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Mukti Mitchell: Low Carbon Tour I am sitting on the dinkiest boat in a northern harbour on the coast of the Isle of Man, the swell from a returning fishing boat rocking it hysterically as I try to balance a notebook and camera on my lap without either of them, or myself, landing overboard. Sat beside me is an inspirational man who assures me that reducing my negative impact on the environment is positively fun, good for the me and coincidentally and rather neatly beneficial to the planet. “One of the main themes of the tour is quality of life, cutting out stressful activities and not feeling guilty about the carbon emissions we make. If you are interested then I will tell you how to do it.”
His schedule sees him sail from Clovelly in Devon up the west coast of England stopping in at Wales, swinging in for a few days respite in the Isle of Man, round and through Scotland before heading back down the East coast. A mammoth 1,700 mile trip aboard a space not much bigger than a floating king size bed. This seems a touch masochistic for a man bent on accentuating the best in life. Mukti explains how ended up on this adventure: “I’ve always been into sailing, it is my favourite mode of transport, and after crewing 12,000 miles on yachts I decided to build my own boat. Having designed and built her I wanted to sail around Britain. One of the other themes in my life is having a low carbon lifestyle. I have been living it for the past 10 years. I have discovered, over that time, that every decision that I have made to have a low carbon lifestyle has improved my quality of life and made me much happier. I have also designed an online carbon calculator for Resurgence so that people could find out how much they do emit and work out ways to reduce their own output. So, I wanted to sail around Britain and I wanted to promote low carbon emissions and the two came together in this tour.” The message he is sharing along the way is straightforward, his advice practical and realistic. He is starting from a strong foundation: 75% of British people, in a recent survey, acknowledged that climate change is an important issue. He argues; “What’s lacking is simple information and the positive actions to take. We do things because we want to do them, because they make us feel good.” He does not believe in sending people on a green guilt trip or encouraging us to criticise others for their inaction: “the only lifestyle we can do anything about is our own. Calculate your own carbon emissions, don’t worry about anyone else.” The goal may be to get each person in Britain to slash carbon emission from an average 10 tonne of CO2 per year down to a calculated sustainable level of 2 tonnes. The paths to achieving this are as individual as the people involved and can take time.
Easy first steps include reducing car usage by sharing lifts, working nearer to home and switching to public transport or pedal power where possible. We can reduce the cost to the environment from running our homes by reducing energy bills through better insulation, turning down central heating thermostats, using low energy light bulbs and switching off appliances at the plug when not in use. When it comes to the weekly shop buying local or at least British products means that food has travelled fewer miles as well as supporting our local economy. Organic local produce is even better, according to Mukti, as non-organic fertilizers release nitrogen oxide into the atmosphere. (1 kilo of NO is approximately equal to 300 kilos of the main greenhouse gas CO2 in terms of its negative impact.) Shopping for non-food items Mukti urges considerations of quality and longevity over fashion and price: “for example, a high quality electric drill can last 25 years; a cheap low quality one lasts five years if you are lucky. My drill cost more but it’s a pleasure to use every time I pick it up because it works so well.” The reason behind this approach is simple. Each of those machines takes about the same amount of energy to produce it in a factory and transport it to the shop. Buying quality reduces carbon emissions. It is also worth asking if you want to be responsible for dumping five drills in a 25 year time frame to a landfill site or just the one after years of good use.
Mukti has written a book to accompany the tour ‘the guide to low carbon lifestyles which covers 10 areas of normal life where simple changes can help readers reduce their emissions by 75% over a 10 year period. He suggests a working target of a 3% reduction each year allowing small achievable steps to be taken towards that long term goal. Free copies of the book are downloadable from the tour website: Printed copies are available priced £3.00 each Tel: 0845 3455075 A copy is available to borrow from the Permaculture Association (IOM) section upstairs in Ramsey Town Library. The online carbon emission calculator can be found at www.resurgence.org/energy Mukti Mitchell gave his permission for extracts from his book to be reproduced in this article. Amanda Griffin is a freelance journalist and is part of the Permaculture Association (IOM). She has reduced her carbon footprint by over 50% in the last eight years. |
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Mukti Mitchell is sailing around Britain in his tiny zero emission self-built boat, ‘Chance’ on the ‘lowcarbonlifestyle’ tour. He has some heavy weight endorsement behind him including Prince Charles, the leaders of all three main UK political parties, and leading environmentalists James Lovelock and Jonathan Porritt. During his stop on the island he was overwhelmed by support from local people and heartened by a visit from Isle of Man Environment Minister John Shimmin. 
Mukti reckons his own lifestyle now accounts for about 5 tonne of CO2 annually. Taking six months out on a zero-emission yacht should bring his output down considerably this year. When he returns to his regular land based life he will have had plenty of time to work out how his lifestyle could be even lower in carbon emissions. 
Another area where carbon emissions can readily be reduced is holidays. Flying long haul by plane is particularly high in the carbon emission stakes, taking a journey by ferry and train to the South of France is friendlier, a cycling trip or sailing under wind power are even cleaner. For example a one way ticket by plane to a far eastern destination emits 12,180kg of CO2 per person. Journeying by train to Nice emits just 72kg. If we all limited our far flung travels to necessity, with the occasional special trip to broaden our horizons, global carbon emissions would fall dramatically. Rethinking our holiday plans should not reduce our pleasure according to Mukti a careful rethink can help us reduce emissions and still have plenty of fun, plus there is still room for those two weeks on a desert island beach if that person has changed other areas of their life.