Man and the Environment exhibition at The Forum, Norwich

There is a brilliant art exhibition at The Forum in Norwich until 15th February. It is entitled 'Man and the Environment'. Paintings and sculptures made from natural materials. My daughter and I like the giraffe best but the crocodile is a close second, but don't tell it that as we don't want to be next on the menu! ;-)

Remember to feed the birds in the snow

We've had more snow in Norfolk today, and have been aware how reliant the birds are on us as this harsh snowy weather persists. Just topped up our bird feeders and have been rewarded by seeing a beautifully coloured Jay swoop in to feed on the nuts I dropped on the ground. :-)

Copenhagen shame

Made a snowman with my son this morning as we've had a lot of snow in Norwich. We had a lovely time and for a time I could forget about the news I heard at breakfast time of the complete failure to delivery anything meaningful at the Copenhagen Summit. The politicians and delegates should be ashamed. Ours and future generations were depending on them for binding and realistic action to halt the harm we've been causing because of excessive use of fossil fuels and resources. Its time for us all to be leaders and make our own contribution to saving the planet, because our elected leaders failed and let the world down. I will certainly be showing my anger at the next election and voting for whoever has a clue and a plan to do what is necessary to look after my childrens future. We thought we had another leader to inspire the world into amazing achievements but Obama let us down. A sad day, but at least we made a great snowman! :-)

The Green Living Guide

I was offered a review copy of the second edition of the "Green Living Guide", edited by Hugh Bowring.

Now that we are gradually realising that the "make do and mend" culture of grandparents and parents was progressive in terms of saving money and not wasting the planet's resources, a book like this is welcome. It's an opportunity to relearn some useful skills, approaches and way of thinking.

The book has been organised into 6 sections, Home and Garden, Family & Children, Food & Drink, Work & Office, Transport & Motoring, and Fashion & Beauty. This works quite well, as it is definitely a reference book that you might dip into now and again for useful advice, be it when thinking about tackling the rising energy costs and finding tips to save energy, what to think about before you buy at the supermarket or on the high street, greening your office, and causing less harm when you need to travel.

As a quick way in to some of the issues relating to sustainable living, this is a good buy. Some useful research has gone into this and the book is full of web links if you want to find out more.

If I'm being picky, there were 2 areas I disagree with.

The section on Food and Drink pushes us towards buying local as the more sustainable option on the basis that there tends to be fewer food miles involved and certainly not air freight. I don't think that this big issue is really that simple, as shown by the facts in the excellent recent report by Oxfam "Fair Miles: Recharting the food miles map", with much of the imported food from Africa coming by sea with a very low carbon footprint and local tomatoes in December would mean high energy costs and carbon emissions from heated greenhouses. In fairness, there is an excellent calendar that helps us remember seasonality to help us know when and what food to buy locally.

On a more minor point, based on personal experience of the product, the appliance section suggests you buy a Kenwood energy saving kettle at nearly £45. Whatever you do, don't but this kettle, as it is terrible! The lid breaks and if you live in a hard water area like me, despite regular descaling, it leaks. This ended up being disposed as WEEE waste at my local dump and I bought a Phillips one instead. Not the most sustainable outcome so don't make my mistake.

Overall, at £7.99 this is well worth buying as an interesting and useful guide to how to save money in these tricky times and cause less harm to people and the planet. Could be a good stocking filler?

It is available from Magbooks, WH Smith and online at Amazon.

Heritage tomatoes - they don't make them like they used to!

It is nearly the end me November and I have left a tomato plant in a small raised bed as an experiment. The variety is Tibet Appel, which I got last year from Garden Organic's Heritage Seed Library. The plant was late and the claim is that the seed came from Tibet and thrives outside in cooler conditions. Well it has been very chilly in Norfolk and the fruits are still developing well. Only got 3 fruits but at least that will be plenty to get seeds from for next year. If you want to grow vegetables that are more diverse, interesting and taste better in many cases, them I recommend joining the Heritage Seed Library. Could be a good Christmas gift for someone?

Eco and ethical Christmas stocking from Biome Lifestyle

Christmas is coming and I received an email from Alex at Biome Lifestyle telling me about her business and offering me a free Christmas stocking.

I haven't heard of the company before so had a quick look at their web site and was quite impressed with the company's commitment to ethics and the environment in sourcing its products.

Received the stocking and it is a bit too stylish for my young children and not nearly kitsch enough but maybe it will be just the thing for my wife.

Anyway, thanks to Biome Lifestyle for the excellent stocking and as Christmas approaches, I'd recommend looking for some present ideas on their web site.

Reheat Britain - sign the Number 10 petition for a boiler scrappage scheme

I got an email letting me know about this petition a while ago. We've all heard and read a lot about the car scrappage scheme, being a government led initiative to boost UK car sales and encourage the purchase of more environmentally friendly cars and scrap the inefficient gas guzzlers.

Given that homes and transport are the biggies for consuming and wasting energy and heat, and emitting greenhouse gases, the petition to start a boiler scrappage scheme seems really sensible to me.

Quite frankly, we can't afford to replace our boiler and will only do so if it were to break down and not able or viable to be repaired.

If a scrappage scheme for old inefficient boilers were implemented, it would certainly be attractive to us as energy prices go up. To me, this seems like for minimal tax-payers investment, we will all save in the long run.

The petition owner states the following benefits for supporting this petition and scheme:

According to the 'Energy Saving Trust' if everyone in the UK with gas central heating installed a high efficiency condensing boiler, we would save enough energy to heat 3.4 million homes for a whole year and save around 13 million tonnes of Carbon Dioxide. The householder could also save around a third on their heating bills.

The recently introduced Car Scrappage scheme has proved a success for the car industry, but a Boiler Scrappage Scheme, along the same lines, could be even more successful.

It would help the Government to achieve it's climate change targets, it would benefit boiler manufacturers, plumbers merchants and installers by stimulating demand and it would benefit the householder by saving them money.

This has gained some momentum with Sian Berry, Green London Mayor canditate in the last elections, beingthe campaign manager. She is getting the petition some much-needed publicity with TV coverage and a new website. She hopes to sign up some high-profile MPs to support the campaign.

To find out more, please visit the Reheat Britain site and click on the link to sign the Number 10 petition.

I've signed it.