[Penninehillbilly]

Well FW, you are certainly testing my brain cells, I read a bit, have to look things up (all these gas names), end up following another link, all very interesting, but all the while knowing I should be finishing off over in the barn  .
Learning lots of new things here.

[Fleecewife]

Well FW, you are certainly testing my brain cells, I read a bit, have to look things up (all these gas names), end up following another link, all very interesting, but all the while knowing I should be finishing off over in the barn  .
Learning lots of new things here.

Apologies - I've given you too much homework 

We haven't got our tups in with the ewes yet with all this malarkey!

[doganjo]

I've give up on all the information about the rest of the world.  I'm just going to do the # best I can with the resources I have.  No point in worrying about things I can't change, it'll only kill me

[chrismahon]

I'm thinking along the same lines as you [member=26320]doganjo[/member] . I can't change anything as we have always been doing our best- driven by a shortage of money of course. Here we suffer from 'secret deforestation', where 90% of the oak trees have been removed from the forests for burning, leaving only the outside and a few straight and tall trees inside. Still looks like a forest, but isn't. In the last 4 years all the local forests have been plundered. So given that oil burners are being phased out (can't be replaced only repaired), our electricity supply is limited to 6KW so we can't use a heat pump and there is hardly any wood left, how do we heat our place? Fortunately it's only small. Our friends down the road were burning 20m3 of oak every year, just to heat downstairs, which is a lot of trees!


We were looking at a pellet burner, but that's wood as well. I don't know where there wood comes from but I bet it isn't sustainable. We haven't enough land to grow our own either. Looks like closing the house down and living in one room (as I said in another thread) wearing as many clothes as we can get on is the way to go? I hear all these agreements but have no idea how they can be achieved?

[Fleecewife]

[member=23925]chrismahon[/member] It's interesting to hear a little about what's going on in France.  My brother moved there recently but is still at the stage of thinking everything's perfect 
I have always thought of France as being a well forested country, so much more so than the UK.  How very sad to hear of the demise of the beautiful oak trees, such a major part of those forests - just to be burned as firewood for domestic heating  There is a big difference between clear felling mature trees and coppicing them, when they have the chance to regrow on the same big root system.  I don't think oaks coppice well, so they would have to be replanted, which will mean it's many years before they are large enough to have a helpful effect on sequestering carbon, so suddenly we go from a carbon storing situation to a carbon loss-to-the-atmosphere situation.  If you can source firewood from a coppiced woodland, that is so much better and at least the lesser of two evils.
From what I have heard, air source heat pumps are less than a solution.
To my mind, as smallholders we each have our own little circular system. Our animals graze our land, eat our leftover vegetable debris, return fertility to the ground and in the case of sheep, supply us with lovely warm wool to keep us warm plus a little food. If we don't keep livestock but just grow vegetables, again if we have a compost heap then everything we take from the system is returned to it (drawing the line, for me, at human excrement!)


We pondered the same problem as yours for a while, contemplating a wind turbine or photovoltaic cells, but in the end we plumped for insulating our house better.  We live in an old stonebuilt house which was in poor condition, full of draughts from every possible source.  We got the house repointed, putting on a new roof, building a stone porch on the front and a stone scullery at the back to act as air locks, getting double glazed windows and doors.  We already had a wonky oil-fired central heating system and a wood burning stove - no point in changing them.  We spent a lot of money, but actually less than we could have spent on a turbine (and looking at those around us, they seem to stand idle most of the time because they break so easily) or on solar energy - but we don't get much sun round here 
We have always worn plenty of clothes - woollen clothes - against the cold and don't use the central heating much - if you're cold, put on a jumper, move around and have a cup of soup.  That works for all except the coldest weather, and we do get quite a lot of that in winter.
I don't say our system is perfect, in fact there's a lot wrong with it, but we don't eat vast quantities of steak (in fact we eat NO steak  ), we don't travel much, with any longer journeys by low consumption motorbike, we never fly anywhere, we wear our clothes until they are done and we keep our consumerism to a minimum.  In other words we do our best in our own circumstances.  I don't think anyone can do better than that.
Compared to the huge consumers and polluters of the world, the average smallholder's contribution to GHGs is minimal.
I think a big contribution we can make is to learn as much about the causes and solutions of climate change as we can fit in our heads and share that knowledge as far as we can, in support of those who have to make the decisions.

[Fleecewife]

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases

This article gives a more readily understandable explanation of GHGs, where they come from and how we can help get rid of them, but it's from the US so does not exactly match the UK.
It does however give proportions of the main GHGs, as seen from the ground, how long they stay in the atmosphere, sources of each main gas mentioned and some of the ways we can stop producing so much.

[Fleecewife]

One topic we haven't touched on here is rewilding.  This is the current big idea, and David Attenborough has concluded after much thought that rewilding is the way forward.  After meeting with Indigenous pastoralists at COP26 I have come to realise that rewilding has to include humans too. For millennia the system on the vast grassy plains of the world has been for indigenous peoples to graze their herds and flocks amongst wild animals, moving with them to the best grazing grounds.  The system has been balanced - if they have too many animals then they die off as food is unavailable, if they live within the ecosystem then they thrive.
Now, those vast grasslands suffer from the encroachment of cities and roads, enclosure of the common lands, division and blocking of the ancient migration routes, desertification, overgrazing and severe drought. Rewilding should involve the old system of human living being incorporated into plans for the return of wildlife. Of course that can't be done until we get our climate sorted, with some rain at the expected times to grow the grasses, so it has to be a long term plan.

[doganjo]

If rewilding means bringing in animals that haven't been in an area for hundreds of years, even some that are dangerous; and leaving land to grow back green, albeit different shades, rather than lots of colours; then I'm against it.

I don't want wolves and bears back in Scotland and I don't want ground elder and couch grass instead of yellow rattle, meadow sweet and campion

[Fleecewife]

If rewilding means bringing in animals that haven't been in an area for hundreds of years, even some that are dangerous; and leaving land to grow back green, albeit different shades, rather than lots of colours; then I'm against it.

I don't want wolves and bears back in Scotland and I don't want ground elder and couch grass instead of yellow rattle, meadow sweet and campion

But that isn't quite the kind of rewilding David Attenborough is thinking about Doganjo.

I am in fact with you about the dangers of reintroducing wolves, bears and lynx into what is now an area largely occupied by humans, Scotland.  That fact means that there isn't room for the old animals that lived there before, and the very nature of the way they lived was to have vast areas to roam freely.  But then the total human population was tiny compared to today's 7.5 billion.
10,000 BC - 1-15 million
4,000 BC - 800,000
3,000 BC - 3 - 4 million
500 BC - 150 million
1 AD - 300 million
1000 AD - 310 million
Britain was first populated this time around in about 8,000 BC, when wild animals included Giant Elk, Aurochs, Wild Pig, Bears and Wolves.  It wasn't until 4,000 years later that deforestation began to enable settled farming, and the battle between humans and wildlife commenced.  Things have changed a tad since then, so no-one is suggesting we reintroduce Giant Elk but truly I see no success were we to reintroduce the predators without also reintroducing their traditional prey.  That would set us up for humans and our livestock to become the only prey available.  That in turn would lead to us killing all the carefully reintroduced species, as we did before, and that is simply unfair on the predators. I don't think Scotland, or England is in the right state to reintroduce former wild species - it would be nice romantically, but practically it's not going to happen.

I appreciate that you have already said that you are not interested in the rest of the world, but when it comes to Climate Change, we can't be parochial, we have to see things from a world perspective, as it's the whole world which has been tipped into chaos.  The Earth is one giant interconnected ecosystem and if you unbalance one area, then that will percolate through to all the other systems until the whole lot runs away.
As I commented in my previous post, rewilding must include humans in the equation.  I believe the vision David Attenborough has does involve rewilding the whole world, by restoring grasslands, wetlands, grass prairies, wild mountains, lowland meadows, woods and whole forests, but in a sensitive way which allows entire ecosystems to function without too much encroachment of insensitive human constructs into wildlife territory and avoiding the situation where wild animals end up in conflict with humans.

I have to point out Doganjo that yellow rattle, meadow sweet and campion are all flowers of meadows and man-worked land (or mostly woman!) but so are couch and ground elder, nettles and thistles - without one you won't have too much of the other.  In a rewilded environment those plants and flowers will pop up perhaps where a tree has fallen, or where wild animals have congregated, but they will not be there to excess.  In fact seeing some plants, and birds and animals, as desirable, whereas others are undesirable and to be removed, is a small illustration of how the whole of Earth's ecology has slowly gone to pot.  Each part of an ecosystem is interconnected to and inter dependant on the others - remove one, and the others cannot function.

[doganjo]

I never said I wasn't interested in the rest of the world at all

However, I AM interested in each country doing what it can to impr0ve its own emission

[Fleecewife]

The news coming out of COP26 tonight seems quite a let down.  They're still talking about the goals set in Paris in 2015, which have been unfulfilled, so no big steps forward that I can see. The best thing possibly is that Biden came along and is taking the whole thing seriously, in contrast to the Trumper who did so much damage.  On the other hand, Biden's visit caused sooo much pollution with his giant planes, monster armoured car and helicopters carried inside one, huge plumes of exhaust gases showing at Preswick, and then he only stayed for a couple of days. 
There should be a calculation coming soon of the extra pollution and emissions caused by COP26, mostly by the planes flying in and out.  Clearly not a single country has got hold of the clear messages of Climate Change, and the leaders who came here are supposed to be the ones taking action. I'm sad and disappointed.

[Penninehillbilly]

Yes, thats what weve been saying about all these meetings, same at Cornwall earlier in the year.
All this whizzing backwards and forwards to/from Europe.
What happened to all the talk of internet allowing people 'face to face' meetings, cutting down on travel, or do politicians like to be seen to be doing things, and just enjoy the VIP  receptions they are given?

[Womble]

Mrs Womble and I decided to share a bath to save water. The problem was that we couldn't agree on how quickly to fill it. She wanted to keep both taps on full bore, whereas I wanted to be more cautious. I was right of course - she turned on the taps and water splashed everywhere! To avert a crisis, I insisted we turn the taps down by half. However, she turned them back to about three quarters and told me the water company had said that was more than enough. We argued for a while about this, and in the end settled for something in the middle.


However, neither of us were all that happy about that arrangement, so we went for a long walk to take our minds off the argument. It was only after an hour or so that we remembered the bath was still filling.

[chrismahon]

They said this morning that CO2 emissions in France were really not as much of a problem (our electricity is Nuclear) as Methane released by farm animals and even worse (surprise this, as I have never heard of it) N20 released as a by-product of Nitrogen fertiliser on crops. Di-Nitrogen Oxide is 300 times worse as a greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide. So stopping eating meat might not do much?

[in the hills]

Further to Doganjo's comment. I think it's about balance ......a mosaic of habitats.
The wildflower meadows are indeed beautiful. They are valuable and have  their place. 
But the elder, thistles, nettles, scruffy grasses and then the arrival naturally of hawthorn and so forth ......this is rewilding too.( It's not just about reintroducing the big predators that are no longer there). This would I suppose be classed as 'scrub' and these areas are of real importance and can be great for biodiversity. They don't always look 'pretty' like a wildflower meadow but probably just as valuable and they are scarce now.