The 10:10 Climate Change Pledge. Will you be signing up?

MyLastFiver

Official MoneySavingExpert insert...

Anyone can sign up to the 10:10 pledge, a national campaign for everyone to cut their carbon emissions by 10% in 2010 through using less energy, food, water etc. Around 55,000 individuals and organsations have already signed up.

Back to the original post...

http://www.1010uk.org/

The idea is to pledge to cut your personal carbon emissions by 10% in 2010. In our house I reckon we could do this with a little effort. I wonder, though, whether we'd be p!ssing in the wind. I read somewhere the other day that 3 new coal-fired power stations in China put more greenhouse gases into the air than the whole of the UK...[source anyone?]

HOWEVER... Maybe it's time that ordinary people took the initiative and governments/industry will follow.

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PasturesNew

No. I am not wasteful in the first instance, so I fail to see how I could reduce mine by 10%.

MyLastFiver

PasturesNew wrote: »

No. I am not wasteful in the first instance, so I fail to see how I could reduce mine by 10%.

There are suggestions on the website. It's not just about reducing waste but making some modest lifestyle changes. Me, I could probably save some CO2 by biking to work a couple of days a week.

Cardew

MyLastFiver wrote: »

I wonder, though, whether we'd be p!ssing in the wind. I read somewhere the other day that 3 new coal-fired power stations in China put more greenhouse gases into the air than the whole of the UK...[source anyone?]

I have read that if the UK ceased to have any(man made) carbon emissions i.e. became an unpopulated island - that 'our savings' will be used up by China alone in one year.

That is not a criticism of China or any third world country who are striving to give their peoples a higher standard of living.

Our efforts are like trying to put out a forest fire with a water pistol.

Just to pre-empt the normal response, yes we should set an example etc etc and I used to be deadly with a water pistol;)

Sapphire

Cardew wrote: »

I have read that if the UK ceased to have any(man made) carbon emissions i.e. became an unpopulated island - that 'our savings' will be used up by China alone in one year.

That is not a criticism of China or any third world country who are striving to give their peoples a higher standard of living.

Our efforts are like trying to put out a forest fire with a water pistol.

Unfortunately, the population in China is far, far higher than that in western countries. If all the Chinese consumed in the way people do in Britain, the planet would be finished very quickly.

Petroleum is used for very many of the things that are consumed in the West in massive quantities (including things like nylon T-shirts and many, many other items that people take for granted in our society). It is running out, and God help the planet when it does run out. Before this there is likely to be severe unrest as various countries compete for it. Unfortunately, we are likely to destroy not just ourselves, but also the species that share the planet with us.

For myself, I do the best I can, because I believe that even the smallest amount is a help – saying 'there's no point, because no one else is doing it' is no excuse for not acting yourself in my view. I don't drive, buy used furniture, try to buy locally sourced food from a local farm, avoid food packaged in plastic whenever I can (why on Earth don't supermarkets provide traditional brown paper bags for fruit and vegetables, rather than plastic ones?), haven't contributed sprogs to the ever-growing human population myself, recycle, don't buy a place, then trash it and install plastic Chinese rubbish all over the place, or decide to refurbish an existing place with same just to keep up with some horrible trend, etc, etc...

Cardew

Sapphire wrote: »

Unfortunately, the population in China is far, far higher than that in western countries. If all the Chinese consumed in the way people do in Britain, the planet would be finished very quickly.

Petroleum is used for very many of the things that are consumed in the West in massive quantities (including things like nylon T-shirts and many, many other items that people take for granted in our society). It is running out, and God help the planet when it does run out. Before this there is likely to be severe unrest as various countries compete for it. Unfortunately, we are likely to destroy not just ourselves, but also the species that share the planet with us.

For myself, I do the best I can, because I believe that even the smallest amount is a help – saying 'there's no point, because no one else is doing it' is no excuse for not acting yourself in my view. I don't drive, buy used furniture, try to buy locally sourced food from a local farm, avoid food packaged in plastic whenever I can (why on Earth don't supermarkets provide traditional brown paper bags for fruit and vegetables, rather than plastic ones?), haven't contributed sprogs to the ever-growing human population myself, recycle, don't buy a place, then trash it and install plastic Chinese rubbish all over the place, or decide to refurbish an existing place with same just to keep up with some horrible trend, etc, etc...

Wow - Al Gore will be proud of you!

Internet chat forums are your only 'crime' then;)

moonrakerz

MyLastFiver wrote: »

I read somewhere the other day that 3 new coal-fired power stations in China put more greenhouse gases into the air than the whole of the UK...[source anyone?]

I don't know about that one - but one that is verifiable:
At the moment China has 550 (yes - FIVE hundred and FIFTY) coal fired power stations under construction - must go now, left my 'phone charger plugged in !

Sapphire

Cardew wrote: »

Wow - Al Gore will be proud of you!

Internet chat forums are your only 'crime' then;)

Well, I don't think I'm doing very much at all, really, living a relatively comfortable existence and using up energy. My family has a family cottage in Wales with some land, and we have quite a few fruit trees and some vegetables there. We could quite easily survive off the land, but (tin-hat time) not sure how we could defend it against 'marauding hordes'.

There's a very interesting film out about the looming petroleum shortage (about an hour and a half long). Don't remember what it is called off-hand, but it is pretty sober and not produced by raving lunatics. The scenario it paints is all too realistic (unfortunately).

bigpaws23

Thanks for this; I'm definitely going to look into it I would love to reduce my personal carbon emissions by 10%. I know I could drive less and be more economical in my home with electricity, so I'm inspired - thank you!

SailorSam

I think it's wrong to be trying to put the blame on China for global warming. The problems began with the start of the industrial revolution. Now that we've had years of benefits burning our own fossil fuels is it fair to tall the developing nations they can't do the same.

Cardew

SailorSam wrote: »

I think it's wrong to be trying to put the blame on China for global warming. The problems began with the start of the industrial revolution. Now that we've had years of benefits burning our own fossil fuels is it fair to tall the developing nations they can't do the same.

Nobody is blaming China, or any of the developing nations. They have every right to strive for the same standard of living as the developed nations have enjoyed for years.

It all boils down to defining the scale of the problem, on which even the experts cannot agree, and proposing solutions to the perceived problem - to which nobody has even come close.