Downshifting...

Ainslie and I have now become downshifters. Well kind of. It hasn't been entirely voluntary. Let's just say that when the bottom fell out of the sub-prime market in early 2008 we were perfectly aligned to feel the full force of it.
Anyway, that doesn't really matter because we are embracing the whole downshifting concept with relish!
We have now moved into a rental property which is perfect for allowing us to grow a significant amount of our own produce. It already has mature orange, grapefruit, mandarin and plum trees and there is plenty of room for us to set up our chook house.
The location is great - we are walking distance to a railway station, very close to our very favourite daycare centre, Como Children, and the local school is excellent.
It has allowed us to sell one of our cars which will significantly improve on our carbon footprint figure.
And finally, I've been offered a place at Curtin Uni to do a Ph.D!

Check out our lovely oranges!

Work is now underway...

25.16 tonnes of carbon/year

So how do we get this down and,
what figure would be a reasonable figure to aim for?

I would love to say "zero" as being the target for our emmissions but unless we consider becoming totally self-sufficient like these 2 characters, then it's just not realistic. And even they couldn't do it - they were still tied to the National Grid and used petrol driven farm equipment to boot!

I'm going to leave the final figure to aim for at present and look at the question of how to improve on our current situation. The breakdown of our figure is as follows:-

Waste - 3.3 tonnes
Travel - 11.76 tonnes
Energy Use - 6.95 tonnes
Food - 3.15 tonnes

I will look at these items individually in the next few posts...