Green Builders

I’ve been looking for a company to build me an energy efficient house which will keep my carbon footprint as low as possible without me going off-grid. Queensland Home Builders are a Sunshine Coast project builder who have come up with the goods. They operate from the Gold Coast, through Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, right up to the Whitsundays in the North. Steve and Lisa have been really helpful from the start, giving me suggestions and innovations rather than me having to come up with everything. And best still, they’re aiming at the lower end of the market. That’s poor people like me who haven’t had parents handing them down properties that cost $2 in 1960 but are now worth heaps.

So, thanks Steve and Lisa, and keep up the good work.

Carbon Smart

Has anybody seen that website that’s being advertised on TV – www.carbonsmart.com.au? They’re basically paying landowners to revegetate their land that the government has previously paid them to clear. About time too. Doesn’t take a genius to realise that clearing land in a climate as harsh as Australia’s is going to lead to everything turning to dust and either blowing away or washing away in the rain storms. Anyway, I’m going to look into it further. Might be worth buying a cheap block out bush and planting it out.

Australians Have the Biggest Carbon Footprints

Did you know..?

Australians, (then Americans) on average have the largest carbon footprint in the world. Basically, this is because of our huge dependence on fossil fuel and most Australians have ginormous homes compared with the rest of the world.

Read this at Zero Your Carbon.

One of the problems is though that we’re subjected to the most ridiculously high electricity prices and are then offered the option of paying more for carbon offsets. Hmmm, now I think that the electricity companies are taking the proverbial a bit there. Especially considering when we run out of fossil fuel all their electric will have to come from renewable energy sources anyway. So, in effect, they’re asking us to pay for their investment in something that they are going to need otherwise they’ll go out of business. Sounds like a rip off that the government should do something about.

Sunshine Coast Eco Awards

As Americans began their Thanksgiving celebrations across the Pacific, the Sunshine Coast was giving thanks to local environmentalists, schools and businesses. No turkeys were involved though, instead, ‘froggies’ were being handed out for the hard work many Coast residents are doing to protect the local environment.

One person in particular was recognised for 18 years of communicating the major environmental issues facing the Sunshine Coast. Jillian Rossiter, received what was considered a long-overdue award for ‘outstanding dedication to the environment’.

“Jillian is a very unassuming person who quietly undertakes her enormous commitment to the environment,” said councillor Vivien Griffin, before presenting the award.

“It is the dedication of people like Jillian that allows the Sunshine Coast Environment Council to continue its valuable work.”

Jillian produced the precursor to Econews, the Eco Echo magazine, which enjoyed widespread support around the Coast for many years. More recently, she has tirelessly organised the popular Greenhouse at the Woodford Folk Festival.

She spent 10 years producing the seasonal Eco Echo magazine, and the last eight years building an impressive list of speakers at the Greenhouse. These have been the highlights of Jillian’s environmental career. A career that has emphasised showing, not telling – a trait, that so often appears in quiet achievers.

“They have enabled me to bring the stories and expertise of many activists, scientists and other experts to the public,” said Jillian.

Jillian said she was honoured to be recognised in this way.

“Especially from such an outstanding organisation as SCEC, that has now, and has had in the past, so many skilled and dedicated people.”

Almost 200 people attended the evening, held at the Lake Kawana Community Centre on November 28. The night was hosted by the Sunshine Coast Environment Council, with special guest speaker, and recent Greens convert, Ronan Lee attending, along with local award-winning singer/songwriter Kate Gibson and artist Blair McNamara.

SCEC manager, Narelle McCarthy said the night was another success, which highlighted how important it is for the Coast to continue with its aim of becoming Australia’s most sustainable region.

“We need to build on the community’s efforts and continue the momentum,” she said.

“However, we wouldn’t be able to hold this event without our hard-working volunteers and the support of the Sunshine Coast Regional Council, as well as our other sponsors. I can’t thank them enough.”

Affectionately known as the ‘froggies’, the Sunshine Coast Environment Awards are now in their thirteenth year.

Identical CO2 Emissions

Everyone on the planet could get identical greenhouse gas emission rights as part of a drive to halve emissions by 2050, according to a study by Chinese scientists on Monday.

The proposal, presented on the sidelines of a Dec. 1-12 U.N. conference on fighting global warming, would force nations such as the United States which have used most fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution to buy emission rights from poor nations. “Developed countries shall take the lead in reducing emissions,” said Su Wei, head of climate change at China’s National Development and Reform Commission. The Carbon Budget Proposal suggested that emission allowances could be set at 2.33 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year for each person on the planet in the period 1900 to 2050 as part of a goal of halving world emissions by 2050. Most rich nations have already far exceeded their budgets and would have to buy emissions rights to keep on emitting until 2050. U.S. emissions now exceed 20 tonnes per capita. “The accumulative historical emissions in the U.S. is about three times its total carbon budget,” according to the study,by scientists at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Other countries such as Britain or Germany are also overdrawn. Poor nations, such as many African states where emissions are below one tonne per person, were far below their 1900-2050 quotas and would receive cash from the rich. The 190-nation Poznan talks are seeking to work out a new treaty to fight climate change, meant to be agreed in Copenhagen at the end of 2009 in a step to avert more floods, droughts and rising seas. But the talks are far from agreeing how to work out a fair share of the burden among major emitters.

Source: Reuters

How Can I Be Carbon Neutral?

I’m looking for ways of making my business carbon neutral. What I want to do is actually cut down on my carbon footprint and also, inevitably, offset some of our carbon emissions because I’m never going to get them to zero.

Can anybody suggest the best ways to go about getting carbon neutral? What steps should we take?

Carbon Offsets

One way of overcoming the fact that you will have a carbon footprint, no matter what you do, is to purchase carbon offsets. In its simplest form, carbon offsetting is the planting of trees to absorb the carbon dioxide that you inevitably produce in your everyday life. Of course, not everybody has a garden in which to plant innumerable trees so there are now companies that specialise in doing this for you. It takes around 6 trees to absorb one tonne of carbon dioxide and it’s possible to buy these trees from certain companies for as little as $3 per tree. Seems like a bargain to me.

Light Bulbs in the UK

The government wants your old-fashioned energy-hungry incandescent tungsten light bulb gone, and gone soon. But some people are willing to go to great lengths to hang onto the lights they love. 

Incandescent bulbs – that’s the traditional kind to you or me – waste 95% of the energy they use, according to Greenpeace. They calculate that phasing them out in the UK will save more than five million tonnes in CO2 emissions a year.

And yet some households are so attached to them that they not only keep buying them – they’re stockpiling them ahead of the day when they’re no longer available.

In September last year, the UK government made a deal with major shops for the supply of traditional bulbs to be turned off. Some higher energy bulbs will be gone by January 2009, and all incandescent lights will be off by 2011.

The agreement is voluntary, but other countries have announced legal bans, including Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and the US.

The brighter bulbs are already fading from view, according to Glen Gotten of the light merchant Ryness. “100w and 150w are difficult to get hold of,” he says. “The larger manufacturers have stopped making them. We still manage to get enough to supply our customers for now, but they will start drying up.”

The 150w, in particular, is seriously rare. They’re gone from Tesco. Morrisons have already chosen to ditch them, with 100w to follow in the autumn and 60w next year.

Buzzing noise

Hence the stockpilers. “I’m stocking up now, before they’re banned or get ridiculously expensive,” says Bradley, an insurance broker from West Sussex. “The green ones might save you money and everything, but I just can’t stand them.”

“They don’t look right,” he explains. “They’re not bright enough and they take an age to come on. That’s not what you want from a light bulb. You want it to light up the whole room, just like that.” He clicks his fingers.

Jo, who works in the same office, agrees. “I did try the energy saving ones,” she says, “but they’re not the same. One of them made a buzzing noise, one of them kept going on and off. We gave up on them.”

Are they not concerned about the environmental impact of incandescent bulbs? “I do my bit,” says Bradley. “Recycling and all that. But at the end of the day, if they want us to use those bulbs they’ll have to make them better.”

“And anyway,” he adds, “they’ve got mercury in, haven’t they, these so-called green bulbs? What’s that going to do to the environment?”

Government advice says that because of the mercury in low energy bulbs, if you break one you should leave the room for 15 minutes, clear up the pieces with rubber gloves, not with a vacuum cleaner, and take them in a sealed bag to your local council. The bulbs should not be thrown in normal waste.

Aesthetic issue

The Migraine Action Association has raised another health concern. The group reports that members have found that low energy bulbs seem to increase migraine attacks.

For most stockpilers though, the concerns seem to be more aesthetic than safety-conscious.

In a nutshell, many people prefer the warmer glow of an incandescent tungsten bulb to an eco-friendly compact fluorescent (CFL).

Jill Entwistle, editor of Light Magazine, says much work has been done to improve CFLs but that many people still prefer tungsten.

“There have been issues with compact fluorescents. They have improved a lot, a lot of investment has gone into reducing their size and improving the colour by experimentation with the phosphors that affects the colour temperature. They have managed to warm it up.”

She is against the ban and believes incandescent bulbs have been chosen as an easy target. “It is a shame. This is simplistic thinking.”

But there are those who assert that the work done on CFLs mean that most people cannot tell the difference.

The Energy Saving Trust did a spot the difference test in a shopping centre. Of 761 shoppers, 53% could not tell the difference between a traditional bulb and a CFL.

“They produce the same level of light. The latest CFLs radiate a very similar light spectrum,” says Lyndsey Hubbard, editor of Total Lighting magazine. The dislike of CFLs may be a result of encounters with more primitive examples of them sticking in the mind.

Campaigners see the hoarding of bulbs in a dim light. “It’s a bad idea,” says Ben Stewart of Greenpeace. “They’re not only bad for the climate but mean a bigger electricity bill. Incandescent light bulbs were invented in the 1880s and use 80% more electricity than energy saving ones. The time has come to move into the 21st Century.”

There are certain people who will stick to their incandescent lights, whether it be film companies, or art galleries using the yet-to-be-restricted halogen type, and get their supplies through specialist sources.

But for the ordinary punter, the pursuit of the warm glow of the traditional tungsten incandescent will soon get a lot harder.

 

Original article can be found at www.bbc.co.uk.

Posted by Sunshine Coast Web Design

 

Solar Power

Using solar power is a great way of reducing your carbon footprint. Having a few solar panels on your roof and using them to heat your hot water is the way forward. Providing you don’t live in rainy England or Tasmania. There are now government rebates in most countries for installing solar heating so find out about it and get your electricity costs down now.

Posted by Ion e-Business Web Design.

Dripping Taps And Leaks

According to the government a dripping tap can waste more than 2,000 litres of water a month or 24,000 litres of water per year. With water shortages a problem nearly everywhere it is important that we fix our leaky or dripping taps. So, turn off your taps tightly but don’t overdo it because you’ll damage the tap washer and make your tap even more drippy. Once you’ve been shown how to do it, changing a tap washer is simple as and we all know that plumbers get paid too much so look up how to do it on the internet and save yourself some cash.

 

Posted by Sunshine Coast Web Design.