Become carbon neutral

It’ll take a while but I present my master plan!

Straw bale house
ground source heat pump
“wood gas” generator running a genny for power
home-made wind turbines
wood gas adapted vehicles/cookers
growing our own food – greenhouse + allotment
recycling/reuse/scavenge
Fluorescent lighting
using my laptop rather than my pc
and…
Assisting more people to follow suit through my chosen field of study.

Believe it or not, if I didn’t travel, I would indeed be carbon neutral with my electric car. However, every airline flight I take dumps a ton of CO2 and I haven’t yet made up for that, but I’m working on it!

Four quick & easy things to reduce your carbon use:

1. Combine trips, don’t be a slave to errands. Carpool, take the bus or train, especially for things like kids activities, etc…

2. Use the recyclable grocery bags. I love mine because they are so sturdy and never rip. Yes, I have to remind myself when I go in the store, but it’s save me 100s of plastic bags already.

3. Recycle in your house. Most cities already have recycle programs and every can and bottle you recycle saves the energy needed to take the raw material out of the ground in the first place.

4. Use an electric mower, electric trimmer, electric tools. Avoiding all household tools that use oil/gasoline, you help keep the planet livable for everyone.

I gave up plastic bags two years ago, recycle and compost like a madwoman, but have driven my car 23,000 miles in 8 months (39-44 mpg, but still…) and fly a lot. I’ve researched everything from buying wind energy allocations to trees for someone else to plant (do they ever really plant my trees?). How can I do this without being more obsessive than I already am?

Every single household can be running on green power. Every electrical company offers it. Some are better than others, just like any other brand/company in fact the company you are with probably offers it. This is a huge step to becoming carbon neutral since electricity is such a huge part of our daily lives.

My family does not currently use Green Power as we were looking at moving house which is a stupid reason really for not having Green Power. Why wait? We have no idea when we’ll be moving and every day our NOT using Green Power is affecting the environment, therefore the best thing we can do is switch to Green Power tomorrow! Sure, we also want to go solar and a lot of other things which we are not prepared to pay on this house, but a simple switch to Green Power will make such a huge difference to the environment that I don’t think it really matters. Time to talk to the family and make the change to Green Power!

If you’re not using Green Power as your local energy source… make the switch! It’s that simple.

XOX

Each weekend, about 54 million Americans mow their lawns, using 800 million gallons of gas per year and producing tons of air pollutants. In a single day, Southern California’s lawn tools spew out more pollution than all the aircraft in the Los Angeles area. (Source: CNN Online)

One gas mower puts out more pollution than 73 new cars.

The EPA claims that 17 million gallons of fuel, mostly gasoline, are spilled each year while refueling lawn equipment. That’s more than all the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez, in the Gulf of Alaska. (Source: CNN Online)

Want to calculate your chosen gas lawnmower’s pollution?

There are numerous actions you can take to reduce your energy consumption and fight global warming. For those with lawn, this is an easy step. Switch mowers!

By using a push mower instead of a power mower you are helping to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere by 80lbs a year. You are helping to clean up our atmosphere. BUT a bigger bonus (like so many carbon neutral things… ) they are cheap to buy and run (as they don’t use gas) and they are extremely light weight. When we got ours it made us wonder why we didn’t get one before! They are so beneficial, you’ll be pondering why everyone else doesn’t own one too!

Here is a site I found for environmentally friendly lawn and garden supplies that sell a wide variety of push mowers!

And yes, as I said, we have one too. They totally rock!
XOX

Our energy bill has significantly dropped, which is due to everyone being more diligent about turning off appliances when not in use and thanks to all our light globes being changed to CFC’s.

One thing I think a lot of people don’t quite get is that to be carbon neutral you have to work at it for the rest of your life. It’s about living sustainably and making sure that the changes you implement you either keep doing or using, which isn’t difficult.

In our long term plan, we wish to install solar power showers and panels on the roof, and even have one of those tiny little wind things on our roof because they are excellent for creating energy. Ideally, these run our own electricity for us and the remains go back to the grid making us self sustaining and if we should need a boost, we’ll have green power which we need to switch to also!

Lots still to do to be more energy savvy but already within a year, our energy levels have dropped significantly and due to this, our energy bill is now also significantly cheaper!

There are many ways to reduce your carbon footprint, especially where I am in California. There are many resources for learning about how to do this.

What I suggest, however, may seem drastic: stop driving. Don’t cut back. Stop entirely. It takes getting used to, and the lifestyle is NOT for everyone, but there are people (like me) who love it. You’ll never know if you’re one of us until you give it a try.

I don’t just tolerate not having a car – I enjoy it. There are many, many benefits to this lifestyle. I can’t post my list of advantages because it’s currently 137 items long. The biggest consideration is financial. Even if you don’t care about the environment, you can save an incredible amount of money not owning a car.

And just think, when living car-less becomes a more widespread practice (as it will be, look at Europe), you’ll be way ahead of the curve!

If you’re interested in other benefits of not having a car, or want tips on how to make it practial, I’m willing to help :)

I’m moving back to LA next year, where people insist “you HAVE to have a car.” I’m going to give it a try with no car. I hope more than anything that I never have to go back to vehicle ownership for the rest of my life.

People seem to think that becoming carbon neutral is difficult. I’m going to prove that incorrect. What it does take is a little bit of brain power and a little bit of work. If you’re not prepared to do that then grow up because everyone needs to start doing this or you won’t be alive.

1) It isn’t hard to recycle is it? Box for paper, box for bottles, box for cans etc…
2) It isn’t hard to walk to the shops. You used to do it as a child. You probably loved riding your bike too! But driving is heaps cooler now. Buy a carbon credit for your car if you don’t want to walk. It’s easy and not very expensive. Cost me less than a main course dinner. So research who you want to use, and buy carbon credits for your car. This is called offsetting. Sure it’s better to walk or bike, but I am not going to force you as we all have different lifestyles.
3) If you fly somewhere in a plane, well then you can already afford to buy a carbon offset as far as I’m concerned. Buy one when you buy your ticket. Be a responsible traveller.
4) Don’t buy stuff just to have stuff. Rent movies, buy digital music, do whatever it takes not to accumulate more plastics, packaging, and store bought items you won’t use again.
5) Say no to plastic bags unless they are biodegradable. Supermarket bags break down into toxins in landfill and poison the earth. Use string or canvas bags. Tell your supermarket/shop that their plastic bags suck and put your items in your neat canvas bag.
6) Electricity is an issue isn’t it? We all like electricity. Either use green powered electricity or buy a carbon offset like you did your car. But that can be costly so maybe you can slowly switch over to green powers. Try getting solar heating, solar paneling, save up for bits and pieces because every bit counts.
7) Water is also a rather large issue. Don’t let showers run for longer than 4 minutes. Yeah I know, we need to wash our hair but you can wet it prior to going in a shower. Shave in the sink too! If we don’t have water we are dead. So save it.
8) A really easy one is not to forget to change your old light bulbs & to turn off appliances when not in use. This becomes habit that once you’re into you’ll never remember a time you didn’t do it! And it’s for the environment!

Now that’s not hard is it? Sure it’s the basics but it we all have to start somewhere and all of that is one huge giant leap to becoming carbon neutral. I’m not all there yet either, but I’m well on my way and I intend to get there.

Today I offset the car for the entire year. And it feeeeels good!

All bar two lamps have compact fluorescent globes in them. Need to buy two lamps that will actually take those type of globes to replace them. When you realise how much needs to be done in order to become carbon neutral it’s an eye opener, all good, but still such an eye opener. The light globes are one footstep forward along a very steep path up the mountain to not contributing to global warming.

One effective way to do so is drive a diesel and run it on either homemade biodiesel or cooking oil, or both as I do. It is relatively easy and I am always happy to help others with the information. I have also added insulation to my house, went all flouresant bulbs, corn stove for heat and I am working on going to a combo of solar and homemade power from cooking oil with a generator. It costs a lot to go green, but it is worth it. What cost can we put on our children’s future?
If you are interested in info on the diesel stuff,
biodiesel_revolution@yahoo.com