How 3ºC of Global Warming will Affect our Planet🌍

To be honest 3 degrees of warming doesn't seem too bad - but it could change everything. Already, Greenland and Antarctica are losing significant amounts of ice. In 2019, studies showed that Greenland was losing 5 times as much ice than 25 years ago, and Antarctica was losing 3 times as much - and the ocean is only about half a degree Celsius warmer than it should be. Sea level has risen by 20cm in the last 100 years. So imagine how much difference 3 degrees would make. 

Since the Industrial Revolution, the Earth has warmed by between 1.1ºC and 1.3ºC, so we could be well on our way to reaching 3ºC. There's a one in four chance we will reach it by the end of the century.

In a world of 3ºC global warming, a lot of extreme weather would occur. In the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, slums are full of climate migrants, moving there because of floods caused by swollen rivers from a lot of rain, or melting Himalayan ice caps. Even advanced countries and cities would be affected, with places like Paris and Berlin suffering from extreme heatwaves, and frequent storm surges would occur New York often. Cities are far more likely to have bad events happen that wouldn't occur in the countryside, and because cities have large populations, they could be affected more.

These things can impact specific people who make a difference to our lives, for example farmers in places like Guatemala. Dry seasons are longer and more severe and farmers' crops are unable to adapt to the climate so crops are not produced to the usual standard. When this happens, it causes them to go into poverty and this can cause things like malnutrition etc.

I think I'm going to have to do a part two! There's so much information - which I'm getting from The Economist and Climate Change: the Facts on iPlayer (David Attenborough!) So, see you next Sunday.

Violet

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How to be Eco Friendly: Everyday Life

I read this article by BBC news; and I was inspired to write my own like it (I will be using some of the tips that they used in the article). This post is basically a summary of a lot of my posts. 

Number 1: the best thing is not worrying about whether you're being eco-friendly enough, you can't become environmentally friendly all at once - it's slow changes. 

Number 2: living a simple life is the life. Not buying something you don't need helps a lot with this😁 I wrote a whole post on this, called Do I Need That?  A study, with 1,000 adults taking part, showed that 64% of people bought things they wore only once and would never wear again, and 50% of people actually never wore them, however 31% said they've taken garments to a clothes bank.

Number 3: buy second hand. This ties in with number 2. In 2020, £140 million worth of still-wearable clothes were thrown into landfill. Buying second-hand, or swapping with someone, does help a lot; you can find so many things that you would never seen before, for so cheap! But don't let that persuade you into buying too many things that'll lie around your house and never be used. 

Number 4: eat locally and seasonally. By locally, I mean, try and help reduce food miles by buying things produced in your own country. There are obviously some food that can't be grown in the UK, like bananas and oranges. The UK usually get their bananas from the Caribbean and Latin America, and this would result in around 4600 food miles. But, you could (sort of) equal that out by buying Fairtrade food, because this would equal in better pay and life for the farmers. By seasonally, I mean; making sure you buy your food when they're in season - so only buying strawberries in the summer, when they're grown in the UK, and not in winter when they're grown in a country further away (therefore increasing food miles). 

Number 5: make it a habit. Leave the house with your keys, phone and wallet, but also with you're reusable carrier bag, reusable water bottle and you're ready!

Number 6: check the label. This could be anything from checking it's vegan, to checking it's Fairtrade, to checking it's cruelty free (not testing on animals).

Thank you for reading this post. If you have any more ideas, feel free to share them with me (or comment them) and I will probably write about them in another blog. See you next Sunday!

Violet

         xxx

Advent Calendars📅

I know we still have a bit of a while until Christmas (actually: 40 days), but I guess, if you celebrate it, you're going to start buying things like advent calendars soon. Don't worry, being sustainable doesn't have to ruin your Christmas traditions, if you have a calendar and you usually get ones with chocolate in them, you can still do that! There are many versions you can get.

Business Waste say, "Once again, we're going to be the Grinches who stole Christmas." Because they gave reasons why advent calendars are bad, and I feel like I'm doing that too. However, I'm just trying to think of any way to make the world a more environmentally-friendly place. And, there are always alternatives you can try instead of less-eco friendly versions. 

Advent calendars should be fine for the environment - it should just be cardboard, and maybe some chocolates (since I don't like chocolate my sister and I get ones which just have pictures behind, which I always like). But it's not just that. There's sometimes glitter on it, which you can't recycle, and where the gifts or chocolates go, there's a mixture of plastic and foil which is a trouble to recycle. 

Getting sustainable advent calendars isn't just good because they're recyclable. They're also ethically better, with the fact that many brands give back to people as charity work or fair wages. And Christmas is always said to be a time of giving, so how about that? 

Not only could you get a eco-friendly advent calendar that you buy and then throw away, you could get a refillable fabric or wooden one that lasts for ages, which has little pockets to put things in. We have a tradition like that in my house - we have a Christmas tree-shaped calendar that we've had for years and we use annually. My mum comes up with 24 activities to do, then assigns each to a day and puts it in the pockets and my sister and I open one a day (as calendars work!😁). Some of the activities are things like 'go ice skating' or 'buy a Christmas tree' (read my Artificial or Natural Christmas Trees post to know why we buy natural ones every year, instead of keeping an artificial one to re-use every year), however, other activities like 'donate to a food bank' or 'make cookies/mince pies and give them to neghbours'. 

I know this is early to be writing about Christmas, but if you're buying a sustainable advent calendar (just search that up on Google, you get a whole load) you might as well have some time to choose it well. Thank you for reading!

Violet

         xxx

Fireworks! 🎆

Fireworks are fun (although they are very loud)! They can somehow be very beautiful too, especially when they're put in a specific order, it seems almost like an art. Bonfire night or New Year's Eve or any other festival/celebration without fireworks doesn't seem right. It's annoying because almost every fun thing that you buy has a (negative) impact on the environment, but we don't stop using them because as I simply explained before, they are fun. 

The reason they are bad for the environment is because they produce a lot of air pollution, even though they are short-lasting. It's because when the fireworks burst, the things that fireworks are made out of don't burn up, they instead go through chemical reactions and pollute the air, water and soil with gasses like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, which are well known greenhouse gasses (and can be catalysts to short and long term reactions like asthma attacks or even some type of cancers). Not only are there problems and impacts like air pollution, but also the waste to think about. A lot of waste is produced when, for some reason, fireworks don't sell, maybe because they are damaged or don't work well. 

I'm afraid sparklers are the same, even though they are so much smaller. They are very hard to recycle and emit the same pollutants that fireworks do. Sad, right? I quite like sparklers. 

I don't want to ruin the whole spectacular show of fireworks, so here are some environmentally-friendly alternatives: instead of buying them to use at home, watch a public display or watch them on TV. Or if you really want some at home buy eco-friendly fireworks. However these 'green' fireworks don't seem to be much better, because although they can release 15-65% (quite a lot!) less particulate matter - the ashes or soot that rains down after a firework explodes - they still worsen air quality. 

Thank you for reading! Hopefully you can use these tips for New Year's, and that if you do want to have fireworks, choose to go to a public one near you, if there is one. See you next Sunday!

Violet

         xxx