Hi! I'm the carbon coach, and in this my first blog I invite you to prepare to take a quick peep at your (carbon) feet – your annual carbon footprint – with a view to shrinking a little, by this time next year! (From Bucks Free Press)
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Meet Dave Hampton, ‘the carbon coach’, family man, 50 years old, living in Marlow, in a refurbished energy efficient home. He keeps a low ‘footprint’. Dave rowed for Great Britain in 1982, studied engineering at Cambridge and went on to become one of the UK’s most dedicated climate change campaigners, influencing businesses, families and the rich and famous to cut their carbon. Dave often appears on TV and in newspapers, and his work as the carbon coach has attracted much international interest.
Today, October 2nd, is Gandhi's birthday. It is also National Carbon Footprint Day!
3:52pm Friday 2nd October 2009
Gandhi used to say "Be the Change that you would wish to see in the world" – and nowhere is this more true than with carbon leadership.
I know many households in Bucks are now really getting cracking on this, and joyfully shifting some heavy oily and expensive old fossil habits, so that they can feel part of the sustainable future solution, both as a community and individually.
This time last year I entered all my actual gas, elec, and water meter readings - on the 2nd October 2008 - along with my actual car milometer readings, and details of flight miles. (I don’t fly as it happens. If you call yourself the carbon coach, that goes with the territory.) Anyway, one year on now, and I have just taken the readings again; it took me just 10 minutes, all in.
If you do this too, you may be delighted you did, this time next year, and next....
The website feeds your information back to you – neatly presented – each anniversary of Gandhi's birth, so you can keep track of the longer term trend in your carbon footprint. This is really helpful, as you don't need to find the slip of paper you wrote the meter readings last year (!) and you don’t have to do the working out.
http://www.nationalcarbonfootprintday.org/ So I warmly encourage you to make use of this NCFD site: use it to record where you were in 2009. You won't look back!
Who knows, in 2012 Bucks households may remember this day with pride and satisfaction, seeing how much carbon weight you have lost, how much less fossil fuel you are wasting, and how much money you have saved ourselves on all the various energy bills. Saving energy feels good, tastes good and by golly it's good for our children.
Dave with a kilo of CO2
