Paul Crossley

So how are we doing in our household on our carbon footprint.

Cars

- mine current mileage July 1 2008 46290 Jan 1 2008 45255 (previous totals 1330 : 1664 : 1579)

- my wife's car - July 1 2008 50366 Jan 1 2008 45786 (previous totals 7435 : 4877 : 5133)

car travel = 5615 miles = emissions from this at a small car rate are: 1.41 Tonnes of CO2 The cost to offset this CO2 will be £ 12.42

Flights = work - NONE : holiday - Maggie - flight to Egypt holiday in January. Paul and Maggie to Amsterdam in May = 1.05 tonnes CO2 at £9.31

House

electricity meter 81511.7  jan 1 to 83216.9 Jul 1 = 0.55 tonnes of CO2 = £4.83 BUT at the beginning of this year we swapped to GoodEnergy who are one of the UK suppliers who guarantee generating 100% renewable - so no charge.

gas meter 04315,83.2 to 05398,68.4 - 1082 KWh = .23 Tonne + £2.00

Therefore my carbon offset cost of house, travel for me and my wife for the first 6 months of 2008 are £23.73 Payment made to Climatecare. Certificate certificate_Jul08.pdf

Again I do not count travel for offeset when I have used public transport such as  train, taxi and bus or lift shared in another car.

For the next six months I will include lift share journeys made in private cars and also I will suggest to Climate Care that they need to include household water in the total.

Whilst we here in the UK hold our election in peace and conduct our disagreements through debate and democracy the poor citizens of Zimbabwe are going through hell. It is interesting to see the video clips on the sokwanele link to the left or click here and see the peoples boycott of this sham poll.

At least the world seems to be finally waking up to the brutality of this regime and speaking out. This election result should not be recognised by the international community. Lets us pray that the thugs do not now go on the rampage against the non-voters.

Morgan, the MDC and the people have displayed dignity and real courage in the face of intimidation. In many ways it puts us to hame with our low turnouts. In Zimbabwe the grafitti V is vacation from voting not for vitory.

Well done to Stephen Kearney and all the helpers. If the key issue for people is the green belt it is strange that the people of Henley have elected a dedicated green belt developer. Still that's life. Our vote went up 2% despite the pressure from the Conservatives.

More detail on this result and speach from Stephen - click here 

Thursday 26

The Royal High School in Bath put on an excellent Climate Change Conference today with over a 100 young people attending from 6 schools. There were a range of presentations in the morning from an activist, a charity, an employer, an eco-entrpreneur and me as the local politician. My contribution was on the impact of our lifestyles through the waste we generate and I contrasted two solutions - the unsustainable, hugely costly and deeply unsound incineration route being pushed hard by the Government with the philosophy/policy of Zero Waste which we, in Bath, were the first local authority in the UK to adopt and pursue. However the star of the morning was a young South African poet from London called Bruce whose poetry was amazing.

The afternoon started with a group song led by a local community choir leader, Chris Samuels. We sang a tribute to Wangari Maathai who is a leading lady in the African Green Belt movement, and then had a series of workshops. I led two on reducing Carbon Footprint of schools, homes and individuals. I was impressed by the knowledge and ideas they generated and their commitment to take them back to their schools and homes.

Yesterday I heard that a national newspaper survey showed that a majority of the population are still not convinced about climate change and global warming!

I wonder what will convince the sceptics. We have less than 10 years to halt and reverse the CO2 damage to our planet. One thing is for sure Mother Earth will heal over time and adapt and survive but the more damage we inflict, the harder the recovery will be. The question is will the human race be there if the climate gets hotter and hotter? We already have all the solutions we need to solve the problem. Lets get on with it.

Wednesday 25

I attended my first meeting of the Youth Libraries Board today. An appointment I got through my LGA responsibilities. It was a very good and constructive meeting of professionals with me being the only elected representative on it. The main item of business was the future work, meetings structure and plans. I managed to get the committe to agree that as we were a Youth Libraries board it would be a good idea to have a young person on it (perhaps someone from the Youth Parliament) and that we should invite the IDEA to see if we could get a member from one of the growing band of young councillors being elected around the country. Lets see what happens.