Norwich to get Connect2 pro-cycling funding for river crossing between city and Whitlingham Park

Sustrans, the UK sustainable transport charity, have been successful in the People's £50 Million Lottery Giveaway for their Connect2 project.


Sustrans will use the funding to invest in walking and cycling UK-wide as part of the 5-year Connect2 project in partnership with local authorities.


One of the Connect2 projects is up to £1 million to benefit Norwich by providing a river crossing from the City to Whitlingham Country Park.


The planned route would stretch from Whitlingham Country Park over the River Yare and River Wensum and behind Norwich City Football Club. Photos of the event to launch the Norwich bid can be found here.

The Tour Norfolk site has good information about Whitlingham Country Park and its facilities.

The former gravel quarry is now an excellent centre for water sports, and a great place for walking, cycling and wildlife. The official web site Whitlingham Outdoor Education Centre is here.

Sustrans are the charity behind the National Cycle Network, Safe Routes to Schools, Bike It and TravelSmart.

This might inspire me to pump up the tyres on my old bike and brave cycling again after more than 10 years!


I came across the excellent Norwich Cycling Campaign web site, which provides useful information to promote cycling and cyclists in Norwich.

NCC are also campaigning against the insane decision by Norwich City Council to pilot the use of our cycle lanes by HGV's, which I previously blogged about.

Launch of first free eco search engine in the UK

Got an email about a new search engine called Ecocho.

The name “ecocho” means “Ultra ecological” derived from: “eco” for ecological and “cho” meaning “extremely” or “ultra” in Japanese.

It is a free search engine, which plants up to two trees for every 1000 searches made via the engine.

With over 1.5 billion internet searches made in the UK every month, if every search was made via ecocho.co.uk, that would equate to a maximum of 3 million trees every month. It's essentially a really easy way to offset your carbon footprint.

It might not be Google but it works and has a worthy aim. Why not give it a try?

Here is their press release:

Search your way to a greener planet. World’s first “ultra ecological” search
engine launches in the UK

ecocho.co.uk, the world’s first free green search engine that offsets carbon emissions at no cost to the user, launched this week in the UK and 14 countries across the world.

Powered by Google and Yahoo, ecocho.co.uk is an Australian initiative designed to fight climate change by sponsoring the planting of up to two trees for every 1000 searches made. Switching to ecocho.co.uk is a simple step towards saving the environment without sacrificing quality search results.

Founder of ecocho.com, Tim Macdonald said “In the UK alone, people conduct over 1.5 billion Internet searches a month*. If we can capture just one per cent of that traffic, we will make a significant contribution towards lowering the impact of harmful greenhouse gas emissions.”

In Australia, ecocho will purchase carbon-offset credits through the New South Wales Government Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme (GGAS) and KPMG will check the acquisition, registration and retirement of the carbon credits.

“ecocho.co.uk aims to reinvest 70 per cent of the site’s revenue in carbon-offset credits and as the site progresses, we’ll begin to support similar carbon-offsetting schemes in other states and countries,” said Mr Macdonald.

“The search engine is one of the easiest ways people can change their everyday behaviour to make a positive impact on the environment.”

To find out more about the initiative and start offsetting your carbon emissions, visit http://www.ecocho.co.uk/
-Ends-

*
Data supplied by Nielsen Online, MegaView Search, February 2008

Notes to Editors:

Ecocho.com buys carbon-offset credits using money generated through advertising on the website. Carbon credits are then used to invest in tree growing initiatives. The site is powered by both Yahoo and Google technology; the user can choose their favourite search engine to power ecocho.comecocho.com is a completely free service.

The process of “carbon-offsetting” involves contributing to a reduction in the amount of damaging carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – trees qualify as a recognised form of carbon-offsetting. The name “ecocho” means “Ultra ecological” derived from: “eco” for ecological and “cho” meaning “extremely” or “ultra” in Japanese.

About echocho.comecocho.com is owned by Yield Media, a subsidiary of Photon Group. The young core group of staff responsible for the ecocho.com is passionate about climate change issues and creating behavioural changes that impact the environment now.

How to live off-grid

Got sent a review copy of "How to live off-grid" by Nick Rosen.


Apparently he is an award winning journalist and documentary maker, for PBS Frontlineand Channel 4 Dispatches amongst others.

This is a new concept to me, living "off-grid" but I guess it may be something we all could do well to find out more about. With the credit crunch, building a yurt in a forest maybe the only option for some of us!

"Off-Grid" means living without mains water and power, sewage and a landline. If you are cut off from the mains you have no choice but to conserve power and water as much as you can, and perhaps, as Nick Rosen would say, makes you more in harmony with nature.

The book charts his journey around Britain in a camper van meeting people who live outside the system and off the grid, i.e. not on mains water and not on the national grid for electricity.

For more information about living off-grid, you can go to Nick Rosen's site.


Read this book whilst waiting for my daughter to be born last month, and it was interesting, challenging and informative. Made the hours of waiting and worrying a lot more bearable.


The style annoyed me a bit at first as it was part travel log, part off-grid guidebook but I soon warmed to it. In some ways, it was like a conversation, rather like a blog, and because of this, it did bring some of the characters and experiences Nick Rosen had a bit more to life.


The UK certainly has some eccentric and some inspirational people around, as well as some con-merchants cashing in on the green thing.


Worth a mention is Nigel Lowthrop, who on leaving the RAF, bought Hill Holt Wood , moved his family there and created a social enterprise with a sustainable income from the wood that involves the whole community and helps disadvataged children. Politicians are taking an interest in learning from and replicating such pioneers and schemes, which must be a good thing.


I am not sure I will rush to buy an old bus off eBay, off-grid it with solar panels etc and fill the tank with old chip fat and drive my family into the wilds of the UK.

Can't afford it for a start and all the energy saving measures I would like to install at home are just beyond us financially because the technology is so expensive still in the UK.

Not only that, trying build a house in the middle of no where off-grid seems like too much hassle to navigate the labyrinthine planning regulations and application process.

If you are rich, you can probably find a way through quite easily. That said, the book has some innovative, brave and driven people, like Mr Lowthrop and family, who make a success of it.

Good luck to them and I would heartily recommend this book as an enjoyable window on the world of living off-grid.

Another option to manage junk and unwanted communications

In this lead up to the local elections, I am more conscious of the amount of junk mail we get through our letter box.

Most people have come across the Mail Preference Service, which is a free service to help you manage that unwanted junk mail that usually ends up straight in the recycling unread (at least if you are anything like our household).

I got an email about a new free service called Choose Your Mail, which takes the MPS a bit further by allowing you specify what direct mail you don't mind receiving.

Apparently, UK households receive something like 6.3 billion items of junk mail per year and most of it ends up in the bin unread.

In addition, if you receive annoying cold calls on the telephone, there is also the Telephone Preference Service to try out.

It isn't foolproof but it does reduce the calls a bit.

I haven't tried this yet but there is also an Email Preference Service to, which is another weapon against spam.

Trading Standards are the place to go if your life continues to be hounded by unsolicited calls, post or emails.

Liberal Democrats can't spell, but support the lorry ban

The Liberal Democrats have been doing their best to fill up my recycling box with numerous leaflets and newsletters.

Mind you, so has Labour.

I had to post this article from their Norwich Mail newsletter. Not because of the worthy campaign to block lorries from using the cycle lane on Newmarket Road.

Rather the fact that the current Councillor for Eaton is holding a makeshift sign that has a spelling mistake on it. Can you spot it (and no, there is no prize)?

Yes, I'm being pedantic. It does not inspire much confidence though, as the inability to spell or quality check your communications when you plan to abolish one tax and replace it with another.

At the last general election, I checked out the Lib Dem's new tax proposals and my household was significantly worse off. We aren't well off so that wasn't an attractive proposition.

Much as I agree with some Lib Dem ideas and have voted for them in the past, I am concerned about whether they really know what they are doing. In this case it may only be forgetting to spell check a road name.

I do hope that lorries will be kept out of this cycle lane, not least as it was only recently that a cyclist was killed on Newmarket Road.

Fingers crossed that the 500+ signatures handed in to City Hall by the Lib Dems will end this bad idea before it is given a trial.

Energy Wasting Day on 1st April

In the true spirit of impartiality and balance, you might want to support today's Energy Wasting Day?



Dan Power is promoting the unnecessary use of energy and suggests that you:

• Leave the lights on when you leave the room
• Fill your kettle to the brim
• Turn up your thermostat to the max
• Wash at 90 degrees for the ultimate clean

It's easy to waste energy and find out some top tips from Dan Power on YouTube.

Are children safe in the UK or are we exaggerating and worsening the risks?

I was reading the Observer yesterday, which had an excellent Climate Change issue with Thom Yorke, lead singer of Radiohead as the guest editor.

He helped launch the Friends of the Earth "Big Ask" Campaign, to lobby the government to bring in a 3% carbon reductions year on year to reach the 60% reduction needed by 2050. Watch an interview with him here.

In amongst it was an article about what could be the greenest city in the world, namely Freiburg, Germany. I remember going there in my teens on a school trip in the late 1980s and thought it was great. There were a few mediaeval bits that allied bombing in WWII had not completely destroyed, and a brilliant tram. Trams were a novelty to me then and now, although I did use the one in Sheffield when I was studying there in the 1990s.

What struck me most about this article was not the climate change angle and public transport options. It was a picture with little toddlers, not older children, playing in a woodland on bits of plank and felled trees. It was called "an adventure site" an was largely Freiburg's answer to a children's playground.

How can this be? Where is the health and safety? What about splinters? Is this irresponsible?

The kids looked like they were having a great time but being a father to a toddler myself, I could feel my concern rising as the planks and log was in no way secured and looked like something I would have put together when I played with my friends in the 1970s.

But isn't that the point?

Don't get me wrong, I am a Dad and have baby number 2 on the way. I worry about my kids and my natural instinct is to not let any harm come to them.

What I struggle with is letting my son grow up and explore the world around him. I'm pleased to say that he has a cautious head on his shoulders and still gets cuts and bruises as evidence of him trying new things out and learning about his environment, and maybe having some fun along the way.

Should we be protecting children or should we be teaching them to spot potential risks and manage them?

The Noise To Signal blog has collected together some info on the old child safety films that many of us grew up with. It is amazing how long this tough line in parenting has been going with children made to see a little squirrel, Tufty, narrowly avoid becoming road kill by a wise owl, or the scary tales of the unfortunate Charley the cat.

Tim Gill's is an expert in this area and you can read more at his site Rethinking Childhood .

Maybe we are playing it too safe? Before I became a parent, I thought that there was a lot of scaremongering.

You hear about flashers and worse near children's playgrounds as if it is worsening problem. The fact is, bad people have always been around and there are probably no more around now than in the past. My Mum surprised me once by recounting a story of being flashed by some pathetic man in the 1940s when she was growing up in the country. She was so matter of fact about it and even managed a cheeky joke about saying how "he had nothing to boast about"! ;-)

What I want is for my children not to be scared, be in control and to be able to deal with what life throws at them and hopefully have good lives.

Wrapping them up in cotton wool, fitting GPS devices to their clothing and even locking them indoors is not going to help them.

As Tim Gill would say, adults worry about children (which is ok) but where we probably go wrong is by trying to make childhood zero risk.

Wouldn't it be even better if we taught our children how to manage risks not to always avoid them?

Maybe they would grow up better able to deal with life and have a great childhood in the process?

I did, although the thought of my son climbing and jumping out of trees is starting to give me palpitations.....