November 27th meeting on home energy saving

Donnachadh McCarthy to speak on home energy saving

Transition Westcombe will be holding a meeting on Friday November 27th at 7.30pm in Mycenae House, and the speaker will be Donnachadh McCarthy. His topic will be 'High priority energy-saving measures in a Conservation Area and how individuals, businesses and our local council can act to achieve them.” This is a chance to find out from an expert how to improve your home’s energy efficiency, especially if you are part of the 10:10 initiative.

Donnachadh McCarthy is an environmental journalist with his work published in The Guardian, Sunday Times, Independent, Time Out etc.
He is the author of "Saving the Planet without Costing The Earth" and "Easy Eco-auditing". He appeared as the expert eco-auditor on BBC 2's Its Not Easy Being Green, ITVs How Green is Your Home and Sky's Green Britain Week. His home in Camberwell was London's first retro carbon-negative home, with solar electric, solar hot water, wind-turbine (useless!), wood-burning stove and rain-harvester.
He also runs the consultancy 3 Acorns Eco-audits, which has one a number of national environmental awards and he is the founder of www.nationalcarbonfootprintday.org , a free carbon footprint reminder and personal meter-reading data storage service.

October progress report

Transition Westcombe Meeting
10:10 Initiative to save energy on
Wednesday 21st October, 7.30pm Mycenae House

Each person in the U.K. is on average responsible for the production of 14 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Two thirds of that amount are things we can do something about ourselves. The 10:10 initiative is a voluntary attempt by individuals and groups at a 10% reduction during 2010. This means finding a saving of about 1.5 tonnes each per year. Figures are from Chris Goodall’s article in the Guardian of 1st September 2009.

Transition Westcombe is helping to create small groups of friends and neighbours in each street who want to achieve a 10% target reduction in your energy footprint during 2010. You may develop other street projects such as trip sharing to supermarkets or schools, or getting together for bulk buying.
What has happened so far? The first groups have met in Foyle Road / Lyndale Close, and will be spreading the idea by word of mouth and flyers.

What can you do?
1. Come to the next Transition Westcombe meeting to discuss ways of making your 10% reductions and of forming a group. It is at 7.30pm on Wednesday 21st October in Mycenae House. If you want then meet in the bar from 6.30pm as usual for a 3rd Wednesday of the month.
2. Invite some friends and neighbours in your street to coffee and cake, when you can have fun and also discuss the idea of their signing up to energy reductions. The key steps are to measure your gas and electric use and your car and air travel. You can arrange to meet every month or so to discuss progress, and how best to achieve reductions.
3. Sign up to the 10:10 campaign at www.1010uk.org
4. Keep us informed. Email us transitionwestcombe@googlemail.com Transition Westcombe can help with tips, information and advice.
5. Come to a meeting at 7.30 on November 27th in Mycenae House, at which eco-auditor Donnachadh McCarthy will be talking about ways to reduce your home energy bills. More details will be posted on www.transitionwestcombe.blogspot, as well as in the Westcombe News.

By sector, the average potential reductions to be made are by using less gas (2 tonnes) and electricity (1 tonne), cutting your car use (1.5 tonnes) or air travel (1.2 tonnes), by various food savings (1.5 tonnes), using less water (0.3 tonnes) and using less paper (0.3 tonnes)

Some examples of the average annual impact of these reductions are:
Major improvement in your home’s insulation: 0.4 tonnes saving
New boiler if yours is more than 10 years old 0.3 tonnes saving
Reducing your thermostat temperature by 1 degree: 0.2 tonnes saving
Not using a tumble drier: 0.1 tonnes saving
Cutting your car’s annual mileage in half 0.7 tonnes saving
Cutting one return shorthaul flight to Mediterranean 1.2 tonnes saving
Cutting one return longhaul flight to Sydney 14.3 tonnes saving
Change to a largely vegetarian diet 0.5 tonnes saving
Cycling instead of public transport 0.3 tonnes saving

Edward and Irena Hill

Progress Report, September

Following on from the ‘Hard Rain’ photographic presentation by Mark Edwards, this is a progress report on the Transition Westcombe subgroups.

 

Energy Subgroup.

Contact Edward Hill to be on this email list: edhill@glartists.com

Next meeting:  To be announced

Progress: The Energy Subgroup has met to discuss ways in which we can influence the planning policy of Greenwich Council.  We are looking at using a planning provision already pioneered by another council to stipulate that 10% of any house refurbishment should be spent on ‘green’ measures such as insulation. Also we are looking to use Local Development Orders to allow the installation of solar thermal panels on the front roof slopes of houses in a Conservation Area. We have met with Peter Savage, the council officer who is the Greener Greenwich Co-ordinator, and he is organizing for us to meet with the relevant officers to discuss the technicalities.  After that we have been promised a meeting with Councillor Alex Grant, the Chair of Planning.

The energy sub-group is also co-ordinating a joint meeting with the Westcombe Society at which eco-auditor Donnachadh McCarthy will talk on refurbishing older properties.   This meeting will be in late October or November.

 

Food Subgroup. 

Contact Zoe Davis to be on this email list: zoe@mayhill.myzen.co.uk

Next meeting:   To be announced

Progress:  Positive contacts with Network Rail about the use of waste ground by Westcombe Park Station.  The mapping of fruit trees in the area has also been undertaken, with the distribution of fruit to commuters.

 

Inner Transition Subgroup.

Contact Andy Chapman to be on the email list: enquiries@braidedriver.net

Next meeting: Friday 25^th  September, Mycenae House Bar. 7.30pm

 

Transition Street.   A group has formed out of Inner Transition to back street projects in Foyle Road. In support of the Guardian-backed 10:10  initiative, this small group of friends and neighbours in Foyle Road will commit to a 10% reduction in energy, car and water use by 2010.  Each house notes down their current reading for gas & electric & water meters, plus car mileage, and then measures them, meeting monthly to discuss methods and see progress. We have set up a Yahoo Group called  ‘Foyle Road (Transition Westcombe)’ as a street community forum. This can be fun to do, and can lead on to other street projects such as sharing cars to the supermarket or a ‘Big Lunch’ next July. If you have already got a group going in your street, want help with setting one up,  or want to be kept informed then contact edhill@glartists.com.

Next meeting Friday 25^th September, Mycenae House Bar. 7.30pm

Meeting on the 3^rd Wednesday of every Month. From 6.30 to 8pm at the bar in Mycenae House.  Come and discuss your ideas

 

Motivation for Inner Transition

“As the planet is poised at the tipping point of irreversible climate change, we struggle to conceptualise this potential catastrophe and its consequences. Too awful, perhaps, to deeply contemplate the consequences of inaction, we bury this awareness in order to re-establish the emotional comfort zone of denial. Believing, perhaps, that we are individually helpless to impact on this terrifying escalation, this helplessness is often felt as despair and moral confusion. Could an enriched sensibility to our place in nature enable us to shift from passive anguish to psychologically-healthy problem solving and greater emotional health?  Can we creatively harness our awareness of our relationship with nature – rather than suppress it?”

This theme for a conference at the Eden Project in Cornwall challenges our inertia in the face of the global threats to the environment. How can we motivate ourselves to change our habits? We know that there is an economic motivation for living more energy efficiently, wasting less and recycling more. There is also satisfaction as well as good health and fun in growing some of our food, in walking more, and in getting to know our neighbours. These things require us to slow down, maybe for an hour each day, a day each week, and are part of a richer lifestyle that we should be teaching our children. We need to have more confidence that small steps taken by many people in a community can really change things, and to start them ourselves. One mitigating action we can take is to donate money to tree-planting organizations to offset some of the damage we are doing with our high-carbon lifestyles.  Two such organizations are www.treesforlife.org.uk  and www.woodlandtrust.org.uk. The tiny remnants of our ancient forests remind us of the countless generations of ancestors who have gone before, and forest replanting would be a tangible sign that we mean to pass on the environment in better shape to all our grandchildren.

Edward and Irena Hill

 

Inner Transition Subgroup - Initial Meeting

The initial meeting of the TW Inner Transition subgroup will be held on Monday 17th August at 7.30pm in the bar at Mycenae House, Mycenae Rd, London SE3. Everyone is welcome!

What does "Inner Transition " mean? For me, it means the process of changing attitudes, at both an individual and community level, to how we live in relation to one another and in relation to nature. In part, this is needed to enable the practical aspects of moving to low-carbon, sustainable ways of living to be accomplished more easily, quickly and effectively; and in part, I think, because the mass consumption lifestyle that has been fostered by cheap energy has not in any event been accompanied by greater overall levels of human happiness and fulfilment.

So, as one way of starting to look at these issues, I've drawn up the following list of questions which I shall be giving some thought to before the meeting. Feel free to do the same or suggest your own questions/ issues if you feel they are more relevant!...

1. What aspects of my life as it is now do I value the most?
2. What aspects of my life as it is now would I most like to change?
3. What aspects of my community as it is now do I value the most?
4. What asepcts of my community as it is now would I most like to change?
   
5. What do I find exciting about the idea of society moving to a low-carbon economy?
6. What do I fear the idea of society moving to a low-carbon economy?

Look forward to seeing you on 17th.

Andy Chapman

TW Subgroup Meetings

Monday 3rd August

There were 3 subgroups set up at the TW meeting last Wednesday, and they have arranged to meet in the Bar of Mycenae House, Mycenae Road at the following times:

Food   8pm Tuesday 11th August

Inner Transition  7.30pm Monday 17th August

Energy  7.30 Wednesday 19th August

All welcome!

Hornbeam Centre and barbecue

Hi all

There is a community place in Waltham Forest which I think is really worth visiting, as they are already doing so many of the things that we have been discussing and that we would like to start, such as a community cafe, a local veg food stall every Saturday, skill sharing and lots of other initiatives.

The place is called the Hornbeam Centre and they are holding a (vegetarian) barbecue in the cafe on Saturday 15th August. Also, on Saturdays between 2:30 and 4:00 there are people involved in the local Transition Town who meet there.

I think it would be ideal if a group of us could visit, share some nice veggie barbie food and then make contact with the local TT, also to ask the centre what they did to start this amazing community set-up.

If anyone thinks it is appropriate for us to contact them in advance and say that a TT group would like to visit and exchange ideas etc, please let me know and I shall contact them.

Here is the link for the Hornbeam Centre: http://www.hornbeam.org.uk

Caterina