Modern life has become so complicated that it is often hard to know what is the right, green thing to do. For instance, which is better for the environment: tomatoes grown in Spain and transported to Ireland, or tomatoes grown here in heated greenhouses?
To tackle this complexity, researchers and companies are putting considerable effort into ‘carbon counting’ , to give us answers in the form of simple numbers. Answers we can then use to reduce our carbon footprint.
For the last two years, I’ve been researching and compiling a new practical guide to green living, and if I learned one thing, it is that there are no easy answers. Carbon counting is often only half the story, and if we really want to reduce our footprint, we need to look at the bigger picture. With that in mind, I’ve drawn up 10 top tips (see below), that can help, and may even save you some time and money.
Focus only on CO2 and the ‘carbon footprint’, and the Spanish tomatoes will be ‘greener’, because the environmental cost of heating an Irish greenhouse is greater than transporting the fruits from Spain.
Perhaps a better question is to ask when is the best time to eat tomatoes? Now, the answer becomes: in late summer, when they can be grown here without the need for heating.
Or take chicken. It turns out that, when you do the sums, an organic chicken has a bigger carbon footprint than a conventional one, kg for kg, because organic birds take longer and need more food to reach a comparable weight.
Again, rather than focusing solely on CO2, and encouraging consumers to eat green (conventional) chicken, we need to persuade people to eat less meat, regardless of its carbon footprint.
Which brings me to my 10 green commandments. Instead of trying to put numbers on things — numbers that will change every time some step in the process changes, forcing us to recalculate, and revise the listings — I prefer simple rules of thumb.
And that’s what I’ve tried to do in my new book, Drive like a Woman, Shop like a Man. From the 101 tried and tested tips, here are 10 that I hope will help you to live a little more lightly over the coming year, and may even save you some valuable time and money.
1. Get free stuff – try sourcing things you need free on Dublinwaste.ie and Freecycle
2.Eat less meat. (Thou shalt not kill, unnecessarily!)
3. Use off-peak electricity – reduce peak demand, spread the load, and we won’t need to build so many new power plants.
4. Get an SUV! ( A superior urban vehicle — with just two wheels)
5. Eat some of your garden. Forget Spain, grow your own tomatoes.
6. Read newspapers online — quicker, and saves on paper
7.Choose what you wear ‘carefully’ – avoid clothes that need dry cleaning, and look for organic cotton
8.Eat the seasons. Now is the season of parsnips, carrots, and winter greens.
9. Drink sustainable water. From a tap, not a truck
10. Spread the word – if you find something useful, don’t forget to tell your friends and neighbours.
And a happy Chinese New Year to you.
