I’ve just come back from an annual family gathering. My grandfather was one of five brothers, so there are a lot of relatives: fifty of us turn up at the local tennis club and there’s lots of energy in the room. Buffet style food, kids running round, faces new and old, and co-operative good will over clearing up. Lots of chit chat about
If you have a second, take a look at these great pictures in today’s Guardian from satellites of our changing earth… They’re from a new book called Fragile Earth. Scary they may be, but strangely beautiful too.
Did anyone notice that spot of good news last week? We’re so used to environmental news being relentlessly bad, but last week the UK government has calculated that British greenhouse emissions are down by 0.5%.
OK, so you’ve turned down the thermostat two or three degrees to cut your carbon footprint, but it’s January and much as you’d like to think you’re the new Ernest Shackleton, you have to admit it, it’s bloody nippy. Here are Nigel’s Five Top Tips for staying warm in 2008.
Last week the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called again for a “green revolution” and suggested that the UK could be aiming for an 80% cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Hurrah. That sounds promising.
Or does it?
I’ve been getting really excited about our new energy saving light bulbs.
Long gone are the days of one type of ugly low energy light bulb that sticks out the top of your lamp. These days you can buy a variety of energy saving equivalents in a huge range of shapes and sizes. Best of all…
Eco-Worrier puts me in mind of Thurber’s grandmother who “lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house,” and went round placing electric plugs in empty sockets…
Thanks to Treehugger for pointing me towards this recent article in Wired about a new eco friendly design for an apartment block in Chicago’s Hyde Park, designed by Studio Gang’s Joanna Gang…
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Saw this in yesterday’s Independent:
Even in the design-obsessed 21st century, when our iPod Nanos come in all the colours of the rainbow and flat-panel TVs are hung on walls and admired like works of art, wooden computer are still capable of turning heads. But this one aims to do more than make a fashion statement – its goal is to save the planet.
Great headline, eh? I wish I’d thought of it. It’s actually the title of a new report by the Energy Savings Trust on the proliferation of new home entertainment devices and the way they eat electricity…
