In which I am cross at the Grauniad

[the0lady]

Those unfortunate enough to have exposure to my periodic episodes of wibble may recall that a while back a was very upset because, having taken the Guardian's carbon footprint calculator test, I found out that I have a much larger carbon footprint than the average UK consumer (17.6 to the average 15.4

Comments

[worst_witch]

Well I just did mine for fun and came out at 10.08 tonnes. They are now saying that the UK average is 9.7 tonnes per person. Apparently my 'secondary' lifestyle accounts for 4.9 tonnes of that. My 16-year-old fuel injection petrol car is allegedly less damaging to the environment than my tendency to buy new clothes rather than second hand ones and eat meat more than once a week.

Well as I walk almost everywhere I need to get to and specifically rented a flat that allowed me to do that, I don't use my heating, don't leave appliances on standby, don't make impulse purchases for myself and don't go out socially I would love to know what the Grauniad think I ought to be doing to lower my carbon footprint. I suspect it would be something along the lines of wearing only fairtrade cotton clothes from a carbon offsetting retailer, and that's fair enough. If they would now like to explain to me how to do that when the money I earn doesn't cover my living expenses then we'll all be set for a happy, green, sustainable future.

The Grauniad really is a very class orientated calculator, http://carboncalculator.direct.gov.uk/index.html is the governemnt one that doesn't ask about shopping habits and gives me 4.12 tonnes against an average of 4.69 tonnes.

[the0lady]

Thank for the link, I've done the gov one and I'm still above average (6.6 tonnes), mainly due to having double the travel footprint of the average person. So some 10:10 type of personal goal on flights still seems to be in order.

It makes me even madder to think that the Guardian are putting people off making this sort of effort by making it seem more daunting than it really is! I don't understand what, other than moralistic holier-than-thou mileage, they think they're delivering to the public with their type of coverage.