Well a dreadful-pre school time. Even I cannot believe the difficulty getting people motivated to go.
Gill eventually left with our youngest but they met others returning from school as many of the teachers hadn't got in, so although the school isn't officially closed, they were saying to people to go home if they wanted.
So Gill and our now happy boy went to play in the garden for a bit.
I did our monthly Carbon Account stats... gas and electricity meters, and when my graph came up with the new data, I was pleased to see that my carbon footprint, just using the simple home energy and travel stuff that they use, is 0.43 tonnes over the past year. This doesn't take into account my public transport use, food or other things I buy, not that I buy very much..., but it is still low. It is less than a 10th of the UK average of 5 tonnes using this calculator.
So, snow is the big news today... it didn't stop me cycling down to Country Fresh to get vegetables... and a warning, the cold weather will mean that some veg will go up in price and become scarcer. For instance, the local cauliflowers and carrots are now impossible to harvest, and as Country Fresh normally buys in local veg, they will have to buy ones in from elsewhere, making them more expensive. Richard has had another composter taking some unsold veg/fruit,which is fine by me as my trailer has developed a puncture and is out of action. But neither the snow or lack of trailer stopped me getting compostables from Freshways, and I popped into the Co-op for cereals and soya milk too.
I even spent a short while splitting logs.
Gill made a stew for tea, which we had with granary rolls. Simple and delicious. We had Christmas pudding and ice cream afterwards. I then went out on my bike again to visit a freecycler a mile or more away to pick up and unwanted diabolo and a travel Scrabble. I don't find cycling in snow and ice at all difficult. Just a bit cold.
Later, when all was quiet, I did various admin jobs such as some York in Transition stuff, York Green Festival stuff and even some prep for paying my tax!
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3 comments:
John
It's been very cold as we all know. My wood supply is dwindling and I am turning to more and more gas. I could however burn coal. Is coal so much worse than gas, and if so why?
I thought you would find this interesting
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/04/woodburning-stoves-the-truth
Hi James, coal gives off more carbon dioxide for each unit of heat produced than gas does. Additionally, coal gives out lots of sulphur and some other pollutants, whereas gas is a relatively clean fuel, resulting in just CO2 (and NOx as in any combustion in air) as the only pollutant.
The woodstove article is complete poppycock, or rather the person who's written it is an idiot. He doesn't know how to work his stove, it's probably a crap model, and I bet he hasn't insulated his house first. Check out the comments, I concurr with the majority of them.
With our 12kw of woodstoves, we have a warm-enough-to-get-by- house in this cold weather. We haven't had to use the central heating at all, but I have been getting through a lot of logs... good job I stockpiled over the past couple of years! I've also been wearing a jumper in the house, another good way of using less space-heating, or coping with cooler tha normal temperatures.
If you are spending money on gas, you could think of getting a log delivery instead... and buy renewables rather than fossil?
John
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