My Climate Change Garden

Things are hotting up with the Copenehagen Climate Change Conference in December http://en.cop15.dk/

There is a growing body of pressure  and opinion to make sure the message gets through about the urgent need to make a reduction in our individual carbon footprints. However, encouraging individuals to use less energy in their everyday lives is certainly a huge challenge .

Particularly when research from the British Department of Energy and Climate Change suggests that less than half of the British think that climate change will affect them during their lifetime – and less than 20 percent believe that their children will be affected by global warming, shows a survey from the British government.

“The survey results show that people don’t realize that climate change is already under way and could have very severe consequences for their children’s lives,” says UK Energy and Climate Change Minister Joan Ruddock.

“With over 40 percent of the UK’s CO₂ emissions a result of personal choices, there is huge potential for individual behaviour change to lower emissions,” she says.

To make this a reality, The British Department of Energy and Climate Change Friday launched the “ACT ON C02” campaign which will run on television, in the press, be displayed on outdoor posters, in cinemas and online. It is designed to raise awareness of climate change and to convey the imminence and the necessity for urgent action.

A particulary good campaign supporting this idea is the 10:10 campaign being promoted by The Guardian and Kevin McCloud from Grand Designs .This  ambitious project aims to unite every sector of British society behind one simple idea: that by working together we can achieve a 10% cut in the UK’s carbon emissions in 2010.

They have produced a useful 10 step guide to how to acheive this which is worth checking out.

http://www.1010uk.org/people#how_can_we

Individual effort is required to reduce carbon footprints – its no use relying on anyone else!