On Yer Bike Mate

I heard earlier on the radio that 1 in 4 car trips made in the UK is less than 2 miles. The amount that we all walk on average is slightly up and works out to be 201 miles each, up from 197 mile average of last year. But we each cycled on average 39 miles over the year , up a mere 3 miles from last year.

I personally have done my bit to cycle more and dearly enjoy the collective impatience of some urban drivers and the joy of discovering that another pointless 10 yard cycle lane that starts and ends abruptly has appeared besides another suicidally busy road. A short bike ride to my parents soon reminds me that the adrenalin rush induced by my nearly getting flattened by a juggernaut is not the thrill it once was when I was younger and had more of a feeling of invincibility.

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Ban Cars From Around Schools Says IEEEP

A new study by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) has suggested putting no drive zones around schools and even around shopping centres. These Daily Mail baiting suggestions arise due to the policy finding that 38 percent of all journeys are under two miles (I saw my twenty something neighbours take their car to the polling station at the local elections as I began the one minute(!) walk to the same destination).
They suggest that if a typical British adult were to walk just one more hour a week it would help tackle the obesity crisis.
Banning vehicles from the vicinity of schools (Do we bus the Teachers in through angry Mother picket lines?), they say, could reverse the decline in good old fashioned walking (or else parents will keep their cherubs at home due to their taxi unfriendly policy). A spokesperson for the IEEP said:

“The twin crises of obesity and climate change are clearly interlinked through the switch from muscle power to engine power for transport.

“Concerted action is needed to reverse both these trends. Our research demonstrates that something as simple as walking short trips now made by car would make an important contribution to tackling both obesity and climate change.”

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Patio Heater Use Increases

The smoking ban in pubs and the rise of patio building within the mock middle classes is prompting some environmentally concerned people to call for a rethink with regard to their promotion and use. The energy saving trust has predicted that over the coming year the individual patio heater ownership will rise from 1.2 million to 2.3 million in Britain alone.

Two thirds of patio heater owners said they used theirs on average between 2 and 3 times a week and this included during the hottest summer months of July and August.

The recent smoking ban in England has also indicated that the purchase and increased use of patio heaters for those smokers now placed outside pubs and in beer gardens will further increase the overall CO2 output footprint that these items are responsible for.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone is one of those who has gone on record for calling a halt to the spread of ‘wasteful’ patio heater use and calling on shops to curb the promotion of them.

Source

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Global Warming Mug

With the Live Earth concerts due this weekend , it’s time for the inevitable crass commercialisation and exploitation of even the prospect of future climate disaster with this suitably tacky global warming mug which changes the look of the map relief after cupping your hands around it or after holding your warm beverage. Watch east Anglia slide into the sea and the familiar coastline maps transform into the potential Earth of the near future. I have to assume that the equivalent mug for climate change doubters would just stay the same no matter what (ideal! A ready market for the faulty and ‘seconds’ mugs).

And remember kiddies, Global warming is sponsored by all your favourite multi nationals

Link via iwantoneofthose

Green PC Is An Old Friend With A Makeover

There’s a lot of ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’ across many western value governments and no sooner had I commented about one such solution on the Conversations with Brit and Grit blog which was to do with adopting thin client computing within the US Government and highlighting its green credentials then the UK Gov makes noises about the same thing.

They don’t say ‘thin client’- a technology I trained in many moons ago, but apply a bit of re-branding to call it green PC , a term that even Google is keen to promote as possibly a means to focus it’s range of Internet based applications.

In essence it’s a return to the ‘dumb terminals’ of old. All it means is that a central sever which could even be accessed via an internet connection has all the processing power and memory whilst what sits on a worker’s desk is really a scaled down PC with no hard drive, little memory and low power consumption. Apart from size savings (in some cases the ‘thin’ pc can be as small as a domestic household electric plug ), thin computers are often silent and fanless and the system itself makes it easy to access your work desktop securely from home (flexible working anyone?). This model of computing also frees the department or company from the relentless need to upgrade every few years as only the central server needs upgrading. It’s a system that’s been around a long while but curiously has been resisted by many computer system administrators (sticking with what they know?) due to the solid state thin clients often being as expensive as traditional fat computers but you need to take into account of what’s called TCO and thin PC costs have fallen as demand has increased.

This model is often very reliable ,flexible, long lasting, has lower support costs, is secure and now with the emphasis on energy and resource friendliness.

The only downside of the UK specific initiative is that it’s under the wing of MP Ruth Kelly so maybe I shouldn’t hold my breath over the likely the success selling this solution.

Sydney Eco City Proposal

Sydney, Australia is one of many cities that are having to consider their future sustainability with water shortage measures in effect and the prospect of building a desalination plant in order to keep enough water to continue the continuing city habitability.

Now the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, has appealed to city stakeholders to come together and discuss the sustainability issues facing the city over the next 20 years. At the same time an ambitious proposal to build an eco sustainable city in Sydney’s White Bay area has been unveiled by Rafael Pizarro. a senior lecturer at the faculty of Architecture at the University of Sydney.

The project, White Bay Eco-City, features mid to high-density solar districts, food and energy production areas, storm water run-off systems and a water recycling plant.

Residents in this new eco city would get around an internal public transport system consisting of a light tram grid and special roads for public GPS-guided ‘stackable’ mini-cars.

Food production not only happens in the designated spatial areas but on the roof-tops of buildings too.

Mr Pizarro says:

“Food production not only happens in a spatial district in most of the eco-city, but also on most of the rooftops of the buildings,” he said.

“We have created rooftop gardens where you can plant your veggies and in this way increasing the food supply for the eco-city while knocking out the cost and environmental impact of transporting food in and out.”

“The other major feature is public transportation.”

“We know that if we want to create sustainable cities, public transport is a must. So within this eco-city we have minimised, not eliminated completely, but have minimised the use of private vehicles.”

“We created an internal system of public transport with a small tram that goes around the city.”

“And the other system we have created, borrowed from an MIT professor who created these stackable mini cars that occupy literally very little space. They are guided by a GPS system, so you don’t need to drive them. You just punch in on the screen where you want to go.”

How To Live Off Grid

I heard a short interview on the radio today with the author of this new book, How to Live Off-grid: Journeys Outside the System by Nick Rosen.

This sounds hugely interesting to me as he visits people living without the a private mains supply of water and electricity and attempting to live self sufficient lives outside of the system for reasons of economy or lifetstyle and belief. The people he visits live like this either part time or permanently. Sounds an interesting read and a temporary store of the interview is here:

From BBC Five Live ( at 2:22:55) (Real Player or compatible required)

or

Live_Off_Grid (560KB AAC+)

Also of relevance: Off-grid.net and Nick Rosen at the Hay festival

(AAC+ music files. Plugin(Win) or compatible player required – Songbird (All) VLC(All)-Winamp(Win)-Quicktime and (bizarrely) i-Tunes will play file at half the audio bandwidth and in mono only)