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.

Calendar of Norfolk and UK Green and Ethical Events

I've decided to try to keep a calendar going of events in Norfolk and the UK that have an environmental or ethical living theme.

It's called NUKGEE for short, or Norfolk and UK Green and Ethical Events.

Over time it will improve and if you have any events that you think are relevant and of interest, please get in touch and I will add them to the calendar.

Although I put it together for my benefit so thay I didn't forget and miss out on things, I hope you find it useful too.

Make your town climate-friendly with the Greenpeace EfficienCity

Greenpeace has just launched a natty 3D interactive virtual city called "EfficienCity".

Its aim is to show how we in the UK can fight climate change, although it is being blogged about all over the world like at the excellent EcoGeek site.

It is a fantastic resource with a huge amount of information on the different options available to us, from saving energy to generation from renewable sources.

The way it is presented and the large amount of photographs, videos, and technical presentations make it a brilliant educational resource for individual citizens, schools, and the workplace.

You can even download the whole thing to run it offline with a PC version (51.5MB) and a Mac version (53.6MB).

You can take it further than just learning and you are invited to join Greenpeace's campaign to put pressure on you local council to find out what they are doing about climate change and securing a sustainable energy for the future. You can encourage your council to work with experts in Greenpeace to increase access to decentralised energy generation.

Whatever your views on Greenpeace, this is an excellent educational resource about the options we have to respond to climate change. Tell as many people as you can about it.

More on a UK Ban for Patio Heaters

There is a good review of the debate on patio heaters on the Mygreenweek site.

Although this opens the debate more on the potential energy inefficiency and harm caused by patio heaters, suggesting it is not so clear cut, I would urge people to consider the fact that it is not just CO2 and water vapour that is emitted, they also give out other harmful, unfiltered by byproducts and gases, as pointed out by Leo Hickman of The Guardian newspaper.

We know that B&Q will stop selling patio heaters when its current stock is sold. Wyevale were the first when they announced they would stop selling these back in April 2007.

In the UK, there is increasing support for a total ban on these heaters with various campaigns, perhaps led most prominently by Friends of the Earth. I came across this plain speaking one called Patio Heaters are Evil. Definitely worth looking at if you are considering buying one of these things.

You can read the full details of the EU's Energy Efficiency Motion in its full proposal, which includes the proposed withdrawal from sale of patio heaters.

It is obvious that this is going to be most strongly opposed by the pub and catering trade who have had to deal with the smoking ban introuduced last summer in the UK. I have seen figures that suggest it could cost the pub and the catering industry £250 million per year in lost trade.

Maybe if we ban smoking completely as well then we can have the double benefit of improving human health and reducing the gases that cause climate change? ;-)

EU debates patio heater ban

The EU will debate a ban on patio heaters tomorrow. It seems a bit mad for us all to be encouraged to save energy and produce less greenhouse gases, only for these things to be allowed to heat up the night sky outside pubs. bars and restaurants. Fingers crossed that the EU can take the lead on this and vote to ban these devices of doom.

Pledge to Tread Lightly - join The Guardian's low carbon diet and save the world!

I got an email this week, and it read as follows:

Hi Tractorboy,

My name's N***** and I work for Outside Line, a digital PR agency.

At this moment in time we are currently working with The Guardian to promote their new Tread Lightly campaign:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/treadlightly?CMP=OTCTreadLightly

As one of the top 20 Green Bloggers, I am contacting you today as I thought your readers may be interested in reading about the Guardian’s ‘Tread Lightly’ initiative and learning more about how they themselves could making a real difference to this campaign.

Guardian Tread lightly is a new community site, which aims to encourage online communities into reducing their CO2 emissions through making weekly pledges and recording their actions against their pledges.

The idea is that every pledge is simple, straightforward, and something that everyone can do, so that people who are normally put off doing environmental things because it sounds like a lot of effort will find Tread Lightly a good solution to easing their carbon conscience.

A large part of what we are trying to achieve is to get community and online evangelists in the subject, such as yourself, to help us help educate and motivate the online community into taking those first small steps that make the big difference.

We have campaign outlines and a blogger’s button that we can supply you with, plus the Guardian weekly blog will make mention of key bloggers helping in the campaign, and we really hope you will consider being one of them.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you require any more information on this, if you aren’t interested then thank you for taking the time to read this and we wont bother you again.

Many Thanks
N***** P******
http://www.outsideline.co.uk/

It was a bit of a surprise to be described as an "online evangelist" on matters green!

Not sure I deserve this. Just trying to listen to my conscience and do the right thing when and where I can.

There are loads of these pledge-based groups around and I may do a post collecting some of the better ones I have found and subscribed to.

The Tread Lightly community seems worthy of a mention and I will add a link to the site on my blogroll.

Whether you are green, orange, red, blue or some sort of rainbow in terms of your politics, there is some good stuff here that goes beyond the standard Guardian readership.

Do have a look and maybe get involved. The issues go beyond politics and are about trying live a good life and cause as little harm as possible.

Even better, tell your mates as well and encourage them to live a low carbon lifestyle so that we can each save our little bits of the world. These bits could add up to a lot of planet.

Another incentive is that you could win a G-Wiz car in the New Year, or at least get a free cotton bag so you can stop using all those platic bags! :-)

If you want even more info, I asked for more from the PR company and received this:

Guardian Tread Lightly

Guardian Tread lightly is a new community site developed by Guardian environment that aims to encourage people into a low carbon lifestyle so that they come together to save the planet.

The idea is that people can go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/treadlightly?CMP=OTCTreadLightly1
where they will find a different pledge every week that, if they take an act on, will help them reduce their CO2 emissions. The pledges will all be quite simple, achievable things, so the first one will be change your light bulbs for energy efficient ones, and this will be followed by things like: take showers not baths, recycle all of your newspapers this week, turn down your heating by one degree and recycle your glass this week. The idea is that every pledge is straightforward, simple and something that everyone can do, so that people who are normally put off doing environmental things because it sounds like quite a lot of effort will find Tread Lightly a good solution to easing their carbon conscience.

Once a user has registered with Tread Lightly and clicked on Take the pledge, they will be sent an email reminding them of what they have said they will do and this will be followed at the end of the week with reminder to go back to the site and say whether you fulfilled the pledge or not and what the next weeks pledge is.

The user will then get a personal profile page that will show them what pledges they have taken, how much CO2 they have personally saved and how much it equates to (5 less cars on the road for a day at rush hour etc).

The community aspect of the site will include a message board / blog where people can share tips on how to achieve that weeks target, a little bar chart showing how much CO2 the community has saved so far (in kg) and what this equates to (big things hopefully, like a coal powered power station being turned off for 2 minutes), and users will be invited to write in and give suggestions of other pledges.

With a big community, it’s hoped that when all of the individual carbon savings
are added up over time, the users will have made a real difference to the environment.

The launch will be supported by a competition to win a G-Wiz car and a free bag giveaway. Anyone who completes a pledge by the end of November will be automatically entered into a competition to win a G-Wiz electric car. Anyone who completes 12 pledges by the end of February 2008 will be sent a free Tread lightly cotton shopping bag. .

Plastic bag tax - sign the petition

Plastic bags are useful and are a menace to the environment.

If we use them then we should pay for this.

Apparently in Britain, we use an average of 300 plastic bags every year. Each bag lasts up to 400 years, spending the vast majority of that time in a landfill site or strewn across the British countryside.

Other countries have been more active and successful at sorting out this problem.

In Ireland, a tax of 15cents per bag resulted in a 90% drop in plastic bag usage, and raised 3.5 million Euros which was spent on environmental projects. Bangladesh has banned polythene bags altogether while Taiwan and Singapore are taking steps to discourage their use.

Paying for what has been free and has caused us to be wasteful and thoughtless might start a change for the better.

Paying 10p or so for any plastic bag might encourgae us to start reusing them, use longer lasting bags, boxes or non-plastic bags.

If you think that it is time to pay the price for our wasteful, thoughtless use of plastic bags then sign this petition at Green England.

If you can go out and spend some time gathering signatures, a document version of the petition is available here.

They have hit the 10,000 signature target and it is still rising!

Killing time, not the planet, and save a few quid!

If you haven't read it, do try to buy or borrow a copy of "The Rough Guide To Ethical Living" by Duncan Clark from the library.

Some good discussions, facts and thought provoking ideas about how to change your life for the better.


Here's a simple idea and change we have made at home.

We have a wall mounted clock in our kitchen/diner and yet we have one on the microwave as well.

After reading this book, what a pointless waste of time, electricity, natural resources and money.

This clock used to be on permanently and that amounts to about £7 per year, as in this standby state, you still use about 98% of the power required when it is used for cooking.

Apparently, this amounts to an approximate saving of 29kg CO2 from switching off.

We forget sometimes but for the past year, we usually switch off the microwave after use.

In our house, this £7 extra will get spent and probably on the mortgage repayments! ;-)

Sustainability, photography and the 3 Ps

So what is "sustainability"?

Sustainability is finding a balance between environmental, social and economic factors and can be defined as "treating the World as if we intended to stay" (Robert Gray, 1993).

A quick way of remembering the 3 factors is planet, people and profit.

Another way of putting it is making sure that we live our lives using and replenishing the resources we have on this one planet of ours, and not being greedy and wasteful in our habits, pretending we have enough resources as if we live on 3 or more planets.

The World Wildlife Fund has some excellent resources and have set up a "One Planet Living" Campaign that I urge you to visit.

It is very easy for us to say that the planet or environment is the most important thing for us to concentrate on. Certainly climate change, greenhouse gases, green issues seem to be the focus in the press.

I do not disagree with the planet's importance. Without it, we are goners.

Surely it is more realistic to recognise that for us to make sure we cause less harm, we have to consider all of these 3Ps and get the best balance we can?

Where is the likely success and lasting power of measures to save the planet if they in turn cost people their jobs because companies do not make enough profit to employ them?

I would emphasise the word “enough” here. “Excessive” is what we usually associate with companies making profits, and normally at the expense of others. I believe times are changing and I’ll give you an example based on my interest in photography.

I have some Pentax SLR gear, and in particular a great camera, the Pentax ME Super.

Hopefully, I will raise enough money via some eBay sales to buy a DSLR and am keen to still be able to use my existing Pentax based lenses. They are still good and I do not want to throw them away.

Consumer power and buying behaviour will change things. I want sustainable products in the shops so although I can’t change the situation overnight for everyone, I can at least play my part as an individual.

I sent an enquiry to Pentax via their web site to ask about how sustainable their products are.

The reply I received was as follows:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your enquiry.

What I understand from your email is that you are interested in how social and environmental conscious we produce our products.

Please find more information about these topics on the
following website:
http://www.pentax.co.jp/english/company/environment/report/2006.html

I hope that your question has been answered to your satisfaction.

Should you have further questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to
contact us again.

When replying, please make sure this email is included.

With kind regards,

J***** S********

Pentax Digital Camera Support Team

Looking at the links you find here is very interesting. They are certainly going in the right direction and taking steps to reduce their harmful activities and increase their beneficial ones. You will find statements about their company and products relating to the environment and social aspects. Their annual accounts show that the improvements they are gradually making has not stopped them from doing well financially.

Of course there will always be more that companies like Pentax can do. We should not damn them for not getting to a good situation straight away. Maybe we should encourage their efforts as getting the balance between the 3Ps takes time?

I am optimistic that if we all start asking companies questions about how sustainable their company and their products and services are, they will start to get the message that consumers will spend their money with the more sustainable companies and not with those who focus on profit generation.

Before you buy something significant, why not contact the company and find out what they are doing to make what they do sustainable?

Some other resources that are useful is “The Good Shopping Guide” book, Gooshing, Ethiscore, and “The Rough Guide to Ethical Living” book.

And if you want to be really sustainable, why not borrow the books from your local library rather than buy them?

Carbon calculators and offsetting - saving the planet or offsetting responsibility?

Carbon calculators are everywhere. Are they any good though and what should you do with the information?


You can get them on your mobile phone from the Centre for Advanced Technology (or if you were at Glastonbury'07 where they were bluetoothed around).


The government via Defra has the Act On CO2 Calculator, which looks quite funky.


The most bizarre one is from the Royal Society of Arts and their Changing Habbits project. This calculator is in beta testing and will result in an artistic installation of 1000 of "Habbits" (play on words for "Hobbit"). You can create your carbon footprint in human form (a "Habbit" rather than "Hobbit"), with parts of the body representing aspects of your lifestyle that generate CO2. Mine has quite big feet and yes, it does mean I need to use a bike, public transport or walk more! ;-)

These calculators seem to vary in their accuracy and what data they collect. For example, did you know water has a carbon footprint? I had never really thought about it, and when you do, it is obvious as water is pumped and treated, all requiring energy.

Apparently, all UK citizens carry the burden of about 5 tonnes of CO2 just from accessing public services. I'm pretty certain this is not included in these calculators.


By finding out your annual carbon footprint, the expectation is that you will change your ways or "Habbits". Make some less harmful, more energy efficent choices as a consumer. Or you can pay money towards carbon offsetting schemes.

A whole industry seems to have arisen that is designed to allow you to pay for the carbon dioxide your lifestyle generates without having to change your lifestyle.

This makes no sense to me, apart from it might give you the chance to donate to some good causes and help some people around the world that will be severely effected by climate change we are helping to cause in the First World.

Is this really "Cheat Offsetting" as discussed on the CheatNeutral site?

Certainly food for thought.

Vote 'No' to VAT on energy efficient products!

The consumer electronics retailer Maplin Electronics have launched a National Solar Week (June 18th-24th) and set up an online petition to remove VAT on energy efficient products.

Help to make energy efficient products more affordable in the UK and sign the petition now via this link!

Pedlars of pointless power usage and Star Trek doors…

Has anyone else noticed that you can be walking past a shop, nowhere near the entrance and the doors slide or are flung open in true Star Trek style?

I was on my way back to work today after a lunch break and was at least a couple of metres away from a DVD/Video hire shop and the doors whizzed open.

It was cold, wet and I had no intention of going into the shop.

It must be annoying, if not at times, a health and safety issue, for those poor souls working in these shops that get a blast from the elements outside by people just passing by. Not only that, how much wasted heat goes out of the door and is wasted pointlessly opening the doors?

Access to some shops must be a nightmare for those of us with disabilities. In a trivial sense, whenever I take my lad out and am using the buggy, we are basically barred from going into some shops as the stock is so crammed in as to make it impossible to move around.

Automatic doors are brilliant. What isn’t so good is the way they get set up.

People complain about the neighbour’s security light sensor being positioned badly and switching on too frequently. Maybe we should do the same about automatic doors on shops?

My workplace has a great solution. There is a large button that is positioned at the correct height for people using wheelchairs that can be pressed to activate the automatic doors. Otherwise, we can open the doors by pushing them.

Maybe we have become too lazy by using lifts and not stairs, and forgetting that we can actually open doors by pushing or pulling the handles?

If shops had optional rather than compulsory automatic doors, or positioned the sensors closer to the door entrance, then maybe there would be less energy wasted and they would save on their electricity bills?

The Times did speak some time ago about just how bizarre this situation can become with shop doors being kept open throughout the working day, and air conditioning or heating being on in the shop. Surely this is mad and no one can afford to do this anymore in terms of energy costs and carbon emissions?