July 2008 Archives

I am very pleased to see Community Care magazine discussing the increasing costs for social workers of driving their car, and advocating alternatives (Running on Empty, p. 14, 10th July) and using my column ('Walk this Way', p. 34) on walking and cycling the same week.  Transport is a big part of our carbon footprint and if we can reduce car use and replace with public transport, bike or even occasionally work from home and teleconference that all helps reduce the fossil fuels used and the pollution we are responsible for.

However, there is sometimes a need to carry items which wouldn't initially seem to be easily taken by bike, but these days there are many ways to shift bulky stuff by bike.  I have a pair of Ortlieb panniers called 'Back-Roller Plus' which are waterproof and hold my laptop or childrens' rucsacks with ease.  These attach to my rear rack, which can also be used to strap things onto... I use elastic 'bungees' which can be sourced at motoring or cycling shops.  On my travels I often find bungees which have not been adequately fixed onto the vehicle and they've fallen off.... I pick them up and reuse them.  My tip for not losing them is to put them on carefully and when you've cycled for 10 minutes or so, just check them.  Sometimes things settle once you've got going and the bungees need to be re-fixed more tightly so they don't fall off... to be found by another re-user!

For bigger bulkier items including small people and pets, there are trailers. There are so many makes and styles of trailer... and mine was built specially for me to enable me to carry my circus equipment around, so as 'Professor Fiddlesticks'  I can travel around by bike with full circus party stuff in tow... But a good make is a BOB Yak as it only has one wheel and is quite narrow to get down the lines of traffic jams!   But Google 'bike trailers' and be amazed by the different sorts, or visit your local retailer and ask them what they have available.

What this planet and its supportive ecosystems need is for people in developed countries to change their current consumerist fossil-fuel-hungry ways and move swiftly towards a low carbon economy. But many people need a trigger to initiate that change and take action.  People also easily find arguments to not take any action or just small easy ones.

One of the arguments I hear most often against the West cutting their own carbon emissions is the growth of emissions in China and other developing countries.  But about a third of China's emissions are directly attributable to exports... so these should really be counted as the importer's emissions.  To see the size of these exports and where they are going to, I suggest using the services of Worldmapper, who produce distorted and morphed world maps based on many different variables.  For example, look at World toy exports, and you'll see that China and the Far East are by far the biggest producers.  Then flick to toy imports, and Noth America and Europe are the biggest consumers.  If we consumers want to help cut global carbon emissions, we need to buy less stuff overall, and especially imported stuff which has it's own shipping and airfreight footprints.

I find these maps fascinating, as it gives us a whole new perspective on the world.  One of my early triggers which changed my life for the greener was travelling around Zimbabwe in 1990. I saw the inequalities first hand; the poverty, pollution, misgovenance, differing values about human life, and other hugely positive differences such as generosity, the importance of celebration and music, creativity and much more.  Travelling to a developing country might be one way of understanding some of the problems the World has, but it has it's downside too, mainly air travel, so my second best bet is to watch documentaries, read books and magazines and visit websites. 

I get the feeling that it's actually Gordon agreeing with me... has he been reading this blog?  Well, maybe, but I was pleased that the issue of wasted food was raised at the highest political levels, at the G8 Summit in Japan.  Many people were not pleased at Brown's 'advice' and the fact that the group had a huge multi-coursed meal with associated..... WASTE!!!

Most people think that there are too many cars on the road, including many drivers, who, as drivers, are part of the problem.  So are there any solutions?  Well public transport, road tolls, home working and supermarket deliveries may all be part of a solution, but there is another way in which the number of cars could be (slightly) reduced.  This is the car-club/car sharing concept.