Is your footprint above or below average? And do you care?

[Cam77]

Is your carbon footprint above or below the national average - and if it’s above do you feel bad about it? There are some good calculators online which quiz you on every aspect of you lifestyle. For what it’s worth I’m below average on most metrics - food consumption, energy usage (average sized home with good rating), don’t drive (work from home), only one kid, etc. However, I do fly a fair bit including one long haul every couple of years (12 hour return flight to visit family) - and that alone bumps me right back up to around the national average. I feel kind of bad about it, but there you go.

I disagree that this is a profoundly depressing thread. I am so pleased that the climate catastrophers are actually in the minority, even on a hysterical women's parent forum. Just get on with your life and wait for ww3 to take us all away.

I do care, and I'm surprised so many people are smug about not caring

I didn’t answer the second question. Yes, I do care.

I haven’t been paying much attention to food miles, but I did at my last supermarket shop. It surprised me that nearly all of the fruit on sale was from South America or Southern Africa, and that the veg was mostly from Spain, Morocco, Egypt and Kenya. How stupid of me not to have realised.

Regarding fruit, am I prepared to limit myself to apples and pears during the winter? Well, not unless I really have to, but I will try to buy more locally-grown produce.

I’m also looking into making my flat more energy efficient, because apart from having energy-saving lightbulbs, it isn’t great.

I came out above which I'm surprised at. I eat meat (chicken /fish) one meal a day. One flight a year to Europe. No car. Mainly stay local and walk. Small flat.

I do heat my home quite warm I guess. And we could recycle more

Below but I don't care.

I would be way below average if I didn't fly so often. No kids, no car, no pets, little meat - but apparently visiting my family abroad a couple of times a year negates all that.

I would be way below average if I didn't fly so often. No kids, no car, no pets, little meat - but apparently visiting my family abroad a couple of times a year negates all that

Well yes of course it does! Frequent flying is about the worst thing you can do for the environment. It's great that you keep your carbon footprint down elsewhere and its hard for someone with family abroad to stop flying but it can't really be a surprise that it makes your carbon footprint enormous?

I'm not surprised, just taking a long view. My carbon footprint may be considerable right now for a few years while I have elderly parents abroad, but on balance it will turn out small because I haven't produced a new generation of people with their own carbon footprints who would likely create more generations with carbon footprints.

The calculator doesn't know that though it can only tell you what your footprint is now not over a lifetime because it can't predict how your behaviour will change.

Some things are far below average (walk to work, don’t really fly) and some things are probably above (big house, massive heating bill, plus we are renovating which will add quite a lot). I don’t think about it too much, other than trying to do a lot of local stuff on foot, but the renovations are necessary (house hasn’t been touched for 40 years) so I can’t do too much about that

I know this is an old thread, but thought I'd just add this - the bus service that goes through our town, to a major city, is due to end in March. Only found out through a rumour - so I contacted he current suppliers who tell me it might not end - it'll be out to tender. How wonderful. It's fairly well used as well - there's a university there, so students use it, tourists use the service and people who work there. I don't know what the plan b is

About UK average.

i think mine is high but i doubt really care to be honest

Being honest probably way above average. I drive to work everyday, holiday every year abroad and use aerosols and all the rest of it.

I refuse to feel guilty about this. You know why? Because I have crippling anxiety and have had for 13 years. I feel guilty about pretty much everything. Guilt and fear are my day to day emotions. I feel guilty that I haven't worked hard enough today, scared that I'll lose my job, scared that I'll lose my home, guilty that I didn't do enough steps today, scared that I don't have kids at 32 and guilty that my fertility drops every day.

I'm sorry if I'm selfish but I spend my whole life feeling bad for living it, I'm not going to tiptoe around something that I can't possibly change by myself

My guilt and fear are much more than those I've listed but there's just a small list for you!

I don't eat meat and hardly any dairy, but that means also not buying all food locally as I eat a lot of chickpeas and lentils! I recycle everything possible. Bought some wax wraps to stop using cling film and use resuable bags for loose veg instead of plastic bags in the supermarket.

I have to fly to NI/Ireland for work sometimes but I can't really do anything about that. Last year we flew to Edinburgh as a family but only because the trains were so much more expensive. We've holidayed in the UK for the last two years but this year we are going abroad - two hour flights. It's not doable on the train.

In terms of car use we could stop driving to the station- but we live in a village with no street lighting. I do walk instead when it becomes lighter in the evening. We fill up the car though only once every three weeks or so, so car use overall is probably below average. I average more than 10,000 steps a day anyway.

We have a four bed house but it does have five people in it and it does have all the insulation and so on.

What wasn't covered in the survey was that I garden to encourage wildlife and have really made some changes, getting rid of concrete, planting tons of perennials and bee-friendly plants, making a bug house, making a woodland garden, making a pond (a bucket!).

Things I could do: my stuff quotient I think was quite high - particularly expenditure on take away food. I could really take more food into work to avoid all the packaging.

Vegan
Don't fly
Don't have kids
I never even consider new unless secondhand is definitely not an option
I drive everywhere though. It's great saying to get public transport, but It's so unreliable and irregular! Cycling sure but if I cycled to work I'm pretty sure I'd be dead within a week or so with the roads around here. Last time I switched energy supplier they fucked it up and charged me almost a grand for 2 months and it took fecking ages to sort out which massively puts me off ever trying again

I know I am very high because we live abroad so take a transatlantic flight every year 😔 I do care, a lot - so much I’m pushing for us to move home so we don’t have to take those flights anymore

I thought mine was low but just did the wwf questionnaire and came out at 123%!

We have 100% renewable energy. We recycle everything. We don’t eat out much and we don’t travel abroad often (last 19 years we've done 6 return flights). I do use my car every day (tho max of a few hours a week) because I'm disabled.

Mine is up because if driving.Not a lot of option as the at only 3 buses a day from our Town and non of them go near work.

Just did the more complicated one where you give your gas/electricity oner the year and Mrs driven/mpg of car ,DDS bus use and we come out at half the UK avarage,although that is still almost Twice the world average.

New build house which is designed to be energy efficient, no kids, no car, travel by public transport. We will be getting a car as soon as possible though.