Carbon Management

This afternoon's Environment committee produced some interesting facts but also raised some serious questions. For example, to produce a really top notch, carbon neutral school building might cost something like 7% more than to produce one that just scrapes through the new building regulations. It'll save lots more energy, but over a long period of time. Should we spend the extra £1m on that building, thus perhaps not being able to do something else? If so - what do we cut? Or do we settle for just getting by?
We had the usual problem of council officers who are immersed in their subject not being able to explain it in layman's terms but in the end came to an agreement about what information they can provide and how they'll do that. What we'll make of it remains to be seen. This review is proving very interesting but also very difficult to manage. Unfortunately money doesn't grow on trees - I'm sure Gordon Brown wishes it did.
The council's PR department did manage to work with the technical people to produce an interesting and useful press release. I hope the local press pick it up but in case they don't I reproduce the relevant parts below. Do read, learn and inwardly digest as my English teacher used to say.

SAVE THE WEIGHT OF AN ELEPHANT - ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND LOW CARBON LIFESTYLE TIPS

All week Stockton Borough Council is offering advice and top tips on how to make a small change in your life to help make a big difference to the environment.

And of course, saving energy also saves money.

Each home in the UK produces approximately six tonnes of Carbon Dioxide each year. That’s practically the weight of a whole elephant!

The average resident in Stockton each has a carbon footprint which is equivalent to 4.3 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide - the weight of two rhinos.

Insulating your home is by far the best way to make your home more energy efficient. Cavity wall and loft insulation, which can cost as little as £99 each, can start you off saving on your heating bills straight away.

While some people may see this as a cost, it’s really a very reasonable investment as the price can often be recovered in just one year. If you are on certain benefits, or over 70 years old, you can have cavity wall and loft insulation installed free of charge.

To find out more visit the Small Change Big Difference road show or log onto www.stockton.gov.uk.

The road shows, which runs from 10am – 2pm, will be at the town centres of Billingham on Monday, Stockton on Wednesday and Thornaby on Thursday.

Top Tips for Energy Saving

• Wash wise – try to wash a full load in dishwashers and washing machines – two half loads use more energy and water than a full load.

• Wash at 30°C - today’s washing detergents are designed to work best at lower temperatures.

• Give your oven the day off – slow cookers use the same amount of energy as a light bulb. A microwave uses 10 minutes of energy for every 40 minutes used by a conventional oven.

• A fridge can use 20 per cent of the energy used in your home – make sure it is well maintained and running efficiently. Replacing your old freezer with a new energy efficient model will save you money. A new ‘A’ rated energy efficient model uses nearly a third of the energy of a 10 year old model.

• Computers – when replacing consider a laptop which uses 70 per cent less energy than a desktop computer. Not changing yet? Why not invest in an energy saving mains controller or ‘powerdown’ unit which automatically switches off the monitor, printer, scanner etc when the computer is switched off.

Anyone in the Stockton Borough who wants to find out about how much energy they are using can borrow an energy meter for one month from their local library. Part of our ‘Watt’s Going Down’ scheme to encourage lower energy usage, the meter simply connects to the electricity meter in the home and provides a read out of the cost of energy used.

World Environment Day

If you're one of those who's not sure about climate change or not sure what to do next, have a look at this site, and be prepared to laugh. There's a drawback of course - you've got to sign up to do something first, but that's painless and they do offer advice on how to keep your pledge.
On the other hand, if you really want to see how much Carbon Dioxide your home and lifestyle is responsible for, there's a very handy and easy to use calculator here. Just make sure you've got your gas and electricity consumption figures handy before you start. Like all these things it's a rather blunt tool. For example, it doesn't allow the chance to say that one door has draught-proofing but the other doesn't. It suggests that I should install underfloor insulation, which might be a tad difficult in a house with a concrete floor. But at least it gives some idea of where I stand in relation to the national average and some sensible ideas on what to do next to lower my emissions. I have to confess that the biggest single contributor to my carbon footprint is visiting my daughter on the other side of the world and since I'm not going to give that up if I can help it, I'll just have to carry on with contributing to carbon offsetting programmes which sound as if they'll help. Not a cure, but a treatment which delays matters until the cure is implemented.
One of the things I'd really like is someone to work out and publish in an easily understood form, the relative costs in carbon and money of keeping a fairly elderly but still functional appliance or scrapping it and buying a new energy efficient one. It goes against the grain to scrap something that still works but if I could be absolutely sure that the carbon footprint of scrap and replace is really less than that of keep going till it drops then perhaps I'd do it.
I know that these calculations have been done on housing stock - demolition and disposal of the debris from our old housing stock followed by rebuilding with more energy efficient stock means that the new houses have to last over 50 years before they start saving carbon! That's something which I'll be factoring in to my considerations of planning applications in future.

Inspiring our communities...

...to act on Climate Change.
That was the title of a regional conference today which I attended with Stockton Council's Environmental Policy Manager. There were some very interesting presentations and some very challenging facts from public opinion surveys. There's a great deal of confusion in people's minds about whether climate change is important or even real. Even amongst people who think it's important there's confusion over what to do about it. "Saving the planet" has become a catch-all phrase and people don't distinguish between what they can do to save precious resources (like recycling glass and metals and paper) and what they can do to prevent serious climate change (like using low energy light bulbs and driving the car less frequently). People really don't trust the idea of environmental taxes because they think the government is just making an excuse to get more money out of motorists or whoever is being targetted. All the studies show that people look for fairmess -they want to feel that whatever is being asked of them everyone else is going to be asked to make the same sacrifices.
The big challenge for us as councillors is how we lead our community forward to combat climate change in Stockton, given this desire for fairness and this lack of understanding of all the complex issues. Real food for thought and we hadn't come to any conclusions at the end of the journey home. We did agree that, difficult though the problems are, Stockton has already made a good start by doing the relatively easy things and that the biggest challenges are left to meet. Watch this space!
From South Shields and climate change to Kirklevington and Renaissance. Stockton's Local Strategic Partnership had a unique session this evening to consider itself, how it works and how it can improve. There was a lot of discussion about the fact that most people outside the partnership probably don't know it exists or what it does, and yet it's a very important part of life in the borough. It brings together the council, big voluntary sector organisations, small community groups, major bodies like police, fire and NHS alongside business links to try to join up the way services are delivered to people. Possibly the fact that people don't know about it means it's working extremely well? Whatever the reason, there's to be a lot more thought put into exactly how it operates and how it tells people about its work.
And finally, almost 12 hours after leaving home this morning, time to return to domestic matters!

Earth Hour

Yesterday, 29th March, residents and businesses in 28 cities did what Sydney did in 2007 - turned off the lights for an hour at 8pm. Earth Hour started as a statement about one of the biggest contributors to global warming -coal fired electricity. Although turning the lights off for an hour won't save the world it does make the participants and observers think, and that's important. It helps people to make the little changes which will add up to the big difference.
You can sign up now for 2009, or check out your personal carbon footprint (on a much simplified 1 minute questionnaire) and then think about how to reduce it over the next few weeks or months. Personally, I rather like the occasional candle lit dinner to save electricity (though I haven't calculated how much carbon dioxide the candles produce!).
Seriously - why not give it a go. If enough Eaglescliffe residents want to join in we could register Eaglescliffe as a participating area for 2009.

Sustainable Energy

Preston Park hosted a small but extremely useful exhibition yesterday - The Sustainable Energy Roadshow. I was determined to fit in a visit, even though lots of work needed doing at home. I'm keen to see if we can install solar thermal heating in the house and want to have the information in plenty of time before our current combination boiler gives up. I was told that I should only expect 7 years from it, so the 10 that it's already given is quite superb. I had discussions with a number of suppliers and with the man from the Energy Saving Trust which supplies impartial advice. Much more research needed now, as there are special problems associated with dormer bungalows not having as much roof area as other houses nor as much loft space!
Sadly, in walking to and from church in the morning and to and from the Park in the afternoon I saw more evidence of vandalism to bus shelters than I've seen in a long time. They've been reported now and the glass will be cleared and the shelters repaired, but it's infuriating that some people find their pleasure in wrecking things. Broken glass is dangerous, even when it's the safer variety used in such shelters. I felt for cyclists trying to negotiate between scattered glass and the 4+ wheeled vehicles on the road. Even the pavement wasn't free of glass but at least pedestrians didn't also have cars and lorries to contend with.