Action 11: Carry a keep cup when you go out.
In Britain we get through 2.5 billion single use coffee cups each year. Each cup – typically made of paper with a thin plastic layer – has a carbon footprint of 60.9g and that is before it leaves the cafe. Only 1 in 400 will be recycled with the remainder ending up in landfill, further adding to their carbon foot print. Each year single use coffee cups produce 152,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide – the equivalent to the output of 33,300 cars.
Action 10:. Swop oat milk for dairy milk. Dairy milk produces a carbon footprint of 3kg/ litre compared with 0.9kg/litre for oat milk (BBC carbon footprint calculator). Oats grow well in a temperate climate such as ours in Britain. Oatso, Made By Land and and Pure Oaty are all UK produced oat milks. Some oat milks are fortified with vitamins and minerals to mimic those in dairy milk but you can obtain these from other sources too. Using oat milk in coffee, on cereal, in cooking and baking is an easy way to reduce your carbon footprint!
You might try the equally delicious oat yogurts, fromage frais and creams that are available.
Action 9: Write to your local supermarket and ask what are their plans for reducing their carbon emissions. What targets do they have and how will they measure their progress?
Morrisons have been proactive on this front. In 2019/20, they reduced operational carbon emissions by 28% (2017 baseline) and plan further reductions of 33% by 2025, 53% by 2030 and net zero by 2040 (2017 baseline).
Action 8: The climate crisis is affecting the whole world. Sometimes in the UK it can seem as if the effects of the crisis are minimal – although recent flash floods and heat waves are changing this -so why not choose a country somewhere else in the world -eg in the Pacific or the Arctic – and find out how life there is being changed.
Action 7: Growing your own food. One way of reducing the carbon footprint of what we eat is to grow our own food. A daily salad of 50g of lettuce eaten over the course of a year will create 10kg of carbon dioxide if UK grown, or 20kg if imported from Europe. Salads like cress, rocket and mustard are easy to grow at home on a window sill or in the garden. For extra colour grow nasturtiums – both leave and flowers are edible as are the seeds which can be pickled like capers.
Action 4: Being self-informed, being curious about what is happening, where and why, helps us to have a better understanding of climate change. This week cut out any articles you find in the newspaper (cut and past if you read on line) about climate change and make a display with them. Looking at the overall picture may give you new insights. Why not share them?
Recycling Plastics
The world’s resources are finite. The more we personally use, the less there is for others. We should reuse, repair and recycle what we do use.
Plastic is conventionally made from oil but can be made from recycled plastic which has both a smaller carbon footprint and allows virgin oil to be left in the ground together with its potential carbon emissions.
Recycling plastics is a good thing.
Whilst all plastic can potentially be recycled, with some forms of plastic the process is deemed too expensive. Plastics that can easily and cheaply be recycled are typically the ones that can go in your kerb side recycling bin or in recycling points at super markets etc. Items made of several different plastics can be difficult to recycle but more and more business are making this possible. Costa Coffee collects coffee cups for recycling (typically made of paper with a thin plastic lining). Superdrug collects blister packs from pills etc for recycling.
32% of all plastic in the UK was recycled in 2020: including 50% of plastic packaging and 77% of plastic drinks bottles. Plastic that is not recycled ends up in landfill sites or incinerators, or as pollution in rivers and the sea. There is scope for more and better recycling. Equally there is scope for reducing the amount of plastic that is in circulation. Do we need all that plastic packing? Do bananas need to come in plastic bags? Do we need drink coffee from throw away cups? Why aren’t sandwiches wrapped in paper?
Good Plastic Recycling Practice
Action 2: Have a talk with your best friend about the climate and your concerns. The more we talk with each other, the greater the awareness will be of the problems and the solutions and the more prominent the climate will be as a national issue. And that will prompt politicians and business leaders to take notice.
Last year we were counting down to COP26 which was being held at Glasgow with the United Kingdom as host. I posed the following questions:-
Are the nations, the leaders, the civil servants, the interested parties, ready? Are they equipped with ideas and proposals? Are they ready to negotiate and encourage and take bold steps to reach an agreement that will see carbon emissions reduced to net zero by 2050? Will they be sufficiently pragmatic to be generous in funding support to enable poorer countries to be part of the movement to net zero? Will they be clear sighted, seeing the bigger global issues rather than being blinkered or distracted by individual agendas? Are they going to be supported by overwhelming popular support for those policies and actions that safeguard our shared future?
The outcome was perhaps better than might have been feared, but certainly not as proactive as it might have been. One of the outcomes was that, in recognition of the severity of the crisis we face, all parties should meet again a year later to review progress and restate targets to keep the process of net zero on track. Thus it is that in 100 days from now, on 6th November, all the parties will be convening in Sharm El-Sheikh for COP27. This time the hosts will be Egypt.
Last year I also posed some questions for ourselves and I propose to repeat/ review these this year.
Can we be part of that popular support? Can we also take action regarding our own lifestyle to contribute to the net zero emissions target? Are there 100 actions we can take between now and the Conference?
Action 1: Write to your MP and let them know why you think this Conference is important and why you hope it will be a turning point in addressing the global climate crisis.
NB What does ‘net zero’ mean?
Net zero refers to achieving a balance between the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere. There are two different routes to achieving net zero, which work in tandem: reducing existing emissions and actively removing greenhouse gases.
A gross-zero target would mean reducing all emissions to zero. This is not realistic, so instead the net-zero target recognises that there will be some emissions but that these need to be fully offset, predominantly through natural carbon sinks such as oceans and forests. (In the future, it may be possible to use artificial carbon sinks to increase carbon removal, research into these technologies is ongoing.)
When the amount of carbon emissions produced are cancelled out by the amount removed, the UK will be a net-zero emitter. The lower the emissions, the easier this becomes.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/net-zero-target
Live Local: the Fifteen Minute City
Imagine living in a neighbourhood where everything one needed on a daily basis lay within a fifteen minute journey – on foot or cycle – of one’s home. A neighbourhood where you can safely walk or cycle to the shops, school, medical centre, park, gym, swimming pool, office, cafe, the pub. A neighbourhood with (largely) traffic free streets, where children can cycle safely and those with impaired mobility/ sight/ hearing can easily cross the road. A neighbourhood where you know your neighbour, the barista at the cafe, the coach at the gym. A neighbourhood where you know you are part of the community.
How far can you walk in 15 minutes? 3/4 or even a full mile.
And by cycle? – maybe 2 to 4 miles.
Could you get much further by car?
The average speed of traffic in London is around 7-8mph, suggesting one could travel 2 miles in quarter of an hour. But then one would have to find somewhere to park, so the distance you could travel by car might well be much less than 2 miles.
Imagine a whole city made up of such neighbourhoods and you have the Fifteen Minute City. This concept is being a actively pursued in Paris by the mayor, Anne Hidalgo. Hidalgo proposes to have a cycle lane in every street and to remove 60,000 parking spaces for private cars whilst at the same time spending €1b per year for on greening both streets and school playgrounds. She has already added some 50km of cycle paths and banned high polluting vehicles. Similar projects are being trialed in Milan, Madrid, Seattle and Ottawa, whilst Melbourne and Edinburgh are pursuing twenty minute neighbourhoods.
What are the benefits?
Benefits social cohesion and community strength.
Supports local business and enterprise.
Less time spent commuting. Fewer traffic jams.
Less air pollution. Reduced CO2 emissions.
Option to repurpose road space as green spaces. Greater biodiversity.
Improved levels of mobility for everyone. Better health.
Increased quality of life.
If you want to hear about the Fifteen Minute City from its creator, Carlos Moreno, tune into the following YouTube episode:-
Can we as individuals go some way to creating our own fifteen minute neighbourhood? We can choose to patronise local shops and businesses, use local leisure facilities and green spaces. We can choose to walk or cycle to each destination, and we can seek out routes that green and interesting – and perhaps discover paths we didn’t know existed!
If we become accustomed to walking or cycling 15 minutes on a day to day basis, we will find we can transfer to a lifestyle that doesn’t need a private car. For those longer but less frequent journeys we can as easily walk to the station and take the train, or book a taxi or hire a car. If that becomes the norm just imagine the effect it will have on local neighbourhood and on carbon emissions.
This pictogram shows my 15 minute neighbourhood: why not have a go at drawing one centred on your home?
