Colin's blog

Just saw the Cirque Du Soleil Varekai at the Royal Albert Hall today and it was fantastic. It was as breath taking as in 2006. The Russian dancing was bit of a surprise, maybe they can incorporate Cotswold Morris in 2009! The costumes we very inventive taking on a reptile theme with a very slippery floor ( they wasn't as skimpy as last year ). The Juggler got the biggest applause with a spectacular trick with hats and balls, again surprising considering all the other acts were risking life and limb. Would recommend.
http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/CirqueDuSoleil/en/showstickets/varekai/intro/intro.htm

I’ve been doing a bit of research on Co2 and Cars/Travel.
I’ve used a book by Chris Goodall called “how to live a low-carbon life”.
ISBN 978-1-84407-426-6 www.lowcarbonlife.net

Yes I’m sad. Anyway I’ve discovered the following regarding cars and things so here is my algorithm for saving carbon.

Travel
If your journey is less than 2 miles than walk or bike it (don’t drink milk afterwards, if you do the car is more Co2 efficient!)

Work from home where possible on a laptop with the heating off or below 19deg.

Where possible use public transport but consider that a car with multiple people in it may be more co2 efficient that 4 people taking the train. Two people in an average car are much better than one person in a Toyota Prius.

Don’t fly, but if you do then TRIPPLE offset the miles travelled in a proven local renewable energy scheme (as offsetting is immoral and a scam try to avoid it)

What type of Car
The average car generates 150mg of Co2 per km but the Co2 used to produce the car in the first place is quite large. Replacing an old car with a new car will result in a net increase in emissions of about 7.6 tonnes or carbon dioxide, or almost 1 tonne a year in the period before the old car is retired from the fleet, this figure is before calculating the carbon effect of making the new car. The minimal Co2 require to make the car is about 6 tonnes. So for example the co2 cost of swapping an eight year old car with a more newer efficient model is more than 12.5 tonnes (more than the total yearly emissions for a person). The lesson here is don’t replace your car carry on with your old one till the scrap yard looms.

If you own a petrol car then get it converted to LPG and run it until the end of its life.
If you buy a car buy a used car, because the manufacturing CO2 effectively is not going on you conscience account!

If you don’t own a car then don’t get one, but if you do you have these options:-

• A used electric city car, MEGA City http://www.topgear.com/content/news/stories/950/
• A used Ultra efficient diesel like the new Volkswagen's Polo Blue Motion: 62 MPG http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/07/volkswagens_pol.php
• A used Ultra efficient petrol car converted to LPG. Smart cars http://www.c-freelpg.co.uk/
• A used Hybrid car. www.toyota.co.uk/prius

When you have it do not use it ;-)

LPG

LPG cars creates much less particulates than diesel cars, so if you don’t want to affect people that have breathing problems then go for LPG (I get asthma).

LPG is better Co2 wise than petrol :-

Example of a Manual Vauxhall 1.8i Vectra

LPG 0.145 CO2 per km

Petrol 0.169 CO2 per km

I am angry about this. I needed some music to help do some redecorating work so I just bought the first DAB that came to hand (which I never do!) that was a TEAC SR-L30DAB. In London where the DAB signals are strong it gave great sound quality on a Rock station. When trying to tune in to other stations I quickly realised the user interface was unusable. You have to wait a couple of seconds after turning the tuning knob for the next station to appear. I also have a Roberts DAB radio which is a pleasure to use unlike the TEAC. The TEAC presets are also unusable. You have to have the TEAC on power (standby) for 3 days to charge up the internal cell for it to have non-volatile storage. What were these guys on when designing the thing? Surly some flash or E2 memory would have been cheaper and better? The station LCD display looks like a really cheaply driven I2C display. Slow and clunky. The signal sensitivity is rubbish too, when I got it back to Oxfordshire I could only get about 5 stations, then got more when I unscrewed the aerial and then screwed it up tighter. Don't buy this radio.