Shopping Till You Drop — from Home
Sep
13
The biggest impact the Internet has on transport is by offering the ability to shop online and curtailing trips to shopping areas. You probably make most shopping trips in your car, especially for groceries, hardware items, and things that can be carried in your car boot. Rather than go to the hassle of finding a parking space in a humongous big-box shopping centre, you can now look to the Internet for many of the goods you don’t need to go and see in a shop.
Although the number of commercial deliveries by planes, trains, and courier vehicles may increase with more online shopping, the impact is negated by the reduction in individual car trips people make to the shops to pick up the goods. Increased online shopping may have a negative impact on the economic and social sustainability of urban centres and towns, but this issue is still being debated.
Some of the most popular online shopping categories that reduce individual transport trips include:
Books and music: Amazon.com was one of the first companies to popularise buying music and books online. The attraction in ordering from home is the greater choice online compared to your local shop. You can even order from overseas companies, but this may not be great for your local economy.
Perishable and non-perishable foods: Many of the large supermarkets and specialist organic food stores encourage online shopping because of the growing number of people who are Internet savvy, have a set shopping list, and do not have to go to the shop to see what they are buying.
Takeaway food: Home pizza delivery was one of the first `dial-up and get it quickly’ home delivery services provided to urban areas. Now there are a number of companies offering tasty and culturally varied menus online.
Home furniture and electronics: Most large retailers have glossy online catalogues that encourage you to order and have your bulky purchase delivered without you having to lift a finger.
Anything and everything: Sites such as eBay, which give people a chance to sell their own goods, have taken a lot of business away from the modern-day pawnbrokers who used to operate in many cities and towns.
Most retail operators now have interactive Web sites that provide picturesque catalogues of their goods and services, which you can browse through to your heart’s content.
Go to your favourite online shopping site and follow these steps:
- Click on a product you like to send it to a virtual shopping cart, where your selection is stored until you’re ready to buy.
- Complete your shopping session by clicking through to the checkout, where your goods are totalled and your additional taxes, shipping, and delivery costs are added to give you an invoice total.
- Use your credit or debit card to pay for the total cost and provide your address details so that the goods can be sent to you. If the thought of giving your details over the Internet worries you, you could try PayPal. This allows you to pay anyone who has e-mail and an online account number without giving out your card details.
- Receive an e-mail that confirms the goods you have bought, how much they cost, and that your purchase is in the process of being delivered.
- Bingo! All from the comfort of your home.
Cutting Down the Air Mites
Wherever you are in the UK, if you look into the sky, it won’t be long before you see a plane. Between 3,000 and 4,000 of them are flying over Europe at any given moment. Even with an average of only 100 passengers each that adds up to 400,000 passengers up there now and many more taking off and landing by the time you reach the end of this sentence. About 220 million passengers use UK airports each year. The number using London airports has doubled since 1987 and the number using regional UK airports has gone up three times in the same period. The Government thinks the number could double again by 2030. Air traffic is predicted to go on growing as flights continue to be relatively cheap — bringing air travel within the reach of more and more people.
Add to that the increasing numbers of people from developing countries joining in the travel rush and you begin to see why air travel is a big concern for scientists worried about its effect on the environment. More flights mean more airports, more take-offs and landings, more demand for fuel, and more harmful greenhouse gases pumped out into the atmosphere.
Aircraft are the fastest-growing polluters in the world. In the UK they account for around 6 per cent of the greenhouse gases emitted but because those gases are pumped out at high altitude into the atmosphere they do at least twice the amount of damage caused by emissions from homes and factories. The aircraft manufacturers argue that they’re building ever-cleaner, more- efficient engines but even though that’s true the rate of growth of air travel outweighs those technological advances.
The bigger planes being built and taking over on some long-haul routes may mean more passengers can travel more often without the need to increase the number of flights but that only works if they fly full. Governments are resisting the idea of taxing aircraft fuel, which would push up ticket prices and make people curtail their travel plans. But while they hesitate, flying has become the most environmentally damaging way to travel.
You can help by cutting down your air travel by taking holidays and short breaks in the UK instead of abroad and looking for greener ways to make journeys you have to make — such as using the train. You can also take steps to neutralise the carbon emitted by the flights you do make.
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Hello,
The comment you left on my site on the article “Cow Power” that the program only lasted a year is untrue. The program is currently operating and is such a success, they are establishing a grant program to install more methane digesters on other farms.
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