What are your barriers to sustainable living? What would it take for you to ^get there^?

[greenspaceplace]

Inspired by yet another message from David Attenborough.

● Car - I can't afford one, DH gets to work in a company van (up to 10 men at a time) but he works all over so the emissions are still probably very high.
● Bicycle - Storage and cost was a problem before I moved out of my flat
● Public transport - great where I live and cheap.
○ Plastic packaging - I cant afford butcher, fruit and veg shop, zero waste shops are too much
● Grow fruit and veg (loads of community gardens and allotments to pick from, now I have a garden I have space, it was a barrier living in a flat), my grandparents had fruit trees so I got fruit from them
●Buy mostly second hand (easy its cheaper)
●Save water (easy with small children sharing a bath, use the bath water in the garden etc
● Passing on used clothes/ toys- Charity shops collect round here but you need to have more than 20 black bags worth. So it's easy when we have a massive sort through.
○Buying things that last- Tricky for us, we buy about 3 pairs of rubbish s hool shoes per child per year. I can't afford the upfront cost of a better pair and to be honest I thought £20 was expensive for school shoes
○Recycling- we didn't have Recycling bins in our flat, I've recently moved and have normal and Recycling bin. The council took all of the big recycling bins when they gave residents Recycling bins but people in flats didn't get one.
●Electric and gas usage, even before the cost of living we live in terrace and a flat so it was easy enough t o keep the house warm with little heating. We didn't have central heating in our flat and used to only use hot water bottles and blankets to stay warm when we first moved out. It was scary when we had a newborn and it was freezing though. I used to make a den in the kids bunk bed and sleep in bottom bunk altogether when it was really cold. We didn't have heating in there for 7 years! Now we have heating after we moved it's difficult to not use it, but we only have it on about half hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. old habits and all. We were ready for the Cost of living crisis at least.

I can't think of any more right now, but the main barrier for me is plastic packaging.
If supermarkets gave the option I would buy without.
If the local bakery self bread fir less than £6 a loaf I'd come in every day.
I used to go to the butcher and fruit and veg shop but when I moved (5 min walk from an aldi and lidl) I stopped going, the cost and convenience of a supermarket has to win.
I'm a sahm so I have time to mess about with charity shops, a vegetable garden etc.

I want to know what everyone else's barriers are, in a perfect world I'd live in the shire and my food would come from next door.

Single biggest thing is not flying.

Bad Lad

The number of people on earth has little to do with each individual's climate impact. The carbon footprint of one person in the USA is many multiples that of one person in sub Saharan Africa. Consumption is the key issue here, rather than population.

But, as I'm sure you know, global birth rate is declining sharply, and global population is predicted to go into reverse sometime around the 2060s. It would probably be declining already if it wasn't for the fact that people aren't dying young as much as they used to.

So your clever "gotcha" wasn't quite as clever as you think 🙄

So your clever "gotcha" wasn't quite as clever as you think

Neither is yours, considering I didn’t actually say any of that.

Nonsense.

Flying is actually an incredibly efficient and environmentally friendly mode of mass transit.

You have fallen for the green propaganda.

Agriculture is way more damaging to the environment. Carbon emissions of 1.7% and 22% respectively.

If you want to decry anything it should be beef burgers, not jet engines.

@onefinemess transport is responsible for almost 20% of emissions, you haven't a clue what you're talking about.

I wasn't being clever.

And it's irrelevant where people live. Whether you have a tract home in suburban Detroit, or sleep on a plank in the middle of a slum in Mumbai, you need to stop having children.

Don't be ridiculous. The utter ignorance on this thread is astounding.

It's the elephant in the room and political suicide as a manifesto pledge. I fully support education of and free birth control for women in third world countries but when you have medieval loons like the talisman popping up everywhere and being funded by the likes of Putin and Xi, there really is very little hope for the planet and its non-human residents.

Taliban ffs

Some sense at last.

onefinemess name change fail?! 😆🧦

It really isn't. The 20 percent figure includes all aspects of transport, not just the actual running of the engine, but the making of the machines to make the vehicles.

It's a convenient statistic to use when trying to manipulate people but it's not really accurate. It doesn't take into account the remanufacture of other components from recycled vehicles or the reduction in net carbon emissions from driving an old vehicle. For example, making a new EV is environmental suicide compared to just running a 15 year old diesel.

What?

No it doesn't, the 20% is scope 1 emissions only. You seriously are making yourself look silly.

You cannot compare the scope 3 emissions with scope 1.

Do you know anything about carbon accounting?

(not read the whole thread...)

My biggest stall is the initial expense of setting up for being sustainable for most things.

• the cost of reusable nappies (although I have found some secondhand but unfortunately they don't fit my huge toddler)
• the cost of water butts and garden compost bins
• "green" stores that are atleast 50% more expensive than brand bought in super markets.
• expense of setting up the garden to grow my own food.

We are in a lower income family and most month we just get by so don't have the upfront cost of setting things up despite knowing it would likely save us money once set up.

We don't have a car which is fine as we're in Central London.

Wouldn't use a bicycle in London as I'm aware of too many accidents, and thefts.

Fly a few times a year not loads, but visit family and also like to visit other countries for tourism. Prefer Eurostar when it's an option.

Eat meat daily, as I like the taste and veggie options are uninspiring.

All food is bought from supermarkets and have lots of packaging. It's the most convenient option as we can get a weekly delivery at a reliable time slot.

Disposable nappies because I find it hard enough to keep on top of laundry as it is, it's far more convenient.

But I've used the same mooncup for half a decade as it's cheap and reliable.

Don't want to grow fruit or veg as we have a tiny garden which is used entirely as the dc's play area. And I probably couldn't be bothered with all the planting and watering even if we had a bigger garden.

Would like solar panels but the cost efficiency doesn't seem worth it.

I have 3dc, which is probably too many, but they're here now. The youngest mostly has hand me down stuff though.

I enjoy a western standard of living too much.

Oh - I also helped the environment out more than most people, by not having children.

cost

I try but I'm far from 'there'.

I buy lots of second hand - love charity shops for kitchen stuff and books and eBay for clothes. It's rare for me to order new or actually go clothes shopping.

We use the car as little as possible but we do use it!

We hardly fly. I've flown about 4 times in my life (not instigated by me - for work). Husband has flown a lot for work but now we're retired we don't plan to fly again. We have no interest in long-haul (I can watch these places on the telly) but will travel to Europe by train - all part of the fun.

We put on lots of layers to avoid turning on the heating if at all possible.

We don't buy bottled water. Why would you? Tap water is fine. We have a soda stream for fizzy water.

We recycle as much as possible and our 'landfill bin bag' is very light each week.

But - we live in an Edwardian House and the big front bay window is the original 1910 one. It's in great condition but obviously single-glazed and a bit of a problem in terms of heat-loss. But a) we love it and b) it would be more wasteful of resources, surely, to replace it with UPVC?? We have thick curtains over it.

We are basically not really consumers - but that's no good, is it? The economy isn't helped by people like us!!

@greenspaceplace you could make your own bread, it's very easy and much cheaper with all those mouths to feed then no plastic. I've done it for decades for budgetary reasons and so I knew that what I was feeding my kids was natural unprocessed food. You don't have to knead for ages like they say it still works with only 2 min mixing it together (as my arm gets tired)I'd do before work, leave to rise all day then make pizzas for tea and bread rolls for next days lunches.
Half bag of bread flour, couple tsp salt, couple tsp easy yeast, mix with water, touch of oil, knead a little (inside the big mixing bowl so less mess) leave to double in size, knead again for 30 secs, shape, leave to rise or use straight away for pizza bases then cook. Can even leave dough in fridge for using over a few days. Once you do it regularly it takes very little time.
Once tasted no going back to supermarket bread!!

The positive things I do:

• Vegan, buy local where possible including from greengrocers, bakery etc which reduces waste and plastic.
• Don’t own a car, can walk to most places or use public transport.
• Don’t buy fast fashion, generally buy second hand or from sustainable companies or things that I think will last for a long time.
• No kids currently. If we do have kids it’ll just be one.

What I’m not good at:

• I travel a lot. I love travelling but also have family abroad so not flying doesn’t feel like an option.

I do agree with PPs that it’s structural change that’s needed, but I think individuals can drive bigger change (by creating pressure and demand).

I suppose, morally, I should go out and kill some children to offset my own. Thanos, we need you.

Amazing! you're right! you're absolutely right!

@greenspaceplace I started a thread on this a while back.