Sustainable Plymouth : Carbon Neutral

by Roger Lovejoy

There are two schemes a foot to deal with this issue

•  Transition City Plymouth : A grass rootes movement to encourage a change in responsibilty.
• Plymouth City Council's statement that it intends to be  Carbon Neutral  by 2020.

My view is that given the small area for Plymouth to sustain itself in terms of Carbon Neutrality Plymouth City has to do one of the following.

• Pay lip service and do nothing.
  Best option : Easy as it's what everyone is already doing.
  
  
• Reduce consumption to sustainable level
  Least Likely : Not going to happen : With only 0.06 acres per person yet using 12.5 Plymouth needs to reduce it's consumption by 99.5%
  
  
•  Carbon offsetting 
  Good political option. Scam about being 'Carbon Neutral' by stealing resources from around the globe and restricting third world development - Unethical and unsustainable like the war on Iraq, but just as politically feasible in the short term.
  
  
• A partnership with adjacent local authorities to create a population base within a UK national average land ration.
  Tough option : Very difficult but sustainable. : This is the one to go for as progress can be made although unlikely create a truly sustainable economy without exploiting external resources such as offshore wind and wave and still too little to late to stop Global Warming.