From you to us

How to reduce your carbon footprint

Above all, I would like to congratulate the editorial team for the quality of La Croix L’Hebdo. This issue was of particular interest to us as readers qualified as ecologists by our entourage and our political commitment (EELV). The file on controlling our carbon footprint is well done: accessible for all, educational, not making you feel guilty but motivating. Personally, I can certify and testify that the wealthy that we are, personally retired middle managers, but also as inhabitants of a rich country, can make rewarding efforts and without masochism, tighten their belts a little to be at 5 tons according to your calculator. For example, we try to live with 18-18.5°C with central heating. At the beginning of winter, it’s a little difficult because we are retired so at home, but after a few weeks, the body gets used to it. Seven years ago we had done major insulation work (exterior and roof) and we only started the boiler around mid-November and shut it down in mid-March. (…)

JPV

Congratulations for having published a mode of calculation (L’Hebdo of May 20-21). I make a remark that nowhere is there any mention of the duration of use of furniture, equipment, including vehicles, clothing. My pieces of furniture are family, some are more than two hundred years old. I have always kept my cars for over ten years. I have always kept my household appliances until they are completely worn out (I have a microwave oven bought in 1983 and it works very well because at the beginning, we did not know how to do planned obsolescence: the magnetron is oversized ). As I moved in 2020, I renewed part of my equipment, otherwise it would have lasted at least twenty years. There are redundancies in consumption. If we only have electricity, it does not matter whether it is consumed for heating, air conditioning, leisure or making coffee… what matters is the annual consumption and in general, it is easy to know it. My result is 4.23 tons per year. With that of Ademe, I find 3.6 tonnes, with Avenir Climatique 3.8 tonnes including an “arbitrary” charge linked to public services. It is true that I am old, my disabled wife, which greatly restricts our desire to consume. I therefore carried out a calculation with the desired life if we did not have our specific constraints. In this case, as we would make one trip per year and about ten long trips, plus one outing per week, the value would be between 5.5 and 7 tons per year (depending on the type of annual trip).

Francis

I rarely eat red meat, yet I was puzzled by ruminants also responsible for climate change because they emit methane. From there to considering ruminants harmful to the planet, there is only one step. This hasty judgment must be tempered. Yes, ruminants emit methane, yes, methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, however we forget that the methane emitted by ruminants is part of the natural carbon cycle: it is stored in the grass during photosynthesis and is released as methane during the digestion of grass or hay. Methane degrades into CO2 after ten years and is reabsorbed by plants. The carbon balance of ruminants is therefore neutral in the long term. We also forget that ruminant droppings make manure, the natural fertilizer par excellence. And what would the countryside be without animals, would it still be a countryside?

L. Roger

Your educational article: “How to reduce your carbon footprint” calls for an addition. It would be fair to put under the media ramps the army of low carbon foot soldiers. The millions of collective social housing tenants who live in neighborhoods with a carbon footprint close to 4 tons per year per person for a French average of 9 tons. The fight against global warming also depends on the future of the inhabitants, half of whom live without a car near services, many benefiting from heating by a heat network powered by biomass. These pioneers of low carbon emissions deserve to come out of oblivion by restoring their dignity. (…)

Jacques Caron

Saint-Brevin, facing migrants, political silence

Totally agree with this column by Isabelle de Gaulmyn (L’Hebdo of May 20-21), it still has to be a debate that talks about reality and not the fantasies maintained by a large majority of politicians who have been playing for forty years between fear and demagoguery. That we no longer entrust these questions to the Ministry of the Interior alone, as if it were just a matter of security. Finally, in the short term, let the police and justice crack down on these far-right groups who have every interest in creating chaos to avoid any reasonable and humane approach to these issues.

Pope

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