London Mayor launched UK's first 'green homes' service

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, on December 4, launched the UK’s first ‘green homes’ service to help Londoners cut climate change emissions by offering an easy, one-stop-shop for information on how to make homes more carbon efficient.

The flagship London Green Homes service is unique to the capital, and will offer a free comprehensive telephone advice service, a free website and a paid-for green ‘concierge’ service to provide a hassle-free tailor-made package of carbon saving lifestyle improvements.

The advice service will be highly flexible, offering Londoners advice on any actions to reduce carbon emissions from their lifestyle, and explain how best to save money on energy bills.

The London Green Homes service is part of delivering the Mayor’s Climate Change Action Plan – a comprehensive programme of initiatives to reduce carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2025, including programmes for the capital\'s homes, organisations, transportation and energy supply system.

Sixty per cent of London’s housing was built before 1945, compared to 40 per cent nationally so it is less energy efficient than the UK average.

Over £4 million has been allocated to the Green Homes programme in 2007-08 and it aims to cut 500,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year by 2010.

The Mayor opened the service with Nicky Gavron, Deputy Mayor of London and Darren Johnson, a London Assembly Green Party member, at a specially designed life-size eco-house in Trafalgar Square.

The exhibition house named ‘No 1 Lower Carbon Drive’ will tour the capital to promote the new services, and to showcase ideas to ‘green’ your home.

The London Green Homes Service consists of:

1. The Green Homes Advice Service: An information website – www.londonclimatechange.co.uk - where Londoners can access information and advice on how to reduce their carbon footprint. It includes interactive sections such as a carbon calculator, and advise on what grants are available to make changes

2. A free telephone helpline – 0800 512012- to access one-to-one, personalised advice from experienced staff on how to make your home ‘green’

3. The Green Homes Concierge Service: a paid-for concierge service - which has already been successfully piloted across London and is designed for homeowners who want to make more significant changes to their homes without the hassle. The innovative tailor-made service provides a customised audit of a property, including a thermal image, and a ‘blow door’ test to identify sources of draughts; a report of recommended ways to reduce emissions; and, if wanted, full project management of a programme to cut emissions, including sourcing of competitive quotes. The subsidised service will cost £199 for annual membership.
For more information call: 0800 089 0098.

Ken Livingstone, said: "In London, energy use in the homes is the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

"But much of the energy we pay for in our homes is simply wasted, and there are simple changes we can make to cut energy use without any reduction in our quality of life – indeed the average household will save £300 if they carry out the Green Homes programme.

"We know Londoners want to help prevent climate change, and London Green Homes will provide the information and on-going support to enable them do so.

"I am proud that London is now leading the UK in offering a comprehensive and flexible ‘green homes’ service, as part of our wider programme to cut London’s carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2025."

Nicky Gavron, Deputy Mayor of London, said: "The Green Concierge Service launched today across London is hassle free and easy-to-use because it is tailored to each household’s needs. And it will save tonnes of the carbon emissions which are causing climate change.

"The Green Concierge Service is a great example of London working with the other cities who are part of the C40 group - all of whom are committed to sharing knowledge to tackle climate change. We scoured the world for the best scheme and found it in Toronto, who have helped us develop London’s new service.

Darren Johnson, Green Member of the London Assembly, said: "Londoners want to help save the planet and we want to help them do it. This is a unique consumer service, which I believe will become standard practice across Britain in the next few years.

"We are not only helping people to create energy saving homes, but to access other services which could change their whole lifestyle. It is another example of London leading the way and the Government following."

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The Bicycle Mechanic – A Job with a Future for the Future

With more and hopefully still more bicycles coming back into use for personal transport, the trade of a bicycle mechanic is definitely one that is surely going to make a comeback; it just has to.

While many shops, the likes of Halfords, Argos, and many others, are rather good in selling – often “cheap” - bicycles they just about can assemble such bikes to make them ready for the sale and just about – and I do stress “just about” - ready for the road. Most do not appear to have “properly” trained cycle mechanics capable of doing a proper service (yes, bicycles should also have a regular service, either carried out by a capable owner or best still a capable mechanic) and especially capable of actually building, rebuilding and repairing a bike, especially an older one. You take your car to a trained mechanic, often one trained specifically for your make of car, and not to old Joe round the corner who likes to tinker with motors, or to the local grocers, don't you. So why then do so many trust their lives into the hands – and that is what they do if they take the bike on the road and have no idea as to how it has been repaired and whether the job was done proper, etc. - of people who are just a little above amateurs?

With the government(s) trying to get people to get on their bikes again for personal transport in order to reduce the country's overall carbon footprint people will be needed again capable to keep bicycles running and especially roadworthy. Not every cyclist is a bicycle “geek” and capable of doing the technical bits all themselves. The ordinary businessman wanting to use the bike to commute may just about be capable of fixing a puncture himself. So, bicycle mechanics will be needed again and many of them we will need.

While the sales of bicycles are increasing the actual number of real bicycle mechanics appears not to be able to keep pace with it; in fact they seem to be in decline.

Help, however, is at hand by way of a proper training agency that trains people up to be cycle mechanics and that to a very high standard.

WELDTECH, part of WELDTITE Products Ltd. (www.weldtite.co.uk) offers professional bicycle mechanic courses for shops and workshops, as well as for the ordinary general public. These are NVQ kind of courses but to a far higher standard of proficiency – though government funds do not appear to be available to take any of those courses. Maybe the government needs to wake up to the fact that if they want people to get on their bikes and use cycles as personal mode of transport, at least for around town, to the shops and journeys under, say, four miles, they must find a way of aiding the creation, for lack of a better word, of skilled and thoroughly trained and competence-checked bicycle mechanics. Without such technicians the entire idea will not be workable, unless the government also sees a way of making money (yes, I am a cynic) out of people, when a bike no longer properly works, throwing it and buying a new one. In theory with some of the cheap ones that are coming in from the Far East, such as China, with prices as low as £70 for a about-town/light off-road bike, this is possible feasible, as repairs might work out more expensive than purchasing new. But, where does that again leave the carbon footprint?

In addition to this Weldtite designs and produces a large range of bicycle specific tools. Many of those tools are entirely new developments and designs by members of their own team.

I cannot say as to whether Weldtite is the only company/agency that offers courses for bicycle mechanics but, from what I have seen, they seem to be one of the best if not the best on the market.

© M V Smith, October 2007

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Climate Change - What if it is not man-made?

The whole world and everyone in it is by now, probably, aware of Climate Change, aka Global Warming, and seems to take it as read and as gospel truth that human activity is to blame.

But what if, and let us just consider this for a moment, it has nothing – or little – to do with cars, the use of fossil fuels, and such?
What is it is a natural cycle which the earth goes through every 1000 or so years? What then?
For it will then make no difference whether or not we cut any emissions, as we will then not be able to do anything about it.

When we look at the history of our planet we can, in fact, if we are not blinkered by whatever agendas, see that there have always been periods of warm and periods of cold and they seem to appear in a more or less 1000 year cycle; the high points that is. We are, in all appearance, heading for such a point again in our planet's history.
If this is the case than there is very little, I am afraid, that we can do against it and we must rather prepare for this change. We can hardly turn off a natural cycle, should it be one.
That does not mean that we should not do everything in our power, each one of us, to lessen our impact whether in carbon emissions or in waste generation, just in case that this change in global climate and the weird and extreme weather that we are experiencing around the globe is, even partially, due to human activity. We must indeed do both, and that NOW and not next week, next month or next year, God forbid.
We all know what we should do and must do to lessen our impact on the environment; so let's go and do it NOW.

However, we must also remain serious: I saw a graph recently where someone tried to claim that one PC was using 1500 KW per hour. That is totally wrong. Even an electric fire does often not use more than 1500 watts but 1500 kilowatts; no way.
Some groups, we know, try to scare people into action, but to use untruths to do that is counterproductive. If, however, we, who care about and for the planet, remain in the realm of truth and reality we can, maybe, get the people to follow.

Even if, as I said, Global Warming/Climate Change is not due to human activity and the use of fossil fuels and such reducing our (carbon) footprint on the environment and Mother Earth will certainly be no bad thing.

We must, however, at the same time prepare for the worst case scenario, which is to say that it be the described natural cycle of our planet and we can do little or nothing to bring about a change.


- Be prepared for the worst and hope for the best! -


© M V Smith, May 2007

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