The Shires Go Carbon Neutral
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.
