A guide to ethical living

America - the land of the fuel guzzler...

America - fighting wars for oil...

America - the largest producer of carbon emissions in the world

America - the home of George Bush

America - the land of the free...free to pollute and go to war

America - the country the contributes most to global warming, not just by producing carbon pollution but resisting worldwide collaborations to reverse global environmental trends.

But they're not all bad...visit Dogwood Energy in Tennessee and learn out to make your own bio-diesel.   http://www.biodieselhomekit.com/

Of course, there is a separate debate about whether biofuels really are a realistic answer to a future energy crisis but that's for another day...

Friends of the Earth have a great section of their site with easy steps to green living.  This includes a quiz on how to save money, live healthier and help improve the environment. 

http://www.foe.co.uk/living/quiz/index.html

Okay, it might seem a little trite but all of the ideas suggested will make a difference.  Change is about lots of people all making lots of small improvements.

Sometimes its easy to think that saving the planet is the responsibility of governments and businesses.  Well its not.  Billions of decisions and actions by individuals will be what matters most.  Nearly everything we do has either a direct or indirect impact on the environment.

Businesses and governments will help set direction, provide advice and incentives, but don't forget your own responsibilities.  Try this site to find out what you can do.

http://www.carbonneutral.com/shop/index.asp

Not all of this blog is given over to sanctimonious stuff about being green, organic or environmentally friendly.  Occasionally I need to write about something totally pointless.

Getting the balance right between Work, Rest and Play could well be the secret to 'good living'.....so long as you don't spend too much of your time eating Mars Bars (for younger readers, this relates to the days when you could produce an advert implying that eating chocolate was somehow healthy).

Alternatively, you could spend your Play time working out whether this game (see link) has any point whatsoever...

http://www.sholing.force9.co.uk/workrest.htm

Enjoy!

In 2000, 73% of UK households had the use of at least one car, and 28% had the use of two or more cars.

Its true that ownership of a car gives a great perception of personal freedom.  You can get in and drive anywhere at anytime.  However, how much do you really need your car?

Its easy to think that travel by car is cheaper and quicker, but is public transport really just a secondary alternative?  In many cases, public transport is a much more effective way to travel.

Firstly, have you ever calculated the true cost of car ownership?  If you simply compare the cost of petrol for a journey with the equivalent public transport fare, its very likely the car is cheaper.  However, unless you make heavy use of your car, when you add in deprecation, insurance, tax, service and more, your total cost per mile may well be much more than public transport.

Secondly, although travel by car may be quicker, if you travel by public transport you can actually use the time while you are travelling, whether its just to read a book, do work, or write a book!  This blog is written courtesy of GNER’s wireless internet connection on the East Coast line.  When you sit at the wheel of your car, you can listen to the radio, or distract yourself from driving safely by making mobile phone calls.

Thirdly, public transport is healthier.  Remember those adverts – let the train take the strain.  How stressful is driving compared to being driven?  Okay, those who squeeze into crowded London trains and tubes may not agree but in many cases the experience is much more relaxing.  Also, traveling by public transport usually requires some contribution of your own – walking to the bus stop or station, changing trains or platforms – whereas travel by car involves a walk from front door to car seat.

Finally, its safer.  Accidents on public transport hit the headlines, but death on the roads happens every day or the week.

Four good reasons to leave the car at home, or never buy it in the first place, before you even get on to the environmental benefits.

Probably one of the most common uses of cars is to travel to work – more often than not, lots of people making similar journeys at similar times.  If you must go by car, you can reduce car use by sharing with someone else.  This can be as simple as giving a lift to a colleague who lives nearby, or it could be through one of the many car share schemes that operate throughout the country and which you can discover at one of the links below.

www.liftshare.com

www.carshare.com

www.carplus.org.uk

www.nationalcarshare.co.uk

Maybe its time to liberate yourself from your car.

No apologies for the gratuitous reference to one of the world's greatest bands...

Writing about global warming, energy crises, pollution and more can be a humourless task and every now and then some light relief is required.

What better than a visit to the Preemptive Post-Apocalyptic Summer Camp where you can learn to skin and cook a squirrel and prepare yourself for the end of civilisation as we know it (what no Macca's half pounders?).

However much i might worry about the sort of world I am bringing my children in to, I am not yet ready to get all apocalyptic like some bad movie script.

http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Content?oid=51732&category=34029

But if you are of a more pessimistic disposition, get yourself over to Portland pronto as the course starts next week!

I am as guilty as anyone of drinking water from plastic bottles but what's the point?

Surely its a complete waste of money and also of no value to the environment.

The water itself isn't wasted as I have to assume that one way or another we are going to consume the same amount of water and it has to be extracted from a source somehow or other.  Also, its arguable that making bottled water fashionable means we might actually drink more than if we just took it from the tap which isn't half as stylish.

But I can see two main issues with bottled water:

- it uses a vast quantity of plastic which otherwise wouldn't be necessary and even if its recycled it would be better if it wasn't manufactured in the first place
- it uses unecessary energy transporting product from bottling plant to retail outlets to consumers, when we have a perfectly good (apart from the leaks) system in place for transporting water from source to tap without the need for lorries.

If you have genuine concerns about the quality of tap water, have a filter fitted or buy a filter jug and only buy bottled water when you genuinely need water on the move and there isn't a tap in sight.

Another take on this absurdity is companies who are selling bottled water and donating profits to charity, such as:

http://htoo.com/

This seems admirable, but wouldn't it be better if we just drank tap water and donated money direct to charity?

How much rubbish do you generate every week?  Do you know where it goes?  How much of it is going to spend 100s of years on landfill sites?

Reducing the amounf of rubbish you generate and increasing recycling will reduce the amount dumped into landfill but it will have other benefits too.  Energy and other resources go into the manufacturing of most of the things we throw away.  By creating the opportunity for re-use, you save energy and indirectly help to reduce carbon emissions and other pollution.

Here are three key steps to reducing rubbish:

- Don't buy it in the first place - how many of the items you buy have needless packaging?  Generally, if you buy from smaller shops, farm shops or vegetable box schemes, you can buy more products loose.  Apples don't need to come on a polystyrene tray and a celophane wrapper.  If there needs to be packaging, look for goods that have packaging that can be recycled or re-used.
- Re-use - don't get 10 more plastic carrier bags every time you do a big weekly shop, take back the ones you got last week and use them again.  These bags won't decay for 1000s of years, so they deserve more than one use.
- Recycle - find out all the items you can recycle in your area, either from doorstep collection or by taking them to the nearest recycling centre.  If you live in London, this site can help you find out more http://www.recycleforlondon.com

How many sacks of rubbish do you fill each week?  Multiply that by 20m or so households and think how much waste is accumulating week by week. 

This week's Economist magazine features an intriguing advertisement from http://www.steorn.com.

Steorn is an Irish company who claim to have developed a way of generating energy that is free, clean and constant.  They are challenging the scientific community to test the technology.

Is this for real or an unseasonal April fool?  There have been plenty of previous such discoveries, the most significant being cold fusion which still remains clouded in uncertainty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion

Take a look at the Steorn site and judge for yourselves.  I'd like to hear what anyone else thinks. 

Environmental issues have become so prominent in the media that nearly every newspaper I read has at least one story on green issues.  

The latest is in today’s London Evening Standard covering a new website which allows Londoners to monitor pollution in their own streets.  Its a fascinating site that enables you to look at several different types of pollution in a number of different ways including 3D maps and graphs. 

Take a look at this site, check out your street if you live in London, be grateful if you don’t!

http://www.londonair.org.uk

Its easy to think that 'good living' is limited to what we do at home, but its just as important in a work environment.  If you work in an office, does your company recycle waste paper, bottles, toner cartridges? 

The workplace can be an incredibly wasteful place but there is plenty of guidance around on how to change.  This is one of the best sites:

http://www.wasteonline.org.uk/resources/InformationSheets/WasteAtWork.htm

Friends of the Earth also have a good site about 'greening the office':

http://www.green-office.org.uk/

Don't wait for your boss to sort it out, be the one in your office to make a difference.

When we think of pollution, we tend to think about carbon emissions, smoke, dirt etc.  Light pollution is definitely the cleanest sort of pollution but that doesn't mean its something we should ignore.  A great article published on the BBC website last week outlines the impact of light pollution and what some places around the world are doing about it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4794249.stm

This section of the BBC site has some great content on environmental issues - worth a look.

Smoking is a great way to kill yourself slowly but its also helping to kill the planet.  At least 2 billion cigarette butts are dropped daily around the world, all of which are non-biodegradable. 

What's the best way to prevent this?  Well, everyone could quit smoking and make life more pleasant for the rest of us.  Try this site, or the many others:

http://www.givingupsmoking.co.uk/

Failing that, think twice before throwing your butt out of the car window.  If you see a car behind you flashing their lights, its most probably me - if you drop something out of your car window, who do you think is going to pick it up!

If you're not convinced by my self-righteous rant, read more here:

http://www.cigarettelitter.org/

There are many, many sources of alternative energy.  Right now, I am interested in solar because I read last week that if every household in the country had solar panels, it would generate enough electricity to meet the whole country’s electricity needs.  It may not be true, but it gets me thinking that this would be a better way to invest in the future than building nuclear power stations.  Not only could we generate a huge supply of clean energy, but every householder would have their own free supply.  It wouldn’t be so good for energy companies, so maybe there is too much vested interest to make sure it will never happen.

Progress is being made though.   A report last week said that Places for People, a UK housing association, will look at installing panels in all its new homes as part of a renewable energy programme.

It is expected that the new lower cost units will be £750 to £1,000 per household - around a quarter of the cost of traditional solar panel systems.  This will make them far more affordable for new housing developments and existing homes.

Nicholas Doyle at Places for People said: "Places for People is committed to moving sustainable development from the margins and into the mainstream of the housing industry.

"Our aim is to develop new homes that are not only energy efficient and have a limited effect on the environment, but which are also appealing to the people who live in them.

"The installation of these solar panels will help us to achieve a higher renewable energy target on our buildings and help reduce residents' energy bills, proving both environmental and social benefits."

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: "All social housing built with Housing Corporation funding is now required to meet very high standards of energy efficiency.

"We welcome this positive step forward and urge other housing associations to follow this lead.

"Local authorities are also required to look favourably on schemes that use micro-renewable energy and from next year people will be able to install more of these technologies without the need for planning permission."

Not long ago we heard that Curry’s are going to stock solar panels.  http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1834227,00.html.  Or you can even try making your own… http://www.bigginhill.co.uk/solar.htm

I predict that the price of panels will fall rapidly in the next few years and become as affordable as many other DIY home improvements so maybe you can have your own affordable panels without having to resort to DIY!

If you have thought about or have actually got so far as installing solar panels, tell me about your experiences.  
 

 

Is it better to buy organic beans grown in Kenya or non-organic beans grown in Kent? What do you think. Living ethically is full of difficult dilemmas. This blog may not tell you the answer but maybe it will help you think about the issues.

A great way to eat more healthily, reduce your food miles and support local farmers is to buy your vegetables from a weekly farm box. One of the best of these is http://www.riverford.co.uk. Most of the produce from Riverford is grown locally on the Devon farm and then delivered throughout Devon and other parts of the UK.

There are many more such schemes and the Soil Association publishes a guide to the pros and cons at http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/librarytitles/briefing_sheets27072001.

Here are some other box schemes to take a look at:

www.abel-cole.co.uk is one of the best known providers who source fruit and vegetables from a range of organic producers.

There are other schemes, like Riverford, that come direct from the farm, such as:

www.woodlandsfarm.co.uk and

www.sunnyfields.co.uk

Do you have an organic box?  If so, how has it changed your cooking and eating habits? 

If not, why not?

 

 

Welcome to Goodliving, a guide to helping yourself and your environment - you live longer and the planet lasts longer.