Christmas unplugged

Having joined the ranks of those laid low by the H1N1 virus, I've been doing some Christmas shopping online. And I've been quite horrified to see the gratuitous use of energy to power the gadgets and gizmos presented as gift ideas.  For example, what exactly is the point of a battery-powered candle? Are heated eyelash curlers really necessary? And just how many people really need a drink warmer plugged into their PC's USB drive?

Surely one of the easiest ways to reduce our energy consumption, and thereby our CO2 emissions, would be to avoid unneccessary electrification. And the next logical step from there is to look at the devices that are already electrified and work out whether they can be powered another way - kinetic energy, maybe, for small personal devices - or even clockwork.

In our consumer society most of us have pretty much everything we need, so the constant re-invention of goods is necessary to part us from our cash. But a recent survey by Moneysavingexpert.com found that three quarters of us want to limit gift-giving at Christmas. Whether or not you're a christian, Christmas represents a time to cherish our friends and family - yet many of us neglect them for the previous weeks while we pound the pavements searching for gifts they almost certainly don't need. Time for a re-think?

Feed the World

An article in Last Friday’s Times stopped me in my tracks and made me think hard about the role of charities in global welfare. Once again, food aid is being requested for drought-torn regions of Africa and our natural response to pictures of dangerously emaciated children is to reach for the cheque book. But the article argued that this will only make the situation worse. In fact, it claimed that foreign food aid could be the cause of Africa’s current famine.

Even Oxfam now considers food aid to be counter-productive, and cites examples in Kenya and Ethiopia where wars were funded by the money saved by not investing in self-sufficiency – something that was only possible because Western countries sent so much food aid. And these wars tear apart the very land that should be used for agriculture and kill the able-bodied men who would work the land, so the cycle continues.

Of course, Africa has other serious issues to contend with, like disease and lack of access to clean water and education – but the famine appeals get all the headlines. I remember learning as a child “give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day; teach him to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime”. In our desire for quick fixes, we’ve forgotten that a sustainable population needs to be able to feed itself. The best service we can perform is to provide people with the tools and expertise to create their own brighter future, not make them dependent on handouts.

Vegetarians to save the world?

In today's Times, Lord Stern entreats us all to become vegetarians to combat climate change. That's certainly not going to win him many supporters. After all, humans are omnivores and meat eating is a trait we share with a significant proportion of the creatures on our planet. I accept his point that rearing livestock for meat is hugely resource-inefficient - the same resources would go many times further if directly consumed - although I suspect he may be overstating the contribution of methane from cattle to global warming. But that's really not the point.

As with so many sustainability issues, moderation is the key. I'm sure that the right to eat meat would be fiercely defended if it came under threat, but many would accept the idea that consumption should be reduced. The Meat-free Monday campaign takes exactly this approach. Far better to ask people to consider dropping meat one day a week, or at lunchtime, or eating smaller portions - the impact per person might be relatively modest, but the take-up exponentially larger, almost certainly resulting in a better net reduction.

And, let's face it, we're all fed up with politicians interfering in our lives - especially when their own actions are so often at odds with their advice.

10:10 motion defeated in Parliament

All credit to the 10:10 team and 38degrees for getting the motion tabled to sign up the UK government to the 10:10 campaign. Sadly the motion was defeated, although by a relatively small margin - 225 for and 297 against. You can check how your MP voted here.

The government estate is only half way to its target of reducing carbon emissions by 12.5% by 2010, so perhaps it saw the 10% target as unachievable. Actually, it's not that hard. The Carbon Trust estimates that office machines account for 15% of the energy consumption of the average organisation, and that this can be reduced by 70% just by turning machines off outside office hours - that alone could deliver the required 10% saving. The business I work for reduced its carbon emissions by 9% last year, and has already signed up for 10:10 to help keep us focused on the next 10%. Year on year, our gas consumption is down 76%, electricity use is down 14% and we're using 37% less paper.

It's undoubtedly true that it's easier to get a small workforce mobilised, but that's why the public sector needs something like 10:10, to break the big, long-term targets into manageable chunks and make it personal. The campaign has already achieved a lot of traction in government. Most of the front bench has signed up, and all three main political parties have pledged their support. My prediction is that a second motion will be passed before the start of 2010. If you want to lend your weight to the campaign, sign up.

Flash Gordon saves the World?

Gordon Brown has come a long way since being accused of blocking environmental legislation as Chancellor. Now, ahead of the Copenhagen Climate Summit, he's warning that negotiators have 50 days to save the world from global warming, claiming that the UK faces a "catastrophe" of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves if world leaders fail to agree a deal on climate change. Whilst a recent report by Kofi Annan's Global Humanitarian Forum found the UK was one of 12 nations least likely to be affected by climate impacts, the impact of climate change on some of the World's poorest people should not be under-estimated.

In December, the United Nations summit in Copenhagen will aim to establish a deal to replace the 1997 Kyoto treaty. This is necessary because its targets for reducing emissions only apply to a small number of countries and expire in 2012. It's generally accepted that once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice. However, Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has been reported as saying "the prospects that states will actually agree to anything in Copenhagen are starting to look worse and worse" and in recent days there have been a number of warnings that progress is stalling.

Speaking at the Major Economies Forum in London, which brings together 17 of the world's biggest greenhouse gas-emitting countries, Mr Brown warned that negotiators were not reaching agreement quickly enough. He went on to say that the Copenhagen summit was a "profound moment" for the world involving "momentous choice" and that (in the words of M&S, this time) there was "no plan B".  But can we rely on Flash Gordon to save the World, when he doesn't appear to be able to save himself?

Scilly Isles switch off

The Scilly Isles receives its entire electricity supply via a single cable feed from the mainland, so it makes the perfect test bed for energy saving projects. Yesterday, all 2,000 or so residents were encouraged to switch off as many non-essential appliances as possible to see how much energy could be saved. The result was only a 1.2% reduction, but over the same period UK electricity consumption went up 1.5%.

The Energy Saving E-Day initiative wasn't helped by rainy and misty weather, which caused all flights off the islands to be grounded, swelling the population somewhat. And the children had an ill-timed cookery class in the morning - baking scones pushed Five Islands School's consumption up by 30% although by midnight this had been converted to an 8.3% reduction in the previous day's electricity use.

This was the first experiment of its kind to provide live measurements of a whole community’s collective effort to cut their electricity use. For a 24-hour period residents were asked switch off electrical items which do not need to be on in their homes, schools and workplaces, and the reduction in electricity use was monitored in real-time across the Internet and compared with the rest of the UK.

In the run-up E-Day the Isles of Scilly hosted a mini 2-day Earth Summit, bringing together islanders from across the world, including speakers from Galapagos and Papua New Guinea's Carteret Islands, the first refugees of climate change.

The E-Day website includes really interesting and useful content, including a real-time estimate of the national electricity bill for the UK, and the CO2 emissions caused by electricity production. It also provides ways for people across the country to get involved, to get advice on how to cut their own energy use.
E-Day is sponsored by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and is the work of a team led by Dr Matt Prescott, whose successful worldwide ‘Ban The Bulb’ campaign now has 30 countries phasing out domestic incandescent light bulbs in an effort to reduce electricity use and save CO2 emissions.

Playpumps

In many developing countries, children walk for miles to collect water - often before and sometimes instead of going to school. What should be play time becomes chore time while they carry out this vital task. Play Pumps International neatly addresses both these problems, with a novel design that combines a playground merry-go-round with a pump to draw water from underground and store it in a water tower where it can be drawn off as required. An added twist is the use of the sides of the water tank for advertising, generating revenue that can be used to fund maintenance of the system.

My son, who's 9, thinks this is the coolest thing - and wants to know whether they can also make one that's a see-saw. I think he has a point.