Carbon footprints

[Peter]

But nuclear power is carbon free so it must be the much larger consumption of goods that bumps up the French footprint, not their electricity useage.......

Eerrrr, not entirely.

How is the uranium: mined, transported, refined, stored, re-processed, transported, guarded etc. Yes in the overall scheme of burning coal against radiation its negligable, but not free.

The overall French figures will include the entire national consumption of coal, gas and other combustibles divided by the population. As will the Indian figures and I think there might just be a few more Indians than French.

Traditional wind or water power is much neglected nowadays. Place we visited in norfolk with a working flour water mill once had near double figure water powered industry. Flour, lumber etc. Traditional timber construction is carbon neutral, some steel is needed, water ways dug by hand, timber for sluices etc, water is in a way infinitely renewable if you pick the right place. Wind is a bit more subject to chance.

[bazzaboy]

Is it true that low energy light bulbs contain mercury which will, long running though they are, eventually end up in landfill?

bb

[witch-1]

Our primary footprint for the household is 2.87

The secondary is 8.82

Like said before - these are worked out on averages for secondary!
My next step is to change elec/gas supplier.

I compost/recycle whatever I can.
I've started to look at packaging and seeing if I can avoid it.
Even bought paper bags for sandwiches instead of the plastic ones.

Being spoilt for choices for so many years - I do confess, that if I fancy something (food) I do have it. These 'fancies' are not that many and we do use fresh produce more than processed these days.

I have made changes, but I know I can make more... but I do feel that after years of creature comforts I won't go backwards in time!

Jan

[kernowyon]

i don't really think the point is to see who gets the lowest figure as if it is some kind of competition. We should all be doing our own bit, however big or small. Surely the point is how, year on year we can reduce the figure we generate.

If at this time next year i do the same calculations and my figure is lower, i will personally feel that i have done my bit and then look to where i then can make more changes to reduce for the following year.

If everyone makes an effort however big or small, we can and will make a difference

[Two_Sheds]

You don't need to be backwards to save energy. (read Diary of a Reluctant Green for real-life examples, its inspiring).
I am sitting here with a blanket on my legs, rather than heat the whole house when its only my legs that are cold. It's not backwards, it's intelligent! I think P*werGen make enough money
(My OH will sit here in underpants and put the heating on, it drives me crackers.)

[rustylady]

My footprint comes out at 7. 18, but that is only using the main things like leccy, gas transport etc. How do you get onto the shopping, growing section to get really accurate results?

[Alison]

Problem is that it's very complicated to work out a true value of your carbon footprint and all the on line ones are simplifications of the truth - give you a guide but ignore loads of stuff, for example producing meat for food consumes a fantastic amount of carbon in comparison with a vegetarian or even better a vegan one - not managed to do it myself but have cut down. Another example of the simplifications is they take into consideration petrol useage but not the amount of energy used to produce the car in the first place etc etc etc. Basically a lot of what constitutes our true footprint relates to our consumerism. If you buy less then it's better!