Some time ago I promised myself to stop ranting about big companies and their complete lack of responsibility when it comes to our planet. It gets quite boring and doesn't spread good vibes. Yet after starting my post I realised this was exactly what I was doing again - somehow these companies keep winding me up. So in the spirit of not wanting to waste I have decided to publish this post anyway:
We had a letter from my daughter's school saying that they had joined 'Green Generation' a British Gas initiative, where the school can collect points (or leaves as they call them?!) and when the target number of points is reached the school will get equipment or something. Points can be collected by the pupils by doing different things, such as appointing tap monitors, setting up a school compost or making green pledges. Other people can also donate points to the school by for example doing a home energy saver check on the website.
I liked this idea, it sounded do-able to me. Normally in these schemes you have to spend money and collect vouchers,a very badly disguised way to encourage parents to buy more, but this you could do for free and even get personalised energy saving advice. Could it be that a big company was actually trying to help schools as well as encouraging energy saving with out any direct benefit to themselves???
Considering the progress we have made I didn't expect the report to be a big effort - and it wasn't.It was however a complete waste of time. Not only did the programme fail to nominate any points to the school for my efforts, but the whole thing was flawed.
The website didn't provide me with one single piece of information that I didn't know already. I guess that could be a good sign, as I have obviously learnt something over the last months, but still slightly disappointing.
However what really got to me (other than not being awarded any points) was the very generic approach disguised as a personalised report. It was obviously not designed for people who had heard of energy saving bulbs and insulation already, but for the people with no clue what so ever.
I had to fill in several details about our property, e.g. how big, how many windows, how many light fittings, how much insulation etc. I did it all, including ticking the boxes of yes, we have 300mm of loft insulation and yes, we have cavity wall insulation. Yet when my supposedly personal action plan came up it mentioned cavity wall insulation. Uhm, why - we have it already. OK fair enough under the carbon calculation section it did say that I would save 0 carbon by getting cavity wall insulation, so somewhere it did register that we have it already, but surely it shouldn't show up on my action plan then?
How come that a big resourceful company like British Gas can't advice properly on energy saving? I am not asking them for advice on raising kids or growing tomatoes, but energy saving should be their kind of thing, shouldn't it? Do they only have the knowledge to suggest the first basic steps of energy saving, such as insulate your home, switch your appliances off and use energy saving bulbs? Or were they in fact mainly interested in getting my details (I had to give full address and other stuff) in case I needed insulation and they could get a sales person round?
If they were serious about this they would have a programme that could deal with different categories of people, but I think they are more interested in looking good than actually achieving something real.
This is how far I got before realising I was on the rant again. Apologies to you all. So after re-reading it I started wondering what I should do instead. After all it had started with me wanting to be helpful to the school and getting the kids involved is definitely important, so there had to be something else that didn't involve British Gas or any other company for that matter. Amazingly a note came out from the school that they were looking for more parents for their eco committee. There we go! It was the obvious thing to do, but unfortunately it doesn't always take a big company to ruin your efforts - 2-year olds can be just as effective!
After speaking to the teacher we agreed that I would come along to the next meeting in the understanding they both my kids would be there as well and sit and draw or something (you have to be P3 to join the committee, so they are not quite big enough). I kept all my fingers and toes crossed that they would behave. We were off to a fine start, turned out that one of my daughter's classmates were there too, so they had company. All good and well and I got down to the business of helping some of the older kids inputting electricity readings to a spreadsheet. Then disaster! I won't give too many details, but lets just say, you should never bring a potty training kid to a meeting - especially not if they decide to show everybody what they have produced...
Needless to say the meeting was cut short for me and I now have to pluck up the courage to attend the next meeting without looking too embarrassed. Oh, what fun you can have trying being green....
Sunday 31 January 2010
Sunday 24 January 2010
Flying on the Happy Planet
It is amazing the amount of 'green' stuff you find once you start looking. Going through some old mail I came across a link to 'The Happy Planet Index'. Initially I thought it sounded like some hippie kind of thing - 'lets all have a group hug and be a happy planet', but it turned out that it was in fact a new way of calculating the state of the nation as opposed to the GDP figures normally used.( www.happyplanetindex.org )
As we know the GDP gives an indication of the economic growth, but the Happy Planet Index takes in all sorts of other factors and rates the sustainability of the situation as well - so theoretically speaking it should give a much broader and accurate picture. A worthy cause I think, a GDP figure that measures purely growth doesn't really encourage sustainability, but it is likely to be many years before the powers that run the country will change the tune.
However on the same website you can also calculate your own happy index rating, and of course I had to give it a go. My overall score was 42, pretty close to the UK average of 40.3(So you can be green and pretty normal!), but a bit behind the general average of 53.3 (Maybe we are just a miserable lot on this island???)All in all nothing too exciting.
The overall score is however just one part of it, you also get scores on individual sections, such as life expectancy, wellbeing and ecological footprint.
Life expectancy was interesting. For some reason my life expectancy was higher than average. The average is 86, my life expectancy supposedly is 87.4, but I have no idea why. Despite good intentions I still don't really exercise a lot and I don't have the best diet in the world, but hey it is good news. (maybe that should be my next challenge to try out all the ways that supposedly helps you live longer...)
The well being part looked slightly less optimistic, but maybe that did have something to do with the fact that we had a rare night out yesterday and the lack of sleep combined with a particularly stubborn 2 year old this morning probably didn't put too positive a spin on my answers.
Anyway the ecological footprint was my true test. If my rating here was bad, I would have to admit failing my green challenge. Apparently the UK average is 5.4 global hectares, the general average is 4.1 and mine was (drum roll...) 2.92. Yipee, I am doing OK. Apparently I am using one and half to two times my share of the Earth's resources, which is obviously not sustainable, but definitely the rigth side of average. Even the comments section of the happy index admitted that this was pretty good. (This is the part where I avoid going into details about how the figure is calculated. Some of the questions were very subjective, bordering on silly, e.g. is your energy consumption higher, the same or lower than your neighbour's? - How would I know, I don't discuss energy bills with the lovely elderly lady next door)
The comments sections also highlighted one of my big dilemmas - flying. The advice suggested that it was a good idea to think about other options and maybe rather than going away for 2 long weekends to have one longer holiday and thereby reducing the number of flights. It is very complicated though when your family lives in a different country. We don't actually fly that often, we can't really afford to go to Denmark more than once a year, maybe twice at a push, and we certainly don't go on long weekends to European capitals, but I struggle to see how I would give up flying completely.
We have just booked tickets to go to Denmark for Easter, and the fact is I did look at alternatives. We talked about going down to Harwich and get the ferry across to Denmark, but it turns out that for the price of the crossing we could probably fly to Denmark at least twice and that is even before calculating the cost of getting to Harwich. It would also have meant taking the kids on a rather long journey, which would not only be a serious test on everybody's patience, but would also take up a fair part of the holiday time - time the kids would rather spend being spoilt by their grandparents than with two stressed out adults trying to beat the traffic. So I am afraid the planet on this occasion became the looser, flying was cheaper and quicker and allow us to spend more time with the Danish part of the family - that is hard to argue against.
Of course this might all change in the future, oil prices might just go so high that flying becomes a privilege only for the rich and famous, but until then I don't see us cutting out flying altogether - I love the planet, but I also love my family and I need to see them from time to time.
At least I can always point to the Happy Planet Index - even with flying I secured a pretty good score - so beat that anybody calling me a hypocrite!
As we know the GDP gives an indication of the economic growth, but the Happy Planet Index takes in all sorts of other factors and rates the sustainability of the situation as well - so theoretically speaking it should give a much broader and accurate picture. A worthy cause I think, a GDP figure that measures purely growth doesn't really encourage sustainability, but it is likely to be many years before the powers that run the country will change the tune.
However on the same website you can also calculate your own happy index rating, and of course I had to give it a go. My overall score was 42, pretty close to the UK average of 40.3(So you can be green and pretty normal!), but a bit behind the general average of 53.3 (Maybe we are just a miserable lot on this island???)All in all nothing too exciting.
The overall score is however just one part of it, you also get scores on individual sections, such as life expectancy, wellbeing and ecological footprint.
Life expectancy was interesting. For some reason my life expectancy was higher than average. The average is 86, my life expectancy supposedly is 87.4, but I have no idea why. Despite good intentions I still don't really exercise a lot and I don't have the best diet in the world, but hey it is good news. (maybe that should be my next challenge to try out all the ways that supposedly helps you live longer...)
The well being part looked slightly less optimistic, but maybe that did have something to do with the fact that we had a rare night out yesterday and the lack of sleep combined with a particularly stubborn 2 year old this morning probably didn't put too positive a spin on my answers.
Anyway the ecological footprint was my true test. If my rating here was bad, I would have to admit failing my green challenge. Apparently the UK average is 5.4 global hectares, the general average is 4.1 and mine was (drum roll...) 2.92. Yipee, I am doing OK. Apparently I am using one and half to two times my share of the Earth's resources, which is obviously not sustainable, but definitely the rigth side of average. Even the comments section of the happy index admitted that this was pretty good. (This is the part where I avoid going into details about how the figure is calculated. Some of the questions were very subjective, bordering on silly, e.g. is your energy consumption higher, the same or lower than your neighbour's? - How would I know, I don't discuss energy bills with the lovely elderly lady next door)
The comments sections also highlighted one of my big dilemmas - flying. The advice suggested that it was a good idea to think about other options and maybe rather than going away for 2 long weekends to have one longer holiday and thereby reducing the number of flights. It is very complicated though when your family lives in a different country. We don't actually fly that often, we can't really afford to go to Denmark more than once a year, maybe twice at a push, and we certainly don't go on long weekends to European capitals, but I struggle to see how I would give up flying completely.
We have just booked tickets to go to Denmark for Easter, and the fact is I did look at alternatives. We talked about going down to Harwich and get the ferry across to Denmark, but it turns out that for the price of the crossing we could probably fly to Denmark at least twice and that is even before calculating the cost of getting to Harwich. It would also have meant taking the kids on a rather long journey, which would not only be a serious test on everybody's patience, but would also take up a fair part of the holiday time - time the kids would rather spend being spoilt by their grandparents than with two stressed out adults trying to beat the traffic. So I am afraid the planet on this occasion became the looser, flying was cheaper and quicker and allow us to spend more time with the Danish part of the family - that is hard to argue against.
Of course this might all change in the future, oil prices might just go so high that flying becomes a privilege only for the rich and famous, but until then I don't see us cutting out flying altogether - I love the planet, but I also love my family and I need to see them from time to time.
At least I can always point to the Happy Planet Index - even with flying I secured a pretty good score - so beat that anybody calling me a hypocrite!
Sunday 17 January 2010
Insulation
The snow might have gone, but it is still cold! When autumn started I must admit I felt uncertain about how we were going to get through the winter without raking up a massive energy bill in this rather large house, and that was even before we knew we were facing the coldest winter in 30 years. I looked for cheap ways of insulating, only to discover that it isn’t really possible(see blog 6th Oct, Winter is coming)So when we were offered a free home energy audit I thought why not – at least that will tell us where we stand.
We kind of knew that there wasn’t really enough loft insulation and considering the temperature of the house we assumed there weren’t any cavity wall insulation, so I prepared myself for a massive quote that we wouldn’t be able to afford. My first shock however was when I was told that we do have cavity wall insulation already, because the whole extension was built 5 years ago and an obligation to insulate the wall cavity has been part of the building regulations since the 1990’s. ‘Help!’ was the first word that entered my head ‘the house is freezing, but actually insulated’.
The second surprise was the quote for topping up the loft insulation: £125. Now that is a fair amount of money, but not as scary as I had feared thanks to government grants. So we did some thinking, and as this was in December and we were already spending extra money on presents and food and I don’t know what, it did seem like time to get the priorities right and sort the insulation. So we did and we have no regrets!
We kind of knew that there wasn’t really enough loft insulation and considering the temperature of the house we assumed there weren’t any cavity wall insulation, so I prepared myself for a massive quote that we wouldn’t be able to afford. My first shock however was when I was told that we do have cavity wall insulation already, because the whole extension was built 5 years ago and an obligation to insulate the wall cavity has been part of the building regulations since the 1990’s. ‘Help!’ was the first word that entered my head ‘the house is freezing, but actually insulated’.
The second surprise was the quote for topping up the loft insulation: £125. Now that is a fair amount of money, but not as scary as I had feared thanks to government grants. So we did some thinking, and as this was in December and we were already spending extra money on presents and food and I don’t know what, it did seem like time to get the priorities right and sort the insulation. So we did and we have no regrets!
Before we sorted the insulation this was how it worked. The original part of the house would usually stay reasonably comfortable, the extension part of the house would be cold and the kitchen would be freezing. Unfortunately the rooms in the original part are the ones we use the least, so all in all it was a rather chilly experience.
We now have a rather different situation. The top up loft insulation was put in covering all of the extension bit, and this part can now stay nice and comfy for a long time, which is great. Even when we don’t have the heating on in the evening and obviously not during the night (I work from home, so it is on most of the day), we still wake up in a bedroom where the temperature is 16 degrees. That is nice. The rooms downstairs will usually be 14-15 degrees first thing, which is pretty good in the current cold climate.
The one exception is the kitchen, and this is where I have fully understood the benefit of insulation. The kitchen is part old house part extension. The extension bit of it has a skylight, which looks great, but doesn’t do much for the heating. The old part of the kitchen sits below the bathroom, which hasn’t got any insulation on top, because of recessed lighting (apparently insulation on top of those kind of lights are a major fire hazard), so basically the kitchen is more or less uninsulated. Normal temperature in the kitchen in the morning is somewhere between 10 and 12 degrees – that is cold!
I am sure it will still take us a few years to claw back the £125 in saved energy bills, and it did leave a bit of a gap in the finances, but I can live with that – because I am warm!
PS. I have changed the comments settings as a trial, so all you lovely people who send me comments on e-mail can now do it right here. I look forward to hearing from you.
PS. I have changed the comments settings as a trial, so all you lovely people who send me comments on e-mail can now do it right here. I look forward to hearing from you.
Tuesday 12 January 2010
Green Ice Policy
The snow that has covered Scotland for more than 3 weeks is finally beginning to disappear. It has been very unusual to see this much snow and for such a long time, and I have loved it! It is fantastic that we built a snowman before Christmas and the remains are still there. I much prefer the white snow cover to the endless rain we usually have. This weekend we had a great trip to the zoo, we could see all the animals very easily - they didn't camouflage very well in the white snow.
It has obviously caused a lot of problems as well, because somehow we are never really prepared for snow in this country, and I do empathise with the people who have been having a hard time, but what it has also done is highlighting how far down the list green priorities are for the councils. This morning it took me 40 minutes to do the school walk, not because we had forgotten the lunch box and had to run back for it, not because my 2 year old refused to walk (both of which can happen...), but because the so called 'safe route to school' hadn't seen a snow shovel or a single grain of grit since the white out started. The path was more slippy than an ice rink and in some parts people were hanging on to fences and lamp posts just to be able to stay upright.
Now I fully understand that priorities have to be made and this extended period of frost and snow is unusual and therefore maybe difficult to deal with for the Councils, but I am not sure I agree with their choices.
Scotland has the World's toughest climate bill with a target of reducing CO2 emissions by 42% by 2020. How in the world do they expect to achieve anything near that if they can't even ensure that children are able to walk to school? One of the strategies to cut emissions is to get people to stop driving on short journeys, and the school run definitely comes in that category, but if the road to school is dangerous, there is no chance of people ditching their cars.
I am usually quite persistent on walking to school, even when the weather is showing off its darker sides, but I honestly considered taking the car at pick up time - rather a bit of CO2 than a broken leg! In the end I did walk, only to discover that the path was in fact even worse than in the morning (all the thawing and refreezing is very unhelpful), and we ended up walking back a different route that is twice as long and on the main road - so far from a safe choice.
I don't want to sound like some grumpy person with nothing better to do than complaining, and I fully agree with the fact that they didn't grit the path as a first priority - the schools were closed afterall, but the snow had eased off already last week and they knew the schools were due to return after the Christmas break, so why didn't they at least attempt to make the path safe? A lot of people use this path and surely it is in the Council's interest to keep the kids safe?!
The fact is that making things safe for pedestrians during this snow spell has received very little attention. The Council's focus has been on the roads and thereby encouraging people to get in their cars. But what about the people who don't drive cars, like some elderly people - how are they supposed to get out.
I think it is time for the Councils and the Government to rethink the priorities. On one side they run ads in the radio telling people to drop the car for short journeys, but on the other side they do nothing to make this a safe option - what kind of a signal is that to send?
Maybe it is time for a radical change, e.g. in Denmark it is the house owner's responsibility to keep the pavement outside their property clear. Sure that can be a real pain, if it has been snowing overnight you need to get up even earlier to do some snow shovelling before work, but I can assure you it is a lot safer to be a snow pedestrian in Denmark than here.
Anyway until the Councils get their act together and get a green ice and snow policy, I shall continue my daily debate whether to persevere with the walking and risking to put myself in the category of eco idiot (especially when I fall and split my head open) or to cave in and go by car. Hmmm...
It has obviously caused a lot of problems as well, because somehow we are never really prepared for snow in this country, and I do empathise with the people who have been having a hard time, but what it has also done is highlighting how far down the list green priorities are for the councils. This morning it took me 40 minutes to do the school walk, not because we had forgotten the lunch box and had to run back for it, not because my 2 year old refused to walk (both of which can happen...), but because the so called 'safe route to school' hadn't seen a snow shovel or a single grain of grit since the white out started. The path was more slippy than an ice rink and in some parts people were hanging on to fences and lamp posts just to be able to stay upright.
Now I fully understand that priorities have to be made and this extended period of frost and snow is unusual and therefore maybe difficult to deal with for the Councils, but I am not sure I agree with their choices.
Scotland has the World's toughest climate bill with a target of reducing CO2 emissions by 42% by 2020. How in the world do they expect to achieve anything near that if they can't even ensure that children are able to walk to school? One of the strategies to cut emissions is to get people to stop driving on short journeys, and the school run definitely comes in that category, but if the road to school is dangerous, there is no chance of people ditching their cars.
I am usually quite persistent on walking to school, even when the weather is showing off its darker sides, but I honestly considered taking the car at pick up time - rather a bit of CO2 than a broken leg! In the end I did walk, only to discover that the path was in fact even worse than in the morning (all the thawing and refreezing is very unhelpful), and we ended up walking back a different route that is twice as long and on the main road - so far from a safe choice.
I don't want to sound like some grumpy person with nothing better to do than complaining, and I fully agree with the fact that they didn't grit the path as a first priority - the schools were closed afterall, but the snow had eased off already last week and they knew the schools were due to return after the Christmas break, so why didn't they at least attempt to make the path safe? A lot of people use this path and surely it is in the Council's interest to keep the kids safe?!
The fact is that making things safe for pedestrians during this snow spell has received very little attention. The Council's focus has been on the roads and thereby encouraging people to get in their cars. But what about the people who don't drive cars, like some elderly people - how are they supposed to get out.
I think it is time for the Councils and the Government to rethink the priorities. On one side they run ads in the radio telling people to drop the car for short journeys, but on the other side they do nothing to make this a safe option - what kind of a signal is that to send?
Maybe it is time for a radical change, e.g. in Denmark it is the house owner's responsibility to keep the pavement outside their property clear. Sure that can be a real pain, if it has been snowing overnight you need to get up even earlier to do some snow shovelling before work, but I can assure you it is a lot safer to be a snow pedestrian in Denmark than here.
Anyway until the Councils get their act together and get a green ice and snow policy, I shall continue my daily debate whether to persevere with the walking and risking to put myself in the category of eco idiot (especially when I fall and split my head open) or to cave in and go by car. Hmmm...
Sunday 3 January 2010
New Years resolution
We have now entered 2010 and as always we have to make a New Years resolution. My resolution is to eat less chocolate! Why? Does chocolate have some kind of adverse impact on the environment, you might ask? It probably does, I don't really know, but what I do know is that you should never make New Year resolutions about anything important, because they never last. The chances of me eating less chocolate are about as high as the chances of me winning the lottery, but I do recognise the fact that from a health point of view I should be eating less - so the perfect resolution, I should stick to it, but it is never going to happen...
The question is if I were to make a serious new years resolution, what would it be? There are many issues I could go for. All the obvious ones (no, not losing weight) such as saving energy, eating less meat, using the car less, saving water, buy local, grow my own food - the stuff we are already working on. I have just signed up for the 10:10 campaign - save 10% on your energy usage in 2010, but this is not a resolution, it is a commitment.
I could make it a resolution to try even harder next year to have less waste at Christmas. Despite my efforts, this Christmas was still a scary experience from a green point of view. My kids received so many presents, that after the high of opening boxes, my five year old just sat in a corner looking rather overwhelmed and feeling upset that she didn't know what to play with. We have to find some way of limiting the presents next year - it is just too much, and even half the amount of stuff would be more than plenty for them. Anyway, I have almost a year to figure that one out, so a bit silly as a New Years resolution.
What would probably be a useful New Years resolution would be to learn some more facts about peak oil and global warming. As this green family project is growing quite a few people seem to have the urge to question me about all things environmental. Some of them are almost trying to challenge me to convince them that global warming is real, because like a considerable part of the population they are sceptical. The thing is I am not a scientist, and most of the scientific figures can be interpreted in many different ways anyway, so it would be pointless for me to start some explanation that I probably wouldn't even understand myself. Frankly the specifics of how global warming is happening (or not) are irrelevant to me, but what is very relevant is the unsustainable way we live.
80% of the Earths resources are used by 20% of the population -so where would we be if everybody on the planet lived the same way as us??? It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that this will not hold up in the long term. We can continue the way we are at the moment and hope for some kind of miracle to happen, or we can try to start a change now? Personally I don't really want to take the risk and that is why this green project is too important to be a New Years resolution. So my wish for 2010 is that it will be a year of discovery and learning and by the end of it we will have made lots more green progress, one step at the time. Now where was that chocolate...?
The question is if I were to make a serious new years resolution, what would it be? There are many issues I could go for. All the obvious ones (no, not losing weight) such as saving energy, eating less meat, using the car less, saving water, buy local, grow my own food - the stuff we are already working on. I have just signed up for the 10:10 campaign - save 10% on your energy usage in 2010, but this is not a resolution, it is a commitment.
I could make it a resolution to try even harder next year to have less waste at Christmas. Despite my efforts, this Christmas was still a scary experience from a green point of view. My kids received so many presents, that after the high of opening boxes, my five year old just sat in a corner looking rather overwhelmed and feeling upset that she didn't know what to play with. We have to find some way of limiting the presents next year - it is just too much, and even half the amount of stuff would be more than plenty for them. Anyway, I have almost a year to figure that one out, so a bit silly as a New Years resolution.
What would probably be a useful New Years resolution would be to learn some more facts about peak oil and global warming. As this green family project is growing quite a few people seem to have the urge to question me about all things environmental. Some of them are almost trying to challenge me to convince them that global warming is real, because like a considerable part of the population they are sceptical. The thing is I am not a scientist, and most of the scientific figures can be interpreted in many different ways anyway, so it would be pointless for me to start some explanation that I probably wouldn't even understand myself. Frankly the specifics of how global warming is happening (or not) are irrelevant to me, but what is very relevant is the unsustainable way we live.
80% of the Earths resources are used by 20% of the population -so where would we be if everybody on the planet lived the same way as us??? It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that this will not hold up in the long term. We can continue the way we are at the moment and hope for some kind of miracle to happen, or we can try to start a change now? Personally I don't really want to take the risk and that is why this green project is too important to be a New Years resolution. So my wish for 2010 is that it will be a year of discovery and learning and by the end of it we will have made lots more green progress, one step at the time. Now where was that chocolate...?
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