Clare Topping – Page 16 – Enviro-Mentalist

Crikey – The Carbon Reduction Energy Efficiency Scheme is nearly upon us.

So, if you work in a Company that consumes a large amount of power you have probably heard the initials CRC banded about, and know that the start date of the government’s latest attempt at reducing electricity consumption is almost here (1st April).

I work for just such a company, and am part of a steering committee tasked with ensuring that we are compliant and that we are taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint. However, this is not an easy thing to coordinate without having someone dedicated to ensure that it happens and we could be doing it better. I thought that I would write a few blog posts to record the things that work well and the areas in which we can improve. Whilst I am not sure anyone in the Corporate world would approve of such altruistic actions, as it could affect our league position, we could also improve by learning from our own mistakes.

So, firstly what is the CRCEE (as it is now called) scheme. Well, if you don’t know by now, it is perhaps a little late – but it is not always disseminated down to those who can really make a difference i.e. those who can turn the lights off and run the equipment that uses the electricity. I prepared a couple of posters for the start of the Switch Off campaign so that everyone might have an idea of what it is all about and why energy efficiency has suddenly become a buzzword. You can download them here if you like – CARBON REDUCTION COMMITMENT ENERGY EFFICIENCY SCHEME_EM. Even those who have heard about it seem to be confused, so I have included a brief outline of timelines.

The scheme is part of the Climate Change Act (CCA) and is aimed at large consumers of electricity that are not already subject to the CCA or part of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (therefore not electricity suppliers). It will work on the allocation of carbon credits – so polluters pay, but is supposed to be non-revenue generating and therefore not a tax, those saving the most money will get the most money back. However, as with all things these days, there is a lot of paperwork to be completed (think of the trees) and it therefore pays to be organised and set up some systems for data capture in advance – something I am working on at the moment.

The government has made a few changes, and so it is always a good idea to check the website out for the latest guidance. Unfotunately, it has been mired in confusion for the past year, the forms weren’t sent out on time, there was a worry about finding the cash up front for two years’ worth of credits, some companies wanted recognition for their early efforts to reduce energy usage (otherwise companies were holding off any changes whilst waiting for the appropriate year in order to improve their league table position), and others didn’t seem to have a clue – mainly government departments from what I can gather from the web discussions. So, in response, there is now no longer the requirement to buy two years’ worth of credits – only one is required and an early action league table. (Unfortunately the only way to do well on this is to gain the Carbon Trust Standard – which takes a year and involves at least two years of energy efficiency improvements, and to install automatic metering.) There is now more discussion on the internet about CRCEE and also, a lot more companies willing to take your money to ‘help’ you improve your energy usage.

The first actions in the scheme involve collation of all the necessary data, then, the fun begins and, hopefully, energy efficiency takes centre stage.

Going forward I will outline the things we have tried at work with regards to improving our energy efficiency – some are the so-called low hanging fruit, some will involve a little more thought, some will require capital investment and all will need a great deal of persuasion from those both above and below me within the Company.

A bit too early maybe?

Last year I had my first ripe chillis after overwintering some that did not grow very quickly during the Summer. Naturally I thought I would do the same again this year and planted a couple of Heatwaves a bit later trying to repeat my success. (I also have some that I have planted early this season to see how they fare – they are three weeks old and growing well.)

As you can see from the photo, one of them is flowering already! This is about two months earlier than last year – I am a little worried it may be peaking too soon (although I have a dwarf chilli Prairie Fire that has been flowering but not fruiting all Winter).

So, what has gone wrong this time? Last year we put the chillis on the north facing, cooler (as we use the room for only minutes at a time), back bedroom windowsill. This year they are on the south-facing, much warmer front room windowsill.

It will be interesting to see if these work out well again this year.

Winter Colour

Despite all of the snow and frost of recent weeks there are still some flowers attempting to bloom. One of the easiest to spot is the small but bright yellow, perennial Winter Aconite (Eranthis Hyemalis) which can be found flowering away in January and February in the UK. These are hardy plants (members of the buttercup family) that grow close to the ground in shady woodland, and, as you can see from the picture below are quite able to survive frost and snow.

The leaves only show fully once the flowers have died, the leaves themselves dying off when the forest canopy shades the plants out.

Although the plant looks pretty and as though it wouldn’t harm a fly, beware, as all parts are poisonous. According to Wikipedia, Medea attempted to poison Theseus by putting aconite in his wine. Despite (or maybe because of) this, Winter Aconites are commonly sold in garden centres as an easy way to add a bit of Winter colour to an otherwise drab and dormant garden.

Switch Off Campaign

A decision was made at Head Office that a switch off campaign sounded like a good idea, so we (the Carbon Reduction steering committee) were told to organise one in our respective division. So, that will be easy then. After some debate as to what constituted a switch off campaign with a leading light thinking that it would involve lots of surveys and the appointment of green champions to look for energy saving opportunities, I finally got them to see sense and realise that it was just what it said on the tin: a campaign to raise awareness and get everyone switching things off when they were not in use. Back to the real world and the rush of the every day job kicked in and I did not really think about the switch off campaign.

A month later a reminder came out with a start date of 4th January. OK, so now I have a deadline, but still no guidance. So, what to do? I could email the Site Managers and tell them to organize a switch off campaign – that would work! I turned once more to my trusty friend Google and found a couple of bits of information, mainly from local councils who had jointly run just such a scheme and used these as the starting point for my ideas.

The first thing I did was make an action plan for the actual campaign which was to be over a two week period:

Energy measurements to be taken at the same time each week for two weeks before, during and after the campaign.
Site Managers to brief all of the staff about the campaign
Site Managers to conduct a walk around the site during the campaign and provide positive and negative feedback to staff
Staff to be encouraged to submit energy saving ideas

etc, etc. The action plan was emailed out to the Site Managers a couple of weeks before the start to give them a little advance warning. I have found that each of the seven sites we have is very different in size and culture, and so, one size does not necessarily fit all, so the Site Managers were the best people to decide how to get local buy-in.

Next on my list was to create some advertising material, something that would remind staff about the campaign and why they should be turning things off. So, back to Mr Google for some more helpful hints and tips, followed by a trip to an online stock photo site for some appropriate pictures (yes, I know that one of my other passions is photography, but I was in a hurry and did not have the appropriate props). A couple of late nights later and I had a series of posters for display at the sites detailing environmental facts and energy saving tips. You can view them here:

SWITCH IT OFF

If you would like to use them please feel free to download – just let me know – it is always interesting to see where others are in their quest for energy efficiency as well as being good for the ego.

OK, so now I needed a bribe for the energy saving ideas bit. I settled on the promise of a tree planted in the name of the person with the best idea or a box of chocolates – should appeal to a lot of people I thought.

The campaign ran with mixed success, I will outline the reasons for this, along with the results, in my next post.

Flat Fish

OK, so tinned tuna can be OK, depending on the way it is caught (assuming it is Skipjack tuna) cod and haddock, not so sure, bit debatable; this time it depends not only on the method of catching – line caught only please, but on the place where it is caught. Next on my list, purely because they are fish that are commonly sold and that I enjoy(ed) eating are sole and plaice, both, unfortunately, featuring on the Greenpeace red list.

So, for starters, these are both flat fish, and, as such, live along the sea bed. This means that they are usually caught by beam trawling. This is a particularly destructive form of fishing for numerous reasons. Beam trawling involves dragging a large beam across the ocean floor behind which is pulled a large net. Typically trawlers pull one net on each side of the boat. Some also have ‘tickler chains’ in front which stir up the ocean floor so more creatures are caught up in the following net. As you can imagine this is a pretty indiscriminate form of fishing and the bycatch including immature fish, crabs, coral etc is huge (up to 70% by weight).

However, there is an alternative, Danish Seine fishing, which is less damaging to the ocean floor and uses less fuel than beam trawling (hurrah). This uses a conical shaped net to catch the fish; although there is some ocean floor damage and some bycatch it is much less than the alternatives. Gillnets are also a better option, these catch the fish in the mesh of the net, obviously, the mesh has to be of the correct size so that small fish can swim through.

So, onto the sustainability of the fish themselves. Plaice – current advice is to avoid fish from south west Ireland, west of Ireland, western channel and Celtic sea fisheries, whereas those of the Irish sea are thought to be sustainable. However, there is conflicting advice on North Sea stocks, Greenpeace stating that beam trawling in this area has caught too many small fish and stocks are unsustainable whereas the Marine Conservation Society currently states that North Sea stocks are ‘healthy and fished sustainably’ – no wonder eating fish causes such a moral dilemma!

Sole – advice at the moment is that, again, beam trawling has had a massive impact on stocks, and the North Sea and Irish Sea stocks are depleted, so best avoided. Choose fish caught with more sustainable methods, avoid small fish and avoid fresh fish caught between April and June. Both Greenpeace and the MCS claim that Celtic sea stocks are sustainable (if, like myself you are not wise in the ways of seas, the Celtic Sea is that part of the Atlantic Ocean off the south coast of Ireland and the south-west coast of England and Wales).

So, where to buy the holy fish grail? At the moment I cannot fully answer that but hope to have a more in-depth review of all of the supermarkets in the coming months. Having looked at the websites of the ‘better’ supermarkets, Waitrose and M&S, it appears that Waitrose use only Danish Seine methods and are no longer using smaller fish, although M&S are ‘leading the drive to reduce the use of … beam trawls’ (does that mean they do use them or not?) – it would appear that Waitrose are ahead of them there.

Waitrose fish is from the North East Atlantic, and M&S is from the North Sea, English Channel and around Iceland. Are these sustainable fisheries – the packaging claims that they are, and the North East Atlantic and Iceland are not mentioned in good or bad terms on the MCS or Greenpeace websites, the English Channel and North Sea being more questionable. A quick Google search reveals the North Atlantic area to include parts of the Atlantic west of Ireland, areas north east of Iceland and a pocket in the Norwegian Sea.

So, my conclusion, plaice and sole are in trouble, mainly due to unsustainable fishing methods, and, those caught around the British shoreline seem particularly at risk. The information about flatfish from other areas is not so clear, but this may be because they are of less immediate concern. As ever, it appears the fishing methods are crucial and any fish caught by beam trawling, and, I would go so far as to say any fishmonger who sells fish caught using beam trawlers, should be avoided. I feel a little more at ease buying my lemon sole or plaice from Waitrose, but I will probably be doing so less often than previously (perhaps once a month), M&S still don’t get my vote as they seem to be behind Waitrose both on fishing methods and sustainable fisheries.

Big Garden Birdwatch

So, it was the time of year when all garden birds traditionally do a bunk to the hedgerows and rooftops so that they cannot be counted in the RSPB’s big garden birdwatch statistics. Well, that is often the way that it feels. Still, every year I sit by the window for an hour and try to count all of my little feathered friends.

There seems to have been extra publicity this year due to the concern that the recent cold weather may have done for half of the little birds that we would commonly find in the garden. Is it the case – we will have to wait and see, but, for once, my garden was brimming with life – I struggled to keep up as birds flitted from one side to the other. It appears that my tactic of early morning (9am) nature watching, when it was still cold, paid off.

I managed to see a total of 13 different species this year, more than the 10 that @naturesvoice for the RSPB tweeted. The count started with the ever reliable pair of blue tits, so it should because I think one of them roosts in the pipe from the boiler. They were sooned joined by blackbirds (I counted 5 at one point – not bad for a garden that is only 20’x30′) and chaffinches. The male chaffinches are certainly starting to get some more colour as we move towards Spring, but they are still hard to keep track of as they zoom from one side of the garden to the other, one minute on a feeder, the next foraging around in the undergrowth.

I was particularly pleased that the bullfinches turned up within the allotted hour – they tie with long-tailed tits as my favourite bird – they have been visiting the garden all Winter. I was worried that they would not show today, but, 3 turned up and stayed for a while. (Looking on Twitter it appears that these lovely birds are becoming more common in gardens and, indeed, have recently been removed from the BTO’s Red List). I was also particularly pleased when I saw some sparrows in the garden. I am sure that you have all read the reports about the disappearance of house sparrows, and I definitely haven’t seen very many since the Summer, but, I got a maximum of four, including a couple that turned up just before the end of the hour and stared pitifully at the saucer of frozen water (don’t worry, we went out with fresh water just after the hour).

The best surprise of the hour came from the song thrushes though. Before the Winter we had only rarely seen one young song thrush in the garden in the entire 10+ years that we have lived here, although we can usually hear them singing from the old railway track. However, this Winter one has started putting in an appearance, although he (or she) is usually chased away by a very territorial blackbird (as if there is any other type). But today I was delighted to see two song thrushes in my garden at the same time – partly because they are another bird not doing well, and partly because I am a keen organic gardener and they will certainly help my war against snails.

The total species count as mentioned before was 13 and consisted of blue tit, great tit, greenfinch, bullfinch, chaffinch, robin, dunncock, blackbird, song thrush, starling, house sparrow, wood pigeon, collared dove.

The only regular that did not put in an appearance was the goldfinch. Throughout the year we have up to 8 of these noisy, colourful characters in the garden, but, it appears that they are not very fond of the cold. Throughout the 2 weeks of snow they did not put in any appearance as far as we can tell, but reappeared once the snow had gone. Similarly, they appeared later on today, once the air had warmed up a little. I am not sure where they go, but they are still welcome when they come back.

Fish & Chip Shop Dilemma

We all know that fish stocks are declining, but we are told that we should eat two portions of fish per week, and most of us indulge in the (hopefully) occasional fish and chip supper – so are our food habits compatible with living an ethical lifestyle? In the second post trying to unravel the tangle that is the topic of sustainable fish I examine whether cod and haddock are OK to eat with a clear conscience.

Let’s deal with the easy bit first – unless you know where you local chippy is sourcing its fish from then, I am afraid, that the answer is a definite no. I believe that there are fish and chip shops that do advertise the origin of their fish – but none of these are in Daventry. If you can’t live without your take away, then I would suggest that haddock is a better choice than cod, but your conscience will still find you.

And so to the sustainability of cod and haddock. Stocks of both have been overfished and in many areas continue to be so. According to Greenpeace, most cod fisheries in the Northeast Atlantic are in poor condition, except for Iceland and the Barents Sea where there is better management. All stocks are however, ‘overfished or at risk of being unsustainably harvested’. Haddock has had a similar history, but there is a little more hope. Northwest Atlantic stocks were overfished in US waters until the middle of the 1990s, but since then there has been some recovery. Scientists now believe that some North Sea stocks can be fished sustainably, whilst West of Ireland and Icelandic fisheries need better management. They are also recommending the closure of the fisheries of the West of Scotland. A further complication arises from the fact that cod are also caught when fishing for haddock.

So, it would seem that maybe you can eat an occasional piece of cod or haddock with a clear conscience, but, as ever, it comes with a caveat. It also matters how your fish is caught. In common with lots of fish that live near the sea bed, a lot of cod and haddock is caught by bottom trawling. Not only does trawling result in a large bycatch (typically 30% of the catch by weight is thrown back dead or dying – these are mammals, juvenile fish, turtles and sharks) but it also damages the sea bed. Instead Greenpeace are recommending buying only line-caught fish – this is a more selective fishing method without the associated bycatch and the degradation of the seabed.

According to Greenpeace Atlantic cod and haddock should both be avoided unless the cod is from Waitrose or Marks and Spencer or is line caught or the haddock is Icelandic line caught. But wait a minute, didn’t the scientists say that the Icelandic haddock fisheries need better management – they certainly did, and that all stocks are at risk from overfishing? Does this help – I am not sure. What makes Waitrose and M&S fish so special? A look at Waitrose’s website and my local branch’s fish counter shows that the haddock and cod is indeed Icelandic and line caught, and this includes their prepacked breaded range. M&S’s website leaves me with more questions than answers though. Although M&S now source their cod and haddock from Iceland, their website states that the fish is air-freighted in – how is that sustainable? Their cod is line caught, but, apparently the haddock is trawled or line-caught, and smaller haddock are caught from the west coast of Scotland. This seems to go against the Greenpeace guidelines – maybe they just need to update their website? I hope so – as it makes me start to question the validity of Greenpeace’s advice.

My take on cod and haddock? Both are under pressure, fishing methods need to be changed to reduce the amount taken from the sea, and, we have to pay a little more, eat and waste a lot less and hopefully fish stocks may recover. Will I eat cod and haddock again? Probably, in the future, eventually, but I don’t need to eat fish more than every other month and I will insist on it being line caught. In the meantime I will stick to my pole and line caught, Waitrose own brand, tinned tuna.

Winter bird watching.

As you are no doubt aware Winter can be a great time for birdwatching. Not only do you get the Winter visitors such as Redwings and Fieldfares, but the numbers of our ‘native birds’ are swollen by imports from the rest of Europe – coming for our supposedly milder climate – I guess they have had a bit of a surprise this year, but it is still probably warmer than back home. In addition, they have fewer places to hide, unless they can find some evergreens.

Unfortunately I have found a couple of downsides to birdwatching in Winter – the weather is colder and, it is dark when I go to work and when I come home so ornithological opportunities are somewhat limited. However, I have noticed a large influx of redwings and fieldfares onto the industrial estate in the last week – they have found the sea buckthorn berries that I walk past each morning – yesterday I saw about 20 fieldfares on my way into work, not a good view in the morning gloom, but, good enough.

An added bonus for me, if not the birds this week is that a grey wagtail was tempted into the warmth of the warehouse (joining the wren and robin already there) affording rather nice views, I think it has been coaxed outside now though.

Of course, come the weekend and the opportunities for staring into the snow covered garden increase – this morning was particularly good – well, once I had replenished the feeders. As well as the usual suspects (i.e. blue tit, robin, chaffinch etc) I also spotted a total of 6 bullfinches – a record for my garden – three of each flavour and all there at the same time. We had seen three last weekend, one pair and a lone male which was tolerated by the other two. We had therefore assumed that it was one of the three chicks that had been about in the garden last summer, but to see 6 at the same time was sadly quite exciting after all, this is a bird that has just made it off the BTOs red list of conservation concern. These handsome little birds that spend their time in pairs and make a sound like a squeeky bicycle pump tie with long-tailed tits as my favourite birds. (They are edging into the lead at the moment as they are regulars in the garden so they earn extra points on the lovely birds register.)

None of these would be about if there were no food for them, so please make sure you feed the birds in winter, particularly when it is cold and the ground is covered and frozen – the ones in my garden are particularly fond of sunflower hearts.

Thoughts about Copenhagen and Kyoto.

Copenhagen left me puzzled, not by the lack of agreements from the parties involved, but by my own ambivalence towards the whole thing. After all, I am supposed to be an environmentalist, I should have been avidly following all the reports, debating the successes (if there had been any) and failures. In truth, I paid no attention to it, yes, I read some of the pre-meeting reporting, added a tck tck tck ribbon to my Twitter image, agreed that time was running out and we needed an international resolution, but I didn’t actually think that anything would happen there.

In the meantime I have just finished reading a book (Why We Disagree About Climate Change) which has helped me to clarify my thoughts about Copenhagen. The basis of the book is that everyone has different priorities in life, and perceive the risk of Climate Change differently depending on their circumstances, nothing that is not obvious there. However, one of the later chapters talks about how the idea of an all encompassing agreement at Copenhagen was flawed and was never going to happen. Climate Change has now been altered from a physical manifestation into something more, it is linked to world poverty, economic development and even to religious beliefs. With so many facets to the problem (a so-called ‘dirty problem’) how will we find one solution, a magic silver bullet that will fix everything. The plain answer is that we won’t and, while we are convinced that we will (i.e. we will get an extension to Kyoto) we will stop looking at the solutions to the parts of the problem that we can fix. OK, they may not be the ultimate best answer, but making some progress until something better comes along is surely better than waiting for a solution that may never come.

For example, why was deforestation under discussion? Surely most people believe that it is wrong, so why wasn’t an agreement made by the interested parties, does someone in Iceland have to agree about rainforest destruction? I am sure they agree that it is bad, but put it in with something they don’t agree with and they will vote against.

I have come to the conclusion that I, personally, if I am honest, don’t care about climate change. Any changes to be seen in my lifetime are likely to be already set in motion, I don’t have children and therefore have no future generations to directly care about. I do, however, care about other things that are affected by or do affect climate change. I care about needless waste, lack of energy resources, reduced levels of oil available for the important things because we have wasted lots for electricity and transport, loss of biodiversity, lack of water, lack of available education and the fact that there are just too many people on this planet to consume as much resource as we do, but climate change – not really. Start to look at solving these problems individually and then we will solve the problem that we perceive to be climate change and, if not, we will still be making the world a better place.

Winter Visitors

Not long ago Winter visitors seen in gardens were usually siskins, bramblings, redwings or fieldfares. However, over the last few years there have been more sightings of warblers during the Winter months. One of the more commonly spotted birds is a blackcap and, the reason that I am writing this post today is because, not only did I spot one in my garden, but, I also managed to take a photo of her.

It is thought (in common with many of the birds seen in the garden in Winter) that these are birds from Germany and Austria and that the British penchant for garden bird feeders has allowed them to travel a shorter distance and stop in the UK rather than flying to Spain.

I have even seen a recent blog post which claims that the migrants with the shorter trip are evolving into a different sub species as they all arrive back in Germany about 10 days before those wintering in Spain and therefore tend to breed together. Those flying longer distances to Spain have more pointed wings suitable for longer distance flying and rounder bills for eating olives when they get there.

Whatever the reasons for them staying, I am still excited if I spot one in the Winter (or any time of year for that matter).