I was lucky to get a lie-in til about 10, Gill woke me up saying my 11.30 appointment with Colin, to discuss AVP employment issues, had rung to cancel. He'd been snowed in.
So I didn't need to do anything today, apart from housework, keeping the house warm, and preparing for this evening's talk. Both boys were at home, Gill set them some work which they did quietly.
Gill made a 'cobbler' for tea, basically a hot-pot veg stew with potato, sweet potato, parsnip, tomato, peas and onions, with blobs of scone mix on the top and then baked in the oven. Really delicious.
At about 6.30 I set out for the Physics building at the University of York. I was due to do the talk titled: "Compost John : Britain's Most Sustainable Man. How does he do it?" in room P/L/005, but yesterday, a group of students, following the huge anti-cuts demo in town, decided to hold an occupation in the Physics building, to protest at the proposed increases in fees. So I was contacted by the organiser and asked if I'd do my talk to 'The Great York Sit-In' participants.
So that's what I did: as a guest of the newly-formed University Green Party, I did a talk mainly about carbon footprinting, and how I organise my life to have one considerably smaller than average. First I dispelled the myth that I'm 'Britain's Most Sustainable Man', and explained that this may have come from the Oxfam Carbon Footprint Competition in 2008. So, this led to info about ActOnCO2 and my favourite Carbon Calculator, The Carbon Account, and what makes up someone's footprint. I went through what I do to keep my footprint small, and with a goodly number of tangents, arrived at the other aspects of 'being sustainable' which in my opinion are Fair Trade and Organic consumption, and teaching others about your ethical choices. I also admitted the un-green things I'm responsible for, including my children, and my extensive use of the railways, which isn't recordable in The Carbon Account.
There were some really good questions afterwards, as one would expect from a bunch of intelligent and motivated young people. I feel very lucky to have these connections. I had a cuppa and more chats, and then cycled home, picking up a trailer full of sticks and branches on the way home. The snow wasn't too difficult to get through.
Played lots of Scrabble on facebook, read, watched telly and wrote blog til 3am.
Showing posts with label Carbon Calculator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carbon Calculator. Show all posts
Spent the morning getting myself together for going to Manchester.
Got a train after lunch and got a seat, and deleted exactly 100 emails from my inbox.
When I got to Manchester I got a £1.50 streetmap, and then walked along to Canal St to Eazysleep where I'd booked a room, and had an hour's lie down before walking with my unicycle and little rucksack, and extendable telescopic fishing rod with a pink WNBR flag, and got to the park on Oxford Road just as other World Naked Bike Riders were gathering. I had a bite of tea which I'd brought with me, and practised unicycling in a mask which Tony had lent or given me. I decided I couldn't wear the mask as it kept on slipping and making my vision really difficult, and it would make it more likely that I'd fall off. I sorted the flag on the pole and held it on with a safety pin through the eyelet at the end. I decided not to have the pole fully extended as it was too huge. Janie from the Spencer Tunick photo installations showed up to do the ride and it was good to see her again.
Just before we set off I gave out leaflets for the Sheffield and York rides on the 19th, and by this time, there were well over 100 colourful and scantily clad participants. We had quite a lot of police escorts and the Friday evening Manchester public were very appreciative, apart from one Asian family of 4 who all stood with their backs to us as we cycled past. I was careful to lower my flagpole for when we went under the tram power lines, but at all other times I waved it gently to and fro. I got EXTREMELY hot and sweaty as unicycling is very hard work... everybody else was cold!
We ended up back in the same park after an hour; I estimate we cycled about 6 miles. I was exhausted. I met a chap, Ian, who had participated in the Spencer Tunick installation but had been out of the country and hadn't got his invitation to the preview, and as I wasn't able to go, i offered him my ticket.... except I couldn't find it, but I found out later that he went to the Lowry and said that I had an invite and that I couldn't go; they checked my name and let him in instead. Whilst we were walking together, he told me about his carbon calculator which I'll try out in the next couple of days.
I met up with a friend and after that had a relatively early night.
Got a train after lunch and got a seat, and deleted exactly 100 emails from my inbox.
When I got to Manchester I got a £1.50 streetmap, and then walked along to Canal St to Eazysleep where I'd booked a room, and had an hour's lie down before walking with my unicycle and little rucksack, and extendable telescopic fishing rod with a pink WNBR flag, and got to the park on Oxford Road just as other World Naked Bike Riders were gathering. I had a bite of tea which I'd brought with me, and practised unicycling in a mask which Tony had lent or given me. I decided I couldn't wear the mask as it kept on slipping and making my vision really difficult, and it would make it more likely that I'd fall off. I sorted the flag on the pole and held it on with a safety pin through the eyelet at the end. I decided not to have the pole fully extended as it was too huge. Janie from the Spencer Tunick photo installations showed up to do the ride and it was good to see her again.
Just before we set off I gave out leaflets for the Sheffield and York rides on the 19th, and by this time, there were well over 100 colourful and scantily clad participants. We had quite a lot of police escorts and the Friday evening Manchester public were very appreciative, apart from one Asian family of 4 who all stood with their backs to us as we cycled past. I was careful to lower my flagpole for when we went under the tram power lines, but at all other times I waved it gently to and fro. I got EXTREMELY hot and sweaty as unicycling is very hard work... everybody else was cold!
We ended up back in the same park after an hour; I estimate we cycled about 6 miles. I was exhausted. I met a chap, Ian, who had participated in the Spencer Tunick installation but had been out of the country and hadn't got his invitation to the preview, and as I wasn't able to go, i offered him my ticket.... except I couldn't find it, but I found out later that he went to the Lowry and said that I had an invite and that I couldn't go; they checked my name and let him in instead. Whilst we were walking together, he told me about his carbon calculator which I'll try out in the next couple of days.
I met up with a friend and after that had a relatively early night.
A very busy day in the loft. Moved all my bottles. Decanted another 3 demijohns into bottles, including an amazing blackberry and elderberry 1994 (!), a grape and apple 1999 and an unknown red from an unknown date which also tasted great. So who's inviting me to a Christmas party this year?
I sorted out a big pile of paperwork into keep, recyclable, compostable and 'used on one side only so reusable'...
I collected a cheque owed to me from St Nicks for Apple Day and saw Helen, and agreed to meet with her at 6pm and have a bit of a social. She came back here and had my home-made soup and a roll which was made by our son at school. Good chats.
In the evening I worked out my ActOnCO2 carbon footprint, updated to give our exact electricity usage (1674kwh/year, renewable tariff) and gas use (132 cubic metres/year) which gave a household footprint of 1.04 tonnes/year, or an individual footprint of 0.27 tonnes/year. Obviously this isn't the total as it doesn't take into account my public transport use, food and goods purchases, and the things that national and local Government does on my behalf.
I also took advantage of a fallen and logged tree to stock up on my woodpile...
I sorted out a big pile of paperwork into keep, recyclable, compostable and 'used on one side only so reusable'...
I collected a cheque owed to me from St Nicks for Apple Day and saw Helen, and agreed to meet with her at 6pm and have a bit of a social. She came back here and had my home-made soup and a roll which was made by our son at school. Good chats.
In the evening I worked out my ActOnCO2 carbon footprint, updated to give our exact electricity usage (1674kwh/year, renewable tariff) and gas use (132 cubic metres/year) which gave a household footprint of 1.04 tonnes/year, or an individual footprint of 0.27 tonnes/year. Obviously this isn't the total as it doesn't take into account my public transport use, food and goods purchases, and the things that national and local Government does on my behalf.
I also took advantage of a fallen and logged tree to stock up on my woodpile...
A good day but where did it go? Still feel as if we're recovering from the holidays, and the morning went by very quickly... after taking our youngest into school, and picking up some branches on the way home and prepared them into kindling, bought bread and brain flakes and bingo, it was lunchtime! After lunch we had a visitor, and bingo it was time for me to go to school and pick him up again!
Did a little bit more in the garden and popped down to Freshways... Gill made a nutloaf with some extra spaghetti from yesterday.
So, not much to report today, but survived it... just. Probably the highlight was a heated discussion on one of the email lists I'm on, or possibly the new series of 'It's Not Easy Being Green' on BBC2, with the irrepressible Dick Strawbridge and just a quick flash of his lovely wife Brigit. I might try the carbon calculator they used, or rather the very wasteful flash cricketer whose name I cannot remember...
Having done that calculator, I'm not that impressed, as it wasn't as detailed as some I've used, but it's a start. I was rated as 1.61 planets/year, which is more than most of the more detailed calculators which take more lifestyle choices into account. A reasonable introduction to carbon calculators for novices though!
Did a little bit more in the garden and popped down to Freshways... Gill made a nutloaf with some extra spaghetti from yesterday.
So, not much to report today, but survived it... just. Probably the highlight was a heated discussion on one of the email lists I'm on, or possibly the new series of 'It's Not Easy Being Green' on BBC2, with the irrepressible Dick Strawbridge and just a quick flash of his lovely wife Brigit. I might try the carbon calculator they used, or rather the very wasteful flash cricketer whose name I cannot remember...
Having done that calculator, I'm not that impressed, as it wasn't as detailed as some I've used, but it's a start. I was rated as 1.61 planets/year, which is more than most of the more detailed calculators which take more lifestyle choices into account. A reasonable introduction to carbon calculators for novices though!
Spent most of the morning retyping in my paid blog but also got a call from a TV company wanting to do a programme on green people, and a Professor Fiddlesticks enquiry.
I got the blog done by lunchtime and spent most of the post-lunch hour or so doing washing up, recycling duties etc, then went to school to pick up the boyos who were in a good mood.
I did some composting down the bottom of the garden whilst it was still light, I dug out a builders bag of mature and ready-to-riddle material, into another builders bag, perhaps two thirds of a tonne of compost. I can't wait to put it through my motor-riddle! Just as I was coming to the end of this, Gill called me to the house as I had an intersting phone call.
It was from Oxfam who have been running an e-competition to find some people with very small carbon footprints, three of whom will be invited down to London to talk to people in Government about climate change and policies which could help reduce our national Carbon emissions. I had done the Carbon Calculator http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk/index.html and they were ringing to say I had one of the smallest footprints and I might be picked to go to London. The researcher went through the calculator with me, asking me my answers and came up with an annual figure for me alone of 0.45 tonnes. This was slightly smaller than the first figure I got, as I had included the boys' computer and printer/scanner in with my calculations, whereas with the Oxfam person, we ignored these items. I'll be contacted when the 'lucky people' have been chosen. What a suprise! What a buzz!
Very soon after this I got a phone call from an Irish radio station researcher who had seen the Observer article and they'd never heard of CRAGs and were very interested, and wanted to do a live radio interview about CRAGs and my way of being green. I'll be getting another call tomorrow afternoon, and a call on Thursday morning for an interview..... very exciting! Again!
Tea was rice and veg cooked on the woodstove.
I got the blog done by lunchtime and spent most of the post-lunch hour or so doing washing up, recycling duties etc, then went to school to pick up the boyos who were in a good mood.
I did some composting down the bottom of the garden whilst it was still light, I dug out a builders bag of mature and ready-to-riddle material, into another builders bag, perhaps two thirds of a tonne of compost. I can't wait to put it through my motor-riddle! Just as I was coming to the end of this, Gill called me to the house as I had an intersting phone call.
It was from Oxfam who have been running an e-competition to find some people with very small carbon footprints, three of whom will be invited down to London to talk to people in Government about climate change and policies which could help reduce our national Carbon emissions. I had done the Carbon Calculator http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk/index.html and they were ringing to say I had one of the smallest footprints and I might be picked to go to London. The researcher went through the calculator with me, asking me my answers and came up with an annual figure for me alone of 0.45 tonnes. This was slightly smaller than the first figure I got, as I had included the boys' computer and printer/scanner in with my calculations, whereas with the Oxfam person, we ignored these items. I'll be contacted when the 'lucky people' have been chosen. What a suprise! What a buzz!
Very soon after this I got a phone call from an Irish radio station researcher who had seen the Observer article and they'd never heard of CRAGs and were very interested, and wanted to do a live radio interview about CRAGs and my way of being green. I'll be getting another call tomorrow afternoon, and a call on Thursday morning for an interview..... very exciting! Again!
Tea was rice and veg cooked on the woodstove.
Yes, one year on and I've a reasonably detailed record of my daily activities.... just emitting approximately 0.46 tonnes of 'fossil' carbon in the process, according to 'ActOnCO2' the Government's carbon calculator, and the other three I've plugged my info into also suggest a household footprint of between 1.2 tonnes and 1.8 tonnes, of which I have a share... possibly a quarter share or, if we ignore the kids and pretend their emissions are due to us adults, a half of this. I think, though, because I travel more due to my work and interests, that I should claim more than half as 'my' footprint, so mine is a tonne and Gill's just half a tonne. This figure is for heating, power and travel only. It does not take into consideration the footprint of the food we eat or other things we buy or consume (for instance, my new bike took quite a bit of energy and resources to construct and weld and transport to York), nor does it consider the 'negative footprint' of the work that I do to keep stuff out of landfill directly or by educating others..... but all that's much more complicated and would take more recording, measuring and estimating/guestimating.
So today started much like many others, got up soon after 8, saw the kids off to school, got a phone call from Beth my gardening friend saying it was too cold and frosty to do the gardening she wants to do, and as I was going to meet her to give some composting advice, she rang to say, don't come. So I put the laptop on to check messages and wish myself a happy anniversary!
Went to the parenting course and it was a good session today, as we had a talk from and with Tim Waudby who I worked with on York Green Festy last year, although in the end he didn't partcipate for various reasons. However, he did help with publicity. So he told us about various children's activities, then after lunch we made a collage of our 'Utopian vision' of our ideal society. Gill and I created 'Ecotopia' and put on lots of images of health, low consumption patterns, helping each other, charitable causes, wildlife and other lovely things!
I went to Richard's fruit emporium as usual and bought local carrots, broccoli and non-local satsumas, plus two sacks of waste veg/fruit/cardboard for composting.
I got the children plus a friend from school, and we all came home quickly as they were all keen on going up to Archbishop Holgate School for their self defence class. I left them there as Maria was bringing them back. I brought back some sticks to decorate the front garden(!) and did a bit of logpile building, as with this intense cold we're going through the logs quickly.
At 5pm, we had a visit from a joiner who we want to give us a quote for making some cupboard doors for under the stairs, as the current system there is difficult to use, they are supposed to clip off and on, but they don't do this easily.
A nap after tea for an hour then came down and watched some TV and did some computery stuff. Created a Facebook page for Professor Fiddlesticks and eventually worked out how to upload photos.
So today started much like many others, got up soon after 8, saw the kids off to school, got a phone call from Beth my gardening friend saying it was too cold and frosty to do the gardening she wants to do, and as I was going to meet her to give some composting advice, she rang to say, don't come. So I put the laptop on to check messages and wish myself a happy anniversary!
Went to the parenting course and it was a good session today, as we had a talk from and with Tim Waudby who I worked with on York Green Festy last year, although in the end he didn't partcipate for various reasons. However, he did help with publicity. So he told us about various children's activities, then after lunch we made a collage of our 'Utopian vision' of our ideal society. Gill and I created 'Ecotopia' and put on lots of images of health, low consumption patterns, helping each other, charitable causes, wildlife and other lovely things!
I went to Richard's fruit emporium as usual and bought local carrots, broccoli and non-local satsumas, plus two sacks of waste veg/fruit/cardboard for composting.
I got the children plus a friend from school, and we all came home quickly as they were all keen on going up to Archbishop Holgate School for their self defence class. I left them there as Maria was bringing them back. I brought back some sticks to decorate the front garden(!) and did a bit of logpile building, as with this intense cold we're going through the logs quickly.
At 5pm, we had a visit from a joiner who we want to give us a quote for making some cupboard doors for under the stairs, as the current system there is difficult to use, they are supposed to clip off and on, but they don't do this easily.
A nap after tea for an hour then came down and watched some TV and did some computery stuff. Created a Facebook page for Professor Fiddlesticks and eventually worked out how to upload photos.
Woke at 4.30 am and couldn't go back to sleep, as birds noisy outside and my lovely wife snoring, so I got up and got dressed and went into the garden and did some composting for an hour, then came in for breakfast. Whilst watching the early morning news and reading an interesting magazine called sustainedmagazine.com I found myself drifting off so I went back upstairs as Gill was getting up, and I got another couple of hours sleep.
But was awoken by my 9 year old yelling at the top of his voice at Mum that she was an auful mum, so I came down to see if I could help and support and defuse...
He'd been hitting his younger brother, Gill had told him to stop, and he'd continued, so Gill said 'oh I give up' to which he erupted with his hurtful comment. His anger was so intense that I sent him to his room and said he wasn't going to school with mum, so Gill cycled to school with the younger one only. When the shouting had stopped I went to talk to him, to give him a hug and some reassurance, and to see if I could find out what had happened to set him off. Gill came in and took him into our bed, as he'd apparently also been awake very early, and she cuddled him to sleep, he slept for a couple of hours, and had lunch at home and was taken into school at lunchtime. What a todo! What do we do? We need help coping. Help! We have asked for help and are going to be rung up next week by child mental health services.
At about 11am, the producer of ITV's 'Wood you believe it?' (I think it's spelt like this, as presented by Duncan Wood) called Charlie came round to suss out the scene here, as they are filming next week. They are interested in the composting, cycling and woodburning as part of our low-impact lifestyle. The programme will go out in Aug/Sept on ITV1 Yorkshire at 11pm.
She stayed til after 1pm, and then I went on the computer to try to keep on with the risk assessment for York Green Festival, but 3pm came around so soon and I cycled to school to pick up my sons.
When I got back, I went straight into town to do my Friday compostables pick up from Out Of Date World, came back with a trailer full of delights, ate some of them and went immediately into town again to take part in the monthly Critical Mass Cycle Ride, which this month had 17 riders, joined later by another two, was a good ride, with only one appallingly behaved car-driver, in a red car, very aggressive and should have been reported for dangerous driving. We gave him as good as he gave us....
Back by 7pm, boys heading for bed within the hour and I spent the hour clearing up the piles of crap and wet cardboard into a new heap.
Washing up and blogging in the evening, will try to finish risk assessment over weekend... when I don't know, but will try! I went on the Live Earth website and registered my support and pledge, and took a few minutes to do the online carbon calculator, which gave me a 'one tonne' score... quite low. My 'points' score was 126, very low. Not sure what this meant, but it tallies with a couple of other calculators I've done.
But was awoken by my 9 year old yelling at the top of his voice at Mum that she was an auful mum, so I came down to see if I could help and support and defuse...
He'd been hitting his younger brother, Gill had told him to stop, and he'd continued, so Gill said 'oh I give up' to which he erupted with his hurtful comment. His anger was so intense that I sent him to his room and said he wasn't going to school with mum, so Gill cycled to school with the younger one only. When the shouting had stopped I went to talk to him, to give him a hug and some reassurance, and to see if I could find out what had happened to set him off. Gill came in and took him into our bed, as he'd apparently also been awake very early, and she cuddled him to sleep, he slept for a couple of hours, and had lunch at home and was taken into school at lunchtime. What a todo! What do we do? We need help coping. Help! We have asked for help and are going to be rung up next week by child mental health services.
At about 11am, the producer of ITV's 'Wood you believe it?' (I think it's spelt like this, as presented by Duncan Wood) called Charlie came round to suss out the scene here, as they are filming next week. They are interested in the composting, cycling and woodburning as part of our low-impact lifestyle. The programme will go out in Aug/Sept on ITV1 Yorkshire at 11pm.
She stayed til after 1pm, and then I went on the computer to try to keep on with the risk assessment for York Green Festival, but 3pm came around so soon and I cycled to school to pick up my sons.
When I got back, I went straight into town to do my Friday compostables pick up from Out Of Date World, came back with a trailer full of delights, ate some of them and went immediately into town again to take part in the monthly Critical Mass Cycle Ride, which this month had 17 riders, joined later by another two, was a good ride, with only one appallingly behaved car-driver, in a red car, very aggressive and should have been reported for dangerous driving. We gave him as good as he gave us....
Back by 7pm, boys heading for bed within the hour and I spent the hour clearing up the piles of crap and wet cardboard into a new heap.
Washing up and blogging in the evening, will try to finish risk assessment over weekend... when I don't know, but will try! I went on the Live Earth website and registered my support and pledge, and took a few minutes to do the online carbon calculator, which gave me a 'one tonne' score... quite low. My 'points' score was 126, very low. Not sure what this meant, but it tallies with a couple of other calculators I've done.
