Should greens buy eco-homes?

From an ecological point of view my house is rubbish. It was built 110 years ago when the ventilation to prevent rot was seen as more important than energy efficiency, it has solid brick walls, it is the northern one of a pair of semis and it is down in a dip where the sun seldom strikes when we need it in the depth of winter. We have done what we can to improve it from a carbon point of view - blocking holes in the wall, replacing single with triple glazing, doubling the attic insulation and adding some to smaller roof cavities, upgrading the boiler and putting in a solar hot water system, but I doubt the house has a better carbon footprint than a well made modern house. I have a dream of building my own zero carbon home, but the question remains, why don't I move into a well built modern home? My personal carbon footprint would be instantly cut.

The simple answer is location, location, location. I live within walking/cycling distance of the city centre in a wooded river valley where I can hear the owls cry in the night. You can't beat that on many levels.

But, more importantly, would a non-green have lavished the eco-love (and money!) on this house that it needed? Probably not, and while I was tucked up in a modern house feeling smug, someone would be sitting in this one, complaining about the fuel bill, while the inefficient boiler pumped out the carbon.

So, with a huge number of poorly performing houses out there, there is a strong argument that greens should buy houses with a huge carbon footprint and do their best to cut that footprint as much as possible, going above and beyond what a home owner would normally do. Then Joe and/or Jo Public can buy a modern house and have a lower carbon footprint by default. Everyone's a winner!

A good day to sign up to 10:10

I've just had the big carbon weekend of my year flying over to Belfast to see my parents. Strangely the small turboprop we flew on had one of those EU Energy Labels which have transformed the white goods market and are now seen in the foyers of public buildings. I couldn't believe that it was an 'A' - the whole point of such labels is to transform the market, so achieving an 'A' should be really difficult. If you give existing craft an 'A' then it suggests that this is the best you will ever get and leave no room for technological improvement. Pah!

Anyway, I'm going to sign up for the 10:10 campaign today - the idea is to make a 10% cut in UK carbon emissions by 2010 - ie in the next year. This is a great an idea - an infinitely stronger and immediate call to arms than all those 2020 or 2050 targets which are so wonderfully distant. You can get a 10:10 tag made out of a scrapped airliner to show your commitment. Check it out, then go through the back posts on this blog to give you some extra ideas.

Puzzle answer

The answer to my puzzle is that the UK is the biggest cumulative emitter of carbon dioxide per capita as shown in this graph presented by Prof James Hansen when he testified on behalf of the Kingsnorth demonstrators.

How green are electric cars?

There's a huge amount of fuss in the press about a revolution in electric vehicles driven by the government. The 'greenness' of an electric car depends on where the electricity comes from - don't buy the 0gC02/km figures that are bandied about - that is patent nonsense. It is quite difficult to get precise data, but here's a rule of thumb from www.whatgreencar.com:

• Battery-electric cars using renewable energy provide the largest reduction in GHGs of almost 100%. 
  
• If 'standard-mix' electricity is used, battery electrics reduce greenhouse gases by around 40%. 
  
• Commercially produced pure bioethanol and biodiesel also provide significant reductions in greenhouse gases in the range 35%-90%, the reduction depending on feedstock crop used. 
  
• Due to their high fuel-efficiency, most petrol hybrids offer a reduction in greenhouse gases of around 25%. 
  
• Bi-fuel LPG and natural gas cars also produce modest reductions of around 15% due to better combustion and to their lower carbon content.

Tesla - the makers of the £90k electric sports car go further and say their car does 46gCO2/km, compared to an European average of 158gCO2/km, but that figure assumes the electricity comes from a brand new gas fired power station.

So electric is good, but not quite as good as some may claim!

No hair shirt required

Today I went to an early morning climate change event at a hotel about 2 miles from home. The event was about the carbon emissions in the North East of England and what could be done to tackle them. One of the speakers, who I've known for a couple of years, made a quip about me arriving by bike.

I cornered him later to point out (in a friendly way) that I didn't wake up this morning and say "Brilliant, I can save a few grammes of carbon by cycling!". Instead I looked out the window and thought "Brilliant, the sun is shining, I can have a lovely cycle up the river valley, listen to the morning birdsong, and get some light exercise while I'm at it!".

It was indeed lovely. When I emerged from the valley I spotted one of the other delegates bouncing over speed humps in his car, looking stressed. Who was wearing the hair shirt?

Heathrow: push comes to shove

Well, we all knew it was going to happen. The first big iconic decision for the Government in terms of slowing climate change and they flunked it. What annoys me even more is Geoff Hoon's lame 'environmental regime' for the runway:

1. "airlines using the new runway would be required to use the newest, least-polluting aircraft."

This will only make a difference if the restriction was placed on all runways in the London area, otherwise there will just be careful shuffling of the pack to put the more polluting planes on the other runway.

2. "the government was satisfied environmental targets could be met, as it would put an initial cap on additional flights from the new runway of 125,000 a year"

That's a cap? 340 a day? One every 4 minutes, 24/7?

Arrrrrgh...

How's your car going to be taxed?

If you're wondering how your car tax will change after Darling's rather pale green budget, then the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT) has a useful database of all models' emissions.

You then need to check this against the new tax bands which can be seen here courtesy of the Guardian.

What are you giving up for Lent?

Well the Church of England are calling for people to give up carbon rather than chocolate this year. In conjunction with tear fund, they've come up with a 40 day lo-carb diet, although some are a bit bizarre - day 1 is "remove a lightbulb" - that's all you need, lots of opportunities to electrocute yourself or your nearest & dearest!

Anyway, it's a nice idea and it is good to see such an influential body as the CoE stepping up to the crease. Now I'm a heathen, from a long line of heathens, but I've always thought that the eco-message should resonate with Christians - care of God's creation, that there are things more important than materialism and the whole environmental-justice side of things (poor people get more pollution - fact).

Unfortunately the most prominent/powerful god-botherer in the world is a money worshipping climate change sceptic who doesn't care about the planet as the apocalypse is on its way...

More carbon craziness

The Guardian is reporting this week that UK Environment Minister Phil Woolas has criticised India for not "putting its shoulder to the wheel" on carbon emissions.

Hold on a minute, India is 133rd on the list of carbon emitters per capita, compared to the UK's position of 37, producing about a eighth of the carbon per person.

What a cheek!

Big Green Challenge Launches

The good people at the Big Green Challenge asked me to publicise the details of the application procedure:

Today marks the opening of the application process for the Big Green Challenge and I wondered if you’d be interested in writing a follow up post on this? We want to get as many people as possible working together to develop home-grown ideas into carbon-cutting initiatives, so it’d be really great if you could help spread the word!

Initial applications must be submitted by 29 February, after which the top 100 will be whittled down to a short list of ten finalists, each of whom will receive £20,000, mentoring and support to put their ideas into practice. The group with the most imaginative and successful approach at the end of the competition will win the lion’s share of £1 million. Those interested in taking part in the Big Green Challenge should go to www.biggreenchallenge.org.uk to find out more and submit an application.

Looks like a pretty good bet to me, so if you've got any good ideas, why not give it a go?

We're all green now...

According to the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), being 'green' is now a socially acceptable norm. The 2007 Attitudes and Behaviour Toward the Environment survey polled 3,600 people in England on topics including general attitudes toward the environment, energy, water efficiency, and recycling.

Apparently the main motivation for an environmentally friendly lifestyle is guilt about harming the environment. So maybe we should stop all this "save the planet and save money" stuff that misses the point and ignores the dreaded rebound effect.

What did worry me was the following paragraph:

"Out of nine specific behaviours, the change that most people thought would have a major impact on reducing climate change was recycling more, followed by changes to car usage, and cutting down on the use of electricity and gas in the home. At least half thought each of these would have a major impact. Between half and two fifths felt the same about taking fewer flights, improving or installing insulation at home, and cutting down on water usage at home. Least often seen as important were behaviours to do with food – wasting less and buying locally – thought to have a major impact by less than one in three people."

This is almost completely the wrong way round - food is probably the biggest individual issue, then flying, then driving/home energy and recycling comes last.

Looks as if the message is getting through, but in a garbled form...

The UK's Climate is Gloomy

I'm an angry man. I've just brought up the Guardian's Environment webpage, and it makes depressing reading. Three headlines:

- Labour's plan to abandon renewable energy targets
- Energy efficiency funds withdrawn
- Carbon output rising faster, study says

In other words, we're producing more carbon and the Government is more interested in ducking their targets than addressing the issue. The Germans have shown that renewables can be boosted using the right incentives, such as a feed-in tariff which guarantees a price for all for excess energy exported to the grid. So why are we stuck with a terrible grant scheme?

And it's Energy Awareness Week...

Lexus SUV Hybrid - "Green" or "Less Evil"?

I've been puzzling this week over the newspaper adverts for the new Lexus hybrid range. If you take the SUV, the hybrid does 35mpg and emits 192g/km* compared to the standard SUV performance of 25mpg and 264g/km. On carbon, that's a 27% saving - not bad, but the Toyota Prius does 104g/km...

There are two ways of looking at this:

1. there will always be a market for huge luxury vehicles, so it is better to be able to offer a substantially more efficient model to cut carbon emissions.

2. These guys are fooling themselves, if they really want to be green, they're going to have to compete with the best - luxury marque or not.

I'm tending towards 2. myself - it is very misleading to tell people that having a luxury vehicle with emissions no better than a family saloon is somehow "green". Manufacturers would probably say I'm not comparing like with like, to which I would reply "Exactly!"


* apologies for the mix of imperial and metric units -us Brits have never worked this metrification through!