The last month has been a busy time for climate change. The Stern report was published by the government. This report states that a 90% reduction in CO2 emissions is required. This is an awesome challenge that will result in a massive change to our way of life. As well as the report, an enormous climate demonstration was held in London with 30,000 people attending showing that the number of people who are prepared to make a change is growing.

Heating and powering your house is one of your biggest contributors to CO2 emissions. There are a range of things that you can do to significantly minimise emissions. The simplest and cheapest thing that will minimise your emissions is to install draft excluders. The next simplest thing is to use low energy bulbs, which use 80% less power than conventional bulbs. Your next best expenditure is cavity wall and loft insulation. At the other end of the spectrum, there are options such as solar heating which costs several thousand pounds. We have contacted three families in the area who have solar heating. They all say it provides a lot of hot water in the summer, but it is of little benefit in the winter when it is most in demand and can take up to 10 years to pay back. So, the best way forward is to make sure that you have done all the easy options, before you spend significant amounts of money on other methods.

On a recent walk through Nailsworth one evening I counted the number of light bulbs in show window displays. There were 182 bulbs being left on all night, and almost none are low energy!! This produces around about 38 tonnes of CO2 per year which needs about 1,300 trees to be absorbed.

Only two shops used low energy bulbs. If you can identify the two shops, please email and the first correct response will be awarded a low energy bulb.

This months gas guzzler, seen in the Nailsworth Garden Centre. The owner can contact the blog to claim his "I don't care about our kids" certificate or email on kevsclimatecolumn@btinternet.com.

Welcome to Kev's Climate Column. Kev, along with his helpers will bring you news of climate change in the coming editions of Nailsworth News and clarify the conflicting reports in the wider media. But most importantly, Kev’s Climate Column will bring you information and ideas on what you can do reduce your “carbon footprint;” these may be ideas that need individual action or collective action amongst the people of Nailsworth.

Kev’s climate column will also have a blog, at www.kevsclimatecolumn.blogspot.com/. You will be able to find all the articles here, as well as give your ideas on how to reduce your carbon footprint, discuss other ideas or let us know how successful our ideas for reducing carbon have been. You can also email on kevsclimatecolumn@btinternet.com.

First of all, how big a problem is climate change? To put it in perspective, the met office this month have released a long range forecast for Saharan weather conditions in England by the end of this century, with temperatures getting as high as 46oC. The worst of it is that this is not even the worst-case estimate and other computer models predict far worse. Changes this big will impact every single person reading this paper. We have already just had the hottest September and July on record. Climate change is not some abstract problem of the future that can be resolved by talking. It is a problem that is affecting us right now and needs all of us to act and think in very different ways.

One simple thing that you can do to save your carbon emissions dramatically is to drive less. Have you looked at lift sharing? If you do not have colleagues at work who live locally to you, then you could try one of the lift sharing web sites, or leave your journey details on our blog. We have looked at www.liftshare.org. It looks good and is free. There are even people logged on to it from this area. If everyone in Nailsworth who is interested in lift sharing went to this site, we could have a critical mass of people all at one place. Please let us know how you get on.

Would I use it? No, I bike to work!!!

Kev


PS.... Is this your gas-guzzler? If so contact us through the blog to claim your "I don't care about our kids" certificate.