An Ill Wind

My general grumpiness at things I've seen this week is many fold, but despite the obvious chance to poor scorn at Nick Griffin and all things BNP, it has already been covered to death in every newspaper, blog or TV show.

It would be too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel, or to use a more appropriate metaphor, shooting mutated bug eyed toads an a bath of their own shit.

Nor will I moan about the posties. The media will happily tell you that they're striking about 'pay and conditions' - but have they told you what the issues with pay and conditions are?

Nope.

I don't get a lot of post that I get over excited about if it's delayed. If I order something online it's generally because I can't be arsed to go to town and buy it in a real shop. If I needed it straight away, I'd get off my arse. I buy it online, it comes when it comes. If it still hasn't arrived in a week, it's probably the vendor, not the postman. The only thing that comes though my door on a regular basis is junk mail, which is about as welcome as the postie shoving his cock through the letterbox. Fortunately he has the choice not to do the latter, and probably hates carrying and shoving shit through everyone's door just as much as we hate receiving it. Check Roy Mayall's blog for the posties side to the strike. Up the workers!

No, this week I am pissed off about being blamed for global warming.

You must have seen the advert. The 'ACT on CO2' one with that bloke who used to be Nigel in Eastenders, then a doctor in Casualty or Holby or something, reading an overly cute child actress his daughter a bedtime story about how the adults have ruined everything.

As the story goes, 'CO2 is released into the atmosphere when the grown ups use energy'.

Now it's many years since I did science at school, so excuse me while I stuff another lump of coal into the laptop so I can open another tab and check Wikepedia...

...ah yes..as I thought. CO2 is produced by burning fossil fuels and vegetable matter. So maybe they have a point, and a coal powered laptop is not the most ecologically sound option, which is why I don't have one. In fact nothing in Slippy Towers is coal powered -with the exception of the coal fire - which really only goes on at Christmas.

Everything else uses good old fashioned electricity out the wall sockets. I know that fossil fuels are used to create that electricity, but that wasn't me. They don't stoke up the boilers every time I turn on the kettle. If I leave a light on , I am wasting energy, but it's energy that I have no control over how it is created. If I don't leave things on standby, and only boil enough water to fill the cafetiere (yeah - so I don't drink instant - I am a coffee snob), it will mean we all use less energy, but it doesn't mean the Energy companies aren't still going to burn that coal. It'll just take them a little bit longer to get through it all, and the government gets more time to prevaricate about alternate sources.

They could make it from any number of renewable sources, but still choose to burn fossil fuels, charge us though the nose for the electricity, then ask us not to use quite so much of it because we're destroying the environment.

And I'm also well aware that a lot of electrical appliances kick out a lot of excess heat - 90% of the energy used by an old style light bulb was converted into heat, not light. So now the nights are drawing in, and the evenings getting colder, on go the energy saving light bulbs - but it's still a bit chilly in the house, so on goes the central heating a little earlier than last year. And where does the energy come for that?

Oh yeah....

"Will it have a happy ending?" asks the girl in the advert.

"Yes" says Slippymark. "I'll be able to wear flip flops in the winter, and be able to walk to the coast rather than a two hour drive."

Not that I want that to happen. I quite like the North Norfolk coast, and don't think it should be relocated to South Cambridge.

But my electrical habits are not a contributing factor to CO2 production, it is the people who generate that energy.

My biggest contribution to Global Warming is my own personal methane production. Methane is 21 more times powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2, and I produce it in vast quanities. The government shouldn't be pointing the finger, it should be pulling mine.

So if the Government is serious about cutting greenhouse gases, it must pledge to invest more in renewable energy, and just stop burning the remaining reserves of fossil fuels used for energy generation.

If it does that, I will pledge to take a closer look at my diet, and try not to fart quite as much - if only to stop one of my favourite breweries being lost to the sea forever.