Blimey, but it’s cold tonight January 24, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Green in the City , add a commentSo put another jumper on, turn off the central heating, and enjoy. After all, we may not have cold winters for much longer. If you’re very old, very young or unwell, this is NOT good advice, but for most of us, a few notches down on the thermostat would do no harm at all.
Living in a double glazed small flat in the middle of the block helps too as I benefit from my neighbours profiglate habits.
Why Own a Car? January 23, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Environment,Green in the City , add a commentMy post the other day about James Lovelock’s ‘Revenge of Gaia’ attracted a few comments, and I’m increasingly aware that those of us who do believe there is a problem have to find a way to motivate everyone else to recognise that we are facing a disaster and to make the serious personal changes which are essential if we are to have any hope of avoiding devastation.
It’s not enough to just give lists of ‘energy saving tips’, although those can be useful. The question is why should people bother, especially if they either don’t really believe it will happen, or do believe it but feel powerless to act. Individuals – you reading this, my neighbour, the bloke walking past the window on his way to the pub – need to have a strong reason to act. I’m going to try to explain why I do some of the ‘Green’ things I do, and hope that they may motivate others.
Here are some reasons why I don’t own a car:
- It’s too expensive. I once figured out that I could have a zone 1 London travelcard and spend up to £3000 a year on cabs, and still save money
- When I really want one, I can hire it from the bloke down the road. I’ve only once felt the need to hire a car in England, but if I wanted to, I could.
- Parking is horrendous around here
- I like drinking
- I hate having to find my way back to the car late at night, especially if I’ve left it in a multi-storey
- I like to read my paper in the train in the morning
- I use my evening commute to catch up on phone calls, work reading etc, and so can leave a bit earlier
- Walking is about the only exercise I get, and if I had a car, I’d be tempted to do less
- London buses are great fun for watching people and seeing the world go by
- I like knowing my neighbourhood. When I did have a car, I often lived in places that I’d scarcely know beyond my own front gate.
- They are incredibly dangerous. 3,221 people were killed in road accidents in 2004. That’s more than all the terrorist attacks in the UK, ever. The tube bombings last year were just an ordinary weekend on Britain’s roads. I really don’t want to be responsible for another number in that statistic.
- They pollute the atmosphere with some real nasties (go google Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons for a grim read)
- They require vast amounts of land to be paved over, leading to hydrological problems, localised warming, lack of open spaces
- They belch out greenhouse gases
For about 15 years, I owned cars and drove daily, but when I moved to London, I stopped all that, and I’ve never looked back. It was partly because I wanted to adopt a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, but it had so many other benefits I don’t think I’d go back to car ownership even if they ran on water.
And I love driving. While I was in Malta last weekend, I had a car for the day, and it was great fun pootling around, going down small country roads to see where they went, and backtracking when they led nowhere much. It was my Annual Driving Experience, and I loved it. But I really wouldn’t want to do it very often.
You don’t need to be worried about global warming to reconsider having and using cars.
Trees, January 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Camden,Trees , add a commentThere’s a little blog project I want to try, and this is the first episode. Whenever I’m working from home I try to take a walk in Regents Park in the time I would commute. Its only a few minutes from where I live, and a beautiful, peaceful space of an amazing size given its right in central London. The trees change with the seasons, and I’d like to catch that on the blog by watching two trees from the same spot over a year. These shots were taken last week.
On the way to the park, I walk past Harrington Square, and at this time of the year, can see the wonderful Art Deco Greater London House through the bare branches of the trees. This photo was actually taken in January 2005, but the view is much the same now.
Off to Malta January 17, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany,Travel , add a commentThis afternoon, I’m off to Malta for a few days. Its a mix of business and pleasure, a trip for a client extended into the weekend, so hopefully I’ll have a chance to see a few sights.
I’ll try to blog if I can get online, but will be back on Monday.
Climate change is real January 16, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Environment , add a comment
James Lovelock is about to release a new book, and has a column in the Indy today in which he argues that it really is all too late and that we are likely to see 8 degree temperature rises in this century, which would have a catastrophic effect and leave large parts of the planet barely habitable. A quick wander round the blogosphere shows a reaction ranging from copy/paste through indifference to scepticism.
Running down the street screaming ‘the end is nigh’ would get me locked up, but I sometimes feel frustrated enough to try because the indifference to the climate crisis is like a thick lake of treacle through which we are all wading. It is happening. The only matters for debate are when and how badly. Perhaps Lovelock is scare-mongering – but we need scaring to knock ourselves out of our complaceny. If you don’t believe me, look here or here. Be scared. Feel the fear. Do something about it.
I’ll look forward to reading the book, and seeing reviews of it by those more qualified to judge, but I don’t doubt that catastrophic change is on the way.
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , add a comment
This is a beautiful, rich book set in Barcelona in the early days of Franco’s rule. A young boy is given a book in unusual circumstances, and becomes bound up in the mystery surrounding its author and its publication. As he grows up, he becomes more and more entwined in events which are both intensely personal and also tied up with the traumatic times he is living through. It is a mystery, a political comment, a coming of age story rolled into one.
Barcelona itself is a major character, with the book firmly located in the centre of the city. The street names are familiar to any city-breaker who’s spent a few days there, but the atmosphere is dark and drear befitting the times. It is a reminder of how much pain Barcelona went through during the 20th century, which is hidden under the bright, modern city that it is now.
The style is reminiscent of Umberto Eco with the same rich characterisation and byzantine inter-relationships of the characters, though without the erudite literary references, unless it is just that my limited knowledge of Spanish literature failed to spot them.
This is the first of Zafon’s books to be translated into English, and I only hope the rest are soon, otherwise I may have to drastically improve my holiday Spanish.
If you’d like to buy this through Amazon, click on the picture above and earn me a penny or two.
Bloggers are our protection against over-zealous corporations
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Internet , add a commentThe minutiae of my life are online. There’s nothing very interesting, and I’m an ordinary person known only to friends, neighbours and colleagues. It’s very unlikely there is some detail about me which would be of the slightest interest to tabloids, police or even, I hope, the Inland Revenue. However, if the threads could be tied together, a very complete picture of my personal and business life could be assembled from data willingly given and, I think, gathered with no more nefarious intent than selling me something else.
To some extent, I don’t mind that, although I’ve almost never bought anything based on a ‘targetted marketing’ effort. I can see that part of the reason these corporations are able to deliver their marvellous products comes from knowing more about their clients and, so long as I agree to it, they keep it safe and its not a condition of my using the product, I’m normally quite happy to play the game.
There is a danger though, and it comes from the arrogance of corporations who believe that they somehow have a right to information about what I buy or, as in the case of Apple’s new version of iTunes, what I listen to. In this case, it does sound pretty innocent, but as someone far more eloquent than I once said ‘the price of freedom is eternal vigilence’, and it seems that today most of that vigilence is coming from bloggers. These ordinary citizens, who are often very technically savvy, broke the far more serious Sony DRM scandal, and are a vital element of the creative tension which keeps the corporations honest but able to keep doing what they do well.
Women and Men use the internet in much the same way as they do anything else. Ho hum. January 15, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Internet , add a commentAnother piece of research about the differences between male and female use of the internet. Despite trying quite hard to establish that there is a difference in internet usage, without reference to general, non-internet activities, it is difficult to be sure that the results are meaningful.
For instance ‘More men than women use the internet for some less predictable and even more risky transactions, such as doing auctions or trading stocks’ – but perhaps more men than women perform these kind of transactions anyway, on or off the net. Women tend to use the internet to ‘nuture’ relationships, men tend to know the technical terms. Men are more confident in their use of search engines (though confidence doesn’t necessarily mean competance). If the internet was replaced with just about any communications medium, the results would probably be similar.
Ho hum.
Warming Camden Council’s Homes January 12, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Camden , add a commentCamden council provides communal heating for about half the houses for which the council holds the freehold, lived in by council tenants and leaseholders who own their own properties. In many of the estates they run a communal heating system where the council buys the gas on the wholesale market at a fixed price for a fixed term, and so are able to supply the gas more cheaply than ordinary domestic customers would normally be able to buy it. The council then provides heating to these homes at cost. So far so good, as this means that people are able to have cheaper heating but as long as the council keeps its heating budget in balance there is no subsidy.
In the last year, gas prices have risen dramatically and are expected to continue to do so. The contract which was renegotiated this year means that the council needs to increase gas charges by about 58% to keep the heating budget balanced. This will be very difficult for the tenants concerned, and is politically difficult for the council.
The problem is compounded by a tragedy of the commons, where people with communal heating who are not metred for their own use tend to use significantly more gas than average private users. Overall, the cost of the communal heating is now about the same as it would be if the council paid the normal domestic tariff, because people with communal heating use so much more gas. This isn’t entirely their fault as some flats have very little control over the heating, and in many buildings it is available 52 weeks of the year.
Now, the council is proposing to raise the heating costs by less than 58%, but is considering using the general rental funds to subsidise the heating budget and keep it in balance. That means, as I understand it, that council tenants with private heating will end up subsidising those with communal heating, and that seems very unfair indeed.
Camden council must urgently take measures to reduce the amount of gas used, by ensuring that heating is not available in the warmest months, investing as much as it can in good insulation practices and heating controls. They are trying, with double glazing being installed in many places and the WarmthForAll education programme, but seem hampered by the way funding is allocated and the time needed to carry out major capital projects across a very large estate.
Residents of the communally heated blocks, tenants and leaseholders, have a huge responsibility here too, to cut down on their own use of gas as much as they can and as they would if they were paying for it directly. To do any less is extremely unfair on those who are being hit twice – once by subsiding this gas and again when their own private bills go up.
Publicity for this blog
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a commentRight now, I’m at the top of the new blogs listing for London Bloggers. I thought I’d try blogging for a few weeks, to see if I manage to stick to it and build up a bit of content, before I tried to publicise Camden Lady, but if you’re reading this now, welcome!
