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Earth... Look after our planet.


Vaughan_Rarius

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Did you know...

A carbon footprint is defined as: The total amount of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide and methane) produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). ... When you heat your house with oil, gas or coal, then you also generate CO2.

The average carbon footprint for a person in the United States is 16 tons, one of the highest rates in the world. Globally, the average is closer to 4 tons.

The average person's carbon footprint in the UK is about 10 tonnes, which is equivalent to filling 24 million balloons with carbon.

We have got to lower it.

 

From cutting down on meat to contacting your local representatives and investing in clean energy, here are 15 ways to help reduce global carbon emissions

1. Try cutting down on air travel.  Go by train where possible. If not, try to Counteract your flying by cutting your carbon emissions in other areas.

2. The distance you drive matters. Reducing the mileage of the average new car from 15,000 to 10,000 miles a year will save more than a tonne of CO2, about 15% of the average person’s footprint. Walk or Ride you bicycle where possible instead of taking the car. Its healtier too so win win.

3.  Eat less meat, with particular emphasis on meals containing beef and lamb. Cows and sheep emit large quantities of methane, a powerful global warming gas. A vegan diet might make as much as a 20% difference to your overall carbon impact but simply cutting out beef will deliver a significant benefit on its own.

4. Home heating is next. Poorly insulated housing requires large quantities of energy to heat. If you have properly insulated the loft and filled the cavity wall, the most important action you can take is to draught-proof the house, something you can do yourself. Those with solid brick or stone walls will also benefit from adding insulation.  Over time, this will save you money.

5. Old gas and oil boilers can be hugely wasteful. Even if your current boiler is working well, it’s worth thinking about a replacement if it is more than 15 years old. Your fuel use may fall by a third or more, repaying the cost in lower fuel bills.

6.  If car travel is vital, think about leasing an electric vehicle when your existing car comes to the end of its life. A battery car will save you money on fuel, particularly if you drive tens of thousands of miles a year. Even though the electricity to charge your car will be partly generated in a gas or coal power station, electric vehicles are so much more efficient that total CO2 emissions will fall.  Car chargers re already being fitted around the UK. Its not perfect yet, but its a start. 

7. Bear in mind that the manufacture of an electric car may produce more emissions than the vehicle produces in its lifetime. Rather than buying a new electric vehicle, it may be better to keep your old car on the road by maintaining it properly and using it sparingly. The same is true for many other desirable items; the energy needed to make a new computer or phone is many times the amount used to power it over its lifetime. Apple says 80% of the carbon footprint of a new laptop comes from manufacturing and distribution, not use in the home. Reuse and recycle where possible.

8. Within the last couple of years, LEDs (light-emitting diodes) have become cheap and effective. If you have any energy-guzzling halogen lights in your house – many people have them in kitchens and bathrooms – it makes good financial and carbon sense to replace as many as possible with their LED equivalents. They should last at least 10 years, meaning you avoid the hassle of buying new halogen bulbs every few months. Not only will your CO2 footprint fall, but because LEDs are so efficient, you will also help reduce the need for national grids to turn on the most expensive and polluting power stations at peak demand times on winter evenings. 

9. Home appliances. Frequent use of a tumble dryer will add to your energy bill to an extent that may surprise you. But when buying a new appliance, don’t assume you will benefit financially from buying the one with the lowest level of energy consumption. There’s often a surprising premium to really efficient fridges or washing machines.

10. Consume less. Simply buying less stuff is a good route to lower emissions. A suit made of wool may have a carbon impact equivalent to your home’s electricity use for a month. A single T-shirt may have caused emissions equal to two or three days’ typical power consumption. Buying fewer and better things has an important role to play.

11. The CO2 impact of goods and services is often strikingly different from what you’d expect. In th UK. Bananas, for example, are fine when they are shipped by sea. But organic asparagus flown in from Peru is much more of a problem. Look at where the food comes from at your supermarkets and shops.

12. Invest in your own sources of renewable energy. Putting solar panels on the roof still usually makes financial sense, even after most countries have ceased to subsidise installation. Or buy shares in new cooperatively owned wind, solar or hydroelectric plants that are looking for finance. The financial returns won’t be huge – perhaps 5% a year in the UK, for example – but the income is far better than leaving your money in a bank

13. Buy from companies that support the switch to a low-carbon future. An increasing number of businesses are committed to 100% renewable energy. Unilever, the global consumer goods business, says its operations will be better than carbon-neutral by 2030. Those of us concerned about climate change should buy from businesses acting most aggressively to reduce their climate impact.

14. Politicians tend to do what their electorates want. The last major UK government survey showed that 82% of people supported the use of solar power, with only 4% opposed. A similar survey in the US showed an even larger percentage in favour. The levels of support for onshore wind aren’t much lower, either in the US or the UK. We need to actively communicate these high levels of approval to our representatives and point out that fossil fuel use is far less politically popular. 

15. Buy gas and electricity from retailers who sell renewable power. This helps grow their businesses and improves their ability to provide cost-competitive fuels to us. Renewable natural gas is just coming on to the market in reasonable quantities in many countries and fossil-free electricity is widely available. Think about switching to a supplier that is working to provide 100% clean energy.

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Save our planet and wildlife from us, before it's too late.

 

Edited by Vaughan_Rarius
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Iceland’s Banned TV Christmas Advert... Say hello to Rang-tan. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdpspllWI2o&feature=youtu.be

 

The main problem with palm oil is that it’s cheap and easy to produce. This means it appears in far more products than you would ever guess. It’s in everything from bread, margarine and chocolate to shampoo, soap, washing detergent and lipstick. And that in itself wouldn’t be a problem if we weren’t undertaking massive deforestation in order to produce it.

According to WWF, palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil on the planet and is in about half of all the products on our supermarket shelves.  Palm oil is grown in tropical rainforest environments and it is the uncontrolled clearing of these forests for plantations that is the problem.  Deforestation for palm oil plantations has been linked to the destruction of habitats of endangered species such as orangutans, tigers, elephants and rhinos.

Select products that have signed up to using sustainably produced palm oil. Look for the RSPO certified sustainable palm oil label or the Green Palm label which marks products in transition to certified palm oil. There is even an RSPO app you can download to your phone and use to scan barcodes as you shop!

certified-sustainable-palm-oil-rspo-logo-2A5818F1D4-seeklogo.com

 

https://i0.wp.com/theplanetgeek.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/green-palm.png?resize=150%2C150 

 

Sign the petition - Stop buying Palm Oil from rain forest destroyers. 

https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/page/s/general-palm-oil-campaign 

 

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Things to think about when you are travelling.

You can make a huge difference. Read on and educate yourself.

Aeroplanes are roughly comparable to cars in fuel consumption per passenger mile, at least with respect to carbon dioxide output. It makes for an easy comparison; a 60-hour cross-country car trip burns up about the same amount of fuel per passenger, and has the same “carbon footprint,” as a five-hour flight.

Air travel does even more damage than you’d imagine — so much that many travellers are looking into ways to neutralize the carbon emissions from their flights. A whole host of companies have sprung up to help travellers go “carbon neutral,” an increasingly popular term that was declared the 2006 word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary.

Air travel has a particularly negative impact on the atmosphere due to two factors:

1) Aeroplanes emit a stew of other harmful gases in addition to carbon dioxide, and

2) Gases released in the upper atmosphere where planes cruise have a much greater impact than gases released on the ground due to something called the “radiative forcing” effect. The sum total of the damage is about 1.9 times that of driving a relatively fuel-efficient car.

Radiative forcing notwithstanding, it’s much easier simply to call a mile a mile. Since most of us are doing so little about the problem already, to quibble over the exact radiative forcing effect is a bit like working inside the Beltway, where people would rather argue over how to do something than actually do it. As convenient as it would be out here in the real world to live that way, we can’t, so let’s use the mile = mile metric.

If the average person drives 10,000 – 15,000 miles each year, it takes only a trip to Europe for a West Coaster, a trip to Hawaii for an East Coaster or a couple of cross-country flights to do as much damage (or more) as you do during an entire year of commuting and cruising in your car.

While global warming has considerable staying power as a hot-button topic among politicians, virtually no reputable scientists and increasingly few people see it merely as a political issue any longer.

It’s happening now and we need to do things to slow it down. You are already seeing the effects of it…  flooding, fires, severe weather conditions.

This is nature knocking on your door telling you… don’t ,mess with me or else!

Many travellers are willing to do something about it but forgoing air travel entirely isn’t going to happen. If you can cut down on your flights, then do it. Most cant or are unwiling.

If you can’t, there is something called Carbon offsetting, which is better than doing nothing.

“Carbon offsetting” has gained considerable currency in the media as one way to mitigate the environmental impact of many facets of modern living. The concept is fairly simple: for every mile you travel, or rather every ton of carbon dioxide your mode of travel causes to be released into the atmosphere, you pay a small fee to enable other folks to work on solutions to mitigate the damaging ecological effect of your travel.

There are some great things about carbon offsetting:

Unlike a lot of environmental science, the concept is extremely easy to grasp. Spew a bunch of gases into the atmosphere + plant a tree that can chew up those gases = zero sum total.

 

There are Other Ways to Offset Your Environmental Impact While Traveling too.

Reducing your environmental impact while traveling can be almost absurdly easy and I’m not talking about driving without air-conditioning during summer, wearing down coats in your hotel room or other such unpleasantries.

Try doing these:

1. When you leave your hotel room, turn down the heat or air-conditioning until you return, and turn off the lights.

2. Use the “no room service needed” option offered at many hotels. At home, you don’t change your bed sheets or use a different towel or vacuum perfectly tidy rugs or scrub your sink every single day, as is the case at even the most modest hotels. If everyone in every hotel in your country were to use this option, the amount of water and energy saved on washing machines alone would have an impact.

3. Walk or use public transportation when travelling. In many cities riding the subway, the Underground, the El trains and the like can be a wholly satisfying way to get to know your surroundings. Folks who zip from one tourist attraction to another in a taxi learn about exactly those things: taxis and tourist attractions.

It’s all the actual living in between that makes a great city great and that’s the bit worth seeing.

 

Here’s other ways to offset your carbon footprint at home too:

Plant plants and flowers in your garden to encourage insects, in particular bees. Give them the environment, nature will do the rest. If you haven’t got a garden use planters and pots.

And plant trees of course. If no room in your garden, then consider joining forces with environmental charities who know how and where.

Here’s a good one that plants trees around the world and only a $1 a tree.

https://teamtrees.org/

#TeamTrees started in May 2019 when the internet challenged MrBeast to plant 20 million trees to celebrate hitting the 20M subscriber milestone on YouTube. At his audience’s suggestion, MrBeast teamed up with fellow YouTuber Mark Rober, and for 5 months they developed the campaign and organized their influencer friends and colleagues in order to have a fighting chance at achieving their insane goal: 20 million trees by 2020. #TeamTrees launched publicly on October 25th, announcing itself with a wave of #TeamTrees videos, and the rest is up to you. Whether you’ve donated to plant one tree, or one million trees, or have simply helped to spread the word, welcome to #TeamTrees!

Who exactly is the Arbor Day Foundation and why did you choose them over other tree planting NGOs?

We quickly realized that to plant trees in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way we would need to partner with the professionals. After speaking with a number of people in the environmental space, the Arbor Day Foundation stood out as being the best. They are one of the largest and longest-running tree planting NGOs, with 47 years of experience, and they have the same Charity Navigator rating as the American Red Cross.

Read the FAQ at the bootom of their page.

 

Want to know your own carbon footprint,  try this…

http://www.carbonify.com/carbon-calculator.htm

 

And here’s a shout out to Ethiopia… Good on ya

Ethiopia Set the World Record for Most Trees Planted in a Day in 2019.

The country came together—and installed 350 million trees in just 12 hours—to combat climate change.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ethiopia-world-record-trees-planted-deforestation

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Edited by Vaughan_Rarius
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i think its the wrong idea from its core that we deem ourselves responsible for the whole planet when we do not even manage to take care of ourselves. Let me try to explain you the difference:

  • we do not kill the planet or all life on earth with our behaviour, we kill us and a few or the most species in the longer food chains or forcing them to adapt atleast to the new climate and circumstances like the plastic everywhere but nobody is really believing that life will be destroyed by this. not even covering earths surface with nuclear bombs would be able to kill all life in a matter of fact. there are plenty of organisms who can live through radioactive environments, extremely toxic water qualities and without sunlight.
  • People in not so rich countries have a hard time caring for trees or animals when they themselves feel endangered to die or further impoverish, thats absolutely normal and within our nature to survife, no matter what. In merchandising the idea as "save the planet" instead "save humanity and in fact themselves from catastrophic changes leading to war and further impoverishment" you might feel like a hero saving the planet in the end of the day but you demotivate the poor half of humanity to actually take part in the action.
  • Nature is not developed and does not work through a thought through system of balance that is artificially enforced by someone, it works through much stronger mechanisms humans are far, far, faaaaaar away from mastering or even understanding and we simply cannot hope to mess with it successfully. we are not the masters of nature, we are part of it and thinking otherwise and effectively believing we are able to shape the world to our will "on purpose" (nobody is doubting were right now shaping the environment) is dangerous arrogance that will do more harm as good for ourselves in the end.

conclusion: when we look on environment issues you should always brand it in a way that its about humans if you want to have an impact and be atleast aware that stopping a specific species that is not of direct value for our own survival to go extinct has no greater good as keeping a pretty stone in your house to look at it. Use achievable goals with direct positive effect, do not intend to heal the whole system but trust in natures ability to balance itself. be aware that this "balance" could very well mean that we as species are endangered to go extinct if our actions and behavioural changes are not strong enough which could mean drastic measures, even undemocratic ones might be necessary to save us.

Edited by IKushiel
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