The little things that make the world of difference

It's often the aggregate of little things that really make the difference - you only have to think of an avalanche to get that idea. So if you're looking for somewhere to start, how about any one of the 500-plus suggestions in this book:




Or, move from "pale green" to "dark green" with one of the many suggestions here:





Either way, you'll be making a small step to a better future for everyone.

Carbon Calculator

I've been reading "What about China?", a book with lots of answers debunking the common myths & misconceptions about climate change. It's also got a handy index with lots of websites.

I tried http://www.carboncalculator.com/ to see what kind of footprint I have (the UK average is 12 tonnes a year according to the book, 9.8 tonnes according to the website). I came out at 7.646 tonnes, which I guess is pretty good until you think about the average worldwide carbon footprint of 4 tonnes and the target of 2 tonnes! It actually puts in perspective all the kinds of things that we do to try and be green, yet I'm still nearly double the world average & nearly four times the target! Even taking into account that the calculator isn't perfect, we've still got a long long way to go.

Read the book, visit the site and see for yourself.

Heat

No! Not Heat, that crappy magazine about celebrities (sorry, I just have a thing about celebrity mags and probably celebrities in general!), but the book by George Monbiot. Finished it on the train going up north this week - I think he succeeded in his mission - I was stirred, impressed and deeply worried all at once by his book. Monbiot argues that targets set by governments are not really workable in that they're based on targets that won't achieve what they're set out to achieve. Add to that, the fact that despite what people say, they (we?) don't actually want our governments & representatives to push too hard on these aggressive climate targets.

Despite this, his views seem both incredibly reasonable, and also would bring about the kind of world (at least in Britain) that must be a step forward for the one we have now. His chapters on integrated transport policy and energy policy actually make you excited to think what could be possible if we just put our minds to it.

Heat? Get a copy and see what you think.

The barbarians at the gates

As is so often the case, I'm reading about five books at once.  Today's entertainment was Heat by George Monbiot.  In it he asserts that he was once giving a presentation somewhere and was asked what the UK would look like if it cut carbon by 80%.  he didn't have the answer, but a colleague of his did.  The colleague suggested that the UK would look like a poor third world country!  A scary thought.  He goes on to suggest that we are the few generations that lived in luxury (in the west) and that our ancestors & our descendents would not be able to believe the lifestyle we live in (in the same way that, I guess the Anglo-Saxons thought about the Romans who had left the shores of Britain generations before).  However...  Not to be too gloomy (and I'm only there on chapter one) he does claim that if we take his advice on board, we can keep our standard of living and reduce carbon emissions enough to avoid disastrous climate change.  I for one, will carry on reading!

Shock Induced Insomnia

Did get quite a lot of reading done and read loads of The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. It was certainly scary and very exciting too (bizarre for a book that's essentially about economics!) but it really opened my eyes to all the things that had been happening in the world over the last twenty to thirty years. I'd always had this view as a kid that history pretty much ended at the end of the second world war - that after that, there wasn't anything else interesting that happened. Then it turns out that war in itself never really stopped, it's just that the front line shifted. As NK says in the book - this is a new war - one with no specific enemy, no specific place of engagement, and no end in sight. The enemy could be anyone, even me! Anyone that stands in the way of profit. There was actually one point last week where I'd (perhaps foolishly) read before going to bed and I was so wired from the experience that I couldn't sleep until after 1am! It's a long time since that happened