Following my recent blog about the wind turbine proposal near Ford, there is an excellent article in the CPRE’s magazine this month that states the case from both sides. It is also to be found at http://www.cpre.org.uk/magazine/opinion/item/2802-getting-wind-energy-right I think that the most useful point made is by Rachel Coxcoon, who is broadly in favour of more turbines because of our need to produce our own energy without large carbon emissions. She says that the problem is more one of people feeling disempowered, and having infrastructure thrust
Read more →The owner of Lower Waldridge Farm (Mr Jeremy Elgin) in the county of Buckinghamshire, Near Aylesbury, is proposing to put a wind turbine on his land that will generate electricity for the National Grid. This has stirred up highly organised and vocal opposition that is passionate, and fixed in it’s view. For the protestors, it is instantly a question of right and wrong, a gut reaction, and emotional. We have lived with power pylons striding for hundreds of miles across the countryside through beautiful areas,
Read more →I read in the New York Times that people in the States (Land Of The Free, subject to terms and conditions and having money) are having to think twice about knocking down the old house and building a brand new one when they move, and of students brewing their own coffee rather than buying a moccachino in the cafe, or using library books instead of buying them. Good! Even if it’s only temporary. To each of us, having more money, more freedom, more choice is a
Read more →Last November, illegally obtained emails were publicised widely by climate change deniers, most strident among them Nigel Lawson, who claimed that the scientists must be exagerating their findings and not sharing the real data. So there was huge disruption and worry at East Anglia University and damage done to the reputation of climate change science in general aided and abetted by the media, who claimed that climate science itself was a scandal. The latest investigation results to be published last week exonerate the U.E.A. scientists and
Read more →Headline 1 – Sceptic Scientists Demonstrate Climate Is Warming Up A group of Alabama climate scientists who are collecting data from a satellite and who are regarded as climate sceptics have announced that the Earth warmed more in January 2010 than any year since records began in 1979. Headline 2 – People don’t believe it. At the same time, opinion polls show that people in general have become much more skeptical about global warming since the well publicized errors in the climate report published by the
Read more →The BBC 10pm news on Saturday evening had a brief item on a climate change protest at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire where the headline was that a policeman was injured and fences were pulled down. The film showed a policemen falling, or being felled, by the protesters and the commentary stated these facts. There were no interviews with protagonists nor journalists and no reasons or background were given. The following item concerned the funeral of Stephen Gately of the band Boyzone which was attended by
Read more →(Note: An item in the 6pm news today tells how the UK energy regulator is warning of energy shortages and huge price hikes in the coming years. This blog was written this morning BEFORE the announcement – nice timing!) Renewable energy is very much in the public eye these days and the UK has an enormous looming energy problem owing to years of vacillation on policy, and complacency because the UK had it’s own oil and gas (now largely depleted). All the money from these resources
Read more →Last night I went to a local Transition meeting: Transition is a network of local groups seeking to improve their communities environmental performance and awareness. It is a grass-roots movement that seeks to build momentum based on community interest and involvement and I am trying to do just that in my village. There were five people at a meeting that was intended to attract a crowd of locals and it was all quite depressing. The same is true of my village project: some people express an
Read more →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
Read more →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,
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