the silver enemy

“You’d better take your Christmas presents home with you today as we’re off to the Caribbean soon,” says my mother, clearing the dinner dishes.
The Carbon-copies, the Carbon-baby and I have made a quick dash over to Liverpool for the weekend. The carbon cost of a 100 love miles to see granny? 30 kg’s at my reckoning. But it’s nothing like the environmental cost of a cruise around the Caribbean. I bite my tongue and stifle my opinions about those climate-corrupting fun factories and the 24 hr buffet fuelled hedonism that she indulges in three times a year.
“I just hope you’re cutting down on clothes this time,” is all I say, referring to the start of her last cruise where she was fined £93 in excess baggage after stuffing more than 40 evening dresses and ball gowns into her suitcase and trying to get on a plane.
“I wouldn’t say I’m cutting back, but we’re definitely not taking the fancy dress pirate costumes this time,” she says. “I think half of that fine was probably the weight of the parrots.”

She brings in the pudding, scooping out a large helping of tiramisu, while informing me my brother will be flying his family to his French second home for Christmas. I sigh.
“I can’t help but feel a bit jealous,” I tell her. “I can’t imagine justifying flights like that for fun again.”
She looks up at me in astonishment, and the spoon of tiramisu does a nosedive into a bone china espresso cup. “Not fly again? Why not?” I shake my head.
“Haven’t you heard there’s a climate crunch going on mum? Don’t they cover the environment in the Daily Mail?”
Her response is a snort. “Oh, don’t give me that climate change nonsense” she says. “That’s Carbonlite speaking, not you. You like shopping and going on holiday. Has he been indoctrinating you again?”
“I do NOT like shopping,”I begin to shout. Why do all my family seem to think I spend my days shopping?
“Most of my clothes come from Oxfam,” I tell her, banging my spoon into my bowl.
“Not that lovely coat,” says my Mother, “that’s from Boden. I saw the label when I hung it up.” I enlighten her to the fact that it was once from house of Boden, but not for at least two owners.
My mother shudders. “Please don’t mention that to your sister. I don’t think she’d ever speak to you again. And by the way I don’t want any second hand clothes for my Christmas presents thank you very much.”
I remind her that she’ll be cruising the good ship lollipop by then, destroying the future for my kids.
“Well thank heaven I won’t be around by then,” she says.
I stand up and push my chair back. “That’s just typical of your generation,” I cry. “It’s only 90 years since the war you know. Think what they had to live on…darned tights and marrow soup. You’re the first generation to have everything and you abuse it. Fat pensions, a house that will net you a quarter of a million in disposable income, cheap short haul flights, and cruise ships the size of the Starship Enterprise. And you think you can leave the mopping up to my kids? Why should they have to spend their adult years continually cruising Cumbria because the sea levels are so high due to your carbon addiction?”
But she’s not listening. “A nice case of wine would be fine for my Christmas present,” she says.

The eldest Carboncopy looks up from his pudding. “Mummy, I know that you buy some presents as well as Father Christmas,“ he says. Now I can no longer stay at the table, but start pacing round it.
“Now is not the time to shatter my illusions about Santa,” I yell at him. To diffuse the tension, my mother clears the plates and takes them into the kitchen.
“I’ll just put the kettle on again. Now would like a nice bit of brie before we go and admire my new outfits?” she trills.

ride the climate rollercoaster

Carbonlite and I are climbing steeply. We push ever higher and suddenly the whole of Coney Island bay stretches before us. But no time for admiring the view as we hurtle over the edge and shoot back to earth, screaming and waving our hands in the air along with 50 other riders.
The rollercoaster we’re all on is the usual mix of anticipation and terror. But this is no ordinary ride. With the help of a screen, a short film, a dose of audience participation and some facts from our host, we are riding the Climate Change Rollercoaster.
“London’s underwater and two thirds of the world’s glaciers have gone,” he shouts as we plunge downhill, screaming. “Oh crikey moses the whole climate system has gone into reverse,” he bellows, as we wave out hands wildly in the air.

I glance at Carbonlite and he catches my eye. Just for a change I’m responsible for organising our latest eco outing; to a climate change stand up comedy night at our local theatre. Our entertainment is provided by the Carbon Detox writer and climate change campaigner George Marshall, who runs an environmental charity and teaches others to lecture about the world’s problems. But tonight he tackles the issue through humour; highlighting our denial strategies, pointing out the eco stereotypes, myths and contradictions, and making us laugh at an issue that others portray as dry, boring, or downright scary.

We disembark the rollercoaster and our comedy coach continues with an education about evil carbon twins.
“Last year I dropped in on my neighbour to settle some minor boundary dispute,” George tells us. “There was a walloping four-wheel-drive tank in the drive, his house was as hot as a sauna with the back door open; every room was lit up like an operating theatre by halogen spots and a 1.8 metre plasma screen TV was going full throttle in the corner. As soon as I saw his house I realized all the energy that my own energy efficient house and low impact living was saving was being used up by him.”
He pauses for a moment before throwing his hands in the air in despair. “I might just have well have run cable between our houses and sent all the energy that I was saving over there.”

On the way home Carbonlite and I discuss our evil carbon twins and who they could be.
“Well it isn’t our next door neighbours,” I say. “One heats their whole house with just a single real fire; I’ve seen her out collecting fuel. And the other goes on the Wheely Good Communities trolley dash to get her shopping.” But I admit it could be some of my friends, many of whom still fly for fun and breed 4x4’s faster than they produce children. And as for my mother, currently and always ‘off on a cruise,’ well she sucks out more energy savings than a family of sextuplets. I’m thinking all of this out loud when Carbonlite interrupts.
“Don’t you get it? You’re my evil carbon twin,” he says, “I go biking to make more space on the road for your tin box. I wear an extra jumper all day and you blow our carbon rations on heating the house at night. I replace all the lightbulbs and you….”
“Hey ok, ok.” I say, my hands up in the air. “I might be your evil carbon twin but we’re stuck on this climate change rollercoaster together. So you’d better hold on tight to me and we can ride the cyclone. Let’s face it baby, I could be the only thing between you and the abyss.”

road miles

We had barely been on our summer cycling holiday for a few hours when a message pinged into Carbonlite’s in-box. It was a request from a TV company making a ‘new iconic British road movie.’ Would Carbonlite be interested in sharing his views about alternative transport to the motor car? Would he? Several long texts later he had given his opinion on the car versus the bike to a very happy researcher.
“They’re very good but you’re too keen.” I tell him, reading back through his texts. She’s going to ask you to be on her programme and then stitch you up like a kipper on a tricycle.”
Carbonlite grabbed a bicycle off the car roof and started to load it with luggage. “No she won’t, she’s just doing her research,” he said. Her enquiry was a timely one as we were just leaving our car in a car park in Portsmouth for six weeks while we cycled across Northern Spain.

Carbonlite’s correspondence had obviously made him think. In fact he started to get quite evangelical. For the next six weeks, he pushed his message on all of us, as we pedalled up and down the hills of Spain.
“Cycling is such a positive alternative to travelling by car. It brings you back into contact with the elements, terrain, the natural world, your physical being and other people.”
“You’re quite right,” I agreed on the first week of our holiday.
On the second week he pressed on with his argument. “There is no insulation, no tin box, no protection from the sun, rain, storm, wind. You feel the weather and know what it is. You know the terrain more intimately too; feeling the rise and fall of the road, noticing the slow drag, that gentle run down, that hill you never sense in the car.”
I nodded, despite the fact that the hill I never sense in the car was taking me to the brink of exhaustion.
On the third week he really got into his stride as he cried, “Feel your legs working, your heart pumping, the air in your lungs! Feel yourself growing stronger on this hill.” By now even the Carbonlites started to put their fingers in their ears and hum loudly as they pedalled. But Carbonlite carried on regardless, sure only of one thing; the superiority of bike over car.
“On a bike you are part once more of the social world of pedestrians and that special club of other cyclists amongst which there is a camaraderie you don't get amongst drivers – the passing nod, wave or hello, a recognition of someone else who is willing to make an effort to get where they want to go.”

On our return, the car was waiting, but it was a few days before I got around to using it. I’d completely got out of the way of it. And when I did use it, I found I agreed with some of Carbonlite’s sermon. Ok the car was both convenient and fast, but where was the feeling of the wind in my hair and my connection with the land, with the weather, with the road? I felt like I was pinned in to a tin box, and hardly used it for the rest of the week.
Instead I rigged my bike up with baby seat and carried on biking. I hardly noticed the hills coming into the village. I hardly felt the miles. And I was saving money. Even a short ride to Deerslet tea rooms was saving me both petrol money and carbon emissions. Carbonlite on the other hand having cycled 1000 miles with ease, cricked his back on a bus while trying to accommodate a lady with a generous girth. Now he couldn’t cycle at all, and had to drive everywhere. Suddenly I was the queen of green and he was the lowly peasant.

The TV researcher got in touch to ask if he’d be on the programme, as predicted, a request he politely declined. He mentioned this fact as he was getting in the car to visit the osteopath, wincing as the torn ligaments in his back gave him grief.
“Want a lift?” he said?
“In that tin box? No thanks,” I replied hopping onto my bike.

Feeling the pinch

The tumble drier sounds like an aircraft coming in to land. I’m worried it’s going to cause a house fire if I use it again. I’d buy a new one, but it’s the third appliance to break down this month. They always go bust in three’s don’t they? So no more tumble drying in the carbon household for a while.

And then the gas bill comes in at £550. I express my shock that six months of heating can cost that much.
“Three months,” Carbonlite replies. “And it was summer. We shouldn’t have had the heating on.”
He goes around the house turning the lights off and shouting at people to unplug everything and switch off computers instead of leaving them on standby.

He reminds me of my father. “It’s like Blackpool illuminations round here” my dad used to say every time someone turned on a light. He used to compost things too, and make soup from anything past it’s sell-by date that was lying around in the fridge. In fact my dad had us on a cabbage soup diet long before it became a fashion fad. I used to think he was just miserable, but now I have a new respect. He saved energy, discouraged waste, and kept the bills down. If my dad had ever got a £550 gas bill, he’d probably have had an angina attack down by the compost heap while drinking a beaker of cabbage soup.

I stare at the bill and try to think of an excuse. “It’s been a rainy summer” sounds a bit pathetic. “Gordon Brown is to blame with his 40% price hikes,” is convenient but not strictly true. I’m still trying find a way to wriggle out of it when I pull up at the petrol station and find it costs £75 to fill my car up with unleaded. When did that happen?
On the way home, I imagine cutting the bottom out of my vehicle and pushing my legs through, powering the vehicle along from Carnforth like the crew from the whacky races. I am angry that my car costs so much to fill. But then, I reason, a litre of petrol is no more than I’d pay for a cup of coffee. Coffee is a renewable source, you just drink it, grow some more beans and hey presto. But our fossil fuels can’t be renewed. They’re highly precious, having taken millions of years to produce, and masses of effort to extract. They’re a dwindling resource and we’re terrified of them running out, and yet we waste them on trips to Carnforth that we could cycle without breaking a sweat.

I think back to my green resolutions two years ago and the excruciatingly slow progress I’ve made. I cycle sometimes, but not often enough. I put the fire on when a jumper would do. I hang out the washing only when it’s sunny. This “eco worrier” needs that financial pressure to make her worry harder. As a family it hurts when we’re out of pocket with the gas and petrol bills. But as a mother of future generations, the price of carrying on as we are is far more alarming in the end. When our homes are flooded and our fossil fuels run out, we’ll dream of tough bills and petrol at £1.20 a litre.

I pick the Carboncopies up from scouts. They run in and switch on the lights.
“Hey, it’s like Blackpool illuminations round here, turn them off.” I say.
“What’s Blackpool laminations?” asks the youngest Carboncopy.
“Grandad’s favourite place,” I reply, thinking fondly of my elderly eco relative, who turns out to have been way ahead of his time.

Turf wars

I was putting the Carbonbaby into her car seat when I noticed a yellow ‘post-it’ note on my windscreen. In neat writing it chastised me for taking up two parking spaces on the village square, and suggested I park in the Royal Hotel car park instead. I looked around, wondering if it was a joke and I was on candid camera? But no, the note was serious, and signed by a neighbour. I walked around my car, parked outside my house, wondering if I’d made some terrible error of judgment. In fact I had to concede my neighbour was correct; I had taken up two spaces. I probably do it all the time as my parking is rubbish.

I found myself thinking about this note over the following week. My neighbour was right. I shouldn’t be taking up too spaces on the Square. I shouldn’t be taking up any. Why has such a focal point and natural meeting place in the village become a car park, and when did this happen? For the first time I started to notice who was parking outside our house, and how jammed it had become at night. I began to see just how full the Royal Hotel and memorial hall car parks are by the end of the day. And it worried me. The modern obsession with having a car, or two cars (and sometimes three and four cars) for each family has created a big problem for a village like Burton in Kendal that wasn’t built for any cars at all. Our reliance on the motor means we don’t want to walk far to get to them. And we regard parking as a right, not a luxury.
I wondered what would happen if the new owners banned parking in the Royal Hotel Car Park? Would people be forced to part with one of their cars altogether if they could no longer put it anywhere at night? Then I got to thinking ‘What if the square went back to its former glory and became a village square again?’ A centre point of the village; with children playing and people stopping to have a chat and waiting for the bus without being surrounded by stationary metal boxes.

I told Carbonlite my concerns and together we brainstormed how we could make our village square a greener place. “I’ve got it!” he said, “Let’s make it a greener place. Literally. Guerilla gardening.” He gave me an article in The Guardian, about eco minded people making urban places more attractive by planting grass and seed by stealth. “We wait till they’ve all driven off and we lay turf. Then it becomes a real village green.” I laughed it off. It was such a blue skies idea.

Then I mulled it over. What if we weren’t the only people in the village who would like to see the square become a greener place? What if all the green fingered in Burton were potential guerrilla gardeners. So what’s the price of turf these days? A quick search of the net told me I could turf the whole square for £500. “I’ll pay for it myself,” said Carbonlite.

So what do you think, villagers of Burton in Kendal? Would you like your village square to become a square again? Or how about it becoming a green? Surely a turf war between Burton residents in the future is a higher price to pay. After all, how long before our cars start to outnumber our homes and drives and we start to fight amongst ourselves for available street space? It’s your village. What do you want…a green clean environment or a giant car park?
Answers on a ‘post-it,’ but not on my windscreen please. Alternatively drop us an e mail at burtonecoteam@btinternet.com or write to the Burton News. Let’s get this debate going. With your help, I’m looking forward to sunbathing on the village green next summer.

A package holiday?

“We ought to take a package holiday sometime,” says Carbonlite as we cycle down to the farmers market in Milnthorpe. The hedgerows are flush with wild garlic and the breeze pushes pink blossom under our wheels as our feet spin in the sunshine. On this glorious day I don’t feel the need for a holiday and I’m curious Carbonlite should put forward the suggestion. “A package deal? You mean a fortnight in a Spanish hotel with all our drinks included?” I ask. “No,” he replies. “Not that type of package holiday. More of a ‘packaging’ holiday really. No cardboard, plastic or glass coming into or out of the house. For a week.”

Once I’ve got over the disappointment of no free booze, I begin to mull over his idea. A week’s ‘package holiday’ would cut down the endless trips to the tip to recycle plastic and cardboard, which I always end up having to do. And it might force me to shop more healthily and locally. But why wait for the peak of summer to liberate myself from the burden of cereal boxes and tetrapacks? Why not start straight away? And where better to start than a farmers market? I don’t mention anything to Carbonlite; my transformation into package holidaymaker will be a surprise for him at dinnertime.

My first purchase is easy. A loaf of wholewheat bread. I’m slightly concerned it’s been driven in from Liverpool that morning, but reckon the package-lessness of the product will cancel out the road miles. Joyfully, I ask the scouser bread man to drop it straight into my pannier next to the tool kit and the bicycle lock.

I then pop over to the olive stall and drool over green and black delicacies in their big curved yellow bowls. Simple and delicious. But where to put them? Olive man can’t just tip them into my pannier like bread man did. After cursing myself for not bringing a range of Tupperware tubs on my cycle ride, I decide to give olives a miss. But now olive man is all fired up to make a sale. He starts pushing an assortment of olives my way on cocktail sticks. And when he gets no interest he moves onto the pickled garlic. To stop him charging at me with any more sharp sticks I grab one of the large plastic containers stacked up next to the bowls and fill it up. “Climate death by olives and feta cheese,” I mutter to myself, “and the first failure on the Carbon family package holiday front.”

As a penance I move on to the vegetable counter and ask the assistant to tip the carrots and onions straight into my bag. Then I stroll to the opposite stall. I need a new quilt cover as ours is beyond repair. But all the quilts are wrapped in cardboard and plastic. As a compromise I unwrap the quilt, pay for it, then hand over the packaging to the sympathetic saleswoman. “So good to see a young person caring for the environment,” she trills as I shove the quilt deep into the pannier around the vegetables and olives.

Finally it’s over to fish man. Now this stall is good. Freshly caught fish and seafood, all laid out on ice filled platters. No polystyrene, no cardboard. Just a thin plastic bag that I can recycle, if I can get the smell of smoked haddock out of it. I slap it into the pannier, heave it closed and return to the bike.

“Have I got a treat for you,” I tell Carbonlite. I reach for the black pannier. Inside is a warm fish with a split bag and a brand new bleach white quilt now tie dyed with fish juice. As I pull it out of the bag to assess the damage, a Greek salad of olives, pickled garlic and feta tumble onto the kitchen floor. Meanwhile the bread is a funny shape and has a distinct whiff of onions. “You’ll notice I’ve started our package holiday already,” I say. “But I’m not very good at it yet. I think I’ll need a bit of practice. ” “Take an extra suitcase next time perhaps?” Carbonlite suggests with a grin. “Perhaps two. One for the fish and another for the duty free.” I reply, grinning back and plonking a bottle of wine from the local Spar down onto the table. Planning my next market trip in finer detail, I pour a glass of Chardonnay and pick flakes of smoked haddock from the buttonholes of the new addition to the bedroom.

The Eco Chick hatches

I attend a pub quiz in the village. “What tree does palm oil come from?” the quiz-master asks. It’s the final question of the night and up until the last round only one point lay between my team and another for top position. The team turn to me. “Come on then Eco Worrier, what tree does palm oil come from?” “Well my initial response is the palm tree,” I reply. “But that can’t be right as it’s too obvious.” So I rack my brains about palm oil. I know palm oil is bad. Super bad. Bad, bad bad. And I know it’s encouraging the decimation of much of the rainforest of the world just so we can have longer lasting processed foods. But what I don’t know is…what tree it comes from. “It’s definitely from trees in hot areas,” I say. “Coconut?” someone weakly suggests. We decide on Mangrove as it’s the only tree we know that grows in paradise aside from the coconut or palm tree, even though I know they tend to grow in swamps and their ingredients are unlikely to enhance my Flora Light.

Of course the answer is palm, and of course we lose the point. But while the team go home thinking they could have won the wine, I am cursing myself for my lack of detailed knowledge about…well anything, but particularly the green principles I claim to live by. The thing is, I read the papers every day, shaking my head at the carbon profligacy of Western governments. I know that 4x4’s are instruments of global destruction. I know that those pretty islands you see advertised in the Sunday Times are going to be underwater by 2020 and that the coastline of Norfolk is crumbling away. But ask me about the specifics of global warming, of the icecaps melting or carbon footprinting and my mind is a blank page and my grasp of the real facts is, to be honest, a bit woolly. It’s partly that I get much of my information second hand, from Carbonlite or even the Carboncopies. I read reviews of books on global warming but never get around to reading the actual books. And it’s not even like I have to go and buy them. They’re a toppling tower of eco words next to the towel rail in the bathroom, and they’re all over the bedroom floor like a green carpet. Carbonlite says I don’t read them because I’m in denial. And I suspect he’s right, although I couldn’t furnish you with any specific details about the problem.

The next day I pick up the eldest Carboncopy from school. His teacher rushes up to me. “We were talking about trees and, playing the devil’s advocate I said to the class that it was fine to chop them all down. But your son stood up and protested. He told the class that trees take in all the bad air- the carbon dioxide- and turn it into oxygen so that we can all breath good air.” Obviously I am pleased with his brilliance. But also a bit cross that a seven year old could come up with that explanation when I’m still wondering which type of tree she’s thinking of chopping down. For a moment I wonder if I’ve got a ‘swampy’ on my hands before my son bobs into view. “Which tree produces palm oil?” I ask. “Palm.” the eldest Carboncopy and his teacher answer in unison.

At home I rifle through George Monbiot's extensive explanation of how we are doomed. I briefly consider reading Mayer Hillman’s definitive book on the state we’re in. Then I put them both down and log on. To the ‘Eco Chick’ website. Well a girl’s gotta start somewhere.

No prizes for points

Once upon a time I had my weekly supermarket shop down to a fine art. Not any more. In an ever warming world, not even the purchase of a sausage is a simple process. Today I stand over the frozen food counter holding my usual selection of pre- cooked Weight Watchers meals. But something is stopping me putting them in the trolley. My Personal Carbon Counter. And no it’s not Carbonlite. And no I’m not having an affair. I curse under my breath and put the boxes back. Then I pick them up again. Then I put them down. Unable to make up my mind, I shuffle around the counter. Now I look like I need the toilet. It used to be so clear cut. In the past I could dash around with a trolley in half an hour, buying everything the Carboncopies need to keep them alive and healthy, and everything I need to keep me under ten stone in weight. Having ‘found’ my thinner self after three lots of childbirth, I’ve been obsessive about counting points.

But that was before I visited Booths with a carbon footprint specialist. Now carbohydrates are no longer the enemy. I’m now resolved to count a different kind of carbs; the carbon emissions clocked up by the manufacture, processing and delivery of our food. That’s a whole other set of points from the ones clocked up by eating too many crisps, and not quite so easy to calculate either. A Weight Watchers Chicken Tikka packaged meal used to put six points on the fridge door chart. Simple, easy to calculate and written on the box. But tot the same dish up in carbon points and it’s… a lot of points. For a start it’s been packaged twice, once with plastic, then with cardboard. Then it’s been cooked twice, or it will have been by the time I get it into my stomach. And there’s not very much food in it, which means you have to eat other things with it to feel satisfied. Or I do anyway. It’s not exactly locally produced. And it’s meat, which means the animal will have had to be fed and kept in a warm place before meeting its’ fate at the hands of a Weight Watcher butcher.

I try to calculate how many carbon points that might be and fail. So I abandon the dinner. Fruit and vegetables you would think would be more simple. But they’re not. I know where each fruit is coming from, but if it isn’t grown locally I have no idea whether it’s been air freighted or got here by ship. And as its winter, there aren’t many local fruits available. For the further flung foods my adviser told me to opt for fair trade wherever possible, so I pile some bananas into the trolley. I move to the lettuce. The words of my friendly carbon adviser ring in my ears, “Now that could be a disaster area,” he said as I reached out to grab a bag of the ready washed stuff. “It’s processed more than it needs to be and packaged unnecessarily. You might get some vitamins, but practically no calories. Just consider where it’s come from and how much you’d have to eat to sustain yourself.” I put the bag back on the shelf. Until that moment, the activity of lettuce consuming seemed a thoroughly happy, healthy, green thing to do. But evidently it isn’t always. “There’s a good chance it’s been flown from Florida,” my fellow shopper pointed out, “Air freighting lettuce has surely got to be the world’s most pointless activity.”

These days as I move around the supermarket, I’m much more aware of how much things are packaged. Why is cereal both bagged and boxed? Why are cakes individually wrapped then boxed as well? Why are so few brand of toilet paper recycled? Why isn’t more washing powder eco friendly? “Have you brought your own bags?” asks the checkout assistant when I finally make it to the till. Have I brought my own bags? Like Russian dolls the Bags for Life tumble out of a holdall.

At home I tell Carbonlite how confusing it all is. I’m also ashamed that my desire to be thin is still outstripping my desire to be green. “Why do I do?” I ask him. “Actually, I think I might be able to help,” he says, producing a manual from the shelf. “Grow our own food?” I read from the cover. “But we haven’t got a garden.” “We don’t need one,” he replies. He opens the book at a square of earth, only four foot by four foot, growing sixteen different vegetables. “…only thing is, you’ll have to pop back to the supermarket to buy a trowel.”

Furniture matters

The living room is full of furniture. Dismantled wardrobes line the hall. When our friends announced they were moving to Australia, I asked them to pass on anything they didn’t want to take or couldn’t sell. I couldn’t face the thought of perfectly good wardrobes and tables ending up on the tip. So now we have new furniture, lots of it. “Do you only ever make friends with people who are about to emigrate?” asks Carbonlite’s sister, climbing over a wardrobe to get to the kitchen. She’s referring to the fact that our house has been almost entirely furnished by other people and their house moves.

7 years ago we moved to our Burton family home from a tiny two bedroom cottage in London. At that point we only had a bed, a wardrobe and a kitchen table. Luckily, shortly after our arrival some Swiss neighbours moved back to Switzerland, leaving us with a couple of unwanted set of chests of drawers and a wardrobe they’d have otherwise taken to the tip. Another friend moved to London and only had a small van, so our furniture collection expanded further. A further friend decided that Far Sawrey was too far to take three single beds, a filing cabinet and a mound of duvets, so we inherited them too. And so it is that our home is an eclectic jumble of…well, other people’s jumble. While other people’s houses are a reflection of their tastes, ours is a reflection of our ex-neighbours’ shopping trips.

But it doesn’t stop at the furniture. It was when Carbonlite really got into the green stuff that word began to spread. Now people regularly turn up with bikes, helmets, tyres, printers, files, and my personal favourite…back copies of Hello Magazine. My brother sent a pristine Ford Mondeo our way because he already had three cars in his drive and wanted rid of it. People constantly arrive with bags of clothes for the kids, which the children love, saving me a small fortune on the high street. When they grow out of them I give them away to others, a small scale community fashion industry.

Most of the time it’s great, we get free furniture, as well as saving it from being wasted and causing landfill emissions. At other times I wonder why I don’t get the chance to go shopping like other people and buy the things we really want, that reflect our personality and personal wealth. Sometimes I wonder why we accepted the huge 1970’s office sideboard that stretches the whole of our living room. And our crockery has depleted so drastically that we fight over cereal bowls in the morning, but don’t buy any just in case some bowls come our way for recycling. Last week we stayed with friends in Kew. Their newly refurbished house looking out onto the river is every home owners dream. But I couldn’t get past the spoons. When they opened their drawers and revealed a collection of soup, dessert and teaspoons that made me drool, I had to confess to the green eye of ‘spoon envy.’

But every spoon matters. Every impulse purchase puts another kettle or teapot into landfill. An American scientist recently told the world that the ‘Arctic is screaming,’ as a result of global warming. This is a direct result of our consumerism. Every time you take a wardrobe or microwave to the tip because it’s ‘not your colour,’ then the screams get louder. Next time you’ve tired of something, offer it to a neighbour or friend. They might need it, or know someone who does. Or contact Carnforth or Kendal Freecycle, and someone will immediately take it off your hands. On the other hand, if you’re thinking of emigrating and have a particularly nice set of spoons….

Basket case

Six weeks ago the washing machine broke. To a family that processes one load of dirty washing and sometimes two almost day of the week, this was quite an inconvenience, especially as a call to Indesit established the repairman couldn’t come for a fortnight. When small mountains of washing started appearing throughout the house, I braced myself to brave the launderette. Did they still exist outside of Eastenders? I was reliably informed there’s a good one opposite the chippy in Carnforth. Perfect.

I took six huge bin bags of washing. Lugging them into the launderette gave me backache, but otherwise it wasn’t an unpleasant experience. I loaded up three big washers, bunged in nine quid and a bit of powder, and sloped off for coffee at a local cafe. Half an hour later it was all over and I bought chips to surprise the family with on my triumphant return home as the whiter, brighter Washing Queen of Carnforth.

The washing machine man showed up after two weeks and diagnosed the fault but didn’t have the right part to repair it. After he left I assessed the overflowing washing basket and decided it was time for another chip and laundry run. But here’s the thing. This time I went with less washing.

On Christmas Eve he showed up with the right part. But it was faulty. So in the new year I was back to the laundrette. But my six bags had now become two. As the weeks progressed the sheer effort of lugging loads of laundry in the winter weather from house to launderette and back again discouraged unnecessary washing and drying. The Carbonbaby was able to wear her skirt three days on the run if I prevented her from smearing jelly and ice cream into the denim fabric. I began inspecting the Carboncopies clothes to see if they could be recycled for another day. I employed Carbonlite’s legendary sniff test on his clothes, (much to his delight,) and put them back in the wardrobe if they passed. Everything from tea towels to sheets started to have a longer shelf life. As a result the laundry decreased by about a third and I rediscovered a life without being chained to the washing machine. I had more free time, and I didn’t need Carbonlite to point out the maths; we saved money on electricity and washing powder, but more importantly the planet benefited from my reduced use of my domestic machine.

But why did it take a defunct washing machine to change my habits? I’ve been trying to be environmentally conscious for the last two years so why hadn’t I tackled this issue before now? The simple answer is the washing machine is too convenient to resist. If loading the machine was as difficult as in my mother’s day where the unreliable twin tub blocked the kitchen for the day, with it’s overflow pipes filling the sink and everyone sweating over the steaming piles of laundry, then I might think again about dropping clean washing into the laundry basket. On a trip to Samoa a few years ago we discovered room service laundry meant the maids took the washing down to the river and beat it with sticks. If this was our only method of doing the laundry, I suspect we might wear our socks for one more day.

I tried to research just how ungreen our washing habit is. But the facts weren’t easy to find. The best estimate I found was that about £800 million of electricity is needed to pass 500 billion litres of water through UK washing machines, tumbledryers and dishwashers every year. 90% of UK households have a washing machine and each one averages 274 cycles a year, (so Im not alone in my daily wash) with each cycle using 50–120 litres of water (14% of household water use). But the main figure I was after was carbon emissions. Assuming the lifespan of an average washing machine is 11 years, apparently 1.6 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted for every kWh of energy consumed. If that sounds a lot, that’s because it is.

The man from Indesit eventually returned with a part that worked. He was overjoyed to sort us out; more happy than I was. The white dalek in the corner of the utilities room sprang into life, exterminating stains and nasty niffs as efficiently as ever. The Carboncopies miss the chips. I miss coffee time in Carnforth. But laundry rationing and sniff tests continue.

The ghost of Christmas future

A journalist drops me an e mail. “Wonder if you can help?” she writes. “I'm planning a feature for Prima magazine on women who will be celebrating Christmas in different ways this year. I’m looking for a mum whose family will be celebrating a very eco-friendly Christmas - ideally cooking a meal using some of their own produce, giving sustainable gifts, or in some way generally rejecting a lot of the commercialised junk that often accompanies the season! I wondered if your family might fit the bill?” I write back and decline. “The truth is that the Carbon family Christmas is a plastic, greedy and environmentally damaging affair,” I reply. But as I press send, and imagine it winging its way to London, I see what a terrible admission that is. If an eco worrier can’t cut down on waste at Christmas then what chance have the consumers of women’s magazines got?

If it was up to Carbonlite, Christmas would have been cancelled in our house years ago. And the Carboncopies aren’t to blame for all the waste either. Their list this year consists of a modest chocolate pooing reindeer and candy grabber. I admit I’m part of the problem. In my mind Christmas should be fun and present filled, and full of all the traditions I enjoyed as a child. I know we can’t carry on mindlessly shopping, destroying trees and over-consuming, but if I’m honest, I don’t want it all to end just yet; not while my children are children. I still remember not receiving my requested ‘Girls World’ make-up mannequin when I was seven, and am of the opinion that Santa should honour all reasonable requests. I make a list of how we can cut down on our Yuletide Carbon Footprint while still keeping the fun. First on the list is transport. Could we cycle to church, the supermarket and Santa’s grotto? Can we source our sprouts locally? I gleefully strike the annual trip to the mother in law’s house in London off the calendar. I ask the Carboncopies what else they think should be on my list. “Turn the tree lights off when we leave the room?” the youngest suggests. “Let’s not have turkey,” says the oldest. “Me like chocolate poos, me no like turkey,” says the Carbonbaby, running with the food theme. I decide to ring the council to find out what their environmental people recommend. “When Christmas shopping, use less carrier bags and more cotton bags; compost your peelings; recycle trees, buy presents that are less wasteful,” a council officer reels off down the phone. “Don’t just get people an extra bit of something random, buy an experience day, or a goat. There are so many people that have got the gadgets, the gismos and all the CD’s they want, but if you still have to get them something then there’s ways of doing it without ending up with loads of stuff cluttering the house and landfill.” I cast my mind back to the day my brother bought Carbonlite a goat for his 40th birthday instead of season 5 of ‘24.’ He wasn’t exactly overjoyed. But then I think of all the unwanted Christmas DVD’s rotting in the ground for the next 200 years and shiver. The ghost of Christmas future has walked over my grave.

I begin to search charity shops for presents for my extended family and pick up some unexpected treasures. A neighbour offers to sell me some unwanted and unopened games and I accept. I buy baby presents at the nearly new sale. We get down last years cards to make our own tags. My mother rings. “I’ve seen a beautiful rocking horse for the Carbonbaby,” she tells me. I rush to cut her off. “She doesn’t like them, they scare her,” I reply. “Oh good, then I’ll get a baby Annabel. And a cot. And all the accessories.” “She has dolls,” I cry. “Five of them.” “But not a baby Annabel” says my Mother firmly. “They’re all the same!” I shout. She puts the phone down in a huff muttering that we’ll have to come over soon to collect three bin bags full of presents. I suddenly have a vision of last year’s Christmas, surrounded by plastic toys, plastic packaging and acres of wrapping paper and I find I can’t remember a single present she bought them that they’ve still got or have actually played with. I start to feel angry. Such a waste of money and the planet’s scarce resources. Meanwhile, wall to wall adverts play behind me on TV offering cut price sofa’s, hoovers, and thousands of plastic toys. Carbonlite breezes in and smiles. I ask him how he’d improve Christmas this year. “That’s easy, no presents,” he says grinning. The Carboncopies howl. My mother rings again to say she’s seen a ‘ride’ for the Carbonbaby. I sigh, realizing what a lot of work lies ahead to ensure future Christmases for our carbon heavy planet.

Trolley dash

Carbonlite and I go on the local Wheely Good Communities trolley dash. We pitch up at the Square with our bikes to find our neighbour is the only other volunteer dasher, even though it’s a crisp sunny day, one of those days you dream of on gloomy grey mornings. We race along in the sunshine with Carbonbaby in her seat. I try to calculate how much carbon we’ll save by not taking the car, and reckon it’s probably about half a living room full. “This is great, why don’t we do it all the time?” I say to Carbonlite. “Because you always take the car to get the shopping,” he replies. Good point. “Well I won’t in future,” I promise. When we reach Carnforth, I hop off my bike at Weightwatchers. “I’ll pop in and get weighed then see you in the Brief Encounter café,” I tell him.

When I get there, (half a pound lighter) he’s on his second coffee so I join him and order cake. “You can’t have that, you’re on a diet,” he says, swiping it off me. “But I’ve just cycled here so I’ve burnt off about just enough calories,” I say, grabbing it back and stuffing carrot cake into my mouth. “You know we’re really lucky where we live,” I remark between mouthfuls. “We’re a cycle ride from three supermarkets. And how many places can boast that?” “So why isn’t there anyone else out trolley dashing then?” Carbonlite replies. “What about all the Mums and older people, why aren’t they on their bikes too?” “Well, I’m here,” says our neighbour, joining us for cake. But we can’t stay long as I have to get up to the supermarket to return a pack of nappies Carbonlite bought on a rare ‘man shop’ last week. Even the Carboncopies sighed when he came home with the bumper pack, “The baby doesn’t wear nappies Dad, she wears pants,” said the oldest Carboncopy. “Dad doesn’t do shopping,” the youngest Carboncopy reminded him.

I lift the nappies out of the pannier outside the supermarket. “Are you coming in?” I ask. He shakes his head and tells me he’ll look after the bikes. “Shall I take the Carbonbaby in with me then?” He says no, so I leave him outside, tinkering with the gears.

At the checkout I load a basket of vegetables onto the conveyor belt, enjoying the peace and quiet without screaming kids and babies. Someone even packs my pannier for me. But as I’m about to pay, a shout from the entrance breaks the silence. “What are you doing?” Carbonlite stands by the entrance with his hands on his hips. “Shopping,” I reply. “Shopping? But you only came in to change some nappies and I’ve been standing outside waiting for you for twenty minutes.” The assistant smirks, along with the rest of the queue behind me. “Come on, we need to go,” he shouts. “But I’ve got to pay for these.” I tell him. “The Carbonbaby is crying,” he yells. “What am I supposed to do with her out here? You’ve been twenty minutes you know,” he looks at his watch and stomps about in the doorway. Now everyone in the other queue is smirking as well. “It’s a trolley dash?” I remind him, trying not to shout across the supermarket. “A what?” he says. “A Trolley Dash!” I yell, pulling my credit card out of the swiper and legging it outside with the shopping.

We cycle home in the sunshine still bickering. “Right, next week we’ll just do the dash bit and leave the trolley out of it then shall we?” I say. “Look I thought you were just going in to change some nappies,” he sulks, “Anyway, what’s for lunch?”
“Pampers,” I reply, changing gear and dashing off without him.

An all enveloping experience

Carbonlite is in the living room, surrounded by mounds of paper, glueyrubbish and scissors. I glance down at his feet where several bulging carrier bags spill onto the carpet. Each bag is stuffed with used envelopes. A multitude of once healthy trees, pulped, posted and nowpacked into plastic bags.

I lift a bag onto the table. "What are you doing with all this?" I ask him suspiciously. While I'm glad he's moved the piles of bags from the downstairs toilet, I'm fearful of the implications on my tidy living room. "Well, if you look here you'll see I'm snipping the plastic window out of this envelope and cutting out the gum and paste." he says, manoeuvring his scissors around the envelope. "Those bits can't be recycled you see. And now I'm cutting the rest of the envelope into a small usable square. If I stick all these squares together I'm thinking maybe I can make a little book." I struggle not to smile. " A book?" I repeat. "Yes, a little book of paper, perhaps the kids could use it for colouring or something," he explains. "Or we could give them away as Christmas presents."

He looks at me, I look at him, and we both start to laugh. "It's nuts isn't it?" he acknowledges. "But if I don't have a go then what will I do with all these envelopes? I can't put them in with the newspapers for recycling because of all the plastic and glue. There's always the option of composting the ungluey bits on the compost heap, but it's such a waste of good paper. What would you do with them?" We both know my answer before it's even formed. I glance at the bin and then glance away before picking up the scissors.

"I like to do my bit to save the planet," I happily tell Carbonlite as I snip away at a pile of envelopes. He pauses, then sighs. "You know it's a trap, this 'doing your bit' attitude. Cut up a few envelopes, recycle the milk bottles and reuse a bag or two by all means, but don't pretend your 'doing your bit' to stop global warming. You’re still driving. You still use the tumble drier. You flew to Slovakia earlier this year. Do you know how many bags you'd have to re-use or refuse to pay for that one flight? Millions of the things. A mountain of bags the size of Helvellyn. Doing your bit isn't about doing what’s convenient for you. It's about completely changing your life," he says, still snipping out miniature squares and dropping them onto a table now resembling a haphazard mosaic.

I check the time. "Well it's nearly school pick up time and I've got to take the kids swimming later so I probably haven’t time to change my life right now," I tell him, "but I do have time to make a little book or two. Come on, we can road test them on the Carbon Copies." I snip a small square of paper out of a large white envelope, and try to work out how many carrier bags would have to be reused as payback for this afternoon’s drive to the swimming pool. Then I recall Carbonliteonce told me a six mile drive produces roughly the same weight in carbon emissions as a bag of sugar. I reflect on this as we enjoy some quiet companionship, cutting and assembling bits of paper.

"We’re home Dad," shout the Carbon Copies, dumping their wet swimming kit on the table. "What took you so long?" asks Carbonlite, sipping on a cup of tea in a living room free of paper, scissors and envelope."Oh, just doing our bit," I say, plonking a bag of sugar on the table. "We cycled to the swimming pool and saved a bag of sugar,"cries the youngest Carbonlite. "No, we saved the planet and bought a bag of sugar," corrects his brother.

Carbonlite smiles when I explain the relevance of the sugar. "That’s great, because I've made all the Christmas presents," he says opening the kitchen door with a flourish and revealing a wide selection of tiny assorted recycled books. "The only trouble is, I can't find an envelope to package them up."

The Anti-carist

'Why did that car just throw coffee at Dad?' asks one of the Carboncopies as we head out of Bridgwater. Carbonlite wipes coffee off his face and jersey as we crunch over the now empty styrene coffee cup lobbed from the window of a Ford Fiesta boom-box. If he had the energy to sprint and catch the youths, I think he'd find a new use for his penknife, slicing tyres and scratching go-faster stripes."Maybe they thought we were thirsty?" I tell my son lightly, but inside I'm sighing. Now Carbonlite has a new platform for one of his rants.

Two weeks in to our cycle tour 'holiday' of Britain, he's quickly become the anti-carist; a motor-hating bicycle vigilante. And the worst thing about it is, I can see he has a point. I pedal on, knowing he is fuming away to himself. Not just at yobs who think it's a laugh to chuck coffee at cyclists, but at all the cars, lorries, campervans and caravans that cut us up, stare-eye us, beep at us or joke 'Can't you go any faster?' as they pass us on the hills. OK, I admit not everyone has been so negative; the long distance lorry drivers have obviously had training and give us a wide berth. Campervans carrying bikes wave as they overtake, and everyone stops for a chat when we stop to refuel at the supermarket or campsite.

On our way into Bristol, four drug-eyed teenagers even put their spliffs out to lend a hand and get us around some difficult gates, but most motorists prefer to watch the show from the safety of their tin cocoon. Traffic is not only choking up Carbonlite but it's choking this country.

South of Bristol, we stop briefly in the pretty village of Chew Magna. The volume of cars speeding down single track lanes to get quickly to the village traffic jam is unbelievable; and parked cars, vans and traffic queues make it hard to negotiate our way through the village. It's sad to see once quiet rural environments strangled like this. And cyclists are second class citizens: given cycle routes and facilities that never match those given over to the car. In the Tesco car park in Taunton we struggle to find a place to park our bikes to do the weekly shop. Give them their due there is a signposted cycle path, but there are only spaces for twenty cycles while the car park must have spaces for five hundred plus cars. Once we've parked our bikes, they are obviously something of an inconvenience to those trying to get their trolleys back to their cars.

In the twenty years I've been cycling, I've never classed myself as a cyclist, more a lass on a bike. A fair-weather biker who scuttles back to her car when the heavens open, but even I can see we've given too much of our country to the car. Just look at the swathes of roads, eating into the countryside with each improvement and widening scheme, the acres and acres of car parks in towns, cities and shopping centres. And all so we can be free to travel wherever we want whenever we want. Does no-one see the price of this freedom?

We follow the cycle path on the M5 road bridge across the River Avon, just yards from the deafening noise of thousands and thousands of vehicles going nowhere on important business, while we try to pick our way along a cycle route littered with shards of broken indicators, glass, straps and debris from traffic accidents. That's the price we pay.

But sometimes we 'anti-carists' and 'lasses on bikes' get our own back on the motorists. On the way to Chepstow, we ascend a steep narrow hill on a B road. We have no idea the local A road is closed for the day. All we can hear is chugg chugg behind us, as two tractors crawl up the hill in our wake. At the top of the hill we pause and pour ourselves a coffee from our flask as the tractors slowly overtake. Then we count the cars that follow. "One, two three" shout the Carboncopies as they help themselves to a biscuit. "Seventy one, seventy two, seventy three" completes Carbonlite with a smile, counting the last of the cars through ten minutes later. Each car waves enthusiastically at us, thinking we are the hold up, unaware that they are now behind two slow-moving John Deeres each pulling a huge trailer. "Shall we invite them to join us for coffee?" says Carbonlite, smiling at a motorist for the first time since the trip began.

Plastic fantastic

I search the kitchen yet another time, opening draws and slamming them shut again, desperately searching for that brash red and white Tesco’s logo, the soft green and gold hues of Booths, or the old familiar ‘Asda price’ carrier. Nothing. Not one single sniff of a bag. It used to be so different. In the days BG (before Green) we had carrier bags full of carrier bags hanging from the walls. Every crevice or shelf in the utilities room with stuffed with them; carrier bag heaven, in a long sock shaped holder. Now we have four ‘bags for life’ that even the Carbonbaby can’t destroy. Only trouble is while I have a bag for life, I don’t have a bag for the bin. As a household we might be fantastic with our plastic, but doing the routine stuff is proving impossible.

My friend turns up with a Tupperware tub she’s bought for me after listening to me moaning on about having nothing to wrap the sandwiches in. “Did you get a bag with it?” I ask her eagerly. She looks at me strangely, “Surely the point of the Tupperware is to avoid using a bag.” But I don’t reply; I’m routing through the cupboard again, trying to find any old scraggy bit of plastic to line the bin with. I give up and leave a pile of rubbish by the sink. I will have to go foraging.

I start with the village shop. I don’t need anything, but bundle a pile of things onto the counter anyway. But no one asks if I want a bag, and I’m too embarrassed to ask for one. So I pile some more things onto the counter. Eventually the balance is tipped and I’m offered the precious carrier. But just as I’m about to accept, a neighbour walks in. Now I’m torn. I need that bag. But I also feel I should set an example and refuse the bag. “But it’ s recycled…” I argue with myself, ‘…it’s not new.’ The angel and the devil sit on my shoulders arguing about global warming. “Take the bag,” says the Devil. “Save a polar bear,” says the Angel. Eventually the angel shouts the loudest, “If we got all the carrier bags we use in Britain together and extracted all the energy that are contain in those carrier bags, we can run a sixty watt light bulb for four hundred thousand years, or power Carlisle for the whole year.” She’s right, although I’m not sure what Carlisle has to do with anything. “No thanks I don’t need a bag,” I hear myself say. Aargh. I bundle up twenty five different grocery items, trailing toilet rolls and mushrooms all the way down the street. Back home I avoid the kitchen and dump what’s left of the shopping onto the living room table. Luckily its time to get the kids from school. Perhaps they’ll bring their PE kits home in a plastic bag.

“Are mouses grey?” asks the youngest Carboncopy. “Sometimes,” I reply, “Why?” Because if mouses are grey then there’s a mouse by the sink in the kitchen.” I run helter skelter into the kitchen to find the pile of rubbish disturbed and all the bits of food I’m not allowed to compost nibbled around the edges. “That’s it, I can’t stand it any more. I’m going to Tesco,” I shout.

“Don’t forget to take your bags,” say the Carboncopies, running in with four bright blue Bags For Life. “We know you like to save the planet.”

Love miles

Two years ago it seemed like a good idea. A family affair - christening, blessing and hog-roast. No matter it was in Slovakia, with airfares so cheap we promised we'd fly over for an international gathering of the clans. Two years ago we didn't really think about the environmental consequences of our actions, but that was then and it's now we're being called on our promise.

The whole thing has sent me into something of a panic, trying to work out if there's a way to keep a longstanding family promise while honouring our environmental pledge to reduce carbon emissions. The cost of breaking either promise is high; family let-down and the breakdown of Anglo-Slovak relations on the one hand; or two tonnes of extra carbon on our tab, enough to wipe out all this year's emission reductions. Mind you the cost of going wipes out our savings too by the time you've added on all the little extras budget airlines don’t advertise. And cars, buses and trains are no better, environmentally or financially; this party is costly whichever way you travel. But this dilemma isn't about money vs the environment, it's about family and the environment.

It would be easier if others in the family sympathised with our environmental predicament, but like much of the population they just don’t seem to get it or perhaps just don’t care. I've tried explaining but it's deaf ears, counter-arguments and rationalisations. "Well, you were happy enough to fly to New Zealand and back for your holidays two years ago." " Flying isn't a major cause of global warming you know." "You don't think you not flying is going to make an ounce of difference to anything except us?" It's a pointless argument. So it falls to us to decide; to fly or not to fly, that is the question.

After our environmental awakening we'd made a rule not to, but this has really put it to the test. When I weigh things up, I can't seem to balance the scales. In my head I know to fly is 'bad, wrong, environmentally irresponsible' but in my heart I fear the more immediate consequences of family strife, the prospect of which seems far more frightening than long term global meltdown.

George Monbiot describes jetting around to see family and friends as clocking up love miles. He recognises the double-bind we face when trying to visit far-flung loved ones and cut-down on carbon; it's just not possible. In a carbon rationed world something will have to give, and given that not even the greenest of us will find it easy to give up love miles, he reckons there's only one thing that will help us put planet before family and that's grounding the airplanes. For a while last weekend, it looked like terrorists might just do that and resolve things for us, but airport closures were short-lived, security was tightened and flight disruption minimised. It's going to take a lot to stop those love miles.

It's with something of a heavy heart and against my environmental conscience, we're going to put family first. And wipe out in one short flight a year's worth of carbon saving small stuff. I guess putting family first is something we all do in small ways everyday, but it's for family now at the cost of family future and how selfish is that? It's going to be a long haul to recover from this short-haul environmental blow-out.

We're all going on a summer holiday...

As the summer holidays loom, tea time time talk has inevitably turned to 'Where shall we go?' and 'What shall we do?' Just the prospect of spending six weeks at home while the kids run riot is already driving me crazy so that's out of the question. We've got to go somewhere and got to do something, but what?

How about that wilderness trip of a lifetime canoeing down the Yukon? Or a fortnight on safari in Africa? What about biking in Cambodia and Vietnam? Or trekking in China or Nepal? The travel supplements, family adventure brochures and guide books are full of ideas and inspiration. But just thinking of flying five of us to an exotic destination for a hedonistic family adventure doesn't seem very responsible any more. So it's just as well we can't afford it financially as well as environmentally; makes my unfulfilled dreams a little easier to live with.

And so thoughts turned to holidaying at home, which has not been so immediately full of inspiration. After arguing a lot about the best place to go we agreed to compromise and make our destination a journey. So having established that we couldn't go somewhere and that going nowhere was not an option, it was obvious we had to go everywhere. And so emerged a somewhat absurd plan to take on a classic road trip, from one end of the country to the other; from Lands End to John O Groats.

Only thing was we couldn't possibly do it by car; never mind environmentally, just mentally, cooped up in a tin-box day after day, guzzling fuel, enduring the great British summer and accompaniment of traffic jams. No, there's only two green ways to do Lands End to John O Groats - by foot or by bike. And with just six weeks of holiday and three kids, one is clearly impossible and the other..... Well, there's only one way to find out.

The Small Stuff

World Environment Day had sent Carbonlite into a tizzy. He was beavering away at letter writing when I returned from Weightwatchers. ‘Oh God’ I thought, ‘here we go again.’ I went to the shed to get my bike out.

“I thought you had a meeting in Kendal soon,” Carbonlite muttered.
I confirmed that I had, “We’ve been asked to do one thing to make a difference on Environment Day haven’t we? Well I’m going to cycle to my meeting.” I had hoped to pledge to cycle to all of the days meetings but looking at my schedule it would involve seventy five miles of cycling, and I wasn’t that committed to change.

I grabbed my cycle helmet; if I didn’t move quick I was going to be late for my first meeting with a new client and I had at least twelve miles to cycle. “Oh and while I’m cycling to Kendal, Fenella will be buying eco washing balls and Natalie plans to plant and recycle a tree. It doesn’t have to be the big stuff you know.”

At the mention of a couple of our more environmentally aware friends, Carbonlite looked up. “How do you know what they're doing ?”
“Because I asked them to do something for World Environment Day last night. If you want to save the planet, you have to think ahead.” And I waltzed out of the front door.

Just one more thing....

It's UN World Environment Day and the great and good Climate Change and Environment Minister Ian Pearson wants us all to mark it by thinking about our impact on the planet and committing to do one thing differently to reduce it.

Well, that's just great. As if I don't spend enough time already fretting about this. And now the government without the backbone to commit to any radical action to really address the causes of climate change wants me to do more.

Well I want them to do more, to move beyond aspirations and rhetoric and show some real leadership with tough action, even if it might be unpopular. I want to see them toughen up the climate change bill, commit to reduction targets that are based upon best scientific evidence, ban energy inefficient products, invest big time in renewable energy, tax to the max high polluting cars, invest in world class public transport infrastructure, tax, discourage or ban non-essential flying, look seriously at personal carbon rationing, and stop waiting for the enlightenment of the masses or the markets to sort the problem out. It's not going to happen.

So what's my one thing? Well, I'm going to write to my MP and the government and respond to their consultation paper on the climate change bill, asking them to toughen it up.

So, if you''re stuck for an action today, then why not do the same. The Friends of the Earth Big Ask campaign website makes it very easy for you - with letter templates, details of your MP and a way for you to email them directly, making you doubly environmentally pious by saving ink, envelopes, stamps and letter miles. You can email your MP or respond directly to DEFRA's consulation. But don’t leave it too late, the closing date for responses is 12th June.

Go on it only takes a minute or is your planet not worth that?

Apple crumble

What a fuss about half an apple. All I said was it seemed a terrible waste to throw it away. I mean it had only been nibbled around the edges and there was plenty of apple left to offer round, make juice, cook up a crumble or chuck on the compost. That's all I was trying to say but the point got lost in a stupid row.

It was an argument about something and nothing - the fate of a half eaten apple - but it stayed with me for days. And you know why? Because it's not an argument about apple, it's about attitude. The attitude that says it's OK to be wasteful, to bin without thinking, to dispose of the inconvenient or not quite perfect, to not to think about our everyday actions or concern ourselves with how all the small stuff adds up. Like we do most of the time. Like I do a lot of the time. Like the Washingqueen did with said apple.

And it makes me mad; mad with the Washingqueen, mad with myself, mad with the mindless masses that continue living wasteful, carbon guzzling lifestyles, acknowledging the very real dangers of climate change, debating it at dinner parties, making the right noises in the recycling department but still not really sweating the small stuff, preferring instead to put their energies into making excuses. "Well…. does it really matter? I mean what's the point in me bothering if no-one else does? It's not easy being green you know. And besides what difference is one apple/lightbulb/plastic bottle/journey going to make anyway? We all know there are bigger fish to fry than me, bigger problems that need solving elsewhere first eh? "

That's the apple attitude and it will make the world crumble. While we all wait for someone else to do something, making excuses about why we can't.

Small stuff matters, no matter how small. It matters because it makes us more mindful and requires us to take responsibility for our actions and the consequences that follow. It matters because it makes us part of the solution not part of the excuse making problem. And it matters because it may encourage others to do their small stuff too, in their own small ways. And as every charity will tell you, every little helps.

Anyone for crumble?