So far in these articles I have concentrated on helping you understand the climate change risks better – what’s at stake, why we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, why present progress is painfully inadequate. I’ve encouraged you to use a carbon calculator to estimate or measure your own personal emissions. So I hope that by now you are more motivated to take the next step – to reduce your emissions by saving energy.
This year, I’ve been one of a group of local people that has set up the Green Mole Forum.
- Green – we want to promote all aspects of sustainable development
- Mole – we concentrate on activities in the Mole Valley district
- Forum – a source of information and a place for discussion.
Via our website http://www.greenmoleforum.org/, we are here to help people who want to reduce their carbon footprint by sharing ideas, giving information on local groups, enabling local people to promote green initiatives etc. At our last meeting we agreed that we should have a section of the website for people to showcase local examples of green building projects. We suspect that many people are thinking of installing things like a new condensing boiler, cavity wall insulation, solar panels but are worried that they may not live up to the claims, or they might be unlucky and pick an incompetent installation contractor.
So if you have had a project like this, please tell us how it went using the contact link on the website. Here is a suggested list of information that people will be interested in. By providing feedback like this, ideally with a few photos, you can help spread the take-up of energy efficiency measures in our area.
- What product was installed?
- Who was the installation contractor?
- Date and cost
- Has it lived up to its energy saving claims?
- Did you have installation problems?
- Have you had problems in service and did the contractor fix them promptly?
- Overall would you recommend your project to others?
Please have a look at the website which is developing all the time. The more people use it and contribute to it, the better it will be. It also contains all my articles for this magazine.
If you want to discuss any of the subjects raised, I am very happy to talk to groups of people. My email address is derek.leatherhead@ntlworld.com. I will also try and reply to emails from individuals, either directly or in a future article.
Derek Smith
Mole Valley Climate Change Awareness