Tag: energy

3 Small Ecofriendly Changes

This week has been incredibly hectic for lots of us. Work is always busiest in winter and everyone is bustling around, absolutely exhausted by the time Friday comes. Regardless of this, Greta Thunberg still does her weekly climate protests and keeps alive the hope for a future not tarnished by global warming.

Before you put your feet up for the weekend, have a think about how important climate change is and just how much it will impact on your future. On my own doorstep, the flat Fens are at risk of being submerged under water again in the next decade. Further afield, ice sheets are continuing to melt, causing destruction of ecosystems and extinctions.

Having mentioned these things, perhaps we can make subtle changes now to quickly make our lifestyles more ecofriendly.

1) Share car journeys

Some of us don’t live close enough to work to be able to walk there but perhaps we can car share on the journey to and from the office. When taking children to clubs and events, picking up their friends too can reduce the number of vehicles on the road.

I have taken to walking to town whenever I want shopping now. Although it adds fifteen minutes to that journey, I find I enjoy the stroll and feel better about making one less car trip. Be prepared to have to walk whilst carrying the bags though. You way feel like a sit down on the way home. Or it may prevent you from instinct buying.

There will be ways in which all of us can reduce our car journeys or at very least make them shared experiences.

2) Turn the heating down

My heating used to be set at 21 degrees but now I have switched it back to 19 degrees. This saves energy and cuts back my power bill. It also means that occasionally I feel the need to put on an extra layer or sit beneath a throw whilst watching television or not being mobile.

Ensuring your house has appropriate insulation will also help with keeping your home warm and reducing energy usage. Carpets and curtains also make a difference by holding in the warm air.

3) Boil less

When boiling water in the kettle, only put as much water in as you are likely to need. This sounds silly but makes a difference and the idea applies to espresso machines too.

If you are making a quick cuppa for yourself then don’t boil a full kettle. You will then not need to use as much energy and the kettle will boil more quickly, which means a win-win situation for you as the thirsty tea drinker.

I know that these suggestions are fairly obvious but they follow some basic principles which incorporate a more ecofriendly approach to daily tasks. We need governments to make big changes to reduce pollution but these manageable changes will help to make a difference if we all consider them. For a previous post about the environment, please click here.

Think About It – Climate Matters

Rivers are important indicators of climate change.

For Blogtober I intend to keep up my usual mix of articles about books, TV and the environment. The latter is incredibly prominent right now, as it should be, with the Glasgow Summit just a few weeks away. As I see it, this is a real chance for us to put pressure on governments to instil changes immediately.

Anglia TV News devoted Thursday’s episode to widening awareness of our changing climate. They were at Denver Sluice, a massive construction that tries to manage water levels in East Anglia, at a time when water is distributed unevenly and rain storms are becoming features of all seasons. I felt that the questions they asked and the input from the weather presenters was first class and they definitely presented plenty of information in an accessible way.

The local river that stretches into the Fens from Peterborough is filling up quickly again, ready -no doubt- to spend months flooding the surroundings and slowing my journey to work. Small inconveniences for me are no big deal, but the fact that climate change is apparent even in my locality, highlights just how widespread the problem is. It is literally a GLOBAL problem.

Where has Winter gone?

Our one snowy day last winter.

One of my favourite things about winter is snow. As a child of the eighties, I remember my Nan constantly sweeping the path that led to our house to remove the fresh snow, which seemed to fall almost daily at the height of the season. Such weather is a natural part of our winter in the northern hemisphere and I have such fond memories of trudging through it with gloves and a woolly hat on.

Although I am fairly sentimental about flurries of snow, I miss it also because the lack of it demonstrates how much warmer our winters have become. It doesn’t take much to realise that if this is happening in England, then elsewhere in the world similar warming is going on, with devastating effects.

You only have to switch on the News to see forest fires in unusual places such as Canada, melting glaciers and species becoming extinct. When you look at climate tracking websites, every year seems to be showing clear increases in average temperatures and new seasonal high temperatures. Alongside this, more destructive storms, such as the hurricane impacting on New York and the Hamptons, are becoming frequent and occurring in locations they wouldn’t have in previous years.

Crisis In Energy

We all know that pollution from fossil fuels is a MAJOR contributor to climate change. Electric cars are becoming a commonly discussed topic, yet right now we don’t have the necessary charging stations to support their widespread use. Hopefully this will change in the coming months.

Harnessing the power of the wind is an essential part of the environmental package.

Again, looking at my local area, I am pleased to see wind turbines growing up all across the Fens. It is one of the easier solutions to powering our electronic demands. However, we still have a long way to go, especially as we become more dependent on batteries.

The ‘We Don’t Have Time’ app has been a useful source of environmental initiative news for me for quite some time. Here is an article about some Swedish projects which are looking at better ways to harness energy, using salt.

Harnessing Energy Article

It Matters

I will be drop feeding information about global warming throughout Blogtober. This subject matters to me and should matter to anyone reading this post, without a doubt. We are long past the period of questioning it and trying to understand it. What we must do is start slamming the brakes on hard.

With any luck, the Glasgow meeting will bring about lots of public discussion and set up real targets for measurable change. Please comment your thoughts on this below and consider signing my petition to make environmental education compulsory in schools which is signposted here.