I thought I'd review a couple of carbon footprint calculators that were reviewed in today's Observer newspaper.

WWF Footprint CalculatorThis was quick to do and told me my carbon footprint was 9.53 tonnes and my footprint was 2.47 planets. This was split 18% food, 13% travel, 40% home and 29% "stuff". This compares with an earlier calculation of 7 ( Read more... )

My local council (NHDC) are about to introduce alternate weekly collection of waste. Thinking that I already recycled everything that can be recycled, I thought I'd investigate what was left ( Read more... )

When I hear those words, I think of the current President Bush and the doctrine he so often espouses in his speeches. But what do these words mean?

( Some reflections on recent news stories ... )

I'll start by reviewing how my carbon footprint has changed since last year (using last year's basis of estimation for consistency) and will consider making another post another time if any research prompts me to revise my estimate.

GasThe new boiler (and perhaps, a warm winter) has done wonders, reducing my energy consumption to 4,500 kwH (for ( Read more... )

Recently I have noticed a problem with Microsoft Outlook - the program has become very slow to respond to typing in an e-mail.

The problem is discussed in this forum and it appears to be a joint Outlook / Spybot problem. For anyone whose primary concern is security and is happy restricting outgoing e-mails to words only, I recommend the following ( Read more... )

This is an issue that usually provokes a public outcry whenever allowances for councillors are reviewed if they increase by more than the rate of inflation (or at least by more than the rate of increase in council tax). I would like to examine this further ( Read more... )

If you use a version of Adobe Reader earlier than version 8 you may wish to note the security issue highlighted on the BBC website here and upgrade to version 8 here.

I think I will divide these into resolutions that I will commit to making efforts to achieve and some more aspirational ideas.

( 10 resolutions plus 4 more to try for ... )

I think it is time to review environmental achievements for 2006 and plans for 2007. It will probably be tidier if I cover the latter in a separate post. My main hope for both these posts is that they may provide ideas (or serve as a checklist) for anyone else who wants to improve their lifestyle.

This post is focused on change. I will try to ( Read more... )

I understand that David Cameron has called for a snap election if Gordon Brown replaces Tony Blair as leader of the Labour and Prime Minister.

According to a Conservative Party press release, Cameron is quoted as saying "Tony Blair said at the last election he would serve a 'full term', so when he goes, no subsequent Labour prime minister can ( Read more... )