Category: One Planet Living
Please think twice before getting a wood stove
Watching flames dance over logs or other dry wood is incredibly mesmerising and relaxing, especially if you know that it travelled just a few hundred yards from a well-managed forest (or a scrapheap). The Environment Centre stove is certainly one of its most popular features, even though it’s inadequate (more on that later). Yet, we […]
Fancy Ta(l)king Action?
3 reasons why YOUR actions matter: join us on Tue 12th January 2020 for Ta(l)king Action It’s good to see the government somewhat stepping up its ambition to tackle climate change and stimulate a green recovery from the Covid pandemic. We could argue over how revolutionary the 10 Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution […]
Been feeling the heat? Insulate!
It’s been an interesting summer, in more ways than one, seesawing between some of the hottest days on record and below average temperatures. MetOffice happened (or chose?) to issue its 2019 State of the Climate report on the hottest day of July. This confirmed the overall warming trend and the role of climate change in […]
Can £5,000 get you a warmer, better home?
Only around 36% of York homes are classed as well-insulated, according to research by Friends of the Earth. This means that most of us in York (and across the UK) live in houses that are expensive to heat, generate unnecessary carbon emissions and are potentially bad for our health. The recent government’s recent announcement of […]
What is zero carbon?
I hate to admit that when I first heard the term, I was confused. Carbon is the main building block of life so how could you go to zero? However, I quickly learned that it’s a shorthand for net zero carbon emissions. That may sound straightforward enough but how do you get to zero when […]
Making space for nature
We had planned a Ta(l)king Action workshop on wildlife gardening for 21st March 2020 but, sadly, had to cancel it due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a substitute, here are some tips shared by several of the would-be participants. We hope you find them useful and look forward to hearing about your efforts to make […]
“Housewarming Party” time, or why and how to insulate your floor
Written by St Nicks Outreach Officer and founding member of York Community Energy Ivana Jakubkova who organised a DIY floor insulation workshop, aka a “Housewarming Party”, in April 2019. If you want to know more about the process or have technical queries contact Andy Walker from SURE Insulation who ran the workshop and who has edited this […]
Strange times, normal times: climate change at St Nicks
Written by Wildwatch volunteer Sean Garvey in the summer 2019, as an update to our page on climate change at St Nicks This heatwave seems as good a time as any to consider climate change. Extreme weather events of all kinds are set to become more frequent as global warming affects us all. Here in […]
Zero(ish) Waste Wedding
This blog was written by our Projects Assistant Esther Smith. The average UK wedding produces a third of a metric tonne of solid waste and 14.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide. That’s a whole extra UK resident’s average carbon footprint for a year and a half, in one day. Probably the most environmentally conscious way to […]
Would you like fries with that planet?
This blog was originally written by our Outreach Officer Ivana Jakubkova for Your Local LinkYour Local Link The bad news is, a recent report by the Climate Coalition shows that chips were shorter last year as a result of climate change. This may not sound like a huge deal but it confirms that UK harvests are […]
