Canute The Optimist?
September 28, 2009 by Doug Kennedy
I’m not sure that King Canute was being an optimist when he commanded the tide not to rise and dampen his feet: in fact, he was being a pessimist and proving to his people that he was not infallible, and that the tide would not obey his command. He has become legendary because of that bit of wisdom.
We could do with that wisdom today: to know the limits our power and when to exercise our optimism.
We complain about immigration, and our legislators bulldoze half-empty refugee camps; but the tide of migration from south to north, from poor to rich grows rapidly. Now the systems in Greece, Italy and Spain are under strain, and a wall between the USA and Mexico won’t stop the tide.
Why? Do people who live in nice warm countries really want to live in cold damp, overcrowded, foreign lands such as England? Probably not: the reasons are conflict, bad governance and lack of work and food: circumstances that make it impossible for people to better themselves.
But at the root, what is driving people to go through horrendous, life-threatening hardship, deserting all that is familiar, is over-population: the more people there are, the more competition there is for resources. The general result is poverty, starvation, environmental destruction (eg chop trees down around Manilla and the city floods) and conflict at local, regional and national levels. And as each person on this Earth adds to the environmental burden, especially whilst our behaviour is so out of control and we pay so little heed to what is sustainable, the drives to migrate are only increasing.
The tide is coming in and, whilst there is the pressure of growing population behind it, we are as powerless to stop south-north migration and the conflict that will result as old King Canute was to stop the sea. But there are two differences: the first is that, unlike Canute, we are glad-eyed optimists who seem to believe that things will sort themselves out, or some technology will come along to do it for us; and second that Canute could do nothing about the sea and the moon, whereas humanity could tackle the problem of exploding population.
The Optimum Population Trust is a UK think tank that is trying to find some answers. www.optimumpopulation.org
Zero Carbon Is Possible and Low Carbon Can Be Easy. Just do it!
September 23, 2009 by Doug Kennedy
Today I logged my weekly meter readings into www.zapcarbon.com and it says that I’m currently producing zero carbon through my domestic energy consumption!
We are living our lives completely normally and by taking some quite simple and inexpensive measures, there is no doubt that, at Vulcan House, we have a low footprint. The question that bugs me is, why don’t most people do the same?
What is the reality and how has it been achieved?
The reality is that we are not currently using the central heating so only burn gas for cooking and water, which on a weekly basis is not adding up to much CO2 output at all. Once the heating is turned on, we will be consuming much more gas so our energy conservation measures will come into play – insulation, draft exclusion, getting the timing and levels of the heating right. We actually want to buy a wood-burning stove, which will reduce gas consumption further as burning wood is recycling CO2 into the atmosphere that has been produced recently, rather than releasing it from ancient carbon stored in coal, oil or gas.
We currently use about 7.5 Kilowatt-hours of energy per day, which is very low compared to most 2 person x 3 bedroom households. This is achieved through using low energy light bulbs, especially where lights are on a lot, and simply not wasting electricity. However, in addition, we procure our energy from Good Energy. This is a UK energy supplier that sources all of it’s electricity from renewable generators (wind, hydro mostly) and they have calculated that the underlying carbon produced through their entire purchase is 32 tonnes per year. They then is off-set this through supporting Converging World, which works the same way as compensating for your air flights. So the actual carbon cost of my electricity is extremely low. The overall financial cost looks to be not very much higher than Scottish Power, which was our previous, relatively carbon -intensive, supplier.
This does not mean that we will start to waste electricity, because I like low bills – I can use the money elsewhere; but also there is only so much renewable electricity to go around at this point – it is precious. However, all in all, it does make me feel much better about the power we do use.
Apart from domestic energy, it is still work in progress and our lives are far from being carbon neutral. We flew to France on holiday this year and there are always decisions to be made that affect our overall footprint. However I feel that the change we have made to VulcanHouse energy use in the past 3 years is a major achievement that could be copied by many people without sacrificing their lifestyles.
If you want to know more, do email me at dgkennedy@alloverde.com
Your Carbon Footprint – You Can Act!
September 20, 2009 by Doug Kennedy
This is the full content of a Green Tips article in our local Cuddington news sheet.
Not all energy companies are the same….
Electricity is supplied to you through the National Grid. It is generated by coal, gas, nuclear or even oil-fired power stations, and also from hydro-electric and wind turbine installations. Up to 70 percent of the energy stored in the original fuel is lost in generation and transit, which is a terrible waste, but with a national grid system running wires through the air, this can’t be helped.
When you use electricity, you are not personally emitting carbon dioxide, so it seems clean. However, a great deal will have been emitted if the electricity was generated by coal, gas or oil-fired power stations and this has to be calculated into your personal footprint.
Nuclear generation is NOT a renewable source but the carbon dioxide output is relatively low, although we are leaving a terrible legacy of waste for future generations.
If the electricity was generated by renewable sources, such as wind, solar or hydro, then this will have a much smaller effect on your personal carbon output and your overall environmental footprint will be lower. The electricity market makes it possible for you to buy electricity that is up to 100% renewably generated.
The electricity in the grid comes from all sources, but the companies responsible for your supply source their power from particular installations, and the mix varies widely.
Scottish Power, EDF Energy and nPower for instance use a lot of coal and gas generated electricity producing between 500 to 700 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour. This means that when you pay your bill, you are supporting these types of generation.
On the other hand, Good energy, Green Energy and Ecotricity source their power mostly from renewable installations, producing between 100 and 300 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour. There are also 100% green tariffs available from some other smaller providers.
Renewable suppliers do not necessarily cost much more than the dirty ones, although the industry doesn’t always make it easy for you to work out as they charge differently. However you can make quite a difference to your carbon footprint by choosing a low-carbon energy supplier.
In summary, to SAVE MONEY, don’t waste energy in your home and do make use of the resources available (locally to me, a leaflet from the energy savings trust and AVDC was recently put through your door).
To reduce your carbon footprint further, choose an energy supplier that buys electricity from renewable sources.
Have a look at http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk or www.zapcarbon.com
Environmentalists Do Climate Camps, The Mainstream Takes A Flight
September 1, 2009 by Doug Kennedy
Many of us in the UK will remember Swampy, the environment activist who blocked construction of the A30 dual carriageway to Exeter for several days in the 90s by living in a tunnel he and his friends had dug in the path of the bull-dozers. Swampy is, apparently, still joining protests and living the message through having a very low environmental footprint, however the A30 was completed along with the rest of the road building programme and his bravery seems to have little impact upon the need for action on the environment. Like the Greenham Common camp, his actions raised public awareness because they brought a damaging operation to public notice, but changed little.
This weekend, there is a Climate Camp at Blackheath in Southeast London. Those attending will mostly know each other and, like Swampy and the Greenham Ladies, be regarded by the middle-class mainstream as eccentric losers and bludgers who have no hope of changing anything.
My personal view is that they are unlikely to achieve much in terms of altering public perceptions, and change will only come about when the mainstream of society get on board. But they are to be admired where they live according to their message of living a life with a low environmental footprint.
However they stand against the flood as it seems that the entire human world has been seduced by the Western model of exploiting natural resources for financial gain and economic growth, and our respectable middle-classes lead the way. People are admired and respected for being rich, especially when they are self-made or have become powerful within a corporation. Indeed Western-style free enterprise societies have created a sort of Nirvana, or refound Eden (see Reinventing Eden by Carolyn Merchant) for the better-off. People get what they want when they want it, can go anywhere they want in the World and consume without a thought. In fact for many, consumption is an end in itself, proving their wealth and position, and attesting to man’s dominion over the natural world.
We know that the environmental footprint of the average American or European is many times that of a citizen of India or China, and dozens of times that of the average African and it seems that we Westerners are intent on keeping hold of every bit of what we have. We also know that the billions of people in rapidly developing countries aspire to have what we in the West have, and that populations are growing.
The logic is inescapable: we can’t go on like this, and something has to change. This, of course, is exactly what Swampy and his environmentalist friends have been arguing for many years, but in spite of being right, they are still on the outside. Why?
In The Observer this weekend, Peter Beaumont offers some insight which fits in nicely with my Death To The Environmentalist blog (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/30/peter-beaumont-climate-camp-protesters ) suggesting that the problem is “not a lack of conviction….: it stems, rather, from an obsession with its own structures and its relationship with the media and police… (and) from a preoccupation with measuring its achievements in terms of protests it has undertaken rather than a series of achievable goals that those outside the camp movement can easily identify with.”
The UK Government along with several in Europe are at last saying that we must deal with climate change and are ramping up environmental protection, not in response to the countless demos, camps, meetings and action by environmentalists, but to the realities facing us. These realities must be accepted by the middle-class, environmentalist-hating mainstream as they are the ones who will be asked to change their lifestyles in ways that they perceive to be negative. They also have the biggest environmental footprints and could have the biggest impact on our country’s emissions.
Environmentalists know how to do it, the mainstream needs to do it, a common purpose and direction are missing.