International Day of Climate Action - Dec 8th

On Saturday I took the train (http://www.virgintrains.co.uk) to London to take part in the march in central London organised by the Campaign against Climate Change (http://www.campaigncc.org). Saturday was the first day of international talks about what the f we're going to do about climate change, which are taking place in Bali. The march in London was to highlight the need for at least 80% cuts in carbon emissions by 2050, and to encourage the UK government to take a lead on this. The current Climate Change Bill suggests that we cut carbon by only 60% by 2050, which is not enough to stop global temperatures rising beyond the 2C disaster point. Gordon Brown is apparently currently considering raising this figure to 80%.

After the march finished at the US Embassy (to point out that the USA are responsible for over 25% of the world's carbon emissions yet make up less than 5% of the global population), we heard from some speakers including Chris Huhne MP, one of the current leadership candidates for the Liberal Democrats. Its nice to see politicians from all parties getting involved in the debate on what to do about climate change, but things should be progressing much faster if we're to mitigate the worst effects.

http://www.icount.org.uk

How to put the heating on without feeling guilty

Heating houses accounts for about a half of the carbon emissions caused by individual households in the UK (I think). Obviously turning the central heating off completely is a great way to reduce your carbon emissions. But in winter some people are reluctant to do that. So to reduce the carbon emissions produced through switching the heating on:

1. Put a jumper on before you go anywhere near the on button.
2. Wait a bit.
3. If you're still cold wrap yourself in a blanket. (Optional step for the hardcore)
4. Wait a bit.
5. If you're still cold put the heating on. But not very high.
6. Use a thermometer to find out what the temperature in the house actually is - 18 to 21C is ideal. If its colder than this you are probably justified in putting the heating on (as long as you've completed steps 1-4 first). If its warmer than this and you still want to keep the heating on you are probably a) old b) delusional or c) ill. (Or all of these.) Or possibly the thermometer is broken or lying in the sun or on a radiator in which case move it!

Energy saving lightbulbs for the kitchen. At last.

Today is a momentous occasion. After 2 months of energy saving light bulb investigation my Dad is finally purchasing some bulbs online that can fit in our kitchen GU10 spotlights. These spotlights are a complete pain. The only bulbs that fit in them, GU10s, don't screw in like normal bayonet or screw-top bulbs. So we can't buy normal energy saving bulbs for them from just any old place. At the moment - and I am HORRIFICALLY ashamed to admit this - most of the bulbs in these kitchen spotlights are halogens. Which is really bad. Because these bulbs consume energy like nobody's business. And they blow after about 2 minutes because they get so ridiculously hot, so you have a pile of used lightbulbs that you then throw away or have to spend hours finding somewhere that will actually recycle them every month or so.

I say most of the bulbs in the kitchen are halogens. There is also one LED bulb, and three CFL bulbs. These are the results of my extensive GU10 investigations which have taken 2 months. Yes. 2 months. (There's also a funny LED bulb in the spare room that has resulted from these investigations but we don't talk about that because it is "cool white" i.e. practically ultraviolet blue and makes us feel a bit queasy.) After weighing up all the pros and cons of these various energy saving GU10 options my parents have finally settled on one of the CFLs. We would have preferred LEDs, which consume even less energy than the CFLs, but they don't come in a high enough wattage yet to give off much light (unless you wanna pay about £20 for a single lightbulb).

So that you don't have to spend 2 months trawling internet sites for energy saving GU10s, I have added some websites to the links section. But if your parents are as fussy as mine it'll take that long just to find one that suits their preferences...
"...must be brighter..."
"...takes too long to brighten up..."
"...the box says 'warm white'! Its not! Its 'cool'! Look, the lights all, not yellowy..."
"...well, if it came in a wattage five times higher..."
"...£17.99 for an LED lightbulb?!! BEFORE VAT?!..."

The one we're going for, FYI, is the "50MM compact flourescent GU10 (8,000 HRS)" in 9 watt and 11 watt, available from http://www.wightlightsupplies.com . It takes a couple of minutes to brighten up when you first switch it on, but the tone of light is quite warm (i.e. yellow) and after a couple of minutes they're very bright. Other ones we tried from wightlightsupplies included:
- a Protronic GU10 which seemed to be similar but the tone of light wasn't as nice and we didn't like the shape so much
- a Megaman GU10 which my Mum didn't like because the light "wasn't yellow enough". But it did brighten up very quickly so if you're not bothered that everyone in the room looks a bit pale...
- an LED GU10, which was fabulous apart from the fact that it was only 1.5 watts (equivalent to about 15 watts) and so looked a bit pathetic. Beautiful, but pathetic. Basically we needed an LED of 5 watts to come near my mother's brightness requirements. And such an LED does exist... on http://www.initiallights.co.uk... but its £17.99. Before VAT.

So in conclusion... if you don't have a small fortune in the bank, CFLs are probably the way to go, and just put up with the fact that they take a couple of minutes to brighten up. By the time they blow in 10 years technology will probably moved on enough for CFLs that light up straight away. (FYI: 7 watts CFL = 30 watts halogen, 9w = 40w and 11w = 50w). If you do have a small fortune well lucky you. Head straight on over to initiallights and load up on gorgeous LEDs.

http://www.naturalcollection.com
http://www.initiallights.co.uk
http://www.BLTdirect.com
http://www.thelightbulb.co.uk
http://www.lightbulbs-direct.com
http://www.lightingworld.co.uk
http://ricamstore.co.uk
http://www.lamps2udirect.co.uk
http://www.netlamps.co.uk
http://www.capcarbon.co.uk
http://www.greenshop.co.uk
http://www.yourwelcome.co.uk
http://www.wightlightsupplies.com

Why saving water is wonderful

You often hear people going on about "saving water", particularly in the summer when people turn on their hosepipes to water their garden blah blah blah. You might think that this isn't important right now what with all the rain we've had but AHA! It is I tell you.

This is because when we use water in our homes, for washing, cleaning, drinking, whatever, that water has to be pumped to us. Pumping water requires ENERGY! And for every cubic metre of water pumpted to our homes, one kWh of electricity is used. So, even if you're not heating your water, just having it delivered to your home is resulting in carbon emissions through the energy consumed to pump it to you.

Standard water conservation tips include:
- Take showers instead of baths (but not power showers because they use just as much water as a full bath)
- Get a water butt for your garden and use this to water your plants instead
- Don't leave the tap running when you brush your teeth

If you are lovely and wonderful and already do all of this I have another tip for you. At first I wasn't sure about this but now I'm used to it I don't even notice I'm doing it, and I reckon it reduces my water usage by half when having showers.
- When you have a shower, just turn on the water to get wet, then switch it off. Soap up, wash, and then turn it back on again to wash off. Woo! Also applies for hairwashing.

Turn to 30

You may have seen Ariel tv adverts recently encouraging people to turn their washing machines down to 30.C. I have finally convinced my mother of the wisdom of washing at 30.C instead of 40 or higher. Washing your laundry at 30.C instead of 40 saves 40% of the electricity used to power your washing machine and heat the water, thus saving 40% of your washing carbon emissions! And while we're on the subject don't even think about a tumble drier. They are ridiculous consumers of energy. Now we actually have sunny, breezy weather - put it out on a washing line!

Am yet to convince my mother of the wisdom of getting rid of the tumble drier completely however. Project for the future.

By the way on other topics just spent the last week doing some temp work at a racecourse near where I live. Its at the top of a hill. I attempted to cycle 5 miles up the hill so that I have very low carbon emissions for travelling to and from work. But the prospect of a 5 mile uphill cycle, 10 hour working day waitressing, skivvying in kitchens and clearing glasses, and 5 miles back home meant my parents took me & my bike up the hill in the car at the start of the day and I whizzed back down on the bike when I'd finished. I would rather have not had to resort to any car journeys at all but I figure halving them is better than not.

Bicycology

"Bicycology is a collective formed by riders who wanted to build on their shared experience of the 2005 G8 Bike Ride and organise future events of a similar nature. Like so many people today, Bicycologists believe that our environmental impact on the planet is currently unsustainable. We desperately need to cut our levels of all forms of pollution - not just CO2 - to create a greener, safer world. Cycling can be a viable alternative to car use, but we need to change the perception of the bike, and build a physical and cultural space where cyclists can feel safe and respected.But cycling is about more than the environment. Cars epitomize the automised society we live in. Drivers close themsleves inside a box, and amongst hundreds of other road users, the car owner is alone. Cycling encourages community and reciprocity: without a surrounding metal enclosure, the cyclist feels closer to the things around her."

Find out more about Bicycology and help to change the perception of the bike at http://www.bicycology.org.uk.

Triumphs of the last week

- Went on the TRAIN to Oxford to do some photocopying for my dissertation
- Did DOUBLE-SIDED photocopying whilst there
- Spotted one giant WIND TURBINE, one house with PHOTOVOLTAIC SOLAR PANELS and one house with HOT WATER SOLAR PANELS on the train
- CYCLED back home from the train station
- Put RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES in my bike lights
- Passed on information about ENERGY-SAVING LIGHTBULBS (more about this soon) to a colleage of my Dad's who is the office sustainability officer
- Insisted on us buying our weekly fruit and vegetables from the LOCAL MARKET instead of the supermarket, which was cheaper and meant most stuff came from the UK instead of South Africa
- Watered my TOMATO PLANT with rainwater from our WATER BUTT in the garden
- Switched my stereo off at the plug overnight so it wasn't ON STANDBY
- RENTED A DVD from the library instead of buying a new one
- Took some more glass to the BOTTLE BANKS up the road for recycling
- And put "RECYCLED" toilet paper on the shopping list
- Changed my bedlinen and WASHED IT AT 30.C using ECOVER LAUNDRY LIQUID
- Put the dishwasher on using the "ECO" SETTING of 50.C
- And tonight me and 3 friends are CAR-SHARING to go into town and get the new Harry Potter book

Number of parents feeling slightly harrassed at the never-ending diatribe against our carbon-hungry lifestyle: 2
Carbon emissions reduced by doing all these things: masses

The ethics of milk

I had a question from Mavin in Texas about whether its ethical to drink milk or not, so after my previous post about reducing meat consumption I thought I'd talk about this. Drinking milk isn't fabulous for the environment, because cows produce a lot of methane and this greenhouse gas contributes to global warming and climate change. But there are ways in which you can reduce the impact that drinking milk has on the environment, and I think if you do these its perfectly justifiable to continue drinking it. After all, if you're trying to cut out a lot of red meat from your diet, you're going to need some protein from somewhere, and full fat milk will be a great source of that. Its probably better to be vegetarian and continue drinking milk than eat lots and lots of meat and cut milk out completely.

A lot of cows kept for milk are farmed intensively, which means they live in pretty awful conditions and have very short lives. Intensively farmed dairy cows are kept in sheds for a lot of the time and hardly ever see daylight. They are kept pregnant for most of the year so that they continue producing milk, and this is such a strain on them that their milk production drops after a few years and they are slaughtered, even though a healthy cow would normally live for 20 years. Because they are pregnant for so much of the time, they produce an awful lot of calves. Because keeping every one of these calves would result in a huge cow population, a lot of them are killed to produce more meat for hungry humans.

So what's the solution? I don't know about the situation in Texas, but here in the UK an alternative is to buy organic milk. Organic milk will have come from cows that live in much better conditions, being outside in fields for much of the time, and will not have been reared intensively. They will be fed only on organic feed, which reduces the impact of farming cows for milk on the environment even further. Look for the soil association mark, which indicates that the producer of the milk has been awarded organic certification for the product:

Organic milk usually costs about a third more than normal milk in UK supermarkets but sometimes the price will be equal, because of supplier issues. If its the same price as the normal milk, go for the organic one! It means so much better welfare standards for the animals, as well as a lower impact on the environment.

Going veggie

I am ashamed to admit that in my household we eat quite a lot of meat. We have something containing meat or fish almost every day of the week. When I'm at university, I try to limit the amount of meat that I eat to maybe once a week. This is because producing meat is extremely energy intensive compared to vegetables or other food products. This is from The Rough Guide to Ethical Shopping (by Duncan Clark, ISBN: 1-84353-265-4), pgs 117-122:

"...most animal products are very inefficient to produce. Take beef, for instance. Producing a single kilo of intensively farmed beef typically takes around 10 kilos of grain for feed. Beef is among the worst culprits, but similar problems apply to most meats.

The rising demand for animal feed has a number of implications, one of which is a growing demand for farmland to grow feed crops such as soya. This is already resulting in the clearing of rainforests in the Amazon.

Even if rainforests weren't at risk, the intensive production of animal products would create a range of serious environmental burdens. For one thing, the production of feed crops and the farming of animals uses up an astonishing amount of water. It can take 100,000 litres of water to make a single kilo of beef.

And then there's global warming. Farm animals are thought to account for around 10% of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions. Partly this is due to the fact that meat production uses a lot of oil - to power farm machines, make fertlizer for feed crops, transport feed and animals, and so on. All told, meat requires around 10-30 times the total energy input per kilogram than corn or soya. But it is also because cows and other livestock annually burp and fart out an astonishing 80 million tons of methane, which is a particularly problematic greenhouse gas."

After reading this I can't think of any justifiable reason for me to be eating meat every single day of the week. Of course humans are omnivores and do need a bit of protein in their diets, but I've found that eating meat or fish only once a week or so is enough to keep my muscles bulky enough to do the 3 1/2 mile cycle into town and back for my vegetables from the market.

For those who just can't reduce the amount of meat that they consume (e.g. athletes), buying locally produced meat is a good way to reduce the environmental impact. You can have more control over whether its intensively produced or not and the distance that the meat has had to travel to get to you. Farmers markets and farm shops are one of the best ways to do this. If you buy meat in a supermarket, then you could try to stick to British meat and avoid products such as New Zealand lamb.

If you, horror of horrors, regularly go to McDonald's, consider this. They're currently making an effort to appear green, saying that they'll re-use their chip fat oil as biofuel for their fleet of cars and lorries etc, but they are responsible for the deforestation of huge swathes of South American rainforest, just so they can ranch cattle for a neverending supply of hamburgers. I've boycotted them since I was 14.

1 wind farm, 3 solar panels & 4 trains

Last weekend I went to a family wedding at the other end of the country in Durham. I tried to convince my parents that we should go on the train instead of driving but they weren't having any of it. So we drove up there, the traffic was absolutely dreadful and it took 9 HOURS. Still, the weekend was pretty good and I even managed to sneak away to watch some of Live Earth in the evening. I decided to take the train back home, however, and this just shows how great trains are...

5 & 1/2 hours. Thats all it took to get from Durham to Chichester. Woohoo. It left me with time in the evening to plant out some more cabbages! (Which the slugs promptly decimated. I'm going to try putting broken eggshells down, I've heard that keeps them away. Dad said I should use slug pellets and I told him forcibly that we are an organic establishment and will not be using anything of the sort.)

Anyway on my journey I thought it might be "fun" to see how many indications that the UK is going green I could spot. Going from one end of the country to another (with 3 changes, hence 4 trains) I spotted only one wind farm, and 3 houses with solar panels on. (2 of these houses had the hot water solar panels, and 1 had the photovoltaic electricity-generating solar panels). Come on, Britain! You can do better than that! Next time I go from Durham to Chichester I want to see 3 wind farms and 10 houses with solar panels!

Go to http://www.tvenergy.org/sources-solar.htm for information on solar panels and make your house one of the 10.

http://www.liveearth.org

Need I say more.

Change your world, one mile at a time

From the 1st to the 7th of July its Change Your World, One Mile at a Time week (http://www.changeyourworld.org.uk). This campaign is encouraging everyone to swap one car journey they would normally make during the week for for a bike ride, walk or train/bus ride. Car journeys make up 13% of the UK's CO2 emissions so reducing the number of car journeys you make can drastically reduce your carbon footprint.

So what's my car journey I'm swapping for a low carbon alternative? Well I have a cold at the moment and I'm not really leaving the house much, but I had planned to go to the cinema this evening with my friend Jane. I could have driven to the cinema, which is about 4 miles away, but I thought I could get the bus instead. The bus station is only a 2 minute walk away from the cinema. (However this is a hypothetical car journey replacement as I'm not actually going out, I want to stay by my box of tissues instead, so I'm not making either a car journey or a bus journey.)

Oh dear.

Had the "can we please get solar panels" talk with the parents on Friday evening. Didn't go down too well. Dad mentioned him and Mum going on holiday in September and I said if perhaps you didn't then there would be a spare couple of thousand of pounds floating about wouldn't there. I said wouldn't it be nice to use that money to get some solar panels and get free hot water for life with 0 carbon emissions. I even offered to pay my £1000+ university tuition fees myself out of my savings to free up an additional thousand pounds in the household budget for some panels.

Solar panels for the average family house cost about £5000. You can get a government grant to pay for half of this so it would only cost us £2500 to get panels and I figured £1000 could come from me paying my tuition fees instead of my parents and £1500 from them not going on holiday.

But Dad just laughed. And said I was the Dick Strawbrigde of the family. Which is an extremely high compliment to make but I still would have preferred a "great idea Charlotte! Why didn't we do it before!" response. Or him saying I was the James Strawbridge of the family, that would have been even better. And Mum... well Mum got a bit angry and said she couldn't put up with any more being green stuff. To be fair she is starting a new job today and is very stressed but again I would have preferred a "great idea" response.

I then said ok, well I won't mention solar panels again but I will move on to talking about switching our electricity supplier to a green renewable supplier next week. HA.

PS. Mum hope you enjoyed the Fairtrade coffee samples I gave you to take on the train to your new job this week. x

Ah Fresh Air!

Today in between torrential downpours I took my bike out for a ride quickly to get some fresh air. I filled the basket up with the empty wine bottles of my alcoholic parents to take them to the bottle banks at the other end of the village. One of the few things our local council in Chichester doesn't collect in our recycling wheely bin is glass, so we have to take ours up the road to the bring bank. Mum & Dad usually wait until we have a car boot load (this doesn't take long considering the amount of beer consumed in the house) and then take the glass in the car. But I thought as I was going out for a quick ride anyway today, I'd take some bottles and jars with me so that we don't have to resort to using the car sooner rather than later. Loaded up my backpack with pasta bake jars in addition to the basket of empty wine & beer bottles and hurray! Reduced the stash of glass waiting to be recycled in our garden by about a sixth! So all I have to do is 5 more trips, thats one a day for a week, and I'll have a saved a whole car journey. Maybe that means I can have an extra bath this week with the carbon emissions that will have saved.

The problem with buying books.

After moving back home from Oxford on Sunday and unpacking, I discovered that the large quantities of books I have obtained in the last year mean that I can no longer see desk space in my room. I did buy these books (loosely) for "academic reasons" because some of them are vaguely relevant to my dissertation but this leaves me with the problem of not actually having anywhere to set my computer up and write it.

So I have decided to have a clear out of everything in my room that I haven't used in the last 2 years. If I haven't used it in the last 2 years and I don't have a sentimental attachment to it, I reckon its space could be allocated to "A History of the Mind", "The Symbolic Species" or "A Mind So Rare".

Anything thats pretty good I'm going to try and sell on Ebay because I am feeling rather poor at the moment, after spending all that money on Wadham Ball last Friday. However my charitable spirit has not been completely depleted, and anything thats not amazing but half decent I will take to Oxfam. Included in this "not amazing but half decent" pile are my old mobile phone, an IT GCSE revision book and some NME cds, amongst other items...

Anything that is pretty much rubbish but I am reluctant to send to landfill (for reasons already mentioned i.e. landfill releases greenhouse gases) I will put on Freecycle, which is an organisation that allows members to post on a message board items that they no longer need but someone else might find useful. Other people see posts and think "Aha, thats useful" and go and pick whatever it is up from the donor. You're unlikely to find a Nintendo Wii or Gucci shoes on there but you might find leftover patio tiles, garden tools, packing boxes and a whole host of other stuff that you can in fact make use of. Find your local Freecycling network at http://www.freecycle.org.

Wadham Ball 2007

Tonight is Wadham Ball 2007! Oh yeah. I have mitigated some of the guilt I feel at spending £70 on a ball ticket when there are children starving in Africa by making sure that my outfit for the ball is as ethical as possible.

My dress is Fairtrade organic cotton and comes from People Tree (http://www.peopletree.co.uk/), who produce Fairtrade clothes, accredited by IFAT (International Fair Trade Association). They also have extremely stringent environmental policies and pretty much all their cotton is organic, much of it Soil Association certified. This is the dress I'm wearing tonight, and quite affordable it was too considering ethical clothes have a reputation for being stupidly, ridiculously expensive (only £38!).

I've got some shoes and bag to go with it from Reign, a retro second-hand independent clothes shop at the end of my road in Cowley, Oxford. They are both silver and sparkly! And because they are second-hand they are well ethical because it means new resources have not had to be harvested from the Earth to make them. This is thus another example of the Reuse part of the Mantra I mentioned yesterday, "Reduce, REUSE, Recycle".

What to do with the metal hanging hooks?

Latest update in the "what shall we do with the unusable metal hanging hooks" saga: When ripping the recycleable paper away from the not-so-easily recycleable metal hanging hooks of OUNC's stash of 2005 calendars yesterday I noticed the address of the printers who made the calendars on the back page. Inspiration struck me. I could take the metal hanging hooks back to the printers and maybe they could reuse them on new calendars. Thus demonstrating the No. 1 Green Mantra "Reduce, REUSE, Recycle". And the printers are in Holywell Street, which is right next to Wadham - RESULT!

Cooking Tip #3

Another amazing way to reduce carbon emissions through cooking... when you boil water to cook pasta or something in a pot, its less energy intensive to boil some water in the kettle and then chuck that straight in the pot, instead of putting cold water in the pot and waiting for it to heat up on the hob. It still takes a lot of energy to boil a kettle but less than it takes to boil cold water on the hob. And don't forget that saucepan lid. Leonie my previous #1 cooking tip was intended primarily for Rosie's benefit by the way!

Also shoutout to Nikyla who is the 7th beneficiary of my I Count book giftage. Enjoy the train ride.

Special shoutout to Leonie

My infectious enthusiasm for being green appears to have worn off substantially on my housemate Leonie, who today asked whether a whole stack of old OUNC (Oxford University Netball Club, of which she is President) calendars could be recycled. We proceeded to rip the calendar in half, establishing that it was in fact paper and could therefore go in the blue recycling box. My job for tomorrow is to go through the whole stack and detach the metal hanging hooks before ceremoniously placing the said calendars in said blue recycling box. Second job for tomorrow is to find some sort of use for the metal hanging hooks which can't go in the recycling.

Initial thoughts are to take them to Orinoco, the Oxford scrapstore (http://www.oxorinoco.org), which crafty people and people with young, bored children can get a load of random stuff from to make a Tracy Island like the one off Blue Peter, or some other such interesting item made with stuff that would otherwise to go landfill (which in case I need to remind you releases shitloads of greenhouse gases). But its all the way over past Headington which on my bike is a round trip of over 5 miles which I can't be bothered with at the moment. Still busy doing my bloody research project. So I might just keep the metal hanging hooks in a little box somewhere until I think of something useful to do with them. I expect when my parents arrive to pick me up and take me back home to Chichester on Sunday they'll say "Stop being so stupid Charlotte and just put them in the bin." And they'll then take the piss for ages about an occasion three years ago when I refused to throw away a bit of gold string because I thought some useful use could be found for it. Possibly they are right to take the piss because I still haven't found anything useful to do with it. Perhaps I should save up a big box of "useless" random stuff and then take that to Orinoco to make the 5 mile journey more worthwhile.

Cooking Tip #2

After my revelation that using a saucepan lid when you cook will halve your carbon emissions here is another revelatory piece of cooking advice. When you want to eat something that usually only grows here in the summer, like peppers and strawberries, when its not summer, supermarkets very, very cleverly fly these yummy items in on planes from Kenya, South Africa and the Canary Islands, where they grow all the time.

Why is this clever. Why is this clever you say, when doing this results in STUPID AMOUNTS of CO2 being released through the burning of aviation fuel. Well it is clever because the supermarkets can charge you £10,000,000 for the privilege of having strawberries in December and make loadsa money. So clever for them but not so clever for you.

What you could do instead is buy food that doesn't come on a plane from countries miles and miles away round the other side of the world. Therefore saving yourself a lot of money and a load of carbon emissions! Woo!

What you could do, instead of buying strawberries from the supermarket in December, is wait for them to be produced as they would normally be in the English summertime and buy them from a farm in June. If you don't live near a farm (maybe you live in central Oxford) then there are actually places that you can get food other than supermarkets you know. Try going to the Covered Market and not just for another Ben's Cookie (although you could get one of those as well if you wanted). These places are cheaper, less likely to have flown stuff in from the other side of the world and clearly say where their stuff has come from. (Hint: the cheaper stuff tends to be labelled "English strawberries" or "English carrots". The more expensive tends to be labelled, "Maroc courgettes" or "Canary Island peppers". In case you don't know, these places are lot further away than England.)

And then when you cook these lovely things don't forget to use a saucepan lid.

Cooking Tip #1

I know its rather ironic that I am giving out cooking tips but these refer to how to save energy and reduce CO2 emissions, rather than how to actually make something edible... I'm possibly not the best person to advise on that particular aspect of cooking.

This is the first cooking tip that I will reveal to you and is also possibly the easiest, most effective and cheapest.

*PUT ON A LID WHEN YOU USE A SAUCEPAN!!!*

Yes its that easy! Just put the lid on! It takes approximately 0.03 seconds. And you can then turn the energy to your hob down by about half. Thus halving your CO2 emissions from gas or electricity, whichever your cooker uses. (More about gas vs. electric cookers later.)

1. Easy - just put the lid on
2. Effective - reduce energy consumption to cook that pot of pasta by half
3. Cheap - your saucepan came with a lid when you bought it so this action costs you nothing!

Obsessively putting lids on saucepans has caused some controversy with my housemates, who prefer to have the hob on full blast and evaporate a load of water into thin air, rather than keep it in the pot where instead it cooks whatever it is you're eating that evening... strange... We have now agreed to put one person in charge of cooking and one in charge of washing up whenever we cook together to avoid these lid confrontations. So far no one had been hit on the head with a saucepan lid but it was probably only a matter of time.

Double-sided photocopying makes you happy

Haven't posted for a few days because I've been spending all my time in the lab running participants for my research project. I'm looking at the relationship between music and problem-solving ability, and participants have to listen to some music and then do some paper-based problem-solving tasks involving diagrams of paper being folded and bits cut out of them. To save paper, and energy photocopying, I've put all the questions into a booklet that can be re-used for each participant! The pages in the booklet are also double-sided, halving the number of bits of paper needed. Wonderful. Then participants just give their answers on a separate answersheet thats only one page long. Doing this will have saved about 300 photocopies. Thats probably half a forest (forests, incidentally, absorb lots of CO2), and lots of electricity from photocopying, saved. That made me very happy. Photocopying only when you absolutely need to, doing it double-sided and using recycled paper will make you happy too.

Happy World Environment Day!

Today is WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY!! How exciting. All around the world people are celebrating our planet and the need to avoid its emminent destruction as a result of climate change (http://www.unep.org/wed/2007/english/). This afternoon I'll be going to OUSU Environment & Ethics Committee's stall on Cornmarket Street where they are giving out low carbon passports - i.e. info on how to holiday this summer WITHOUT GOING ON A PLANE. Don't even think about it. A single flight releases tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. And then you'll possibly want to get back home again at the end of your holiday, releasing even more CO2 on the return journey. If you want to go on holiday this summer you can go on a TRAIN! I'm going to go to France for a couple of weeks in September and I'll be going on the Eurostar (http://www.eurostar.com). Flying makes me sick anyway so I'm glad to have an excuse not to go anywhere near a plane.

Then after I've been to the OUSU E&E stall I'm heading to Oxford Town Hall on St. Aldates, where there are exhibitions, talks and screenings of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth all afternoon. I'm particularly looking to forward to hearing Mark Lynas speak, the guy who wrote "6 degrees: our future on a hotter planet", and also listening to talks on the theme "What can you and your neighbours do?". If you're around in Oxford and want to go too here's the itinerary: http://www.oxfordismyworld.org/wed.php

The Revolve Eco-Rally

Tomorrow, the 5th of June, is World Environment Day. There are lots of amazing things going on in Oxford, which I'll write about tomorrow. But today's topic is THE REVOLVE ECO-RALLY (http://www.revolve.ws). This is a rally of eco-friendly cars (i.e. cars that run on charged electric batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, biodiesel or are petrol-electric hybrids) going from Brighton at 10.30 tomorrow morning to London. The rally is scheduled to arrive in London at 3.30. And no it doesn't take a whole 5 hours because all eco-friendly cars are crap and go at 2mph. Its 5 hours long because the rally is conveniently stopping at lots of points along the way to show off to people between Brighton and London how great the cars are. Most eco-friendly cars perform at just the same level as normal carbon-spewing ones, so they'd get to London just as quickly if it wasn't for the fact that they're stopping a few times on the way.

The Toyota Prius is the most well-known eco-friendly car and Leo DiCaprio famously owns one. Its a petrol-electric hybrid, which means that the engine uses petrol to accelerate when you start the car up, then when you brake it converts the energy and stores it in a battery so that when you next accelerate the car uses this stored energy and doesn't have to burn petrol. A very similar car available in the UK if you can't get hold of a Prius (because everyone wants one) is the Honda Civic Hybrid. (AHEM Dad I know you are in the market for a new car right now and the Civic is much cheaper than the Prius http://www.whatcar.co.uk/car-review-full.aspx?RT=746. Also check out http://www.green-car-guide.com)

My personal favourite eco-friendly car is the G-Wiz, which runs solely on an electric battery, and when I have a house of my own in which to charge it up and a space to park it outside I will definitely get one. Top speed of only 40mph though. And for it to be completely eco-friendly you need to charge it up using green electricity. More about this soon.

Love Off

"Always remember to switch appliances off standby when you have finished using them. Incredibly, nearly £1 billion worth of energy is wasted in the UK every year by people leaving appliances on standby."

- from http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk

Love your off button and take your phone off charge, your stereo off standby and unplug your TV so there is no red light blinking at you manically. DO IT NOW! And to help you enjoy it colour in these Love Off badges from I Count (http://www.icount.org.uk/book_bliss/94.asp). So far none of my housemates have taken me up on my offer of already coloured in ones, so I'll be using them at home on my sister's laptop (yes that means you Becky, I know you leave it on standby when you've finished playing WAW so you get a special purple Love Off badge to stick on it to remind you to NOT WASTE ENERGY!)

I Count - Together We Can Stop Climate Chaos

I Count (http://www.icount.org.uk) is the campaign of Stop Climate Chaos, a coalition of over 30 organisations who are working together to prevent catostrophic climate change and all the negative impacts that it could have on us, those in other countries and our ecosystems. They have produced a wonderful book called "I Count - Your Step-by-Step Guide to Climate Bliss", which contains 16 steps towards reducing your carbon emissions. It has fun things in like "I love OFF" badges which you stick on light switches and lots of pictures. It makes reducing your carbon footprint fun.

The book is in lots of shops at the moment for £3. You can also order them in bulk from the publishers for £1.50 (http://www.icount.org.uk/book_bliss/88.asp), which is what I have done, so that I can give them out to all my friends. Yes, they're that much fun. We can have I Count parties where we colour in the "I love OFF" badges and stuff.

Beneficiaries so far of my I Count book generosity have been Leonie, Rosie, Penny, Sarah and Robin. I have 5 books left so if you would like one email me at Flowerinawindow@aol.com! And I'll pidge it to you or post it to you if you're not at Oxford (if you're one of my friends from home then wait 3 weeks and I'll give it to you in person to avoid unnecessary Royal Mail van carbon emissions).

I Count. You Count. We Count. Together we can stop climate chaos. (Because... I'd have to snorkel to my favourite pub.)

Cool People Compost.

Composting is extremely cool. Really. Its kind of like recycling plastic bottles and glass jars - making rubbish into lovely, new things. But the lovely new thing that comes out of a compost bin is wonderful, wonderful gorgeous soil that can go in your garden. Its full of nutrients and makes your plants grow big, healthy and pretty. Very useful if you have your own vegetable patch for example.

Putting vegetable peelings, banana skins, tea bags, grass cuttings and dead flowers into a compost bin instead of in your rubbish is also a great way to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. When you put these organic (that means biologically-based and not man-made here, instead of 'not covered in pesticides') materials into your normal rubbish, they go into landfill and are one of the main causes of the relase of methane from landfill sites as they decompose. Put them in a compost bin instead!

http://www.recyclenow.com/home_composting tells you where you can get a nice cheap compost bin to put in your garden. You can also get *Accessories* like a kitchen caddy. This is a little box that sits under your sink, or on top of the fridge, or somewhere on display if you really love it, that you collect all your vegetable peelings and teabags etc in, and then you take it out to the big compost bin outside when its full. Saves you having to go outside 20 times a day just because you peeled a carrot or dead-headed a house plant. However it can be annoying having to wash out the caddy. So my Mum (hello Mum) uses these bags from Lakeland Plastics - http://www.lakeland.co.uk/product.aspx/!21046, which are completely biodegradable. They line your caddy and stop it getting manky and then fully decompose when you put the bag on the compost heap. I think they are made from corn starch or some such wonderful substance that isn't plastic (thus reducing the manufacture of plastic, thus reducing our consumption of oil...)

The superb Lush shampoo bar

Lush shampoo bars are amazing. They are little discs of shampooingness that you stroke over wet hair and they make your hair smell gorgeous as well as clean it. They are well cool because they don't need any packaging. Liquid shampoo has to come in a plastic bottle or it falls about all over the place onto your bathroom floor and doesn't get anywhere near your head. Solid shampoo bars are, well, solid so all you need is a little box to keep them in, which you can re-use every time you get a new shampoo bar. So by using solid shampoo you reduce the manufacture of plastic, which uses oil, and reduce the need to recycle a plastic bottle. Excellent! Lush also say that you get an average of 80 washes from one of their 55g shampoo bars, and only around 40 washes from one 250g bottle of liquid shampoo, so you only need to make one trip to the shops for double the amount of hair washes. It also means there only need to be half the number of lorry trips from the depot to the shop where you buy your shampoo because you're only going to the shops to buy shampoo half as frequently.

http://www.lush.com

Go Greener. Go Cheaper.

Today my friend Lizzie who's at Liverpool University is coming to visit me in Oxford. She's coming on THE TRAIN. Trains are amazing. The same journey from Liverpool to Oxford will emit so much less carbon if its made on a train rather than on a plane or in a car.

Virgin trains (http://www.virgintrains.co.uk) have recently launched an ad campaign with the slogan "Go Greener. Go Cheaper." Their trains emit 76% less CO2 than cars or short haul flights. A journey from Glasgow to London on a Virgin train will result in 17.6 kg of CO2 emissions. The same journey made in a car will result in 73.6 (!) kg of CO2 emissions. Going from Glasgow to London on a plane will spew out a whopping 83.1 kg of CO2 emissions.

Here are some reasons to love trains.
1. Your carbon footprint diminishes by the size of half of England every time you go on a train instead of a plane or in a car.
2. You get to sit for a couple of hours and be driven to your destination. You can chill for a while. When you're in a car you're a bit busy driving to be getting on with your dissertation or reading the paper, and when you're on a plane you're a bit busy feeling airsick and sick with the knowledge of your excessive carbon emissions to concentrate on listening to the new Travis album.
3. Its well cheap. Book 24 hours+ in advance (http://www.nationalrail.co.uk) and its often half the price. Loads of students have Young Person's Railcards and these get you 1/3rd off ticket prices.
4. If you're going offpeak you can often take your bike on the train with you. So once you arrive you can cycle to wherever you're going instead of having to pay for a taxi!

Go Greener. Go Cheaper. Get the train.

Recycle. The possibilies are endless.

Recycling is great. It makes rubbish into new, lovely things. It also prevents lots of waste from going into landfill sites - which release methane, an even more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Recycling glass saves energy because making new glass requires a hell of a lot. Recyling plastic means we don't use up even more oil making new plastic. Recycling paper means rainforests, which absorb CO2, aren't destroyed. (Or destroyed so much, anyway.)

If you live in a house or flat your local council probably provides a doorstep collection for recyclable rubbish. If you don't have a Green Box or something similar ring up your local council and ask nicely. If your council is horrifically behind the times and hasn't introduced doorstep recycling yet then you can probably take your glass, plastic, tins, cans and paper to a bring bank nearby. Enjoy the walk. Or cycle.

If you are at university and your Halls or College don't have adequate recycling facilities, email your student representative to ask for bring banks to be installed. Your student representative may have to liase with the local council over this. Tell them it will look great on their CV. And that you will keep emailing them until they do something.

http://www.recyclenow.com is a cool website. Put your postcode into the box and it tells you what your local council collect and where your nearest bring banks are. It also tells you lots of Fun Recycling Facts! Like "every 8 months the UK produces enough waste to fill Lake Windermere".

Are you totally amazing and already recycle everything that your council say you can? Well done. Stand up and take a bow. You're very cool. Do you also recycle Tetrapaks (those annoying drinks cartons that juice and Innocent smoothies come in)? Councils don't collect Tetrapaks for recycling (yet). But you can send your empty ones to the magic recycling plant in Somerset and they recycle the cardboard! Hurray! Download the address labels at http://www.tetrapakrecycling.co.uk. And get that satisfying warm glow of having done something good when you send your cardboard box of empty Tetrapaks off.

How to be Good

Modern Life is Rubbish. Humans have polluted the world with greenhouse gases to the point where most of Britain may be underwater by 2050. Millions in the third world live in poverty, for a large part due to trade injustices. This is set to only get worse as we pump tonnes of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere every day and those in developing countries have to face the worst consequences.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Being "green", "ethical" or "ecofriendly" is now not only trendy but a moral imperative. If you are at a loss as to how to greenify your life or simply need encouragement, heckling and harrassing into switching to energy-saving lightbulbs, avoiding going on a plane ever again and eating only organic locally grown turnips (joke) this is the place to come. If you are amazing and already have only energy-saving lightbulbs, never fly and eat solely organic local turnips then maybe check out some of the links, which might interest you.

Love and (tree)hugs
Charlotte