This blog is dedicated to presenting the carbon footprints and personal reports from the eight members of Glastonbury’s first CRAG (Carbon Reduction Action Group). Click to see their carbon footprints, read on to see our more personal reports on how we’re doing…
Anthony Ward
Amy Lawson
Jon Cousins
Lokabandhu
Marke Pawson
Rachel Clyne
Trisha O’Carroll
Patrick Whitefield
and Adrian Hopper
Our aim is to provide a very practical and personal and public demonstration that individuals really can reduce their carbon emissions and can learn and have fun in the process.
All the CRAGs members have pledged to calculate their emissions from the past year, monitor them over the coming year, and take steps to reduce them by at least 5%. In the process we expect to learn a lot about how to do it, and how it feels when trying to do it…
Some of our results and adventures will be posted here as and when we’re able.
Thanks for reading this. Comments and suggestions welcome – and do come back to find out how we’re getting on!
Filed under: Glastonbury
Hi all
I have purchased an “Efergy” (a real time energy reader) with the idea of hiring it out to people who would like to know what energy is used when and by what whithin the home or office.
The reader can be used anywhere in the home. it gives accurate electricity costs, carbon footprint readings.
Portable display means you can be anywhere in your home or office to recieve readings. Easy set up.
The cost will be £3.00 per week with a £10.00 deposit (deposit fully refunded on return of efergy in good working order).
At the moment it will be on hire for one week at a time, know when your’e using the most energy.
After 6 months we recommend that you hire the efergy again to see if you have reduced your energy use, your carbon and your costs.
Kind Regards
Amy
Filed under: Glastonbury
Hey AllI have been using Bio-diesel now for the last 3-4 months constantly I do have to every so often put straight diesel through, this is because it is now cold weather and I do not have a garage or overhang for my car to sit in on an evening so it gets too cold and does not want to start, It does after a little persuasion but doing this on a regular basis would ruin the engine make it run badly and then pollute more particulates than it did before.It is only because it is cold and the viscosity of the oil used will thicken slightly, never ever had a problem in the summer months.The van we use for deliveries and collections has now been converted to SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) the conversion was the two tank system because of make and model of the van this will be delivered back to us in the next few days.Of course we will not be putting any GM fuel through the system.These are my attempts at reducing the carbon I create.
Regards
Amy
I joined the Glastonbury CRAG group when it launched in Glastonbury’s Town Hall at the start of October. I’m aware it’s now November and I still haven’t calculated my carbon footprint.
What I have been doing is thinking about it all, realising how complex my life is and how hard it is to be aware of the consequences of all the stuff I’ve been up to… Travel for instance, though that’s relatively easy – I keep a diary anyway and have been converting last year’s entries into a ‘travel diary’ summarising all the journeys I’ve made. From that it should be an easy step to calculating their carbon emissions. But food…? Where to start!
What I realise is that our society makes it incredibly easy to be aware of the financial costs of things, but not at all of their environmental costs. If a flights costs £50 it feels cheap – I can stay happily blind to the fact it produces two tons of CO2 because that’s just not visible the way £50 is. If an apple costs 30p I buy it, not noticing it comes from South Africa rather than Somerset… I wish our system allowed for environmental consumptions to be felt ‘in the pocket’ as quickly and easily as we feel our money coming and going. I want to develop an ‘environmental literacy’, even an environmental fluency, so I just know, sort of naturally, what things cost in environmental terms – in as much detail as possible. That’s the main reason I joined the CRAG group, really.
On the carbon reduction side – a bit of good news. I said to my landlady, “how about getting green electricity?” She loves making raw food juices and I thought it was a shame to be making such good food with such crap fossil fuel electricity. I didn’t know what she’d say, I just asked her. And she just said “Yes!” immediately. As though she’d been waiting for someone to ask her. I said, it might cost 10% more… She said, “I don’t care – just tell me what to do…!”. So that’s a result, I just need to get hold of the right papers and get them signed. And today I heard EDF (her present supplier) are planning to build 4 new nuclear reactors in the UK… So let’s do it ASAP I’m thinking.
Lokabandhu
Filed under: Personal News
Hi,
This is Hopperz House loggin’ on for the first time, in the weeks and months that follow I aim to change from a strictly average citizen,as far as UK energy use is concerned, to an exemplar of what can be achieved in an ordinary house by way of energy saving and carbon emissions reduction,all this without spending a fortune. Some steps have already been taken, to be detailed later, meanwhile I am awaiting wall insulation installers, will let you know how we get on!
