The environment and the law of equifinality

What I dislike is when someone tries to ram a viewpoint down my neck, without me having so much as invited them to do so. I think I’m quite into “the environment and all that”, but if someone starts approaching my outer limit of what I think is decent behaviour and what is slightly cranky extremism, then I get quite twitchy, feel awkward, guilty, on edge, defencive, and grasping for examples of the things I do do.

Typically your non-environmentally concerned person is going to feel exactly the same, but just at a different point. Who are we, then, environmentalists or otherwise to try and ram that point home? An enlightened super-race, busily trying to evangelise, and wait for the world to come around to our lofty point of view? Mm.. doesn’t sound right to.

OK, I think then do you do it by living an exemplary lifestyle in the hope that others want to be more like you, and therefore pick up on our desirable ways? Also, not too sure.

I only recently became what I’d call properly environmentally aware. It was when, in 2006, I attended my very first unit of the MSc course at CAT, the Centre for Alternative Technology. I’d been interested for some time in timber-frame (old fashioned sort – big chunky bits of wood) house building, and the MSc course in Architecture – Advanced Environmental & Energy Studies, really seemed to fit the bill. After some scrimping, ruminating and a chance encounter with Kevin McCloud, I signed up. And never looked back.

The first unit of the course basically pulled the rug from under me. It brought the whole environmental thing into very sharp focus. With the intensity of lectures, the information was driven home, and most of it has stuck. That’s probably only because I was that way inclined. Anyone more cynical would still be more cynical, and yet, it was just refreshing to be able to soak up some scientific facts, listen to a host of viewpoints, sometimes conflicting, to make up my own opinions. This, in marked contrast to what we usually do,… absorb journalists’ viewpoints in the papers and on TV, without the option of building your own opinion from some basic raw data. It was so nice not to just be learning  the conditioned responses in the world according to the Metro or Mail.

So the first thing I would probably advocate, is a bit of training – and I’m wondering whether what is missing is actual a good, basic eco-training course, which just covers some of the basic issues, presents people with all the facts, from all camps – from denial of a problem, to doom mongering, and everything in between, and lets them make up their own mind like I did.

But after that, you know, I don’t think it matters. My lecturer at Nottingham, Chris Wood, used to rattle on about the law of equifinality – the numbers of routes you can take to get to the same outcome. The other great way to saving the planet, is just trying to save a bit of money. The notion of the eco-miser is a good one. Back to my grandma who used to leave teabags out to dry before reusing them. Saving money is in vogue, especially as times get hard. Does it matter if you’re trying to save money or save the planet. If we can find ways of achieving both, and promote these as the way forward, the whole bigger picture which spans combatting global warming, but which also extends across to addressing world poverty, conserving natural resources, water, fossil fuels, iron ore, etc. can be addressed all togther.

 

Eco House Tips – Pressure tests

Reading Leo Hicks’ article on Tomas O’Leary’s passive house in Wicklow, The Guardian Weekend, May 10 2008, it was refreshing to find that the weary list of eco tips which always includes “turn your thermostat down a degree” had a useful addition.

Alright, well the no. 1 tip of “get some cavity wall and/or loft insulation” was still there, but rightly so too. You can’t argue with that one, since 60% of your heat is going to escape through walls and roof.

The rest of heat we generate, either through our inefficient bodies, or some form of centrally heating, is likely to escape in an unplanned fashion, through windows and doors, and via all the holes in the fabric of the building.

The interesting fresh piece of advice then, was to bring in some people to do a pressure test. In the article, it states that pressure tests start at about £70. These are usually carried out on new-build properties, to check whether houses comply with building regs for air-tightness.

Basically it works by having air pumped into the house, to see what, if any resistance there is.. ie is everything that is meant to be keeping the house airtight, actually doing its job?

We’ve got a 1930s purpose built flat, with big single glazed sash windows at the front, and a two fairly ill-fitting exterior doors, and a handful of vents from before the cavity was insulated. I’d be surprised if we can get enough pressure up to actually measure the leaks.

But how airtight are you trying to get a place? If you do too well, you are going to end up with a stuffy, stale, low-quality air.  If it’s too tight, then you’re going to need mechanical ventilation. If too draughty, you’re going to lose too much heat. The solution lies in between the two.

More on this anon. In the meantime check out Ventilation of Houses for a more indepth look at this issue.

http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/bsi/83-4_e.html

 

 

The Black & White of Green

Now there’s a title that’ll never get picked up on Google.

My point? When you look any list of “green things to do to save the planet”, each reader will tend to view the list as being extremely black and white. They’ll either be things that they will do, and therefore think OK, or not do, and think that they are the most completely ridiculous unthinkable things to do.

Take this list which I’ve taken from Save Cash & Save the Planet” (2005, Friends of the Earth. Collins)

Under reusing worn-out items, the book lists 6 bullet point examples:

1) Cut up old T-shirts and sheets into duster-sized squares for rags and cloths.
2) Save worn toothbrushes to help scrub sinks, and awkwardly sited dirt patches.
3) Give new life to worn-out bath towels as handtowels and bath mats. Use old nappies as mop-up towels.
4) Give grubby sponges a new lease of life via the washing machine
5) Save punctured inner tubes to tie things onto bikes, and to render bikes less nickable
6) Use ends of wallpaper or newspaper as drawer liners and wrapping paper for home-made cards.

Now we do 3 out of the above 6. No matter which ones, but we (fairly hardcore reducers and recyclers) consider the other three to be a bit cranky. Are they cranky per se,  or is this the black/white issue, that we think they’re cranky and green precisely because we don’t do them?

This starts to point to how very tricky it is to shift people’s perceptions of what is right and good, and what they should be doing, away from what they’ve always done, and (probably) what their parents always did.

I guess I’m lucky in that my dad’s parents used to dry and reuse teabags, wash and reuse foil and clingfilm, used rolled up newspaper as a draught excluder and fitted secondary glazing using heavy duty polythene that was too opaque to see through. How many of those would you do?

Black or white then?

 

Environmental Training – no to NGOs.

Why should companies expect or be expected to get Environmental training courses as prices which have been subsidised by Government grants? This makes not sense to me, as it simply denigrates the perceived quality and value of the training course. Many extremely professional courses are run by NGOs and other UK-based associations, depending on completing endless, time-consuming business plans and proposals, in the hope of securing £25k in order to run discounted training courses? Why? The private sector is rarely blessed with the luxury of free money – it has to work hard to convince people of the value of its wares… why doesn’t the world of Eco training do the same? In plenty of sectors, the more you charge (within limits) the more perceived value there is. If we really believe in the quality and value of the environmental training on offer, and furthermore, in the noble aims of furthering environmental concerns, then we’d blooming well better start charging prices which, in industry represent this value.

OUT - courses valued at £125 a day “special funded price”
IN – environmental courses at £1250 a day! At this price, it won’t take to claw in that £25k you’ve wasted weeks of proposal writing and weeks of waiting for. And what’s more you’ll have enough money to pay skilled people a decent wage!