To ask how many of these you will do to stop global warming?

[LadyinRead]

Apparently if all indivisuals do these six things, we'll be 25% of the way to stopping global warming.
Are we doomed, then? I do most of these but (3) is impossible as appliances aren't built to last that long, and (4) would probably mean never seeing my parents again.

1. Eat a largely plant-based diet, with healthy portions and no waste

2. Buy no more than three new items of clothing per year. (Unlimited second-hand clothing allowed.)

1. Keep electrical products for at least seven years

1. Take no more than one short haul flight every three years and one long haul flight every eight years

1. Get rid of personal motor vehicles

6. Make at least one life shift to nudge the system, like moving to a green energy, insulating your home or changing pension supplier

www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/07/six-key-lifestyle-changes-can-help-avert-the-climate-crisis-study-finds?fbclid=IwAR2llmcsBWVwzzdF0kzuW2tVPAnUbrMUn2hatbfIsrUQ1Awi1EI5XSe1lF0

1. I’ve been vegan for about 5years, but also feed DS who is mainly vegetarian with the odd bit of fish, DH who eats vegan prob 85% of the time and DD who basically lives on chicken and cheese 🙄

1. Not including underwear I assume. I could def manage this, I don’t buy clothes often but prob more than 3 a year. D.C. would be hard as they grow so quickly

1. I pretty much keep electrical products until they die. Actually my kettle died 3 years ago and I keep meaning to get it fixed but haven’t got round to it, so have been boiling water in a pan all that time!

1. I’m hoping to genuinely move to this. We’ve lived abroad for the last 10years and finally moving back this summer, one of the main reasons being to cut back on the horrible amount of transatlantic flights we’ve taken in the last decade

1. This would be hard where I live now and prob a big adjustment for where we’re moving to but not impossible. The family car we have is electric though we have a jeep for camping and long trips

1. We bought solar panels a few years ago. Where we live we don’t have a choice in energy supplier but when we move back to the U.K. will def be going for a renewable one if poss and closing down our HSBC account for Starling or similar. And we’re saving up to build our own home with high green specifications but it’s going to take a lot of money to do so

1 - I'm not prepared to reduce my meat consumption but I have very little food waste as I meal plan.

2 - yes, I'll do that for myself as I buy most of my clothes second hand anyway but growing DS needs more than 3 new items of clothing per year.

3 - yes, happy to do that, I only replace electrical items when they break.

4 - no, travel is important to me and I'm not prepared to limit it.

5 - I can't drive so I've never owned a vehicle, easy one for me.

6 - I'm open to it but I'm on a low wage so there's a limit to what I can afford to do.

No children so I have already done my bit, when all the influencers stop and celebrities stop flying I might do a bit more

Already do 6. Home is fully insulated and we have 27 solar panels.

Not really willing to to the rest tbh.

I shop for clothes 50/50 secondhand/new.

DH is FIFO so not flying would mean no income.

Life without a car would be impossible and miserable.

We have a disabled child who cannot use public transport so not having a car would mean not accessing services as well as generally creating a poor quality of life for us. We haven't flown in 20 years will likely never do again so are balanced out there.

1. No - I tried doing more vegetarian meals and I was always hungry. I try and use less meat and we don't waste food, very rarely eat beef.

1. I don't buy many clothes for myself as the ones I have are fine. I buy regularly for the DC though.

1. I've had my phone 3 years and will keep it as long as it works. My last one bricked itself and was irreparable after about 2 years. DH is very handy so he fixes things like the washing machine, oven etc.

1. I fly longhaul twice a year pre covid as I live far away from family so, no, this isn't going to happen for me.

1. Again no, there's no public transport where I live. I'd have to use Uber and that doesn't work with kids car seats.

1. Our energy consumption is almost fully covered by the solar panels we installed last year.

Oh on no.5 DH'd new car is a hybrid and charged with solar power and has enough battery for his commute. I'd get a hybrid in the future or maybe even fully electric as I rarely drive more than a few miles anymore.

2 and 5 would be hard.

All but 4

These are quite difficult if you're not already rich.

1 is expensive (in money, time and energy).
2 - this one is possible, but you're going to have to give up looking like your clothes fit unless you're very lucky with sizing, and most of it will be fast fashion. When I find an item that actually fits me I buy five and wear them till they are rags. I'm seriously not convinced this is any worse for the environment - and why am I limited to three, when they'll just wear out even faster?

1. You need some serious dosh to buy appliances that don't fail. My pride and joy is my ten year old washing machine. It's the cheapest Miele model and literally the most expensive item I own. It's amazing.
2. I already gave up flying, so can't give it up again. It's so expensive anyway.
3. Can't drive, can't afford a car.
4. I rent a cheap house, ridden with damp. The rent hasn't gone up in ten years, so I can't afford not to stay here. Not sure what I can do except give up heating it - and that's not healthy.

I do all except 2 already, I buy few new clothes but not as few as 3/year.

We live very well and am very happy with our life btw!

Haven't been on a flight for 15 years.

I already do all those except the car and I sometimes buy new clothes for the dcs eg school uniform although the bulk of their clothes are passed on to us and we pass things on when we have finished with them. Haven't been on a plane for over 10 years.
We can't afford to replace our car at the moment but when we do, hopefully in the next 2-3 years, we will choose electric. Dh uses public transport for work anyway, I can't as there isn't any that goes from where we live to where I work and I am a teacher so often bring home a pile of books to mark which rules out cycling.
We are also considering an air pump boiler as and when our boiler needs replacing, again this depends if we can afford it.

1. Eat a largely plant-based diet, with healthy portions and no waste.

I'm a vegetarian so I think I can safely say I do this. Not quite sure about 'no waste' but minimal waste yes.

1. Buy no more than three new items of clothing per year. (Unlimited second-hand clothing allowed.)

I do this.

1. Keep electrical products for at least seven years

I do this.

1. Take no more than one short haul flight every three years and one long haul flight every eight years

Back in 2018 I vowed to never fly again so yes done.

1. Get rid of personal motor vehicles

DH and I share a car. I must admit I do use it sometimes but I really do walk when I can. We can't just 'get rid of it' as DH needs it to get to his NHS shift work job and we can't afford an electric car.

1. Make at least one life shift to nudge the system, like moving to a green energy, insulating your home or changing pension supplier.

We buy as much as we can from our local refill shop but it's likely to close soon due to lack of customers and we use cloth nappies.

I hope the fact I'm going above and beyond with the flying makes up for the car thing.

I really do try but it just feels so pointless when things are just getting worse and worse with people not bothered so to be honest I just try not to think about it all.

The things I don't do are 1 and 5. We were so lucky to be able to insulate and get a wood pellet burner and i feel sad that these sorts of lists are feasible only for people with money, we got a ridiculously cheap house and a loan that let us make those adjustments but most people can't. We've been abroad twice in 15 years and we can't afford to buy many clothes so we live off hand me downs but saying that since we buy cheap when we have to that's not good for the environment. As for electric items, I'd say that's another thing dependant on money, I don't know that our large items will last that long as they're the cheapest we can find

I will just do the 'healthy portions and no waste' bit of no 1. I won't be doing the others.
As for getting rid of my car, I only got my first car at 34 years old. Its a 1.2lt which I only drive about 6 miles a week in, so I really don't understand why it needs to go.

Other things I'm doing -

• not having kids (because I CBA, not because of global warming)
• most of my furniture is second hand as I prefer it
• not flying too much. My super eco-conscious middle class friends weirdly seem to fly the most!

I really do try but it just feels so pointless when things are just getting worse and worse with people not bothered so to be honest I just try not to think about it all I agree that emotionally it is hard but I personally would find knowingly being part of the problem worse than doing the right thing.

I do manage all of these except 1 and 5. Vegan diet I would find impossible because of other health issues, ditto cars as we live and work rurally and both go in different directions in the morning. Public transport is not an available option here.

..though we do moderate portions and go for low waste and local produce.

We have an only child. We’ve done our bit.

1. Vegan for a decade now, whole family is. Cook almost everything from scratch which helps with waste.

1. Not a problem, especially once I lose some weight and second hand gets more fun again. Right now I don't buy clothes anyway because it's no fun.

1. Already do this, and buy refurbished ones to start with.

1. Sadly impossible at the moment as posted overseas, but also me and DH are from different countries so this is a very small amount to see family on especially as our parents age. Probably won't happen.

1. Depends on whether we end up living rural or city, but even rural will try to maximise access to transit.

1. Already factors into most of our decisions and always has.

Ha, I also have an only child but don't think that gets me off the hook just yet.

Many on this thread would have been thoughtless and had two or more DC, all those nappies clogging up landfill or using washing machines.

@Reluctantadult

Interesting article, thanks! I consider myself a greeny and still struggle with some of these. 1 - plant based is a no here, I went plant based but my ferritin fell to 3 and made me really quite unwell so I'm back to eating meat. 2 - I buy everything second hand. Vinted it great! 3 - yes to keeping electrical items 7yrs, unless they die! Am I right in thinking the rules are changing to allow things to be repaired more? There is a handy repair cafe where I live that fixed my vacuum. 4 - flights, surprised actually that it says that many flights are OK so sounds like a winner to me. 5 - getting rid of private car totally would be tricky. We've gone down to 1 car and it's electric. Dh gets the bus to work. I walk the kids to school. 6 - energy, pension, bank are all green.

you are kind of right about the repair rules.....spares have to be available for longer but no limits on the cost of the spares or the repairs and no rules to make stuff easier to repair or less costly ie you can still make something so that undamaged parts must be replaced in order to replace a damaged part. Its likely to still be easier and less costly to replace something than to repair it...there is also the issue of saving energy (or water) by moving to a new item when the old one no longer works. Both my old diswasher and washing machine used much more water and energy than my new ones which I only replaced because the old ones had broken down. Same in spades for my new gas boiler. Its an intersesting attention getting message but I don't think its the whole story.

We do all of this apart from the cars but recently changed both our cars for electric ones so that will help.

Apart from flights and owning a car, I do all of the other things already. I have no intention of giving up my car or stopping flying!