| Welcome
to the Climate Durham online discussion forum. We hope you will use
this to communicate and collaborate with other members of this
website. Use the 'New Subject' link to start a new topic for
discussion and the 'comments' link to join a discussion. (New Subject) To all Phoenix volunteers - welcome to Climate Durham! Given that you all have different backgrounds and areas of expertise we didn't want to be prescriptive about the nature of the voluntary contribution you might make. The vision of Climate Durham is 'to inspire and enable lower carbon life-styles'. We would hope to change behaviour and attitudes towards climate change by people and organisations within Durham, and reduce carbon emissions associated with buildings, transport, business / manufacturing and any other activities connected with our modern way of life. I would be very grateful if you could propose and discuss any project ideas you may have to address this very broad objective, which Climate Durham may then collectively deliver. For example, stimulating change in basic attitudes towards climate change is a big challenge - how can we most efficiently accomplish this? Students' rented properties are often quite energy inefficient - what can be done to address this? - Janie (comment) Offsetting To offset my guilty conscience, I have contributed £25 to Climate Durham projects to cover a return European flight Please respond on whether you think this is a good way of raising awareness, a practical way of increasing project funding and a reasonable sum to pledge - David Miller (comment) For a wonderful illustration of the utter lunacy of offsetting as a
serious way to contribute to reducing man-made climate change, take a
look at http://cheatneutral.com/
- it's brilliant, and hilarious. In particular, if you have any friends
who (a) think they can keep flying to malaga offsetting their
emissions, and (b) play away from home now and then, it's the perfect
answer ;-) But don't let me dissuade anyone from making a donation to this great organisation! - Andy Williamson (comment) I think most recognise the problems associated with offset but what David has done is more of a 'pledge' - accepting the fact that some travel is unavoidable. Climate Durham like most organisations can't guarantee direct offset of CO2 quantities, but will certainly make good use of funds travellers might pledge - Jonathan Elmer (comment) I have recently been 'cold called' by local company on topping up my loft insulation which I am interested to do. I have no reason to think they are anything other than a good firm doing a good job but I just don't know. Does anyone in the Durham City area have experience of work done at home on either home insulation or installation of renewables eg heat pumps, solar, wind etc that might be of help to me and others? posted by David Miller (comment) Schools I think we should encourage schools to plant more fruit trees. Am looking into the possibility at St Margaret's Primary School and Durham Johnston Secondary. Biggest problem is then allowing the children to eat the fruit as it appears that it needs to be 'approved' by the Council! - posted by Janie Bickersteth (comment) Fruit for All There is a plan afoot to plant a fruit tree for every resident of Durham....using heritage local varieties to preserve our local history, to reduce food miles on fruit, to keep us all healthy and guarantee access to fruit in the near future when long distance imports may be less likely with scarcity of fossil fuels for transportation....anyone want to contribute to and support this ambitious idea? Here at Abundant Earth we have just grafted 50 varieties of local fruit trees all ready for planting at our smallholding. We plan to allocate a larger area of our site as a fruit tree nursery for this project, provide courses in grafting and pruning, and track down more local fruit tree varieties. We need people to raise funds to cover costs, help us find local varieties and identify land in the area that would be suitable for planting public access fruit trees. wanna help? yours, wilf at abundant earth wilf.abundantearth@virgin.net (comment) Business Idea I'm hoping to find someone to take on a business idea. Basically, to coordinate delivery of local produce from all local supplyers, through one website. A one stop shop for all your food needs, that only users local providers. posted by Jonathan Elmer (comment) Log Makers I'm considering buying one of those log makers to use up old newspapers but I've been told they are a bit of a faff - lots of fiddling around with soggy paper. Can anyone tell me whether they are worth buying? - posted by Janie Bickersteth (comment) Reducing Plastic I'm trying to reduce the amount of food I purchase in plastic containers. But how do I do this with milk? We don't have milk deliveries where I live in Crook (at least I don't know of any) Does anyone know where I can buy milk in glass returnable bottles - thanks posted by BS (comment) I thought there was at least one supermarket that was now selling milk in plastic bags rather than containers? That would at least reduce your waste - is it Somerfield perhaps? Posted by JB I know Sainsbury's is selling milk packaged in a recycleable plastic bag across 35 of its stores as a trial but the Durham store isn't one of them! Posted by BS The answer is as it always has been the wonderful glass milk bottle. I think there should be a campaign by the doorstep delivery companies to encourage people to stop driving to supermarkets to collect plastic wrapped milk and to lie back in bed knowing today's milk is on the doorstep when you wake up in the morning in a superb reusable and ultimately recyclable bottle. Perhaps we could start the campaign in Durham? posted by David Miller Privacy Statement Terms of Reference Contact design by invetec © climatedurham 2008 |