more … ]]> A quick update on some more environmental links:

• If you’ve not already visited Winchester Action on Climate Change, please do!  They’re currently trying to get as many people as possible to measure their carbon footprint and then publish it.  It makes interesting reading.  I’ve done it – and once I’d recovered from the shock, it was definitely worth doing and gave good guidance on how to cut my carbon. The site also got a good write-up from John Grant’s GREENORMAL blog recently which was also very encouraging.
• If you were as horrified as I was by the Government’s decision to go ahead with Heathrow’s third runway, you may want to sign up for a bit of land at the Greenpeace website. Very satisfying (although I’m intending to get up there in person at the next suitable demonstration as well).
• The Greening Campaign is really taking off round the Winchester district. Very inspirational.  Find out about the main campaign here, and the campaigns in Fulflood, Oliver’s Battery, Colden Common and Alresford.
• I had great success giving Owl electricity monitors to my brothers and sisters. It’s a nifty handheld monitor that tells you how much electricity your house is using. Their children have since been charging round their houses switching things off – which can only be a good thing.  If you want a cheaper option, I’ve had good experience with this plug-in power and energy monitor meter that you can buy on Amazon.
• I was very excited by the solar LED lights, presented by local company Light-Solar-LED Co. at the recent Colden Common Greening event. They have potential to dramatically reduce our energy consumption for lighting.
• During last year’s Winchester’s bike week (this year scheduled for 13th-21st June) I had a go on a Cytronex electric bike – developed by a Winchester company. They’re not cheap, but there are grants available, and very, very tempting to a regular Winchester cyclist – and if they get more people cycling rather than using the car, will make a very helpful contribution to reducing our carbon emissions!

That’s it for now.  Please let me know if there are any other sites (or green things) you think I should link to.

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Conversations at various WinACC meetings, while out campaigning with Winchester Friends of the Earth for aircraft emissions to be included in the climate change bill (see above) and in Green’s after the monthly Winchester Friends of the Earth meeting have thrown up several interesting local environmental websites.

First off, there’s Dave Walker-Nix’s ‘One World’ website at http://www.wwn-oneworld.co.uk. Dave organised the Friends of the Earth aviation demonstration in the town centre (that’s him on the left wearing the mask).  His site has a collection of fascinating inventions for tackling climate change. Very thought provoking and well worth a read.

David Morgan turned up to his first WinACC open meeting last Saturday.  He has an environmental blog at http://www.reallifenews.com/environment/ as part of his real life news website with a local and personal take on living a greener lifestyle.

The Greening Oliver’s Battery team has set up a website at http://www.greening-ob.org.uk/.  It’s great to see Terena Plowright’s inspirational Greening Campaign starting to roll out across the area.

I served on the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Executive with Donnachadh McCarthy at the time of the Iraq War.  He’s now left party politics and is a full-time eco-auditor. He recently came to speak to WinACC about his work and to give advice on a greener lifestyle.  You can find out more at his website http://www.cix.co.uk/~dmccarthy/

The final site isn’t strictly an environmental site, but WinACC wouldn’t be what it is without the brilliant facilitation of James Martin-Jones. WinACC open meetings are fun, constructive, inclusive, positive and action-focused – and also run exactly to time (always 90 minutes!).  The next one is on June 7th.  Several people I spoke to after the last one commented on how much better they are than ‘normal meetings’.  This wouldn’t happen without James; you can find out more at http://jamesmartinjones.com/.

That’s it for now.  As I find more, I’ll post them up and add them to my links.

(Needless to say, none of these links imply that any of the sites, organisations or people mentioned endorse me or anyone else – they’re just sites I hope you find interesting)…