spending our way to climate change...

I know a little bit about climate change, and think about my impact on the environment quite a bit. I've thought a lot about how my parent's and grandparent's generations "made do" a lot more, by mending broken things, using hand-me-downs, buying second-hand. Goods were relatively expensive then, and it was more about home economics than anything else. It bugs me that goods are artificially cheap now, and that can't go on forever (the cost of labour will need to go up in manufacturing countries at some point, and I'm positive petrol will go up in price as we run out of it). I'm talking purely from an economic point of view here - however I've known that consumerism has a "carbon footprint", but not really known how much.


The results of a study by the ACF and Sydney University hit the press yesterday:


"Wealthy families in suburbs such as Woollahra, North Sydney, Mosman and Ku-ring-gai, who can afford to install solar power and large water tanks, still have the biggest ecological footprint because of the goods and services they buy.
Shopping habits represent such a large part of greenhouse gas emissions that even if every household switched to renewable energy and stopped driving cars tomorrow, total household emissions would fall by less than 20 per cent, the study found. On average, every additional dollar of consumption was responsible for 720 grams of greenhouse gas emissions and 28 litres of water."


Part of me says "Thank god someone has quantified this", part of me says "SHIT!". I've clearly got a long way to go. Here's what I do to reduce unnecessary spending/environmental impact:


- don't use detergent unless necessary, and use less than is recommended
- turn off all electronic equipment at the button/plug most nights
- use a blanket/extra jumper if cold
- shower every 2nd day or longer if I can get away with it
- drive only when I can't walk or catch train/bus
- I'm mindful of the miles the goods I buy at the supermarket have travelled
- increasingly buying organic (if the above is not too high)
- I'm restrained from buying stuff for the sake of it, including for our minor birthdays. E.g our CD player is circa 1990, and the speakers and amp we have are 2nd hand and many years older and we see no need to get a new one until it stops working.
- mostly use nappies made from recycled/renewable plantation/biodegradable material
- only use the clothers dryer for large things like sheets in wet, cold weather
- have changed most of our light globes over to energy efficient ones and have a water-saving shower head in our shower.
- we recycle everything we can (not just waste - keep every little paperclip etc that comes available to use later)
- we share/offer to share baby resources we've grown out of (clothes, bottle sterilisers etc) with friends


But:

- We use disposable nappies
- I have nowhere to compost my food waste and only a small area to hang clothes out to dry (not having a garden and only having a small balcony)
- I have to use some plain moisturisers that are pure petroleum product (a bit like vaseline, with no additives, scents etc)
- I don't seek many 2nd hand clothes when shopping for clothes
- I don't eat as much vegetatian food as I thought (so I found out last night when we had a Piscatarian to dinner, and I ended up cooking fish, despite intending to do vego food and combing my recipe books for ideas...)
- we waste some food each week


I'm sure the list goes on, but this is what comes to mind for now.