To ask how drivers of massive SUVs square it with themselves in terms of climate change?

[Bleepingtons]

Same goes for those who go long haul on the regular? Buy loads of cheap, disposable fashion? Etc etc? Do you just not worry about climate change?

I know I sound sanctimonious but I am genuinely baffled by people driving massive diesel SUVs like there isn't a major issue.

The problem with my question I guess is that everyone on this thread with 2 cars and no SUV is never going to admit to it but I know so many households have 2!

@FuckToiletTraining

For there to be a big change with consumers, environmentally friendly options need to be 1) convenient and 2) affordable.

At the moment, being a completely environmentally friendly household is a privilege. Most people don’t have that privilege.

This

@Monsteres except it doesnt sound like you are farmers? If you were you would have tractors to tow trailers full of wood. Wood burning by the way is terrible for pollution.

It’s not British farming that’s the big issue. It’s the cattle ranches in USA. Intensive farming.

I have a large diesel car.

I have four kids; I needed a car to fit them in.

I couldn't do electric car even if I could afford one because we wouldn't have the facilities to charge it.

We only ever holiday in U.K.

This doesn’t negate our own personal responsibility to reduce our own carbon footprint but FFS. This is shocking when you see the figures...

www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/05/carbon-top-1-percent-could-jeopardise-1point5c-global-heating-limit

Anyone up for boycotting Virgin, Amazon etc?

@Rummikub in Britain we are ditching traditional farming and moving to larger-scale intensive farming that absolutely is a problem. And the government is encouraging this by giving older farmers big payoffs to retire.

@julieca not all wood is for firewood you know? Husband is a farmer actually and you can't use a tractor for everything ( long journeys would be really long at 30mph the whole way) although is burning wood worse then using gas or oil for heating?

"I also won't cut down on the amount of meat and dairy we eat, we eat locally so nothing flown in"

It takes hundreds of kilos of plant protein to produce 1 kilo of 'local' beef protein. Most of that cattle feed will be soy and it will mostly be flown or shipped in. You can get beef that is definitely only fed on UK/Irish/EU food, but it really does cost.

I'm not even an extinction nutter or anything.

Yes burning wood is worse than gas or oil for heating.
Sorry didn't realise you transported it a long way. We cut it down in our wood and transported it a few miles.

If burning wood is so bad why have the govt been incentivising people to fit biomass boilers (fed by wood pellets that get shipped from as far away as South America!) for the past 15years ish?! Burning wood for heat is only a major pollution issue if you live in a built up area - if you live rurally and are using locally sourced wood then you’re doing fine.

@juliaca what do you think will happen to all that land that uses to be used for farming when they all retire? It won't be turned into a nature reserve they'll build on it, love to see what the carbon footprint of that is?! I would ask yourself why a load of high up people in government and business who hold shares In development companies by the way, want all food production to be shipped in from abroad, I can guarantee you that, that won't lower.carbon emissions it will lost definitely increase them and heaven forbid there ends up being another world war and as an island imports and exports get cut off, wonder what you'll all do for food then?.......

I've ordered an Audi E-tron, a fully electric SUV, so my choice of vehicle is probably more environmentally sound than 95% of posters in this thread. Hth

And for those on their high horse why don’t you try to stop buying or consuming anything that contains palm oil - do that for a month and I’ll give you some respect for your ‘green’ credentials!

@Rummikub

It’s not British farming that’s the big issue. It’s the cattle ranches in USA. Intensive farming.

That’s (a bit) true for ruminants, but the third largest agricultural sector in England is poultry; it’s hard to say they’re not farmed intensively - or often fed on environmentally catastrophic commodities, as are pigs. Nearly 900g of every kilo of chicken produced is soy feed.

Agriculture is 10% of our domestic emissions; if we’re worried about aviation and shipping we should also be looking at how to cut emissions from ag and use agricultural land as carbon sinks.

@GaryLurcher19 wrong I'm afraid only 30% of soy is actually used for human consumption so that 70% of waste is what is fed to the cows. The majority of cattle feed is waste products that are either inedible for people or supermarkets deem not up to standard or wonky veg. Maybe you should try talking to people who work with cattle rather then reading a one sided view all the time?

@thefamous5

I have a large diesel car.

I have four kids; I needed a car to fit them in.

I couldn't do electric car even if I could afford one because we wouldn't have the facilities to charge it.

We only ever holiday in U.K.

What facilities do you imagine you need for charging an electric vehicle? You just need to get an EV charging point fitted which is possible as long as you have your own driveway

@Blinkingbatshit

If burning wood is so bad why have the govt been incentivising people to fit biomass boilers (fed by wood pellets that get shipped from as far away as South America!) for the past 15years ish?! Burning wood for heat is only a major pollution issue if you live in a built up area - if you live rurally and are using locally sourced wood then you’re doing fine.

I’ve no idea what the current view on biomass is because I bought my boiler in 2011 and scientific consensus may have changed since. But back then it was considered environmentally friendly because the very low-moisture wood fuel is burned under very high heat and pressure to release its gas, and then it’s the gas that is burned to create the actual heat for central heating and hot water. A well functioning biomass boiler doesn’t create very much smoke or particulate at all. But open fires and log stoves, particularly when people burn “locally sourced” wood which they don’t season properly (hardwood for biomass typically has to be seasoned for at least three years to be below the required 15% moisture), are awful for air pollution.

Here are the bigger impacts on carbon footprints, it's interesting that recycling is pretty low on the list. Having children is very high. It's too late for many of us on that count . I do try but I'm definitely not perfect. I have a diesel car, it is rarely used and would probably be worse for the environment to replace it with an electric one unless it dies. I'm trying to focus on the biggest savings (drive less, fly less, renewable energy supplier, eat less meat and dairy, buy less stuff) rather than things like zero waste which take up all your time and don't make as much difference.

Having one fewer child - 58.6 tonnes of CO2 saved
Not having a car - 2.4 tonnes of CO2 saved
Avoiding one long-distance flight (6 hours+) - 1.6 tonnes of CO2 saved
Buying energy from renewable sources only - 1.5 tonnes of CO2 saved
Eating a plant based diet - 0.8 tonnes of CO2 saved
Recycling as much as possible - 0.2 tonnes of CO2 saved
Not using a tumble dryer - 0.2 tonnes of CO2 saved
Replacing traditional lightbulbs with low energy or LED - 0.1 tonnes of CO2 saved

There's a survey on the PDF link below where most people get the rankings on the highest carbon emitters in lifestyle wrong, recycling is seen as being very important and having children is way down the list.

Article: www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/05/climate-action-change-behaviour-impact-survey/

PDF with the above statistics and interesting survey results: www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2021-04/Environmental%20Perils%20of%20Perception%202021_0.pdf

@JassyRadlett the majority of soy used for animal feed is the waste product as I've said earlier only 30% of soy is able to be used for human consumption the other 70% is waste, so it's used as a feed for animals. Same as a lot of other waste products from food production including beer, confectionery, and the obvious fruit and veg that's supermarkets deem to be 'imperfect' all that waste gets used for animal feed,.what would happen if they weren't there to ' tidy' that up? Arable farming waste is your oat milk that you drink instead of dairy has the waste product of straw which is used for animal bedding. Agriculture is working on lowering they're emissions more but until people realise that agriculture is being used as the scapegoat here so that travel and fossil fuel companies can just plant some trees instead of actually changing anything they do nothing will change!

The majority of cattle feed is waste products that are either inedible for people

Huge amounts globally are grown specifically for animal feed - it’s a huge market. And a lot if grown by destroying forests.

Almost all our soy imports (both meal and bean) are used for animal feed; the majority comes from South America (which will increase with Brexit as EU soy will be less affordable.)

Those deforestation emissions aren’t captured in our agricultural footprint but they arguably should be as a key part of British agriculture.

@julieca

Yes burning wood is worse than gas or oil for heating. Sorry didn't realise you transported it a long way. We cut it down in our wood and transported it a few miles.

That depends on what wood. If you have your own woodland grow, cut, season and burn your own on a cycle then burning wood is carbon neutral, although does contribute to particulate pollution. Gas and oil are both net CO2 contributors, oil more than gas. Gas burns cleaner and does not add to particulates, oil tends to contain an element of sulphur which it adds to the atmosphere, although for home oil that should be very low.

@JassyRadlett the majority of soy used for animal feed is the waste product as I've said earlier only 30% of soy is able to be used for human consumption the other 70% is waste, so it's used as a feed for animals.

That’s probably nearly correct for UK-grown soy but it’s flat out untrue globally - human food demand is nowhere near the demand for soy for animal feed.

I don’t disagree with you on agriculture overall though I don’t think you’re being quite honest about some of the challenges - UK agriculture is far from being a net good currently and the NFU net zero plans are too over reliant on future technology for my tastes; I think the CCC pathway here is about right.

Also massively in favour of ELM payments being solely for farming and land management for environmental good.

However both the pro- and anti-farming lobby focus way too much on ruminants in all of this. Understandable as they’re the ‘easy’ emissions to quantify, but the reality is that in the UK we eat more chicken overall now than any other meat, and the true carbon footprint of chicken production is not shown in the UK GHG inventory as much is foreign deforestation and conversion. Pig meat is another major issue when it comes to soy.

Ruminants are not the only meat!

I think it’s safer in a big car and would fare a lot better if I was in a crash in my SUV than the mini I used to drive. I need my DD to be as safe as possible.

It’s like @CokeZeroAddiction said. We went to Hong Kong a couple of years ago. Every day in the hotel, new glasses wrapped in new plastic, new plastic toothbrush wrapped in plastic, plastic bottles of water (didn’t see any refilling places for reusables) from shops, new disposable razors wrapped in plastic. I went to a shop that sold items of a character that I collect; everything and I mean everything I bought (and it was a lot) even things like pens/key rings/small figurines was individually wrapped in plastic then put in a shopping bag!

I don’t even have a “massive SUV” but we were two people in one hotel room in one place for a week. The amount of single use plastic multiplied across the whole region must be astronomical, the car I drive will make not a jot of difference.