Climate Crisis: Are we doing enough?

[mudsticks]

You may Sir. And it's a very good and genuine question that I don't reconcile very easily....

Firstly I almost never fly for personal reasons. We did take a family holiday a long while back to Florida which was the one occasion we holidayed as a family by plane in 25 years.

Secondly, I fly for business simply because the job cannot be done without travelling. When I can drive instead (I have several customers within 4 hours of Calais) I generally take that option. Trains offer poor flexibility.

I guess there's part of an argument saying that if it wasn't me it would be someone else doing the companies bidding. Until the company changes the way it supports it's customers - i.e. by having many local specialist, this is how we'll go on. But that would mean an awful lot of people with specific skillsets in a lot of locations with a footprint of a lot of combined travelling and other human-used resource involved too* Maybe one Foodie dashing here there and everywhere even by plane might actually be a better and more targeted 'low carbon' option - and yes, I love what I do, including the travel. It's a very niche expertise that supports an impressive sized business** giving pleasure to millions.

*In some regions such as Russia and the Middle East we now have local technical centres and expertise, hence I rarely support those geographies anymore from the UK (unless they're in trouble), but even so, when based in both Russia and Middle east you still have to fly to cover the customer territory.

**Actually, this is the greater dissonance for me personally than flying. I struggle heartily when we come to discussing 'Green initiatives' as a business - it's like shuffling the deck-chairs on the Titanic... I also increasingly struggle with meat (particularly red meat) consumption too.
But, I need the money at the moment and I don't know how to do much else (and nobody does it better ;-) ) - though I'd happily work for some local Artisanal company if the right opportunity arose.

A friend of mine does law work for the UN .
Mainly around migration , mainly in the far East.


She wasn't happy at all about the amount of flying that entailed

Since covid of course that's dramatically reduced.

She says it's still worthwhile in about a tenth of cases to actually be there, in person, and knock some heads together to get results.

But so much can in fact be done well, remotely.

She's hoping of course that it will stay that way

I'm thinking about setting up a micro lamb at foot dairying operation here.

I'll let you know if a position becomes available.

You don't mind being paid almost exclusively in cheese do you ??

 

[Fab Foodie]

A friend of mine does law work for the UN .
Mainly around migration , mainly in the far East.


She wasn't happy at all about the amount of flying that entailed

Since covid of course that's dramatically reduced.

She says it's still worthwhile in about a tenth of cases to actually be there, in person, and knock some heads together to get results.

But so much can in fact be done well, remotely.

She's hoping of course that it will stay that way

I'm thinking about setting up a micro lamb at foot dairying operation here.

I'll let you know if a position becomes available.

You don't mind being paid almost exclusively in cheese do you ??

I'm not sure what this is; I'm thinking about setting up a micro lamb at foot dairying operation here.

But am willing to work for Cheese!
Had a nice drinkies with a Swiss lady promoting Appenzeller Cheese Tuesday night, and then had some for brekkie... most satisfying!

 

[mudsticks]

I'm not sure what this is; I'm thinking about setting up a micro lamb at foot dairying operation here.

But am willing to work for Cheese!
Had a nice drinkies with a Swiss lady promoting Appenzeller Cheese Tuesday night, and then had some for brekkie... most satisfying!

A micro dairy is when you only have a small number of animals, but you make it pay by selling direct.

"At foot" means you keep the youngsters with their mothers and only milk them once a day

It's more acceptable way to do dairy for many consumers..

 

[Cirrus]

Climate change: Construction companies told to stop knocking down buildings - BBC New
A hidden contributor to climate change according to the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers. More reuse and less rebuilding.

 

[Milkfloat]

To butt in, I have been a very frequent flyer/traveller in my time, even to the point of being able to be a non-resident for tax purposes in one traumatic year where my house and family were in the UK but I spent the year crisscrossing the world troubleshooting.

Over the last 10 to 15 years it has thankfully calmed down a lot and I have become senior enough that my flying is for meetings, either with customers or internal. We all knew beforehand that virtual meetings were very good, especially once people had met face to face. I still think that nothing beats sitting down with someone in a bar or restaurant to really get to know someone, I believe it is vital to do this to have a really good long term relationship. However, once you have done that virtual meetings are a better use of everyone's time and about 90% effective. Lockdown has drilled that into us, we always had video conferencing, but now that everyone is at home it has proved it worth a million times over. Certainly for 2021 and 2022 our travel budget will be tiny - it used to be €26M and will end up something like €5M.

For the last 10 years or so my company claimed the carbon was offset, my thoughts on carbon offsetting probably match a lot of yours in that it is nonsense, but at least some cash was flowing somewhere. The amount of flying sits uneasy with me and I always look for other options, but fundamentally if I am needed in Singapore for work, then I have to go.

 

[mudsticks]

To butt in, I have been a very frequent flyer/traveller in my time, even to the point of being able to be a non-resident for tax purposes in one traumatic year where my house and family were in the UK but I spent the year crisscrossing the world troubleshooting.

Over the last 10 to 15 years it has thankfully calmed down a lot and I have become senior enough that my flying is for meetings, either with customers or internal. We all knew beforehand that virtual meetings were very good, especially once people had met face to face. I still think that nothing beats sitting down with someone in a bar or restaurant to really get to know someone, I believe it is vital to do this to have a really good long term relationship. However, once you have done that virtual meetings are a better use of everyone's time and about 90% effective. Lockdown has drilled that into us, we always had video conferencing, but now that everyone is at home it has proved it worth a million times over. Certainly for 2021 and 2022 our travel budget will be tiny - it used to be €26M and will end up something like €5M.

For the last 10 years or so my company claimed the carbon was offset, my thoughts on carbon offsetting probably match a lot of yours in that it is nonsense, but at least some cash was flowing somewhere. The amount of flying sits uneasy with me and I always look for other options, but fundamentally if I am needed in Singapore for work, then I have to go.

You're not butting in.

You're joining in


I managed to give up flying in the early nineties.

But then my jobs haven't insisted upon it.

I've been everso slightly stymied in some career progression because of an unwillingness to go to India by plane.

But I can live with that

Maybe overland one day...

And I did turn down an all expenses paid trip to South America, for a research trip , fairly recently , because I would have needed to fly there.

For holidays I adore going to mountainous Europe and Northern Scotland by train

And then proceeding on foot, or by bike.

But I guess i 'designed' my life quite early on to try to be fairly eco conscious, so it was aligned with the campaigning farming and activism I was doing to that end.

I have had two kids though, so doing that probs blows all the other 'good deeds' out of the water, in one fell swoop.
- to mix metaphors.

Two kids between three adults though ??

It's not an excessive amount is it.?

Yeah, no , right, who am I kidding,??

They're westernised adults albeit a bit more eco aware than many.

 

[slowmotion]

A bit off topic, but does anybody know what the Insulate Britain types use to stick their hands to tarmac? Presumably it must be pretty quick-setting and have amazing gap-filling qualities. Seems pretty nifty stuff.

 

[mudsticks]

A bit off topic, but does anybody know what the Insulate Britain types use to stick their hands to tarmac? Presumably it must be pretty quick-setting and have amazing gap-filling qualities. Seems pretty nifty stuff.

I don't.

But I can probs find out..

Mind you , if publicised on a public forum, it could arm the unstickers with the easy solvent solution.

Most likely It's a 2:1 mix of plucky British eco-warrior gumption, and proprietary wallpaper paste

 

[mudsticks]

Climate change: Construction companies told to stop knocking down buildings - BBC New
A hidden contributor to climate change according to the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers. More reuse and less rebuilding.

What is annoying is that you can claim back the VAT on new builds.

But not for materials for renovating or retrofitting existing properties.

This may be one reason why stuff gets knocked down rather than 'done up'

If so then it needs to change.

 

[slowmotion]

I don't.

But I can probs find out..

Mind you , if publicised on a public forum, it could arm the unstickers with the easy solvent solution.

Most likely It's a 2:1 mix of plucky British eco-warrior gumption, and proprietary wallpaper paste

Oh go on! Don't be coy.
It might come in handy when I get in a DIY jam.

 

[mudsticks]

Oh go on! Don't be coy.
It might come in handy when I get in a DIY jam.

Tell you what

Get thee up to Dover, and you could probs get a free sample..

 

[slowmotion]

Tell you what

Get thee up to Dover, and you could probs get a free sample..

I'm phoning Whitehall 1212 as I type.....

 

[mudsticks]

I'm phoning Whitehall 1212 as I type.....

Yeah, it's true they might not have been out for the papers yet..

 

[slowmotion]

Yeah, it's true they might not have been out for the papers yet..

Oh bugger. There goes my highly paid second career as a super-grass.

 

[mjr]

Oh bugger. There goes my highly paid second career as a super-grass.

Supergrass reformed a couple of years ago and play O2 Academy Glasgow on 19 Dec, O2 Academy Brixton on 20 Dec. More info and ticket links at https://www.supergrass.com/ but I am not sure that info includes person-to-road adhesives.

Once the next round of expensive house changes finishes this week, I am likely to increase insulation again. Have things moved on, or is the best approach still to raise the floor of the loft, don breathing apparatus and unfurl blankets of blown glass wool all over the place? How can one check the performance and condition of the wall insulation? Preferably without smacking big holes into the wall.