What can we do?

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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/29/no-flights-four-day-week-climate-scientists-home-save-planet

I found this to be a very convincing article by climate scientists, about changes they've made in they own lives.
What have I done?

- the last flight I took was in 1959.
- our car does less than 5000 miles per year, (mostly him, to and from model flying field) Could be improved quite a bit. We live at the top of a steep hill, but I could walk down to the shops more often, even if it took more time and effort. We both dislike driving anywhere nowadays and do cut down as much as we can.
- our holidays are always in the UK, partly because the dog comes too, but also because we don't like it hot, and we feel mountains and moorlands in the UK are just as beautiful as anywhere else. We're immune to the pity of people who regard us as stick-in-the-muds who never go anywhere.
- nearly vegetarian; we were totally veggie for 25 years but then lapsed a bit. Trying to improve on this.
-house fully insulated, solar hot water, PV panels generate some of our electricity.
-Garden only has one patch of raspberries and two apple trees, so food production v.low apart from eggs. Eggs from my own hens important part of our diet. I used to have a productive allotment as well, but it became too hard work for me to maintain.
-Wildlife-friendly garden, lots of ground cover, trees and shrubs, flowers for pollinators, hedgehog houses, large pond. Guerrilla gardening in uncultivated field beyond our back gate - illegal planting of 20+ mixed flowering and fruiting native trees, now growing vigorously.
- ATM, am co-ordinating a group of local residents to oppose application for building on this public-access, uncultivated field, which has been rewilding for several years. It's taking up a massive lot of my time.
- I don't have a bamboo toothbrush. I think my electric one does a better job. I also use normal detergents, soaps, toilet cleaner etc. I make up for these sins by not actually doing any cleaning very much, unless visitors are due.
- I do enjoy online shopping, and try to convince myself that actually I'm saving CO2 etc by getting stuff delivered to me, including our plastic-wrapped weekly online food shopping, rather than driving some distance to buy it myself. I try -and often fail- to be immune to Sale offers from online clothing firms that I like.
-One daughter lives in deepest Dorset, is massively active in Extinction Rebellion. The other one flies a lot, has a chalet in the south of France, pops down there for skiing holidays and occasional weekends, and is now planning a holiday in Mozambique. She's a lovely person nevertheless.

i'd be very interested in the lifestyle confessions of others?
 
I commend everything you are doing, Marigold. Some of your lifestyle choices are mine too and some others I have failed to incorporate into my life.
It is my heartfelt conviction that my greatest contribution to the planet is that I meditate and urge others to. It is only by deepening ones relationship and understanding of the world outside of ones own ego that a life of non violence and compassion is actualised. If one aspires to change the world then begin by changing oneself.

Meaningless psychobabble? Perhaps. But it is easy to ridicule that which is beyond ones understanding. The true warrior embraces the most difficult battle in the world ie changing oneself.
 
It's a shame one can't upload directly from a computer to this site. Rather than write pages of stuff, with a few pictures I could show what I've done. I'll have to see about using a third party platform to host some files. Not so easy with Linux.
 
You don't have a bamboo toothbrush Marigold? - I'm surprised and shocked!
Hen-Gen you've nailed it! Its all anyone can do.
I live in a little Viccy house - they are terrible for insulation but it is also very small. Flew to Japan twice in the last couple of years - that is some serious consumption - its not natural to put yourself on the other side of the core and back again so quickly! Our Citroen C1 is pretty good on fuel and I take the train to work (exciting to hear that we are getting a hydrogen train tested on the line soon). Plastic does my head in! Its actually pretty easy to avoid large quantities of the bags (the non-recyclables that end up exported and on an open fire in Myanmar etc.) Like dog food - I've taken to buying individual cans rather than six packs wrapped in plastic - no discount - Butcher's now comes in a cardboard boxed six pack but he doesn't like it :(
There was a program on BBC radio a while back which really put it into context. The cost of upgrading our central heating from gas (sold to us hook line and sinker in the 70's) to electric is going to cost about £500 bn but we did it before and so can do it again. The numbers are astronomical (well no,terrestrial actually!)
And then we think of India. We burnt stuff big time through the industrial revolution (like most of it) and now they mustn't - simply mustn't or we are all in big trouble. There is some responsibility there. And China OMG China! But - ultimately - all we personally can do is at home.
 
We have found that marigold, people keep saying why don't you go abroad, you love birds and wildlife. The wildlife here is enough for us and there are still plenty of creatures here we haven't seen and places we want to visit. OH isn't keen on flying anyway.
We have switched shopping to stores that let you put fruit and veg in paper bags, we don't have a local market alas. We grow some veg and fruit and try to beat the local wildlife to it. The Squirrels made a good attempt at eating the gooseberries. We got a 6 lb of jam from the gooseberries and plenty for the freezer. If we run out of home grown veg in freezer we then just buy home grown rather than something that has been moved halfway around the world
Switched to using soap nuts rather than buying washing liquids and OH makes her own fabric conditioner and deodorant, and we have gone back to bars of soap for washing and hair shampoo all chemical free, takes a bit of getting used to a bar of soap for shampoo.
Luckily we have a good bus service locally, although it is 2 miles to the bus stop from our lane and OH always uses it. We gradually making changes and doing our bit, but when OH walks home down the lanes she despairs of the litter she picks up en route, usually plastic food wrappers and take away cups and wonders why she bothers.
The council did a litter pick last week, 2 days later she picked up carrier bag full. Why can't people just leave it in their car and then put it in there own bin I do not know.
 
I think children should have to do all the cleaning in school and that defiantly would make dumping trash a social no-no.
The roof is coming along nicely. Its only small but the only open ground we've got. If the chickens got up there they would eat the lot in half an hour!
IMG_20190630_091605.jpg
 
It can be hard to do as much as we want to. I use my car far too much, because there's no bus service between here and the nearest town, although there's a good service to the larger town. However, decades of the Council allowing shopping centres out of town "on the outskirts", which could be a couple of miles from the bus stop, doesn't encourage anyone to use buses as much as we should. Dau also lives out in the countryside, only about fifteen minutes drive away, but no way of getting there either except by car. I haven't been abroad for nearly 20 years (and that was husband's work) apart from a quick trip to London a couple of years ago for meetings. Apart from the Stansted Express, I ended up having to take taxis, as I found I've got a real phobia about the Underground! Couldn't even watch others going into the entrances, and down, down to the bowels of the earth!

I do grow (and bottle) a lot of fruit and always grew veg. These days though, I'm in the middle of a revamp of that side of the garden. I'm going to clear the veg garden, put down weed matting, and plant new fruit bushes there. Raspberries, gooseberries & thornless blackberries. Then, I'm going to make raised beds for veg. I think that would be easier for me to manage. Hope so anyway! I've also let a large area grow wild, and am delighted to see an increasing number of wild flowers taking off there, as well of course as the grass flowering. I'll be cutting it all down in another month or so, once the flowers are done. And I'm planning to plant some more trees (hazel, hawthorn etc.) down in the wild area at the back, and try and get more wild flowers going.
Marigold, I'd LOVE to have some solar! But it's so expensive! Also, I'd be a bit nervous of anything on my roof, as I'm in the teeth of all the storms! But even solar water pump for the well would be good.
 
The roof looks fantastic, from a human and chicken perspective.
As well as teaching children about picking up rubbish a few lessons in the fact that a sandwich can be made at home, and you can boil an egg not just buy it all nicely cooked and peeled, and mashed potato, grated cheese, cut vegetables don't require an astrophysics degree. Just think of the waste that could be saved there.
I agree with you Lady A re public transport, we are lucky here, as my company runs buses from 3.30 am- midnight locally, and Transport for London run buses until well past midnight, but in a lot of areas now if you don't have your own transport you are really stuck. Plus with the standard of driving these days, you don't really want to walk down a country lane with no paths.
 
I wonder if some would be kind enough to explain to me exactly how to display an image in a post. I can see it's possible form the picture above but I've tried various methods and it's not working.
 
Its fairly easy for one image Sandrach - more are possible but you have to be quick with the send button as the uploaded files (more than one) seem to time out.
You have to use the full editor and then, below the post, select the attachments tab. You 'add files' and then 'place them inline'. The editor will handle some resizing but very large images (>1M) will bounce. You can preview before you 'Submit'.
I just noticed you use Linux! I'm using Mint with Firefox.
I would love to get a small electric car but haven't got a driveway so plugging it in at home would be very difficult.
 
Able, Fat Bird, Mora, Where and Rufles.jpgMy house.
I live in an earth bermed building. I think some may know the style as green roof except there is only one wall exposed to the elements in an earth bermed construction. Now that I know how to get a picture on the site I'll post some more later.
Thank you Rick. ;)
 
Wow! That is amazing Shadrach! Also known as an "earth ship"? I love the chickens trotting over your house!
 
This quiz is interesting. My results came out at 77% of average UK carbon footprint - not too bad, but room for improvement. Mind you, the advice about cycling didn't take into account my age, infirmities, and the gradient on our hill!

see https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/#/
 
Well there you go 127% - and it was flying that did it.
I think its percentage of the carbon target. Mine was smaller than UK average but still, obviously, too big. Well its the Olympics in Tokyo next year so it would be way to expensive anyway! After that I'll have to go by pushbike!

Screenshot from 2019-06-30 20-22-55.png
 
Mine was above UK average but of course doesn't take into account I don't have the option of mains gas for heating; no public transport that goes anywhere near the places I go; that the roads are too narrow with lots of HGVs to make cycling an option; I have four rescue cats and I can't afford to change my car or my boiler for something more efficient.

It's a bit like politicians in London or other big cities saying we should use public transport. I live here because I can walk to the shops and there is a railway station to which I can walk. But it only goes north/south and things I do are to the west and east and there are no buses. I can't get off the train where my sister lives as they've closed the station, so she has to make a 10 mile trip to collect me.

There are personal reasons why I don't grow as many vegetables as I could, and also that I waste food which is something I never did.
One day it will sort itself and I'll have some of solar power as well! I probably won't be able to find the quiz then!
 
I had to look up "earth berm" building. What a fantastic idea although I can't see it catching on in our towns and cities. Please tell us more Shadrach.
 
86% which I thought was very high figure for us, possibly because we have oil central heating. One thing is certain, we can't do any more. We only heated the house for three months over Winter and it's set to 16C- either side of that we had a small log fire for a few hours in the evening. It's fine talking about electric cars, wood pellet boilers and solar heating, but they require significant investment which is far beyond our means. We do grow a lot and when we have sufficient compost next year we will grow even more. Just out of interest, how much electricity do you all use per day? Ours averages 10 KWhr and is higher in Summer because of the fridge and freezers. We made the mistake of bringing a B-rated freezer from England and it just can't cope here and uses €160 of electricity a year. Problem is replacing it as A+++ will be €2000.

Thats a great idea for a house Shadrach, but how do you ventilate it?
 
Wow what a fantastic house, we hadn't heard of earth berm either. Looking forward to you telling us more about it. Are their more properties near you built on the same lines
Your hens looks great as well roaming over your roof. Yours really can walk all over you
 

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