Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

An interesting article about the Government’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), drawing attention to why people normally change boilers. The whole Green Deal, has been set-up to benefit the biggest energy companies not local tradesman or the public themselves. I think this just shows the Government are not really serious about reducing the country’s carbon footprint.

Green Alliance blog's avatarInside track

This post is by Adam Bell, Green Alliance’s policy adviser on low carbon energy.

The next ten years must see a revolution in the way we heat our homes. A third of the UK’s carbon emissions come from heat, and we will need to both reduce the amount of heat we use in homes, and change the way we produce it, if we are to have any chance of meeting our carbon targets.

Heat exchange
The Government’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is intended to help achieve this by providing financial incentives to homes and businesses to replace their current heating with a renewable system, such as a heat pump, a solar thermal installation, or a biomass boiler.

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Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

A nice article about the campaign to save Ancoats Dispensary. English Heritage and Manchester City Council, all failed in their ‘Duty of Care’, in enforcing Urban Splash (Bloxham) to carry out the necessary repair work to maintain the building in the state, Urban Slash find the building in. In fact the council have broken the law, by passing the demolition order, when it obvious the building has been neglected. In fact, a number of artefacts have gone missing under Urban Splashes ownership. Also Jim Battle, deputy Leader of Manchester City Council and Labour councillor for Ancoats, was laughing and joking about this sad state of affairs, some weeks ago, stating that of course the building would decay, after Urban Splash took the roof off!

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

As always, there are those, like those who have posted comments to this blog, are dismissive of any attempt to reduce energy use. Which is what is very necessary to becoming anywhere self sufficient in energy and reducing emissions.

Green Alliance blog's avatarInside track

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/wadebrooks/This post is by Dustin Benton, who leads Green Alliance’s Resource Stewardship theme. A version first appeared on businessgreen.com.

To find out more about how to fix ecodesign, see Green Alliance’s new report: Cutting Britain’s Energy Bill.

President Obama had a hard time selling the US’s ‘weatherization program’ to a sceptical Congress: insulation is a lot less attractive than visible clean tech like solar panels. So he relied on his charm, declaring memorably that insulation was, in fact, sexy. “Here’s what’s sexy about it — saving money,” he said, to laughter and applause.

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Latter-day Geography Lesson

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

LATTER-DAY GEOGRAPHY LESSON

This, quoth the Eskimo master
      was London in English times :
step out a little faster
you two young men at the last there
the Bridge would be near on our right hand
and the Tower near where those crows stand —
we struck it you’ll recall in Gray’s rhymes :
this, quoth the Eskimo master
was London in English times.

This, quoth the Eskimo master
      was London in English days :
beyond the hill they called Clapham
boys that swear Master Redtooth I slap ’em
I dis-tinct-ly heard–you–say–Bastard
don’t argue : here boys, ere disaster
overtook her, in splendour there lay
a city held empires in sway
and filled all the earth with her praise :
this quoth the Eskimo master
was London in English days.

She held, quoth the Eskimo master
      ten million when her prime was full
from here once Britannia cast her
gaze over an Empire vaster
even than ours : look there Woking
stood, I make out, and the Abbey
lies here under our feet you great babby
Swift-and-short do–please–kindly–stop–poking
Your thumbs through the eyes of that skull.

 A poem by R.A.K Mason, 1924 I was taught at school which I thought was referring to London after the nuclear mutual annihilation.  It is in fact a prophecy of were we are heading because there is no political party taking climate change and sustainability seriously. 

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

Instead of spending the money on schools and hospitals for the local communities as Shell originally promised and cleaning up the environmental they have caused in the Niger Delta. They spend money on armed forces to suppress the local communities. Petrol and diesel from Shell’s forecourts should be called ‘Blood Oil’.

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Bloxham of Urban Splash fame has become a multi-millionaire (£60 million) who has made a fortune from receiving tax-payers to demolish council estates, to only build shoddy energy insufficient and unsustainable homes to buy. Then claims he has no money to undo the damage he has done to this historic building.

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

Why the NHS needs more funding with higher pay for nurse, auxiliary and domestic staff and not privatisation.

SKWAWKBOX's avatarSKWAWKBOX

My wife is a staff nurse at a large NHS hospital, on a ward where pretty much every patient is seriously ill or is able to do very little for themselves and so requires ‘full care’. To protect patient confidentiality, I won’t say which hospital or what type of ward, and I’ll use ‘them’ instead of him/her.

I’ve written before about the government’s plans to reduce public-sector wages in lower-paid parts of the country – which are usually Labour strongholds, and so can be ‘punished’ with minimal negative consequences for Tory electoral performance – and why these are economically stupid. At the same time, the government wants to reduce pensions for doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers in all parts of the country, while increasing their retirement age and raising pension contributions – even though the claim that public pensions are unaffordable is a lie.

And then, of course…

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Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

Local residents who were moved out of Ancoats to make why for Urban Splash were promised to be rehoused in flats, find the promises meant nothing. Bloxham is a multi-millionaire from millions of tax-payers money. Why work for a living, and yet he is not called a benefit cheat or scrounger, he is lauded.