The link between population, meat consumption and global warming

Image courtesy of the Daily Telegraph - Read more about this experiment

One of the more interesting facts to come out of my recent personal research into the benefits of having a vegan lifestyle is the impact that a major shift in consumption can have on the planet in terms of global warming.

Meat production seems to be one of the key catastrophic contributory factors in the increasing CO2 emissions globally, of course we all consider cows farting etc - which is the main urban myth spread about the farming industry - but there is a lot more to consider than the comedic vision of a cow filling an enormous balloon of CO2 during its life.

Although this is a massive contributing factor, consider all the industry, transport, staff and workers required in the entire process of getting the meat to your table.

Farming involves a lot of industry and embodied energy put into the process of rearing the animal, shipping the grain to feed it, keep it warm in its stall etc, and ultimately of course shipping the meat across international boundaries in its packaging to the supermarket after slaughter.

Hasn't this gone on for centuries I hear you say.

Well, it did, but in a small way. The "Oil age" created a massive increase in population, which meant that more food had to be produced, and we are now reeling ecologically from the effects of our own success on this planet as a result of that black gold.

How oil production (in orange) affected Human population - which

The real issue now is one of volume, the human population has now risen to unsustainable levels, and at the moment those mouths are being fed at the cost of our children's futures.

Pretty Ironic isn't it, that feeding the children of today in their ever increasing masses will ultimately destroy the climate they will inherit.

Suprisingly Lamb production is the highest in terms of emissions

The Daily Telegraph says: "A Government-sponsored study into greenhouse gases has found that producing 2.2lbs of lamb was the equivalent of releasing 37lbs of carbon dioxide.

Lamb produces so much carbon dioxide because sheep belch so much methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas. Cows are also damaging, releasing the equivalent of 35lbs of CO2 per 2.2lbs. Previous studies have shown that a herd of 200 cows can produce annual emissions of methane - roughly equivalent to driving a family car more than 100,000 miles on more than four gallons of petrol."

The article compares this with vegetable production: "Other foods such as tomatoes only produce 20lbs of CO2 while potatoes release about 1lb of CO2 for each 2.2lbs of food."

We can't blame farmers really, they are just businessmen out to make a living and a profit for a commodity which is in demand - but think about this for a moment.

Considering all these details, the ever increasing population, scarcity of quality arable land which is being pumped full of oil based fertilizers and insecticides  and the horrors of GM crops upsetting the balance of our food-chain, cruelty to livestock, the reality of all these factors starts to stimulate your mind into considering the "end-game" - i.e. where and when will this end?

As with any set of figures and numbers, for any commodity like "peak-oil" there has to be a boom and a bust. And like the doomsday prophecies of oil supplies dwindling due to difficulties in cost of production and a lack of resources - its reasonable to consider that the same pattern will ultimately apply to population and food production, and costs eventually will collapse the industry. Of course amongst these stories of doom are the dwindling of hope for a gradual change in people's eating habits, which ultimately could solve the whole issue in a far less catastrophic way.

There is always a danger of considering the worst-case scenario, but my faith in humans is alas pretty dismal. Lets face it - historically and financially - mankind moves and acts en-masse, resulting in boom-bust cycles, stock market crashes and other industrial collapses caused by "panic".

So the reality of food production costs being hit by the rising cost of our dwindling oil supplies could ultimately cause mass starvation if things go on - remember that human beings are not party to the sudden price variations of the stock market - a human lives for a long time, so those mouths remain needing to be fed, even if the cost of feeding them skyrockets. This end-game could perhaps be what brings the western world to its knees civilzation wise, and would be something that could finally put an end to the increasing rise of population, imagine the effects food riots would have on those people hungry enough to have strength remaining.

So its not impossible to consider that the whole house of cards we base the western lifestyle on is actually based on oil - without oil, we would not have such a large population - and similarly its loss will have a measurable effect on the world - and like the satellite financial effects of the recession on the price of holiday homes in Spain - even the "developing world" would be affected by rising oil costs as it would suddenly make food production less profitable, which would tip the economic imbalance between countries making exports less appealing.

I've often wondered if the whole economic crash was caused by oil's future becoming uncertain - if you look at all the statistics there do seem to be a lot of similarities in date with "peak oil" and the economic collapse of 2008-2013. Were key investors holding the world's wealth responsible for shifting their money around when it became clear that the western way of life was under threat in the long term?

Commercial and monetary factors like this do have the ability to instill hope for a gradual change for the better - I've always considered that the earth's only salvation against the virus of mankind is an asteroid in the face. I have to hope that mankind can survive and change, and start using some common sense.

One of my friends recently balked at my implication of mankind being better reverting back to the stone-age - his opinion is of mankind being a superior being, powerful and mighty and able to strive through the use of technology for a better future. I wish I had that much faith in humans - The great experiment of Communism failed due to human greed - so that isn't even an option for the 21st Century.

My own personal view is that the solution to this is that we need to return to a more agrarian lifestyle, buy and grow local foods and shed the conceptual desire of the consumer lifestyle that has become so "essential" since the 1950s.

Technology has brought us a lot of things, but like the tale of Frankenstein, has it really done our species a favour? Living in balance with the world would seem to be mankind's salvation - and it would seem that simpler civilizations had it right, such as the Native Americans, who respected nature, the land and the gifts that it provided, rather than pludering and profiteering our natural resources of this planet - thats what went wrong, and ultimately is what led to the explosive population growth of the 20th Century.

Its easy to start distancing yourself from the problems facing the world. "Its not my problem", "What can I do to change things" and other excuses, but think about it for a moment - all of this is driven by the western commercial world... and that really is the key to changing the industry.

A Farmer hits back. Business should really be like evolution, it needs to change and adapt to survive!

This Australian farmer's view of course is pretty simplistic, Farming needs to adapt to survive, like any organism in an eco-system it needs to change accordingly.

In the enlightenment that was the "horse-meat" scandal of 2013, its not difficult to see the result of public knowledge and industry practices being exposed.

Aside from all the climate issues and trust issues with the meat industry - changing your diet to a raw food diet or vegan lifestyle has many health benefits that speak for themselves.

Consider this:
1) How many fat unhealthy vegans and vegetarians do you know?
2) How many overweight people live to a ripe old age?

You can start making a difference yourself. If you don't feel ready to take the plunge and go vegan or vegetarian, then why not just try eating less meat - take baby steps until you feel ready to take a stand like my partner and I have.

Every meal you have without meat makes a difference. 

Make a change.

Rainwater Storage Research

Ask yourself one question - should you be using potable (drinking) water to flush your toilet?

Such a simple point... but yet we all do this every day, and never question it. If you meet anyone from South East Asia - they are horrified by the wastefulness of it - why? This is simply because in their countries water is a precious commodity and they have devised a more sensible way of using it appropriately.

In our case, water used to be cheap like other resources, so we have always used it for everything - and never questioned the logic of flushing the loo with potable water, but since the great recession of 2008, nothing is immune to a inflation busting ever increasing squeeze on our pockets which starts to make using a renewable technology to lower the costs highly attractive.


So I spent some of yesterday going back over the lovely eco-subject of Rainwater Harvesting, something that is very low on the eco-agenda for most people - as cost wise water bills normally doesn't factor into the horrific financial burdens of mortgages and energy bills.

Today was more about the practicalities of and the rationale of actually building the storage part of it - for me, living in a remote location in the driest part of the UK, modifying my house to use Rainwater Harvesting as a technlogoy is a "no brainer", as I have a private metered water supply that currently costs me £300 a year. And while the new water supply is brilliant - with a better pressure and obvious quality - after a year its proving to be rather costly, and with the fitting of a new hot water cylinder soon, my usage is going to go up, so a more cost effective solution is in order.

I'm sold on the idea and benefits, got an idea of where to mount the tanks but some common sense consideration needs to be applied to the setup and installation costs, even if you do most of the work yourself.

Like most renewable technology, investment is required, and unlike many other technologies, the return for me would be pretty quick, the R.O.I. (Return On Investment) would probably be less than a year, so in the year I've been thinking about doing it I could have spent the cash and saved it already for the coming year. In reality it might take two years in all to get done, but you get the idea of the savings involved.

This is always the barrier with renewables. You sit around pondering if its "worth" doing in financial terms, and effort, finally you do it, and afterwards you realize it could have been done years ago. Solar panels were a bit like this for me, I pondered for ages, then took the plunge and blimey did I see a difference in my electricity bills and bank account afterwards (ignoring the spend on the installation of course!)

My neighbour's rather drastic solution to our water supply issues (the entire community of Lee-Over-Sands had a threat of disconnection a few years ago which we dealt with by agreeing to metered payments) was to dig a well, which took him about 6 weeks, and it still wasn't drinkable, or at least he didn't want to take the risk after having the water tested! I've always been unhappy with the idea of drinking groundwater in an arable area, which ours is, mainly because pesticides and various other farming nasties must work their way downward into the groundwater - although Andy assures me most of the water seeps through from the hills in an underground aquifer  During that process and discussing with him the costs of filtering water to drinking water standards etc, I said the best solution would be for him to just use the groundwater for everything around the home, toilet flushing, baths, showers, heating, hot water etc. A single tap in the kitchen is all you really need for cooking and drinking water. He eventually realized my common sense approach made sense, financially of course that "metered" amount from the kitchen tap in terms of usage is very low, compared to the amount used from the well for baths and flushing toilets and costs him and his family very little, coupled with a lot of peace of mind over healthy drinking water. For those of you considering having a well dug for you, you're looking at a couple of thousand pounds. So rainwater recycling is an attractive option - with minimal fuss - perhaps a little spend on improving your guttering to go into it, but the joy of this technology is that it requires nothing "out of the norm" in terms of normal work to the house itself.

Over the last few years I've pondered our use of water in this country as pretty daft, I'm sure people in other countries are horrified that we flush our toilets with drinking water.

Here's the big issue, like most things in our western lives, its all about convenience, keeping down infrastructure costs, and of course making money for big corporates and their shareholders.

In the old days of a nationalized water board, profits were non existent, and utilities such as water supplies were affordable. And then after World War II came de-nationalization, however appealing to the populace at the time proved to be a costly mistake. What are we left with now? Water companies increasing prices beyond inflation, just as the energy companies are doing - this of course is mainly to keep their stock market investors happy, who still expect double figure financial returns on profits irrespective of the state of the rest of their customer's financial situations.

And so the bills increase, that's what you can do with a localized utility monopoly!

So here's yet another example of a renewable concept - something that is essentially an "eco-friendly" move, but one which can actually save you a lot of money in the long term: Rainwater recycling.

While I admire my neighbours tenacity and engineering skills in digging his narrow bore well, I think rainwater is a better solution. In my case, I own a bungalow with a massive flat roof - an enormous surface area perfectly suited for collecting rain.

Of course there are the usual issues, pigeon feces, moss, dirt etc getting into it, but thats the brilliance of having a standard water supply, you just use the rainwater for washing and flushing toilets - so the filtration process is vastly simplified. It helps too not having a metal roof which presumably would further contaminate the water, which might not be a good idea for bathing.

One of the main issues with this technology is where you actually put the water. As we all know the UK's weather is unpredicatable, yet we do have cyclical periods of having too much rain and too little - so water storage is key. And this is where the complex calculations become a reality. Thankfully there are a lot of online resources to help you calculate this. I would say though that one of the benefits to a modular system using smaller tanks is that you can easily add more capacity at a later date if yours become full and you empty them regularly through day to day usage.

To work all this out, You first need to calculate your roof size, how much you use per day, week and month, and even yearly etc (which is fairly easy with a water meter), then go online and look at the rainfall figures from the met office based on your location, consider the units being used (e.g. litres) then use an online calculator to work out the avergage figures you can gather for each month. Then factor in your usage per month. From this you should be able to work out a monthly surplus of water for each month. After that consider a cyclical approach (e.g. March's surplus water adds to Aprils) and so on, you can start to get an idea of the amount of storage capacity you need in cubic metres based on rainfall to cover you for the driest periods (e.g. spring / summer).

So if you have a big roof (this can even be on sheds or outbuildings if you can run a pipe betweeen them) there is a lot of collection potential - but similar to any energy resource it then has to occupy space on your property.

This is your next problem to conceptualize  Where are you going to store 20 cubic meters of water (in my case). You might then look at commercial rainwater harvesting systems, essentially a 3000-8000 litre plastic underground tank and pump. Such off-the shelf kit runs to about £2500-£5000 plus installation costs - great for those cash rich, but for most of us, this is a big investment, and when you compare this to your yearly bill, as soon as R.O.I goes beyond 10 years, most homeowners eyes glaze over and it never gets done, whatever the good green intentions!

Modular Tanks
So then you look at YouTube, and discover the IBC water tank approach. IBC tanks (Intermediate Bulk Containers) are plastic tanks housed in a steel cage, and are often used for delivery of liquids, and are frequently recyclable. Incredibly these things are on ebay second hand and "cleaned" for about £60 pounds (excluding delivery) - as long as they only contained foodstuffs! Much, much cheaper and stronger than the equivalent water tanks and water butts. This makes you consider storage at the side of your house, perhaps in a side alleyway that is not seen from the garden or frontage of the home.

The modular tank approach is a great one, as you can build capacity fairly easily, adding more tanks and connecting them together as you can afford more, if you have the space.

You then start to realize that there are issues using this approach that many people in these videos don't consider - algae growth on the opaque/translucent tanks, which you realise can be countered by using a black tank above ground or burying it to avoid sunlight. As for underground usage of IBC tanks - a great idea if space is tight - but there is the issue of collapse of tanks underground if empty after the cage rusts away, then the big one - frost damage to exposed pipework during cold spells, or even from groundwater surrounding the tank. You suddenly realise those videos you watched were in American gardens near Mexico or in Australia - the British winter would kill your water storage system during one cold night. You then contemplate insulating it and building an entire building around the tanks to keep them warm. Those tanks now don't look quite so attractive cost wise... even if you can make the container look like a shiplapped shed to blend into the garden design.

Another idea is to build it under decking - or use it cleverly as a design feature in your garden, which is another way if you could do with a raised decking area.

This leads to more pondering - should I build it in a tower you wonder, so you research how high IBC tanks can be stacked when full... 3 apparently, but at a tonne per tank do you really want to risk one falling on you if the bottom tank becomes empty first due to poor pipework? Or should you just put them back on the ground and use a lot of groundspace... arrghh....then there is the consideration of the weight of the tanks on the supporting ground - can it take the weight.

You then start to think about "heads of pressure", just as your own is realizing how such a simple idea can suddenly get so complicated. For a while the IBC approach stacked 2 high looks good - then you realise your shower head will be above that height wise, so a pump is required - then if you need a pump you don't need to stack them!

There are other commercial examples of modular rainwater stores, which are more "coffin shaped", such as the rainwater hog tank. The downside of course is that these are £200 per tank, so although they are perfect if you can't use IBC tanks due to volmetric limitations in your garden - they might be costly, I'd only recommend using these if you have a side passage where you can mount them vertically or low decking and you have absolutely no other alternatives.

At this point I stated to move away from the modular tank approach. 

Large Tanks

For me, storage of a lot of water for a lower cost makes more sense - less pipework to worry about interconnecting them, less issues with insulation etc, Then you look for cheaper ways of building big water tanks, which includes the amazing low cost solution to building water tanks, something new I discovered today - the "ferrocrete tank" - essentially a tank made from A142 road mesh reinforcing bars and chicken wire covered in cement.

Ferrocrete tanks really are the most cost effective to build (per litre) and are even suitable for a biogas processing plant... but that is another blog entry for another day on a different subject!

Of course this is wonderful if you live overseas in America or Australia, where groundspace is not an issue, I even saw an example of where someone made a ferrocrete tank look like a boulder!
But even on my generously sized plot, I don't really want to have a massive above ground tank - of course this could be built underground, but then you have the issues of making it load bearing for people to stand on.

A large koi carp pond under construction using blockwork and fibreglass

At this point I suddenly realized that I found myself going back to my original ideas for building an extension with an underground water tank incorporated into the foundation slab. This is an idea I had a year ago when contemplating having a fresh water swimming pool as the overflow to such a system.

A recent project I've worked on reminded me of how easy fibreglassing is, which helped to confirm this as an approach in my mind - this coupled with yesterday's examination of my partner's blockwork based garden pond made me quickly get out Sketchup, and confirm the plan in terms of calculation of volume, a wider shallower tank would be a damned sight easier to build.

Sketchup allows you to draw a rectangle and it gives you a quick visual readout of an idea of size and area, then its just a matter of multiplying by height for volume. Its now looking that perhaps an underground fibreglass water storage tank under the extension would be the perfect option - it would also save space too - no dedicated land used soley for water storage, it could be integrated into the design of the building.

Sketchup is great for quick visualizations of size, volume and scale, although it doesn't actually calculate volume, only area - but you can do the rest if you paid attention during basic maths.

So... a half metre high crawlspace (which the older part of my home already has) if used for water storage would cover the area the size of an 10 metre extension projecting 4 metres would yield 20 cubic metres of water storage, which equates to far more storage than 4 or 6 IBC tanks, and it would be very easy to keep warm and insulated. It would be a damn site more useful than the crawlspace in my main building, which seems to be only useful for mice 2 years ago during a cold winter! Of course it would need to be "sealed" above its lid (which would be the floor) - but this is reasonably easy to do these days with modern building methods and arotec foil on the inside , a hatchway somewhere for access for cleaning every 10 years and maintaining the pump. The last consideration of course is an overflow pipe.

This method of water storage is much cheaper than any solution, uses less space, easily integrated into a real usable building and would be easy to build an airtight insulated flooring over the top. (I saw something similar in Spain once under a garage on a property development ten years ago...)

There are also ideas to be pondered with regard to it being used as a "thermal store", but thats another subject for another day.

Funny how your ideas take you full circle.

Pretty amazing to think that I had this idea 6 months ago, last time I thought about it all - This as I told my partner, is part of the process - rationalising a technology and the circular logic usually proves an idea is sound and the best most efficient result if you find yourself unable to dismiss it, or it re-presents itself as the best option.

Using the water - connecting it all up
So now the water storage method is considered, you need to think about some other aspects, such as getting the water into the house and using it.

If you have a massive garden and plan on growing your own food, you might not even want to do any internal plumbing - it could be used just for your garden - or why not do both, one at the end of your garden as an overflow from your household tank?

Water Pressure & flow rates
There are of course other technical details to be researched, such as how you arrange the pumping of the water from storage into your household pipework, e.g. the changeover from your own water storage to the mains when (and if) it runs out - and the various bylaws involved in keeping mains water separated from stored water to prevent contamination. A ball cock or solenoid valve (acting as a water supply switch) is needed - perhaps with a servo control so it "latches" in each position, then a float switch sensor on the rainwater tank to control it, so when the tank's amount of rain is low, the servo activates and the house runs on mains water. Sounds complicated, but it is pretty cheap to do, solenoid valves seem to be somewhere in the order of £15 - all you'd need is a small transformer to power it and its switch plugged into the mains. The bugbear is that most solenoid water valves generally are irrigation valves - which involves purchasing from overseas - as nobody does irrigation in the uk - from what I've seen on ebay some seem to have 25mm pipework fittings which results in the usual headscratching about thread standards between metric and imperial.

So are there any other "cost benefits"?
Another side benefit to installing Rainwater Harvesting equipment in the UK aside from reducing your metered water usage of course, is some hidden financial encouragement in the form of a "S.U.D.S." allowance. I found after doing a few searches that you can bargain with your water company for a reduction in surface drainage calculations, which happens if you incur sewage charges per cubic meter of metered water - should also go down as you are deemed to not be requiring as much public drainage for the water coming off your roof. This is called "SUDS" (Sustainable Urban Drainage System). Here's a link showing that you can reduce your water bill by £36 if you are an Anglian Water customer. In terms of the urban infrastructure benefits for SUDS and its wider impact on communities - You can read more about a study on this made by Sheffield university here.  SUDS of course this doesn't apply to my situation, but will happen for my partner's house if the same system is used there.

So In Conclusion...
After all this research, pondering and procrastination - I'm pretty convinced on the best approach now. The only barrier now is to do some research on water supply pumps to "pressurize" the rainwater into my system when a tap is opened - which is what happens in a caravan's water supply - This is the only downside - some extra electrical power will be required for this to make pressure for the shower, taps etc to work - remember the tank is below the height of all the appliances using the underground tank methodology.

So all in all well worth the research certainly - I aim to build this sometime next spring... watch this space...

World War II - the effects of mass vegetarianism on Norway

When Nazis invaded Norway during WWII, Norway's people were forced to eat vegetable produce after all their livestock was confiscated to feed the German troops.

Look at what happened to cardiovascular related deaths during that time, and look at what happened to those figures after the war when the meat supply was returned to the people.

This is just one of the highlights of a very informative documentary I watched last night about diet and lifestyle called "Forks Over Knives" on Netflix.

Much of this programme's content made a lot of sense to me, it also struck me how straightforward it seemed. I've always thought that many of modern life's ills are purely because of an artificial lifestyle. Our digestive system evolved over millions of years - the notion that what we put into our bodies currently as natural or suitable is totally daft. 

Anything that has to be cooked is not technically suited for human consumption - and its not just meat - all artificially processed foods fall into this category. Even dairy foods are not exempt from this common-sense approach - after all - think about it for a moment - biologically do you really think we are designed to consume milk from a different species?

But why? I hear you say - when governments all tell you its good for you? Consider who funds those food advice bodies - the food industry.

If you don't want to see the conspiratorial angle - consider one based on pure science. Evolution takes a long time to adapt an organism to an environment and food source, something in the order of millions of years to adapt. Were microwaves, ovens and stoves around when our digestive processes were designed?

Fire was not something mankind had access to during the evolutionary process - it came a lot later, in fact only 125,000 years ago in terms of hard evidence of man's ancestors using it. Its not rocket science to realize that our digestive systems have not evolved yet to compensate for cooking. 

No wonder people are suffering with weight problems and heart disease - and this film certainly made it pretty clear to me that my own decisions made with my partner about changing our diets was not simply a matter of budget, its about ignoring the rubbish the farming industry has fed us for years and thinking laterally and analytically.

China and Japan provided some incredible information on diet and death figures - this film shows a clear link to cancer and mortality rates based on diet, specifically based on meat intake.

Here's another trailer....

So whats the conclusion of all this? Well put simply modern life is killing us, and many of these modern diseases are caused by diet. If you have a highly active lifestyle, you might be lucky and get away with a long life without a change in diet. But if your days involve sitting at a desk and your waistline has ballooned since your twenties, then something is clearly wrong.

In terms of the mortality figures and how this relates to cancer and diet - I've acutally seen this in practice. Fifteen years ago my own father's cancer went into remission when his wife started feeding him only natural unprocessed foods. Unfortunately he started to miss meat, and sadly he gave in to temptation and died a year later at the age of 70 after giving up a healthy diet.

Remember... YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT.

• You can read more about a critique of the film here
• You can also watch it on Netflix here

Welcome

Say hello to the 21st Century. A time for change and a time to put into practice all those things you learned about at school but dismissed due to the conveniences of the commercial western lifestyle.

Over the last 5 years I have learnt a lot about living as ecologically as possible and freeing myself from the burdens of the banking system and other evils designed to keep the cogs of our so called modern lifestyle ticking over.

So what happened to the idealistic childhood ideas of futuristic living in harmony with our planet that 1970s Sci-Fi encouraged?

In my case - its been corrupted, coerced and dulled by commerce and the propaganda of modern life that fuels it essentially dumbed me down over the years, yet thankfully that spark of rebellion remained.

For many years before that I mused about many eco-issues, yet saw no reason to implement them, being driven more by a lack of money than any other factor, some of this certainly helped - Living and working in the same town and walking / cycling to work each day certainly helped me for half a decade in the 1990s.

Thankfully the new century and the slow realization of factors going on around me have led me to realize the reality of our situation and reliance on industries and commercial factors which are largely damaging to our health, finances and the environment. How did I spot this? I suppose it was a Eureka moment where I sat pondering over buying a house in an expensive area, when I spotted a home that was ridiculously cheap in a seaside town. At the time I was working remotely - I started to realize that I could live there, and occasionally travel to London for those pointless face to face management meetings, which could so easily be done via Skype. That Eureka moment would change my life forever - moving away to buy the cheapest "wreck" in the nicest location I could buy to live mortgage free.

I can't say that my reasoning is totally ecological. Much of my motivation is financially related - The big recession of 2008 certainly changed a lot of things, and over the last few years of slow recovery (if it ever happens) galvanized my approach - I would invest as much as I could for later life to reduce bills and help reduce my own effects on this planet.

I'll be honest about things. Some eco-tech costs money to implement, other things are cheap, requiring only time to implement.

And, I hear you all say that is the problem "I don't have time". This of course is the enemy of modern life, and its panacea is convenience through technology and products.

Step away for a moment and think about if that modern life is really doing you a favour? Is your pension going to feed and keep you warm in your later life? Is your weight increasing and your health declining through using your car too much? If the answer to all this is a resounding or even doubtful no, then your money and physical efforts could be better spent investing in your future through various ecological living methods.

This blog is about those decisions - and future ones I'm pondering, the highs, the lows.

The good, the bad & the ugly of eco living.