August: The month of Carbon Neutral

Summary

We found it close to not possible to be truly carbon / emissions / waste neutral in our lives. It was particularly hard to do while travelling, and working too - given my partner has to use a car to reach work, and I am computer bound. We used different carbon calculators to see our current status as emittors and we are doing well relatively to the country average, but it takes conscious effort and when we are reaching exhaustion levels juggling working and parenting, it definitely slips down the list of our priorities to keep trying to be as good as we could be. We will offset our emissions footprints by donating trees to the Daintree rainforest4foundation.

Take homes

It is very hard to live in our communities (we have experiences in the UK and Australia, in cities and towns) entirely carbon neutral. Arguably it is not possible. Our social and work pressures mean that we are connected in such a way that creates emissions and waste. I hope over time it will become more socially supported to make low emissions and waste actions the status quo, but currently, we felt like the outsiders in our efforts.

There is much talk of companies and councils wanting to achieve net zero, but these efforts are essentially looking to transition through the use of technologies principally. This leaves challenges for ecological health. Without accepting that we all can minimise our personal footprints - especially those more expensive peoples that tend to be financially richer and live more luxurious lifestyles - I am struggling to imagine how we will make the adjustments needed to protect the planet best. This is depressing but community actions have achieved incredible change in the past... and so I remain hopeful we can do so again.

Top tips

As a start - here are some carbon calculators to use to check out where you are at... and you can set goals on how to get to lower scores as you go:

WWF (UK focus)

Carbon calculator

Investment focused: MyMotherTree

Make things last - extending the use-life length of products is a first save for waste.

Walk and cycle as much as possible - take a moment to plan the day so that you can minimise car trips as much as possible

Some excellent podcasts we enjoyed this month are:

Policy Forum Pod

Energy vs Climate

Outrage + Optimism

To dos

We recommend using a couple of different carbon calculators to estimate your current footprint. This gives us a start point and means we can set ourselves targets to reduce our impacts as possible.
Advocating with friends and family is always listed on any of the "what can I do" advice sheets so we jump on the band wagon here too!
Specifically,
- opting to walk or cycle whenever possible
- using local markets and buying foods that do not have any packaging (and expecially those that are plastic free)
- re-using any items as much as possible
- finding people who can fix things to extend their life-length is awesome. I still have an iphone 7 thanks to a brilliant iphone guy we can access locally.
- finding hobbies that are outside, in nature, that don't need any special equipment is the best, especially if you can reach these spots with low emissions transport!

Out of our hands

There is a huge heap that feels out of reach on this one. It feels as though we are actually rewarded for creating emissions at the moment - it is easier to live with an expensive footprint... so we have to get politicians to understand the urgency and demand for change - and rapid change.

Companies are shifting but consumer pressure could force things to move more rapidly. Trying to be green still feels like we are swimming against the current. But... ethics are shifting, and people are waking up to the urgency so... we are hopeful we can see widescale changes acheived fast...

August: The month of carbon neutral

In the ideal world, we could exist without leaving any adverse impact on our space or wider world. Better still, we could improve the habitat to increase biodiversity, clean air, water and earth access and remove some of the emissions and material waste that our system has produced. Ideally... but we are quite a stretch from this currently in Capitalist systems particularly.

This month, we will try and add updates about communities who have had a soft touch and think about what we can learn or adopt in our reality, we will look at our status quo and try and address some of the challenges we have to reducing our emissions as individuals, as a family and as a local community. We will also gather a load of free and carbon neutral or low-emissions adventures that we can do instead of some of the consumer / expensive options that might be more common!

We will look at hypocrisy: Our family is travelling to the UK at the end of the month... a long-haul flight with ramifications for our conscience. We will address the issues of carbon offsetting and the ethical predicament of travelling today.

We will try to calculate our emissions costs this month with and without the travel. This way we have a baseline for future efforts when we will be settled in one place, as well as an uncomfortable truth to face up to!

August 5th 2023

This month we are thinking about carbon neutral living, but it is important to keep flagging that we are in an ecological crisis too. If we lose our natural world, we will not be able to maintain a livable planet. Often, the climate crisis discussions focus on a transition to technologies that allow us to keep pursuing goals of maximising productivity and profit, consumer-lifestyles and the status quo. But that framework has eaten away at most ecological havens. Some societies have managed to be responsible guardians for their space (look to those people that have lived in the Congo Basin, remote Australia, the remaining parts of the Amazon forest for tens of thousands of years with minimal footprints). I think the conversation has to start persuading the richest few - those with the most ecological expensive lifestyles - to adjust, we have to communicate that life cannot continue for the most privileged of us as it has been so far. This is a hard sell. But...

We can start with the fun part of the debate! What activities can we do for toddlers that keep our footprints pretty close to carbon neutral..?!

Here are some options around us that we love to do.

Beach time. This is the best... it is a relatively safe space for our toddler to explore, throwing stones in the sea, splashing about, finding holes where crabs live, drawing in the sand or digging and building different creatures, boats or castles... our bubba is very happy with a trip to the sea. We go most mornings (either with me or Dad depending on who is working). We can walk down and back so make the most of this magic spot. We have also a couple of mini pals about to meet and play with down there, so a win for us all.

Forest time. This is equally great. Bubba can find sticks, leaves, sand. They love trees, spiders and their webs, all sorts of soil creatures, butterflies and beetles on and around the branches. We have even bumped into a few echnida here and there which bubba loves to follow... we have just about stopped her from cuddling them so far..! But bush walks here are great - no driving needed and these trips can last as long as we want.

Market day: Our bubba quite enjoys seeing all the veggies, fruit and people at the markets. We get royally spoilt now that everyone knows the bubba. Donations have included green beans, snow peas, strawberries, lemons, mushrooms - all of which bubba likes to eat as we wander about. There may be a small carbon cost given stall owners have had to arrive using carbon-based vehicles but it is low level emissions, supporting local, smallscale and diverse producers, so we count it as a win.

Gardening. This is another massive win for our toddler. They love replanting any of the veggies / trees with Dad. Worms, spiders, cockroaches all get grabbed and (sometimes... if we are slow), squished. Then the birds can enjoy them at least! The birdsong is great too as a distraction. Now that our baby toddles about they are pretty happy exploring any outdoor space and our role is purely to stop them poisoning themselves by tasting unknowns (seeds, mushrooms or bird poo generally)!

Boring as it might sound to some, but reading is awesome... it is generally carbon neutral... or very low on the life cycle assessment - especially if it is a wellread book! It doesn't need any power once it is in your hands and can replace the likes of netflix sometimes. We have an awesome bunch of new parents who like reading and regularly swap books so we don't have too many costs either (sorry to all the amazing authors for not buying new :/ ...).

Food paints. We have made a few colours for edible paints using coconut yoghurt mixed with the likes of turmeric, paprika or chocolate powder. It is safe for the baby, there is no toxic element, no additional plastic to contend with (other than the coconut yoghurt pot), so we can count this as low emissions too. We paint onto an old canvas from the tip and can wash it clean to go again at the end of the play, and we can just lick the plate clean afterwards too...!

There are sooo many other options here, and all the outdoors time reconnects us to what matters most ... cut out the technology, cut out the travel and think nature. Our time is increasingly squeezed now I am back at work so... please send more options and we can add them in as we go through the month

August 14th 2023

One of the challenges and hopeful ongoing actions...

We are just about at our collective limit as a family currently. Given me returning to work, moving house (and countries for a few months), and juggling parenting, we are restricted on our energy and time to devote to anything but the hoop jumping of fitting into the system - it's a busy patch(!): earning our wages, getting the bills paid, keeping our toddler well, fed and entertained - repeat loop.

As new parents, life is hard - as a mum, partner, researcher - I feel that I fall short across the board. It seems like this is a common experience for friends too. Single friends are also feeling the grind with juggling pressures from work where there is a feeling that there is always more one should do. And this is one of the major challenges, as I see it, for us to drive change. Collectively, we are focused on productivity for our companies and organisations and there is no capacity left to look up and step back for a moment to see where we are heading.

Infrastructure does not always help. It is hard to be low emissions in the system we live within, it requires a conscious choice and action that may seem like compromise. Adding time to walk to shops, and selecting places to get local food - markets, farms and gardens - accepting that we will look scrubbier than others in our reused clothes!

We lack the space to live entirely off the land, so we need salaries to buy food, rent, and pay the associated bills and taxes. Our choices are then focused on what we buy, and which energy providers we can use. Currently, the most convenient or advertised options are often environmentally more costly. Saving is hard with the cost of living crisis, but if fortunate enough to have some savings, with a little effort, we can make wise choices. (My brother set up MyMotherTree recently, we highly recommend checking it out if you are an individual or business. The organisation aims to help everyone lower their emissions, they highlight that investment is the space to make big change.)

Here is an extract from the book:

"Holding big business and investment fund managers to account requires transparency and methods to estimate the emissions produced by the companies that are invested in, the carbon generated and released into our atmosphere by these groups, as well as the pollution produced by consumers and suppliers. These are tough figures to work out. Many companies do not disclose emissions figures yet and those that do can use different methods that are then hard to compare. Funds may catalyse onward investment into other companies and becomes difficult to track [...]. The investing firm Soros Fund Management manages USD 28 billion and has set a net zero target of 2040 with the intention to track all forms of emissions across its portfolio. Its strategy includes positive investment in climate solutions, advocacy, and abstaining from new investment in fossil fuels and divestment from these companies over time with the caveat that if a company has set net zero targets for 2050, investment could continue (Soros Fund Management 2022). This is similar to many other strategies. BlackRock—the world’s largest asset manager—reported responsibility for absolute emissions of 330.7 million tonnes of CO2 in 2020 attributed to corporate securities and real estate holdings (Marsh 2022). This being about 65% of total assets, the investment giant indicated data were unavailable to calculate total emissions (Marsh 2022). HSBC Holdings Plc and Barclays Plc, two of the largest UK banks, reported they each finance about 18% of the total carbon footprint of the UK. Barclays calculated that the finance it provides for coal, oil and gas companies exceeded the entire emissions of Austria, while those from HSBC exceed emissions from Peru, but also the combined emissions from tech giants Apple, Alphabet and Microsoft (Marsh 2022). Barclays is reported to have assisted almost 60 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2021 for fossil fuel clients, a 22% reduction from 2020 but a total that represents almost 10% of the total emissions from Exxon Mobil Corp (Marsh 2022)."

Borrowing capital to help set up our life leaves us with two options: the bigger banks/lenders who can loan more for less interest, but generally invest in globally damaging industries; or more bespoke lenders who satisfy our ecological and social investment goals but often have to offer higher interest options as a consequence of taking an ethical stance. It is entirely understandable that many of us feel there is no choice but to focus on a route that lowers interest rates. (MyMotherTree could help to minimise this stress!)

Choosing to fly less still feels like it will compromise career opportunities, making the individual less visible and appear less flexible to employers. The more of us who opt out though, the more normalised virtual meetings can become, and the less cost we have on the planet. This has been studied recently in a research paper by Toscani and colleagues.

Only with widescale ethical and infrastructure change can these challenges for green-seeking people disappear.

I raise these challenges to stress the observation that, as things stand, our system is not designed to protect environmental or ecological health. If we cut ourselves out of the system entirely, we no longer have a seat at the table to join the myriad discussions required to shift our global direction.This might feel obvious but it is perhaps why it feels so overwhelming when you realise the critical need for ecologically rich environments, healthly air, soil and water, and temperature and humidity levels to continue to be stable.

It will take those currently gaining most from the system to change collectively to recover planetary health. For a financially elite person, refusing to take private transport (planes, helicoptors, yachts) regularly would have disproportionate impact.

Other than MyMotherTree that I have now happily plugged, and the richest few, with the most expensive lifestyles, give a lot of the extravagance up ...

In the absence of that unlikely event... The acceleration of policy to monitor emissions and make organisations take full responsibility for emissions is a positive step.

The EU has introduced policy to prioritise emissions-free forms of travel setting an aim for an average lifestyle to have negligible impact on ecosystems and net-zero emissions.

A potential option is to tax planet-costly industries heavily, with the aim to force the efforts toward innovation and adoption of circular habits.

Research calls for action to better integrate biodiversity and climate respone: Horizon call between the EU and China

One possibility could be to engage as many local businesses as possible to budget for an additional 10 hours of work per staff member and allow that time to be spent by the individual to contribute to discussions with the council on community life. We would then all feel more empowered - an experience / feeling that is statistically associated with mental well-being - and connected. This would depend on those in power acting on the suggestions of the community too, demonstrating that their voices are really heard.

A recent sensational case in Montana found that the state was systematically failing young people by disregarding climate impacts in their decision making on development. This trial sets a precedent

We highly recommend listening to the Policy Forum podcast from Saturday 18 August 2023

August 22nd 2023

I fear that we are under the illusion that in our liberal democracies we have freedom to choose. (We could expand on this – we are often presented with lists of options that are perhaps not offering a full complement – but that debate is for another day.) Having disconnected our rights to choose from our wisdom and responsibilities however, we have found ourselves in an era of hyper-consumerism and popularism. Both are destructive forces that place the idea that an individual has the right to do whatever they want beyond actions that serve the well-being of others and our natural environment upon which we depend.

In the book, I write the following:

“The most recent International Panel on Climate Change report (April 2022) states in the summary for policy makers, Section 3.3, that:

“Many natural systems are near the hard limits of their natural adaptation capacity and additional systems will reach limits with increasing global warming (high confidence). […] Above 1.5°C global warming level, some Ecosystem-based Adaptation measures will lose their effectiveness in providing benefits to people as these ecosystems will reach hard adaptation limits (high confidence).”

[…]

"The Paris Agreement became legally binding in 2016 and advocates for a goal of limiting global warming to below 2°C, ideally 1.5°C, in comparison to pre-industrial levels. Increasingly, investors and asset managers are aiming to align their portfolios with these goals, even though current commitments from states ratifying the Paris Agreement are falling short (COP26. Advance unedited version 2021). Companies looking for investment are following suit. The United Nations (UN) has set 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030 that would ensure planetary health, and these were adopted by all member states of the UN in 2015. Investors are currently adopting the framework and business-based guidance is in development. However, scientists have recently questioned the progress of these SDGs (Bendell, Sutherland, and Little 2017; Bendell 2022; Issever Grochová and Litzman 2021), observing that:

“The popularity of the term Sustainable Development in both national and international policy making over the past 30 years has conveyed [implications about worldviews, probabilities, and priorities]. Whatever the many definitions of the term offered over passing years, the ones that predominate in policy have communicated a worldview where material and technological progress is both good and inevitable; where humanity will balance social, economic and environmental issues to progress materially, and; that it is a priority to foreground corporate economic interests. […] Recent data in support of the view that the ideology of Sustainable Development is empirically contradicted by the failure to progress towards the internationally agreed goals based upon it. [Instead, the] economic system of global capitalism - esteemed and promoted by the concept of Sustainable Development - has been driving the increasing damage to the biophysical foundations of contemporary societies. […] In an era of increasing disruption, decline, crisis and disasters, it is time to split an eco-social contract from the counter-productive ideologies implicit in Sustainable Development” (Bendell 2022).

Like Ekins et al. (Ekins et al. 2019), these researchers consider that it is not possible to compromise on environmental efforts for economic successes in many contexts if we are to avoid existential crises. Instead, they advocate for:

“a separation of both environmental and social objectives from economic growth” (Bendell 2022).

[…]

"Business investment is one of the major sectors contributing to the GDP in countries like the UK whose government, like many others, currently relies heavily on this metric to measure their economic success. Briefly, this GDP metric has four components: business investment, personal consumption, government spend, and net exports. This is why residents are encouraged to spend to keep the economy moving. In using the GDP in this way, we are locked into consumerism. In 2019, personal consumption contributed about USD 13.28 trillion to the GDP in the USA (https://www.thebalance.com/components-of-gdp-explanation-formula-and-chart-3306015). Business investment includes any purchases that are required to produce consumer goods, embedding the carbon-based dependencies into the economic system. Fossil fuels drive both transport and energy, upon which we are all reliant.”

Hence we are left with a perception of dependence. How can we change a globalised system fast enough to protect future life?

“The conclusions from debates and efforts to form the idea of a circular economy also find that downscaling production is necessary (Ekins et al. 2019). The EU is currently recycling about 41% of products, which is above the global estimated average (globally, an estimated 13% of goods are recycled), whilst bulk waste is vastly beyond this. Analysis indicates that there must be a downgrade in production for a circular economy to be achievable (Ekins et al. 2019). The conflict between economic growth versus ecological sustainability is ongoing, so a systemic change in valuation is required.”

My take on all this is that we need an ethical reset. First, we can educate ourselves on the fundamental natural laws that enable life to exist. Then, we have to construct everything else within these boundaries. If this means shifting our ideas of free choice, so be it. If this requires legislative reform, bring it on. If this means redesigning our career paths and makes some businesses obsolete, then let’s take the hit.

I have just read a beautiful book on Australian Law: The Way of the Ancestors by Marcia Langton and Aaron Corn, that recognises the importance of wisdom in leadership. This is one of the stories told as a lesson in the lifelong pursuit of wisdom:

"The soaring wedge-tailed eagle can hunt from as far as 2 kilometres above the Earth's surface, and its power and prowess is greatly venerated in Walpiri law. When all the birds gathered together to learn how to fly at Yinapaka (Lake Surprise), they turned to Wedge-tailed Eagle as their greatest hunter and asked him to teach them. Wedge-tailed Eagle replied that he could not teach them, when Emu suddenly appeared at the meeting uninvited. Upon learning of their request, Emu offered to teach the other birds himself. But because Emu is a flightless bird, his help was roundly ridiculed and refused, and so he left to continue his journey. The other birds then turned back to Wedge-tailed Eagle and begged him to teach them. But Wedge-tailed Eagle held firm, explaining that he could not teach them, because he had not taught himself how to fly. Emu was his teacher and they had just chased him away. To this day, Wedge-tailed Eagle resents all other birds and will prevent them from entering his exclusive airspace high above the Earth. His downward view of the landscape from above [...] is the most comprehensive, but he still respects the superior knowledge of Emu."

Our system could benefit greatly from the wisdom of those knowing how to live with less of a footprint.

August 27th 2023

Today we will start our journey to the UK... two long haul flights. I am very conscious of the hypocrisy of flying... but I am also unwilling to lose the opportunity to see the people I love. It is an unpleasant weight on our shoulders, but making the trip a single and prolonged visit According to WWF Carbon Calculator we are doing ok with this flight scoring just 0.1 additional tonne of emissions (I am unconvinced!!)

Using another carbon calculator, this trip alone is just over 5 tonnes of CO2 annually. This makes more sense to me and demonstrates that it is worth trying out a few of the available calculators to estimate your footprint as they tend to have different algorithms to work out a summary total.

I am encouraged that we are doing ok relative to the average in our residential countries (the WWF website is specifically for the UK so that does not entirely align for us. The carbon footprint calculator allowed us to select the country specifically). It shows that flights and food choices can make big differences. But so too can where we choose to bank and keep mortgages. This organisation has great potential in this space for individuals and businesses alike: mymothertree.com

Knowing where we are at can help us target lower emissions soon, but also is reassuring that we are trying our best at this busy stage of life... The more of us - as individuals or businesses - that are aware of our footprints and actively try to minimise them, the better. Somewhere along the way to free choice, we forgot to make our choices with the necessary focus on ensuring the well-being of those around us (people or nature) would not be negatively impacted by whatever we choose to do. Re-aligning our choices within this sphere might help us all get closer to planetary health.