Use 10 Percent Less

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CO2

Useless emissions, for what?

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The science is very clear. The concentration of carbon dioxide (and other so-called “greenhouse” gases) is increasing and this is leading to an increase in the average temperature of the atmosphere. Without arguing about the the details of why this is happening, the science of the above statement is undeniable. Adding to this, the knowledge that human pollution is adding about 45 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year, then it really disturbs me when I see some of the useless emissions that we create every year. It’s extremely urgent that we avoid adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, yet we add extra for no useful purpose whatsoever. Argh!

An example of useless emissions at a cricket match
A photo I took from my tv during a cricket match – an example of useless emissions

What are we celebrating here?

Sometimes I’m concerned that seemingly minor things seem to irritate me significantly. I took the photo above from my television last year. During a cricket game in the UK, they used flames to celebrate and “create an atmosphere”. Ironic to use that word “atmosphere” here because they’re adding more carbon dioxide to the ever warming atmosphere that we live in. We’ve just been through the COP26 meeting and realised (temporarily?) how urgent it is to reduce our pollution, and then we see these useless emissions being created at a sporting event. It makes me mad.

When I first saw this, it really struck me that a stadium full of people were cheering as the flame throwers released their energy, and added more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. It was almost as if the people where cheering the addition of more warming gases into the atmosphere, just after all the issues raised at COP26. It will sound extreme, but it felt to me like a group of people standing around and cheering a hunter who just killed one of the few elephants left on the planet.

useless emissions used to "celebrate" during a cricket match
Another photo of useless emissions being made during a cricket match

Little things matter

When it comes to greenhouse gas pollution and the warming of the atmosphere, we’re in an absolute emergency situation. There is no time left to wait and there are some very big challenges that we have to tackle. If we don’t get on with this urgently, we’ll not be able to slow the degradation of the climate enough and it will become extremely uncomfortable for us.

Even though there are big topics to deal with, little things matter too. And the burning of fossils fuels at a sporting event just to create an impact is one of those small things. It’s a symbol that we just don’t get it. We don’t realise that we’re adding pollution to the atmosphere that we don’t have to, and this pollution is accelerating the heating of the Earth (a process already well underway). It’s a relatively little thing, but let’s stop it! No more useless burning of fossil fuels for such things as “celebrating”. And let’s find all the other little things where we pollute for no reason, and stop those as well.

Let’s be serious. Let’s stop all useless emissions. Let’s buy ourselves some time to fix this problem

We can fix this, but no more useless emissions

Let’s not get depressed about global warming. There’s no point in that. At least we understand what’s happening now and what the mechanism is, so we have a chance to do the things that will be needed to keep the temperature of our atmosphere within a relatively comfortable range. But we have act seriously and urgently. Every kilogram of greenhouse gases that is released into the atmosphere simply increases the warming and makes our task harder.

These useless emissions that I’ve highlighted here are, for the most part, a glaring signal that we don’t understand our predicament and the urgent need to find solutions. Please eliminate all useless emissions now. Immediately. If ever we create greenhouse gas emissions, let’s be sure we understand what we’re doing and verify that we’re only doing so because their isn’t a viable alternative yet.

flame based celebrations at a rugby game

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Drink water to reduce CO2 emissions?

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Sometimes it is extremely easy to reduce CO2 emissions and one way to do that is to simply drink water, or tap water to be more specific. Surely there will be some of you asking how can drinking water help reduce CO2 emissions? Well that’s easy to explain and I’ll do that in a moment. Others will be thinking that drinking water isn’t very interesting and they’d rather drink something else. It’s in these circumstances that I wonder if the world is ready to reduce pollution and slow the effects of climate change. Until someone has invented a better solution, all we can do right now is reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to buy us some extra time. It’s going to be a bit inconvenient for a while. Following on from COP26, it’s clear we have to do everything we can to reduce emissions and that includes the personal choices of all of us. Everything helps and collectively we need to get emissions of greenhouse gases down very quickly.

Drink water to reduce CO2 emissions?
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

How does drinking water reduce CO2 emissions?

Obviously, the direct action of drinking water does not reduce CO2 emissions, it’s the indirect consequence of us not drinking something else that gives the reduction of emissions. By drinking anything else that had to be grown, harvested, modified in a factory, packaged, shipped and purchased, we’re generally creating CO2 emissions and other forms of pollution at every step of the way. If we simply fill a glass with water from the tap and drink that, we’re mostly eliminating these emissions and pollution.

How would this affect us?

Since a lot of the things we drink (other than water) contain sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, caffeine, artificial sweeteners, artificial colourants, alcohol and other chemicals, drinking water from the tap would actually be better for us. Water is all our body needs when it comes to fluids. Anything else we drink is just to satisfy certain urges, to fit in with expected social norms or as a response to effective advertising. Are any of those things really a good reason to reinforce the climate negative effects of our societies pollution habits?

Drinking tap water would also save us, collectively, an enormous amount of money. Some might say this would be bad for the economy. That can’t really be true can it? Let’s examine this a little.

What would happen is the whole world started drinking only water from “now”?

Let’s imagine a crazy world where every single person in the world suddenly started to drink only tap water from now on (I acknowledge that some places don’t have access to clean water – this is terrible, and should be of concern to the whole global human community). Nothing else was consumed. What would happen?

One thing for sure, some very large companies would go broke. For example, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Red Bull. Coca-Cola’s revenue in 2019 was 37 billion US dollars. The global alcohol market is somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5 trillion US dollars depending on how it’s measured. So, if the world all began to drink only water, these businesses and industries would fail. In the short term, many people would be out of work and the GDP of some countries would be significantly affected.

That appears to be a bad situation, but can drinking water really be bad for the economy? A successful economy is just one where money flows round and round continuously and creates the possibility for people or businesses to attract more customers when superior products and services are offered. If everyone started drinking water, the average consumer would now have more money in their pockets and would start spending this on other things. After a period of adjustment, which might be rough for a while, everything would stabilise.

The bottom line is that a successful economy cannot hinge directly on people drinking any particular beverage.

Other surprising outcomes

If the whole world starting drinking simple water exclusively, then nobody would need to boil a kettle for a cup of tea or coffee. What would that mean? Let’s consider the United Kingdom and do a little math. An average kettle uses about 2000 Watts of power and lets say it is used for only one minute to boil water for one cup.

An article from Wales Online suggests that 56 million Brits drink on average 1.78 cups of tea per day before lockdown. The articles says it’s almost double that during lockdown, but I’ll be conservative here and use the pre-lockdown numbers. I’ll also assume it’s the same average consumption for coffee. So, we have 56 million people drinking on average 3.56 cups of tea or coffee per day.

Assuming one minute of boiling time per cup, that’s the equivalent of having 138,000 kettles running continuously all day long. If a reasonably powerful LED light bulb uses 10 Watts, that’s the equivalent of having 27 million LED bulbs burning continuously. Based on the UK average CO2 emissions from electricity (which is dropping every year), that’s the equivalent of 85 tonnes of CO2 per hour (let me know if I’ve got the math wrong!), or about 750,000 tonnes per year. This is less than a quarter of 1% of the UK’s total CO2 emissions, but it’s only from heating the water to drink tea and coffee, not including the production, packaging and shipping (and milk!) involved as well.

COP26 and Irn Bru

Based on everything I’ve said above, I was shocked to see the representatives at COP26 drinking Irn Bru. Apparently the company behind Irn Bru was allowed to sponsor the soft drinks and water at COP26 because Irn Bru is a “national champion” of Scotland. Is there a disconnect from reality here? The most important meeting in the world to tackle the emergency in front of us and the delegates at the meeting were given Irn Bru as a common drinking option, and the organisers were proud of it! Fact is that such drinks aren’t necessary and they create additional CO2 emissions. Could the organisers of COP26 have considered that?

This would have been a great forum for showcasing how simple personal choices can have an immediate impact on greenhouse gas emissions, but it was missed. If tap water was the only thing available at COP26 and there was a news article on that, could that have had an impact?

Where to from here?

In the spirit of Use 10 Percent Less, this is not an all or nothing issue. We all don’t have to switch to water only right now. The real point of this article is to give you reason to consider choosing simple water more often and avoiding the options that contribute to the climate emergency we’re battling. Can you drink 10 percent less manufactured beverages? That can’t be too hard can it? Then, could you drink 10 percent less again?

If we can do this, we’ll save money, be a bit healthier and reduce greenhouse gas emissions all at the same time.

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Buy local to reduce emissions

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Remember those old movies where rich families would have exotic fruits from half way around the world that had to be transported on those old ships? In some parts of the world, exotic fruits could be just bananas and oranges. It seemed so decadent for these rich families to have such things. Well, today, we all have exactly these things available in our local supermarket, and we think nothing of it. It’s our right. But the ubiquitous availability of such things is one of the important reasons why our atmosphere is getting so polluted. It’s worth looking to buy local and to eliminate as many things as possible that are shipped great distances.

I’ve been worrying more and more about the energy used to move produce about the world and I’ve taken two steps recently to use 10 percent less, or more.

Farmdrop – buying local produce

I’ve started using the Farmdrop delivery service (I have no affiliation with them at all) because they build agreements with local producers and have a “Sourcing Policy” that starts with “Prioritise Local” and the intention to source within 150 miles where possible and to never use air freight. Their website makes it easy to see where every option comes from and I like that. I now buy only fruits and vegetables that come from nearby counties in the UK and that makes me feel better. We’re currently getting delicious plums, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and cheese from local farms, among other things. [Read more…] about Buy local to reduce emissions

Plastic, pollution and the coronavirus

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These are difficult days for humanity with most of us now housebound to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Quite rightly, this life-and-death issue has to take priority until the threat passes. However, unusual times like these have created an link between pollution and the coronavirus that offers us the opportunity to view things in a different way and make some interesting observations.

Using less and treading lightly on the world

For quite a while now, we’ve known that the world is struggling under the weight of human consumption and human pollution. There have been great amounts of progress towards minimising unnecessary consumption and pollution, especially plastic pollution, even though much, much more needs to be done. However, with the coronavirus threat, many people have gone into super-consumption mode and are stock-piling. It’s understandable because people are afraid, but it’s interesting to observe.

Also, any concern about plastic pollution has dissipated temporarily. The amount of food being stockpiled with plastic packaging is astonishing. The protective equipment for health professionals (all very necessary of course) appears to be mostly plastic. The coronavirus testing kits being manufactured at pace contain lots of plastic. Hand-sanitiser dispensers are almost always plastic. The UK has (temporarily?) abolished the charge on plastic bags at supermarkets.

I agree that this can’t be helped at the moment and protecting people has to be our immediate priority; but we also have to remember that we’re protecting people so we can continue to have meaningful lives. If we choke the world with plastic, we might find it hard to live in such a place.

I keep thinking of Satish Kumar’s call to “tread lightly on the world” (see Elegant Simplicity – The Art of Living Well). It’s a good thing to keep in mind. There’s nothing wrong with treading lightly on the world with everything we do, but the human race doesn’t have a good track record of doing that. [Read more…] about Plastic, pollution and the coronavirus

Concerns about HS2

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The new high-speed rail link in England, HS2, has recently been given the go ahead by politicians. For some reason I feel deep concerns about HS2, and I thought I’d better investigate it properly. Even though trains are a less polluting way to travel than cars or airplanes, the new rail line will cut a new swathe through the English countryside and contribute even to more to the continuing destruction of natural environments that we can’t afford. When I have concerns about HS2, I keep hearing Satish Kumar’s call to “tread lightly” on the Earth and I believe this is a goal we must pursue with conviction.

In the spirit of “Use 10 Percent Less”, you could say that building new train links would be a good thing overall as these might lead to less road transport. But then we can also ask, do we really need a train that can move 1,100 people at a time between Manchester and London in 45 minutes? It would actually be better if we could devise ways that reduced the need for people to travel so much. We’ll also see below that the HS2 project does not stack up well on environmental grounds.

I’m concerned that HS2 is going ahead for two main reasons, (1) politicians need a highly visible project to demonstrate their commitment to people in the north of England (to help ensure being re-elected, even though the money could be well spent upgrading transport services along existing routes with little additional damage to the environment), and (2) pressure from the construction sector to keep a high value project alive with the threat of losing jobs (some companies are going to make a lot of money out of HS2).

In reality, of all the concerns about HS2, we should be first examining its effect on our environment. [Read more…] about Concerns about HS2

Our choices can release CO2 – choose wisely

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Did you know that the apparently simple choices that we make every day can be leading to increased CO2 emissions? In simple terms, our choices can release CO2. It’s not all about the “big bad fossil fuel companies” as really the whole system relies on our choices, and it’s easy to see this is true.

A new smartphone

When we desire that new smartphone, especially when our current phone is still working, we’re actually releasing CO2. It takes a lot of energy (not to mention raw, natural ingredients) to create a smartphone and over half of the world’s energy is currently coming from oil and gas. So we release CO2 when we get that new smartphone. And don’t forget that using a mobile requires a network of cellular towers and banks of computers running 24-hours a day in the background to deliver those cloud services, run those games, stream that music, and monitor just about everything you do. It’s a big deal for the world.

New clothes

In the same way, when we want new clothes even though our old clothes are still good, we release CO2. Desiring that new fashion item, made by our favourite designer label who have the clothes made in bulk in a far part of the world (somewhat out of sight) and then shipped all over the world, we forget the amount energy and natural resources this system is using. Again, we’re releasing CO2. [Read more…] about Our choices can release CO2 – choose wisely

We are just greedy and wasteful

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Forget the argument about whether climate change is being caused by humans or not, it’s perfectly clear that we humans are very greedy and wasteful. This is what has to stop. Let’s acknowledge how greedy and wasteful we are, and then let’s start trying to address it. We don’t need any other reason than the fact that greed leading to lots of waste can’t be good for anything.

Some time ago I was researching about the amount of energy we use. It’s no surprise that the world is using exponentially more energy as time passes. The counter argument goes that there are more and more people on the planet too, so maybe the extra energy usage is just natural. However, I wasn’t expecting to find what I found.

Growth of energy usage

Can I say first that humans are the only organisms on the planet that use supplemental energy? All other organisms only use the energy they get from digesting their food, breathing air and absorbing sunlight. Humans use electricity, oil, gas, coal, uranium, solar, wind, water, etc. to create supplemental energy for our benefit.

I found this graph (from Our World in Data) that shows the growth of energy consumption over the past 200 years. [Read more…] about We are just greedy and wasteful

Plane Pollution – a huge problem

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I was doing some gardening early on Monday. It was a beautiful morning and when I looked up, I was startled to see so many plane trails in the sky. In fact, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and everything I could see was caused by plane pollution. It was really surprising, and got me thinking about what a problem plane pollution is and why we generally just ignore it.

This prompted me to investigate a number of articles on the internet (you can see links to all these articles below along with the most interesting quotes from each).  It’s clear that plane pollution is one of the major problems we’re facing as humankind, and we need to do something radical and quickly. [Read more…] about Plane Pollution – a huge problem