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At the Sheldonian theatre in Oxford last Thursday 21st June 2007 former US President Jimmy Carter spoke movingly and candidly about his new book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid and his 30- year involvement with the issue from the inside. He was particularly good in response to questions from the audience. The lecture is introduced by […]
The problem with the G-Wiz seemed to me to be that you couldn’t carry much. Same with the Electrica with a promised range of 70 miles, using Lithium batteries (but at £12K) We use the scooter for personal journeys, but need something for local shopping and taking stuff to the dump. So I really like […]
Today I went down to a very significant development in our village, Chinnor near Oxford. A new company called Eco-St has opened what seems like a really exciting space to display and sell a very wide range of eco-products, from energy saving to water harvesting. I met Dianne Brackley, who is the buyer responsible for […]
At OneWorld we were early adopters of Second Life – not for the worlds we could build, but for education on climate change and to provide a virtual meeting place that would avoid the carbon costs of travel. To provide all the necessary facilities we built OneClimate Island. For it’s time it was a considerable […]
The Open Knowledge Network was an ambitious project launched by OneWorld in 2002. It was before mobile phones were widely available and offered what was in effect a social network between villages in India and Africa. it had some startling successes in communicating life-saving information – for example to fishermen at sea, or, in one […]
Disappointingly our local organic fruit and veg company in Thame has closed down. Apparently there just wasn’t enough demand for their box delivery service. Such a pity – I’m sure demand will increase as the food miles message reaches these parts. So it’s back to the vegetable patch with some great help from the family. […]
October marked the end of the first year with the heat pump and the other energy saving measures we have put in place. The results are very interesting and to some extent surprising. We can look at them in a number of different ways. Our baseline was 2004 when our heating oil cost £2,431 and […]
A fun evening at the LSE. It was an open meeting to hear Sir Nicholas present his report and answer questions. But it proved so popular that half an hour before hundreds of people were turned away. Luckily I was offered a press place and was able to film the whole event. We can watch […]
A full year after we first enquired about getting a wind turbine for Hedgerley Wood from Windsave the man finally arrived to survey the site. His first conclusion was that there was no way we would get enough wind speed, given how the house is surrounded by trees. He said that the predominent wind direction […]
I’ve been recommended an alternative company for offsets – Climate Care. It certainly works very cleanly and efficiently and apppears to have an excellent rosta of projects that the money goes to. The only oddity I still find is the ludicrously low price of carbon. I was forced to take a flight to Amsterdam last […]
Now after ten months of operation and a lot of adjustments, we are getting a clearer idea of the running costs in terms of increased electricity. The base case, before the heat pump started running on October 12th 2005, was that the house was using an average of 20 units (kWhs) of high cost plus […]
Before next winter we want to try and improve the performance, and cost, of the ground heat pump system. So one clear step was to put in more insulation. Because of the strange way the house was built in the 30s, this means taking off the clapboard and fitting insultation between the timbers. We’ll see […]
David Heath, OneWorld CMS expert, has just sent me a delightful and very useful online widget he’s developed. It’s for the democracy site, TheyWorkForYou, and it lets you see which MPs have used which words or phrases in the last five years – and how many times. Brilliant.
Has anyone thought of putting medium size wind turbines on electricity pylons? Obvious advantages: – the most expensive bit is already there – objections to the tower being there can’t be raised – the wiring could presumably be easily be modified to move the electricity. Disadvantage: – could only carry medium sized turbines because of […]
I was discussing with Franny whether it was practical to think of building a wind turbine at the top of the wood in Hedgerley. The problem is that is would have to be really high to clear the trees – or we would have to clear a lot of trees, which we don’t want to […]