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We had a thread for small wins recently but what are the big easy wins you'd make to save the planet?
Inspired by Brian Niccol, who's just been appointed as the new CEO of Starbucks. He refused to relocate, so instead he's commuting 1000 miles, 3 times a week by private jet...something like 8000 KG of CO2 released into the atmosphere per day.
But, he also was previously the CEO of Chipotle, he refused to relocate then also, so instead they moved their entire headquarters and staff to be near to him.
So my first easy win is to ban Brian Niccol.
Failing that, ban private jets. Over to you.
Unrelated, but how does one get a job as a CEO? It sounds like a dream to be fair.
Haven't flown in 30 years. Don't really want to.
Vegan, nice food, home cooked. This is what I like to eat.
Cycle as much as I can for utility reasons often little slower than a car more fun whats not to like.
All uk holidays.
None of this was different to what I normally do.
Globally, a carbon rationing scheme.
Hardly easy!
Just stop gardening. For at least some of your land. Maintain it for sure, but abandon “garden”.
Cycle.
Unrelated, but how does one get a job as a CEO? It sounds like a dream to be fair.
Be a CEO type person.
I'm waiting for the thread to fill with ideas which have minimal adverse effects on the poster, but massive ones on other people.
Plant trees, lots and lots of trees.
Forest are a massive carbon sink, they also help regulate climate and stop desertification in marginal regions.
No kids, according to that other thread they're all assholes anyway.
Don't cut trees, accept that they drop leaves and cause shade but on a hot day anavenue of mature trees is a cool oasis.
Never driving my bike somewhere in a car to go for a ride.
Solar power (local and grid), wind power, battery and other storage, heat pumps, EVs.
These will be big wins, eventually, but it will take some time. It may not be quick enough, though. The reason they are easy wins is that they don't require large scale societal or political change, they can be (and are being) done now, the people that want to make money still make money and end users save money.
It is not likely to be enough, and we DO need large scale societal and political change, but that's not an easy win, it's a long hard slog if it's achievable at all.
Be a CEO type person.
Or a psychopath in other words
Make WFH a compulsory part of every contract where it is physically possible. Make the infrastructure needed to make it feasible cheap and easily available.
If your dickheads in the C suite whine, chuck them out of their private jet at 30000 feet.
Easy way to increase the savings.
Change all of your pension investments to the most ethical / sustainable your provide offers.
Takes 10 minutes. As championed by Richard Curtis (yes Love Actually Richard Curtis)
https://makemymoneymatter.co.uk/
Cycle & walk more.
Go veggie.
Insulate your house more.
Invest your pension and savings in sustainable & ethical funds.
Lobby our government for more sustainable energy generation, network and storage. Particularly research into new tech, including tidal.
The trouble with a lot of these 'ethical' investments is they don't invest in arms manufacturing. A lot of weapons makers found it difficult to raise money by issuing new stock when looking to increase production in light of events in Ukraine.
No kids, according to that other thread they’re all assholes anyway.
Best comment yet
Globally.
1. Tidal power.
2. Algae-based bioreactors to scrub CO2 out of the atmosphere.
These are the only 2 ideas yet that are even close to big enough. It’s a travesty that the U.K. is wasting some of the best sites in the world to exploit tidal power.
You going to have to get alot of people riding an awful lot of miles to offset global shipping and big industry all of which will be required to make the bikes you need in the first place
I’m waiting for the thread to fill with ideas which have minimal adverse effects on the poster, but massive ones on other people.
Having to be one of those people who cry "BUT WHAT ABOUT BACON" at vegetarians isn't a real hardship though is it? Admit it, you quite enjoy it really.
None of this was different to what I normally do.
Here lies the problem. You havent actually made these descisions for environmental reasons. they just happen to suit your lifestyle.
I could get on my high horse about not having kids. But lets be honest, thats not the reason I dont have any. Its because I'm physically, emotionally and financially unwilling ot commit to something that sounds horrible.
[to be clear, I don't hate all kids, I probably don't hate your kids, I don't hate the idea of reproduction; I hate the idea of me, personally, being a parent]
Make WFH a compulsory part of every contract where it is physically possible.
I've been banging on about this for years. Perhaps not compulsory, but maybe a punitive tax regime that heavily penalises people being in the office. We have to pay to come in when it's not really needed, so make the CEOs pay instead.
It’s a travesty that the U.K. is wasting some of the best sites in the world to exploit tidal power.
The problem is they are also some of the best sites in the area for wildlife.
I’ve been banging on about this for years. Perhaps not compulsory, but maybe a punitive tax regime that heavily penalises people being in the office. We have to pay to come in when it’s not really needed, so make the CEOs pay instead.
I'm torn on this.
1) It's primarily a middle class thing and would turn commuting (and therefore fuel duty and other commuting costs) into a regressive tax.
2) Some people really don't work well from home. Half my team I'd happily let WFH all the time except when needed in the office. Others I'd make come in every day if HR let me. And it's a strong negative correlation between those that want to WFH and those I'd want in the office ?
But ....
It was better over lockdown. Seemed like when everyone was at home we all worked better from home. Probably because there wasn't that disparity between being able to work with those in the office and forget those not. I'd just have my headset on 75% of the time chatting whilst working.
So my first easy win is to ban Brian Niccol.
Failing that, ban private jets.
Banning someone or something might be a big win, but its not an easy one as Private Jet owners and Captains of Multinational Corporations can afford lots of expensive lawyers, have governments in the pockets and so on. Easy to say, not so easy to do.
Tampering with Private Jets though - thats easy. And a 2 for 1.
Stop flying
Don't have children
Go veggie (vegan even better)
Don’t go on cruises
Try and buy goods that haven’t been shipped around the world
Try and avoid foods with palm oil
These are my attempts and admittedly a small drop in the increasing ocean size.
I’ve been banging on about this for years. Perhaps not compulsory, but maybe a punitive tax regime that heavily penalises people being in the office. We have to pay to come in when it’s not really needed, so make the CEOs pay instead.
Are CEOs going to pay for the travel, or should they pay for everyone to have suitable homes to work from as well? Do we have to wait until allthose suitable homes have been built?
You could also flip that around - why travel at all. If you work somewhere whats the reason for not also living there?
I’ve been banging on about this for years. Perhaps not compulsory, but maybe a punitive tax regime that heavily penalises people being in the office. We have to pay to come in when it’s not really needed, so make the CEOs pay instead.
And probably pay a lot more financially to fix the lack of productivity and mental health issues which follow.
I'd enter us into some kind of economic partnership with mainland Europe that allowed tariff and customs free trading whilst increasing tariffs for goods from China etc. to allow local manufacturing to become more competitive and minimise the amount of ships burning horrendous fuels travelling half way across the globe.
Introduce that thing they did in Logan’s Run or mandatory death for anyone whose bank balance hits a billion. Obscene amounts of money seems to correlate with very high emissions oh and being an absolute shit of a human being.
Veggie I can get behind but not vegan. Leather is, in my opinion, the best material for footwear. The alternatives are all a bit crap.
On a personal level utility cycling is probably the best one that is easy. Otherwise its the usual: Don't have kids, don't have pets, don't eat much meat are the 3 big easy wins
If there were easy wins it wouldn't be such a problem unfortunately.
What it needs is real action from those in power to show/prove that this is important. The masses have a tendency to follow those influential types, so the profile of those people that actually care and aren't in it for fame are those who should be promoted as the influential types.
Education, those going through the school system need to be educated on what the world needs to be sustainable. That the definition of success isn't material belongings and money, it's a sustainable life, led more simply.
Government action needs to happen to force those unethical super companies to be responsible for their actions and not just plant trees. We may need more carbon sinks, that won't do any harm, but we need to reduce carbon emissions and that can only be done by simply doing less.
Sadly none of it is easy without the right people leading others. On a global scale I've accepted that the human species is going to kill itself off, then the planet can recover (and it will). The threat of climate change is to those creatures living on it, which is horrific, but the planet will continue and creatures will continue to evolve as they have done for millions of years.
Don’t have kids, don’t have pets, don’t eat much meat are the 3 big easy wins
Easy if you don't already have kids or pets of course but yes very easy to give up eating meat but nobody can even be bothered to do that.
End crypto currencies that require mining:
Bitcoin mining emitted over 85.89 Mt of CO2 during the 2020–2021 period.
At my work, we've identified in every environmental area the biggest piece of low hanging fruit left is the agricultural industry. No one dares to touch it, because of the backlash we saw from farmers in Europe last year. But agriculture is the biggest polluter that's not strictly regulated. In Scotland we've even opted not to link agricultural subsidies to environmentally friendly farming practices - it's the main area we're behind English conservative policy.
Other than that, regardless of what andrewh says (the arms industry is almost certainly doing just fine), get an ethical and sustainable bank account and investments. If you have Nest, the most common pension, they do an ethical option and a Sharia option, both of which are outperforming their standard pension. Move your savings to Triodos or the Ecology Building Society. Get a Triodos current account. My accounts alone are saving over a tonne of CO2e per year. Which is about 50% of the annual carbon budget per person the UN is aiming for. You could get rid of the other 50% by not having a dog.
Oh yeah, and ban carnivorous pets. Almost a tonne of carbon emissions per year for a dog is a total waste of the world's resources and carbon budget.
I've heard the biggest easy win for most is to change bank to one that invests more wisely.
I can actually believe this.
Has anyone read Charles Eisenstein's Sacred Economics?
Do people think the change to low carbon living will happen sufficiently quickly before the majority of people conclude that we're royally f@cked regardless and changes become even harder to implement ?
If you've got the cash, Solar panels and battery storage ( saves you money too, in the not too distant future).
Composter in your garden.
Walk or cycle whenever you can.
Eat as little red meat as poss.
Don't have kids. Not a popular option, but effective!
Slightly easier - stop driving/sell your car + stop flying.
Agree on the Agri policies. Growing maize to feed cows, to drink milk at below cost price is insane. The Welsh govt have made a stab at implementing some more sustainable policies and farmers are very un-happy, so it probably strikes the right balance!
Marcus - I believe its too late now for anything to alter the coming collapse significantly but even so measures taken now could and will make a difference in how severe the collapse is. We have hit the tipping point
Ban internal UK flights where other modes of transport are available and relatively practical.
ie being able to get an aircraft from London to Edinburgh is just crazy
Stop commuting > 1.5hrs from place of residence to work.
Since the industrial the only thing that actually lowered the global emissions by any significant degree was the covid pandemic.
We need more of them!
Ermmm, do vegan and vegetarian foods use a different transport method to get to the supermarkets I’m not aware of, or do they arrive on the back of the same big effing juggernaut that my steak does??
Ignoring* the fact that the environmental impact of your steak is in it's production not just it's transport. Yes it does. Lamb comes in freezer containers all the way from NZ, fresh meat has had to go around the country in livestock trailers, then back again in refrigerated trailers. Processes meat makes a few other stops along the way as well.
Compare that to a bag of dried lentils.
A stark example is milk, fresh milk needs refrigeration and complex logistics, just like meat to keep it fresh. UHT milk is exactly the same product, except it doesn't need that (a bit like the lentils) except it generally costs half as much because it comes on the cheap lorry.
*if you don't want to ignore it, then cattle feed accounts for 80% of UK soy imports. Yep, your "grass fed British beef" actually spent a lot of it's life indoors and the grass was more like a side salad for the imported soy main course.
Stop making magazines few people will actually read.
It’s a travesty that the U.K. is wasting some of the best sites in the world to exploit tidal power.
The problem is they are also some of the best sites in the area for wildlife.
and therein lies the dilemma. Clean energy that will protect the whole planet but destroy a habitat. Tough choices
Destroy a habitat? Central London was a habitat one time as well.
If global warming is a coming disaster and tidal power would help stop it it's an easy choice.
Buy stuff MADE in Britain - not just badged up with a fake Union jack logo made in the far east.
Drive the most fuel efficient car I've ever owned ( 2 litre diesel, but still uses a whole lot less than anything I've had before).
Run a car until it dies at V high mileage - there is SOOOOO much CO2 emitted in making a car (and even more in a EV !) that scrapping early is dumb and will not be offset by making a new EV.
Need to start generating Hydrogen from all the wind turbines are that are stopped at night. (It's ludicrous they get paid hundreds of millions of ££ compensation to purposely put the brakes on and NOT generate from wind turbines at night when demand is low). Then use it to generate electricity when there's a peak. Or build half a dozen more 'electric mountain' pumped storage generators.
Clean energy that will protect the whole planet but destroy a habitat
tidal flow is much less damaging to wildlife than barrages. climate change is already destroying habitats. tidal will work well for Scotland. Not much good for central African republic 🙂
other easy wins - stop all forms of bike racing (both MTB and Road), that would make a massive difference in itself.
Ban people put bikes in cars to take them somewhere else to ride. Never understood this !
I drive to ride because the riding on my doorstep involves roads and bridleways, not much fun for me.
But this is where those with hobbies need to not do their hobbies for a chance of preventing the wipeout of countless species. On an extreme level, anything that isn't a necessity doesn't need to exist, so stop consuming the fun things and focus on doing the good things.
2 friends have older children (still at home), that put their clothes and towels in the wash after one use. 1st friend hangs the items back up. 2nd friend doesn’t do anything.
stop washing fairly clean clothes and towels and even bedding. Then dry them outside if possible.
Need to start generating Hydrogen from all the wind turbines are that are stopped at night.
Major problems with storage and distribution
I agree there is if you want to run your car off it. Much less so if it's used to generate electricity- site the storage cylinders and the turbine generator close to where the electricity cables already come ashore. Then the output of the generator is just plumbed immediatelt right into where the wind electricity goes. Same distribution as the wind electricity already there.
Store it as a gas it takes huge volumes. To liquify it means chilling to very low temps. Large amounts hydrogen are nasty and explosive.
For sure its a good idea and tbe Unst project has been doing this on a small scale for years. I dont think the tech is available to do this on a karge scale. Imo hydrogen is a good bet for energy storage but its the future not now
Yep, your “grass fed British beef” actually spent a lot of it’s life indoors
I'd like to know where these get raised as I spend a lot of time in the UK countryside and I see a hell of a lot of cows in fields and very few in sheds. In the US countryside it's the other way round - huge barns full of cows all the time.
Much less so if it’s used to generate electricity- site the storage cylinders and the turbine generator close to where the electricity cables already come ashore
I suspect other means of storage are easier to deal with.
Much less so if it’s used to generate electricity
So robertajobb what you say is generate wind powered electricity at night to inefficiently make hydrogen to inefficiently store to inefficiently make back into electricity? Basically, a very very inefficient battery?
Alternative electricity storage methods already exist which are expensive and/or inefficient but way better than storing electricity as hydrogen.
Large amounts hydrogen are nasty and explosive.
No more so than petrol or natural gas or lots of other flammable fluids we have stored for years.
Store it as a gas it takes huge volumes. To liquify it means chilling to very low temps.
This is the real problem, physics not safety.
I suspect other means of storage are easier to deal with.
Basically, a very very inefficient battery?
Depends on the site and use case though, yes? Plenty of coastal sites where storing hydrogen could make sense for high peak demand of local industry (anything metal related springs to mind), as well as for shifting supply to the grid for domestic use at energy generation sites where other storage might not be viable.
Lamb comes in freezer containers all the way from NZ
yet it’s cheaper to buy than lamb produced 100 miles away. How does that make sense. Is the British lamb industry that much more inefficient than the NZ one
If global warming is a coming disaster and tidal power would help stop it it’s an easy choice.
Uet the scheme in the Severn estuary, one of the best sites in the world, was blocked because of the impact on the birds that stop there on their migration routes.
Ban people put bikes in cars to take them somewhere else to ride
I could do this but then I would have to move house to ride bs then drive to work 5 days a week instead. We seriously considered this but realised it better to Iive near work and travel to ride than the other way round. Work and mtb can’t be done from the same place in the vast majority of people’s cases.
Being facetious, design a virus that wipes out 50% of the world population? Being serious though, energy efficiency is the biggest win out there. Invest in either getting people into modern, very well insulated homes or insulate what they have, invest in a mass public transport system that actually works, heavily tax international shipment of consumables so we actually use local production. However, we still need wind, hydrogen, carbon capture, nuclear gas instead of coal.
We've left it too late, had too many children worldwide, and really not thought about what we are doing, even though climate science has been telling us all of this for at least 40 years.
the move to power everything with (locally produced) electricity will go a reasonable. apparently 40% of all global shipping is carrying fuels from one place to another – removing that will drop our overall co2 output nicely
Another reason to move to solar/wind/storage, heat pumps and EVs.
science has been telling us all of this for at least 40 years
Just don't look up.
Being facetious, design a virus that wipes out 50% of the world population?
even the 5% or whatever Covid was supposed to be could have a huge effect.
It’s that little bit of growth that means we are in constant need of new houses, new roads, new power stations etc, a constant or slightly declining population means we would be much better able to use what we have already.
I could do this but then I would have to move house to ride bs then drive to work 5 days a week instead. We seriously considered this but realised it better to Iive near work and travel to ride than the other way round. Work and mtb can’t be done from the same place in the vast majority of people’s cases.
This made me chuckle a little bit. The achingly obvious elephant in that paragraph was the alternative choice - find a hobby you can do without travelling. It's just a hobby. I'm no better. The problem is we are all inherently selfish. It's kind of the opposite of marginal gains - we all do a little bit of bad shit because, well, we like it and we only live once and all that, and all those little shits add up to a sizable turd mountain.
And to answer the question - scale back our 1st world entitlement.
- We don't need to eat meat
- We don't need a foreign holiday that you need to fly to.
- You don't need a new smartphone every couple of years.
- We don't need to eat so much food
- We don't need to eat so much food that needs refrigerating whilst it travels, sits in shops waiting to be bought and in our fridges waiting to be eaten.
- We don't need to have so much choice of food in the house we throw so much of it away.
- We don't need to fly half the way around the globe for a business meeting.
Basically it'd really help if we (and by we I mean the 1st world middle class) were able to have a word with ourselves and stop being such entitled bell ends.
All the talk of sustainable power sources and transport etc is great and needed but it does rather mask the twin issue of MORE. If we all focussed on using a bit less....of everything....it would flipping help too.
Slightly easier – stop driving/sell your car + stop flying.
If you sell your car then someone else drives it instead. Keep the car that way you can not drive it and nobody else can either
So robertajobb what you say is generate wind powered electricity at night to inefficiently make hydrogen to inefficiently store to inefficiently make back into electricity? Basically, a very very inefficient battery?
At present it's not just inefficient, it's actually in the negative! We get zero energy for hundreds of millions of £££ paid out.
Even if it's 50% efficient to make the H2, then 50% efficient to turn back to E, then 25/0 is still infinitely more efficient than the current status of 0 output for hundreds of millions payout.
Only drive vehicles with small eco friendly engines.
Less emissions.
Less racing/dangerous acceleration.
Less fuel used.
I’d like to know where these get raised as I spend a lot of time in the UK countryside and I see a hell of a lot of cows in fields and very few in sheds.
A lot of more intensive lowland farms will tend to keep them in sheds over the winter and not put them out untill spring. The grass isn't growing so they need feed regardless, and more than a few cows will churn up the ground and make a mess.
Same for small upland farms where the pasture is just too exposed.
Keeping them outside means:
- higher metabolisms in the cold means more feed and higher costs.
- damage to the soil
- hoof issues (Foul, thrush, foot rot, soft hooves)
- time and effort
Some will be out all winter, but if a pasture can support 100 in summer and 20 in winter, it's only sensible and profitable to keep the remainder indoors.