Carbon Neutral?

[Chriss]

A number of my potential sponsors for the RBRR have raised the questions, " With global warming accelerating, is it responsible to consume fuel in non-essential activities? What are you doing to compensate for the fuel you have used?"

As the public becomes more aware of Global Warming and governments begin to take actions that restrict our daily lives, activities such as ours that are non-essential use of fuel will become increasingly viewed as anti-social.

One way to offset the fuel used is by taking compensating action.  There are a number of websites that can be found with a search "Carbon Neutral" that suggest ways of doing this.  A quick calculation for 2000 miles at 25mpg shows planting a tree, cost £6.80, would be sufficient for each entry.

CT has always been responsible in the activities it undertakes and has adapted with the times. Perhaps a new area that we can demonstrate our responsibility is by making our future events carbon neutral?  How about we experiment with one or more selected events?

[Malcolm]

Hi Chris.  You already know I think this is a good idea.  A couple of my sponsors made similar comments and,  though I laughed them off at the time, I recon this would have gone down well as a reply.....

Malcolm.

[Vinnyfastcar and Carol Lamity]

Emmisions being anti social?, I hope you didn't point out the roaring through quaint little villages in teh middle of the night also..... (under 30mph of course...)

[thescrapman]

I think we needed carbon cannisters in our car, to neutralise other unpleasant things.

And yes, perhaps CT should look into making it's events Carbon Neutral.

Might not be cheap......

Colin

[cook1e]

How about planting a tree by the side of a road on the route, preferably a large one directly in front of a speeding camera ;D

[Rumpith]

Apart from 10 days in France this year, I haven't had a proper holiday (i.e. flown abroad) in about 4 years, so I figure I've neutralised my "carbon footprint" for about the next 20 years!

In addition, I work from home at least 1 day per week, which reduces my commuting emmissions by 20%.

[GT6 John]

*sigh*  It is very difficult for me not to sound like a conspiracy theorist in what I'm about to say, but I'm not.  I do wonder what the governments remit is though, other than to control even more aspects of our lives including telling us what we can and can't use in fuel.

I am however a realist, someone who finds out actual genuine facts before coming to a decision. So, global warming - mankind is going to die right? Wrong.

Having done extensive research for of all things my wine theory exams and wine dissertation I can assure you that nature and global warming happens anyway.

History of geology and nature proves conclusively that over a 5000 year period there is a massive rise in temperature followed by 3 mini peaks and troughs of hot and cold, 1000 years apart with a massive drop in temperature at the end, otherwise known as an ice age.

We are currently nearing the top of one of the mini peaks.  These peaks are approx. 1000 years apart.  1000 years ago, 2000 years ago and 3000 years ago, (can you see where this is going?) the world went through similar heat peaks.  It is called nature, its what happens, get over it!!

There is no doubt that man is speeding the process up BUT it will happen anyway.  Leading geologists, who are not the people being listened to because they're not spouting the government line, are saying that in 20 - 50 years we will start to cool down again.

We are in fact at the top of the 3rd and last peak before the big cool down.  Over the next few hundred or so years the earth is in fact going to get progressively colder.  What will governments of the time put that down to I wonder. Being too green perhaps??!

If you'd like to know real, proper and genuine facts about nature and the way the earth works then please read the work of Richard C Selley.  Back in the 80s he and others like him were contracted by the government to do some research for them into global warming.  His findings along with the others did not agree with what the government wanted to hear though, so they ignored it.

Hmmmm, sounds a bit like the professional advice they ignored when going into Iraq doesn't it.  There's a theme developing here...

[ferny]

Quote:

What are you doing to compensate for the fuel you have used?”

If anyone mentions to me that my car is dirty or smelly and I shouldn't get an old one because I'm killing the environment I just fire back "so, when you change your car every three years, how much CO2 are you pumping into the air from its manufacture and the need to dispose of your old one? Not to mention the other pollution caused by them making a new car for you."



*grumbles*



;D


I like the tree planting idea. Could be turned into a yearly even or something, somehow. But where to put all these new trees?

[ferny]

John, it's not so much the government as it is people in general. Tell someone "you're going to die and there's nothing you can do" and they don't like it. People are scared of their own immortality. So they look for ways to change what is going to happen because they can't stand the idea of not being in control.


That's just my view on this topic anyway.

[99176]

Two of my sponsors bought this up.
Interestingly they were both female and French., that hardly represents a trend.
100 new trees to wee up seems like a good idea though

[neilnaz]

John interesting stuff. I am quite neutral on all this stuff actually. Whether we are heating up the planet or accelerating a naturally occuring phenomena is open to question and is an interesting debate. ther is also the issue of the limit of natural resources such as oil that we use, and pay for, for cars, electricity generation (etc).

Such resources should be priced appropriately to make sure that people use these resources responsibly or at least think about alternatives (like walking or turing the lights out). The thing is, there are hundreds of journeys made every day that are not efficient from a environmental view-point or from a resource dwindling perspective.

We as consumers are happy to pay for our fuel and use it as we see fit. the only thing that can be done to slow our consumption down is to put the price up and to make us think before we hare off round Britain. Nobody realy wants to address the issue in that any country that prices in accordance with scarcity of fuel is putting the country's short-term competitiveness at risk. Look at China who are burning fuel like there is no tomorrow. Paying the economic price for fuel is what we do at the moment. If we price fuel factoring scarcity or the prospect of scarcity then we will start using other energy sources that may also ahev an adverse effect.

The thing about this is all energy consumption takes something from the environment and affects it in some way. Some methods do not have an adverse effect that we know about some do and we are well aware of these effects.

I do think that there is a great deal of hype and not enough thinking about what else people should do.

Neil

[Tim Bancroft]

Interesting that the start is at The Plough, in Crews Hill- an area of loads of garden centres!

Maybe we should find an area that needs some tree planting and all plant a tree- might be a laugh!

This is the beginning of a trend of anti- motoring- this is gonna get worse- soon people who like vehicles will become social pariahs.

[Chriss]

[quote by=timbancroft61 link=Blah.pl?b=rbrgen,m=1160741350,s=11 date=1160744940]This is the beginning of a trend of anti- motoring- this is gonna get worse- soon people who like vehicles will become social pariahs.[/quote]

Tim, that's exactly the point.  The question is that by taking organised, pre-emptive action can we prevent CT becomming a social pariah, while other car clubs not taking action are seen as pariahs, or we can defend our position, whether the problem is real or apparent.

Chris

[Rumpith]

How many trees would we need to plant for each event?

Perhaps we could plant a tree in each country on the 10CR...

[neilnaz]

Chriss, if we get to situation where we get green activist forming vigilante groups preventing or trying to stop people from being 'non-green' in whatever they are doing then we are going to be really in the s&^t! I don't just mean drivers of cars. The only way to prevent people from damaging the environment too much by the use of fossil fuels is by hitting them in the pocket.

Civilisation in its many forms is environmentally unfriendly. different countries are worse than others but as soon as man starting rubbing sticks together, building houses/dwellings and anything else like cracking hydrocarbons then he started damaging the environment.

Different activities different amount of damage. If we want to stop using resources at a riduculous rate then fine but I will still save my pennies to be able to drive my car. Moving people around in any form of transport is damaging it is all about limiting the damage. Equate damage to £ and there you have a simple answer. We pay for what we use. Then if I am willing to pay for the privelege of using my car then fine others may decide not to and the system works.

If a green activist gets in my way the I will rapidly lose patience and may hit the accellerator pedal!!!!!!!!

[valencia1]

you have to weigh up our one weekend every two years against such like as formula 1 and other motor sport in general and the causes we need to raise money for. or would they sponser
people for not using there cars!

regards  bryan

[Jason]

I think if we can find somewhere to plant 94 trees then we should do it - the CT forest :-)

[Raider]

Well, my car has fuel efficient tyres on - do the critics?

I also have energy saving light bulbs at home, a rain-water butt and am a member of the Woodland trust - what are they doing?

Having said all that, as you can guess Ilike the idea of planting trees to offset the carbon we produce on events. As Malcolm says, it would certainly show us in a good light.

I think we can still be petrol heads and eco-warriors :)

[Deleted User]

It's a bit rich that people are moaning about the amount of carbon emitted during the RBRR.

I'll bet that they don't worry that much about as they jet off to their holiday destination.

A few cars running round Britain is nothing compared to the vehicle movements each weekend to watch a pointless spectacle that's shown on television anyway - yes, football.

This was brought up a few years ago by environmentalists regarding the number of spectators following the RAC Rally, which, at that time, had the largest number of spectators for one event. 

The argument was countered successfully when it was pointed out that the number of cars used going to football, rugby and other weekly sports spectacles, through the year, dwarfed this considerably and it was only the fact that the RAC involved cars as the spectacle that made it a target for the greenies.

I'm still to be convinced on the "greenhouse" effect.

Back in the seventies they were telling us we were about to go into the next Ice Age.

I find this more likely than a runaway greenhouse scenario, especially when you realise that we are overdue our next Ice Age any day now.

So start looking out the thermal vest now. ;)

One good volcanic eruption will make Man's efforts look like a fart in the vacuum of Space.

It's happened before during the time of the Romans and also, if my memory serves me (not that I was there, understand), some time during the time of the Tudors or thereabout.

Plant a tree?

Great idea.

But you can pick up the bloody leaves each Autumn - I had 14 trees in my gardern and cut all but three down, bloody nuisances that they are!

At least now I can get some sunlight (a precious commodity up here) in the house!

Right, now it's out to gas some badgers - with carbon monoxide!

I'm off for a drive in the country, that's all! :P

McJim.

[djw113uk]

Well i am not convinced how much better it is for the environment, but we ran the PI on LPG all the way round. It certainly doesnt poison you as fast if in a closed garage!

It is however mush nicer on the pocket. Overall the cost per mile in fuel was 9.67p. So thats £225 quid for the 2270 miles from Bristol and back to Bristol. With our LPG map we managed to find a filling station every 200 miles or so (very near to the route) as needed, and the dearest fuel we bought was 49.9 p / litre.
Someone made me put some petrol in just to stop the fuel light flashing, but we didnt use even an egg cup full.

Havent checked valve clearances yet, but makes for a far better motorway bruiser.

[Tim Bancroft]

David,

Ta for the grease.

See you on the next 10CR, I feel the urge to leave a trail of EP90 over Europe again!Just remembered that you will need some grease to re-pack those wheel bearings if the brakes overheat again.

[Ellis]

I was asked about carbon emissions etc when requesting sponsorship. I merely said, I'll be stuck in a car with 2 other blokes for 48 hours, carbon emissions will be the last on my mind !!!  I didn't get sponsored  :P

<< Raider quoted "Well, my car has fuel efficient tyres on - do the critics?.">>

So do I, so if I spin my wheels more often, surely that means I'm using them even more efficiently ??? ;)  

[ferny]

[quote by=Raider link=Blah.pl?b=rbrgen,m=1160741350,s=17 date=1160759351]Well, my car has fuel efficient tyres on - do the critics?

I also have... a rain-water butt [/quote]

That reminds me;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/bb_wm_fs.stm?news=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1&nol_storyid=6048164

[Dawson]

I can't help being a bit sceptical about this global warming thing; whenever global warming was talked about in my Geography lectures it was always amusing to see the lecturer smile and nod along with all the usual textbook talk of us killing the planet. However if you ever caught one of them on their own and asked them about it they would smile a different smile and tell you that they didn't believe in us being the reason behind global warming and neither did a large majority of other scientists and researchers.

From then on I only worried about the state of my wallet rather than the planet whenever the Spitfire would get woefully low mpg! ;D

[gordon kerr]

Whilst being on the side of the cynics on this one and not at all convinced that the climate chage is not part of an ongoing natural cycle I have just come across the target neutral web site (http://www.targetneutral.com/) which those following this topic might find interesting.

Calculated costs suggest that I need to spend £40 a year (on their projects) to "neutralise" the effects of my typical annual milage in my daily drive and my two TR7's.

Their projects are all in developing countries in other parts of the world however and I have emailed them to ask why this is so and why they are not supporting projects in the countries where the contributors are generating their CO2. There must be many such projects (for example near here there is the new Marston Vale forest being planted and they could surely be paying for trees to be planted there) so I will await their reply with interest.