Ecotricity sounds interesting.

Already do walking or cycling.

Don't we all already charity shop unwanted dvds, books, clothes etc?

I don't think there are any easy answers to climate change. We expect to travel more, including flying. Not many households could really be expected to give up the family car completely. And there just so many of us and we have more money to spend than in the past. That doesn't mean we should stop trying of course.

My friend's son decided that he wasn't going to use his car anymore for any journeyt hat could be cycled in under an hour - including taking children to school. He cycles them there in a sort of cart and they absolutely love it, always smiling when I see them out and about.

I dodn't know about 'green energy' thoug, so may look into that. And I'm already a vegetarian!

Elena

I love to see kids in those little bike trailers! Really good idea. (So long as the roads are fairly quiet)

I used to cycle to work and for pleasure,until I became disabled.I do not drive a car,I have recently changed to Ecotricity,I rarely eat meat,buy local where possible and recycle or donate old clothes.I'm looking into changing to Ecover cleaning products.
When I was small,dad used to take me and my brother out in a trailer on the back of his bike,great fun!

Walked the 3-year old back from Playbox today. Only about a mile but we found time to look at the flowers in all the front gardens though I had to explain to him why he couldn't pick some for me

What is the point of publicising an event like this in the week it happens. It should have been publicised a month in advance so that participants had a chance to think it through, discover things they could do or to publicise it themselves to groups they are involved in.

Like most of these initiatives it sounds very town/city based. If you live in a rural area, public transport is non-existence or does not go where you want it to. facilities are within walking distance or five miles away and while young men in lycra do cycle our rural roads, I wouldn't want to risk it, especially at night - and a 10 mile round trip to the nearest town and back, particularly if on the return journey your bike is loaded down with shopping, is going to be too tiring for the vast majority of people who are no longer young.

Most of the parents delivering their children by car to the school across the road do so because they drop the children at school on the way to work, which may be 15 or more miles.

Just popped back to see what's going on.
Have a look at this if you still have doubts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKyRHDFKEXQ

Doing your bit is fine but its the politicians who have to be convinced.
They also have to be convinced that the public will go along with the sort of action that is needed.

Nobody's interested carbon. Apart from me, that is.

That is not a fair statement durhamjen there are quite number of Gransnetters who are concerned about climate change. However not all of us share a common view on what is the best way to deal with it.

I said that, Flickety, because the thread had gone back down to the bottom of the page, and nobody had responded. 7.5 hours between her post and mine. And you responded to me after 22 hours.
I wondered why I had not seen this before, but I think it was when I was not using the computer for a while.
I have been with Ecotricity for a few years, since it began, in fact.
I have just realised, Gillybob, that Ecotricity say they charge the same for people using a prepay meter, because they only have one tariff.

Well, I have been away since Tuesday morning, returning home Thursday afternoon. During that time I have had no access to a computer, which explains my lack of response. More generally, there are days when I check Gransnet several times a day, but on busy days, even at home, I sometimes barely have time to check my emails let alone browse Gransnet.

I must also confess that over the last month or so there has been a shortage of threads that interest me so I have looked at Gransnet less anyway. I am sure many other people have felt the same.

I think also that this subject has been discussed exhaustively quite a number of times and that I, certainly, have reached a point of considering that everything that can be said has been said several times and is there any advantage in running through the same old discussion in the same old way all over again. It doesn't mean that the issue no longer concerns me, just that I am not interested in discussing it on Gransnet

So long as there are damaging deniers we have to keep at it. Or do we just give up? I have grandchildren so I am morally obliged to keep trying to get the message over. (politicians will do nothing until voters understand the urgency and press them into action)

We should be interested and not bury our heads in the sand. The very small percentage of experts who deny climate change have a lot to answer for.

Scientists agree climate change is man made

But how does endlessly rehearsing the same old arguments on Gransnet help?

Actions speak louder than words. If there is a discussion let it be on practically ways of reducing energy consumption at personal and at a wider level. I think we pay far too much attention to climate deniers. They are a minority and discredited. It is like the MMR controversy, the more the discredited researcher was heard and his ideas discussed the more people took notice of them and refused the inoculation.

We use to much energy anyway, without even taking climate change into the equation. Practical ways of cutting that down (and saving money at the same time) would get home to more people than keeping up ideological arguments and counter-statistics about the future - more people would respond to present-day savings than to predictions.

Agree with *Elegran]

In fact, too much emphasis on responsibility for the future of the planet can be counter-productive. Eyes glaze over and the equivalent of not-in-my-backyard takes over. A kind of how-awful-but-I-can't-take all-that-responsibility.

Smaller actions that can make a modest impression are more likely to be taken on board, and lead to someone feeling that they can make some difference, so it is worth them encouraging others to do something too.

Sorry Elegran

Small actions are all very well but they will never be enough. We have to convince the general public so that governments feel they have voters permission to take action.

One of the reasons the tories were elected was because they said they would be the greenest government ever. They lied about that as well as lots of other things.
It's probably fair to say that those of us who debate climate change on here also debate it in many other ways, both practically and online.
We also do things to show we support climate change groups like Greenpeace and FOE, as well as vegetarian groups. We cannot do everything, but I would feel I was letting down my grandchildren if I did not try to do what I could.
I can no longer go on picket lines so I support those who can financially.
Cuadrilla has been given permission to drill at Balcombe. Those who picketed there must feel so frustrated. Not permission to frack, but to drill.

I wonder what China and Russia are doing about climate change? And the US?

Are you advocating doing nothing because other countries are not, goldengirl?
China has the biggest 5 year average growth in windpower, over 50%, followed by the US, with 20%.
In the whole of the EU, the growth was 12.5%.

Of course not durhamjen. I think the UK is trying hard over all but I do think more could be done to encourage other countries though quite what I don't know.

Why do not some of the worthy international organisations that are constantly talking about this issue get together and do something?

How about all the Green parties, Friends of the Earth, Green Peace etc start an international campaign to boycott products from countries not working hard enough to reduce emissions

Of course it is going to require deep sacrifices from those of us who take part, as so many of the manufactured goods we buy come from China and I would emphatically include in the boycott any country that thinks that windpower is the way forward. Windpower is unreliable and uncontrollable and makes it impossible for any almost any country to develop a well balanced and sustainable renewable energy industry except in a few very limited circumstances. Windpower is used by governments as a cosmetic to hide the fact that they are unprepared to make the changes needed to really develop a carbon free economy.

One of the major producers of carbon emisssions is the transport industry, road, rail, sea and air and little or nothing is being done about producing viable non-carbon producing fuels for transport. Once again all the money and investment goes into electric vehicles, which admittedly do not themselves produce emissions, but the hydrocarbon-fired power station that produces the electricity they use does.