Hi All

First, some good news – thanks to solar energy, for the first time in the UK, on Saturday 15^th March, electricity demand from the grid was lower in the afternoon than at night.

And on polling evidence, most people in the UK  support renewable energy.

Next a challenge –

What is the best approach to talking about climate change  with people whose political views are on the centre right? A new guide has been produced by Climate Outreach and the Climate Coalition.

It makes interesting reading. Two examples of ways to engage:

– “Great British Energy”: patriotic support for the UK’s flourishing low-carbon energy technologies, and

– a focus on avoiding waste as a critical part of saving energy.

We can each try and  set ourselves a challenge to strike up a conversation on climate change with a friend who has a centre right outlook.

And it’s not too late:

If you observe Lent, here is an invitation to a Carbon  Fast for Lent

The Moderator for the  Church of South India, Most Rev.Thomas K Oommen,  has suggested a new way of observing Lent:   “I challenge all of you to go a step forward and deeper by initiating a ‘Carbon Fast’. More details at www.ecocongregationscotland.org/news

This month Friends of the Earth  and Stirling Methodist Church were delighted to welcome Dr Julia Edwards to a well attended event to provide  first hand account of the impact of climate change in Fiji and the Pacific islands generally. Some coastal villages are already having to  move the whole village to higher land and Fiji has agreed to take the entire population of Kiribati whose island home now seems destined to disappear beneath the waves. Julia explained that, since there was no human persecutor, those people who are displaced from their homes through climate change cannot regard themselves legally as refugees. See the press. release here.

Other snippets: Here is news of  the UK’ Government’s own climate change risk assessment which has not been widely publicised.

For this month, consider joining  in the Show The Love Green Heart campaign.

If you observe Lent, here is an invitation to a Carbon Fast for Lent

The Moderator for the  Church of South India, Most Rev.Thomas K Oommen,  has suggested a new way of observing Lent:   “I challenge all of you to go a step forward and deeper by initiating a ‘Carbon Fast’.

If you have not yet done so, please consider making the Geetotal commitment. If you have done so, now may be the time to do your annual CO2 assessment and offset).

We’d like to get feedback from others who have also used the calculator. To avoid being over-complex it asks same fairly broad questions – some are more easy to respond to than others. It also may be somewhat out of date, and overly negative, with regard to use of green electricity tariffs, for which it only makes a partial CO2 allowance. This may be fair for green tariffs from some large utilities for which genuine additionality has been questioned. But the CO2 reduction from high quality green tariffs eg Good Energy and Ecotricity we think deserves more  recognition. You can make your own decision as you use the calculator since you can insert your own figures.