The Shires Go Carbon Neutral

Carbon Neutral – For The Land Rover Owner

So what is Carbon Neutral? Well it’s actually Carbon Dioxide – the gas we are talking about here – known as CO2 (pronounced See Ohh Two)

The neutral bit, well if with our lifestyle such as driving a car or heating your house produces carbon dioxide, then you should do something to absorb it.

Why is carbon dioxide bad? It basically forms a blanket around the earth, causing the earth to heat up – Global Warming – which we’ll come back to.

What makes carbon dioxide? There are lots of things, but this is a Land Rover article, so let’s cover them first. When the engine is running, and the fuel is burnt, CO2 comes out of the exhaust pipe. If you run LPG – you still emit CO2, a bit less than petrol vehicles, but still a helluva lot. Diesels are typically more fuel efficient, so less fuel burnt means less CO2 emissions but still enough for it to be a problem.

Bio-diesel still emits about ¼ of the CO2 of a more conventional fuel, it’s only vegetable oil when used in a diesel Landie that comes anywhere close to being Carbon Neutral.

But despite what the eco-warriors might say, we 4x4 drivers aren’t the sole cause of the problem; conventional cars and transport in general have the same issues. The heating in our factories, offices and houses produces CO2. Planes full of business people and holidaymakers produce huge amounts which the airlines are only just beginning to address.

Industry is also making massive amounts of CO2, and has been for the last couple of hundred years. America is famous for its energy consumption, and therefore for its emissions. But more recently we have seen China transform itself from a small energy consumer to a massive one, and I think it’s fair to say that they are concentrating on economic growth, rather than any effects on the planet.

The astute amongst you will be saying nuke USA, raze it to the ground, and then do China, that’ll sort it. As I’m not sure there has been much study into the CO2 emission of a nuclear strike, best we gloss over that particular option.

The really clever out there, will be pondering how to use this CO2 “blanket” to plug the hole in the ozone layer!!

So let’s come back to the global warming. Even those of you that live in a cave (I’ve seen the membership database – there are a few cave-dwellers out there!) cannot fail to be aware of at least the phrase. But what does it really mean?

Basically our planet is very finely balanced, some of us myself included will rub our hands with glee at the thought of warmer summers, and milder winters, but it’s not that simple.

Global warming makes the polar ice-caps melts – fact. By driving your car, you are melting the ice-caps - fact.

Did you know that today – now - polar bears are forced into cannibalism because the ice where their main food – seals, can no longer support the seal population? Burning fossil fuels is directly contributing to that. Personally I find that hard to deal with, a lot harder to deal with than 1,000’s of elderly Europeans dying in an extra hot summer, which is also a direct effect of CO2 emissions.

Of course once the ice-caps are melting the water has to go somewhere. The Times has reported that there could be sea-level rises of 20 feet; yes I did say 20 feet by the end of the century. That would mean London and New York would be under water. Again a direct reaction of us driving cars, heating our houses and factories making things that we believe we desire.

But there is no need to cheer just yet, London isn’t consigned to a watery grave. Scientists currently believe we can still do something to stem the heat of global warming.

In Vogue (cryptic Range Rover reference!) at the moment is planting trees. The theory being that trees can absorb more CO2 than they produce in their lifetime. Trees are nice things too, so planting trees isn’t particularly onerous or expensive. It’s certainly a lot easier than parking up our beloved Land Rovers and walking or cycling everywhere. Or letting our grand-children swim to work.

With this in mind, the Shire Land Rover Club has become carbon neutral. We have calculated all the fuel used by all our members, on all our event days, and we’ll be planting trees to offset this - thus becoming the first carbon neutral Land Rover Club in the UK, possibly the first car club in the world – who knows? John spent literally minutes on this high-tech diagram to explain how Carbon Neutral works.

In actual fact we’re using some club funds to buy trees from a group called Carbon Footprint. They do all the work of actually planting the trees and managing the woods and ensure that the trees planted will be there, absorbing CO2 for years to come. In fact the club has pledged to plant 100 native broad leaf trees in managed sites in Hampshire. We calculated we would need to plant around 50 trees, although estimates from different sources vary a bit. We caught Henry in a good mood and it was decided to round up and go for 100 trees. Each tree will absorb about 730kg of carbon dioxide emissions over its lifetime. By investing in tree planting, Shire Land Rover Club is also helping to create habitats for wildlife and helping to preserve biodiversity. Certainly our carbon neutrality will be something to fight the anti 4x4 brigade with, and maybe some of us will sleep a bit better at night, and there will be more trees around to winch from when we get stuck in the mud. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

Second Time Lucky

Although we are now the first Land Rover club to go Carbon Neutral, thanks to Carbon Footprint, we thought you’d like to hear about our attempt to do the same through the Woodland Trust. They are one of the major sources of “carbon offset” tree planting, and you’d think they’d welcome a group of “eco-terrorists” like us trying to do something positive for the environment. Unfortunately it was not to be, after much discussion they flatly refused to sell us any trees because: “Your landrover away days could contravene our ethical policy in as much you are likely to be damaging the land you are travelling across, which could be woodland. As our cause is preserving and creating woodland we can not risk being associated with any organisation that might be damaging the very environment we are creating.” Clearly they misunderstood what we get up to - but despite explanations that we don’t just go out and tear up random bits of woodland, they wouldn’t budge! You’d think being ecologists they’d know that a bit of churning up helps to promote a wider variety of plants and wildlife to flourish too...