recipes to cut your own carbon footprint

Mixing subterranean temperatures via a conduit with your home or building's atmosphere could reduce the need for both heat and cooling. I would think that would be pretty big savings if you are mixing the equivalent of temperature outside with say equal volume of  steady 52 F degree air, you potentially get  76 F on a hundred degree day and at 32 f you get 42 F and much more with properly oriented SSE facing windows.  Digging involved but the effect lasts a lifetime.

Phil Swindler wrote:Depending on exactly what hydrocarbon molecules are in the gasoline, 19 pounds of CO2 could be pretty close.

Hubby printed me off a sheet from the Canadian Gov't a while ago as we were trying to get some idea of how many grams of biochar* would offset how many liters of gasoline. To quote the line that follows a very similar answer to Phil's, "This is how 1 L (liter) of gasoline, which contains about 0.63 kg of carbon, can produce about 2.3 kg of CO2."  I post this for all the permies who don't speak "Imperial Measurements".

* we determined that if you can make biochar out of waste materials like our locally invasive English Ivy, it may not reduce your personal carbon footprint, but it will offset it. The problem is the solution! (The Ivy's killing some trees we'd like to keep.)

Thanks for that explanation, Phil. It really helps explain why CO2 is the favourite scare gas of climate alarmists or anyone with animus against combustion. A little goes a long way in enabling reference to tons. Of course, the amount of carbon itself isn't being increased, so talking about "tons of carbon" is misleading. But then again, we're living in an age of misleading claims and campaigns, so the best we can do is to ignore the scares and to focus on our "backyards".

David Wieland wrote:Thanks for that explanation, Phil. It really helps explain why CO2 is the favourite scare gas of climate alarmists or anyone with animus against combustion. A little goes a long way in enabling reference to tons. Of course, the amount of carbon itself isn't being increased, so talking about "tons of carbon" is misleading. But then again, we're living in an age of misleading claims and campaigns, so the best we can do is to ignore the scares and to focus on our "backyards".

Glad I could help.
Fluorocarbons and chlorocarbons are worse.  Molecule by molecule methane is also worse.  This is partly because plants all the way from algae to Giant Sequoias "eat" CO2 to make their sugar molecules.  So, CO2 isn't entirely bad, it's a matter of quantity.

Jay Angler wrote: I post this for all the permies who don't speak "Imperial Measurements".

You know, just because we measure our Force in lbs doesn't mean we're still a part of the Empire, sister.  The full Imperial system actually came *after* the Rebels gained independence.

George Yacus wrote:

Jay Angler wrote: I post this for all the permies who don't speak "Imperial Measurements".

You know, just because we measure our Force in lbs doesn't mean we're still a part of the Empire, sister.  The full Imperial system actually came *after* the Rebels gained independence.

Yes, but I live in a member country of the Commonwealth,  so I read stuff like this, "The US Customary system of units was developed and used in the United States after the American Revolution, based on a subset of the English units used in the Thirteen Colonies. The imperial system of units was developed and used in the United Kingdom and its empire beginning in 1826. US Customary Units is the predominant system of units in the United States. The metric system has, to varying degrees, replaced the imperial system in the countries that once used it." This says some of the stuff that your link says, and I'm well aware that a Canadian "gallon" is different than an American "gallon", but I just haven't as firm a knowledge of USA history as a native born would, and therefor use the term Canadians used while I was growing up and got the pleasure of using both the Imperial System of measure and the Metric System and all the fun that happened when the change-over was occurring. (If you want to read about a classic screw-up caused by the introduction of the metric system, coupled by communication and parts failure, research "the Gimli Glider"!)

Just to make it worse, you'd better know which system you're looking at before discussing what a "ton" is!  No wonder we have trouble getting the world to agree on really important stuff!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_and_US_customary_measurement_systems

Jay Angler wrote:

Phil Swindler wrote:Depending on exactly what hydrocarbon molecules are in the gasoline, 19 pounds of CO2 could be pretty close.

Hubby printed me off a sheet from the Canadian Gov't a while ago as we were trying to get some idea of how many grams of biochar* would offset how many liters of gasoline. To quote the line that follows a very similar answer to Phil's, "This is how 1 L (liter) of gasoline, which contains about 0.63 kg of carbon, can produce about 2.3 kg of CO2."  I post this for all the permies who don't speak "Imperial Measurements".

* we determined that if you can make biochar out of waste materials like our locally invasive English Ivy, it may not reduce your personal carbon footprint, but it will offset it. The problem is the solution! (The Ivy's killing some trees we'd like to keep.)

So, what did you come up with as a biochar carbon offset equivalency for burning 1 litre of gasoline, Jay?

I read in Regeneration International's website that biochar is about 70 percent carbon. If there's about 0.63 kg of carbon in a litre of gasoline a straight equivalence suggests that 1 kg of biochar should offset the C in a litre of gas with about 10 percent extra in the biochar C account. Maybe that is enough to cover some other operating carbon costs of the vehicle like engine oil or whatnot.

Is that too simplistic? I feel like I might be missing something.

If this calculation works it's a great way to envision carbon amounts and take some meaningful action (at least, for those of us with the capacity to make biochar). Obviously this does nothing for offsetting the embodied energy in the construction of the car but perhaps can go some way to offset the operation.

Andrea Locke wrote:

So, what did you come up with as a biochar carbon offset equivalency for burning 1 litre of gasoline, Jay?

The discussion came up in the thread about making biochar in pots in a wood stove here: https://permies.com/t/44894/Containers-making-biochar-wood-burning#1187463
The relevant part that answers your question assuming I got it correct, is:

Much of my recent reading has been about the benefits of biochar for carbon capture and long term storage, so I got curious. Hubby found a Government of Canada document which is intended to educate the public about the amount of CO2 produced by a liter of gasoline. It claimed that 1 liter of gasoline contains about 0.63 kg of carbon. So we weighed the results of one pot of wood that had "cooked" in our wood stove and the result weighed 0.350 kg. Since our local town is a round trip of 10-11 kilometers and we have a fairly fuel efficient car, it will take two rounds of filling and cooking in the pot shown to offset a trip to town. Of course that's simplified the whole issue a great deal, as there's a lot of CO2 produced before I ever buy my liter of gas, not to mention all that went into building the car in the first place, but Hubby figured that our char making was totally insignificant, and now is much more convinced that it is worth making the effort because the biochar is useful mixed in with our duck bedding, mixed in with our compost pile, and from both those places, eventually it's added to our soil to create and maintain fertility, as well as off setting at least part of our fossil fuel footprint.

Some of the process of making the biochar is heating our house, since it's being done inside our wood stove. The material I use to make it is usually material which isn't the best for composting, or which the "experts" *tell* you to burn (English Ivy - I didn't get a good answer why, but it's invasive here and they tell you not to chip/shred it and its waxy leaves don't compost easily). I think there are people who are worried that if "biochar" is seen as a good way to sequester carbon, people will start chopping down forests to make it, which will just make the situation worse. However, in a wild-fire high-risk area such as we live in, too many branches in the forest increases our risk. We make hugels out of some of it, animal bedding out of some of it, and biochar out of some of it, and with the exception of the English Ivy strangling trees, I don't specifically kill plants to make any of those things - they're all attempts to use the byproducts.

I woke up this morning to find that the staff have removed a couple of posts from this thread.  The posts were political and belonged in the cider press.

This thread is about carbon footprint, and things people can do to reduce their own carbon footprint.  

I think it is wise to point out that some people are concerned, and some people are not.  I think that people that are concerned would find value in this thread.  People that are not concerned would find other topics to be of greater interest to them - or they might choose to understand this stuff "for a friend".  

I think it is rude to go into church during service and yell out "this is all bullshit!"  Or in an organic grocery store.  Or a movie theater.  Or a bar.  


And then there is speculation on what is in my head about carbon stuff and climate change.  I could fill a book - and it would be a book of vague probabilities.  At the top of the list is:

   - we cannot see it or touch it, so it is wise to have doubts
   - i think a whole bunch of bad guys are being naughty, so the available information is twisted
   - chasing CO2 solves a lot of other problems along the way
   - i think there are a lot of people desperately wanting to erase their carbon footprint and their toolset is weak
          o i feel a powerful urge to share better tools, hence this thread
   - a lot of politically minded folks, or maybe a lot of corporate trolls (i really can't tell the difference anymore) wish to encourage the public to keep on being wasteful consumers and blame carbon footprint stuff on politicians and corporations on a rigged playing field.  

Maybe a hundred million people will drop their carbon footprint to zero by doing this stuff.  And maybe that solves everything.  And maybe it doesn't.  Maybe it takes a lot of the wicked out of the bad guys.  Or maybe it doesn't.  Or maybe some lives just become a lot more luxuriant along the way.  Maybe people can just feel like they are being good and decent.

I think there is a high probability that all this climate change stuff is real.  I have my doubts.  And out of this huge, bizarre mess that is my brain, I am utterly certain that the world desperately needs the list that this thread will create.  Because the things on this list will serve many functions in making the world a better place, while giving people a bit more luxury and bit more money in their pocket.  For some people they can do this stuff for just the luxury and coin.  And for others, it will be the carbon footprint, luxury and coin.  Works for me.  

If somebody wants to make a stand against me making this list, they will need to have their comments published on a site other than mine.

That really depends on how it's harvested.

If it was harvested in a clearcutting operation, the soil disturbance in such an operation releases a lot of sequestered carbon. Then it needs to be transported and processed. If you felled, skidded, and processed it by hand, it's carbon neutral. The carbon isn't just sequestered in the tree itself, but also the soil under the tree. If you have to kill the soil to get the tree, then you do release a substantial amount of carbon in that process.

... and blaming tends to make everyone dig their feet in even harder, or give up hope so they figure they may as well live for today than worrying about dyeing tomorrow.

I just requested a library book specifically about how to change people's minds about climate change specifically by avoiding the "blame game".  I'm hoping to use it to help the Municipal Counsel resist the pressure to increase the urbanization of our Municipality by using the positive benefits of soil building, water management, tree growing etc to help the climate, rather than more roads and roofs decreasing our ability to manage climate change.

( the book: Cranky uncle vs. climate change : how to understand and respond to climate science deniers   by Dr. John Cook)

kinda made a quick summary here

Jay Angler wrote: I'm hoping to use it to help the Municipal Counsel resist the pressure to increase the urbanization of our Municipality by using the positive benefits of soil building, water management, tree growing etc to help the climate, rather than more roads and roofs decreasing our ability to manage climate change.
( the book: Cranky uncle vs. climate change : how to understand and respond to climate science deniers   by Dr. John Cook)

I love the idea of trying to influence the Municipal Counsel. It is great if we optimize our homes, our patterns of consumption, shopping, growing etc. but we also have to reach out to others to "infect their minds". On a Municipal level you could change so much! As I mentioned before, our environmental group has a seat in the municipal gatherings regarding environmental / building issues although our actual veto power is rather limited.

It would be so helpful if people did not only "right" on their property but also nudged on the municipal / State level.
For anybody interested in this topic, I can highly recommend the channel "Not only bikes" that takes a look at good / bad city planning and what makes a town strong.
These are two of the episodes I found really revealing:
- about street planning concepts in the US vs. Europe
and
- why zoning laws contradict humane and sustainable living conditions.

Anita Martin wrote:

For anybody interested in this topic, I can highly recommend the channel "Not only bikes" that takes a look at good / bad city planning and what makes a town strong.

I have long suggested that we need a new economic model as well as an overhaul of planning cities if we're going to help people reduce their carbon footprint.

Paul mentions "hanging laundry to dry" as one of the easiest ways for a person to reduce their carbon footprint. Here in Canada, many apartment buildings don't allow laundry to be hung on balconies. In Japan, many balconies are designed for hanging clothes, or there is often a roof laundry area.  

Getting people out of cars needs intelligent redesign that encompasses whole neighborhoods. The local small city has had an explosion of low-rise condos above first floor commercial space. This looks like some of the pictures in the video's Anita posted if you just look at the building. The problem is that the streets haven't been upgraded with the same walkability in mind. There's "side-walk" calming such as benches and lovely planters, but not zones for ambling, walking, biking and mobility scooters. The city will complain that it's not their fault - they're following provincial rules, but I don't sense there's a will to step up and ask the Provincial Gov't for an exemption for a 10 year experiment - and it would take 10 years to get people to change their life patterns!

This same city has been doing plenty of what would be called "in-filling" where several single family lots have been amalgamated  into row housing, but the designs are still totally car focused - less green space, far more concrete and every one has a garage right in front! I'm not convinced that alternatives wouldn't sell if they were available.

I am surprised that "preventing waste" isn't mentioned yet.  Composting is a big CO diverter, especially with so much food waste in the US.  Many homes throw food in the garbage.  We have bought and built worm bins and chickens to ensure no food ever goes to waste.  Then, their "waste" goes back in the garden.

I remember my dad saying "The first R is reduce. Bthe second is reuse.  Recycling is a last-ditch effort, it was never supposed to be the default."

Paul mentions an Electric Car, but what about motorcycles, or bicycles?

My plan is already underway.  
I live in a suburb with a lot of houses that have small to large yards.  
I bought an empty lot next to my house and have planted over 50 fruit trees and have plans to plant 50 more along with kiwi vines. I am growing many varieties and cultivars of Pawpaw, Persimmon, Mulberry, Kiwi, Asian Pear. The type of fruits I am growing do not require any chemical fertilizers or insecticide.  I do have Asian Pears that tend to get Cedar Quince Rust and have made JADAM Sulfur spray for that.   I bought the JADAM Organic Farming book and will learn more on the Asian Farming techniques found in PERMIES.COM

I have access to all the wood chips I can handle and the spent beer grain from a local brewery.  I make too much compost and have friends in the garden group come by with 5 gallon buckets to fill.  My soil is starting to turn from dense damp clay into rich dark soil.

Because I am in a suburb I built a privacy fence to keep out intruders and critters.  I want to be able to protect this idea for the future.

As soon as the trees start to produce I will put out a notice for people to come by for tastings. Later when the trees are productive I will sell the fruit to local restaurants and caterers.
I have been learning grafting techniques and will start small grafted trees for people to plant in their yard.  I will also have real compost for them to use.  
I am not sure what each tree will do in the whole climate change picture but it is a way to start people looking at trees instead of grass, flowers instead of grass, vegetables instead of grass.

I am hoping to spread the idea of growing fruit on your land is enjoyable.

Just wanted to share an experience I had today that gave me a bit of a boost of motivation.

I listened to a talk by a "Godfather" of carbon capture, Klaus Lackner.   He was very lucid and comprehensive in his picture of things, and was able to talk about the embodied energy of his proposed technology lucidly, and choices they had made to lower the carbon emissions cost of creating the machines.  

He said two things that made sense:

1) Even if we cut our carbon footprints to zero, we still have the damage done by all the carbon we released from burning fossil fuels in the past which wasn't stored by any recently-living biological system.  Biological systems can't be take up the extra slack.  If we try and plant enough trees to offest this, we have to radically alter our ecosystems, which is a) really hard and b) not a smart idea.  (Oceans taking up carbon means death of coral, etc., he noted, through acidification)

2) We still need to reduce our emissions.  This is not a silver bullet, it is only able to get us out of the carbon debt we're in, but it isn't a substitute for a) not cutting down forests b) reducing emissions so our ongoing cycles are balanced, "sustainable."  

I realized that I've been assuming that even if I did everything right and got my own house in order, I'd still be living with a climate flying out of control and that there was no hope.  Now I have some more hope.

There are *no guarantees* this will work.  He did not claim that it was guaranteed, but will only find out by trying.  He's just done the research and the math and accounted for the materials cost and the markets and so on.

If you're interested, you can find the talk on youtube I think.   As I understand (or misunderstand) it, the basic idea is some fancy surface that can scrub a little bit of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, then dip this in water where energy is added to the system to electrolyze the water, preferably when demand is low on the grid and supply is high, and thereby bind the carbon dioxide with hydrogen to make hydrocarbons (ie gasoline or something).  Then the fancy surface goes back up in the air and captures another small bit of carbon dioxide as it dries.

It' still expensive, but some big businesses are already committed to carbon sequestration, and if it scales it can be made cheaper.

He didn't go into biochar or capturing carbon in soils, but only talked about trees and kelp for biological examples, and I don't know about the soil capture research to talk about that intelligently, but the point it me is that industry has messed this up and so industry should clean up its mess, while us gardeners can just clean up our own personal contributions and emissions.  And that it isn't either-or.  I think it would definitely help the public discourse to hear a leading carbon capture researcher saying "this doesn't get you out of handling your emissions."

Again, there's no guarantee, and I definitely didn't agree with everything he was saying, but I was pleasantly surprised by his humility and breadth of thoughtfulness, and it helps me feel just a little bit more motivated to keep on on my own personal carbon footprint (am down to about 6 tons  for last year).

If anyone feels this is off topic, I'm fine with moving it to another thread or the Cider Press.  I'm mainly trying to share my subjective, emotional reaction to this, feeling more motivated in feeling I don't have to tolerate a massive loss even if I get my own act together.

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:
He didn't go into biochar or capturing carbon in soils, but only talked about trees and kelp for biological examples, and I don't know about the soil capture research to talk about that intelligently, but the point it me is that industry has messed this up and so industry should clean up its mess, while us gardeners can just clean up our own personal contributions and emissions.  And that it isn't either-or.  I think it would definitely help the public discourse to hear a leading carbon capture researcher saying "this doesn't get you out of handling your emissions."

Thanks for sharing these interesting facts.
However, I have a problem with addressing the industry as "they". We are also part of the industry because normal people work there - your neighbour, your niece - and because you might have bought a product from this industry or benefitted from it in the past.
Here at permies we try to stay away from non-sustainable industries, from companies that exploit and pollute the planet, but we might not even be aware how all this links into our lives as well.
So instead of demonizing the industries we should probably aim at those that benefit from their unsustainable practices: CEOs, shareholders, politicians and those who have the power to change something about it - we as consumers, organizations, politicians etc.

Unfortunately I don't have a good recipe how to do this. But I am well aware of the dilemma. I live in a State (Bavaria) that is very wealthy due to its industry which is part of the pollution game (BMW, Siemens etc.), but at the same time this gives me the privilege to live a comfortable life where I can inform and engage myself in environmental issues and support organic farming and similar.

Just my thoughts.

I would like to see this thread get a little back on track:  stuff that reduces carbon footprint, and the numbers of tons per year per adult.  

I think if there is going to be discussion about whether carbon footprint stuff is silly - that goes in the cider press.  It is my web site and my position is that there are people that care about carbon footprint and it frustrates me that their recipes for personal change are so weak.  So I made this thread to be a place where we can talk about solutions that have a lot of substance.

Stuff about how people are not to blame, it is 100% politicians and industry ...  :  I think that goes in the cider press too. It is my site and I want to talk about things we can do, in our backyards, to make a better world.  

Some people say ...  well, most people say ...  that there is nothing a person can do about it.  And I think that any one person can, pretty easily, cover their own footprint and the footprint of another.   And an industrious and generous person can cover the footprints of a dozen people.  It's all about giving those people a list of recipes.   And this thread is the foundation for those recipes.

Anita Martin wrote:

These are two of the episodes I found really revealing:

- about street planning concepts in the US vs. Europe
and

- why zoning laws contradict humane and sustainable living conditions.

That's a great line.
It's the futon of transportation.

OK, some more ideas, I hope they are not duplicates:

Cut down on electricity:
For the able-bodied, choose mechanical devices over electrical ones like coffee grinder, cheese grater and similar. On a wooden or tiled floor, you could sweep instead of using the vacuum cleaner.

Distraction:
You could go very traditional and just read a book or play musical instruments in your leisure time, cook, meet with friends, hike and similar. If you want other types of distractions, try to stream as little content as possible. Streaming services like Netflix and Spotify use a great amount of electricity compared to conventional TV or listening to a CD. Disclaimer: I read this in a German newspaper. When I do a google search for English sources, I get different opinions. Maybe someone has an up-to-date analysis?
For Bitcoins, the negative impact (as a huge energy-sucker) seems to be undoubted

Consumption:
Best is to grow as much as you can yourself. For things you buy, choose as local and seasonal as possible. Check which produce has the biggest difference between conventional and organic and choose the organic if you can't buy ALL your produce organic. (for example, I never buy conventional grapes, berries or peppers as the conventional types I get in Germany tend to be heavily sprayed; and I buy Italian organic almonds instead of Californian).

Buy other stuff (than produce) local as well, make trips to combine various shops, go by bike if possible.

"Un-paper" your kitchen. You can sew little towels to replace disposable towels and napkins, same for demake-up pads. For other products of personal hygiene, go as far as you dare.
Ditch the clingfoil and especially aluminum foil. Once you are used to containers and bowls, you will hardly miss them.

Choose life-long over disposable, even if that means you have to save up to buy the item, e.g. a good razor, a sturdy umbrella, a decent cooking pan.

I think there is a carbon balance to be struck between buying a new electric car and keeping an old car well maintained.  I'm not sure how that math could be done but if you got 33% more life out of your existing vehicle, after three vehicles you saved the entire production of a whole fourth car.  That's gotta be huge.  Sure you were getting 30 mpg instead of 40 mpg over that time period (made up numbers) but might it be better in the overall carbon math equation?

Mike Haasl wrote:I think there is a carbon balance to be struck between buying a new electric car and keeping an old car well maintained.  I'm not sure how that math could be done but if you got 33% more life out of your existing vehicle, after three vehicles you saved the entire production of a whole fourth car.  That's gotta be huge.  Sure you were getting 30 mpg instead of 40 mpg over that time period (made up numbers) but might it be better in the overall carbon math equation?

If nothing else, it saves a heck of a lot of money. That gives you two options - 1. spend that money upgrading other things like buying materials to build ginormous water tanks for capturing rain-water or hiring equipment to build ponds or hugels or build a root cellar to store your produce or other carbon lowering projects.
2. Work less time for pay so you have more time to do all the things mentioned in option 1.

The math is really hard and certainly beyond me. We tend to keep our cars 15 years or longer, but cars are getting harder and harder to fix and get parts for. Certainly, every year over 15 when nothing unfixable or ignorable breaks, is a bonus. However, we try to have money in the bank already for its replacement. A friend's very old car got taken out by a driver backing up. Technically it was repairable, but the insurance company refused - too old, not worth the cost of repairs, too hard to get parts. She's now got an electric Smart Car that's about 5 years old. IF she hadn't been hit, she might easily have driven the car for another 5 years. Isn't there some saying about hoping for perfection but planning for the unexpected?

Regarding electric cars:
It would be nonsense to dump all our cars at once to get a Tesla (and make Elon Musk richer than he is already).

However, when your car reaches its lifetime there is a good reason to get an electric car. There is a quite recent study from the Eindhoven University (Netherlands) that compares overall CO2 emissions of electric and conventional cars:
https://www.oliver-krischer.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/English_Studie.pdf
Even if you compute the initial input of material and energy to produce the car and battery you will soon have a break even and then a long lifespan of low-emission driving.

There has been another study of the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany that gets summarized in this PDF which is easier to read and shows the impressive data but it is in German:
https://fairwandel-sig.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Oekobilanz-Elektroauto.pdf
For Germany, a lot of people who buy electric cars do have photovoltaic installations on their roofs to charge their car. A friend of mine has an electric car and charges it overnight with her own electricity. I am a total car idiot and did not even notice it was electric until she told me.

In any case, I am still convinced we have to redesign many cities (and our lifestyles) to reduce indvidual traffic further.
One or several cars per family / person have been a commodity for many of us during decades but it turns out it is nothing we can keep or spread to the entire population of the world even if electric cars show better numbers regarding CO2 footprint.

Mike Haasl wrote:I think there is a carbon balance to be struck between buying a new electric car and keeping an old car well maintained.  I'm not sure how that math could be done but if you got 33% more life out of your existing vehicle, after three vehicles you saved the entire production of a whole fourth car.  That's gotta be huge.  Sure you were getting 30 mpg instead of 40 mpg over that time period (made up numbers) but might it be better in the overall carbon math equation?

About 11 years ago I started using a friction reducer in my and my wife's vehicles.  I calculated the difference in fuel consumption using what I believe is a European method, gallons per 1000 miles as opposed to miles per gallon.  Using this calculation method, the brand I use improves fuel economy enough to pay for itself about 2 1/2 times over each time I re-treat the car/pickup.  If the vehicle is burning noticeably less fuel, it has to be putting noticeably less carbon dioxide into the air, as well as other hydrocarbons from incomplete combustion.  I don't know for sure the reduction at the exhaust pipe is less than the carbon output from it's manufacture, but, it seems like a reasonable premise.

I can give the brand I use if anyone is interested.

Someone mentioned newer, energy efficient appliances and fridges.

The problem there, fridges in particular,  is often poor quality, leading to replacement being required way sooner than it should on the newer, energy efficient ones.

What fails are usually the control mechanisms, which can be bypassed by a simple digital temp controller available on Amazon wired direct to switch the compressor on and off as needed. You're back to having to defrost now and again but I would guess you're running more efficiently that way than when you were using a heater to self defrost or the overall disposal carbon costs of a fairly new unit that's unreliable so being tossed... so there's one possible eco-fix  for that one?

Someone also mentioned fluorocarbons and the like and refrigeration equipment leaking/losing their refrigerant on disposal or resulting from planned obsolescence  design is a big contributor.

Career #1 for me was mechanic and I'm still driving vehicles from the 70s and 80s, being able to fix them myself or even make parts if needed. Not having to replace vehicles regularly over the decades has to be somewhat of a carbon win.

Speaking of planned obsolescence, I was talking with an engineer from a major German luxury car maker and he was telling me they are now directed to redesign major engine parts to deliberately fail at what would be the end of a lease period, approximately 4 years.
Criminal corporate behavior.

Covid has also taught me I really don't need to drive much, maybe an errand run once a week and one or two other trips.
I'm retired so the work commute is gone.

Much as I dislike a lot about Amazon, they get abstract points for being there to deliver essentials during a plague. No matter which side of the "what you should do about Covid" debate you come down on, not interacting with others is one of the best strategies you can use for avoiding infection.
I'm pretty sure what amazon is doing is also more carbon efficient than me running errands in one of my steel dinosaurs.

Dark humor = if you died from Covid, have you have reached no-carbon nirvana?

All the grass is slowly becoming garden or food forest. I have 50 year old lawn tractors ( thank you for your long lost and forgotten past decency in design John Deere ) that I use to mow what's left.

I'm thinking it's time for a scythe for that:    https://scythesupply.com

I was a bookseller for years and my walls at home are lined with shelves holding the books I wanted to keep from ceiling to floor.
The amount that mass of paper helped with the thermal cycling is surprising, cooler much longer into the heat of the day, likewise warmer into the winter cold at night.

Along the same lines, many barrels of water in my greenhouse brought me through the winter and some freezes in the twenties with no additional heat required. It is N. Florida so I'm not sure how that would do in a prolonged freeze because we haven't had one since the 80s.
I suspect that as long as the sun is out it might be enough heat storage for that.

More dark humor of a sort, we have a Grand Solar Minimum coming up, which should lead to way colder temperatures, but NOAA and others think all the carbon and greenhouse gasses may balance that effect to where there isn't much change.
I'm sure the oil and coal companies will be thrilled.

Thermal shades on the windows made an amazing difference in how much heating/cooling required.
They're not expensive to replace/repair if something goes wrong either...like double pane windows that fail terminally are.

I deliberately chose to live small,  in 500 sq. ft. of living space with low ceilings to reduce heat/cool costs.
It's just me and my dog so that's plenty of room.

For years I was able to live  well on 20K a year for 20 hours a week work.
That worked because I have a wide range of repair/build skills and lots of valuable-to-employer skills, so was always paid well for my work time.
I had some great little businesses that worked well that way too.

Some of those businesses were carbon hogs (glassblowing studio) but I and many others did a lot of work over the years designing equipment for that to minimize the carbon input and open sourcing the how-to.
The forum where we shared all that has to get some carbon points for getting that info out there.

Most kinds or work burn carbon by the hour...just a question of how much.

paul wheaton wrote:I want to talk about things we can do, in our backyards, to make a better world.  

Some people say ...  well, most people say ...  that there is nothing a person can do about it.  And I think that any one person can, pretty easily, cover their own footprint and the footprint of another.   And an industrious and generous person can cover the footprints of a dozen people.  It's all about giving those people a list of recipes.   And this thread is the foundation for those recipes.

I have been thinking about this concept a lot lately. How does an individual make a meaningful dent in a problem that is so mind-bogglingly big and complex. I wanted to find some numbers to sink my teeth into - hoping maybe that somewhere there was a figure that one could latch on to as the "low hanging fruit" - if only we could deal with X, then everything else should fall into place... I started reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Consumption_by_sector but it just makes the problem seem more intractable.

What dawns on me is that what we really need is cultural change. I know you want to focus on things we can do, right now, in our own back yards; but maybe the best thing that we could do is to convince as many people as possible that there is a path to a satisfying fulfilling life that does not require using so much $%&#ing energy. I think there are a lot of people who are desperate for something that they can do to make a real contribution - what if that contribution was simply this: spend a weekend, or a week, or a month working on something in your back yard that does not require any fossil energy, but makes your backyard more beautiful, more productive, or even just more fireproof, and then: convince 2 other people to do something similar. If the issue that needs to be solved is that everything that people currently do uses energy, then it doesnt actually matter what people do. So long as it doesnt use fossil fuels of any kind, then they are offsetting whatever they would have otherwise been doing. The clever thing then would be to have a giant online community of people who could showcase ideas of what people could go do. If some of the projects were things like planting trees, you get double points, as they are now also sequestering carbon. If it happens to be an apple tree, even better, because now they are also growing food (although it will likely produce only cider apples). When its time to prune that tree with a scrounged pair of hand tools, they could burn the branches in a pit and make biochar. There would have to be some way to have it be fun and satisfying enough that people would want to keep participating. Monthly prizes to whoever gets the most votes? A point system? Lots of praise?

I have long ago realized that I will never fix the problem alone, but I do think you are right about each of us being able to cover our own carbon burden. The real problem, I believe, is recruitment.

Dave Bross said

I was a bookseller for years and my walls at home are lined with shelves holding the books I wanted to keep from ceiling to floor.
The amount that mass of paper helped with the thermal cycling is surprising, cooler much longer into the heat of the day, likewise warmer into the winter cold at night.

Ha! "We need all these books Honey - they're insulating the study!" I'll see if I can dig out the thermal image we took of this!

Google just told me that the current average carbon footprint per kwh is 0.92 pounds.

paul wheaton wrote:Google just told me that the current average carbon footprint per kwh is 0.92 pounds.

I guess I'm below average on this one.  We have photoelectric panels on our roof.
Plus, it makes it easier to keep the house cool with that area of the roof being shaded.

Phil Swindler wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:Google just told me that the current average carbon footprint per kwh is 0.92 pounds.

I guess I'm below average on this one.  We have photoelectric panels on our roof.
Plus, it makes it easier to keep the house cool with that area of the roof being shaded.

Stacking functions - isn't that a permaculture principle. It doesn't just work with plants!