Monthly Archives: September 2007

Wiz Wiz

One of the sources of CO2 emissions (major contributor to global warming) is fuel for transportation, which for most of us means petrol or Diesel. Various options exist for reduction including:

  • Buy a more fuel efficient model.
  • Buy something smaller.
  • Buy a Diesel rather than a petrol vehicle – but be cautious the CO2 saving is not as marked as the fuel economy benefit might suggest.
  • Use a renewable fuel such as E85 – but for me the nearest source is Ipswich which is many miles from my home in South Essex.
  • Buy a hybrid such as a Toyota Prius.

All of those can make a difference depending on what you currently drive, but I went further than that and have reduced my CO2 emissions from personal transportation by about 90%. Now I suppose that I could have used my bicycle more, but then a 7 mile trip to church or rehearsals would leave me hot and sweaty and it wouldn’t be practical to carry much music or my keyboard, so..

My electric vehicle

.. I went electric.

My G-Wiz is able to complete over 40 miles on a charge, and is responsible for no CO2 emissions since it is charged on renewable electricity. I reckon that I can do about 90% of my mileage in it. It’s not quick and it’s not pretty (in my opinion although some call it “cute”), but it is very green despite being black.

GoinGreen
G-Wiz Owner’s Club

Well hello..

Hello out there.

This is for the moment something of an experiment as this is my first attempt at creating a blog, so polished it ain’t but hopefully it will get better over time.

Like many people I’m concerned about the state of our planet. It would seem that those of us in the west need to make some significant changes to our lifestyles to try and stop catastrophic damage to our world. Some reports talk of global warming wiping out whole countries and creating hundreds of millions of refugees. Something needs to be done. Someone needs to do something.

Then it occurred to me, here I sit in the UK in one of the world’s wealthiest countries. I have a well paid job, and a nice home. If I can’t change my lifestyle for the better, then who can be expected to?

So over the coming months I’m going to be logging some of the changes that I’ve made. Some are quite big, and others are quite small, but among them there will be something that everyone can do, because even the longest journey is made one step at a time.

Electricity

One of the easiest things that can be done to reduce the environmental impact of your home is to use renewable energy. You could of course buy your own wind turbine or cover the roof with photovoltaics, but those are both quite expensive and may not be appropriate for all homes. However that doesn’t stop you using renewable energy.Wind Turbine at Dagenham

You might not be able to make your own, but why not buy it from someone else? Just as you can shop around to buy cheaper electricity you can also shop around for greener electricity. A service like Simply Switch can quickly find you a greener electricity supplier, and depending on who you buy your power from now it won’t necessarily be any more expensive.