So I was off at the start of January after my Op. One observation is how the phrase “Carbon Footprint” has exploded in media during the last week and a half or so. Especially after Marks and Spencer announced a business-wide £200m “eco-plan”. Now in the last week both David Cameron and Gordon Brown are attempting to become more Eco Friendly .
It also looks like that in the not to distant future our Homes will be graded by how much Carbon they consume vs how much you save. So I have been doing some digging and found a number of things that you might be interested.
Ages ago Shawn pointed me to this site http://www.centameter.co.nz/ This is a magic device that you attach to the cable just before your electricity meter and it will tell you how much you are using. It’s actually quite, mine arrive a few weeks back and it is very scary. My house “idles” at around 0.55kw. If your interested, order one, if anything it will give you an idea on how much electricity you use, and how much appliances in your house consume. You should see what it does when I turn my xbox 360 on!
So to calculate your Carbon Footprint, check this site out: http://www.carbonfootprint.com/
In the Metro newspaper a while back they had an article on the possibility of everyone having a “Carbon Quota” and you having the ability to sell part of your quota or buy more to “top it up”. This site has some interesting ideas: http://www.rsacarbonlimited.org
Something else that is interesting is that Marks & Spencer said was: “We will clearly label the food we import by air; UK, regional and local food sourcing will be a priority and we will trial the use of food waste to power our stores. We will do this without passing on the extra cost to our customers.” Now this could have some very interesting effects on society.
Why, well if people have a Carbon Quota, you might be more inclined to “buy local” instead. This would change the whole world. No longer would you want something from China as the “Carbon Cost” for that item to come to the UK would be too large, so you would look to source the item locally like in Europe or the UK. Hey maybe they would change import duties to take into account the “Carbon Cost”? That would really make things interesting.
So the other thing which I have mentioned before is making your electricity. I should be free or at least cheap for every house to do. Just think, if every house had solar panels and wind turbines,we wouldn’t need power stations. Imagine being able to sell electricity you generate.
But we know that solar panels are currently too expensive and not very good at converting solar energy into electricity and wind turbines are ideal but still a bit expensive and you need to check will your local council to see if you are allowed to have one or need planning permission for one.
I love both ideas. At some time in the future I will need to re-tile my roof and I would seriously consider solar panels (but Currys have still not come back to me and it’s been 6 months so far!). As for a wind turbine, I still fancy the WindSave one. I need to re-roof my garage and I think once that is done I will apply for planning permission for one. You can even get them in B&Q these days too (Windturbine and Solar Panels).
RANT OFF now, but hey if you use Windows Live Messenger check out The I’m Initiative and new secret emoticon as you can support http://www.stopglobalwarming.org
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