What steps will you take to reduce your carbon footprint?

[volvolugnut]

You may or may not agree that there is a need to reduce the carbon footprint in your life. If you agree, what steps have you taken or are considering to reduce it?

Will you reduce your annual driving? Get a hybrid or all electric vehicle? Add solar or wind power at your home? Perhaps use only recyclable products. Maybe plant several trees in your yard.

What changes will you make?

volvolugnut

[matthew1]

I've got a bee-friendly front yard. Flowers and pollen plants all over. Bees love it. That's not a carbon thing, well maybe it is in a secondary or tertiary sense.

MVS shirts I ship in compostible parcel bags.

I drive a car that gets 30 MPG city when I drive like a grandmother. 45 MPG highway.

I take grocery bags to the store.

Electricity and natural gas use are lower than average.

Recycle.

[Sveedy]

Renew, repurpose, restore, and recycle. Seems like most of us do that to some degree, if for no other reason than we fix our rides instead of replacing them. I heard once that if you keep a car in good running condition, and it's clocked over 100k miles, then your actually creating a smaller carbon footprint than if you replaced it with a new car. That might not apply to electric of course.
So with my daily driver '94 Cherokee just about to turn 400k, I think I'm doing alright in that regard.

I also recycle inc scrap steel, use canvas shopping bags, avoid plastic in favor of glass and try to grow what I can. House is passive solar but I'd love to go full solar.

I dream of a solar powered house with a electric car that charges quickly at home. No electric bills, no gas bills, and no fuel bills.

[matthew1]

I dream of a solar powered house with a electric car that charges quickly at home. No electric bills, no gas bills, and no fuel bills.

That is a utopia right there.

[BlackBart]

Renew, repurpose, restore, and recycle. Seems like most of us do that to some degree, if for no other reason than we fix our rides instead of replacing them. I heard once that if you keep a car in good running condition, and it's clocked over 100k miles, then your actually creating a smaller carbon footprint than if you replaced it with a new car.

I agree with all of this. Embodied energy I think they call it.

We haven't done much to save the world, but we try to make a little dent where we can. We don't buy much "stuff," we live a simple life. I work at home - zero commute. My wife's job is a mile away. I used to bike commute for many years, 16 miles a day back in Seattle - more for the parking, traffic frustration, and exercise than anything else.

We have too many cars, but we mostly use one, at about 20 miles a week unless there's a weekend trip in there, and things are far apart in Montana. We do a lot of gardening and garden design, which literally changes the temperature from the street to our yard - it's noticeable. Grow some veggies, potatoes, beans.

We had to put on a new roof anyway, so with some help I took the roof apart and we spray foam insulated the whole thing while it was open - went from maybe R-8 (from the 1940s) to R-48 where we could get enough thickness. Always trying to seal this old place up better where we can. We couldn't afford solar panels after the cost of the roof, but they're coming down in cost.

I was pretty anti-Prius when they got popular - a good appliance but not a very good car - not agile, not light, not fun, and no more efficient than a Euro diesel Golf or Peugeot (none of which we get here however). I thought the electric technology had generations to go before it was viable and useful.

But now I think in our lifetimes we'll see a significant proportion of battery electric cars on the road. It'll be especially useful tech for mail trucks, delivery trucks, garbage trucks - all that in-city, closed-loop kind of driving, where they can charge in the shop overnight.

The charging network infrastructure has a long way to go, as does battery energy storage. What about city apartment dwellers parking on the street or in a non-powered garage? And The Big Question what is the power grid fueled by? Coal? Solar? Wind? Weird new exotic battery farms? Volcano-powered heat pumps? I think the current trick of trying to get people to try electric cars because they have 400+ horsepower will eventually calm down and there'll be decent range, affordable battery electrics for sale. Like anything, some manufacturers will be way better than others. Trying to get Americans to buy small cars is a real chore. How we would take our typical 500 to 900 mile trip in one day I'm not sure.

Right now, I really like the redesigned Fiat 500, which is all electric but only available in Europe and Brazil. It's a perfect town car, fun to drive, and stylish to boot! Looks a lot like the original 500 from the 1950s. Use the Volvo wagon for freeway trips and hauling things.

Fiat 500 Electric.jpg (80.41 KiB) Viewed 594 times

[manovlov]

I broke diplomatic ties with my mother-in-law. She no longer comes once a week at a rate of 100 kms round trip. It's a start...

I work 400 meters from each of my professional places, I only use the 850 to try to lose my German shepperd in the forest on Saturday mornings, which never works, as this dog is stuck to my sneakers!

I buy my legumes locally, from a local producer. My rice and everything else is bought in bulk. My yogurts are also local, and made in glass jars.

My wife and children are organic!

I drive about 2500 kms per year. That I persist in repairing. I only cultivate my soul, because I don't have a garden.

My next big and last project will be to build my passive house, solar, on a big plot of land, where I will have taken care to plant lots of fruit trees, (I love fruits, like all the great apes).

I'm putting time into recording a lot of music concerts for my old age, jazz, blues, salsa, classical music...) hoping that my old Imac will last until then. By the way, I'm thinking of getting a second one for pieces, just to stay autonomous...

[volvolugnut]

I broke diplomatic ties with my mother-in-law. She no longer comes once a week at a rate of 100 kms round trip. It's a start...

I work 400 meters from each of my professional places, I only use the 850 to try to lose my German shepperd in the forest on Saturday mornings, which never works, as this dog is stuck to my sneakers!

I buy my legumes locally, from a local producer. My rice and everything else is bought in bulk. My yogurts are also local, and made in glass jars.

My wife and children are organic!

I drive about 2500 kms per year. That I persist in repairing. I only cultivate my soul, because I don't have a garden.

My next big and last project will be to build my passive house, solar, on a big plot of land, where I will have taken care to plant lots of fruit trees, (I love fruits, like all the great apes).

I'm putting time into recording a lot of music concerts for my old age, jazz, blues, salsa, classical music...) hoping that my old Imac will last until then. By the way, I'm thinking of getting a second one for pieces, just to stay autonomous...

I like your approach to these issues.

volvolugnut

[manovlov]

I broke diplomatic ties with my mother-in-law. She no longer comes once a week at a rate of 100 kms round trip. It's a start...

I work 400 meters from each of my professional places, I only use the 850 to try to lose my German shepperd in the forest on Saturday mornings, which never works, as this dog is stuck to my sneakers!

I buy my legumes locally, from a local producer. My rice and everything else is bought in bulk. My yogurts are also local, and made in glass jars.

My wife and children are organic!

I drive about 2500 kms per year. That I persist in repairing. I only cultivate my soul, because I don't have a garden.

My next big and last project will be to build my passive house, solar, on a big plot of land, where I will have taken care to plant lots of fruit trees, (I love fruits, like all the great apes).

I'm putting time into recording a lot of music concerts for my old age, jazz, blues, salsa, classical music...) hoping that my old Imac will last until then. By the way, I'm thinking of getting a second one for pieces, just to stay autonomous...

I like your approach to these issues.

volvolugnut

I like your approach of my approach...