I’ve set up a YouTube channel centred around everything low-carbon, sustainable and green. The channel is called Fifty Shades of Green, and the first video I’ve uploaded is a flight-free trip from Lancaster to the French Alps by train and bicycle.
I hope you enjoy it! I’m already working on the next episode.
This morning I have written to all of the councillors on Cumbria County Council’s Development Control and Regulation Committee. The committee is due to meet this Friday 2 October at 9am to consider West Cumbria Mining’s proposal to develop a new metallurgical coal mine in Whitehaven. I am imploring them to reject this proposal.
Today, supported by my company, I attended the Climate Strike in Keswick, organised by pupils at the Keswick School who are members of the UK Student Climate Network. This formed part of a Global Climate Strike that has been coordinated by 350.org and FridaysForFuture. It has been such an inspiring day, and I wanted to get the photos that I had taken posted as soon as possible.
I’m currently reading Simon L. Lewis and Mark A. Maslin’s The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene. In the first couple of chapters, the authors lay down some history of the human interpretation of climate change. I find it mind-blowing that we understood our ability to affect this planet’s climate through our activities, and that we were discussing it, more than 200 years ago. Geologists like Thomas Jenkyn and enlightenment giant, George-Louis Leclerc (better known as the Comte de Buffon) both wrote and gave lectures on the topic.
Before going any further here, I want to make it clear that I’m well aware of the shortcomings of carbon offsetting, wonderfully satirised by the folks behind Cheat Neutral. However, carbon offsetting is undeniably better than doing nothing. And as sustainable as you might try to be, it probably isn’t enough. The World Resources Institute have calculated that we should be aiming for a maximum limit of two tons of CO₂ emissions per person, per year. And yet it is calculated that the average EU citizen incurs 9.1 tons of CO₂ emissions. The average US citizen emits about twice as much as this.
Jack Lenox 