Positive action on climate change and sustainability

[Daftasabroom]

So I've been thinking for a while that there is too much negative news around climate change and sustainability. Whether that's Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion gluing themselves to things, or various MN posters either denying the science or our power as individuals to change the world.

As an antidote I'd like to offer up a thread encouraging meaningful things we can do as individuals, communities and companies to address the climate challenges we face.

@greenspaceplace you're right we do need to address all sources of emissions, but that doesn't necessarily mean stopping doing things, it means do things differently.

The biggest factor, by a very long way, is burning fossil fuels.

Slightly less than 20% of all food related emissions can be attributed to food miles. There's a good study here.

@greenspaceplace sorry i forgot the link

If you have the time to read it you'll see how really complex this can get. And a word of caution, food miles would normally by accounted for transport emissions rather agriculture.

Ourworld in data is a great resource.

EV's are great for reducing local air pollution, but from what i ve read, they have a very poor carbon footprint and being v heavy, wreck roads, most people take many years to reach 100k esp in cars with limited range.

I'd limit engine size to 1200 or similar, as EV's are still unaffordable for most people and who wants to be left with a huge bill for new batteries if buying 2nd hand.

Oxford PV are manufacturing in Germany, they had support from the German Govt, i'm afraid i don't know enough about SA rules but the German Govt seem to have found a way.

Agree 1000% we need to be cutting down on everything and legislating, guidelines just wont cut it anymore, if they ever did.

@helford my last car "retired" after 278,000 miles. I think a 100,000 mile limit is maybe a legacy from the 1950s.

No offense intended but basing automotive technical requirements and legislation on MN hearsay probably isn't a great way forward.

Who's been left with a huge bill for batteries?

TATA Steel

Exactly, basing vehicle mileage on the unsubstantiated claims of MN posters... average mileage in the UK is around 8 to 12k, with MOT stats suggesting approx 8k for older cars, so 10 to 12 years to reach your 100k

I'm not entirely sure the environmental damage caused by the mining of minerals for EV batteries etc is going to help climate change, nor will the export of all these EV cars and batteries or the building of this factory on a greenfield site, roads and the cars used for the 9000 workers to get there :(

Its also very strange that when a genuine climate change solution (Oxford PV don't use the minerals trad panels use and obv aren't made in China) is denied any aid, is all ok due to State Aid rules but don't seem to mind Govt/Tax payer subsidy (state aid) is used to bolster our love affair with the motor vehicle, one reason why we are in such a mess.

The attractiveness of the UK lies in the subsidies and financial incentives offered by the government, which may sway the decision in favour of the UK

Makes me wonder about your core beliefs and motivation.

@Howpo The roughly 100,000 mile carbon footprint breakpoint for EVs to be greener than ICE is based on studies by Polestar and Renault and are both cradle to grave LCAs. Independently audited.

My understanding is that the TATA factory will be built on a brown field site.

@Howpo it's also untrue to say that Oxford PV haven't received any state aid. They have received funding from EPSRC and IUK. In which case it seems that they are still somewhere in the early to mid TRLs in which case they aren unlikely to be ready to build a factory in the near future.

The incentives mentioned in your cut and paste refer to the recent tax relief scheme recently introduced in the USA making a NASDAQ stock listing more attractive than AIM.

Gosh my sentence structure is aweful this morning, not much sleep last night.

Some really good positive ways we can make changes on this thread. Thanks for the pointer @Daftasabroom

Me too on the sleep front. Ugh!

I hope that no one minds me spamming this thread slightly. I'm proposing a merger between the Weather and Climate Change topics.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/climate_change/4837338-merger-of-climate-change-and-weather-topics

Please can you all take a look if this interests you and add your thoughts.

Hey how about signing this petition? https://bit.ly/rosebank-parentsletter It's really important that there are no new oil and gas projects opened - click through to read more about it before you decide. Instead of this oil field, we need to be focussing on a just transition to clean energy. It's organised by a group call Parents for Future UK if you want to get more involved in that community - it's really safe and welcoming group, and you can join whether you don't know much about climate change or not.

Hi @EmmaJD80s , this thread was meant to be about real action rather than just more protest and petitions. While vocalizing our concerns is worthy it doesn't really get much done.

However, would you care to share why the Rosebank development should be stopped?

Oh, I do hope @MNHQ there is no such merger

None of the threads in here are about the weather!!

@VikingVolva but many of the threads in Weather inevitably involve discussion about climate change. The two are inextricably linked.

News rather than action but interesting none the less.

Vertical first flight

It seems like one of the most impactful things we could do in the uk would be campaigning for planning law changes to ensure onshore wind farms can proliferate. As well as reducing carbon emissions, this will improve our energy security. This is a top top solution.

There are a lot of land management approaches that are a huge deal such as silvopasture and peatland protection. Improving land management practices will also guard against biodiversity loss and protect us against disasters like flooding. We need to work on policy and land ownership structures.

Plant rich diets and reduced food waste are also very impactful and plant rich diets would be beneficial to health if done properly. Influencing cultural change in this area would therefore be worthwhile.

https://drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions

@FloorWipes offshore wind is now on a par cost wise with onshore wind.

Can you link to an analysis on this?

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-record-low-price-for-uk-offshore-wind-is-four-times-cheaper-than-gas/

@FloorWipes a pretty good explanation actually. Installed capacity of offshore wind is due to increase by 500% over the coming decade. (That figure might be a little out of date).

@FloorWipes Its difficult to tell how robust the Drawdown data is. The first assumption I found on food waste is:

We assumed that reduced loss and wastage can be diverted to feed current and future undernourished populations.

There is also very little mention of transport and none on electricity generation.

Some well meaning organisations publish some really dodgy reports.

Windfarms take a lot of energy out of the environment, and the long term effects are not known.

Investing in tidal and solar is likely to be less destabilising

@Market1 Current tidal technology is incredibly expensive and there are very few suitable sites, certainly not enough to get the economies of scale comparable with and solar although perhaps nuclear.

Solar is being massively invested in.

Is taking energy out of the atmosphere a good thing or bad thing?

whether it is a good or a bad thing, nobody knows. But it doesn't seem particularly intelligent to push forward with a technology when no one can predict the effect it will have!

In the UK we have multiple sites suitable for tidal turbines, around our coasts and rivers All along the length of the Thames, for example- I am in favour of developing this more

There isn't enough flow or range on the Thames. We have very very few sites.

That's actually been many studies on the effect of wind turbines on downstream wind patterns. Wind farms are modelled very carefully to ensure optimum positioning. The environmental impact assessments are very detailed.

Why would we know less about the tens of thousands of wind turbines than the handful tidal turbines?