What is my carbon footprint?

When did you last check what your carbon footprint is? I did it as part of an activity for a MOOC I am studying for at the moment and the results really surprised me! 

Use this Calculator

My carbon footprint was 5.12 tonnes per year - it's just an estimation, but it's a great indication. I was not surprised by the fact that it was lower than the average for the UK (which is 9.8 tonnes a year). I don’t own a car, and live in a rather small city where I can go to most places by bike. Also, my partner and I are rather careful with our energy consumption.

What surprised me most was that it was my secondary carbon footprint (and not the result of my occasional flying) that was the highest at 4.12 tonnes a year. These are all lifestyle choices!

This means there are quite a few small things I can do:

- eat less meat (although I probably eat meat 3 times a week, not more)

- buy more organic food and seasonal food – which I try, but it isn’t always available

- be more consistent when buying vegetables – no packaging!

- recycle more!

- reduce recreational activities that aren’t zero-carbon

I checked what choices exactly had the biggest impact on my carbon footprint.

I found these to be ‘recreational activities’. I find it difficult to imagine to change that drastically. Even if my town is rather good at providing more environmentally friendly activities such as the Food Cycle, I like going to the local!  Maybe we could see more community-led zero carbon activities!?

I also should make more efforts when buying food. I am on a low income, so buying organic local food can be tricky! I will start by trying to cook more vegetarian meals! 

So, what are you going to change?

Scaling your Green

How much do you know about energy consumption and a sustainable lifestyle?

The Going Green Quiz

What do you know about the oceans and what behaviour should we really change?

The Oceans Quiz

A high-profile quiz from Yale University. Sometimes you're just glad it's multiple choice...

Yale Green Quiz

Are you an eco-snob? A Telegraph comment that won't give you any more tips but might lift your mood a little!

Eco-snob detector

Nothing green or in any way related with the tests, but just a funny story about a cute crossed-eyed opossum on the way to being more famous than Berlin's Knut. (who is all yellow and huge now!)

Heidi, the Oppossum

Fancy a Banksy?

A Banksy is being auctioned off in Bonhams, London today. If you fancy that piece for your living room, I hope you can afford to spend about 100.000 Euros, the generally estimated price. (see lot!)

The discussed piece was originally planned for the Greenpeace exhibition: „Save or Delete“ denouncing deforestation. Banksy represented characters of the Jungle Book, about to get their heads chopped off. The children's best friend, Disney, however objected and made legal threats so that the artwork was never circulated as posters.

Now, not only is it a Banksy (and as a stylish mac-using up-to-date twittering retro-style marketing expert, you definitely should own a Banksy), it is also a forbidden jewel. We'll later see how high the bidding will go!

However, if that's not quite your price range, try it on ebay, it's nearly as cool!

Banksy Poster - ebay

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Artwork sold for $121700!

gREenSOLUTIONS... The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Every year, at this time of the year, the internet is swamped with green resolutions. We know that resolutions are just a way to reassure ourselves that we are good people, but in the end we don’t stick to them and don’t particularly feel bad about it, they are just new year’s resolutions. I believe that we can take decisions any time of the year and stick to them for the rest of our lives: starting to be green has nothing to do with a change of date, but with a change of mindset and lifestyle! So, promise me one thing, do what you can to respect the environment, to save energy, to reduce waste and to raise awareness about our planet’s situation, and not just because it’s the beginning of a new year, but because you believe in it!

Photo: John LeGear

Just for the entertainment, I have found some interesting resolutions on the web, from this year or the previous ones. Enjoy the various and curious ideas!

BE RADICAL

 This user tells us, that once we respect the basic resolutions going from recycle to reduce waste etc, we should maybe expand our horizons.

“In green terms, radical has become synonymous with tactics like, say, liberating animals from laboratories.

Well, rather than doing something likely to land you in jail, what would happen if we banded together and pledged to never, ever buy a product that was tested on animals? International animal liberation, you might call it. You can start by compiling a list of cruelty-free products.

Hey, you never know just how radical [this year] might turn out to be.”  

Source

DO NOT BUY

Talking about radical this blogger has had an interesting idea: not buying a single new thing this year. “Not clothes or shoes of any kind. Not socks. No undergarments. Nothing, nada, nope. No new bedsheets, towels, pillows, STUFF.  NOTHING.” Indeed, most of us tend to accumulate so many things that we don’t actually need, but a real fashionista will have difficulties following this resolution. ( even if it sounds more like a challenge to me). Maybe the accompanying plan is sewing classes!
Source

BE RETRO

Be retro. No be even more retro than retro: be your grandma! Indeed this user recommends to start using this kind of thought process on a daily basis: What would my grandma do? When you start thinking about it, previous generations were far more environment-aware than us. They re-used and recycled, they
would save energy and water like a matter of normalcy, not because they were fashionably saving the planet.

Source

CONFRONT

 A writer from Treehugger proposed an interesting resolution: that is to confront one climate skeptic per week. I still have a few open questions. Where do you find the climate skeptic? Where are his grazing areas: the mall? the 4x4 store? And what do you do? You could combine it with another writer’s resolution: ‘Give away 5 copies of An Inconvenient Truth or Who Killed the Electric Car?’ Interesting but expensive if you want to confront 53 climate sceptics this year. So of course, you can convince them with the power of your own arguments, so remember to always keep informed. There are so many useful websites out there! And maybe finally change your favourite search engine to its greener option (see previous post).

Source

THINK

As a last advice, I’d like to quote this one “Take some time to think about what really matters to you, what you really care about, what and who you love. Be aware that our consumerist society may want you to want very different things to what you really desire for yourself and your family.”

Source

My Favourite Green Ted Talks

I love Ted Talks: they are awesome to listen to when you're on public transport! These are some of my favourite ones. I didn't choose them for the quality of their ideas, because there are so many amazing talks on ted.com, but these ones are chosen for the discourse of the speaker and the value of entertainment, while still teaching a brilliant idea.

How I fell in love with a fish - Dan Barber

"Chef Dan Barber squares off with a dilemma facing many chefs today: how to keep fish on the menu. With impeccable research and deadpan humor, he chronicles his pursuit of a sustainable fish he could love, and the foodie's honeymoon he's enjoyed since discovering an outrageously delicious fish raised using a revolutionary farming method in Spain."

The title first got my attention and I got stuck on his witty and humorous style. Enjoy his lively descriptions of his love stories with fish.

Michael Pollan gives a plant's-eye view

"What if human consciousness isn't the end-all and be-all of Darwinism? What if we are all just pawns in corn's clever strategy game to rule the Earth? Author Michael Pollan asks us to see the world from a plant's-eye view."

A new conspiracy theory about intelligent grasses setting our behaviour! This talk definitely gives you a refreshing new outlook on nature.

Michael Specter: The danger of science denial

"Vaccine-autism claims, "Frankenfood" bans, the herbal cure craze: All point to the public's growing fear (and, often, outright denial) of science and reason, says Michael Specter. He warns the trend spells disaster for human progress."

Hilarious, witty and although I don't agree with everything he says, I love the way he's so american in his way of arguing.

------------------------------------------------

For more Ted Talks, click here!

Search and be good...

The simplest thing of your time spent on the Internet: a word search. Well, nowadays, with a simple word search, you can start to save the world. This hyperbolic phrasing might make you frown, but let me introduce you to a few search engines that can help you do your little bit for the planet:

Blackle

Blackle takes the people's favourite 'Google' and changes it into black. Indeed, a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year firstly established the hypothesis that a black Google would save a quite a lot of energy due to the popularity of the search engine. The number of saved watts is recorded on Blackle, do your bit, and switch off the lights, even on your screen!

Ecosia

Ecosia is a search engine wrapper using Bing or Yahoo. From the revenues of sponsored links 80% are donated to support the WWF's work in Amazon as they try to save the rainforest and its unique biodiversity. 

The Eco Key

The Eco Key is a Google-powered search engine and provides you with the standard Google services but also gives you the possibility of an eco-filter, which will lead you to green results of your word search. The company thus dedicates 40% of its revenues to organisations that remove litter worldwide.

EcoSearch

EcoSearch is also Google-powered, but it actually donates 100% of its gains to a variety of charities, which figure on the site's 'about'-section. If you want to suggest a charity, the site should be supporting, you can email David Krasnow, who is behind the website and does it in his free time!

Good Search

Good Search is a Yahoo-based search engine and enables you to select a charity which will be supported for your search. Thus you can install a charity you want them to give to every time you search something, or you can change the selected charity all the time. You can also look at the amounts collected for every year and month. In my opinion it is a very effective way of involving the consumer in his sustainable behaviour.

Five Green Things We Really Need More Of

by A.K. Streeter, Portland, Oregon

Photo: Pink Sherbet Photography via Flickr.

The continuous flow of product press releases through the TreeHugger mailboxes is truly astounding, and often inspiring.
After a while, however, a discernible pattern appears: These marketing pitches are all on the same short list of products. Green, sustainable messenger bags, no shortage there. Organic t-shirts, there's a definite glut.
But as we head toward that great shopping holiday of the year, it's also clear that there's a dearth, a really amazing shortage, of some things. So here's one wish list of green goods I'd like to see more of -- add your suggestions in comments and let's inspire green designers everywhere.

1. Hello, Hello Where Are All the Green Cell Phones?

Photo: Warwick.

There was a time when the green cell phone revolution seemed right around the corner -- corn-based plastic phones that you could plant when you got a new model.

Yet, something happened on the way to the sustainable cell phone. Forty percent of consumers said they'd prefer a green cell phone, if they could only find one. AT&T certainly isn't helping, and Motorola dropped their biodegradable mobile.

2. Brrr. Winter Is Here. Where are the Long-Sleeved T-Shirts?

Photo: ir0cko via Flickr.

 

It's a mystery: you can find an organic t-shirt at every turn, from highly design-y, expensive examples to the occasional organic tee at Target. So why is it so impossible to find organic in other styles besides short-sleeved and hoodies?

Babies get long-sleeved organic onesies, and those of us perpetually chilly (and those that never wore those boxy slogan tees anyway) are waiting for manufacturers to take on some other, long-sleeved, and heavier weight styles.

3. When Home Repairs Happen, Where's the Green Hardware?

Photo: theilr via Flickr.

 

Looking back at the last 12 months, the number one reason I've needed a car, and the number one place I go on the weekends is not to a romantic get-away, but to the local hardware store.

I try to avoid big box (which has made strides at having green options), simply because it is out of bike range for us, and we love to support our local retailer. Yet our weekend quests for say, a simple nightlight or a box or screws constantly meets the mainstream, not-so-green ethos. Just a cute little green hardware corner store is all I'm asking for, and ready to pay for.

4. Biking Is Sustainable, But What About Bikes?

Photo: Mike-wise via Flickr.

 

There definitely ARE choices for green bikes, some beautiful bamboo models that get closer to something we could call sustainable.

But the problem is that at your local bike shop, that isn't the vibe, and there isn't a recognizable green choice. It's great that in cities such as mine, Portland, Oregon, there are lots of choices if consumers go out looking -- but we also need a green Giant bicycles to lead the way for new bike converts who don't want to get into the tech details and just want to buy a green cruiser with green credentials.

5. Beauty is Greening, Beauty Parlors Aren't.

Photo: Lorda via flickr.

 

Organic skin care is one of those perennial favorites in the TreeHugger in box. At least one new company a week is promoting their beautifully packaged, impeccably formulated beauty wares. This goes for hair care, too, the choices are plentiful, sometimes mind-boggling.

Beauty salons are a bit of an environmental nightmare. Salons have been slow to adapt as an industry group -- many salons still use shampoos and hair dyes that contain lots of harmful chemicals, and after they are on clients' skin, they are washed down the drain and into the environment.

While there are two "green" salons in a five-mile radius of my inner-city Portland neighborhood, one is definitely not full-service, and the other one is great, has lots of stylists and a nurturing vibe, but is quite pricey. As a walk down any stylish city street proves, people are constantly experimenting with their hair, and the choices for green salons just don't meet the demand.

----------------------------------------------------------

Source: Treehugger