Green Mole Forum is encouraging people in Mole Valley to go to this event and suggests we all go on the same train – see the poster below.  The train stops at Leatherhead at 10:33 and Ashtead at 10:37 and we hope that plenty of people from Ashtead will be going.

AD is a well established process for handing sewage, farm wastes, food wastes or combinations of these feedstocks to produce biogas and a solid residue that is a valuable soil fertiliser.  AD keeps organic waste out of landfill, and cuts greenhouse gas emissions.  AD plants vary from the very large (one AD plant handles all Stockholm’s sewage and food wastes for example) to plants the size of a large table.  There are still not many AD plants in the UK, despite government support for them.  The introduction of feed-in tariffs will give a big boost to all renewable energy technologies in the UK including AD.

A small AD plant is already being seriously considered in Headley to run on a mixture of horse manure and sewage.  Local famers recognise the benefits of having an AD plant on farm land.  Our new group intends to build on this existing local support, gather information, seek advice from experts, and come up with the most promising AD projects.  If you would like to be part of this group or find out more, please send us an email via the ‘Contact’ button on the GMF website http://www.greenmoleforum.org/ , or give me a ring on 01372-378914.

Derek Smith

Green Mole Forum is encouraging people in Mole Valley to go to this event and suggests we all go on the same train – see the poster below.  The train stops at Leatherhead at 10:33 and Ashtead at 10:37 and we hope that plenty of people from Ashtead will be going.

Derek Smith

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day October 15, 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. This year the issue is climate change and the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

So if you write a blog, for one day, on October 15th, write about climate change.

To help you start thinking, here are a few ideas from their site, about how you might connect climate change to things that you might already write about:

• A Technology or Business blog might write about emerging clean tech and how innovative companies might be able to help address the problem of climate change.
• A Health or Lifestyle blog might write about how climate change will affect our children’s health and daily living.
• A Nonprofit or Political blog might write about how climate change is deeply connected to many other issues – such as poverty and conflict.
• A Design blog might write about new trends in eco-friendly or sustainable design.
• A Travel blog might write about the places you want to see now before climate change makes them difficult to access or, well, under the sea.

Check out www.blogactionday.org for more information.

Kenn Jordan

Is this something that Transition Ashtead should promote?  The campaign wants people who sign up to commit themselves to reducing their CO2 emissions 10% by the end of 2010.  I’ve had a look on the campaign website www.1010uk.org for more information on the campaign and was disappointed by what I found.

For individuals there is a 10 point check list of things to do (nine really, the last one is a joke). I assume you’re meant to do the lot but it’s not clear.  It suggests you measure your gas and electricity to check you have saved 10% in 2010, but that’s no use if you didn’t measure in 2009.  You can tick one of the boxes if you either (a) have no flights in 2010 or (b) only one return flight.  But in case (a) your emissions saving is zero if you didn’t fly in 2009 either but could be enormous if you did.  In case (b) you can score points for ‘only’ going to Australia which has an enormous carbon footprint.

Another problem is the whole concept of a 10% reduction target for everyone.  At one extreme is someone I know who must have the lowest carbon footprint in Mole Valley but cannot join the campaign because she’s already done all she can.  At the other is an MVDC Councillor who this year had a holiday by long haul flight (I know of one and I bet there are more).  All he or she (no clues on identity!) has to do is have a UK holiday in 2010 and they’ve reduced their footprint by over 50%.

So the part of the campaign aimed at individuals all looks naff to me and not good enough to sell to anyone.

Organisations can also sign up.  Organisations are required to measure and report their emissions and so this part of the campaign looks more sensible.  It recognises that some energy efficient organisations may find 10% too hard, and anything over 3% ‘will be celebrated’ whatever that means.  I asked Graeme Kane, Mole Valley’s Sustainable Development Manager, whether he had come across the campaign and if he thought Mole Valley District Council (MVDC) might join as an organisation.  He told me he has already considered it and had come to similar conclusions to me.

So the whole 10:10 campaign looks badly flawed to me.  This is only my opinion though, and not necessarily the view of the Transition Ashtead group.

Derek Smith

The site invites you first to answer a few questions about your lifestyle from which it estimates your carbon footprint in tonnes/year CO2.  To calculate your footprint accurately you have to enter gas and electricity meter readings, car mileage and destinations of any holiday flights.  Once you have entered two readings at different dates, your footprint for the period between the two dates in kg CO2 is calculated.  This is extrapolated to give an approximate annual footprint and this gradually becomes more accurate as you enter more readings.  I have recorded all my readings for the past year, and the calculator let me enter all these past readings, and here is a screen dump of the result.

My Carbon Footprint

Because I don’t fly my footprint is dominated by my gas usage which is dominated by heating as you can see from the big increase over the winter.

The website explains everything very well and so I do encourage you to have a look and start to enter your readings.  Please leave a comment on how you found it, and especially if you’re interested in joining a carbon monitoring group.

Derek Smith

http://climatesafety.org/

It is written by the Public Interest Research Centre and provides a simple summary of the latest science, delivering a clear message that to have any chance of maintaining a safe climate, we must rapidly decarbonise our society, preserve global carbon sinks, and address the problem with an unprecedented degree of seriousness.

Even with the UK government commitment to 80% carbon cuts by 2050, Climate Safety warns that our current policy response does not match up to the scale of the challenge.  I shall be explaining why this is the case at our next open meeting which is at the Brewery pub on Monday 28 September.

Derek Smith