John's Weird World

What this planet and its supportive ecosystems need is for people in developed countries to change their current consumerist fossil-fuel-hungry ways and move swiftly towards a low carbon economy. But many people need a trigger to initiate that change and take action.  People also easily find arguments to not take any action or just small easy ones.

One of the arguments I hear most often against the West cutting their own carbon emissions is the growth of emissions in China and other developing countries.  But about a third of China's emissions are directly attributable to exports... so these should really be counted as the importer's emissions.  To see the size of these exports and where they are going to, I suggest using the services of Worldmapper, who produce distorted and morphed world maps based on many different variables.  For example, look at World toy exports, and you'll see that China and the Far East are by far the biggest producers.  Then flick to toy imports, and Noth America and Europe are the biggest consumers.  If we consumers want to help cut global carbon emissions, we need to buy less stuff overall, and especially imported stuff which has it's own shipping and airfreight footprints.

I find these maps fascinating, as it gives us a whole new perspective on the world.  One of my early triggers which changed my life for the greener was travelling around Zimbabwe in 1990. I saw the inequalities first hand; the poverty, pollution, misgovenance, differing values about human life, and other hugely positive differences such as generosity, the importance of celebration and music, creativity and much more.  Travelling to a developing country might be one way of understanding some of the problems the World has, but it has it's downside too, mainly air travel, so my second best bet is to watch documentaries, read books and magazines and visit websites. 

Continue reading "Green Man looks at a Distorted World" »

I get the feeling that it's actually Gordon agreeing with me... has he been reading this blog?  Well, maybe, but I was pleased that the issue of wasted food was raised at the highest political levels, at the G8 Summit in Japan.  Many people were not pleased at Brown's 'advice' and the fact that the group had a huge multi-coursed meal with associated..... WASTE!!!

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Most people think that there are too many cars on the road, including many drivers, who, as drivers, are part of the problem.  So are there any solutions?  Well public transport, road tolls, home working and supermarket deliveries may all be part of a solution, but there is another way in which the number of cars could be (slightly) reduced.  This is the car-club/car sharing concept.

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What will you do when there's less oil?  How will you or your children live?  How will your community cope?  Life won't just stop when the price of oil reaches a certain point, and that figure, that 'line in the sand' won't be the most expensive this raw material will be.  Expect oil to keep getting more expensive, and everything which uses it or the energy it provides.  Factor in climate change, and the uncertainties in these scenarios, and the future is looking somewhat tough, for some: bleak.

But for some people, it looks like a challenge, a series of opportunities for humanity to evolve and progress.  A grassroots movement is underway called Transition Towns, and as many of these aren't actually towns, they're districts, cities, islands and even forests, the label may be better known as 'Transition Initiatives'.  These communities are preparing for the double whammy of post-peak oil and climate chaos by going local, 'powering down', generating renewable energy and strengthening community links.

There are already many activities, groups and initiatives which are in their own way working towards a transition towards a post-oil world.  Groups as diverse as cycling campaigns, allotment societies, 'breast is best' groups, ban plastic bag activists and those brave     climate camp people all know that we cannot go on with 'business as usual'.  We have to prepare, to start building resiliance to cope with what's coming. 

York has just started developing a 'York in Transition' process.  I couldn't get to the first meeting as I was talking to members of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health about the same issues of too much carbon dioxide being emitted and some of the solutions, but I attended the second meeting this week.  I am one of the optomists who sees the opportunities and challenges we have to rise to, I'm not the 'it's too big to deal with, I'll be dead soon, let's go down the pub to seek oblivion' type!

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More often we are hearing various terms bandied around in the media and some of them are not self-explanitory... one of these is 'Peak Oil'.  So last week I attended a York Greenspeak meeting which was all about this fascinating and very current subject.  I knew a bit about the theory that oil reserves are about half finished, but less about how this will affect us economically and socially.

Peak oil was suggested by Shell geologist Dr Marion King Hubbert in 1956 as he had worked out that the discovery and extraction of oil would follow a 'bell curve' distribution.  He accurately predicted peak US oil production (1970) and that world oil production would be somewhere about now, ie that we may be about to start the long period of reduced oil extraction.  Peak world oil discovery was 1964, which means that although there is probably more oil to be discovered, it isn't the 'easy to get' stuff and it will be smaller quantities, and more expensive to get out.  Meanwhile, world oil use continues to rise, as developing countries continue to develop and human populations continue to grow.  Published world oil reserves suggest that peak oil will be about 2030, but recently Shell has drastically reduced their reserve figures, suggesting that oil companies may have overstated their reserves (to boost confidence and share prices?).

So, we are heading for a situation with less available mineral oil, and this will affect us in a number of ways.  Firstly, scarcity drives prices up.  We are already experiencing this.  When the price of a barrel of oil goes up, it becomes more economically viable to extract oil out of 'unconventional' sources such as tar sands and oil shales, but these require more energy to get the oil out, so the price won't go down again.  Higher prices also mean that investment into alternatives such as hydrogen, biofuels, coal liquifaction and nuclear will go up.  But all of these alternatives have problems and knock-on issues... biofuels for instance are competing for finite arable land for food and biodiversity, the hydrogen economy depends on either electricity to split water or fossil gas to provide the hydrogen, and coal and gas both add carbon dioxide to the overloaded atmosphere.  The two greenest solutions to the coming energy crisis are energy efficiency and renewables from wind, sun, tides and hydro.

So how do we 'ordinary people' deal with this knowledge?  Well it would be responsible and prudent to reduce our energy use, by driving less and in smaller more efficient vehicles, by reducing energy use in the home by insulating, having more efficient appliances and switching them off when not in use, by reducing meat and dairy in our diets, by buying less and recycling more, by buying locally and in season... you know the score by now!  Unfortunately, we all know what we SHOULD do but are finding it very difficult to change.

Continue reading "Green Man considers Peak Oil" »

There's a lot of subjects I could be writing about this week... the upward spiral of fuel prices (don't expect them to ever come down again), the latest famine in Ethiopia partly caused by high food prices... but I want to alert you to something very positive.  I have discovered that a new 'Facebook for the Mental Health Community' has just been launched, and I have interviewed the developer, Richard Alan Cowling.  He's from Scarborough, North Yorkshire, which is where MESOMOCO CIC is based.

NET.MESOMOCO CIC stands for Network Mental Health Social Enterprise Mobile Computing Community Interest Company. It is a free web-based social network for individuals involved in mental health, including service users, carers of mental distress sufferers and those who have experience of mental health issues.  Users of the network are able to connect with others with similar experiences, find resources and support, use fora, blogs, community groups and the mental health wiki and keep track of upcoming events such as conferences.  The MESOMOCO CIC is a 'gated community' to reduce the chance of spam or abuse, and moderated to strengthen users privacy.  To join, send an email to the team  who will reply with instructions.

The Community Interest Company plans to raise funds a number of ways, including the development of a comic-book type game suitable for mobile phone users, and hopes to help a small group of mental health service users and ex-users by enabling them to develop computer skills (based on 'Jamie Oliver's 15' apparently!) and add to their CV's and help their employability.  All in all this is a very interesting concept, with potentially beneficial results for those wishing to network and communicate about their mental health issues.  I wish Richard the best of luck and hope that the scheme is successful.

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From October 2008 all public buildings over a certain size will be required to display an Energy Performance Certificate, which will be in the form of an A-G rating similar to a new fridge or car.  Buildings use about 50% of our energy in this country and therefore if they are made to be more efficient, we are going to get big savings of carbon emissions AND money from our fuel and energy bills.  EPCs are also part of the Home Information Pack which house sellers have to provide, but only public buildings over 1000m2 have to display the Certificate, although smaller buildings can voluntarily do so.

This regulation has been brought in because of the EC's Energy Performance Directive, responding to the needs of climate change and reducing our carbon footprint.  The assessment of your building has to be by an accredited assessor, who will look at the fabric of the building, the ventilation, lighting, heating, cooling, hot water and fuel/s used, plus any other mechanical or electrical systems, to see if they are running efficiently.  These details will be inputted into a software programme and the energy efficiency rating will be calculated.  The person in control of the building will be provided with reccommendations and advice, especially for the air conditioning and boiler systems.  Displaying the certificate shows visitors to your building how energy efficient it is, and if you have an efficient building or work towards making it more efficient, you will be showing 'corporate social responsibility' AND saving money!  You can download the pdf guide to this here, and learn more about EPCs generally here.

Ways in which you can make your building more energy efficient are many, but start with how they are used by the people within them, such as turning off monitors and printers at night, and turning off lights when the room's not being used, only heating the required amount of water in a kettle etc etc... the same type of energy-saving behaviour we should be doing at home.  At work, though, we may have motion sensors which switch lights on when we come into a room (and off when there's been no movement for a few minutes), and time switches which turn computers off after the office has shut.  These measures are good investments as we cannot rely on individuals to always do the right thing!  However the fabric of the building is very important too, external wall insulation, cavity wall insulation, internal wall insulation, roof-space insulation, double or triple glazing, draughtproofing... these all help conserve heat and reduce waste.  Replacing old lightbulbs with compact fluorescents or LEDs also reduces your bills, although like many measures may have a high initial cost which is recouped over several years.  Old, inefficient heating systems can be replaced...and these days, there are some interesting low-carbon options including heat pumps (more on these in a future blog) and biomass boilers, as well as 'traditional' gas or oil heating, but more efficient than older models.  With energy prices going relentlessly up (and there is no hope of them going down folks), these technologies are looking increasingly viable and cost effective.

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This week in Community Care magazine I have a column about Britain's favourite hobby, gardening. An essential part of any garden is making compost, and this is my favourite pastime, so much so that my wife says I have 'OCD', Obsessive Composting Disorder'.  I've been obsessed by it and related subjects since childhood... I used to put food items in glass jars and watch the various bacteria and moulds develop over days and weeks, and I've always liked mushrooms and creepy crawlies.  Since coming out as a 'green' in my early 20's I've known that home composting is the best way to recycle all of the stuff which goes smelly in your dustbin, to save energy with reduced bin-lorry weight, to reduce landfill space, to reduce pollution from landfills, to help biodiversity by creating habitat and food, to help trap carbon in soils, to help fertilise soils to grow healthier plants, to reduce the need for peat which should stay in peat bogs, to reduce the need for fertilisers which use fossil fuels in their manufacture, to help reduce rainwater evapotation from soils and not need irrigation.... I could go on and frequently do.  I even did my dissertation on composting!

So, armed with all those reasons to have a home compost heap or wormery, here's my 'short guide'.  Good compost needs three things, the right mix of materials, the right amount of air and the right amount of moisture.  That's all.  Get those right and biodegredation WILL happen!  Biodegradable materials are any which have come from living things recently, any plant materials or animal materials and their products.  There are a few exceptions, including rubber which has been vulcanised with sulphur (tyres and inner tubes don't rot, although natural latex rubber like balloons and marigold gloves do, eventually) and some plastics made from oil now have an additive which allows them to 'oxo-biodegrade'.  Rotting is the natural breakdown of complex materials into simpler ones (water, carbon dioxide, humus) by the action of bacteria, fungi, and other organisms such as worms.  I find the whole process almost magical!

As home composting is so beneficial and saves the local authority lots of money in landfill charges, most councils are subsidising compost bins, many with WRAP as their partner, and this website also has a good section on composting, one of many guides available.  So get a cheap compost bin, or make an enclosure using pallets, or just have an untidy pile in one corner of your garden.  Throw on a mixture of green/sappy/moist/'nitrogen rich' materials and brown/dry/'carbon rich' materials and wait.  Rainwater will help keep it moist, the browns will help it keep aerated, and turning it over and mixing it will help speed the process.  Your compost is finished when the materials look nothing like what you put in... it ia a brown, crumbly soil-like material.  This can be 'top-dressed' on soil to suppress weeds and conserve moisture as a mulch, or riddled and used to add to potting composts; I mix it with leafmold and loam to grow my tomatoes and cucumbers.

Many websites and books advise on not composting cooked food, meat etc, but this is just because rodents find these foods even more delicious and may find their way into heaps containing them.  It is possible though to make your heap rodent proof, or to process these materials using Bokashi or a wormery so they can be recycled too. Search the web for many suppliers of composting products, or for designs for home-made versions.

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Last week, researchers at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that Carbon Dioxide levels had hit a new record high, of 387 parts per million (ppm), as measured by their research outpost in Mauna Loa, Hawaii.  This may not mean a lot to people less obsessed by CO2 levels than me, but it is significant, since the NOAA people say that the rate of accumulation is increasing, and is over 2ppm greater each year.  This is the highest CO2 concentration for 650,000 years, a level that humans have never experienced before.  This means that in just 6 or 7 years, the level will rise to 400ppm, a theoretical 'line in the sand' over which many scientists think that our climate will descend into chaos and become much more unpredictable and violent.

Continue reading "Green Man on cutting costs and cutting carbon" »