Victoria's Green Matters - 9th Sept

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

We have heard some quite alarming stories this week about the excessive transport of food from manufacturer to retailer. We have come to associate the term ‘food miles’ with the import of food from far distant lands but these stories concern transport within the UK.

A tub of clotted cream, made in Cornwall, is transported 340 miles to a Tesco distribution centre and then to the Tesco store in Redruth, 2 miles from the creamery where it was produced. A similar situation is happening with Ginster’s pasties, made in Callington, in Cornwall, and taken on a roundtrip of some 250 miles to a Tesco store next door to the bakery where they were produced. We can be sure that these are only two of many thousands of examples of this procedure.

The clocking up of food miles in these examples is surely madness. There is no point in advertising ‘local’ food if that food has travelled hundreds of miles, particularly if it really was local in the first place. While we may try very hard to buy only foods grown or made in the UK, it is infuriating to find that local foods may have travelled further than imported ones. When oil becomes scarce, and therefore very expensive, the practice of transporting food vast distances will no longer be a viable option.

It is important that we buy foods as close to where they were produced as possible and that means using local shops that stock locally made goods that have not travelled from a central distribution warehouse. A vegetable box scheme, delivered to your door and sourced from local farmers, is a very good way of reducing your food miles and eating vegetables that are in season.

So, think twice before only using the supermarket: can a local supplier serve your needs better? Reduce your food miles, your carbon footprint and help to keep our high street shops open.

Biodiversity - OPAL Hedge Survey needs your support

Biodiversity survey - join in now

What’s living in your hedge?

Take part in the OPAL biodiversity survey and uncover the diverse range of wildlife in our hedges. You’ll contribute to valuable research and learn more about the importance of hedges and how you can improve them.

 

Hedges support many animals by providing them with food and shelter. Berries and seeds are food for birds, while holes beneath the hedge are often home to small mammals. You’ll also discover caterpillars, shieldbugs and many other invertebrates living among the leaves.

By telling us what you find, we can instantly rate the condition of your hedge and offer suggestions on how to improve it. more details here

The Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) network is an exciting new initiative that is open to anyone with an interest in nature. We aim to create and inspire a new generation of nature-lovers by getting people to explore, study, enjoy and protect their local environment. In 2007 OPAL received a grant of £11.75million from the Big Lottery Fund.

The Deal Floods - Deal's KCC Councillors issue Press Release

Deal's Kent County Councillors Julie Rook and Kit Smith have issued the following Press Release on the recent flooding in Deal:

"Your County Councillors Julie Rook and Kit Smith were very disturbed by the recent localised flooding events in Deal and have been in contact with Kent Highways in an effort to resolve these drainage issues and hopefully reduce the risk of such a disastrous event happening again.

After a very successful meeting on 2nd September, it has been agreed that Kent Highways will be attending Deal from 20th September where they will investigate and map the surface water and southern water systems in the problem areas. Once the issues have been identified and a system and strategy has been agreed, Kent Highways will apply for road closures to carry out the works which they envisage will be at least 4 months for all the sites.

Both Kit and I wish to assure the residents of Deal of our utmost attention at all times in this matter and understand that this is a very frustrating time , particularly with the uncertainty around whether this may happen again.We,like you, want to have peace of mind and so will work with Kent Highways to resolve these issues as quickly as possible.

Should you wish to contact us personally,please find our details at the foot of this letter. We would also welcome information about the location of problem areas, just in case there are some that we are not currently aware of.

Any emergency flood situations should be reported on KCC 24 hour helpline: 08458 247 247

Email: Julie.rook@Kent.gov.uk  Email: kit.smith@kent.gov.uk " Ends

Permaculture - Courses at Rippledown

Permaculture Course Rippledown Environmental Education Centre, just outside Deal on the A258 at Ringwould, is running two Permaculture weekend courses this Autumn on the 23–24th of October and the 20–21st of November.

Attend these 2 days and leave with the skills and aptitudes for sustainable living in the 21st century.
During the course you’ll learn how to use permaculture principles and practice a) in your own life, b) to contribute to the processes in the Transition Towns / Village movement, c) for community projects and d) to improve sustainability in your workplace.

The course also covers eco-building, sustainable energy, sewage, composting, eco-community, appropriate economics and much more.

For more information please contact Rippledown on 01304 364 854.

Transition Deal workshop

Great day at our Transition Deal workshop at the Rippledown Environmental Education Centre at Ringwould.

What we did not have in numbers we had in the quality of Rosie's presentation on 'Climate Change, Peak Oil and What is a Transition Town' in the morning, a extremely good shared lunch, a fascinating tour around Rippledown and two very intensive sessions on Local Food and Energy which were packed with ideas and energy!

We will publishing the outputs from two workshops later in the week - there was a lot of it!

Centre Manager David Jones took through the low carbon buildings the Centre was building out of reclaimed wood and straw

A big thanks to Dave for his support today and the wonderful facilities at Rippledown.

Victoria's Green Matters - 2nd Sept

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:
Shoppers in Britain have done well over the last few years to reduce the amount of plastic bags they use. In fact, 43% fewer bags were used in 2009/10 than in 2006, when records were first kept. Figures collected from the top eight supermarkets show that total bag usage fell by 10% during the past year.

The Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap) informs us that figures for May this year tend to show that this reduction in use has slowed down. There was a voluntary agreement between the government, the British Retail Consortium and the supermarkets to decrease the number of plastic bags handed out to shoppers by 50% by spring 2009. Wrap reported that by May last year retailers had achieved a 48% reduction. A rate of reduction of 45% has been achieved this year, showing a drop since the voluntary agreement ended.

Can we really congratulate ourselves? Of course, to reduce the use of plastic to any degree is to be applauded but we must continue this reduction until plastic bags are not given out in shops at all, as in mainland Europe. Campaigners want continued reduction in plastic bag use and if this does not happen voluntarily, then they want to see a bag tax. This was spectacularly effective in Eire where a price per bag of 10 pence was introduced and a 95% reduction in use was achieved. This serves to emphasise that a resource is usually squandered if it is free and easily available but if it has a price, it is valued more greatly.

It is easy to see, when we visit some supermarkets, that although bags have been removed from the holders at the end of the conveyor belts with the intention that shoppers must ask if they need a bag, assistants are now placing opened bags out for customer use.  Please remember to take your own bags with you and let’s try to end the use of plastic bags completely.

Housing Associations to invest in PV Solar power

Housing Association's trade body the National Housing Federation has called for expressions of interest from housing associations to set up a retrofit loan fund that could be worth hundreds of millions of pounds.
It is working with the European Investment Bank to set up a vehicle that could finance retrofit across the UK social housing sector.

The EIB could commit a minimum of £75 million to the fund. However, it is understood to prefer larger scale loans in the order of £200 million, with which it would lend 50 per cent of the costs, meaning that the fund could be worth much more than this. The fund is intended to act as a green loan facility for associations to borrow through the Housing Finance Corporation at very low rates over a period of at least 25 years.

Around 25 housing associations would need to participate in order to make the fund work successfully.
Improvement work would focus on installing photovoltaic panels and renewables to take advantage of the government’s feed-in tariff scheme. (from Inside Housing read more here)

If you are Housing Association tenant or leaseholder why not ask your landlord what are they doing ?

Town Halls to become Green Power generators ?

FROM KENT ON SUNDAY: Town halls have been granted new powers to start a renewable electricity revolution that could reduce rises in council tax.

The green powers were implemented by Lib Dem energy minister Chris Huhne who has now written to all local authorities inviting them to sell renewable energy to the national grid.

Previously, councils with small-scale green projects, such as wind turbines and solar panels, were banned from doing so.

But the decision to overturn the 34-year-old law means authorities have a financial incentive to invest in such schemes, with money generated used for local needs and frontline services.

Residents could also see council tax increases limited if enough cash is made through renewable electricity.

Mr Huhne said: “This is a vital step to making community renewable projects commercially viable, to bring in long-term income to benefit local areas, and to secure local acceptance for low carbon energy projects.”

Dover District Council already has its own mini wind turbine which recently produced 5,027kWh of electricity and saved 2,699kg of carbon dioxide in 124 days.

A council spokesman said the authority has applied for Feed in Tariff (FIT) accreditation and is awaiting more information.

“The Government has indicated that this could be a payment of 24.1p for every kWh generated,” he said.

This amount would be in addition to the price paid to the council per kWh for electricity produced or savings made by the council for using electricity it generates itself.

In 2009, Kent County Council’s energy team provided a total of £500,000 in grants for 10 schools’ renewable energy projects.

In 2008, Sandwich Technology School installed a 5kW wind turbine, which generates an estimated 8,700kWh and saves five tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.

But projects on a larger scale could be introduced after Mr Huhne said up to £200 million of income nationally could be brought in through energy schemes.

Steve Dawe, from the Kent Green Party, said every town hall could become a mini-power station as councils opt for environmental projects to feed power into the national grid for a cash return.

“The legal ban on local authorities supplying electricity imposed in 1976 was absurd,” he said.

“Removing this barrier would mean each council in Kent and Medway would no longer have to work through other organisations to generate power, but could now press on directly with developing money-saving schemes.

“Several councils have already developed renewable energy schemes that can generate over 600,000kwh of wind, tidal or solar energy locally, but the Local Government Act prevented them from selling electricity not produced alongside heat.”

But while Kent Green Party welcomed the change, its members fear it could be watered down if energy companies afraid of the competition chose to lobby Government.

Mr Dawe added: “There is also a general problem of scarce funds for such investment given excessive cuts already imposed upon and planned for local government.”

But Gary Porter, chairman of the Local Government Association’s environment board, said the move is a victory for councils who want to transform the provision of green power.

“Town halls are desperate to install solar panels and other renewable energy measures on millions of buildings,” he said.

“This has the potential to revolutionise the way we produce electricity and save huge amounts of money.”
http://www.yourdeal-sandwich.co.uk/kent-news/Eco__energy-could-cut-Kent-council-tax-increases-newsinkent39221.aspx?news=local

Silent wind turbine - Built in Kent

Silent wind turbine – designed & built by Kent firm

The wind turbines built by Luethi Enterprises Limited who are based in Rochester is an innovative vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) for renewable energy production with many benefits over existing wind turbine designs.

The unique patented mechanical speed regulator allows the wind turbine to function in extreme weather conditions and produce a constant flow of power. Benefits of the silent vertical axis wind turbine according to the company are:

• Low start up speed: generates power at low wind speeds, from 3.6 m/s (8.1 mph; 13 kph; 7 knots).

• Unique patented mechanical speed regulator: for power production in all conditions, from light winds to gales and gusts.

• Constant power output: even at high wind speeds as it always faces into the wind.

• Independent: as there is no electronic steering system, no power supply is needed, making it suitable for installation in remote areas. (Other turbine systems need up to 80% of their power to operate their electronics.)

• Durable: no gearbox means easy maintenance and no expensive parts.

• Easy to maintain: even by semi-skilled engineers.

• No danger to wildlife: as there is no flight window for birds.

• Virtually silent: as the blades work with the wind, rather than cut through it

.http://www.silentwindturbine.com

Twinning Visit to Saint Omer

Sarah with Henri Godart

One of our supporters Sarah Gleave was on the Deal town twinning delegation to Saint Omer last weekend. The visit marked Saint Omer's 40th anniversity of its twinning with Detmold in Germany and had a theme of 'Community and Sustainable Development'.

Deal With It manage to make links with like minded organisations on both towns - Agence-d'Urbanisme et de Developement Saint Omer and Klimaschutz-Beriat Detmold.

Sarah gave a presentation in french on voluntary work for a greener lifestyle and green tourism in Deal which was well recieved - there may well be an opportunity to share experiences in greater depth with low carbon voluntary groups in the partner towns next year.

The local produce on offer on our stand in the European Market in Saint Omer on Sat also generated interest from the European Centre for 'Slow Food'... so watch this space

Age of Stupid @ the Deal Maritime Folk Festival

This Year's Deal Maritime Folk Festival which runs between 16th-19th September has a special showing of Franny Armstrong's 'Age of Stupid' film.

This will be on Saturday 18th at 2:30pm in the Studio at the Astor Community Theatre in Stanhope Deal - Free/Donations
www.dealmaritimefolkfestival.org.uk

LATEST NEWS: Looks like this is postponed until Nov because of license issues - we will show the 'In Transition' instead....

Deal With It @ Miners Festival 30th August

We had a good turnout for our stall at the Fowlmead Miners Festival on Bank Holiday Monday - Many thanks to Vicki, Tony, Rosemary, Sarah, Charles and Steve for helping.

Lots of interested folk especially in the Transition Day on the 4th Sept, Chicken Count and Garden Share schemes -  it also was great to put faces to many names on our supporters list!

Great event and very well supported

Victoria's Green Matters - 26th August

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:
Climate change is already with us and we have had plenty of evidence of this during recent weeks. We have seen heart rending pictures of the disastrous floods in Pakistan, landslides caused by heavy rain in China and fires in Russia resulting from the heat wave there when temperatures reached 38⁰C and caused many deaths from choking smog. Closer to home, France suffered a minor heat wave in July and the UK had the driest first six months of the year since 1929.

All over the world there are extreme weather conditions caused by global temperatures being the hottest, for the first six months of this year, since records began more than 100 years ago. Evidence that periods of heavy rain are getting heavier is consistent with our knowledge of the atmosphere where warmer air holds more moisture and shows us that a warmer world results in extreme rainfall. Changes to the effects of the jet stream, which normally moves to the north, have also resulted in the high temperatures in Moscow and caused the worst drought for 130 years.

It is easy to feel helpless in the face of such horror when news teams can bring vivid pictures into our homes. We feel that all we can do is to send as much money as we can afford to try to save homeless people and help them to reconstruct their lives. But that is acting after the fact and maybe, if we all take small actions now, we can try to limit climate change for a future world.

It seems that nothing we can do from our cosy sitting rooms could possibly have any effect on the bigger picture but if we try to cut our energy use we will also cut our carbon emissions and if all of us do this we may well bring about change.

Free Trees for Deal - Kent CC Free Trees scheme...

This scheme offers individuals and organisations up to 25 native trees each, free of charge. All you have to do is collect them, plant them and care for them as they grow.



It is easy to apply for your free trees, and make your personal contribution to Kent's natural environment.

Why are KCC giving trees away for free?

Trees have a positive effect on the landscape and biodiversity of Kent's towns and countryside. The planting of trees in our local environment improves health and wellbeing long term. By planting 25 trees, up to 7 tonnes of CO2 can be absorbed in their lifetime.

What are the trees like?

The trees are two-to-three year old 'whips', typically up to 1metre tall. They may be supplied bare-rooted. Twenty-five trees will easily pack into a bin bag and fit into the boot of a car. The trees can be planted as single trees or used to create a woodland, copse or hedgerow.

How do I apply for my free trees?

The 2010 Free Trees Scheme is open from 12 July, with a closing date for applications on 30 October 2010. The trees will be ready for collection at the beginning of December. more details here

Faversham Transition Towns visit Deal....

A big thank you to Anna, Tina and Judith making the long trek along the A2 from Faversham to come to our monthly Deal With It meeting tonight.

It was really great to hear of the fantastic progress the Faversham TT has made in such a short time - very interesting to learn of your apple press co-op, community alottment, plastic bags campaign, food mapping and planned schools campaign. Lots of great ideas which we will recycle in Deal!

Read more about Faversham Transition Town at their website here or at their facebook page

Government announces 15 new Marine Protection Areas

Marine Conservation Society welcomes new UK Marine Protected Areas but  urges  Government not to lose site of deadline for a wider network  

 
Following the Government announcement on 20th August 2010 of the designation of fifteen new Marine Protected Areas around the UK coast, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS)  says it’s delighted at the move but believes further protection is still necessary if the seas are to be given a chance to fully recover after decades of mis-use and bad management.
 
The latest protected sites, including Land’s End and Cape Bank, Lyme Bay and Torbay as well as Lizard Point and Margate and Long Sands, have been selected  on the best scientific evidence available and will mean protection to habitats like reefs, sea caves and sandbanks where marine life thrives.
 
MCS Senior Policy Officer, Melissa Moore says she welcomes the new designation: “These are an important step by the Government towards their commitment to produce a full network of Marine Protected Areas by 2012, a deadline that the UK must not let slip to 2016, as is being discussed by Ministers at the North-East Atlantic Environment Summit in Bergen next month.”
 
“ 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity and an opportunity to firm up commitments to conserving our seas, not detract from them. Government must also ensure such sites have strong conservation objectives of recovery where damaging fishing and extractive industries are halted, otherwise they will just be ‘paper parks’. It has taken sixteen years since the EU Habitats & Species Directive came into force in 1994 to designate these sites, so let’s now make the wait worthwhile for marine wildlife.”
 
The Marine Conservation Society  is running an online voting website to allow the public to have their say on where Marine Protected Areas should be. MCS has selected 73 sites around the UK coasts chosen to protect rare and threatened species and habitats from over 20 years of dive surveys by volunteer divers.
 
“We’re the only voice for the public in this process.” said Melissa Moore “We would urge them to visit our website www.yourseasyourvoice.comand vote either for or against our proposed sites or suggest areas they think should be protected. There is so much to lose if we don’t protect our seas.”

Deal With It at the Walmer Picnic on the Green 21st August

 Deal With It had a great time at the Picnic on the Green and it did not rain !

Big Thanks to Sarah and Sandra for setting up and volunteers Jeremy, Rosie, Viv, Charles and Steve for helping during the day.

We meet lots of interested and interesting people - Thanks to Freegle (The District's local free recycling organisation) on the neigbouring stall for their support & and a bit of their table!

The stall travels next Saturday for a twinning event in St Omer with Sarah and then on bank holiday monday we are at the Miners' Festival at Fowlmead

Trains4Deal : Talk to the Rail Managers on the 19th August

From our colleagues at Trains4Deal - If you're travelling to London tomorrow, Thursday 19th August, via  St.Pancras - this is your opportunity to show the railway company that  there is a real demand from passengers for direct high-speed trains to  Deal.

 From 8am to 10am, Southeastern managers will be on the platform at St 
Pancras, waiting to hear what passengers have to say.

If you can, please make sure they hear about the problems of  travelling to and from Deal, and ask them WHY they won't stop the high- speed trains at Deal - especially the morning and evening ones that 
run through empty.

http://www.trains4deal.com

ps If you cannot make thursday, the will next opportunity to talk to SouthEastern will be at Charing Cross on 23rd  September, also 0800-1000.

Things you don't need: Power up your mobile with your Wellies

Just come across Ecoterra.com website - the strange love child of environmentalism, tech and the fashion world. Lots of clever bits of recycling, tech and clothing for things you dont really need.

A great example is the wellies that can power a mobile (it was either this or the dancepants that can power an mp3 player!).

The sole of each boot contains thermoelectric modules that convert temperature differences—say the warmth of your foot versus the cold of the ground—into electric voltage. When a sizable charge accumulates, simply plug in your phone into the power output at the top of the wellies.

I do not really think they get the consumption issue...

The Majestic Plastic Bag - A Mockumentary

A short & moving film .... guaranteed that you will have a tear in your eye by the end - if only because its all unfortunately true!



In case you cannot see the embedded video ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLgh9h2ePYw