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

Random blog post 

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.”

Department Of Transport Tackles Climate Change

Another public information advert backed by the British Government (following the earlier multi department offering), this time by the Department of Transport. The 1st time I saw the film my grizzled hearing misheard the narrators repetition of the turn of phrase ‘some clever sort’ and I’m afraid it wasn’t ‘sort’ that I originally heard.

UK Government Backed Climate Change Infomercial

Climatechallenge.gov.uk

UK Television watchers may have seen this information film(?) which is backed by various UK government departments including DEFRA (with whom I recently took part in an opinion poll) and the DTI (whilst it still exists) and the Department of Transport. It’s a little bit Koyaanisqatsi and firmly seems to put the ball mostly in our court despite some fanciful notion of HM Gov, Business and Industry and Joe Public all working together. Wherever you stand on climate change (and I don’t want to get into that) it’s interesting to see the start of such an initiative.

Here’s an example of one of the complimentary radio adverts (480k):

To put a slightly cynical spin on what the Government hopes to achieve it’s fun and interesting to contrast this film with the factual satire of a fairly recent Rory Bremner sketch which despite the impressions and comedy is at least based on real facts regarding what’s being currently achieved (ie: not very much).

Meanwhile despite huge public opposition and the mass signing of an online petition the Government has signalled that it will push ahead with road pricing schemes. If it was me I’d get the insurance companies involved and negotiate a scheme that saw a serious discount in insurance for low mileage and approved route drivers but I have the feeling that drivers will just pay more on top of current costs so it’ll be all disincentive without the incentive to try another way. As I’m no longer a car owner (frankly it’s cheaper to hire a car or van as and when for the amount of mileage I do) I barely care though it’s hypocrisy incarnate to move on with such schemes when for many there’s no viable alternative as public transport can be tortuous unless you live in a major city (why is it cheaper for us to hire a car with a full tank of petrol to travel only 30 miles away compared to choosing public transport for the same journey?) and somewhat annoying when many ministers run several cars and are frequent flyer’s. The notion of leading by example doesn’t seem to occur. ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ Government continues.

Nigel Lawson on behalf of climate change sceptics

In the interest of balance (eh what?) I thought I’d follow up the news of Rupert Murdoch becoming a born again eco warrior with a spokesperson for the opposition, as it were.

Nigel Lawson was Margaret Thatcher’s chancellor back in the 80′s but probably now has better known children in Nigella the TV cook and Dominic, a journalist and former editor of the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. Nigel is now a member of the House of Lords economic committee which holds a sceptical view on global warming. Mr Lawson featured in the Channel 4 documentary (which can be viewed here) that explored the sceptics view of climate change and global warming and he is keen to argue his corner. He is not , it must be said, in the denial camp but perhaps puts forward the economic view and is realistic about what we should all do now and how much we can expect developing nations to do considering their own sometimes difficult existing economic status. Lawson says:

‘How big a sacrifice is it reasonable to ask people today to bear, in order to benefit generations 100 years hence who’ll be substantially better off than we are today?’

and continues…

‘I understand their (China’s view re Kyoto) view entirely. I’ve no time for the Chinese regime, but they have a huge population, most of whom are extremely poor, and the most important thing is to lift them out of poverty because otherwise they’ll die in large numbers. They need the fastest possible rate of growth, and that means the cheapest energy. The point is that the Chinese are not prepared to sacrifice the present generation for the generation 100 years hence, and that is absolutely understandable.’

The full interview covers more than just climate change but it’s a good read if you’re interested in looking at both sides of the argument it presents an alternative point of view without being in denial or engaging in abusive opposition bashing.

Full interview here

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Nigel Lawson on behalf of climate change sceptics « Stuffem-Up the hill backwards