off appliances on standby; £20 for draught-proofing windows and doors; £180 for insulating your attic. 2 Drive smart, fly less Why do you drive? To get to work despite the traffic jams, parking costs and road rage? To drive the kids half a mile to school, when you could all do with the exercise? To visit the local gym (duh!) or corner shop? Transport is the fastest growing source of British greenhouse gas emissions. Before grabbing your keys, think whether you really need the car this time. We all love cheap flights. But flying creates more personal carbon calories than any other single activity. Following our diet, then spending a long weekend in New York, is like losing a stone and then stuffing yourself with doughnuts and putting it all back on. We’re not asking you to give up flying altogether. But finding other ways to travel, most of the time, is a cornerstone of a low-carbon diet. 3 Buy local Buying products that have been flown thousands of miles to stock our supermarkets and high street chains piles on our carbon weight. And if enough of us make an effort to buy local or British-made products, retailers will get the message that consumers don’t want to shop at the planet’s expense. So become a consumer detective and scrutinise labels for country of origin. Any products you buy, try and choose home-grown or homemade. 4 Slash the trash Half a tonne of rubbish passes through the average British dustbin every year. Most is buried in tips where the food waste decomposes and pumps out greenhouse gases. By throwing so much stuff away, we also create demand for new products, the manufacture, packaging and transport of which generate more greenhouse gases. Carbon dieters can turn this equation on its head by composting food waste, avoiding overpackaged goods and reusing or recycling their possessions. The Low Carbon Diet (Short Books), published on May 3, is available at £11.69 (RRP £12.99) from Times BooksFirst on 0870 1608080 or visit timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst love*light, GaiaHemp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 10, 2007 Report Share Posted July 10, 2007 The CO2 movemnet is a hoax. CO2 is good for plant life. The more CO2 the better. Ole - HAH Tuesday, July 10, 2007 12:35 AM How to keep cutting that carbon http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/body_and_soul/article1694062.ece Yesterday Polly Ghazi and Rachel Lewis showed how to calculate your carbon weight and slim down in the home. Today learn how to change your travel and shopping habits to lose more carbon calories TRANSPORT The commute If you work within 2km (slightly less than 1¼ miles) of your home, try getting up earlier and walking or cycling to the office Before you know it, you’ll be able to cancel that expensive gym membership. If you have a longer commute, take the bus, Underground or train. Use the following table to work out your weekly carbon calorie savings if you switch from driving to alternative modes of transport. Multiply the CO figure for travel by train, bus or Underground by the number of kilometres travelled each month. Then calculate your savings by deducting this figure from the total you would have incurred if you had driven. Car emissions during rush hour, by the way, are much higher than the daily average — 339g/km rather than 180g/km for an average-size petrol car — so you’ll be shedding significant calories by taking the bus instead. The carbon commute — CO² emissions* By diesel train — 98g for 1km By Underground — 65g for 1km By single-decker bus — 66g for 1km By foot/bicycle — 0g for 1km * emissions during peak commuting hours If you’re not sure how long your journey is and you live in London, visit www.walkit.com which will work out the distance for you. Outside the capital, use the AA’s handy web-site at www.theaa.com/travelwatch/planner_ main.jsp to get distances between destinations nationwide. Keep up your resolve by recording your monthly savings on the diet masterplan (see timesonline.co.uk/carbondiet). Here are some sample savings if you leave your car in the garage: C = carbon savings per year C For a daily 12km round-trip commute: train = 51kg, bus = 57kg; Tube = 58kg C For a 4km round-trip walk to work: 24kg C For a 12km daily round trip by bicycle: 71kg The school run Easy one this. At 8.50am almost one car in five in Britain’s towns and cities is on a school run, creating a giant mushroom cloud of carbon dioxide. If your children’s school is 2km away or less, use your legs or bike. Research indicates that more active children are likely to become more active, healthier adults. So get up 20 minutes earlier, prepare the kids’ lunch the night before and do whatever it takes to get out of the door with enough time before school starts. If ditching the car every day is too daunting, try a two or three-day-a-week commitment. This way you have a get-out if it rains. Sample savings: C 26kg a month for a 4km round trip, twice a day (if you cycle/walk to school three days out of five) Other short hops To the local shops, the library, friends’ homes, your health club. If you find walking dull, make it interesting. Put on headphones and an iPod. If you’re carrying things, take a backpack or use a bike with a pannier. Sample savings: C 11.5kg for 20 short trips a month out of rush hour (64km total travel) Want to know more? www.transport2000.org.ukwww.eta.co.uk Top 5 carbon-light petrol cars Toyota Prius — 104g/km Honda Civic Hybrid — 109g/km Citroën C — 109g/km Toyota Aygo — 109g/km Peugot 107 — 109g/km FOOD Food production, processing, packaging and transport account for at least 20 per cent of British greenhouse gas emissions and a sixth of the carbon emissions produced by a typical household. What action can you take? The answers are not all simple or obvious. Organic food is not always a good option, especially when delivered by aircraft. Food miles are bad, but long-distance delicacies do not generate the most food-related emissions. That dubious prize goes to animal rearing, which means that eating meat is bad for a low-carbon diet. Other culprits include food processing, refrigeration and supermarket storage. To keep it simple, we suggest you follow these five food rules. 1 Buy local and in season The closer to home your food originates, the smaller its impact on the atmosphere and the more carbon calories you shed. Good choices, because they’re usually British grown, are carrots, parsnips, turnips, potatoes, cabbage, sprouts, broccoli, apples and pears. A majority of supermarket chicken, pork, beef and lamb is also home-grown, but always check the country of origin. By buying British instead of foreign produce, you can save almost 54kg/CO² on the contents of a single shopping basket. For example: Basket made in Britain: cauliflower, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, carrots, onions. Total = 0.18kg CO² . Basket flown from abroad: limes from Brazil, pears from Italy, avocados from Chile, peaches from the US, pineapple from Costa Rica, baby corn from Kenya. Total = 54kg CO² . 2 Eat less meat This could be the single biggest difference that your eating habits can make to your carbon diet. Rearing animals and processing and refrigerating meat products uses much more energy than growing crops, fruit and vegetables. Livestock releases vast quantities of methane. Cows are the worst offenders. Each 1lb (0.45kg) of reared beef on your dinner table has cost 5.2kg of CO² to produce. C 2.6kg for every beef meal you cut out. 3 Eat all the food you buy Over a year we throw out a fifth of the fresh produce we buy — £424 worth — according to the Food Climate Research Network. If we ate all that, imagine the effect. Demand, domestic production and imports would all fall and so would national food-related CO² emissions. So do your bit. Plan your shopping carefully, meal by meal, don’t buy more perishables than you can eat in a week and pay close attention to those use-by dates. 4 Buy UK organic food Unlike buying local food, organic food is already a national habit. However British demand far outstrips supply, which means that most organic products are imported. The transport involved almost always produces more CO² emissions than those saved through organic production — 235 times more in the case of organic produce flown from New Zealand. Even transporting fruit or vegetables from Southern Europe generates twice the energy saved during organic production. Buy organic products made in Britain. 5 Buy in bulk We each drive an average 130 miles a year just to buy food. The simple solution is to buy in bulk. Nonperishables — cereals, rice, pasta, etc — are cheaper to buy in bulk and as a bonus you’ll cut down on packaging waste. Home delivery is another option, with the supermarket doing the work and saving food miles by delivering to several customers in one trip. C Do one weekly supermarket shop instead of three — 4kg a month, 52kg a year. HOLIDAY It’s impossible to ignore the impact on climate of cheap flights. With opportunities for global travel never greater, carbon emissions from international flights by Britons rose by 85 per cent between 1990 and 2002. Domestic air travel (often cheaper than the train) reached six billion passenger-miles in 2002. No surprise, then, that air travel makes up a third of the average Briton’s direct carbon emissions. To make matters worse, the climate impact of flying is proportionally greater than that of any other personal activity. This is because carbon dioxide emissions have a greater warming effect when they mix with other greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere. Just one return trip to Los Angeles will pile 5,216 kg/CO² on to your figure, 50 per cent of the average Briton’s annual emissions. We’re not going to play Scrooge and tell you to give up your hard-earned holidays. But we will show you how to cut down those air miles and find more climate-friendly destinations. Cut your air miles Almost half of all flights over Europe cover less than 300 miles (483km). While jumping on a plane may have become second nature, this is a distance easily covered by train. And the carbon benefits are huge. Flights from London to Paris or Brussels generate ten times more carbon dioxide emissions than taking the train, according to independent research for Eurostar. Carbon savings to holiday hotspots Trips from London by train/bus instead of plane: Paris C 222kg Prague C 756kg Edinburgh C 232kg Make a fly-less pledge As a basic rule of thumb, the fewer flights you take the better. Start with a realistic commitment, perhaps cutting long-haul flights to one every two years instead of one a year. Or limit yourself to two budget-airline trips a year to European cities if you normally take three or four. You could always substitute a planned week abroad for two long weekends exploring Britain by train or car. If you love to shop in New York, why not cut out the jet lag and security checks, save lots of cash and carbon calories and order online? C Cut out one return short-haul flight a year — 405kg; Cut out a return flight to the US East Coast — 3,317kg; Cut out a return flight to the US West Coast — 5,216kg. Pay guilt money: offset your air miles Carbon offsetting may sound technical, but it’s hitting the high street as concerned consumers seek to “cancel out” their impact on climate change. Most schemes work by paying towards energy-saving projects in developing countries, such as installing wind turbines or rooftop solar panels. Travel offsetting, especially by air, is generating the most business. Offsetting is a feel-good move rather than a real weight-reducer, like substituting saccharine for sugar rather than cutting out sweet foods. But it’s better than doing nothing: we suggest that you consider these options, but don’t deduct any payments from your own carbon-calorie total. Book with the Travelcare high street chain and offset your flights when you buy tickets. Eight price bands reflect the distance travelled — £3 to mainland Spain, £50 to Australia. Customers receive feel-good luggage tags that help to spread the word. Next time you fly by British Airways look at their carbon-offset scheme at www.ba.com/ offsetyouremissions. A return flight to Johannesburg will set you back £13.30. Climate Care, one of the most established offset companies, is a partner with Travelcare and BA and also takes individual donations at www.climatecare.org.uk. Read about its overseas projects and get payment estimates for your travel plans over the next month or year. To work out your personal saving to any destination, you need to do one quick calculation. For every 1km that you travel, simply count 0.31kg/CO² saved if you take the coach and .37kg CO² saved if you take the train. FOUR GOLDEN RULES OF CARBON DIETING 1 Save energy and money The biggest diet-buster is home energy use. Heat, hot water and electricity account for 43 per cent of the average family’s direct carbon emissions — more than any other activity. But much of this energy is wasted, by millions of tonnes of CO2 a year. There is plenty of room to trim the fat, simply by cutting out careless habits and investing in a few home improvements. The key is to get into a mindset where it becomes second nature to save energy rather than squander it. After all, how hard is it to switch off a light? Here’s an added incentive: using less energy can also save you money. For example: £7 a year for each low-energy light bulb installed; £37 for switching off appliances on standby; £20 for draught-proofing windows and doors; £180 for insulating your attic. 2 Drive smart, fly less Why do you drive? To get to work despite the traffic jams, parking costs and road rage? To drive the kids half a mile to school, when you could all do with the exercise? To visit the local gym (duh!) or corner shop? Transport is the fastest growing source of British greenhouse gas emissions. Before grabbing your keys, think whether you really need the car this time. We all love cheap flights. But flying creates more personal carbon calories than any other single activity. Following our diet, then spending a long weekend in New York, is like losing a stone and then stuffing yourself with doughnuts and putting it all back on. We’re not asking you to give up flying altogether. But finding other ways to travel, most of the time, is a cornerstone of a low-carbon diet. 3 Buy local Buying products that have been flown thousands of miles to stock our supermarkets and high street chains piles on our carbon weight. And if enough of us make an effort to buy local or British-made products, retailers will get the message that consumers don’t want to shop at the planet’s expense. So become a consumer detective and scrutinise labels for country of origin. Any products you buy, try and choose home-grown or homemade. 4 Slash the trash Half a tonne of rubbish passes through the average British dustbin every year. Most is buried in tips where the food waste decomposes and pumps out greenhouse gases. By throwing so much stuff away, we also create demand for new products, the manufacture, packaging and transport of which generate more greenhouse gases. Carbon dieters can turn this equation on its head by composting food waste, avoiding overpackaged goods and reusing or recycling their possessions. The Low Carbon Diet (Short Books), published on May 3, is available at £11.69 (RRP £12.99) from Times BooksFirst on 0870 1608080 or visit timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst love*light, GaiaHemp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 10, 2007 Report Share Posted July 10, 2007 Now that we have laid the blame at the feet of the commuter, eater, flyer, in general anyone who lives, moves, eats, breathes on this planet, for a cyclical event, which, just like flood, tides, and drought, we must learn to live around, and hammered the air with the noisome pestilence of these " concerts " which did little to change the course of events, could someone design a way of taxing those volcanoes - even the ones underwater - and the forest fires, which just do not seem to realise just how much they are contributing to this little hiccup in our otherwise pristine environment!!! Pity is that the kids of today are growing up with this idea that this is " all their fault " , and thus " their responsibility " to do something, and, knowing little, and understanding, because they have never been taught climatology or science from first principles ... simply " environment " ....., know nothing, and spout forth the junk they are fed, without being able to rationally and logically analyse what is happening. Jorge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 10, 2007 Report Share Posted July 10, 2007 Could you link us to more info that this is indeed a hoax? thanks, Hempress ---- Ole Gerstrøm 07/09/07 22:43:13 Re: How to keep cutting that carbon The CO2 movemnet is a hoax. CO2 is good for plant life. The more CO2 the better. Ole - HAH Tuesday, July 10, 2007 12:35 AM How to keep cutting that carbon http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/body_and_soul/article1694062.ece Yesterday Polly Ghazi and Rachel Lewis showed how to calculate your carbon weight and slim down in the home. Today learn how to change your travel and shopping habits to lose more carbon calories TRANSPORT The commute If you work within 2km (slightly less than 1¼ miles) of your home, try getting up earlier and walking or cycling to the office Before you know it, you’ll be able to cancel that expensive gym membership. If you have a longer commute, take the bus, Underground or train. Use the following table to work out your weekly carbon calorie savings if you switch from driving to alternative modes of transport. Multiply the CO figure for travel by train, bus or Underground by the number of kilometres travelled each month. Then calculate your savings by deducting this figure from the total you would have incurred if you had driven. Car emissions during rush hour, by the way, are much higher than the daily average — 339g/km rather than 180g/km for an average-size petrol car — so you’ll be shedding significant calories by taking the bus instead. The carbon commute — CO² emissions* By diesel train — 98g for 1km By Underground — 65g for 1km By single-decker bus — 66g for 1km By foot/bicycle — 0g for 1km * emissions during peak commuting hours If you’re not sure how long your journey is and you live in London, visit www.walkit.com which will work out the distance for you. Outside the capital, use the AA’s handy web-site at www.theaa.com/travelwatch/planner_ main.jsp to get distances between destinations nationwide. Keep up your resolve by recording your monthly savings on the diet masterplan (see timesonline.co.uk/carbondiet). Here are some sample savings if you leave your car in the garage: C = carbon savings per year C For a daily 12km round-trip commute: train = 51kg, bus = 57kg; Tube = 58kg C For a 4km round-trip walk to work: 24kg C For a 12km daily round trip by bicycle: 71kg The school run Easy one this. At 8.50am almost one car in five in Britain’s towns and cities is on a school run, creating a giant mushroom cloud of carbon dioxide. If your children’s school is 2km away or less, use your legs or bike. Research indicates that more active children are likely to become more active, healthier adults. So get up 20 minutes earlier, prepare the kids’ lunch the night before and do whatever it takes to get out of the door with enough time before school starts. If ditching the car every day is too daunting, try a two or three-day-a-week commitment. This way you have a get-out if it rains. Sample savings: C 26kg a month for a 4km round trip, twice a day (if you cycle/walk to school three days out of five) Other short hops To the local shops, the library, friends’ homes, your health club. If you find walking dull, make it interesting. Put on headphones and an iPod. If you’re carrying things, take a backpack or use a bike with a pannier. Sample savings: C 11.5kg for 20 short trips a month out of rush hour (64km total travel) Want to know more? www.transport2000.org.ukwww.eta.co.uk Top 5 carbon-light petrol cars Toyota Prius — 104g/km Honda Civic Hybrid — 109g/km Citroën C — 109g/km Toyota Aygo — 109g/km Peugot 107 — 109g/km FOOD Food production, processing, packaging and transport account for at least 20 per cent of British greenhouse gas emissions and a sixth of the carbon emissions produced by a typical household. What action can you take? The answers are not all simple or obvious. Organic food is not always a good option, especially when delivered by aircraft. Food miles are bad, but long-distance delicacies do not generate the most food-related emissions. That dubious prize goes to animal rearing, which means that eating meat is bad for a low-carbon diet. Other culprits include food processing, refrigeration and supermarket storage. To keep it simple, we suggest you follow these five food rules. 1 Buy local and in season The closer to home your food originates, the smaller its impact on the atmosphere and the more carbon calories you shed. Good choices, because they’re usually British grown, are carrots, parsnips, turnips, potatoes, cabbage, sprouts, broccoli, apples and pears. A majority of supermarket chicken, pork, beef and lamb is also home-grown, but always check the country of origin. By buying British instead of foreign produce, you can save almost 54kg/CO² on the contents of a single shopping basket. For example: Basket made in Britain: cauliflower, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, carrots, onions. Total = 0.18kg CO² . Basket flown from abroad: limes from Brazil, pears from Italy, avocados from Chile, peaches from the US, pineapple from Costa Rica, baby corn from Kenya. Total = 54kg CO² . 2 Eat less meat This could be the single biggest difference that your eating habits can make to your carbon diet. Rearing animals and processing and refrigerating meat products uses much more energy than growing crops, fruit and vegetables. Livestock releases vast quantities of methane. Cows are the worst offenders. Each 1lb (0.45kg) of reared beef on your dinner table has cost 5.2kg of CO² to produce. C 2.6kg for every beef meal you cut out. 3 Eat all the food you buy Over a year we throw out a fifth of the fresh produce we buy — £424 worth — according to the Food Climate Research Network. If we ate all that, imagine the effect. Demand, domestic production and imports would all fall and so would national food-related CO² emissions. So do your bit. Plan your shopping carefully, meal by meal, don’t buy more perishables than you can eat in a week and pay close attention to those use-by dates. 4 Buy UK organic food Unlike buying local food, organic food is already a national habit. However British demand far outstrips supply, which means that most organic products are imported. The transport involved almost always produces more CO² emissions than those saved through organic production — 235 times more in the case of organic produce flown from New Zealand. Even transporting fruit or vegetables from Southern Europe generates twice the energy saved during organic production. Buy organic products made in Britain. 5 Buy in bulk We each drive an average 130 miles a year just to buy food. The simple solution is to buy in bulk. Nonperishables — cereals, rice, pasta, etc — are cheaper to buy in bulk and as a bonus you’ll cut down on packaging waste. Home delivery is another option, with the supermarket doing the work and saving food miles by delivering to several customers in one trip. C Do one weekly supermarket shop instead of three — 4kg a month, 52kg a year. HOLIDAY It’s impossible to ignore the impact on climate of cheap flights. With opportunities for global travel never greater, carbon emissions from international flights by Britons rose by 85 per cent between 1990 and 2002. Domestic air travel (often cheaper than the train) reached six billion passenger-miles in 2002. No surprise, then, that air travel makes up a third of the average Briton’s direct carbon emissions. To make matters worse, the climate impact of flying is proportionally greater than that of any other personal activity. This is because carbon dioxide emissions have a greater warming effect when they mix with other greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere. Just one return trip to Los Angeles will pile 5,216 kg/CO² on to your figure, 50 per cent of the average Briton’s annual emissions. We’re not going to play Scrooge and tell you to give up your hard-earned holidays. But we will show you how to cut down those air miles and find more climate-friendly destinations. Cut your air miles Almost half of all flights over Europe cover less than 300 miles (483km). While jumping on a plane may have become second nature, this is a distance easily covered by train. And the carbon benefits are huge. Flights from London to Paris or Brussels generate ten times more carbon dioxide emissions than taking the train, according to independent research for Eurostar. Carbon savings to holiday hotspots Trips from London by train/bus instead of plane: Paris C 222kg Prague C 756kg Edinburgh C 232kg Make a fly-less pledge As a basic rule of thumb, the fewer flights you take the better. Start with a realistic commitment, perhaps cutting long-haul flights to one every two years instead of one a year. Or limit yourself to two budget-airline trips a year to European cities if you normally take three or four. You could always substitute a planned week abroad for two long weekends exploring Britain by train or car. If you love to shop in New York, why not cut out the jet lag and security checks, save lots of cash and carbon calories and order online? C Cut out one return short-haul flight a year — 405kg; Cut out a return flight to the US East Coast — 3,317kg; Cut out a return flight to the US West Coast — 5,216kg. Pay guilt money: offset your air miles Carbon offsetting may sound technical, but it’s hitting the high street as concerned consumers seek to “cancel out” their impact on climate change. Most schemes work by paying towards energy-saving projects in developing countries, such as installing wind turbines or rooftop solar panels. Travel offsetting, especially by air, is generating the most business. Offsetting is a feel-good move rather than a real weight-reducer, like substituting saccharine for sugar rather than cutting out sweet foods. But it’s better than doing nothing: we suggest that you consider these options, but don’t deduct any payments from your own carbon-calorie total. Book with the Travelcare high street chain and offset your flights when you buy tickets. Eight price bands reflect the distance travelled — £3 to mainland Spain, £50 to Australia. Customers receive feel-good luggage tags that help to spread the word. Next time you fly by British Airways look at their carbon-offset scheme at www.ba.com/ offsetyouremissions. A return flight to Johannesburg will set you back £13.30. Climate Care, one of the most established offset companies, is a partner with Travelcare and BA and also takes individual donations at www.climatecare.org.uk. Read about its overseas projects and get payment estimates for your travel plans over the next month or year. To work out your personal saving to any destination, you need to do one quick calculation. For every 1km that you travel, simply count 0.31kg/CO² saved if you take the coach and .37kg CO² saved if you take the train. FOUR GOLDEN RULES OF CARBON DIETING 1 Save energy and money The biggest diet-buster is home energy use. Heat, hot water and electricity account for 43 per cent of the average family’s direct carbon emissions — more than any other activity. But much of this energy is wasted, by millions of tonnes of CO2 a year. There is plenty of room to trim the fat, simply by cutting out careless habits and investing in a few home improvements. The key is to get into a mindset where it becomes second nature to save energy rather than squander it. After all, how hard is it to switch off a light? Here’s an added incentive: using less energy can also save you money. For example: £7 a year for each low-energy light bulb installed; £37 for switching off appliances on standby; £20 for draught-proofing windows and doors; £180 for insulating your attic. 2 Drive smart, fly less Why do you drive? To get to work despite the traffic jams, parking costs and road rage? To drive the kids half a mile to school, when you could all do with the exercise? To visit the local gym (duh!) or corner shop? Transport is the fastest growing source of British greenhouse gas emissions. Before grabbing your keys, think whether you really need the car this time. We all love cheap flights. But flying creates more personal carbon calories than any other single activity. Following our diet, then spending a long weekend in New York, is like losing a stone and then stuffing yourself with doughnuts and putting it all back on. We’re not asking you to give up flying altogether. But finding other ways to travel, most of the time, is a cornerstone of a low-carbon diet. 3 Buy local Buying products that have been flown thousands of miles to stock our supermarkets and high street chains piles on our carbon weight. And if enough of us make an effort to buy local or British-made products, retailers will get the message that consumers don’t want to shop at the planet’s expense. So become a consumer detective and scrutinise labels for country of origin. Any products you buy, try and choose home-grown or homemade. 4 Slash the trash Half a tonne of rubbish passes through the average British dustbin every year. Most is buried in tips where the food waste decomposes and pumps out greenhouse gases. By throwing so much stuff away, we also create demand for new products, the manufacture, packaging and transport of which generate more greenhouse gases. Carbon dieters can turn this equation on its head by composting food waste, avoiding overpackaged goods and reusing or recycling their possessions. The Low Carbon Diet (Short Books), published on May 3, is available at £11.69 (RRP £12.99) from Times BooksFirst on 0870 1608080 or visit timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst love*light, GaiaHemp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 11, 2007 Report Share Posted July 11, 2007 Sorry about the verbosity in this one, but failed to just make a copy of the link to complete article. Regards Jorge by Mitch Battros - Earth Changes Media The global warming army sure isn't going to like this. As documented in " Global Warming: A Convenient Disguise " , the Earth has seen warming and cooling trends since its formation. But the global warming cult is not about to let science get in their way. Remember, Al Gore told us " the science is in, there is no further discussion " . Oh well, I guess they'll just have to send out their troops to beat all dissenters back into submission. Now let's not forget the mantra --- " you're either with me, or you're with the polluters. Now what's it going to be " . Ancient Greenland was green. New Danish research has shown that it was covered in conifer forest and, like southern Sweden today, had a relatively mild climate. Eske Willerslev, a professor at Copenhagen University, has analyzed the world's oldest DNA, preserved under the kilometer-thick icecap. The DNA is likely close to half a million years old, and the research is painting a picture which is overturning all previous assumptions about biological life and the climate in Greenland. The results have just been published in the prestigious scientific journal Science. Ten percent of the Earth's surface has been covered with ice for thousands of years. No one knows what lies beneath the kilometer-deep icecaps. These are the Earth's unknown and unexplored regions. But some have begun the exploration. Several projects under Danish leadership have been drilling through the icecap on Greenland, and collected complete columns of ice all the way from the top to the bottom. The ice has annual layers and is a frozen archive of the world's climate. " I wonder, if there could also be DNA down there " , thought Eske Willerslev, who is the world's leading expert in extracting DNA from organisms buried in permafrost. His thinking was that perhaps he could reconstruct the environment of the past. Ice-core samples of ancient sediment The icecap itself is comprised of pure ice, but the lower sections are mixed with mud from the bottom, and it was this mud that Eske Willerslev wanted to research. Full Article Here: http://earthchangesmedia.com/secure/3247.326/article-9162517789.php ---- HAH <GaiaHemp wrote: > Could you link us to more info that this is indeed a hoax? > thanks, > > Hempress > > > > > ---- > > > > Ole Gerstrøm > > 07/09/07 22:43:13 > > > > Re: How to keep cutting that carbon > > > > The CO2 movemnet is a hoax. > > > > CO2 is good for plant life. The more CO2 the better. > > > > Ole > > > > > > - > > HAH > > > > Tuesday, July 10, 2007 12:35 AM > > How to keep cutting that carbon > > > > > > http://women.timesonline.co > uk/tol/life_and_style/women/body_and_soul/article1694062.ece > > Yesterday Polly Ghazi and Rachel Lewis showed how to calculate your carbon > weight and slim down in the home. Today learn how to change your travel and > shopping habits to lose more carbon calories > > TRANSPORT > > The commute > > If you work within 2km (slightly less than 1¼ miles) of your home, try > getting up earlier and walking or cycling to the office > > > > Before you know it, you’ll be able to cancel that expensive gym membership. > If you have a longer commute, take the bus, Underground or train. > > Use the following table to work out your weekly carbon calorie savings if > you switch from driving to alternative modes of transport. Multiply the CO > figure for travel by train, bus or Underground by the number of kilometres > travelled each month. Then calculate your savings by deducting this figure > from the total you would have incurred if you had driven. > > Car emissions during rush hour, by the way, are much higher than the daily > average — 339g/km rather than 180g/km for an average-size petrol car — so > you’ll be shedding significant calories by taking the bus instead. > > The carbon commute — CO² emissions* > > By diesel train — 98g for 1km > > By Underground — 65g for 1km > > By single-decker bus — 66g for 1km > > By foot/bicycle — 0g for 1km > > * emissions during peak commuting hours > > If you’re not sure how long your journey is and you live in London, visit > www.walkit.com which will work out the distance for you. Outside the capital > use the AA’s handy web-site at www.theaa.com/travelwatch/planner_ main.jsp > to get distances between destinations nationwide. > > Keep up your resolve by recording your monthly savings on the diet > masterplan (see timesonline.co.uk/carbondiet). Here are some sample savings > if you leave your car in the garage: > > C = carbon savings per year > > C For a daily 12km round-trip commute: train = 51kg, bus = 57kg; Tube = 58kg > > > C For a 4km round-trip walk to work: 24kg > > C For a 12km daily round trip by bicycle: 71kg > > The school run > > Easy one this. At 8.50am almost one car in five in Britain’s towns and > cities is on a school run, creating a giant mushroom cloud of carbon dioxide > > > If your children’s school is 2km away or less, use your legs or bike. > Research indicates that more active children are likely to become more > active, healthier adults. > > So get up 20 minutes earlier, prepare the kids’ lunch the night before and > do whatever it takes to get out of the door with enough time before school > starts. > > If ditching the car every day is too daunting, try a two or three-day-a-week > commitment. This way you have a get-out if it rains. Sample savings: > > C 26kg a month for a 4km round trip, twice a day (if you cycle/walk to > school three days out of five) > > Other short hops > > To the local shops, the library, friends’ homes, your health club. If you > find walking dull, make it interesting. Put on headphones and an iPod. If > you’re carrying things, take a backpack or use a bike with a pannier. Sample > savings: > > C 11.5kg for 20 short trips a month out of rush hour (64km total travel) > > Want to know more? > > www.transport2000.org.ukwww.eta.co.uk > > Top 5 carbon-light petrol cars > > Toyota Prius — 104g/km > > Honda Civic Hybrid — 109g/km > > Citroën C — 109g/km > > Toyota Aygo — 109g/km > > Peugot 107 — 109g/km > > FOOD > > Food production, processing, packaging and transport account for at least 20 > per cent of British greenhouse gas emissions and a sixth of the carbon > emissions produced by a typical household. > > What action can you take? The answers are not all simple or obvious. Organic > food is not always a good option, especially when delivered by aircraft. > Food miles are bad, but long-distance delicacies do not generate the most > food-related emissions. That dubious prize goes to animal rearing, which > means that eating meat is bad for a low-carbon diet. Other culprits include > food processing, refrigeration and supermarket storage. To keep it simple, > we suggest you follow these five food rules. > > 1 Buy local and in season > > The closer to home your food originates, the smaller its impact on the > atmosphere and the more carbon calories you shed. Good choices, because > they’re usually British grown, are carrots, parsnips, turnips, potatoes, > cabbage, sprouts, broccoli, apples and pears. A majority of supermarket > chicken, pork, beef and lamb is also home-grown, but always check the > country of origin. By buying British instead of foreign produce, you can > save almost 54kg/CO² on the contents of a single shopping basket. For > example: > > Basket made in Britain: cauliflower, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, > carrots, onions. Total = 0.18kg CO² . > > Basket flown from abroad: limes from Brazil, pears from Italy, avocados from > Chile, peaches from the US, pineapple from Costa Rica, baby corn from Kenya. > Total = 54kg CO² . > > 2 Eat less meat > > This could be the single biggest difference that your eating habits can make > to your carbon diet. Rearing animals and processing and refrigerating meat > products uses much more energy than growing crops, fruit and vegetables. > Livestock releases vast quantities of methane. Cows are the worst offenders. > Each 1lb (0.45kg) of reared beef on your dinner table has cost 5.2kg of CO² > to produce. > > C 2.6kg for every beef meal you cut out. > > 3 Eat all the food you buy > > Over a year we throw out a fifth of the fresh produce we buy — £424 worth — > according to the Food Climate Research Network. If we ate all that, imagine > the effect. Demand, domestic production and imports would all fall and so > would national food-related CO² emissions. > > So do your bit. Plan your shopping carefully, meal by meal, don’t buy more > perishables than you can eat in a week and pay close attention to those > use-by dates. > > 4 Buy UK organic food > > Unlike buying local food, organic food is already a national habit. However > British demand far outstrips supply, which means that most organic products > are imported. The transport involved almost always produces more CO² > emissions than those saved through organic production — 235 times more in > the case of organic produce flown from New Zealand. Even transporting fruit > or vegetables from Southern Europe generates twice the energy saved during > organic production. Buy organic products made in Britain. > > 5 Buy in bulk > > We each drive an average 130 miles a year just to buy food. The simple > solution is to buy in bulk. Nonperishables — cereals, rice, pasta, etc — are > cheaper to buy in bulk and as a bonus you’ll cut down on packaging waste. > Home delivery is another option, with the supermarket doing the work and > saving food miles by delivering to several customers in one trip. > > C Do one weekly supermarket shop instead of three — 4kg a month, 52kg a year > > > HOLIDAY > > It’s impossible to ignore the impact on climate of cheap flights. With > opportunities for global travel never greater, carbon emissions from > international flights by Britons rose by 85 per cent between 1990 and 2002. > Domestic air travel (often cheaper than the train) reached six billion > passenger-miles in 2002. > > No surprise, then, that air travel makes up a third of the average Briton’s > direct carbon emissions. To make matters worse, the climate impact of flying > is proportionally greater than that of any other personal activity. This is > because carbon dioxide emissions have a greater warming effect when they mix > with other greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere. Just one return trip to > Los Angeles will pile 5,216 kg/CO² on to your figure, 50 per cent of the > average Briton’s annual emissions. > > We’re not going to play Scrooge and tell you to give up your hard-earned > holidays. But we will show you how to cut down those air miles and find more > climate-friendly destinations. Cut your air miles Almost half of all flights > over Europe cover less than 300 miles (483km). While jumping on a plane may > have become second nature, this is a distance easily covered by train. And > the carbon benefits are huge. Flights from London to Paris or Brussels > generate ten times more carbon dioxide emissions than taking the train, > according to independent research for Eurostar. > > Carbon savings to holiday hotspots > > Trips from London by train/bus instead of plane: Paris > > C 222kg Prague > > C 756kg Edinburgh C 232kg > > Make a fly-less pledge > > As a basic rule of thumb, the fewer flights you take the better. Start with > a realistic commitment, perhaps cutting long-haul flights to one every two > years instead of one a year. Or limit yourself to two budget-airline trips a > year to European cities if you normally take three or four. You could always > substitute a planned week abroad for two long weekends exploring Britain by > train or car. If you love to shop in New York, why not cut out the jet lag > and security checks, save lots of cash and carbon calories and order online? > > > C Cut out one return short-haul flight a year — 405kg; > > Cut out a return flight to the US East Coast — 3,317kg; > > Cut out a return flight to the US West Coast — 5,216kg. > > Pay guilt money: offset your air miles > > Carbon offsetting may sound technical, but it’s hitting the high street as > concerned consumers seek to “cancel out” their impact on climate change. > Most schemes work by paying towards energy-saving projects in developing > countries, such as installing wind turbines or rooftop solar panels. Travel > offsetting, especially by air, is generating the most business. > > Offsetting is a feel-good move rather than a real weight-reducer, like > substituting saccharine for sugar rather than cutting out sweet foods. But > it’s better than doing nothing: we suggest that you consider these options, > but don’t deduct any payments from your own carbon-calorie total. > > Book with the Travelcare high street chain and offset your flights when you > buy tickets. Eight price bands reflect the distance travelled — £3 to > mainland Spain, £50 to Australia. Customers receive feel-good luggage tags > that help to spread the word. > > Next time you fly by British Airways look at their carbon-offset scheme at > www.ba.com/ offsetyouremissions. A return flight to Johannesburg will set > you back £13.30. > > Climate Care, one of the most established offset companies, is a partner > with Travelcare and BA and also takes individual donations at www > climatecare.org.uk. Read about its overseas projects and get payment > estimates for your travel plans over the next month or year. > > To work out your personal saving to any destination, you need to do one > quick calculation. For every 1km that you travel, simply count 0.31kg/CO² > saved if you take the coach and .37kg CO² saved if you take the train. > > FOUR GOLDEN RULES OF CARBON DIETING > > 1 Save energy and money > > The biggest diet-buster is home energy use. Heat, hot water and electricity > account for 43 per cent of the average family’s direct carbon emissions — > more than any other activity. But much of this energy is wasted, by millions > of tonnes of CO2 a year. There is plenty of room to trim the fat, simply by > cutting out careless habits and investing in a few home improvements. The > key is to get into a mindset where it becomes second nature to save energy > rather than squander it. After all, how hard is it to switch off a light? > Here’s an added incentive: using less energy can also save you money. For > example: £7 a year for each low-energy light bulb installed; £37 for > switching off appliances on standby; £20 for draught-proofing windows and > doors; £180 for insulating your attic. > > 2 Drive smart, fly less > > Why do you drive? To get to work despite the traffic jams, parking costs and > road rage? To drive the kids half a mile to school, when you could all do > with the exercise? To visit the local gym (duh!) or corner shop? Transport > is the fastest growing source of British greenhouse gas emissions. Before > grabbing your keys, think whether you really need the car this time. We all > love cheap flights. But flying creates more personal carbon calories than > any other single activity. Following our diet, then spending a long weekend > in New York, is like losing a stone and then stuffing yourself with > doughnuts and putting it all back on. We’re not asking you to give up flying > altogether. But finding other ways to travel, most of the time, is a > cornerstone of a low-carbon diet. > > 3 Buy local > > Buying products that have been flown thousands of miles to stock our > supermarkets and high street chains piles on our carbon weight. And if > enough of us make an effort to buy local or British-made products, retailers > will get the message that consumers don’t want to shop at the planet’s > expense. So become a consumer detective and scrutinise labels for country of > origin. Any products you buy, try and choose home-grown or homemade. > > 4 Slash the trash > > Half a tonne of rubbish passes through the average British dustbin every > year. Most is buried in tips where the food waste decomposes and pumps out > greenhouse gases. By throwing so much stuff away, we also create demand for > new products, the manufacture, packaging and transport of which generate > more greenhouse gases. Carbon dieters can turn this equation on its head by > composting food waste, avoiding overpackaged goods and reusing or recycling > their possessions. > > The Low Carbon Diet (Short Books), published on May 3, is available at £11 > 69 (RRP £12.99) from Times BooksFirst on 0870 1608080 or visit timesonline > co.uk/booksfirst > love*light, > > GaiaHemp > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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