Doing: Researching the Riot for Austerity Rules. I subscribed to the Riot for Austerity yahoo group some time ago and have been receiving their discussions via email - which I find interesting and inspirational - but have not yet formally joined. My reasons for not joinging up yet have essentially been excuses for getting a bit complacent and not getting off my bum feeling like I haven't had the energy to do more.In a nut shell, motivated by the increasingly alarming updates on global warming and peak oil isssues by climate and oil experts, the Riot group are addressing their personal carbon emissions in seven key areas - petrol, electricity, gas/fuel, garbage, water, consumer goods and food - with the aim of reducing them to just 10% of their national averages. This figure was arrived at by reports like this one, in which leading researchers have concluded that a 90% reduction in global emissions is needed to avoid a 2'C increase in temperatures by 2050.
Out of curiosity, I'd like to see where we as a family sit in regards to the average Australian figures for these areas, hence my recent thoughts about weighing our garbage. I'm already keeping an eye on our gas, water, electricity and food (to a certain extent), but I think it is time for me to take another step forwards and look at our garbage, petrol and consumer goods. As such I am going to start recording these for the month of November (although I can't weigh my rubbish just yet) and total it all up at the end of the month. I suspect we will be below average, but probably not by much! It will be an interesting project anyway, and it will give us a starting point for moving further towards a sustainable future.
For anyone also interested, the following are the figures I can find that are used by many Aussie Rioters and seem to best reflect the Australian averages:
Electricity: 6700kWh/ household/ year (or roughly 18kWh/day)Natural gas: 100MJ/day
Water: 350L/per person per day or an average of 780L per household (according to my bills, my region averages 590L/day per household)
Rubbish: 11.9kg/ week + 3.1kg/ week recycling per household
Petrol: 1920L/per car per year or 37L/week
Food: $153/week (although the Riot dose not include a $ value for this part of the challenge)
Consumer goods: $300/ week.
Making: Erm, too busy researching on the 'puter *ahem*.
Dinner: Chicken and leek pie with steamed vegetables and crusty bread.
Challenge/s: Dealing with Miss Almost-Six's point blank refusal to accept anything other than a birthday party at the playcentre... Sigh.
Solution/s: Don't know... At this stage I will probably give in - and hope that by next year she will be old enough to understand why I don't want to go somewhere along those lines again.
Transgressions: Drying off the caught-in-the-rain clothes in the clothes dryer.
Reading: Cradle to Cradle by McDonough and Braungart... it's a long book :-)
Utilities for November: Petrol (my car only) 14.7 L since 1/11; Gas 36.6 MJ/day, Water 455L/day, Electricity 12.4 kWh/day.
Contemplating: A "big loaf" breadmaker (twice as big as my current one) going cheap on eBay, located a couple of suburbs away.
4 comments:
Just a quick one to say I'm enjoying reading the daily updates. :)
Hi Cat, thanks! I got no comments for days so I thought I was boring everyone to tears, LOL. It's good to know at least a couple of people are getting something out of it :-) Cheers, Julie.
Great post,keep up the good work :)
Did you get the loaf maker?
If you buy those garden solar lights(from the Reject Shop 6 for $20) they work great as indoor lights for book reading in bed,night lights in rooms,etc.
Hi Jayne,
I've bid on the bread maker, but it doesn't finish for a few days :-) Thanks for the tip on solar lights, although I have to say that as I journey further down this path, I am less inclined to buy anything from those discount shops for several reasons:
1. They are invitably poor quality and don't last very long. We were given some solar lights as a Christmas present a few years ago and they lasted all of a couple of months before they started flickering and eventually died.
2. I worry about the use of precious and limited resources to manufacture these cheap "throw away" goods.
3. I worry about the resources used to ship them to us from (in the majority of cases) China.
4. I worry about who (and what) is being exploited in order to produce these items so cheaply. Do those workers have the same entitlements to workers compensation as we do, for example?
I must be becoming a bit of an old stodgy but I'm coming to see that if I subscribe to 100% GreenPower, and still use my lighting in a sensible manner, the environment is better off. Does that make sense?
Cheers, Julie.
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