At our prompting, Islington Council has taken planning enforcement action against several Upper Street bars and restaurants who had screwed high power electric heaters to the front wall. Upper Street falls inside a conservation area and these heaters didn’t have planning permission (and most likely wouldn’t get it).
Five bars have removed their heaters. However one (102 Upper Street) claims that the heaters have been up for 4 years and were able to prove this to the council.
Of course, all outdoor heaters should be banned in the UK. But bar owners will do anything to keep their customers warm. Anyone know of other outside visible heaters on buildings in conservation areas?
Photo gallery of all the bars and their heaters
Greggs, the high end foods retailer specialising in high salt and high sugar content has introduced a new composite bag made of plastic and paper. It combines all the features of both materials. If you get caught in the rain leaving the shop, you can be sure that although one half of the bag with fall apart in your hand, the other half of the bag will stay intact for hundreds of year, at which time the loaf will be just outside its ‘best before date’ thanks to the use of modern preservatives.
To the untrained eye and probably to most local authority recycling officers, this bag looks pretty much unrecyclable but Greggs have their best brains looking at this conundrum.
It hasn’t launched yet but there is a steering group of five people: Isabel Carlisle, Antony Melville, Cinzia Sarigu, Roger Wright and Tom Hitchman! Transition Highbury
Highbury resident Maryse Jones hands a postcard to Islington North’s M.P. Jeremy Corbyn asking him to ensure that the government generates 15% of its energy from renewable sources such as wind power.
The Government has been trying to wriggle out of its EU commitment by proposing that cash spent on renewable energy projects outside of Europe should be counted towards the UK’s renewable energy target.
Stephen Taylor from Islington Friends of the Earth (in the middle of the picture) said “Rising energy bills and the threat of climate change means generating green energy from renewable energy such wind, sun, waves and tides makes sense and it will create hundreds of thousands of jobs”.
Islington Friends of the Earth collected postcards from 68 other visitors to the Climate Change and Me event at Highbury Fields school on Saturday Oct 11th.
Islington Friends of the Earth held their AGM on 17th July 2008.
Please click on the links below to download the co-ordinator’s and treasurer’s report.
Islington FOE Coordinator report 2008.pdf
Islington FOE Treasurers Report 2008.pdf
The manager of the very popular Oasis cafe on Highbury Field knows about climate change. At least that what he says. Unfortunately he switches on his arrays of 60 watt light bulbs on very hot sunny days and as well as dull overcast days.
Not much of an example to the many kids that visit the cafe who have been told at school that we need cut back on energy use to save the planet.
Update Sept 1st 2008. The Highbury Fields Ranger from the council’s Greenspace department has got involved, the lights are off and the carbon footprint of the cafe is very much smaller now.
That seems to be the message from the British Glass Manufacturers’ Confederation on June 16th. If we put our bottles in the recycling box for commingled processing, very little of the glass is used to manufacture new bottles, it ends up in the foundations for roads instead. Their press release says:
“The result is that the cullet is not only being colour mixed, it is also being compacted and mixed with the other materials, possibly making the end product less suitable for new containers. The cullet from such activities is not only potentially unsuitable for container manufacture but could also affect fibre applications. The result is it is only suitable for low grade applications such as aggregate from which little or no carbon benefit is derived.”
The British Glass Manufacturers have been to visit the North London Waste Authority and explain this. So says Councillor George Allan, who has just stepped down from the NLWA Committee. He says that the glass in the recycling bins also contaminates the paper making that fairly low value as well.
The EC recycling targets have been a good thing in that recycling rates have been forced up. However, in carbon terms, the old system of sorting everything into different bins ourselves had a lot going for it.
M.P.s Jeremy Corbyn and Emily Thornberry were both at the bike breakfast this morning at the Angel. Both confirmed that they had asked for amendments for the climate change bill to include international aviation and shipping and an 80% (rather than 60%) reduction target by 2050.
But the topic I wanted to discuss with Jeremy was the looming energy gap. It looks as if the government is going to encourage/permit all the ageing nuclear power stations to be replaced. And more significantly, the government has indicated that it wants to significantly increase the amount of nuclear power. As vice chair of CND, Jeremy opposes nuclear power. In any event, little of this will be in place by 2015.
Jeremy thinks that the government has made a prejudiced argument in favour of nuclear power. But I pointed out that the government’s view is shared by many others (such as the Royal Society). Jeremy thought that opposition in Parliament to nuclear power has been muted but it would get much stronger going forwards.
I argued that I would prefer to use nuclear power and have a local (UK) nuclear waste problem than to use biofuels, still seen as a solution by many politicians, which takes food from the mouths of the poorest people in the world.
Jeremy thinks that we can manage with far less energy (which I agreed with) and he thought that energy would be rationed by price in 2015. I argued that no government should allow this to happen. He suggested that customers would be given a discount for the first N units and then customers would pay a premium for additional units. I pointed out that that would be unfair to large families. He argues that allocation could be based on the number of individuals per household. I said this was pretty similar to introducing personal carbon allowances which Emily had said a few months ago, was unpopular with many MPs.
Jeremy also mentioned that he’d considered putting solar PV on his roof. But it was too expensive. I pointed out that some individuals had had solar PV installed on their roof funded entirely by the Low Carbon Buildings Programme and Islington Council. He said ‘good on the council’.
Islington Friends of the Earth along with some other people created an enormous NO in the middle of this field in Sipson village, which will be tarmaced over if the third runway is built. Special thanks go to Debbie for climbing up a nearby tree to get this photo. She’s down on the ground on the left of the next photo.
There is free entry to the next monthly meeting of Islington Friends of the Earth if you can spot the difference between these two photos.
Joining Islington Friends of the Earth
By joining Islington Friends of the Earth, you are adding your voice to others campaigning to change how we live our lives to protect our environment locally, nationally and across the world.
Joining costs very little – anything between £5 and £10, or we accept offers of time and help as well. Just fill in the relevant bit on the form.
To join, download Islington FOE Membership leaflet and send to our membership secretary (full details on the form).
