Green Nation – Free Solar Panel offers in South West UK – Greater freedom for the rest of us

This is a big shout out for a fantastic renewable energy company in the South West UK who are doing wonderful things with solar energy.

Established in 2011, Green Nation is developing solar farms of increasing size and helping public, commercial and private residences to maximise the benefits of solar power.

This is the type of organisation that is quietly making a big difference to some of the challenges we are facing today and on a blog related to imagining the world my children will inherit I have no hesitation in advocating and promoting their offerings.

Aside from being founded and run by people who are passionate about the transformative capabilities of technology, they already have many happy commercial and residential customers who are seeing the tangible and realistic benefits of installing the latest generation of solar panels.

Regular followers of this blog will know my admiration for the call to action campaign One Hundred Months and its excellent monthly updates which are a healthy mix of eye-opening climate science, political skepticism and technological optimisim.

As the counter clicked down to 29 at the beginning of this month, now well under the half way point in this credible and insightful action timeline, the concise and useful 5 point communication contained an excellent article documenting progress that is being made to combat our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels. Titled 10 reasons to be hopeful that we will overcome climate change point number 3 contains this encouraging comment … Continue reading →

Rome – a Smart City starting to get into a Twizzy

It’s been a while since I produced an automotive related post but a recent trip to Rome has reminded me just how ripe things are for a revolution.

The people of Rome don’t do cycling. In fact, seeing someone riding the streets on a bicycle of any pedalled variety is a rarity. What they do love however is small cars and scooters.

The country that gave us iconic cars like the Fiat 500 and the Vespa and Lambretta scooter brands has clearly embraced other small four, three and two wheeled vehicles, most notably Smart cars.

Rome must be the Smart car capital of the world and it is easy to see why the narrow cobbled streets and lack of large open parking areas or multi-story car parks have led to such an uptake of compact two seated vehicles that up half the space of the average family car. Continue reading →

Artificial photosynthesis – an A* idea

Spending time this year helping my eldest daughter revise for her biology, physics and chemistry GCSEs has rekindled my interest in basic scientific principles.

One that crosses over all disciplines and came up repeatedly in the revision notes is photosynthesis. It is such a fundamental process in our daily lives and sits at the heart of the climate change challenges we are facing increasingly as our CO2 emissions continue to climb to ever more unpredictable and potentially dangerous levels.

This week a new report highlights that European forests are reaching saturation point as efficient CO2 sinks and calls on governments and forestry commissions to recognise the issue and take appropriate action. This is yet another scenario that highlights the complexity of climate change science but also prompts some to take a pessimistic view on the future, particularly on matters where politics are involved.

One recent view that created a lot of commentary and debate is that of Professor Stephen Emmott whose short but blunt book 10 Billion has clearly polarised opinion. I was inclined to take notice of his views as the area of research his laboratory focuses on is artificial photosynthesis and the more I understand about this, the more it looks like one of the better potential answers to climate change challenges.

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Sustainable transport initiatives – 'must go faster'

A few months into the Department for Transport funded project I have been working on over the last year or so I met with a senior business figure from the Solent region who has worked for some big companies on the UK south coast.

When I explained what the Hampshire councils were doing to encourage transport related behaviour change and achieve a targeted shift away from car usage within the next three years he was surprisingly skeptical and believed the campaigns would go the way of previous such efforts and focus far too much on cycling as the main answer to the issues.

Now that I have an insight into what’s happening in Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) projects around the UK, one thing has become very clear. A lot of taxpayer’s money is being pumped into these initiatives with an emphasis on them being measurable and ultimately self-sustaining but, as far as I have seen so far, there are no real big or radical ideas being implemented now or in the foreseeable future and I’m really not convinced the activities will make much difference in the larger scheme of things.

Am I surprised? Not really. Does it matter? I think it does. Any answers? I can think of a few …

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Imagining the World my children will inherit

This phrase has sat as the strapline to my blog since its inception back in 2008.

My baby girl has grown up

The first of my children was born in a different century, before the World changed.

The second was born early in the 21st Century after the catastrophic events of 9/11.

Compared to the generally impoverished and challenging upbringings my wife and I had, with her losing her father at the age of four and both my parents being badly disabled, my children have led a relatively charmed existence so far. It was always our goal as parents to give them the happiest childhoods possible and we will remain focused on that.

We have recently returned from a lovely relaxing family break at our faithful Spanish bolthole. The sun is shining for a change in the UK, the girls are busy preparing for the long holidays and my wife and I are encouraged by the progress of our respective small businesses, with signs that the economy is starting to recover a bit from the grind of the last few years. All things considered, life is good.