Environment, Homepage Blog

Quickly reduce your Carbon emissions to zero

We know that Green House Gases or Carbon Emissions are causing dangerous Climate Change, causing extinctions and threatening life on Earth. But, what is your carbon footprint? How can you quickly reduce your Carbon emissions to zero?

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60-second summary

  • Green House Gases are causing increasingly dangerous changes in weather patterns and reducing the ability of the oceans and land to support life, and food sources start to fail and die.
  • 80% of the Green House Gases come from the use of fossil fuels and the rest from land use, food production, and industrial processes.
  • There are lots of simple steps we can take to eliminate the use of fossil fuels from our lives to stop Global Warming from getting even worse.
  • Let’s turn this into a game  – Climate Change Game see below – with a series of 16 clear tasks, and compete with each other to see who gets to zero first – Task 1 and Badge 1, to be published next week.

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The problem

Damaging Green House Gases (GHGs) from using petrol and gas have been accumulating in our atmosphere for 130 years

NB Green House Gases are mainly made up of gases that contain Carbon (such as Carbon Dioxide, or Methane) so are usually referred to as Carbon, Carbon Footprint, or Carbon Emissions.

These Green House Gases which accumulate in the upper atmosphere, absorb the sun’s rays and are heating up our atmosphere.

This heating is causing increasingly dangerous changes in weather patterns and reducing the ability of the oceans and land to support life.

Life on Earth and our food sources start to fail and die.

Try this at home

What’s your carbon footprint

Each year some 37 Billion tonnes of Carbon are belched out into the atmosphere produced by the things we do, and the industrial processes used to keep our modern lifestyle going.

The UK produces some 364 million tonnes of Carbon.

Try this at home: What is your carbon footprint?

Here’s a link to a complex carbon calculator from Carbon Footprint ™ https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx 

 

Or use click the image to use the simpler United Nations Carbon Footprint Calculator 

 

Were you shocked as well, to see how your normal lifestyle generates such a high Carbon emission?

 

Great news; the more who play, the more we all will win.

What’s the solution?

There is no magic bullet, no single solution that will STOP us producing GHGs, or which will quickly absorb all the excess (Nearly 4 Trillion Tonnes in the last 130 years worth of burning fossil fuels) Green House Gases in our atmosphere. That’s nearly 4,000,000,000,000 Tonnes of Green House Gases since crude oil began to be used en masse since the 1890’s.

However, radical change is possible by using a combination of solutions, and we can achieve a world where our lifestyles generate ZERO Carbon.

You can I can reduce our Carbon emissions to near zero by accomplishing  16 clear tasks. First task next week.

Let’s turn this into a game to inject some fun and achievement, and maybe even some competition; You compete between schools. Households, streets, businesses etc…

How can you quickly reduce your Carbon emissions to zero?

 

Great news; the more who play, the more we all will win.

 

The Climate Change Game

It’s simple in theory;

  1. Stop producing GHGs, and
  2. Start sucking GHGs out of the atmosphere

The detail is a bit complicated and hard to process so, next week I will start publishing a series of 16 badges you can collect for completing tasks.

Each task will help you either directly reduce your personal Carbon footprint, or help the government change laws to help us all reduce the amount of GHG the country needs to produce.

A simple game, with a profound impact on our planet.

Let’s inject some fun and achievement, and maybe even some competition; You compete between schools. Households, streets, businesses etc…

The more who play, the more we all will win.

 

The Climate Change Game Theory

Stop producing GHGs

Here are the key areas we need to each focus on, which produce big chunks of GHG are (Ref: Centre for Alternative Technology, Zero Carbon Britain);

  • 80%of our GHG’s come from the energy we usee. burning fossil fuels for heat & light for buildings, and fuel for cars, vans, lorries, aircraft and other vehicles.
    • It breaks down into 40% for the heat and power for buildings, and 40% for transportation, whether car, or plane, or bus, or train.
    • ADVANCED SCIENCE BIT WHICH WILL SAVE US MONEY: We currently us 1,670TWh of energy per anum, but our best renewable energies can only generate a total of 800TWh of energy. So we need to drop our personal power consumption by at least 60%, and receive lower energy bills.
    • Other renewable power sources such hydrogen present intractable technology and storage problems if used widely
  • 10% of GHGscome from our diet and the way we use land including;
    • Agricultural food production, which is mainly methane from livestock, nitrous oxide from fertilizer from soils and wastes, methane from manure, and CO2 from farm machinery;
    • Land management practices, primarily changing the use of land, which churns soil and destroy vegetation, which then release the captured GHGs
    • In other words, we should change what we eat and, how we use land.
  • 10% of GHGscome from building, industry and GHG leakage (Non-energy Emissions) which comprise;
    • Building on greenfield sites, which churn the land and release into the atmosphere Carbon and Green House Gases stored in the soil
    • Industrial processes such as Iron and steelmaking, Cement production, Fertilizer production
    • Leakage of GHGs from industry, businesses and households, primarily from the gas network; waste management processes;

Start sucking GHGs out of the atmosphere

We can do things to suck out the GHGs by

  • Planting and growing more plants and trees and greening our homes and gardens
    • This will suck up GHG’s and reduce the GHGs in the atmosphere
    • It will also make us more resilient to extreme weather including heat and flooding
  • Repurposing huge areas of land in the Country for tree growing and habitat creation to restore biodiversity
Grand Canyon National Park, United States Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

Together we can do it, starting with next week’s clear, first task.

 

Accountably yours,

Wisdom

Cllr Wisdom Da Costa,

WWRA Clewer & Dedworth West

Deputy Chair, RBWM Cross Party Climate Change Panel

References and credits

  • Grand Canyon National Park, United States Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash
  • Power Plant over flooded river in Black and White Photo by Mike Marrah on Unsplash
  • Worldwide Carbon Emission Data https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions#how-have-global-co2-emissions-changed-over-time
  • Carbon emissions 2018 from UK Government and Wikepedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
  • United Nation’s Carbon Footprint Calculator https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
  • Zero Carbon Britain content from Centre for Alternative Technology
  • Nasa Blue Marble Erath https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/565/earth-the-blue-marble
  • All Climate Change Game material is Copyrighted

Caveat

  • This post is part of the WWRA Councillors regular series of Blogs to inform and empower local residents; as promised in their election leaflet
  • It is also to comply with clause v of the Members Code of Conduct which states, “You must be as open as possible about your decisions and actions and the decisions and actions of your authority and should be prepared to give reasons for those decisions and actions.”
  • The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of the West Windsor Residents Association (WWRA).
  • Any errors are unintentional so, I would value you bringing them to my intention so I can correct them. You can Email me cllr.dacosta@rbwm.gov.uk