What does it all mean? Eco-speak from the green revolution
Having trouble with the terminology? Andy Kenworthy explains a few basic terms from the green revolution
Alternative energy
Power generation without fossil fuels. Typically wind, wave, solar and geothermal. Plants, algae, human sewage and cow poo are being tested. But it’s not like we’re desperate or anything.
Carbon footprint
The total greenhouse gas emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organisation, event or product, roughly equivalent to how guilty you are supposed to feel.
Carbon offsets
A credit bought to negate part of a carbon footprint. Should pay for additional measures to reduce worldwide carbon emissions, as soon as possible. Sometimes likened to medieval religious ‘indulgences’—payments to atone for sins we have no intention of giving up.
Climate change
Long-term significant changes in expected patterns of average weather on Earth. Sometimes called global warming, although some places could get colder. Increasingly termed ‘global weirding’ as no one has much of a clue what’s happening.
Eco-worrier
What we become when it takes 15 minutes for us to analyse the global ecological and humanitarian impact of buying a tin of spaghetti.
Emissions trading
Buying and selling the supposedly limited rights to emit greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. The modern, adult version of shuffling Brussels sprouts around your plate, or giving them to your little brother because you can’t face eating them yourself.
Fossil fuels
The P-pipe of the industrialised world. Coal, oil and gas formed from the fossilised remains of plants and animals over hundreds of millions of years. Burning them has made life so easy we struggle to leave them alone, even though they wreck our planet, health and relationships (see greenhouse gases and climate change).
Greenhouse gases
Gases that trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere like a fart under a duvet. Human activities are releasing more into the atmosphere than ever before—and our duvet is getting very stinky indeed (see climate change).
Sustainable
An activity that can be continued indefinitely at its current rate and scale, without causing irreparable environmental harm or compromising opportunities for future generations. You can have your cake and eat it, provided you are growing all the ingredients to make another cake without polluting the garden.
