To be confused about how to live more sustainably?

[twolittleboysonetiredmum]

Can anyone please help me understand how to pick apart information on the internet about trying to live a more sustainable life?!
I’d really like to take some steps at home to improve how we are living to have less of an impact on the environment.
We should eat less meat? How do people do that with fussy small children? (I did think replacements eg qourn but then they’re equally bad I think?!)
Recycle - we do, how can we use less plastic/packaging in the first place?
We only run one car and buy lots of second hand clothes and toys than new.
I’m just bewildered by all the information and can’t pick it apart.
We work full time and have little spare time so it needs to be achieveable. Any blogs that people could direct me to?
Thanks!

This site might help( not checked it lately)

www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx

That is focussing on carbon emissions, climate change

Other things as plastic reduction or reduced stuff generally affect emissions a bit but mostly improve resource consumption and.prevent rare materials from running out

If you are genuinely trying to make a difference, emails have a massive impact. Reduce the emails you receive, reduce the emails you send. clear out your inbox and sent items and come off as many mailing lists as possible. They are all stored on multiple servers which use an enormous amount of energy.

The environmental impact of having 3 children in a developed country is already so enormous that I’d give up trying to live more sustainably

you’re better off using your time/energy to lobby against governments/ big companies

I can see the logic in this. It's a global problem and it demands a complete overhaul of our economic, social, trading, and civic systems to resolve. There is negligible political will to do these things. So, rather than negotiating matters, we're probably moving towards water warfare and disruption rather than political systems embrace the task - allowing events to dictate what happens rather than influencing it.

I'm trying to have a push on more responsibility with clothing. I buy the h&m range with sustainable cotton, and try to source clothes that are less 'fast fashion'.

Switch to less Evo aggressive cleaning products. I use more vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, and get my cleaning things via splosh (all eco friendly and door delivered to refill your containers in recyclables). Lots of things like bleach and Zoflora care really bad for aquatic life.

Cautionsharpblade so who do you think will look after you in your dotage? Who's taxes will pay your pension? The birth rate in the UK is declining. Without an adequate birth rate we have an aging demographic which means we will need to have more young, economically active people to come into the country. All too often this will be detrimental to the countries they leave behind.

We keep our heating at 18 degrees I’ve had lots of people say that’s far too cold for them but it’s perfectly comfortable for us, if we are still chilly there are blankets on the sofa and extra clothes

Eat grassfed pastured meat and organically produced local vegetables. Get a box delivered if you don't have local non-supermarket food shops.

Eat fewer arable-based crops, ie grains, soya etc. They are produced in huge monocultural fields where all other wildlife is wiped out as competition/pests. Grass fed meat and mixed farms on the other hand are wildlife thriving meadows. Soil is the basis for thriving ecosystems. Impossible in arable monocultures which require huge fossil fuel based fertilisers (remember Haber Bosch from science lessons?)

www.dietdoctor.com/the-answer-to-saving-the-world-is-not-veganism

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/veganism-intensively-farmed-meat-dairy-soya-maize?

Don't have any more children.

Don't fly on holiday.

Cycle/walk for short journeys.

Be a minimalist/simple living advocate... have very few clothes/gadgets/consumer goods etc. Mend/darn things when they break/get holes. Buy things second hand where possible.

Avoid disposable goods like drinks bottles, take away coffee cups, plastic cutlery. Cook from scratch.

Insulate your house to a high spec.

anything else like bamboo toothbrushes is pissing in the wind, rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. Green consumerism won't save the planet, we need much less consumerism per se. Live simply before living "greenly".

One place you could make a sizeable change to your family's consumption: Look at your laundry, how many things could stand an extra wear? I know what it is like with small children, they are dirt magnets but on the other hand they don't sweat like teenagers.

Less laundry means less detergent, water, power consumption. Good for your domestic economy and the environment. When they are older tell them it's doing your bit for the environment and don't stand down wind of them .

Ref comment on reducing emails. The electricity supply to my property is from a 100 percent green supplier. The companies that own the data centers, they may source some green energy too.

We swapped to lentil bolognaise. To do this I gradually reduced the amount of beef mince and increased the amount of lentils. That way the children did not notice. I use red lentils as they cook quicker.

I batch cook beans. They come in plastic though. Maybe tins are better as they can be recycled.

Listen to radio four next week. They are running a series on it at lunchtimes.

The latest info I heard was insulate your house and eat less meat.

There's no such thing as "green" energy. This amazing lady on Youtube has made a life and successful YT channel for herself in the pristine beautiful wilderness of northern Sweden. Her life is soon to come crashing down as a proposal to build a huge wildfarm park of hundreds of turbines only a couple of KM from her home. She is devastated. It will cause large amounts of noise, light pollution at night blocking out the stars, disruption to wildlife, killing birds, require many roads to be ploughed through the forest... in order to produce electricity for export to the German/continental Europe market demanding "clean" energy. A handful of small community owned wind turbines wouldn't be a problem, this will become an industrial landscape.

Turbines also require the mining of rare earth elements in places like Mongolia. It causes a deadly denuded wasteland for tens of miles, with toxic mining tailings lakes, rare cancers and wasting diseases among local villagers and their animals.

www.bbc.com/future/story/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth

We need to use much less power in the first place and be efficient with energy, rather than looking for green technological solutions, which in reality are anything but.

Ref comment on reducing emails. The electricity supply to my property is from a 100 percent green supplier. The companies that own the data centers, they may source some green energy too.

That isn't the point though. Its about the amount of CO2 produced by the servers not the source of the power. Two different issues (is my understanding).

If you are going to eat meat I am guessing that Welsh lamb would be best. Makes use of land that can not grow anything else, is more local than New Zealand, etc. I do not know enough to be sure.

Talk to your friends and family and challenge them to make one change. If everybody does something it builds up to a big change.

People's attitude needs to change. Once it was acceptable to drink and drive, and smack your kids. That has changed. Now it needs to be unacceptable to put on the heating before putting on a jumper, or to take lots of holidays abroad. Or eating a lot of meat... Etc

Totally agree with people suggesting making small changes gradually rather than trying to do it all at once.

One change I made was buying washable makeup remover pads and washable pant liners (ecofemme). I love them.

Oh and also look at Iceland- their own brand food is moving towards being all plastic packaging free and palm oil free. I bought a lovely pavlova from there for Christmas and was disproportionately delighted that there was absolutely no plastic packaging involved. Pavlova was nice too!

The world is not going to uninventive the internet, emails, mobile phones in the modern world. I know a few people who don't have access to these things and it limits their choice and they pay more for things, when other people can research. Companies can plant trees to off set their carbon use. When cars/lorries/buses all change to electric, where is all the extra power going to come from ? The usage of power is increasing, not decreasing

It depends what you want to achieve.

If you're seeking to actually make a difference to climate change, this mentioned upthread is the only sensible course of action

He said you’re better off using your time/energy to lobby against governments/ big companies

If you just want to make yourself feel better, cherry pick a few of the many suggestions on this thread.

Don't shoot the messenger but the only way to live sustainably is not to have more than 1 child. Everthing else is a waste of time.
The arguments for and against are all on google.
I can be smug about it becqause I couldn't have any more children after DS because of health problems.
Me and my sister have pulled each others hair arguing about this

😂 thank you for all the replies. They entirely summarise why I’m confused!
On one hand - I can eat less meat, buy less, waste less, not fly
On the other - is all just to make myself feel like I’m doing something but in reality makes no difference.
So should I bother doing anything? Lobbying I can do in an online way so that’s a definite yes.

@GnomeDePlume the question was about sustainable living, not what's nice for me in my old age. They are two separate questions with two quite different answers.

I was just looking at this today I've been trying to change for a while now. My few tips so far I've switched to high juice from fizzy drinks it's cordial so makes alot more than the size of the bottle and I still enjoy it it actually tasted like fruit instead of sweetener have to admit I dislike most cordials! I've cut up all dd2s old vests and use them instead of Wipes for cleaning up baby messes (hands faces high chair etc) I've switched to bars of soap instead of handwashes and this actually is saving me some pennies. I'm currently trying bars of shampoo but this isn't a big success as my hair doesn't feel as clean and is still a little greasy but I'm going to preserve through the bar! I also make my own cleaning spray and just top up the bottle when needed rather than buy a new spray I've been using the same bottle for around 15 months now so that's working quite well too and again saving me some pennies.
For food tips I use a little meat and pad out meals so spag bol 1/2 turkey mince 1/2 red Lentils. Feeds 5 of us twice. Shepards pie Turkey mince padded out with pease, corn and Carrots again feeds 5 twice. Lots of breads and sides I make a nice 5 minute flat bread or lemon and garlic bread from the cooking on a bootstrap blog that pads out meals nicely. My DH would be a carnivore if I'd let him so it can be a struggle I'd like to get some more vegetarian recipes that he would be willing to eat as id like to start eating healthier as a family too.

Cautionsharpblade I disagree. Sustainable living is often physically hard work. As we get older we need more support/care. We move less and feel the cold more. It is the following generations who will be capable of the hard physical work. These are the people who will develop more sustainable heating and insulation. These are the people who will develop more sustainable methods of food production.

The problem with population growth is not that too many babies are being born it is that more people are living longer. The birth rate in the UK is 1.8 births per woman. Average age is rising but life expectancy growth has decreased.

So, unless we are all willing to accept a life which ends when we are no longer capable of our own sustainable living then we do need more children who will support both themselves and us.

don't have kids , kindest thing you can do for the planet