Letter from East Kent FOE

90% OF BRITS WANT PUBLIC INQUIRY INTO FIRMS - NEW SURVEY.

Politicians are being urged to get tough on the Big 6 energy companies with 90% of Brits backing a call for a Public Inquiry into their power and half believing the main
reasons for bills doubling since 2004 is energy company greed according to a new survey released by Friends of The Earth.

Martin Lewis, Creator of Moneysavingsexpert.com joined calls for politicians and regulators to make "radical changes" to the energy system following a summit last month where The Government failed to tackle the energy company rip-off.

Friends of The Earths new Final Demand Campaign is challenging The Government to launch a Public Inquiry into the power of the big 6 who are making billions in profits while an estimated 1 in 4 households are unable to afford their energy bills following recent price hikes.

FOE are asking people to sign its Petition calling on David Cameron to set up a Public Inquiry into the big 6 at -www.foe.uk/finaldemand

Stuart Cox from East Kent Friends of The Earth Group said:

"The Government is cozying up to the energy companies instead of calling time on the big energy market stitch-up.

The Big Six are making billions by keeping The UK hooked  on expensive imported fuels instead of setting us on a path to affordable, clean British energy.

Were making a Final Demand to David Cameron on behalf of families in Britain - launch an urgent Public Inquiry  into the big six and give us a fair energy system."

End Fit sinks Social housing PV schemes

One of the bright spots in the last 18months has been the number of social housing bodies fitting PV - benefitting the social landload, planet and tenants in fuel poverty...

Tariff cut leaves solar plans on the scrapheap

04/11/2011 | By Nick Duxbury from Inside Housing

The sun set on landlords’ solar ambitions this week as an unexpectedly savage cut to a subsidy payment for solar photovoltaic panels left the majority of social housing PV schemes unviable.

On Monday, the feed-in tariff, which is paid to producers of renewable electricity, was halved from 43.3p to 21p - but in a shock move, the government hacked back the FIT for multiple, or ‘aggregated’, installations of solar photovoltaic panels to just 16.8p.

Solar providers, landlords and consultants said the cut will render the majority of social housing PV schemes unworkable - and warned that social tenants, who pay for the FIT through their energy bills, will not benefit from it.

Public tenders worth an estimated £2.5 billion for social housing PV could fall by the wayside, and, according to law firm Trowers & Hamlins, landlords face a collective bill of around £5 million of ‘abortive costs’.

The cut has been viewed by some as the final nail in the coffin for rent-a-roof deals, whereby PV is installed free of charge in exchange for the FIT. Not a single rent-a-roof deal has been completed as a result of landlords failing to obtain lenders’ consent to install PV. Landlords now face a deadline of 12 December before the cut is instigated.

John Swinney, strategy director at Carillion, said: ‘So many [rent-a-roof] schemes just won’t happen. The sector has hardly put any PV on its roofs - and now it doesn’t make economic sense to try to at 16.8p/kWh. We don’t know if we can do it. We are seeing if we can adjust our offer.’
 
Matt Roberts, head of investment and maintenance at Salford-based Salix homes, part of the government’s green deal trailblazer project, said the cut to the FIT had ‘kyboshed’ plans to form a consortium of up to eight Manchester-based landlords to install PV.

For self-financed schemes, councils and associations around the country are holding crisis meetings to try to make their schemes stack up.

Birmingham Council said it would continue with its plans to install PV across 1,200 social homes, while Brighton and Hove which planned to install PV on 1,200 homes, said the new tariff would make this ‘very difficult’.

Experts are now warning that the move has shattered investor confidence and that this could undermine the prospects of other government carbon reduction schemes, such as the green deal which is reliant on billions of pounds of private sector finance.

Rob Beiley, partner at law firm Trowers & Hamlins, said: ‘Convincing the private sector to finance green deal will be hard - investor confidence is shot.’

Alex Grayson, managing partner of Empower Community which has seen its £175 million social housing PV investment deal derailed, warned of ‘very negative consequences for renewable heat incentive and green deal investments’ as a result of the cut.

Climate change minister Greg Barker said the FIT reduction was necessary because the popularity of the scheme meant it was unsustainable and would cost £980 million a year by 2014/15 without the cuts.

Dumped: how the feed-in tariff has fallen for social landlords

43.3p/kWh
Feed-in tariff rate for social landlords until 12 December 2011
16.8p/kWh
Feed-in tariff rate for social landlords from 12 December 2011
61 per cent
The percentage by which potential feed-in tariff income has fallen

Ban the Plastic bag ... Kent News Report

A Walmer teenager has launched a government e-petition calling for a nationwide ban on plastic bags.

From Kent News. Dover Grammar School for Girls pupil, Amber Bytheway, launched a campaign with help from local environmental group Deal With It.

Over the next 10 months, the 16-year-old needs to get 100,000 signatures to force a debate in the House of Commons.

Her e-petition calls to banish plastic bags, explaining the detrimental impact they are having on the world’s oceans and marine life and the need to cut the amount of waste sent to landfill.
“Approximately one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals die from ingestion or entanglement in plastics every single year,” she said.

“Not only that, but the littering of plastic bags spoils our beautiful environment.
“Plastic bags are made from polyethylene, known as polythene which is toxic and seeing as plastic bags cannot biodegrade, the pieces photodegrade, only getting smaller and smaller and smaller contaminating our waterways, soils and oceans - even entering the food chain, including human beings’.”

She added that the bags were made using precious finite oil resources which were becoming scarce.

“I think it is really sad what is happening to our planet so I decided I would try and do something about it,” she said.

“We have to change our ways now, because our planet cannot sustain our way of living.
“The number of plastic bags consumed in the past year rose by 333 million and it is time the Government knuckled down and made a change.”
To sign go to http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/12786

Petition against end of FiT

As you may have heard, the government announced this week it was going
to not only halve the feed in tariff but also bring forward the
deadline for eligible installations to 12 December.

Today I learned that the government also intends to make it a
condition that all FiT households have an energy efficiency rating
over C or higher (which a quick look at the particulars of houses for
sale shows most existing homes can't hope to achieve).

In effect, the solar industry has been killed stone dead in two days.
Not only will it cost the South West more than 2000 jobs, it has also
dashed the hopes of thousands of people who hoped to invest in their
home and in their environmental future.

http://www.oursolarfuture.org.uk/

The link above is a petition set up by the solar industry to protest
at the extraordinary nature of the cuts and to call for the government
to adopt instead a more measured approach. Please pass it on to anyone
else you feel may be interested in signing it.

DWI Meeting 22/11 Biodiversity & CC

Deal With it's Nov meeting is on 22nd at 7.30pm at Dealability on Victoria Rd.

We have speakers from the White Cliffs Countryside partnership and Hawkshill Freedown Volunteers.

All Welcome

Victoria's Green Matters 3rd Nov 2011

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

A new report by the United Nations this week warns that the world’s population could more than double to 15 billion by the end of the century. This is far higher than previous estimates and adds to the threats of climate change and peak oil. Our planet cannot sustain threats from all three.

Education, particularly of young girls and women, is the key here but political commitment of governments is required to make relatively inexpensive family planning easily available. If women are educated, they can work and provide for their smaller families thus ensuring that their children are educated too. Cultural and religious factors can make this difficult. Traditionally, women have many children because a cycle of poverty, food insecurity and inequality lead to high death rates, which leads to high birth rates. Many women would prefer to have smaller families but find this a difficult choice in the face of cultural repression.

Africa is the world’s poorest continent. It also has the world’s highest birth rate. We have seen famine return to Africa this year and in a continent already suffering the effects of climate change, there is fear that it will not be able to produce enough food or, more critically, source enough water to meet the needs of its growing population.

We cannot simply continue to send emergency supplies of food when disaster strikes. We must endeavour to work towards the empowerment of women in Africa and around the developing world on the road to eradicating poverty.

Whitstable Compost Toilet

Our colleagues at Transition Town Whitstable are Building their their compost toilet at the Stream Walk Community Garden

next sessions, Tuesday 8th and Wednesday 9th November,

10 till 4

more details at http://transitionwhitstable.wordpress.com/

Deal Energy Group Reportback

Deal With It's Energy Group had it's first meeting this week... 

Here is Rosie's report...

We planned to discuss the local options available to us, with a view to discovering which options might be most worth pursuing. Amongst the topics that I hoped to look at were:

• St Margaret’s project
• Deal Pier turbine
• Leisure Centre in Victoria Park
• Churches and landmark Centre
• Anaerobic digesters ,possibly in co-operation with local farmers
• These topics were discussed. We ran out of time and the topics below were not discussed
• Co-operative buying of Solar/pv panels
• Local businesses
• Individual householders
• Energy conservation esp. households in fuel poverty
• Any other suggestions

More people than expected turned up at the Energy Groups preliminary meeting (which was encouraging), and so we did not manage to give even superficial attention to some of the possible projects.  While there were serious reservations about the tidal flow at Deal Pier being suitable for economic power generation, people at the meeting were reluctant to entirely give up on the pier! So further research on this , hopefully by contacting someone from Eel Pie Island who has done something similar, and Alistair and his friend looking more closely at their preliminary calculations, may possibly yield something useful.   We learned that all but small wind turbines would fall foul of planning because of interference with radar at Manston.

Anaerobic digesters are being researched further, and we will continue to look at churches, Land mark Centre and the Leisure Centre in Victoria Park as possible community projects.

It must be emphasised that we are very much in the foothills, and need to have at least some idea of possible budgets before the next meeting.

Unfortunately the Government’s announcement of more than 50% reduction in the FITS payment that morning was a discouraging factor, but as we do not yet know how this will affect Community projects, we tried not to be too cast down!

At least we have taken our first step, though I have no doubt we are embarking on a long and difficult journey!    Some of those present have already come back to me with queries/suggestions/further thoughts…please add your thoughts!  All suggestions etc. welcome!

There will be a further meeting as soon as we feel it will be useful to hold one. energy@dealwithit.org

Banish the Plastic Bag - new video

Local Dealie, Amber has a made a new video to support her campaign  to Banish the Plastic Bags in the UK: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/12786




Video is here: http://youtu.be/i0DAfG87X7w

News from the Transition Network...

Transition Network extra special announcement 27 October 2011 View this extra special announcement online Dear all, Today sees the launch of three exciting new developments and outputs from Transition Network, the results of many months of work, that finally emerge blinking into the daylight. We are sure that they will greatly deepen your understanding of Transition, bring depth and richness to your work, re-inspire and energise you. They represent a radical shift in how Transition is understood and communicated. They are, in no particular order, The book: ‘The Transition Companion’ The online directory: The Transition Ingredients and Tools The beautiful set of Ingredients and Tools Cards: to be used to better understand all this Together, they represent a sea-change in how we understand what Transition is and how to do it. So, let’s have a look at those things one-by-one. The book: The Transition Companion This new book, which replaces ‘The Transition Handbook’, is the result of 18 months of a collaborative process involving people from Transition initiatives around the world. It reframes Transition as a collection of ‘ingredients’ and ‘tools’ which each initiative assembles in its own way. It is rich with stories, artwork, case studies and photos contributed by Transition initiatives themselves. It is rich with insight and the kind of wisdom that can only come from an open-source 5 year global experiment such as Transition. It represents a quantum leap forward in the Transition movement, a deepening, a maturing, and a very tangible vision of where all of this might go and how we might be most confident of actually getting there. It has 320 pages, and is in full colour, It’s probably got a picture of you in it somewhere… How to order the book You can order it from me (which would be great), from Green Books, from Beetroot Books, from Amazon (if you must), or even better, from your much-endangered local bookshop, or order it through your local library. If you are in the US you can order it from the US publisher Chelsea Green. There are no plans for an audio book. I’ll also be speaking about the book, answering questions, and picking some of my favourite records (Desert Island Discs-style) on the Transition Show on StroudFM, 2pm this Friday. The online ingredients directory As well as being gathered together in the book, the ingredients have also been put online in an interactive, interlinked, technologically dazzling kind of jamboree. Our Transition Network Vebmasters have excelled themselves with this, their finest creation to date. You will notice the homepage now looks rather different, with the ingredients as a major theme. All the ingredients, and all the tools, are now online, each with space for comments and feedback. There is also the “Transition Ingredientator”, otherwise known as “Add your own ingredient”, which will give you the opportunity to draft any that you feel we have neglected. These will be moderated over the coming months. You can either view the ingredients in the 5 stages as set out in the book: Starting Deepening Connecting Building Daring to Dream … or see them in a directory format: See the ingredients directory in a directory format. This is an invaluable resource, I hope you find it really useful and link to them often. The beautiful set of ingredients cards At the 2011 Transition Network conference we trialled a card game based on the Ingredients. The idea was that they might help you to familiarise people with them, to better understand the ways in which your group is working, and also to identify ways in which it might be more effective. They were very popular, and so the wonderful Marina Vons-Gupta has produced a set of beautiful cards which you can download for free, print out (instructions are provided) and use. Some games are suggested, but they are made available on the basis that you are invited to create you own games and share them, so that in the future we can update them. They should hopefully prove to be a really useful resource. Download the full set of ingredients cards Download the full set of ingredients cards here Let us know what you think. Explaining Transition in a new way We have also reworked the Why do Transition? page on this site, and what was the Transition Primer and other pieces has now been condensed into the link-tastic ‘What is a Transition initiative’ page. The above projects have been inputted into by thousands of people, but I would particularly like to thank a few people who have put an amazing amount of work and creativity into them, namely Marina, Ed, Laura, Amber, Helen, Ben, Naresh, Sophy, Jim and everyone at Green Books. It is five years since we kick started this whole Transition thing, which is now active in 34 countries around the world in thousands of communities. These new iterations of what Transition is represent as deep a shift as the emergence of the whole idea was in the first place. They are a distillation of all the bravery, innovation, generosity, kindness, success, failure and genius that everyone involved in this has poured into it for the past 5 years. As a result, they embody a richness and a maturity that is quite extraordinary, yet they remain intensely focused and practical, indeed far more practical than what went before. Today is a landmark, a key milestone, and I’ll leave the last word to Denise Levertov, the poet, who captures how I feel about this: Brilliant, this day — a young virtuoso of a day. Morning shadow cut by sharpest scissors, deft hands. Rob Hopkins, October, 2011 (original article on Transition Culture) Announcement Contact Transition Network: all staff (very happy) Transition Network: 43 Fore Street, Totnes, Devon, TQ9 5HN. Email: info@transitionnetwork.org Tel: 05601 531882 www.transitionnetwork.org

Victoria's Green Matters - 27th Oct 2011

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

Environmentalists have always known that genetically modified (GM) foods would not feed the world. It was claimed by the manufacturers of GM seed that drought resistant, salt resistant and pest resistant crops would increase yields for starving populations in the developing world.

Hunger has reached epic proportions, a recent report claims, as poor farmers are faced with increasing costs for pesticides and herbicides. Insects that were a small problem when growing cotton in China have now increased by 12 times since GM seed was adopted. Super weeds have been a consequence for soya farmers in Brazil, requiring twice as much herbicide than before.

GM technology is literally owned by three of the world’s largest corporations which control the price of seed, allowing them to increase prices at will e.g. Monsanto controls 95% of the seed market in India and prices have risen dramatically. Many Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last 15 years due to falling into debt because of the cost of seed.

Far from adding to food security in developing countries, the opposite has happened because most GM crops are now being grown for biofuels which have taken land away from food production.

There is more than enough food for everyone in the world today – it is simply wrongly distributed. Here in the affluent west we demand to eat and waste far too much food instead of eating seasonal foods, locally produced, and encouraging the rest of the world to do the same.

DWI Nov 22nd meeting - Climate Change & Biodiversity

What is the link between our community’s resilience to Climate change and protecting the biodiversity of our area?  

 If Deal and Walmer are to develop as a Green Tourism destination, should we not be taking action NOW to look after the sites that attract birds and birdwatchers;  butterflies, bees  and nature lovers? By increasing protection of our SSSI and AONB, can’t we enhance our quality of life locally, and encourage more people to enjoy local rather than far-flung (air-born) delights? What is our responsibility to future generations;   to other species? 

Come and Enjoy a DEAL WITH IT evening discussion led by Mel Wrigley of White Cliffs Countryside Partnership and a representative of Hawkeshill  Freedown Volunteers at   Dealability, 43 Victoria Road, Deal CT14 7AY  on Tuesday 22 November at 7.30pm     

http://www.whitecliffscountryside.org.uk/

The Vale Says No & stops fracking in Wales

As some of your may know Coastal Oil & Gas who are looking to introduce the exploitation of unconventional gas in East Kent by the controversial hydraulic fracking method are also doing a similar thing in the Vale of Glamorgan in Wales.

The local community campaign 'The Vale says NO' has run a great campaign and this week were rewarded with the local authority throwing out Coastal's application

from the Vale says No website:


Common sense prevailed! The Vale planning committee unanimously rejected the planning application that we have been campaigning against for 7 months!

We have won the battle, but we haven’t won the war. There is still a lot to do, but this is a fantastic result.

Thanks to everyone who has supported this campaign so far. It’s taken a lot of hard work, but it has certainly paid off for now.

Here are a few reports on last night:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-15371033
http://bridgendgreens.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/historic-decision-by-vale-council-to-reject-shle-gas-test-drilling/
 
We hope this sets an example to other campaign groups and planning committees. You can stop it at this early stage!

Not content with chasing this out of the Vale, now we know how risky this industry is, we can’t stop here. We are going to concentrate on raising awareness throughout Wales and the rest of the UK ultimately calling for a moratorium from the Welsh and UK Government. If you haven’t already, please sign our HM Government e-petition http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/14271



Well done from Kent to our inspirational colleagues in Wales.

Victoria's Green Matters 20th Oct 2011

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

Days are growing shorter and, although we have been having some wonderful sunshine to soften the onset of autumn and winter, night-time seems to arrive far too early. To make this situation worse, we will be putting our clocks back by one hour at the end of October. The dubious benefit of this is to give lighter mornings for a few short weeks.

Before clocks were invented, daylight was the only thing that measured time; people worked when it was light and rested when it was dark.

It has been proved that leaving the clocks alone at the end of October would not only make it more pleasant to have longer days but it would also make it safer for those travelling home from school and work in the evening. Our campaign last year culminated in a vote in Parliament that was defeated once again by the Scots. The Scots are keen on devolution; why don’t they change their clocks and leave us to opt for lighter evenings?

There are many benefits. The road safety ones are obvious but there is also less energy used to light the home when evenings are lighter and outdoor leisure activities are possible, leading to greater health and wellbeing. Aligning ourselves with Continental Europe makes economic sense while tourism, which is one of our main money earners, could take advantage of the daylight hours when visiting our country.

COP 2011 - Durban

Countdown to Durban – Stand up for Climate Justice!

March in London, halfway through the international climate negotiations in Durban
This year the floods in Pakistan have returned displacing 5 million and killing hundreds. Last year's floods were the worst in living memory with 20 million affected and 2,000 killed. Last year also saw record breaking temperatures in Russia with wildfires and crop failures while this year we have seen the latest in a series of exceptional droughts in East Africa causing famine in Somalia.

The frequency and severity of weather related disasters is on the increase and scientists tell us this is due to human-induced climate change caused overwhelmingly by the high emissions and high consuming lifestyles of richer countries like our own. Its the poorest and most vulnerable around the world - many of them in Africa where this year's climate talks are being held - who have done the least to cause the problem but who are suffering the most. And all this is set to get worse. Yet climate change and the conversion to a low carbon economy are routinely dismissed as minor concerns.

Join us and stand up for climate justice on Saturday 3rd December midway through the Durban Climate Talks. Put the date in your diary now. Watch out for more details at www.campaigncc.org/standupforclimatejustice