How to Live a Low-Carbon Life

The Individual's Guide to Tackling Climate Change

Chris Goodall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781136542152
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Drastic reduction of carbon emissions is vital if we are to avoid a catastrophe that devastates large parts of the world. Governments and businesses have been slow to act - individuals need to take the lead now if we are to avoid climate chaos.Each Westener is responsible for an average 10 - 20 tonnes of carbon emissions each year (depending on where you live). In How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, Chris Goodall shows how easy it is to take responsibility, providing a comprehensive, one-stop reference guide to calculating your CO2 emissions and reducing them to a more sustainable 2 tonnes a year. This fully revised and expanded new edition takes into account new government targets on emissions reductions and includes up-to-date calculations and extensive graphics clearly laying out the path to a low-carbon life.

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getting from 14 tonnes to 2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person

Few people know the details of how the activities of our day-to-day lives generate emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gases. This book is intended to provide information and practical suggestions that will enable concerned individuals to do the best they can to reduce their personal responsibility for climate change. I have written it as a reference work to help people make decisions on how to reduce emissions. Individually, of course, we are powerless; but our actions influence those around us. Neighbours and colleagues are subtly influenced by determined and well-informed actions to reduce energy use. Your decisions will push companies to address the large market for low-carbon products, and governments will come to see that real action on climate change is not electorally disastrous.

Taking international air travel and the energy ‘embedded’ in imported goods into account, people in the UK are each responsible for about 14 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year.¹ This figure is approximately the same as the European Union (EU) average. It is somewhat lower than North American or Australian levels but about three or four times the average for China. To an extent that is perhaps still not recognized, individual decisions on what to buy or how to live determine an individual’s greenhouse gas footprint. Increasingly, it is our day-to-day way of life that is causing the continued rise in carbon dioxide and other warming gases. We may like to put the responsibility onto faceless corporations or incompetent government but most of our personal share of the UK’s carbon emissions is set by what we do and what we buy.

Today’s level of 14 tonnes or so needs to fall to about 2 tonnes by 2050 if we are meet the UK government’s targets for emissions. (The precise number depends on how one treats aviation and imported goods.) This an 80 or 90 per cent cut and it sounds an unattainable reduction, but the suggestions in this book show that quite small changes in lifestyle are able to take an individual a long way towards the target. In addition to individual actions, we will need the UK almost completely to stop using fossil fuel to generate electricity or to provide transport. ‘Ten Technologies to Save the Planet’, a book I published in late 2008 as a complement to the first edition of this book, provides one assessment of the best ways to use technology to reduce national emissions.

WHY SHOULD INDIVIDUALS TAKE ANY ACTION?

Although global warming has been recognized as a serious issue by policy makers for at least 20 years, we have so far achieved only very limited reductions in emissions. In fact if we include international air travel and the growing volumes of imported goods, the UK’s national output of greenhouse gases has gone up. Why is our record and that of other countries so bad? The reasons are simple. It is not in the interest of any single government to act to reduce carbon emissions if most of the rest of the world continues to pollute in growing volumes. If, for example, the UK were unilaterally to introduce higher taxes on gas use, and our competitors did not follow, gas-using industries would simply shift abroad. There is no electoral advantage in addressing climate change: applying real restraint on fossil fuel use would lose votes, at little benefit to the global atmosphere, unless every country acted similarly.

Corporations face a similar problem. Their senior executives do genuinely worry about the long-term impact of climate change on the world’s peoples. I never cease to be impressed by the commitment of top businesspeople to doing what they can. However, in market economies, such as the UK, the role of business is no more and no less than to meet consumer requirements at the cheapest possible price. Companies will therefore use the least expensive source of energy, knowing that failure to do so will mean competitors are able to charge less. Furthermore, business will always be able to lobby successfully for the lowest possible energy prices in order that their prices remain internationally competitive.

Second, companies will always follow consumer tastes. If customers demand appliances with higher energy consumption – such as, for example, larger cars, big-screen TVs or American-style refrigerators – companies will supply the requirement. Any company that did not would consign itself to failure. In the modern economy, successful companies meet consumer demands rather than fight against them. Unfortunately, as this book will repeatedly illustrate, many consumers continue to prefer products and services that contain increasing amounts of fossil fuels.

The upshot is that neither government nor companies have much choice about climate change mitigation measures. They can talk a good story, advertise their green credentials and promise future virtue; but they will remain obdurately set in their ways. They will follow what the voters ask for or what purchasers require. We therefore cannot shift the responsibility for dealing with climate change onto others; the responsibility belongs to individual citizens of the world. In particular, it belongs to the educated members of prosperous societies. By our own actions as citizens and as consumers we can show governments and corporations that they should act now. We know enough – it is almost undeniable that climate change is going to devastate large areas of the world, particularly the rural South – and also that we have the capacity easily to reduce our own national impact.

A further point arises. It is not generally understood that it is the wealthiest members of wealthy countries who pollute the most. The heaviest responsibility for addressing the issues of climate change falls upon the economic elite. You may not think of yourself as a member of this club, but you probably are. If you travel abroad for holidays, run a reasonably sized saloon car and have a conventional middle-class lifestyle, your damage to the global environment may be double that of the UK national average. Responsible citizens need to change their habits to provide the signals to government and business that they genuinely want action on climate change. In their speeches and articles, government ministers are making it ever clearer that they want voters actively to support carbon reduction initiatives in order to give politicians more freedom to introduce stronger and stronger measures on climate change.

The year of 2009 has seen another burst of activity from citizen groups, such as the 10:10 campaign organization, spurring us into activity. But getting people to change their ways is rarely easy. We are all lazy and listen to siren voices that say that inertia is a perfectly satisfactory alternative or that responsibility lies elsewhere. Of course, the actions of single individuals, even multiplied a millionfold, are wholly insignificant. Nevertheless, the great movements in social improvement in Western society, such as the end of slavery, the universal franchise, control over child labour and universal primary education, all came after sustained and selfless action by small groups of committed individuals. Take one obvious example: although the Atlantic slave trade ceased because of parliamentary campaigning, this only happened after widespread public disquiet, symbolized by the West Indian sugar boycott. Hundreds of thousands of people – a substantial fraction of the UK population of the 1790s – gave their support to the anti-slavery message by refusing to buy sugar. Their actions gave politicians an important message. My thesis is that substantial action to address climate change can probably only happen in the same way.

This book contains detailed accounts of how today’s lives generate carbon emissions. It tries to show how relatively small changes in lifestyles can cut personal greenhouse gas outputs in half.

THE ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Almost 30 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases enter the atmosphere as a result of human activities each year.² Carbon dioxide is one of the two main products of the combustion of hydrocarbons, such as coal and gas, which fuel the modern economy. This otherwise innocuous gas, the most important human contributor to global warming, still only constitutes about 385 parts per million of the world’s atmosphere. The concentration is rising by 2 to 3 parts per million every year and, if current trends in emissions growth continue, looks set to exceed 500 parts per million (ppm) by 2050, or almost twice pre-industrial levels. Other greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, will push the concentrations to the equivalent of more than 550 ppm. Most climate scientists suggest that we need to set a 2050 target for all greenhouse gases at less than 450 ppm if we are to avoid a worrying possibility of substantial, dangerous and probably irreversible climate changes. Some very influential figures say the number should be 350 ppm, well below what it is at the moment. Of course, carbon emissions need to continue reducing after the 2050 target, ultimately aiming towards zero (or near zero) emissions per person.

Visible light from the sun warms the Earth’s surface. Like a conventional room radiator, the surface eventually retransmits this energy outwards as heat in the form of infrared radiation and convection. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases render the atmosphere less transparent to the outgoing infrared radiation, and the heat is trapped. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will, all other things being equal, raise the temperature of the atmosphere at the Earth’s surface.³

No one can be completely sure about the precise relationship between rising greenhouse gas concentrations and increasing temperatures. The consensus estimate is that a concentration of 550 parts per million is likely to increase temperatures by about 2 to 4 degrees Celsius (°C) above today’s levels. The increase is likely to vary substantially between different parts of the world. The higher temperatures will have a variety of severe effects, ranging from drought in areas now reliant on the summer melting of rapidly disappearing glaciers to higher sea levels, making life impossible in the coastal areas that are home to a large fraction of the world’s population. Some optimists claim we can cope with temperatures 4 degrees higher. In the temperate regions, this is possible. We can build higher sea walls, adjust our agriculture and acclimatize to higher temperatures. In countries living on the margin – stressed already by water shortages, coastal flooding, tropical hurricanes or temperatures too high for good agricultural productivity – this option is not available. In general, it is the poorest countries that are going to find it most difficult to adapt to rising temperatures and disruption of weather patterns. The carbon emissions of the rich world will ruin the lives of the poor.

The mid-point of the range of expected temperature rise by 2050 if we do nothing – 3 degrees – is about half the difference between the temperatures of the last ice age and the early modern period. It may not seem much; but this increase will totally alter the distribution of animal and insect life, often causing extinction as species fail to adapt in time. Even more worryingly, this increase may not be the maximum possible. The modest temperature increases already recorded are inducing changes likely to tip the world towards yet greater rises. These changes include the melting of northern tundras – causing the release of greenhouse gases that had been trapped in permafrost – and the reduction of permanent snow and ice cover, which will tend to reduce the reflection of solar energy back into space.

This story, put here in its simplest possible form, is now well understood and generally agreed by scientists, political policy makers and many concerned citizens around the world. Newspapers devote pages to the problem. Politicians call it the most serious issue facing the globe. Pressure groups campaign ceaselessly to alert the public to particular implications of rising temperatures. There is still disagreement on many matters; but the single fact – universally acknowledged and the subject of no dispute – that carbon dioxide increases the atmosphere’s opacity to infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface – should be enough to convince us that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem that demands real action.

Carbon dioxide is not the only gas to act as a blanket in this way. Other greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, are produced in very much smaller volumes but have a much more virulent warming effect. In the UK, land-based sources of these other gases are tending to decline, except in the case of emissions from agriculture. Nitrous oxide emissions from aircraft engines are growing as the amount of air travel increases.

WITHOUT INDIVIDUAL ACTION EMISSIONS ARE BOUND TO GROW

Even after the price increases in the last few years, energy remains extremely cheap. Petrol may cost over a pound a litre in autumn 2009 and electricity may reach 13 pence a kilowatt hour (kWh) in some parts of the UK; but even at these prices fossil fuels are astonishingly good value for money. A strong human male, working at peak efficiency, can sustain an energy output of about 0.6kW for a few hours a day.⁴ To employ this muscular individual as a labourer at the minimum wage costs something over £5 an hour. Even when working at his best, and without adding any ancillary costs, this man’s work is 60 times as expensive as electricity and over 100 times the price of gas or petrol. This is the root of all our problems. Fossil fuel energy is so cheap and so convenient that its use permeates every aspect of our lives. And as more and more of the world’s people move into the market economy, they will want to replace their labour with petrol or electricity.

The world’s advance from subsistence agriculture to the modern post-industrial state is largely due to the use of huge quantities of fossil fuel to replace human labour. Where one man or woman ploughed the field, often but not always aided by a horse or other working animal, the farmer now employs a huge tractor. The tractor’s parts took energy to make and each hectare of ploughing uses a few litres of diesel, which is taxed, incidentally, at a lower rate than when used in a passenger car. The world’s industries use machines powered by gas or electricity, supervised by tiny numbers of operatives, whose only role is often to monitor the expensive technology that controls the processes. Walk round a modern steelworks and you will see a few employees dotted around in control rooms, their manual labour entirely replaced by expensive machinery and cheap energy. The increases in our standard of living have very largely come from reducing the hard physical work it used to take to make the goods and services we consume. Cheap energy has been a vital ingredient in this change.

Nothing demonstrates the fundamental cheapness of fossil fuels better than the rise of the low-price airline. Starting in the US, these nimble companies have captured a large fraction of Europe’s air travel. In making air travel cheaper than any other form of transport, they have made foreign holidays available to most of the population. Last year, more than half of the UK’s population made at least one flight.⁵ The economics of flying make it easy to see why. EasyJet’s routes average about 1100km in length and the average fuel cost per passenger carried is roughly £15, about the price of a new hardback book or a taxi ride across central London.⁶ Because carbon fuels are so cheap in relation to the alternatives, the underlying demand is largely unresponsive to price changes. Between the first quarters of 2004 and 2006, the price of crude oil almost doubled, from just over $30 a barrel to about $60. In the same period, the total world demand for oil rose from 82.6 million to 85.1 million barrels a day, a rise of about 3 per cent.⁷ The resilience in demand is tribute to the absolute reliance of the world economy upon freely available oil products, particularly petroleum. Of course, eventually the demand for oil may fall as the heaviest users begin to improve the efficiency of their energy-using processes. But for most customers, oil is still remarkably good value and weaning them off a reliance on fossil fuel energy is a demanding task.

The 2008/2009 recession dented oil demand far more than the huge rises in price. But as the world’s economic forecasters began to cautiously predict an end to the downturn, early autumn 2009 saw a matching increase in the International Energy Agency’s forecasts for the level of demand for oil. We certainly haven’t found a way of continuing to grow our economies without using extra volumes of fossil fuel. The low prices for coal, gas and oil help deliver a high material standard of living to people in the developed world. For example, air freight and heated glasshouses can put food items on our plates that were previously unavailable for large portions of the year. However, producing 1kg of air-freighted winter salad takes about 200 times as much energy in heat and light as are contained in the vegetables. Across the rest of Western agriculture, this ratio is far less stark; but it still takes about nine units of energy to put one unit on the British plate. We’ll show later in the book that the high energy density of agriculture is responsible for almost 20 per cent of all carbon emissions in the UK. The long-run downward trend in food prices in the UK is due, in large measure, to the replacement of expensive labour with cheap inputs of energy and with artificial fertilizer derived from natural gas.

The relative cheapness of energy affects our habits across daily life. Many of us leave computers on all the time. The energy use is not great enough to warrant avoiding the inconvenience of powering down the machines and then turning them on again. Our time is worth more to us than the savings we can possibly make by economizing on energy use. So in the circumstances when fossil fuel energy is a clear substitute for labour, the rational person almost always buys the electricity rather than do manual work. Tumble dryers cost about 25 pence to dry a full load. It might take half an hour to put this load on a washing line and take it in again at the end of the day, and therefore many people use dryers even on a windy dry day. The big problem with the successful modern economy is that economic growth makes climate change more and more difficult to fight. As society gets richer and its citizens better paid, it becomes more and more obvious that we should choose the tumble dryer rather than wasting our own time and energy. It certainly does not seem to be worth even turning off the lights in office blocks, whether used by private business or even government departments.

Another example is the recycling of soft drink cans. Making new aluminium is one of the most energy-intensive processes known to man. Each tonne of aluminium takes 15,000kWh to make, or four times the typical yearly electricity use of a UK home. This is one reason why aluminium smelters are often located close to sources of particularly cheap energy. If fossil fuel energy is used, each can of soft drink, weighing 18 grams (g) when empty, has contributed about 150g of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, almost ten times as much. Recycling the can makes good sense in energy terms since it takes less than 10 per cent of the initial energy to recreate a new can. So, in some countries, such as Russia and Brazil, the soft drink industry operates a loop: the can is filled, collected and returned, melted down and refashioned, and then taken back to the factory for filling with another drink.⁸ But this requires an army of poorer people for whom it is worth collecting cans for a penny or so. Does this system work in countries like the UK? No – there is nobody for whom a penny a can is enough to make it worth collecting the empties. Instead, we have to make or import large quantities of virgin aluminium and, across Europe, less than 50 per cent of new aluminium is reused. Increases in prosperity in developing countries – which none of us want to stop – will mean that the labour to collect cans will eventually dry up. It is true that in some rich countries – Sweden and Switzerland come to mind – strong social pressure can prompt high recycling rates; but these countries are still the exception.

Using fossil fuel energy is almost invariably the quickest, easiest and cheapest way of getting round life’s problem, large and small. Whether it is getting the children to school, buying groceries, enjoying a good holiday or keeping warm in winter, the path of least resistance is usually to take the course that uses fossil fuel. The temptation to re...