I recycle, the city provides recycling services, i sell my aluminum cans myself, and we compost our old vegetables/fruit. and I don't throw grass clippings away, i put them on other parts of the lawn so that the weeds don't come up. I don't try to purposely pollute the environment, but i don't go extremely out of my way for things.
I think we need to do more. yes recycling is good in the long run as the energy used to cart the stuff around from wherever its mined isnt being used, however the bigger source of our carbon footprint is from how far our food has flow from or been driven. source locally produced crops, which supports local economies and eat seasonal vegetables. it makes sense. http://www.newdream.org/consumer/farmersmarkets.php http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4312591.stm dont be a gimp and eat strawberries in october, imo.
Sorry, but even if the UK became 100% carbon nutral, the overall effect would be minimal. China has just said that they aren't going to stop until every single person has the same level of life as an American Person, so I'd like to see how 60 Million 'clean' people compare to 1.4 Billion or so people who are going through an industrial revolution. And if you can't see that, then eat me.
I do care in someways. Things like not making pointless car journeys, turning off lights when not in the room and recycling as much waste as possible. However if I could afford to run a car that did 10mpg and had a PC that drew 800W from the wall, then no it wouldn't bother me too much. I go with the philosophy of not being pointlessy wasteful, but if something I'm using consumes a lot of resources then so be it. Kinda selfish I guess
The only way to make real change is through government taxation. Make companies pay higher tax for non-biodegradeable products. Conversely , give tax breaks to firms who streamline there operation to take advantage of all the eco friendly measures. Nice to see Supermarkets making an effort to ditch the carrier bags and encourage ppl to use reuseable bags.
Local produce is great and all, until you realise how far its pointlessly transported. Example: Somerset milk is milked right here, shipped over to Avonmouth, processed then sent up to Leeds, bottled and then resent back to Avonmouth. Its then sent on a final run to the supermarkets. All those miles for no real purpose.
that isnt local produce then is it. it is feasible to get everything within 50 miles grown from your house in the uk, fair enough its a bit of a challenge to get everything, however i believe you can do it if you are determined enough.
Only in that outdated data from 2004. China has been the biggest CO2 emmiter since 2006. http://www.mnp.nl/en/dossiers/Clima...anowno1inCO2emissionsUSAinsecondposition.html Even the wiki page which I think it said was from 2004 shows our pollution to be 2.2% and theres 18.4%. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions Anyway we dont need all these charts, unless you have had your head buried in the sand for the past 2 years you KNOW that China is now the worlds biggest polluter. Also the data that DXR_13KE gave is per capita, not total, so yes in terms of each person we pollute more, but what could you possibly expect from a fully developed western country, china is going to be much worse per person in years to come.
The other thing is, of course, that most of the stuff we in the United States of England diligently dump into our assorted recycling bins ends up being shipped to China.
That's not the point, you can go all day saying "why should I do it when they don't?" so until somebody does do it nobody else will. Also there's no reason why an american standard of living cant be maintained with a significantly reduced CO2 output. Also how do you answer the fact that the vast majority of Chinese industry is dedicated to supporting our lifestyle? and therefore most of their CO2 production should really be attributed to us. Edit Either that or incinerated, under UK rules waste that is incinerated can be called "recycled" if the incinerator also produces power. Moriquendi
Too true. Really we as citizens shouldn't be argueing about this, even if we all managed to become carbon neutral or just pollute in very small amounts not much would change. It is industry that pollute massively, but industry that we rely on. Also its politicians who feel the need to fly hundreds of people and thousands of press around the world for summets on climate change. Sorry I really have a bee in my bonnet about these politicians who couldn't be more hypocrytical if they tried. My car does an average of near 50mpg, and I only use it when I need to. I never leave lights on, I never have lights on . My power supply is pretty efficient, so when I am just sitting here not loading anything its probably using less power from the grid that most average home users with generic low efficiency power supplies. I recycle everything I can. I get quick showers instead of using tons of water in the bath, or spending ages in the shower. I go on holiday to france one time a year, there and back emmits less CO2 per person than a small car driving around 600 miles. What else can we as people do to emmit less C02 that doesn't massively distrupt our everyday lives.
Make sure your home is insulated, get double glazing, change all the bulbs you can to energy efficient ones, replace a knackered old boiler and fit a condensing one, get an A-rated fridge freezer and washing machine, get a 'green' car that suits your needs. Those are the easiest to meet. You could do further things like run your water pipes through the ground for heating and also fit a solar panel and a wind turbine. What I'm surprised at in the UK is that there's only two or three hydro-electric dams (I know there's at least one in Scotland and I think there's one in Wales) - considering we're surrounded by water, someone's missed the boat somewhere.
There are loads of very small hydro damms in the highlands, buts its little to do with ecology and more to do with local environment. Its easier to generate low levels of power localy than wire to where people are. Pitlochry has a comparatively large scale hydro though. Hydro damns aren't really much use for harnessing the sea there are lots of new techs on the way but they're at the perpetual 10 year mark.
Holy crap.. My country places #15th (2004). Luckily for me, I can honestly say that I don't care, but I do recycle and I don't pollute as much as I could (in reference to my fellow countrymen). Apparently after further research, the average Finnish person has a footprint of 8,4 planets/person. Me and my girlfriend have a footprint of 2,2 planets, we're two people... you do the math. Now if there was only a way to remove that last 0,1 percent of both of us, I could safely say. "I already doing my part, how about you?"
Our household recycles everything we can, not becasue 'we are saving' the planet, because its easier and becasue our normal rubbish only gets picked up once a week. Its things like 'green energy' coming from the national grid. Its not green in the slightest. The national grid is the national grid. I know that my 'I will when they will' attitude isn't a good thing, but its very justified in this case. If I lived a' la Ray Meres or the like in a grass hut, I t wouldn't make a differance. You really need goverments collectivly to stand up against China (and others), because its becoming such and economical bully, that soon nothing will be able to stop it.
"Green energy is in fact green energy, when you sign up to buy green energy from your power company what happens is that they agree to buy the amount of energy you use from a "Green" source so it does make a difference, if everyone bought green energy they would be obliged to buy all their energy from green sources and there would be much more investment in green energy. Again, China couldn't be such an economical bully if we stopped purchasing so much stuff from them, it is our responsibility there's no way to avoid that. Moriquendi