Why the world is burning more coal

The inconvenient truth is that coal remains a cheap and dirty fuel — and the idea of 'clean' coal remains a distant dream, this is from the Guardian Environment Website

Written by Fred Pearce for Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network this paragraph is the key in my reading of it...

Clean coal is a distant vision, which could someday be possible through a technology known as carbon capture and storage — in which CO2 is stripped from stack emissions, liquefied and buried underground. But large-scale deployment of what would be a massive new industry is at least a couple of decades — and tens of billions of R&D dollars — away. And industry will only do it if forced.

Its a very interesting article .....Well worth reading in full

Surviving the Future: Outcome of the Transport Discussion Group

The 3 most important transport concerns in Marlborough were:

1. Poor (but expensive) bus services - there are no direct bus routes to Devizes.
2. We do not have a train station - the buses from Marlborough sometimes miss the train at Bedwyn;  there are no buses linking Marlborough to Bedwyn in time for the early morning trains.  There is no regular bus service to Pewsey station.  The Great Bedwyn residents are trying to restrict parking around their station.
3. Poor public transport is reducing job opportunities for young people and those without a car.

Other issues raised included the cost of parking in Marlborough and the need to restrict HGVs in order to reduce pollution and wear and tear on the roads.


Targets:


within 5 years: improve the bus service to Bedwyn and make it more integrated with the trains.  Reduce the numbers of HGVs.


within 10 years: persuade the authorities to build a train station in Marlborough. Bring more skilled, green jobs into the town so there is no need to commute. 


Group members: Sam Page, Pepita Hurd, John Yates, Peter Turvey, Pat Turvey, Karen Bulsara, Ann Yates, Peter Noble.

New Energy Group Proposed

At last night's TT launch meeting, the Energy Table discussion resulted in the proposal for an Energy Group.

There was a wide ranging discussion as energy costs cut across almost any activity. The way forward will be community energy projects which will come in many shapes and sizes from larger capital intensive investments to quite small voluntary schemes.

Initially, there is a pressing need for unbiased, well informed advice on ways of saving energy, economically viable renewable energy schemes and what National and Local Government financial assistance is available.

Can you help make this Group work? You don't have to be a technical supremo, just an intelligent persuasive person keen to know more and a desire to help others.

Did see you there on the 12th of September 2011

On the Morning of the 12th I wrote....
Really looking forward to the meeting tonight.....
Here is hoping for a good turn out 7:30 at the Town hall

BIG THANK YOU to the 55 People who attended, and made a really POSITIVE contribution to the discussions... It gave us some real projects to run with...

They are starting to appear here http://www.transitionmarlborough.org




You will found us here, on the night





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Our twitter account TTMarlb is being followed by @localworks

It was very flattering to see we are catching some attention of the sustainable community action groups... Our twitter account http://twitter.com/TTMarlb was "followed" by http://twitter.com/Local_Works

See http://www.localworks.org/ which is Promoting and campaigning on the Sustainable Communities Act, possibly the most radical new law that our country has seen in over a century. A 1100 Town and Parish Councils have signed up to this set of principals, as a local town councillor I will be taking this to our next planning meeting for discussion, tell me what YOU think! The proposal is a modest and reasonable suggestion for the government to amend planning guidance in a way that would help locally elected decision makers.

In summary, the proposal is to require applicants of major developments to:

- attend a meeting of the local Town or Parish Council, or of a duly called Town Meeting, to answer questions on the application for development; and

- fund the council or duly called town meeting to commission an independent report on the application and critique of any reports that the applicant has submitted in support of the application for development.

The rationale is that local elected representatives and local people should be making their decision on whether an application should go ahead based on the best evidence, and this would help ensure that evidence was available.

Read the full proposal and rationale here.

As a community we can use this act to ensure any new development is sustainable and fitting for the town. As I said have read and tell me what you think!

Peak Oil ? Transition Town what is that?

What does Peak Oil mean?

There is growing evidence that global production of crude oil has peaked and is now declining. In the long run, fuel prices will go up and up .

What's a transition town then?

All over Britain and around the world, Transition Towns are forming in local communities to help plan ahead for the end of cheap oil and to combat climate change. These communities have begun to make the transition away from reliance on fossil fuels - hence the name “Transition Town”. For more information please see https://www.transitionnetwork.org/

Marlborough's Waitrose Supermarket is one of the greenist in the chain...

Waitrose Supermarket underwent a massive re-fit in April this year.  Cyla has spoken to the manager about how they did it, this is what she was told: 


Marlborough's store has become a flagship in green stores for the Waitrose Partnership (apparently it had nothing to do with competeing with the new Tesco!) 

• The refrigeration units are state of the art. All the heat generated in keeping the fridges cold is recycled to keep the shop warm. 
• All the holes in the old walls were sealed to make them airtight. (They had men dangling from pulleys as they worked their way around!)
• The toilets were streamlined. Having accepted that they had become the town’s toilets they updated and increased the number. The men’s toilets are air-flushed to save water.  
• At least 95% of the old fittings were recycled. They actually hoped to make it 99% in the end.

These are just some of things that she was told. And what’s more they didn’t shout about it. In fact they are willing to share their experiences with any other business that is due for a re-fit.

Get serious about CO2!

Friends of the Earth is calling for local councils to:

• Commit to cutting emissions in their area by at least 40 percent by 2020
• Produce an action plan showing how they'll make the cuts.

What is our local council doing to meet this challenge?

Click here to find out more.....

Wiltshire Warm and Well scheme - reduce energy costs keep warm.

Loft insulation is one of the BEST first steps you can do to save money on energy bills and help reduce your carbon footprint! The transition team Marlborough hope to run workshops on this and making homes less drafty in the future. There is however, more good news today as well. GROW - The Support Service for Voluntary and Community Groups in Wiltshire, (See their website www.growwiltshire.org.uk ), recently highlighted in their newsletter, that Wiltshire Council has a New Free Home Insulation Scheme.

The new "Wiltshire Warm and Well scheme" is open to all home owners and private tenants and enables residents to improve the energy efficiency of their homes through installing loft and cavity wall insulation – saving money on bills and making homes warmer.

Energy efficiency assistance from the council

• Decent Homes Repairs Assistance for heating work.
• Warm Front Top Up (assistance provided to top up a Warm Front grant)
• Hard to Heat Homes Grant (assistance provided to improve the energy efficiency of your home)

Please follow this link for more details

Next Hub Meeting...

will be on Thursday 8th September at 8.30 pm, in the Wellie.  We will be finalising arrangements for the Public Meeting on Monday 12th September.

A Public Meeting Organised by Transition Town Marlborough

“Surviving the Future”

__________________________________________________________________________

Please come along to a public meeting, debate and discussion:

Marlborough Town Hall

Monday 12th September at 7:30 pm _________________________________________________________________________

• There are positive ways to deal with rising food & energy prices.
• Do you know about the new “Green Deal”?

(Could this help to reduce your domestic heating costs?)

• Is Marlborough's poor transport system restricting job and education opportunities for our young people?

______________________________________________________________________________

At the meeting you will be able to :-

• Vision a better future over the next 20 years.
• Get involved in community resilience projects.
• Question our local councillors and Wiltshire's Senior Climate Change Officer on what they are doing to help us survive the future. So for more information visit the website

Parking at Bedwyn Railway Station

Wiltshire Council is proposing to impose severe parking restrictions in Great Bedwyn in response to complaints from residents that their village is turning into a huge car park. The number of commuters from Marlborough who use this rail link has increased massively since the rises in fuel costs.  If these parking restrictions go ahead it could pose serious problems for us.  We have been invited to air our views at at Bedwyn's village hall on Wednesday 14th September at 7.30pm in front of the Parish Council and Wiltshire's Traffic Engineer.

An Exciting project

11:30 It was for me a very exciting moment to have members of the community stand up at a full town council and ask if we would consider as a council being involved with this project...

I now seem to have been sucked into working on the hub committee, but I think as a councillor I should stand up for what I believe in and show some leadership in the run up to the meeting of the 12th of September I hope to explain why and how I think this is a most important development in our community...

The first Public Meeting will be held on Monday 12th September at 7.30pm in Marlborough Town Hall

This will be a chance to vision the future over the next 20 years and to find out what our councilors are doing to build resilience in the face of peak oil and climate change.  We want to hear your suggestions on what you can do as an individual, what we can do as a group, what our councilors can do and what the government should do.

7.30 to 7.45 Introducing ourselves
7.45 to 8.45 Film: End of Suburbia
8.45 to 9.00 Calculating Marlborough's carbon footprint:  Wiltshire Council's Senior Climate Change Officer
9.00 to 9.30 Discussion groups: Food, Energy, Transport, Pledging

The first Story....

Here is an early story about the first steps of Marlborough Transition Movement/Org

Marlborough could become a Transition Town

Pete Davison - 10/08/2011 From http://www.marlboroughnewsonline.co.uk/

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Marlborough could join a growing band of communities adopting Transition Town status in a bid to tackle problems like peak oil and food miles.

Residents are being invited to a public meeting at which issues will be thrashed out and solutions discussed. Read more here.....