We’re all trying to do our best to protect the environment and to reduce our carbon footprint. Yet it’s easy to do things that are actually counterproductive, as there are so many myths and misconceptions out there that are constantly being repeated. We’ve therefore produced this guide of 4 common ones.
1. Buying too many bags for life
We all know the situation: We’ve arrived at the supermarket and realise that we’ve forgotten our bag at home. We know that single-use plastic is bad, so instead of getting a plastic carrier for 10p, we buy a bag for life for £1. When we’re home we add it to the pile of the 10 others we already have.
When the government introduced the 10p single-use plastic bag charge, it led to a reduction in their use of 98%. This is an astounding result which shows that government policy can be extremely successful in nudging us towards making the right decisions.
We should absolutely avoid using single-use carrier bags. However, a bag for life has a much higher carbon footprint to produce (in the case of plastic 3-4 times higher, with cotton it’s even 130 times higher), which means it needs to be used many times in order to actually save emissions.
The bottom line: Reuse what you have as often as you can and throw away as little as possible. But if you find yourself in a pickle, a single-use plastic bag might be a better option than buying your tenth bag for life. The same applies to your reusable water bottle.
2. Thinking ‘local’ is always better
When people are made aware of the enormous environmental impact of animal agriculture on land use, water wastage, energy wastage (nearly 80% of all soya produced worldwide is fed to livestock) and carbon emissions, their reaction is often: “But I buy my meat locally from a local farmer. They’re happy cows who can roam large pastures and are fed on grass. Meat from far away is bad, but when it’s local, it’s good.”
This is one of the most persistent misconceptions, probably influenced by a romantic nostalgia of how life used to be in the idyllic countryside.
The decisive factor is not where food is produced, but how much energy is needed to produce it. A cow in Surrey eats just as much as a cow in Argentina.
Animal agriculture is so bad because it is extremely inefficient and requires a large amount of land and resources. We actually use up more calories worldwide by feeding livestock than we obtain from eating it.
Whilst of course transportation plays a role, its impact is much smaller than most people estimate. Most food isn’t transported by airplane, but on large container ships, which are – due to their massive capacity – quite energy efficient. Estimates on the impact of transportation on food production emissions vary from around 4-15%.
What applies to meat also applies to other food sources.
The example always named is the tomato grown in a greenhouse here in the UK, which needs much more energy to produce than one imported from Mexico. Another favourite is the avocado. An avocado sandwich has lower emissions than a bacon-butty.
Bottom line: We should absolutely go to the Farmers’ market and support our local food producers as much as possible. We should also be aware when fruit and vegetables are in season and buy them locally.
But we should also know that beef is just as bad for the environment (and for the cows!) when it’s from Surrey as it is when it’s from Argentina; and that a UK greenhouse tomato is worse than one imported from Mexico.
3. Thinking that ‘organic’ food is just the same, but more expensive
We are constantly being bombarded by misleading marketing. It’s therefore natural to suspect that the label ‘organic’ might just be another ruse to get us to spend more money.
The facts are that organic farming uses no artificial fertilisers, only a very limited number of naturally-derived pesticides, and no preventative antibiotics.
The use of synthetic fertilisers in conventional farming is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 5% of the world’s total. The excessive use of these fertilisers – of which up to 80% leaks into the environment – leads not only to pollution of our countryside and rivers, but also erodes and ultimately destroys the soil.
Organic farming uses crop rotation and planting of trees and hedges between fields, and legumes to enrich the soil. This keeps the soil much more healthy – organic soils have more earthworms, microbes and are able to store more carbon, thereby reducing emissions.
The use of hundreds of different pesticides in conventional farming is a major driver of insect decline. Organic farms have therefore more biodiversity and protect insect life.
On the other hand, organic farming brings lower yields, which means much more land is needed to produce the same amount of food. Would all farms in the UK become organic using the same land, it would mean that food production would drop by 40%. More food imported would mean higher emissions.
Equally, the nitrogen-rich manure that organic chicken farms produce leaks into our rivers just as much as that of non-organic ones.
It is therefore a mixed picture.
Bottom line: If you can afford it, it is better to eat organic food, not just from an environmental, but also a health perspective.
However, the picture is complicated. Organic is better, but it is not a solution in itself. Reducing our meat consumption will have a bigger impact.
4. Worrying about small things whilst losing sight of the bigger picture
When we brush our teeth, we make sure to turn the tap off so we don’t waste any water. Fossil fuel companies take a sledgehammer and burst every single pipe in the house, making sure the water gushes everywhere with full force 24/7. Then they spend billions to influence politicians and to convince the public that either: 1.Their house is dry, or 2.All this water is needed to keep the economy going.
We should remember that BP invented the ‘personal carbon footprint’. They did it to shift responsibility towards the consumer and away from them.
The fact is that what we can do as an individual through our behaviour changes little compared to the damage that corporations and governments cause every single day. It’s therefore not worth having sleepless nights over using a single plastic bag, leaving the tap on, or cheating on our vegan diet.
That’s the bigger picture: we have to remember who’s actually responsible.
What we can do and what we’re here for is to create a ripple.
If we change our own behaviour, it will influence others. It will catch on.
The most important thing is to send a message. By joining environmental groups, organising events and making ourselves heard we will get politicians on board. By debunking misinformation we will get the public on board.
We will make our vote count by never voting for any politicians that don’t put planet over profit (which unfortunately, at the moment, still leaves a very limited choice).
This is why organisations such as Friends of the Earth are so important, both on a national as well as on a local level.
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