Rosie's Green Matters - 1st April

Deal With IT's Co-ordinator, Rosie Rechter this week writes our regular column in the East Kent Mercury :
Sustainable Community
One definition of the ideal sustainable community lists five dimensions

• Increase local economic diversity
• Self reliance
• Reduction in the use of energy and careful management and recycling of waste products
• Protection of biological diversity and stewardship of natural resources
• Social justice

Just an idealist’s dream? Well no actually. The little island of Westray in the Orkney Islands off Scotland is well on its way to becoming the UK’s first self sufficient community. Faced by serious economic problems and increasing depopulation, in 1998, they formed a Development Trust.
Following the above five guide lines, they created a bio-fuel plant for the island’s cars using old cooking oil, built a methane plant using slurry and grass, have an electric car powered by a small wind turbine, one of the finest organic salmon farms, a wonderful diversity of wild life and a flourishing and growing community which will be enriched by their new wind turbine, an Enercon E44 (900KW) which is now up and running and already creating an income for the community. Initially, Westray Development Trust hope to earn £100,000 each year from the clean energy they generate, and this will rise to over £200,000 annually over the course of the turbine’s life. Could we learn something from this success story?

At our Green Forum on Renewable Energy last week, a member of the audience pointed out that while the solutions we were offering for people to generate their own renewable energy by making an investment in solar energy, and also covering the possibility of DIY solutions for those with the necessary skills (16 people signed up for the planned workshops to mentor people who wanted to do this) that still left a lot of people unable to join in the financial advantages on offer.

Community generated clean energy is of course the most efficient way of providing a secure energy source for the future. Could Deal in 10 years time enjoy some of the advantages that Westray is enjoying today?

Victoria's Green Matters - 14th March

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

What is your view of ‘England’s green and pleasant land’? Do you see a pattern of fields, divided by hedges and walls, where animals peacefully graze? Do you think all animals have a good and natural life when they produce meat and other products for us to eat and drink? It would be wonderful if this were so but, unfortunately, providing the human population with food and drink relies mostly on big business these days.

There is a lot of opposition to the latest plan to farm 8,000 dairy cows in what amounts to battery conditions in Lincolnshire. Animal rights groups call the proposal an environmental disaster which will condemn animals to dark sheds for most of their lives. Does this feel the right thing to do to other sentient beings whose natural habitat is a field with grass?

Of course, we protest at such treatment and are told that if we want cheap food, this is the way it has to be produced. But do we want or need cheap food? It is a fact that one third of all food bought in this country is thrown away as waste. Consider this. It is shameful to think that we in the rich West waste so much when people in the developing world are hardly surviving.

Don’t forget that we have condemned chickens, ducks and turkeys to lives in concrete sheds and ourselves to eating meat often contaminated with deadly organisms that thrive in such conditions. Can this really be the way forward? Of course not. We must not encourage the production of milk to go any further towards big business and sentence cows to the same lives as factory farmed poultry.

We must endeavour to buy locally produced and free range produce whenever we can. Look for the local label, try to find out where food comes from and if it’s very cheap, ask yourself why?
 

Victoria's Green Matters - 28th Feb

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

Is spring really just around the corner? It is difficult to believe that we are ever going to be able to do any gardening again with ground so sodden after all the rain. If you have any vegetables over wintering in your garden, they will be looking very sorry for themselves as they try to overcome all the water around them.

It is a delight to see the snowdrops, their pretty white and green flowers dancing in the wind and rain.  They may look delicate and fragile but were able to reappear from under a thick blanket of snow to cheer us up. Most years they seem to bring the spring with them but this time we are still waiting despite the crocuses and miniature iris bringing us some colour.

If you have been able to find a couple of hours to spend in the garden during the few fine days we have had, it is the time of year to be tidying up after the winter. If you have clematis that flower in late spring and early summer, now is the time to prune them lightly. Cut out thin and overcrowded stems as low down on the plant as possible and tie in the remaining stems to the plant’s support for a good display later on in the year. Buddleias and other summer flowering shrubs can also be pruned now so be brave and cut them down so that new shoots will bear flowers and the bush will be the shape you prefer.

If you are lucky enough to have a greenhouse, you will already be thinking about the vegetables that you can start off now. You can go a long way towards your ‘5 a day’ by sowing lots of seed to plant out later. It is heart warming to look forward to growing your own fruit and vegetables, however small your space, with the added bonus of cutting your carbon footprint.

Victoria's Green Matters - 21st Feb

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

What does renewable energy mean to you? Many people think only of power from the wind, either on or offshore, when renewable energy is mentioned. Wind turbines have a huge place in the mix of energy forms for the future and they can also cause great controversy if there are plans to site them in sensitive areas where communities or wild life will be affected.

There are several other forms of renewable energy, some of which can be installed in homes and can benefit the population directly. These include solar water heating and photovoltaic panels, the latter generating electricity directly from light.

At the beginning of February the Government introduced new feed-in tariffs for domestic renewable energy, which means that anyone installing photovoltaic panels, a hydro-electric scheme or their own wind turbine, will be paid for the electricity they produce. Sounds too good to be true? Not at all – and this is only bringing us into line with other European countries, e.g. Germany, where feed-in tariffs have been operating for ten years.

In actual fact, the benefits are threefold: the householder will be paid 41p per unit of electricity generated; they will not have to buy electricity from their provider and should they have any electricity unused, they can sell that back to the National Grid at 3p per unit. There is, of course, an initial outlay but at present there is also a Government Grant of £2,500, which can help with this.

This represents an excellent investment of 8-10% on money put into the scheme that you choose. It also represents a certain amount of independence from the energy companies that rule our lives at present and as fossil fuels become rarer will have increasing difficulty giving us a continuous supply.

If you are lucky enough to be able to fit both solar thermal and photovoltaic panels, you will have a supply of hot water and generate electricity, too. You will have made a very good investment and reduced your carbon footprint into the bargain. Worth thinking about?

For more information go to the Energy Saving Trust at www.energysavingtrust.org.uk