Renewables: the 'balanced view'

In 2006 I blogged about wind turbines, suggesting three scenarios in which the micro variety might be promoted to householders. I was reminded of it when wind turbines returned to the front pages last week with the publication of the government's £100bn plan to boost wind and other renewable power generation in the UK.

Wind turbines of all sizes have received very negative press coverage. The small ones are accused of using more carbon to produce than they can ever save, and worse (in the eyes of many journalists) being a waste of money. The large ones are accused of destroying areas of natural beauty. Even the BBC has been guilty - this article was first published in 2006 but has been receiving comments right up until March this year.

I find the willingness of the media to take such a negative approach very frustrating. I often see a degree of political motivation or schadenfreude in the stories. Sometimes it's just poor journalism, taking the easier route of producing the negative story rather than making the positive argument.

As some of the more reasonable comments on the BBC blog point out, these are the early days for microgeneration and renewable power. Only now are these technologies beginning to receive serious investment. This investment will reap rewards in the future, but without people adopting, trialling, and feeding back about the technologies, they will never reach the necessary level of sophistication. Dismissing wind power as 'a dead end', because of some poor maths and one negative experience seems a little rash, especially for an august news organisation like the BBC.

Rather than knocking every attempt that the government, individuals, and private companies make to try to address the challenge of climate change, isn't there an argument that the media should be lauding them? The influence of the media is incalculable, yet on this most crucial of topics they seem obsessed with their own 'impartiality'. Even the least scrupulous newspapers are suddenly converted to the need for a 'balanced view'.

I'm not arguing that editorial controls should be thrown out of the window - no-one benefits when that happens. But the debate about climate change is over, as is any question about the economic need to reduce our independence on oil. Just because there are lots of people arguing otherwise doesn't mean that their views are equally valid. Millions of people believe the world was created a few thousand years ago, but I don't expect any serious publication to give their views credence.

The media should be campaigning for people to begin to tackle climate change and reduce our dependence on oil. With the media rallying people to the cause, we could quickly overcome the narrow-mindedness, selfishness and nimbyism that is holding up progress towards renewable power. Like the commentator on the BBC blog trying to prevent his neighbour from erecting a wind turbine because 'there needs to be a balance between energy saving and quality of life'. This is a man who clearly doesn't understand the gravity of the situation; a man who has been convinced that the situation isn't all that bad because the media lets him believe that. A man who believes that the aesthetic displeasure he would suffer from a wind turbine on his neighbour's house outweighs the monstrous damage climate change will do to the rest of the planet.

I am no green angel. I drive a car. I have lots of gadgets. I have no solar cells or wind turbines. But like many people I am making an effort: improving loft insulation; choosing green energy providers; cutting out standby modes on my gadgets; recycling; switching to a more fuel-efficient car; choosing a house with good public transport links. I will do more as it becomes more feasible: I want my car, my computer, my house and most of all my power to be greener in ten years than it is now. I will invest time and money in making that happen but it will be easier and cheaper for all of us if the mass market is convinced of the need to tackle climate change. If individual solutions can be developed to the point that they become economically, ecologically, and practically appealing.

The government is trying to stimulate such a move, but at the moment the media is a barrier to its success. Until they join the campaign to tackle climate change, every nimby and naysayer will feel like they are in the right-thinking majority.

Eco Towns and Halfway Houses

The government has announced plans for a series of eco towns. On face value you'd expect the green lobby to be very pleased. Unfortunately the greenest aspect of these towns seems to be where they will be constructed: on green field sites in lush green parts of the country. Understandably the current residents of those areas aren't too happy.

If these new developments were genuinely valuable in the fight against climate change, I'd be inclined to dismiss the complaints as conservative (with both a small and large 'c') nimbyism (especially given the social profile of the areas in which they have been proposed - Tim Henman's father is leading one of the 'no' campaigns, for example).

If these were sites that had been chosen as ideal for wind farms or solar installations, I'd be arguing that the local residents had to put up and shut up. The need to reduce our dependence on oil overwhelms arguments about local natural beauty, when you consider the much greater havoc that climate change will wreak on every area of natural beauty.

But the green aspects of these eco towns seems to be little more than a veneer. A thin coating designed to make them palatable to the public. The problem they are really solving is social rather than ecological: a lack of affordable housing.

In Germany this week I've seen what appears to be a much better solution to this problem. Better socially, economically and ecologically. It's not new and features no sexy green technologies, but on first appraisal it seems very appealing.

My wife and I are staying in a flat that her family owns in a small-ish town called Heilbronn. The flat is actually almost halfway to being a house. It is one of eight in a block, four on each side. Each side of the block has a communal staircase, and shared loft and cellar space for laundry, storage and hanging out washing. The buildings are pre-war and the ceilings high. Over time the configuration of each flat seems to have diverged considerably from the others in its block, but this one has three bed/living rooms, two of which are very large, plus a kitchen, bathroom and separate toilet.

The buildings ('blocks' seems to conjure up the wrong image) are set in a designated family area, a small grid of wide, leafy, part-cobbled streets through which cars are allowed but restricted to ten kilometres per hour. Playing children take priority on these roads. The whole area exists just five minutes walk from the town centre, and this being Germany, the public transport links are numerous.

The compact nature of the buildings, their location, and the shared facilities, mean that they are cheap (and relatively green) to run, and that there is minimal need for car use. Everyone seems to have a car but you don't hear them starting up all that often. The area is mixed use, with restaurants, hairdressers, shops and various office-based businesses dotted amongst the housing, so that there are people around throughout the day, reducing the opportunities for crime. The kindergarten and school are both in walking distance - as is the supermarket.

In the UK we don't seem to understand this type of medium-density housing. We either have towering blocks of flats in city centres where any sense of community is lost, or houses in the suburbs that consume vast quantities of space and generate car-bound commuters. There are alternatives, and I have lived in a few - notably in Reading and Edinburgh. But I haven't seen an example where we have the recipe just right. In Reading the flats had plenty of outdoor space, but the buildings were uninspired. Dull on the outside, cramped on the inside, and constructed with no appreciation of the need for natural light. In Edinburgh the buildings were gorgeous and the flats enormous, but faced a busy main road and had no garden, or even dedicated parking.

I'm sure that good examples do exist in the UK, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have more. The vast former industrial sites around the UK's cities are ideal for this type of development. Large, affordable places in family-friendly zones, close to town centres, constructed in a manner that engenders community. I'm not sure how it would work in the UK but here families take turns to be responsible for cleaning communal areas, including the street outside their building. The only enforcement is possible chastisement from your neighbours: no ASBOs here.

As usual this is a half-hour opinion and not a rigorously researched study. But I find it hard to believe that this approach is more complex, more expensive, or less green than the government's proposed eco towns. And if these halfway houses lack some of the sexiness of the alternative, they could always add an eco veneer: a wind turbine here, a grey water scheme there...

Blogging chums

Two of my good friends have finally joined the blog scene, and I hope to link this blog with theirs in a more formal way at some point. In the mean time, check out Jack's Manchester music blog at http://www.passionisafashion.com, and Rich's Manchester sport blog at http://www.utdcity.com.

Analogue day

Well I've done an analogue week, but I only cut down on computer use. My client Tim Panton from PhoneFromHere.com has gone one step further and had a fully analogue day, with no computers involved at all! Check out his progress as documented by the BBC at the following links:

- Online news story
- Video clip

GrillSlinger

I was looking forward to trying out my latest gadget this weekend with a barbecue, but like the rest of the country my plans have been foiled by the weather. The GrillSlinger is a heavy-duty holster for your barbecue tools, and so far it has generated mixed reactions from those to whom I've shown it. The split is very much on gender lines. Women just laugh; men laugh then ask where they can get one. Weather-permitting I hope to give it a proper test soon.

The GrillSlinger came from Firebox.com, and was originally meant to be for a review of outdoor gadgets on Sam Walker's Life Lessons. Unfortunately the package didn't arrive in time for the radio show, so the kind PR team at Firebox has le us hang on to the contents a bit longer. While I've got the GrillSlinger, Sam hopes to test out the QuickPitch tent at Glastonbury, and producer Gaelan will be testing the Shock Ball. I think I got the best deal there...

Bespoke is Back

The tailors of Jermyn Street are up in arms over the distinction between bespoke and made to measure. The difference between the two is important, but it seems both are becoming more popular. My tailors (the fantastic Long, Berry and Wild, so traditional they don't have a website so email me if you want details) are rushed off their feet at the moment. That's limited evidence but amongst my male friends I've seen increasing interest in higher-quality, made-to-order clothing and shoes.

Even the big retailers are getting in on the act. There are local shirt-cutters that I would like to use, but their prices are a little out of my league for a workwear staple that I go through at an incredible rate. The last quote I was given was over £100 - fine for very special purchases but not something I can afford to wear every day. So when I discovered M&S was offering made-to-measure shirts from just £30, I figured I'd give it a try.

I'm becoming a big fan of M&S. I'm not sure if it is my age, but it seems to be gaining sufficient style to make its practicality socially acceptable. Both style and practicality carry through to the very simple web site. You just choose a few styles and features, select size and cloth, and place your order. A couple of weeks later your shirt arrives in the post. I'm really pleased with my first purchase. And at £30 it's cheap enough that I can experiment a bit with future designs. Bravo M&S.

It would be nice to see this trend begin to penetrate other sectors. Food and drink have already fallen to the organic movement, but how about a little more quality and personality being injected in to people's choice of cars, gadgets, and and other consumer goods? The first in that list is particularly important. With a huge proportion of a car's carbon footprint coming from its manufacture, we need them to last longer, as well as being more economical with fuel.

Startups and Seedcamp

In September last year I blogged about the challenges of starting a small business in the UK and what the government ought to do to make it easier. Sadly I've seen little change in the support for small businesses since then, and the general economic climate has worsened dramatically.

However there are some third parties taking a novel approach to supporting innovative startups. Seedcamp is an early stage investment vehicle put together with funding from a variety of financial and venture capital groups. It is offering a practical approach to getting new technology businesses off the ground, with intensive support and mentoring plus some small-scale funding. Seedcamp CEO Reshma Sohoni was a guest at the last Northern Startup event, and her intro to the scheme really enthused me about its potential. It's not right for me and the Net Records team but I can see how it could be perfect for other startups.