Giving up carbon for Lent

[pegkerr]

Here's an interesting article I found on one of the environmental Twitter feeds I'm following. Apparently, two senior Church of England Bishops have called on people to give up carbon rather than chocolate for Lent. Ash Wednesday is tomorrow. Here are ten things you can do.

(Got this from TwilightEarth)

Comments

[fireriven.livejournal.com]

Considering we are carbon-based lifeforms and carbon is a fundamental part of our atmosphere and the fact that we passively produce carbon when we exhale... this made me LOL.

[carbonel]

ObNitpick: Ash Wednesday is only tomorrow for values of "tomorrow" that start two hours from when you posted this. Today being Monday and all, still.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

We never use "heat dry" on our dishwasher. I'm a bit puzzled about why anyone does.

I confess, cloth napkins--used more than once, which is the only way that makes eco sense--give me the creeps. Maybe I'm a messier eater than most people, but the idea of wiping my hands, and especially my mouth, on a cloth that has yesterday's and two days ago's (and older) food on it just grosses me out. And I can't imagine how it's healthy for the human, even if it is for the planet.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Hm, I'm already not driving a car most days. I don't think I want to turn the heat down any farther in the house, it's already close to 50*F at night, and just over 60 in the day.

Our dishwasher actually air dries, it doesn't even have a dry cycle option (it's a fairly nice Bosch) so it definitely is more efficient than hand washing. I still hand wash a lot since we don't like to put some things in the washer.

We already do pretty much all the other stuff on the list anyway. Too bad they didn't mention recycling. Garbage generation in the US is a huge issue. People should really look at how much packaging is in stuff they buy. I try to buy OEM components or low/no packaging options if there's a choice.

[sraun]

I believe the assumption is use & wash, like towels. Which produces a different set of problems.

I hate some of those carbon analyses (sp?) - some of them assume that all of the carbon inputs contribute 100% to the item in your hand. Kind of like the 'give up beef' entry in the list Peg points to - it says one pound of beef includes "270 antibiotic injections" - they're trying to tell me that the cow had 81,000 antibiotic injections (assuming 1000 pounds of live weight, yielding about 300 pounds of marketable meat). That type of assumption makes me doubt all the rest of the numbers they assert - 7 lbs of grain I believe (it matches with numbers I learned long ago), 2500 gallons of water I'm iffier on.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

In all the homes where I have seen cloth napkins used for family daily use, the napkins were reused (by the same person) multiple times between washings. That's what I find icky. And yes, if you wash them after a single use, there are other eco factors. Most of these "green" things are trade-offs, not absolute better and worse.