This was the view from the patio of Thorton in Craven Village hall, and the BBQ that we went to last night.  A magnificant view I am sure you will agree.

Waking up this morning I was hearing the GMTV crew talking about earthquakes.  Half asleep, I thought that this must have been somewhere else in the world as I heard mumblings of 5.2 on the Rhicter Scale.  The geography teacher in me suddenly started thinking I should be recording this with Sky+ whereas the ICT teacher was saying, “don’t worry you will be able to download it from somewhere shortly.  The fact was that it wasn’t abroad it was here in the UK.

I can only remember one or two earthquakes that have hit the UK.  One of them was in Birmingham a few years ago and the other I can’t even remember where it was.  The fact of the matter is that we don’t get many earthquakes happening in this country, which has to be a good thing.  We are not very tectonically active as we do not sit on the boundary of the worlds major tectonics plates (pieces of the earth’s crust).  This very fact saves us from the grave dangers that many other countries suffer.  However having woke up this morning, not even knowing about the earthquake that had hit our country, I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.

Is he mad I hear you all saying?  Maybe.  The fact of the matter is I have never experienced what it is like to be in an earthquake.  I have spent the last 5 years trying get across to a number of different classes what it must be like, and to have the opportunity so close and miss it makes me a little disappointed.  Don;t get me wrong I would not like to be in any danger and would have to know that I was safe for it to be in anyway and good experience.  But there is a big part of me that would like to experience/witness and earthquake.  I am sure that seeing it on video on the TV is just not the same.  I suppose this is geographer coming out of me.  It is probably for the same reason that I want to witness a volcano.  These have got to be one of the most surreal events that anyone can witness (particularly someone from the UK).

Maybe I will just have to wait until the next one in another 25 years time.  How ever long it takes I am sure that it will be worth waiting for!

It’s simple really. We need more energy. Energy to feed our ever growing lifestyles and the need for power. Today the government gave the green light for the provision of that energy. Trouble is, it is Nuclear Power.

It is quite clear that in the next 10 - 15 years we are going to need more and more energy. Energy that we currently do not have the provision for. This, coupled with the fact that the supplies of much of our energy are running out everyday (fossil fuels are non-renewable) means that we need to find alternatives. The government have today given the go ahead for these alternatives to be nuclear power. But is this such as good idea?

Probably around 90 years ago someone (a Google search didn’t provide an immediate answer) decided that coal, oil and gas would be the fuel of choice to fuel the world’s power stations in order to produce electricity, the stuff that powers our ever-growing high tech lives. At the time it was a great idea. It produced electricity and all the benefits that electricity could provide at the time. However what they were not aware of was the problem that all the pollution from the power station emissions was doing. It is only now that we find ourselves in a global crisis with global warming and climate change a constant topic of discussion in the news and on the internet, for very good reason. At the time we were not able to look into the future and see the damage that might be caused by burning all these fossil fuels. I fear that we are doing the same now with nuclear power.

Sure, nuclear has tremendous benefits and the physics behind how it works is truly brilliant. The amount of power you can produce for a tiny piece of uranium is amazing and the fact that there are no greenhouse gas emissions is another added bonus. But it is not all good news. First of all there is the threat of a nuclear accident. I can still remember the day that the Chenobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded back in April 1986 and the European, if not global chaos that caused. Not to mention the number of deaths in the years gone by since. If this happened in our country the consequences could be disastrous for the whole nation. As well as the threat of explosion there is the problem of nuclear waste. No-one really knows what to do with it. A solution on its disposal has not really been found. Reading an article in the National Geographic magazine a few years ago proved that although governments and energy companies tell you that it is disposed of safely, this is just not true. It needs looking after for centuries to come and this becomes nearly impossible. And all this looking after nuclear waste will be costing the tax payer money, according to Greenpeace.

Surely we are falling into the wrong trap again. Going for a solution that has short term gains but does not make long term environmental sense. We have got many different renewable, environmentally friendly options, that OK, will cost more in the short term, but in the long term surely the costs are not that great.

That’s my opinion on the whole matter. We know what the government thinks about this. What do you think?

The way food and other items that we all purchase everyday are under scrutiny again this week and rightly so.  I have to say that it winds me up no end as to the amount of waste packaging that exists on many of the items that we buy.

Take Morrisons for example.  There is a store just across the way from us and because of the convenience we tend to shop there quite a lot.  Yesterday I went round the store for a weekly shop.  On my list of things to buy were peppers.  I usually buy the three is pack, which are wrapped in plastic, however this time I only wanted to buy one.  To my amazement even these are wrapped in plastic with a bar code on.  Why?  Can’t they just be loose to take and place in your trolley.  Actually why can’t all the peppers be like this?  Actually why can’t all fruit and vegetables be like this?  I am not sure of the answer here.  The other thing is that the bags that they have for you to put loose items of groceries into are also plastic.  What is wrong with the old fashioned brown paper bags.  These would do the job just as well and also they are recyclable which is better for the environment.

Listening to Granada news this evening on ITV they were talking about this same issue.  Many of the phone in callers were telling us how they reuse their carrier bags or have these special ’shopping bags’ which means that you don’t need plastic bags.  My mum used to have one with metal handles and a mesh body.  My problem is that even if I recycle my bags I then run out as I use them for the refuse.  So people have told me about the ‘biodegradable’ plastic bags.  Great I thought, environmentally friendly as they will break down in the waste dump.  But the problem with these is that they never fit the bin.  We use a peddle bin and they are not deep enough.  Therefore as soon as you put something in the bin the bag disappears to the bottom of the bin and causes a right mess.  Also these bags are very expensive.  Again why can’t we have brown paper bags (maybe waxed on the inside to make then cope better with liquids that may go into the bin) for kitchen waste bins?  This would be great, wouldn’t it?

I bought a new digital camera a couple of months ago and the packaging on that was ridiculous. On the outside of the box there was shrink wrap (why?).  They once inside every single item was also shrink wrapped which included; the camera; the USB wire; the charger; two lens accessories; CD drivers etc; manuals, guarantee and the list goes on.  By the time I had the camera constructed and ready to use, I had a small waste dump on the floor.  How on earth have we got to this situation where things are packaged so irresponsibly?

On the brighter side of things my wife had a package delivered from Boots the other day.  There was a box and then inside the box there were all the things that she ordered.  They were in boxes too, however all the space was packaged with folder paper rather than plastic wrap or polystyrene.  This was good to see.

The question is, and this is difficult part is what do we do about it?  We can’t simply stop buying the things that we need which are being over packaged.  But we do need to stop companies from over packaging their goods, so how do we go about it?  Any ideas?

Delivered the other day, I received the latest version of the WWF (Word Wildlife Fund) catalogue of Environmentally Friendly Products. Not sure why I got a copy but I have to say that there are some jolly good ideas in there.

The first that caught my eye was something that I have thought is a fine idea for a long time now, and that is the wind up radio. What a fantastic idea for producing communications without the need for power. A radio needs very little power and therefore to have it wind up is a great idea. Just 30 seconds of winding on the handle to provide a ‘charge’ will give you 30 minutes of radio to listen to. Now that is cool.

I have to confess that I looked at the gadgets section straight away and another of the items that caught my eye was the torch that doesn’t need batteries. I thought “eh!, how on earth does that work then?” Well apparently it works using motion. As you move the torch around the motion charges the batteries that are in the torch. It is the kinetic energy that creates the charge, probably similar to a dynamo creating electricity as you peddle a bike. The product claims that just a two minute shake of the torch will give up to 1 hour of light. This could work so well with other things too. I often use my iPod at the gym when running and cycling and therefore why not create an iPod that uses the motion of me running in order to power the device? Come on Apple keep up!

Next was a kettle. We all know that in order to save energy we should only be boiling the right amount of water that we need instead of boiling the whole kettle for one cup. Well in the catalogue there is kettle which you can fill to the top but you then tell it how many cups you want to boil. The desired amount of water is then passed to another chamber and only that amount is actually boiled, and therefore this is saving energy. Neat idea.

There were allsorts of other gifts and ideas throughout the catalogue that I thought would be really good to buy and good to purchase as presents and gifts for other people e.g. at Christmas. You can also shop online too, which is an added bonus. And as all the products are not harmful to the environment then you are good to go!

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WWF Website
WWF Shop

Whilst surfing around on the net today I came across the governments new carbon footprint website were you can calculate your own carbon footprint and then get ideas on how to reduce it. I though the site was rather good really.

There are three different sections that you go through in order to fill in the information - your home, your appliances and your travel. In each section there are a number of different pieces of information that you are asked for. For example in the home section you are asked about insulation and how you heat your home, in the appliances section you are asked how many and what type of TVs you have and in the travel section you are asked what type of car you drive and the number of miles travelled per year.

If have used carbon calculators before on the internet and often they were very confusing. They asked you to enter exactly how many units you used for gas and electricit, which is information that you just don’t have to hand. However this site was much better. All the questions on the forms I was able to answer without having to look up any information.

Anyway at the end of it all the website informed me that my individual carbon footprint was what sounded a rather large 3.77 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. At the end of the calculations you can analyse your results. You are able to compare them with the national average as a whole and for each section individually. According to the site the national average is around 4.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Therefore I was rather pleased with myself as mine was considerably less than the average. However looking at the travel section my figure was higher than the national average. Work to be done there when I change my car then!

It got me thinking this. If the national average is 4.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year and there are approximately 60 million people in the UK then as a country each year we produce a staggering 270,000,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year. You then start to think about other countries. In terms of population we are quite small, however we are very developed and therefore produce more per person than other countries. The global carbon dioxide emissions figure must be massive.

There are clearly two areas that I still need to work on in terms of saving energy to reduce my carbon footprint. The first would have to be my car. Indeed, the next time I change my car I am certainly going to purchase a greener alternative. The second are would be drying the washing. I have to confess that I nearly always use the dryer, even on sunny days, which needs to change. I will do my best!

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Act on CO2 Calculator

We all know that up and down the country we have had tremendous amounts of rain. Well today around Preston it was our turn for the unpredictable rainy weather.

I was sat watching the TV when all of a sudden the heavens opened. This was rain like I had never seen in a long time. From sunny blue skies, the sky suddenly turned black and hail getting on for the size of marbles was falling.

I went into the conservatory and the noise was deafening. It was also bad in the house. The budgies were not impressed with the noise and George and Jeremy looked very scared when I went into the garage after the rain had finally stopped.

We never used to get rain like this when I was young (not that I am old now of course!). I don’t think that the total amount of rain we are getting is much different it is just the pattern of rain. We now get rain in short sharp bursts were it rains a lot, whereas a decade ago we got steady rain for longer period.

This change in our weather patterns, which could be causing the increased amount of flooding all over the country, is surely yet another warning to the government, and everyone else for that matter that we need to act now in order to prevent major global climate change.

Last night after going to bed watching an episode of Diagnosis Murder, I flicked over the BBC1 and found an edition of schools question time. The topic of global warming came up and the debate raged. It got me thinking again about this crucial issue.

The audience and panel were discussing the fact that we still don’t know whether climate change, global warming or whatever term(s) you would like to use to describe the issue is being caused by the actions of humans.

This is a hot debate at the moment. Davina McCall (who was on the panel?) stated that around 53% of people are not doing things such as recycling because they are not sure that the actions of humans is causing the problem. To me this is absolute rubbish. The reason that many people are not acting on the things that they do is because they hear a story in the news or the paper about the fact that some scientist has said we are not the cause and they then decide not to bother with their recycling that week or switching the TV off standby during the night. They use it as an excuse because people are lazy and cannot be bothered.

My real point here is this and is something that has been mentioned by Simon on his blog. Maybe humans are not the cause of climate change and as Alan was recently stating in the Worst Weather post the climate of the earth has changed massively over geological time without humans so who is to say that it is our fault now? Even if we are not the problem is it ‘responsible living’ and sustainable for future generations to just carry on as we are doing? Wasting resources and using up the planets reserves? I think not and therefore yes, we may not solve the problem of climate change in the short term (in fact scientists suggest that warming in next 30 - 50 years has already been decided and that we can only change the warming after that) but we can do our bit for future generations and be more responsible in the way in which we live our lives.

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BBC Question Time
BeforeiForget: The blog of Simon Jones
[Video] Schools Question Time 2007
The 10 Commitments to Reducing your Carbon Footprint

If ever there was a kick up the backside for the government to finally act on the issue of climate change, the weather of the last few days must have given them this. With a the new Prime Minister beginning the job today it seems the ideal time to do something about it. But will Mr Brown deliver?

Over the last 2 - 3 days we have seen some of the wettest weather than the country has seen for decades. In Sheffield 6 weeks worth of rain fell in just 24 hours. Inevitably the environment cannot cope with this large amount of rainfall and therefore flooding is a certainty. Communities are struggling to cope with this sort of flooding and therefore people’s lives are going to be destroyed causing unrest.

At the moment I am fortunate in that my home is not in imminent danger of flood risk (touch wood!). However if the current trend in climate change continues the type of weather that we have witnessed over the last few days will happen more often and with greater intensity. Therefore it is crucial that the government do something about this now.

We here on the news all the time about China and how they are building 1 coal fired power station per week to fuel their development as a country. What annoys me is that we are supposed to feel annoyed at them for doing this and that it is wrong. Why? After all it is only what we have done in the past. We cannot go preaching to countries such as China who are trying to catch us up in the development race, saying that they should be looking for other, ‘greener’ ways of producing energy when we do not do this ourselves. Only when our Carbon emissions as a nation are reduced to ‘acceptable’ levels (frozen at current levels maybe?) can we start expecting them to do the same. Also surely if we want them to do different then we need to help them. They are only trying to achieve what the rest has already done - gain a better quality of life.

In the sort term I believe Mr Brown’s new government should implement the following initiatives.

1. Change the way in which cars are taxed. This should mean that cars of 1.4 litre (1300cc) or under pay half the current tax and that cars over this amount pay double the tax. This will quickly encourage people to buy cars that are more green
2. Provide an income tax refund of around £3500 for anyone purchasing a hybrid car such as the Toyota Prius. These give off less CO2 emissions and therefore should be encouraged
3. Force new house builders to include green initiatives for every new home they build. This could include solar panels for central heating and energy saving light bulbs for each light fitting in the home - not just the 3 or so you get at the moment
4. Enforce manufacturers of electrical equipment to remove the ’standby’ function of many electrical items. This would stop people from leaving them on, using power when they are not using the items
5. Improve public transport in the UK major towns and cities. It needs to be made cheaper and far more reliable. This would remove cars from the road and remove CO2 from the atmosphere

There is clearly a lot the government can do and there is a lot that has been talked about. However the time has come to stop talking and start doing.

I have recently been watching the Planet Earth series from BBC on DVD. Watching the Arctic program with the Polar Bears and their cub was heart breaking. Surely we as a nation do not want to be responsible for this? Come on Britain, lets lead the way to reduce our impact on climate change. You never know others may follow!

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BBC Planet Earth
June Floods

I am not a gardener as it really doesn’t interest me at all, however I do appreciate a great looking garden. This weekend was the time to get my green fingers on so to speak.

With the wife cleaning and out and about doing odd job I set about trying to improve the look of our back garden. We have been to many friends recently and also my parents and noticed that there gardens are so much more welcoming than ours. It never really inspired one to sit down on the bench outside in the garden and read a book or sip a glass of wine, so my wife and I (note the correct grammar there mum!) decided to change this.

The great problem with in our garden is simple - the rabbits. They aren’t a problem in most other terms and we adore them however they do tend to eat any low lying plants that you have. Therefore we have to devise different ways of lifting the foliage off the ground so the rabbits cannot eat them.

Wandering round the supermarket I came across these rather nice wall mounted basket type things that I thought were rather nice and would look good and more to point serve the purpose of lifting plants of the ground. Being buy one get one free, my wifes influence took over and I made the purchase. I then got them home and mounted them on the wall of the conservatory with my ever improving DIY skills. I think they look great.

Next came the need for plants. I haven’t a clue when it comes to plants, apart from herbs which links back to my cooking background I think. With herbs not really being the right thing for these baskets I got my dad on the case and we managed to get some from the garden centre. After a quick potting lesson I managed to get them all into the baskets that I had bought and I think they look great. The garden is now a much more welcoming place to sit out and we have been eating out there the last few nights with the view to doing this more often.

So it just goes to show that just because you are not very good at something, or think that you cannot do something it doesn’t mean to say that you can’t!