I recently attended the launch of a new air source heat pump, by Swedish company Aira. Heat pumps, widely, adopted, would make a significant contribution to reducing carbon emissions from UK homes. Look around any residential area, and what are the images that come to mind to define progress in reducing carbon emissions? Expensive electric… Continue reading
Posts tagged carbon
How tourism contributes to Turkey’s forest fires and what the future holds
The forest fires in Turkey in the summer of 2021 were a catastrophe. Images of blazing mountainsides were seared across nightly news bulletins. Holidays were cancelled, resorts evacuated and suspects arrested, although as the Turkish fires were only the worst of a series of conflagrations across the Eastern Mediterranean, it was quickly accepted… Continue reading →
Tread lightly on the planet, Swedish style
A Swedish family has cut its CO² output by 80% in a six-month experiment, using available technology allied to some not too drastic domestic behavioral change. Nils andAlicia Lindell and their children Hannah and Jonathan lived in a purpose-built, solar panel and hydro-electricity powered house in Hasselby Villastad in the suburbs of Stockholm. The parents… Continue reading →
“Tea cosy houses" will cost hardly anything to heat
The writer has been a frequent contributor to the Sunday Times Home section. A housing association development in the Essex countryside, now nearing completion, will be one of the first in Britain to meet the exacting Passivhaus low energy standards. The group of 14 home, which Hastoe Housing Association is putting up on a green… Continue reading →
"One Tonne Life" – Can a household cut its Co2 output by 85%?
The estimable 10:10 project has been urging us to cut our carbon footprint by just a little (10% in 2010), and many have taken the challenge, concluding that such a teensy-weensy reduction can’t be so hard. But what if you’re asked to cut your carbon by 85% — that’s the reduction in consumption from today’s… Continue reading →