is anyone else considering their carbon footprint?

I do not think we will all drive electric. To go any distance means batteries that can power heavy loaded vehicles 3-400 miles between charges and current battery technology is not capable of doing that and it may be very difficulty to achieve. There is also a danger factor. Remember those Samsung high power telephone batteries that kept bursting into flames? Imagine that writ large.

Buses are fine, if there are any and if they go where you want to go when you want to go there. And providing, of course you do not suffer from travel sickness.

I have just spent five days driving or being driven around North Wales, mainly by coach but there and back by car and if I needed reminding that I get travel sick, this week was a real reminder. There is nothing like travelling on the windey, hilly single carriage way roads of Wales with me feeling sick and queasy most of the time, even when, like today, I am doing the driving to remind me that I suffer from travel sickness and that holidays requiring coach/bus travel ar not a good idea.

All we can do as individuals is stop and think about what is really essential and what is just greed or laziness in everyday life.

We can make changes but drastic government action is desperately needed. I doubt it will happen. They don't want to make themselves unpopular or disrupt corporate profits.

So the planet dies and we can only slow it. Man is the only creature stupid enough to destroy it's own habitat!

But we have survived and adapted and multiplied over many times in over 200,000 years of presence on earth and I have no doubts that we will survive and adapt faced with the current crisis.

The name of the game is evolution......dinosaurs and humans are just small blips on planet earth.

Scientists have discovered that planet Earth has gone through so many climatic changes. It is quite presumptuous of us to to think we can change it!!

Being veggie / vegan definitely reduces your carbon footprint compared to meat based diet. It’s not just about climate change it’s extinction of species and pollution which is definitely man made,

The jury is out on that, really.
Importing, storing, sourcing and transporting vegan foods causes a fair old dent in the environment.

M0nica ...well said.

MissAdventure … everything you said

No food is without environmental cost, but meat eating is 10x more environmentally damaging than plant based food in terms of every measure - water use, land use, carbon emissions etc.

Here is a well research piece from Oxford University for those who don’t believe
The high impact of animal agriculture.
www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-06-01-new-estimates-environmental-cost-food

It's good that we're considering a less consumer approach to life - just as we were doing in the 1960's and at other periods in history.
I'm confident we will survive and adapt (as MOnica puts it) as we have before.
I'm also with BradfordLass, who said at the beginning of this discussion that she will fly if she can. I didn't fly abroad till I was well into my 40's and didn't do a long haul till 3 years ago. I'm not extravagant, I recycle, buy wooden not plastic toys, only eat meat once or twice a week, well insulated house etc etc but I don't intend to spend this later part of my life depriving myself of a bit of fun.

Whether its vegan food or meat, having it end up in a bin is the worst environmental food crime. Food over consumption and food waste are the real problems so no need to get too tied up in knots about what the food is. We are universally eating too much as well as wasting too much.

A healthier diet usually becomes a mors environmentally friendly diet because you eat less and what you do eat had less processing.

As for depriving oneself of fun, we need to re-write the rule book on our expectations and on what we classify as a good well lived life! DH and I used to have an "empty nest bucket list" of destinationz around the world that we planned to "do" when the girls were grown and mortgage paid becauae that is sort of considered the universal way to reward oneself for the years of childrearing sacrifice. But if you take that back to the drawing board that doesnt mean you dont get to have "fun". There are many other ways to enjoy that time of life that dont need to include flying or sitting on a cruise etc. Think outside the box.

I looked at Crystaltipps reference and the first thing I noticed was this comment: a low-impact litre of cow’s milk uses almost two times as much land and creates almost double the emissions as an average litre of soymilk

How much land is used to produce meat or dairy is largely irrelevant because not all land is suitable for growing crops, but can be used for grazing lifestock. We have just returned from a holiday in Snowdonia where we saw sheep and cows grazing in fields and on mountains totally unsuitable in every way for arable crops: thin soils, water logged, steep. We ate some excellent mountain cow and sheep cheese and ate the local lamb and beef. Most of these animals are out all year feeding on pasture, or brought in for a few months and fed hay grown on the farm or nearby. They do not get fed cereals or soy.

In organic systems farmers are advised to follow a mixed crop system that includes animals. Crops are grown in a field for three to five years then the field is rested and left to lie fallow for a year. During the fallow year animals are grazed on the fields to fertilise the land with their droppings so that it is able to return to growing good crops for the next 3 - 5 years.

What matters is not the quantity of land animals need but whether it can be used for growing other crops and in many cases it can't.

If you go on to read the full report. you quickly realise that the whole analysis is considerably more complex than the eye catching statistics and figure in the press release.

I have far more confidence in the recent more nuanced and positive French report on a system of agroecology for Europe, where it shows that finds that a wholesale transition to agroecology would:
• feed the European population healthily
• maintain export capacity
• reduce Europe’s global food footprint
• result in a 40% reduction in agricultural greenhouse gas emissions
• help to restore biodiversity and to protect natural resources

What is more while A transition to a fully agroecological Europe will require dietary change, particularly a shift towards 'less and better meat', with diets reorientated around plant-based proteins and higher welfare grass-fed livestock. Being a vegetarian or a vegan is not necessary. I am an omnivore. Being an omnivore is how humankind developed its larger brain and intellectual capacity. I will continue to follow the eating pattern humankind have evolved to consume.

People will still fly, some, several times a year and will erroneously think that by 'doing my bit' eg: renouncing meat, using soap bars and using net bags for veg, they'll be helping to save the planet.
It really is all pie in the sky. Every time you use lipstick, fly, leave household items on standby, eat avocados, drink wine from abroad...you're undoing the tiny bit of good you think you do.
Just live without being hypocritical.
People will never ever change the climate as it's been changing itself for millennia.
Volcanos are the worst culprits.
The poles change every 26,000 years, which is a drop in the ocean when you think of how old planet earth is.
It's evolution.

Are thousands of species dying because of man made pollution and
land clearances “evolution” and “unavoidable”?

It’s quite hypocritical to assume as a human being you can do anything you like to other creatures and the planet and blame it on evolution.

Yes and no. It is evolution in as much of the change and extinction of species is caused by the growth of another species.

It isn't evolution because the species concerned has self-knowledge and knows what it is doing and can consciously change it's behaviour if the results are disadvantageous.

The vast growth in humans on this earth and the standard of living this species has achieved because it is self-conscious and inventive is negatively affecting the planet it is living on. But humankind has the skill and knowledge to change this.

The argument that there is a natural presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is added to annually as a result of natural processes is a red herring. While levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have fluctuated over deep time. The evidence is that CO2 levels began to rise in the 17th century. Here is a link to a reputable site that explains in detail the processes and figures that show how much of the atmospheric degradation we now have arises from human sources www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/greenhousegases/industrialrevolution.html.

Either way, no matter what the cause of the rise in noxious gases in the atmosphere, it would be stupid for us to consciously add to them.

Another point in the vegan v omnivore arguement has to be the loss of grazed land. Without grazing many species of insects and plants will cease to be. This will echo up the food chain to birds, badgers and so on. It would be a catastrophe for a lot of our wildlife.

I agree with you MOnica especially concerning the land although here in the Scottish lowlands there are plenty of fields where a few sheep and horses graze which could realistically grow plenty of vegetables but the farmers get subsidies anyway and it is very labour intensive to grow and harvest vegetables.
I suspect plenty of the farmers around here would prefer an easy(er) life. runs for cover

where my AC live in the Highlands the only land use possible (without changing the landscape entirely, and tourists wouldn't like that), is to leave it to the deer and the grouse.

And the deer and grouse are only there because people shoot them. I wonder what else the landowners could do with that land?

Most of the land in Snowdonia and surrounding areas and in similar areas in Scotland are not suitable for agriculture. That is why it has been left largely wild and only used for sporting purposes, although around Oxfordshire there are several shoots that operate across acively farmed land.

Some deer have always been found in the highlands, red deer in particular, as also many game birds. What is happening is that humankind has always exploited what food resources are available, whether in paleolithic and mesolithic times as well as now.

Yeah well, the poshos live in Oxfordshire don't they Monica.

Probably wouldn't be much call for grouse shooting in Snowdonia.

I didn't fly until I was in my seventies. Quite enjoyed it since. Well, I like the food in the Business Class lounges, especially the cookies, and walking round European cities. And staying in nice hotels.

Wouldn't do long haul though.

Makes sense to grow veggies in the wet and warmer parts of the country, and raise sheep in the rest.

You won't be helping to save the planet by doing the little things (recycling, bar soap etc), but you will be helping the environment, both here and in other countries.