Changing lightbulbs (Feb08)
First a confession. I have spotlights in both my kitchen and living room, which are adjoining – and not all of them are energy efficient. When the spotlights were first installed I made sure that they would take energy efficient bulbs. I then ordered the 100 watt replacements, which were 23 watts each. But when […]
Bottled Water – Eau No! (Feb08)
“I’ve been drinking bottled water for 30 years and I’ll go on doing it until the day I die” said one caller to the Radio 5 phone-in I was participating in. The debate was supposed to be about whether it is immoral to drink bottled water. Actually, most of the callers were more concerned with […]
Street light rant (Feb08)
There’s been some discussion recently about councils turning off lights between midnight and dawn. Hooray. Actually, I think there are lots of places where they shouldn’t be on at all. And others where some lights might be a good idea but not nearly as many. Street lights are big energy guzzlers because they have to […]
Unwanted phone directories 50 times as high as Everest! (Feb08)
I don’t use phone directories any more – I always look up numbers on the internet. But I’ve still got a pile of these weighty tomes in the corner of my office, collecting dust and doing nothing useful. I’ve now discovered that 50 million telephone directories are distributed each year and 17.5 million of these […]
Shell International (Feb08)
“We were surprised and delighted at the detailed depth of knowledge that Julia Hailes had on environmental issues” Shell International, Feb08
Great Briton’s of 2007 Award (Jan08)
I really appreciate ‘can do’ people and you can’t get much more ‘can do’ than Tim Smit (see photo), founder of the Eden Project – and the Lost Gardens of Heligan. So I was rather delighted to be on the judging panel that selected him for the short-list of three for the Environment section of […]
Energy Monitoring Gizmos (Jan08)
TRIED AND TESTED – ENERGY MONITORS Energy Monitors don’t directly save you energy – but they should help you work out where you’re wasting it around the house and so cut back. I reduced by electricity bill by a quarter, when I got one – which more than paid back the cost of the monitor. […]
Carbon Trust Winter Lecture (Jan08)
Putin apparently joked that ‘climate change is good for Russians because they won’t have to wear fur coats’. But listening to Dr Pachauri, Chairman of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) wasn’t very funny. His Winter Lecture, hosted by the Carbon Trust, was held, rather incongruously at Claridges. The theme was ‘business response to climate […]
M&S Plan A – 1 year on (Jan08)
One year ago I went to the launch of Mark’s & Spencer’s Plan A initiative – and last week I went to hear how it was progressing. M&S say that it’s Plan A because there is no Plan B. And they do seem committed. Stuart Rose ruefully forecast a difficult year for the store but […]
Are motorbikes better than cars? (Jan08)
My sons were more impressed with these bikes than I was! Are motorbikes better than cars? I’ve recently had email correspondence with someone who is convinced they are. Clearly a biking enthusiast he says that: small motorcycles use far less petrol than cars, don’t stand in traffic jams using up fuel getting nowhere and don’t […]
