Post 11 – Little Stories & Big Stories Made Little

Aspiring to a low carbon life provides me with much to think about and much to write about and certainly an endless supply of material to read, and audio to listen to, and YouTube clips to watch. Today, it is hard to decide what I will include in this post so maybe a little bit on a lot of topics is the solution.

First, for anyone who read my Post 8 and Post 9 where I mention the book ‘How bad are bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything’ by Mike Berners-Lee, I am now able to tell you that it provides another way of measuring and setting a bench mark for a low carbon life. In this book, our lifestyle is measured in terms of tonnes of carbon emissions. The book makes it clear that the emissions of any of the listed products or activities are measured over the total life cycle of the item and are not simply measured in terms of the amount of energy required to use it or experience it. Interestingly, he provides the emissions for things like a heart bypass operation (1.1 tonnes of carbon) and reading an email (4 grams of carbon). The book also looks at solar panels which, as we know, do not require energy to operate but, as it turns out, do require a lot of energy to be manufactured and installed . If I am interpreting his figures correctly, a 5 kW system emits 3.5 tonnes in its manufacture and installation.

The book also makes clear that ‘carbon emissions’ is short hand for all of the types of greenhouse gas emissions. This book was published in 2010 which, in climate change terms makes it potentially dated. Keeping this in mind, my ‘take home messages’ from this book are that:

the average emissions per person in the UK are 15 tonnes per annum and need to get down to 10 quickly and ultimately 3 or lower;
Australian’s emissions are higher than 15 tonnes per person;
some UK supermarkets list emissions per product (wouldn’t that be useful);
there are high emissions associated with air travel and food imported via air freight is a really crazy purchase; and
overall, buy less ‘stuff’ and when we do buy things we should buy quality items that last.

The second thing I want to do in this post is provide an update on my worms. They are doing really, really well. There are lots of them and they are fat, which I assume is good, and they are eating quickly so our food scraps are not going to landfill. I have them protected from the cold weather with a polystyrene shroud and, even though polystyrene might not be the most environmentally friendly product, it is a great insulator and can last for years without breaking down which, in many situations, is negative but in the case of the protection it provides to my worm, it is a good thing. I hear that I have a neighbour who also has worms and he has his in a couple of old bath tubs (parked). I will ask him how they are survive in the extreme cold and the extreme heat and how he harvests their castings for the garden. I guess the liquid fertilizer they produce just drains out the plug hole.

The third issue I want to acknowledge is a big, big story that I will make little. The Pope published an encyclical on Thursday this week which I have learnt is a letter to Catholic Bishops. This encyclical is about climate change. No, I haven’t read its 192 pages but I will have a try to in the weeks ahead. Fortunately, there has been a lot of commentary, from a variety of different sources, on its content so I think I have been able to get its drift. As I understand from the commentary, the Pope acknowledges that the scale of the climate change confronting us is a result of human activities. He calls upon us to reduce our consumerist lifestyles, look towards equity and social justice, to not think that there is going to be a technological fix for our problems, to embrace renewable energy, to see these changes as individual responsibilities not just social responsibilities and, to leave alone the issue of population control. In all but the last, I agree with him. Today’s news reports are saying that the response of many Republican, Catholic politicians in the US is that the Pope has strayed into territory which is far removed from theology and morality which by, implication, is what he should confine himself to. Personally, I take heart. His actions are those of a true leader. Catholicism is not for me but there is no doubt that Popes are world leaders and right now we need all the climate change leadership we can get. I guess we will soon see Australian Catholic politicians, who do not believe in climate change or the need for action, reconciling their faith and their views in the way that those in the US are doing.

Little topic number four, is about this blog. During the coming weeks, I will start categorizing and tagging my posts so they can be searched. Even I find myself wondering if I am repeating myself and I have to read far too much content when I want to cross reference something, so a more searchable site can only be a good thing. I have also decided that I will commit to a published post by 9am each Monday. Typically, I will publish during the preceding weekend but committing to each Monday gives me a little leeway. Three months ago, I thought that I could manage two or three posts a week. I guess we all learn by doing! As an aside, this week’s featured image bears no relationship to anything, I just thought it was a nice photograph and hope you enjoy it too. Bye for now, Jane