Green Man considers solar hot water and applauds Plane Stupid heroes

Both are linked... both subjects are about cutting our carbon emissions, about action not just words.  I'm finding it difficult to know which is the more important... cutting our household footprint or flagging up once again the growing impact of unneccessary short haul flights, which Stanstead specialises in.

So, over 50 young people, who have grown up hearing repeated hot air about cutting pollution implicated in climate change but have not seen any drastic action, have taken direct action, and non-violently entered an airport and blocked 56 flights from taking off or landing.  There may be many people who don't understand why they decided to do this so I'll let one of them use their own words:

Tilly, 21, said: "We all grew up listening to Blair and Brown talking about the urgent need to slash emissions, but nothing ever happened. Even now politicians from our parents' generation are in Poland holding talks about talks, but still nobody's actually doing anything. The scientists tell us we've got about seven years to make emissions peak then drop, and if we fail it will be the people on this runway, and our children, who'll live with the consequences. That's why I'm doing this."

and,

Daniel, 24, said: "We fully appreciate the scale of what we've done here today and we know many people will struggle to understand why we've done it, but the Arctic ice cap is disappearing, the seas are rising and our last chance to save our future is vanishing. With people taking more flights in Britain than anywhere else on earth, we have a unique responsibility to tackle emissions from flying."

Stanstead was chosen as the Government has recently authorised its expansion by 10 million passengers per year, and is considering allowing Heathrow to build another runway.  Air travel already contributes at least 13% of this country's climate change impact, and if the Government's plans for expansion of this are allowed to go ahead, we will not be able to hit our climate change emissions targets.

Some readers will be aware that there was a huge 'Climate March' through London over the weekend, and most of the speakers there said that the politicians had had plenty of time to do something and proved that they are inadequate. The time has come for action to protect this planet for the benefit of ourselves, our children, our grandchildren's grandchildren, and for those in developing countries who don't deserve the effects of our profligate ways.  John McDonnell, MP for the Heathrow area, said that if the go-ahead for the extra runway is given, he and the Sipson residents who will lose their homes would invite activists to come and set up camp in the village, promising a warm welcome and a robust response to the authorities and their ill-thought-up plan to add yet more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.

A more individual response (apart from promising not to fly, lobbying your MP, talking to your friends about your support for the Plane Stupid actions, etc!) might be to invest in solar hot water panels if you have a suitable South-facing roof, and especially if you are considering replacing your central heating boiler.

What a solar hot water system does is to harvest the sun's energy and, using a heat exchanger in the water tank, warm the water before it goes into your hot water boiler.  On very sunny days, it will give you enough hot water for baths, showers and washing up with no need for the boiler to kick in at all.  Installing a solar panel will slash your fuel bills and pay for itself in perhaps 10 years using today's fuel prices, to say nothing about cutting your carbon footprint and the attendant feel-good factor.

If you contract in a company to install a domestic system it may cost between £4k and £10k depending on its size, whether you need to replace the boiler with one which copes with different temperatures of incoming water and many other factors.  A self-installed 'system only' might be just £2k plus your time and expertise.

However, if you get together with a group of people, you can make savings by negotiating with the company.  York in Transition members have been offered a 10% discount on the hardware if we put in an order of between 5 and 10 systems, saving perhaps £300 each. An additional saving is made as there is a Government grant of about £400 once you've installed the system, and recent changes in planning permission mean that these panels can be put in even if you live in a listed building or conservation area, so far as I understand. Definitely worth considering!

See Solartwin, CheapSolarHeating, SolarUK, SolarFusion and literally dozens of others offering this cost effective and elegant solution.  I'll report back on the progress of our Solar Buyers Club and my installation, if I can afford to go ahead. (I'm not going to save any money as our gas bills are tiny, as most of our hot water is heated on our smokefree woodstoves.  What it would do is give us hot water in the summer 'on tap' instead of having to light the stove to get carbon neutral washing up water!)