I’m late, I’m late! For a very important date! No time to say ‘hello, goodbye,’ I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!
White Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland.
I’m conscious when researching and writing this weekly, that it would get too depressing far too quickly if I only wrote about the on-going misdemeanours being committed by the human race and our less than ambitious attempts to halt global warming so far.
The recent spate of weather anomalies are becoming harder to ignore as they come thick and fast from different areas of the globe.
In southern Germany last week, a freak storm in Reutlingen had snowploughs clearing the foot high drifts of hail stones from the city’s streets in August.
While sometimes devastating, these crazy events also bring hope, providing a persistent reminder of what can and will continue to happen.
Eventually, this will be reflected at the ballot box, baked-in climate change policies taking precedent over a blue or red rosette.
Another unbelievable news item, which I must just mention, only because of the profound impact it will have on our weather, is the predicted collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc).
You might have a distant memory of gulf stream or north atlantic drift from classroom geography. It’s the warm ocean current which comes north from the gulf of Mexico and keeps our climate wet and temperate.
Data suggests that it has been getting weaker for some time. A collapse, which has happened several times before, long before humankind, will result in more temperature extremes, hotter drier summers with droughts, much colder winters and more flooding.
A state of hopelessness is not what I have in mind here. We can and should take control of our actions whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Courtesy of Smyril Line Ferries
So far my spare time has been spent writing about our environment. It’s nearly 12 months since I flew anywhere, which I hope to continue as Mrs H and I, begin to explore Europe properly.
The first real test will be when we go to Iceland, maybe as early as next year. The island is a geological miracle and a place which has been on my bucket list for years.
The only way to get there with a Tesla is via a car ferry from Hirtshals in Denmark. It’s two nights on board the ferry each way with an opportunity to visit the Faeroe Islands on route. Amazingly, the timetable still runs until November and starts up again in March with cargo runs only happening intermittently during those less predictable winter months.
We took delivery of our second hamper of toilet roll this week. I’ve switched to a UK manufacturer called Naked Sprout because Who Gives a Crap ships from Asia (they do carbon offset). The new batch of recycled paper or bamboo isn’t bleached. Both companies are environmentally conscious and donate some of their profits to charity. Every box of Naked Sprout provides a child in Kenya safe water at school.
Phox is a Scottish water filter manufacturer which we’ve just taken a year’s supply of refills for, pouring charcoal into a refillable reservoir. We were uncomfortable with the Brita plastic water filter cartridges and the amount that end up in landfill, despite a recycling programme back in Germany.
The Phox water tastes every bit as contaminant free as Brita’s, the difference is the manufacturing, packaging, design and distribution is all done within a 50 mile radius of their Glasgow office.
Who’d have thought you could now buy a carbon neutral toothbrush?
Suri is a London based start-up which has developed the first electric toothbrush made from sustainable and biodegradable materials, cornstarch and castor oil. The heads can be returned for recycling and it comes with a lifetime guarantee. No more Oral B heads going in the bathroom bin and then landfill.
Courtesy of Charlie Clift/The Observer
I’ve been inspired by this film maker and artist couple. Inspired enough to bring up the subject of a community solar panel project at our annual neighbourhood meeting.
The question I posed - would it be possible to install a small solar farm, with the help of the gym next door, who already like the idea, which we can all buy into?
The aim would be to develop a small, renewable energy power station serving the needs of the immediate community. The costs of panels and installation would be shared, with the future promise of competitively priced renewable energy for the longterm.
Daniel and Hilary, who created the Power Station pictured in bed on their roof, slept there for 23 nights through November and December last year. £113,000 was raised for phase 1 and the installation of solar electricity panels by Octopus Energy into Lynmouth Road, Walthamstow, London, followed.
Their aim is to move an entire street off grid, a proof of concept of what can be achieved starting with solar power, an established technology which is easy to install. Heat pumps and insulation come next, subject to funding.
It’s just the beginning. They’re working on a street by street plan that can expand and evolve for other communities in their borough and beyond.
They’re intent on creating their own Green Deal, the core argument that was first voiced towards the end of the 2,000s, when banks nearly went bust. By investing in the decarbonisation of the economy, new employment opportunities are created and the current housing stock becomes energy efficient.
They raise money in other ways. Projects are funded from the sale of their art as well as paid Power memberships which provide tools and workshops to kickstart other community projects.
The Green Alliance report, Community Energy 2.0, provides a very revealing overview of what has happened since the green deal was first muted.
Back in 2014, the government’s community energy strategy expected 1 million homes to be powered by community schemes. Four years later, only 67,000 homes were enrolled in a scheme and it was quickly abandoned.
Feed-in tariffs (FiT scheme), which gave four tax free payments a year from the government, encouraging renewable electricity production such as solar panels, was scrapped entirely in 2019.
It’s since been replaced with a Smart Export Guarantee (SEG), which appears to be a cheaper and more complex version of FiT, the SEG tariff varying depending on electricity supplier.
The longer term future is still promising for no other reason than the cost of renewable energy, especially solar has plummeted, not that anyone paying their big 6 electricity provider bill will have noticed recently.
Consumers are rapidly adopting smart meters, thermostats and other internet of things technologies which interact directly with our power system.
This technology trend means energy distribution is becoming more local. The National Grid in one projection, estimates that 65% of all energy capacity will be located much closer to the source of energy demand, sometimes referred to as the grid edge.
If this is true, millions of households will have solar panels and batteries retrofitted. With new homes, it’ll be included in the asking price along with the heat pump.