Door To Door Canvassing In Styvechale

Over the last three weeks, we've been going door to door, raising awareness around long-term plans for the incinerator on London Road. It's the same sort of thing we were doing in November and December, raising awareness around the draft climate change strategy for the council, and the deadline for public input.

We've covered streets in Styvechale (The Chesils, Watercall, Arnold, Frankton and Ridgeway), and our key message this time around is that we would rather have a Coventry where we recycle 75% of our waste, rather than burn 75% of our waste.

In emails to Street Services at the council, we've also followed up local concerns about the speed of car traffic (the Chesils being a rat-run from Baginton Road towards Cheylesmore) and unsafe intersections (Knoll Drive and The Chesils).

We need safer streets. Some cities, Portsmouth for example, have tried a blanket 20mph zone across the city. This leads to more on-street cycling (replacing short 1 and 2 mile journeys by car) and fewer child fatalities from car accidents.

The "Carrier Bag Budget"

John Rentoul, in The Independent had a good quote:

"One Tory MP – Jacqui Lait, since you ask – called it 'the Carrier Bag Budget.' Which was a good description. It was a flimsy, disposable but long-lastingly irritating political event. It was an unrecyclable chain of missed opportunities."

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace:

"Suspending the promised increase in fuel duty has fatally undermined his boast that this is a green budget, and tinkering with taxes on planes and cars isn't going to stop new runways and roads being built ... The Chancellor should have channelled cash into clean technologies, energy efficiency projects and support for the renewables industry. On all these counts, his measures have failed to match the scale of the challenge."

Andrew Simms, policy director, new economics foundation:

"To get a feel for the scale of the transition required, Darling should be thinking in terms of an environmental war budget."

"It would be better to force fossil fuel companies like BP and Shell to introduce a new category for their reserves of ‘unburnable.’ The new category would reveal what should be left in the ground to prevent dangerous climate change."

"The UK could learn from Norway’s experience, and set up an Oil Legacy Fund, paid for primarily by a Windfall Tax on oil and gas company profits. Darling could then re-commit to the fuel duty escalator which would help progressively change behaviour, whilst having the resources to invest in a range of measures: expanding the use of school buses to tackle both congestion and energy-inefficient private-vehicle use on the school run, lowering the age for free public transport, and allowing adults with children to go free on public transport, to help for local authorities with the complexities of managing new, decentralised renewable energy services and technologies, and the rapid roll-out of micro, small and medium-scale renewable energy technologies that would create countless thousands of ‘green collar’ jobs."

The Budget - Fuel Poverty And Renewable Heat

Alistair Darling failed to respond to the three main measures that National Energy Action called for, in the run-up to the Budget statement which included:

- extra resources for the Government’s Warm Front scheme which provides grants for energy efficiency and heating measures

- an extension of the winter fuel payment to include not just pensioners over 60, but also many low-income families with children under five, or household members who are disabled or chronically ill

- a mechanism to provide cheaper energy to low-income households through a statutory duty on energy suppliers to offer a genuine social tariff to be included in the Energy Bill currently before Parliament

A one-off increase in the Winter Fuel Payment for pensioners will not insulate them (see what I've done there) from the rising cost of fossil fuels over the next two decades.

We need to broaden the debate from solely renewable energy, to renewable forms of heat.

Year-on-year, we need to have more heating fuel sold in the UK that is sourced from renewable resources, so that less fossil fuels, such as coal, are used for heat.

The government is aware of renewable heat, it's just not investing enough in it.

The Budget - Transport

The green measures introduced by Alistair Darling today will be swamped by government policy on roads and aviation.

Labour supports a third runway at Heathrow, runway extensions at Stansted, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and expansion plans at twelve other airports.

£11.5 billion has been spent on new roads since 1997, but only £1.16 billion on new rail lines.

Instead of roads and aviation, Labour needs to begin to seriously fund green forms of transport.

The Coventry Green Party supports:

- a focus on walking and cycling projects within cities (aided by 20 mph zones to make walking and cycling safer)
- making public transport easier to use (buses that run on time, buses which are low-floor to aid elderly users)
- making public transport more affordable (we support the UK Youth Parliament’s campaign for all under 18s in full-time education to be allocated a national concession card)
- renationalisation and expansion of the rail network
- a moratorium on new motorways
- a moratorium on airport expansion

Aviation might employ 50 000 people at Heathrow, but we can generate hundreds of thousands of jobs if we pursue a new range of activities -- energy conservation, organic agriculture, renewable energy, and producing socially useful products from waste.

Nick Broomfield On Iraq

"One of the problems with the coverage of the Iraq war is that it's been mainly done by journalists who have stayed in the Green Zone. There's been very little time spent with Iraqi people. So, although we've been in the war now for five years, we know very little about Iraqi culture. This is the place where the first letters were written. It's the cradle of civilisation, but we wouldn't know it ... Everything is told from the American point of view. I thought it essential to understand who the insurgency are. Iraqis regard themselves not as insurgents, but patriots and freedom fighters."

npower And Fuel Poverty

npower spends just 0.07% of its turnover on tackling fuel poverty.

The Observer, today, highlights that npower, in a letter to Ofgem in September 2007, said:

"We believe that the interest of the fuel poor is best served by a mandatory social tariff and this is the only means by which the government's 2010 and 2016 [fuel poverty] objectives can be achieved. There is no obvious reason why these targets will be delivered within a competitive retail market."

760,000 children are living in fuel poverty in England. If the government is serious about its legally binding target to end fuel poverty in England by 2010, Alistair Darling should listen to npower, and put something in his budget this week.

Edited (9th March, 1655): The Sunday Times has an interesting story about how npower, and other energy companies, are raising the rates for people who use less power: that is, the ones who are conserving energy far more than the average household.

Alistair Nicoll, 55, a research manager at Sheffield University, is among those whose bills have increased dramatically. In January, npower raised its gas bills by an average of 17% a year. But Nicoll, who prides himself on saving energy by putting the gas heating on for just 20 minutes a day to heat his water, saw his gas bill rise by 31%. "The house is very well insulated," he said. "Because I am a careful user of energy I feel I have been penalised."

Doing More Than Recycling - Compacting

"Basically, you set up a contract with yourself to buy only essential items. I decided, for example, that for me essential items would include gifts for friends and family at Christmas and for birthdays, but I do buy only green or ethical presents and I actually make a lot of gifts as well."

"As a youth worker, I have talked to a lot of young people about compacting. At first they think I'm a bit weird or wacky but then they start talking about it and they find it an interesting idea. Young people are our future and I feel that if they are at least thinking about these issues, it's a good thing."

Doing More Than Recycling - Ethical Shoes

Everything is a choice. We can choose to buy shoes made from animals, or we can choose alternatives. In parts of Africa, car tyres are recycled into soles for shoes. Here in Britain, for vegetarians/vegans who don't want to buy shoes made of animal skin, Vegetarian Shoes (in Brighton) uses a variety of materials, including that used for yachting upholstery (it looks and feels like leather, but is "breathable," unlike plastic).

Doing More Than Recycling - Aviation

The Commons Environmental Audit Committee says there is little sign that ministers have acted on the recommendations of the Stern Review.

In advance of the Budget, the committee is calling for a rise in air taxes, especially on long-haul flights. Green taxes, as a proportion of all taxes, have declined from its peak of 9.7% in 1999 to 7.6% in 2006.

We can't have a sustainable society without more of the environmental cost of our activities being reflected in short, medium and long-haul airfare. Maybe the carbon cost of each journey should be reflected when we're booking tickets online, so we can compare.

"It is vital that tax on aviation is not just reformed but significantly increased, so as to stabilise demand and resulting emissions. The Treasury should closely examine the merits and practicalities of varying rates by classifying journeys into three bands - short-haul, long-haul, and very long-haul - in order to reflect better the differing magnitude of emissions."

Doing More Than Recycling - Buying Less

With six billion people on the planet, the richest 20% (who consume 80% of the world's resources) need to begin setting the example.

If everyone lived like an average Briton, we'd need 3 planet Earths to live on.

Kalle Lasn, co-founder of the Adbusters Media Foundation, and responsible for turning Buy Nothing Day into an international annual event: "Our headlong plunge into ecological collapse requires a profound shift in the way we see things. Driving hybrid cars and limiting industrial emissions is great, but they are band-aid solutions if we don’t address the core problem: we have to consume less."

Doing More Than Recycling - Water

Which washing machines are the most efficient at reducing water wastage in the UK? The lead one even has "fuzzy logic" to detect if too much detergent has been added. Next thing you know, they'll be hunting down Morpheus and Neo.

Which dishwashers conserve the most water?

You can even follow the adventures of Waterwise The Fish ... and see how he washes and dries his socks.

Hemcrete Is The Future

The Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales is using hemp concrete as part of a new training/conference venue. It produces less carbon emissions than conventional concrete.

It's also natural, breathable, fire resistant and highly insulative.

Hemp, like flax and lambswool, is carbon neutral and able to significantly reduce a building’s embodied energy. Lime is an ideal binding agent for hemp. It sets hard, but remains porous enough to allow water vapour to pass through the insulation. The mix is also supremely versatile: it can be compressed into blocks using a mixture of limestone quarry waste, hydrated lime and blast furnace slag, or it can be fabricated into batts for fitting between studwork. Hemp can also be mixed with lime on site and sprayed directly on to a building frame before final rendering.

Coventry, PFI And A New Incinerator

If we're recycling 25% of our waste now, and burning 75% of it in the incinerator on London Road, it would be ideal to flip those two percentages. However, a long-term policy that favours incineration will lock Coventry into burning our waste for decades.

Coventry City Council is pursuing an "expression of interest" in PFI money for a new incinerator. This needs to be in by 30th March. One of the council's scrutiny boards has a hearing today on it. The full "outline business case" has to be in 6 months later and will cost a further £2m in consultant fees.

PFI is closing down, as far as waste goes, so despite the incinerator being due to be replaced in 2020/21, they're now rushing to meet this bid deadline of end of March.

Keith Kondakor (the Green Party up in Nuneaton; the FOE West Midlands spokesperson on waste) was on BBC Coventry yesterday, debating with Hazel Noonan, the city council cabinet member on incineration.

The Coventry Telegraph (page 5, yesterday) has an article on a FoE press release, and they're asking for people to contact them with their views, i.e. letters to the editor. The email would be letters@coventry-telegraph.co.uk

Instead of paying through the nose for consultant advice and planning to replace an incinerator with an incinerator, the council could be exploring alternatives.

Norwich, for example, is looking at a biomass energy plant: http://nail2.org/alte.html

You have parts of Flanders in Belgium recycling at 75-80%. How do they do it? You have entire countries (http://www.zerowaste.co.nz/) pursuing zero waste policies. How do they do it?

The council doesn't seem very curious.

The answer is that these places have made policy choices, for the long-term, choices oriented around educating people to reduce their waste.

We need to reduce the amount of waste produced, re-using, repairing and recycling materials, and environmentally-friendly treatment of residual waste to recover usable materials and compost organic matter.

"Welfare To Work" And Labour

The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson:

I wonder how those on the left who yearned for Gordon Brown to replace Tony Blair would have felt if they'd known that he would adopt a policy recommended by a former investment banker which would invite multi-national companies to bid for a share of a £1bn market to help get the unemployed back to work?

That was what James Purnell, Brown's new work and pensions secretary, confirmed today was his policy.

On a visit to a job placement centre in Newham, I asked Purnell whether he was happy for people to get rich helping the unemployed. "Yes" he answered without so much as a blink.

Prince Harry And Afghanistan

The press in Britain should not have agreed to any gentlemen's agreement (codename: self-censorship) over Harry Wales being deployed to Afghanistan.

"We did a lot of agonising over whether to enter into it," said Fran Unsworth, head of BBC news gathering . "We made our decision on the basis of safety, not on the basis of whether we were supporting the war effort or not."

Ah, but if had never gone to Afghanistan, there wouldn't be any endangerment of his fellow soldiers.

The BBC's 10 O'Clock news led with 14 minutes of Harry coverage when his cover was rumbled. How many times in the last 6 years of occupation have they focused on Afghanistan like that to lead their bulletin?

Harry is one man. That's all he is. That's all the royals are. They put their trousers on one leg at a time.

He's not a symbol. He's not an everyman. Why is one man's desire to be deployed to Afghanistan more important than freedom of the press for a country of 60 million people?

It would of course have been beastly for Harry to have had his hopes of seeing action dashed, but perhaps he could have seen that as a life lesson in itself, given that coping with disappointment is something that "normal" people do every day.