Thriving in the Anthropocene

I spotted a public lecture that sounded interesting, so I registered. As the title of this post suggests, it was about thriving in the Anthropocene, and would be delivered by Mike Berners-Lee (yes, a relation; the brother of the more famous Tim). 

When I walked in I noticed it was very well attended. That surely isn't always the case! But this man filled almost all the seats. And I even spotted Tom and Siobhan, and joined them. 

He is clearly a very engaging speaker! And he started out with explaining what the problem was. And that made sense, but I know that bit quite well. I wanted to get to the ‘thriving’ bit. 

At the end of the ‘what is the problem’ section he asked the audience to raise their hands, if they thought he was either more or less correct in his evaluation of the severity of the situation; whether he was grossly overestimating it, or grossly underestimating it. The vast majority thought he had got it about right, but there were at least 10 people who thought the situation was worse than how he presented it. And there was only one person raising his hand to indicate he thought the man was exaggerating. That was a brave standpoint!

Then he got to the bit where he explains how he thinks we can improve the situation. He said that there is toxic interplay between media, business and politics, and we should not put up with that. He gave the example of BBC presenters who have been found groping people or things of that nature, whose career is then over. And he said that even the people of whom it is clear that they knew about this and stayed silent see their career end. He said that that should happen as well in politics. He said that if politicians are caught lying, they should never be forgiven for that, unless they somehow redeemed themselves. I don't think there will be many left! But I also do know that a mentality change is possible. There was a time when no one wore a seatbelt. Now practically everybody does.

It seemed a bit simple; hold your politicians to account. You only get an election every five years. And what about business and the media? He did tell us to vote with our wallets. Don't support media that encourage us to stay on this collision course with fate. (Go to Bluesky!) And he used the example of the one bloke who raised his hand to say he had been exaggerating. It is difficult to do that if everybody else doesn't agree with you, but it can be done. So we can be the people who raise our hands to say that society needs to fundamentally change. And we can be the change. And other people can see it. And then maybe be inspired. And if we have critical mass, people might start to feel embarrassed if they are not on the woke bandwagon with us.

He only had an hour, and it flew by. I wish he had had more time! I suppose I might have to read his book. He's got a new one out. In there he will have enough space to go into a bit more detail.

There was time for a few questions, which generally focused on politics. And then the lecture was closed, and we all streamed out of the lecture room. 

Some discussion afterwards indicated that Tom and Siobhan weren't impressed. Tom summed up his argument as "the world would be fine if everybody stopped lying". And I see his point, but I also think it is a bit fatalistic to dismiss it. We are clutching at straws here! And what this man offers might not be more than a straw, but it's all we have. I say kudos to him. Keep speeching. And I will do my flawed best to make a small difference. Keep going to the Netherlands by train or boat, even though it is a lot more expensive and time-consuming than flying. (but still flying to Finland for my sister's birthday.) And supporting Bluesky (but still being on Facebook because I can't let go of my racing habit). Doing my frequent baking vegan, but still eating cheese. Et cetera!

2024 Climate Festival

The 2024 climate festival was approaching rapidly! And Chris, the local spider in the web, seemed to have the organisation formally under control. My task now was only to prepare a presentation. And there were two of us presenting, so the idea was as well to make sure the two talks combined well.

We had good intentions! We had a phone call. And I said I would send her my slides from last year, and then she would send me a draft of what she would present. And then we could tweak according to need. But life got in the way, and I had to finalise my slides in the very bank holiday weekend of the festival, without having seen what my co-presenter had in mind. But at least I knew she was a biologist with an interest in extinctions.

Preparing the slides

The festival started at 11. I decided to show up shortly afterwards. I wasn't talking until 1 pm, but there was a moss walk at 11:30. I like moss! So I wanted to join.

When I got there it was already very busy. Such a good sight! And the moss walk was very popular as well; there was a veritable herd of us heading up the bicycle path, with hand lenses around our necks. It was run by the same ladies who had been talking about moss at the event in Penrhyndeudraeth. It was great fun! I will dedicate a separate blog post to that.

Busy already! Pic by Gwyrddni

The stands outside the community centre 

When we got back it was almost time for me to present. And there was a good crowd in the side room where that would take place! Some familiar faces from last year, but also quite some additional ones. And I was really glad that when I spoke, they would just interrupt me for questions. It got very lively! I really enjoyed it. And there also was discussion afterwards.

My talk; pic by Gwyrddni

Then the other lady, Alison, spoke. What she said was also very interesting. Her main message wasn't actually about extinctions. What actually argued is that we know enough to know what to do to prevent them. And that is where the gains can be made. Of course you can do more research on extinction; different locations, different species, new extensions due to changing circumstance. But what will that get you? More knowledge, and nothing happening. She argues scientists should increasingly get out of science and focus their energy on making those with the power to actually change things do so. I think she has a point!

Her talk and the following discussion overran a bit. The next thing on the timetable was a climate quiz, but a lot of people had run out of steam by this time. I knew the lady who had organised it, so I wanted to participate. We all took a little bit of time out in the fresh air, where I found my fellow bike enthusiast Pete. And then we went back into the admittedly stuffy room for the quiz. There were only three participants! But we had fun. And I won a pencil.

By then the whole event had come to an end. We helped Chris put the room back to the state he had found it in. And then I went home.

We will still have Chris for another year with another festival. And after that his funding will run out. He hopes that by then, we will be able to do it without him. But we are all people with busy jobs! I find it really helps that he just regularly calls meetings. If you wait for us to do that, we wait until we have time for that sort of thing, and that never happens. Oh well. We have another year to think about this and see how we can solve this. We might just sit together at the next climate festival, and put dates in the diary for a whole year worth of meetings. And then make it happen with volunteers only. That would be ideal!

Planning the next Climate Festival

It’s never too soon to get people thinking about climate! This spring, the valley (and its sustainability initiative) organised a Climate Festival. And coming spring we want to do it again. And that requires some organisation. There are regular meetings; I had missed one, but now I was available for the next one. The invitation said the meeting would start at 5:30, and we were all invited to join the weekly free meal before that, at 4 pm. I was aware of this meal, but I never joined. 

I eat quite early, but 4 pm is pushing it a bit. Additionally; I had a work meeting until 4 pm, so I couldn't physically be in Bethesda at that time anyway. So I got home from work, quickly ate some leftovers, and then went to the meeting. I saw a lot of activity in the kitchen and the place that functioned as a dining room, but I saw little signs of a meeting! I also saw that Chris, the organiser of the meeting, was still busy with food. I flagged him down, and he suggested I just sat with the diners. The meeting would start a bit later. He offered me food, but I had already eaten! At least people came to offer me some tea. I did not turn that down.

Canolfan Cefnfaes in the dark

I just sat down with three strangers who looked welcoming. And they were. We just had a nice chat (in Welsh) while they were eating their quite good-looking Christmas dinner. It was nice of them to include me! And by the time they were more or less finished, Chris gave a sign that the meeting would be starting. The other participants of the meeting had joined in the dinner.

We went to a different room; there are only four of us. And we could get the meeting over quite quickly. The previous meeting, that I had missed, had covered potential venues for the climate festival. They didn’t want to do it in the same place as in 2023, and we quite liked the idea of doing it in the Community Centre in nearby Tregarth. But we discussed whether we would have access to outside space, and we discussed parking, and how to get more volunteers, and what external people to get involved, and how to get people there. It was quite thinkable that many people would come from Bethesda, and we could try to organise that. In some sustainable way. We also discussed accessibility. 

When we were done, Chris said that we should have some Christmas pudding, or a mince pie. So l did! And then I made my way home. It was still quite early. I hope our next Climate Festival is going to be a clanging success!

Back to the radio

Today, COP28 starts. In Dubai, of all places. We are hurtling towards the climate apocalypse, and the only way of dealing with that is with combined forces. So these COP meetings are important! Even if they also have proven to sometimes be very ineffective.

The media recognises its duty to report on this event. And one radio station cluster, LBC/Heart/Capital FM/Smooth Radio (no, I had no idea they were in it together) wanted a climate scientist to comment on it, and contacted me. I'm not quite sure why they chose me, but I'll have it! They asked if they could briefly interview me before the start of the event, and I said yes. The communications were entirely in English, so I expected the interview would be too.

I saw the interviewer on Zoom. I appreciated that; I had done two radio interviews (this and this) before where I couldn't see my interviewer, and I don't like that at all. I was a lot happier when I  later was asked for comment by the media, but the person interviewing actually showed up in person. I could look at him talking to me! That made it a lot easier.

We had a little chat, and the said that he assumed I didn't speak Welsh. I said I did. Then he said we could do the interview bilingually! He himself did not speak Welsh, but he could just ask me questions in English, and I could answer in Welsh. I did say I hadn't prepared for doing this in Welsh. But it wasn't live, so if I stumbled over a word, I could just look it up and say the sentence again.

So then we were off! First in English. He asked me whether I was optimistic about the COP meeting. I wasn't. Did I think it was important to show up? I said yes, because these meetings are the best available platform for making changes, and if you're not there, then you have guaranteed that you are not making a positive change. Wasn't in the UK doing really well anyway? And I admitted that the UK is doing a lot better than quite some other countries, including the Netherlands (check the emissions per capita), but that only means it is pushing us in the direction of climate apocalypse a bit slower than other countries. That's not really a reason to be proud. 

When we had gone through that in English we just did it again in Welsh. I had to stop twice to look something up. But I think I got my point across. 

I might have a look online today if I can find their news bulletins. I should be in it with some soundbites! Will it make a difference? Probably not. But one tries!

The COP28 venue. Pic by Alan Santos

Relative drought

I don't think we're officially in a drought, but I personally find the weather astonishing! I just can't remember the last time it rained. And this is North Wales. 

It is kind of nice, though; it is glorious weather for biking to work, and for having dinner in the garden, and for going on lovely little adventures in the weekends.

Even for the garden I think it's OK. For one thing; with so little rain, nothing is growing particularly fast. And that means less maintenance! And additionally; climate is only going to get stranger, so you don't want to spend a lot of time pampering plants that struggle with a bit of drought if you know it is highly likely that is only going to get worse. If they can’t cope with this, they can't cope with the future. The cold spell in early spring also made a few casualties. So I will be left with the resilient plants. 

The hydraulic head of the water butt is rather pathetic at the moment; I expect it to run dry soon, after which I will give it a good clean. But if I really need water that doesn't have to be drinking water, I can still go to the river. I don't expect that to run dry any time soon!

As I write this, it is completely unclear when it will start raining again. I'm going to try to enjoy this as long as it lasts!

Struggling plant (not sure what species)

Struggling Rosemary

It takes awhile to fill a watering can like this

This grass hasn't been cut in a week; you wouldn't say!

My Pyracantha doesn't see what the problem is

Preparing for the Climate Festival

A while ago I got a message from my friend Caro. She said that there would be a climate festival in the village on May 1st. She had been asked to give a presentation about climate; she had done one as well for one of the climate assemblies. But she was otherwise engaged. Could I do it instead? And I said yes. She said she would send me her slides. I could use them, make my own, or do a bit of both!

It was quite busy recently, so I knew I would have to make the slides quite shortly in advance. I did a bit of thinking about how to go about it, but I didn't sit down to actually make slides until the Saturday before, in some time before we would go and eat some mussels in Porth Penryn. I finished it Sunday afternoon. On Monday I would talk!

Hard at work, with charming assistant

I only had half an hour. There is only so much you can say in that time! But I hope that the slightly longer perspective I provide means I tell the people there, who probably already know quite a lot about climate, something they didn't know before. And I hope there will be some interesting discussion afterwards.

It was a bit of a pity to have two very hectic weeks at work, and then ending that in a weekend in which I had to do something that is indistinguishable from work, in a bank holiday weekend, but it is for a good cause. And I like climate! So there we are…

Climate change teaching done

One week to the Easter break! It always feels like such an important milestone in the academic year. And this year, a module that kept me especially busy was our climate change module. The year before I had completely changed what I teach, so this year I had to improve on that. I never get things quite right the first year around. And I am sure next year I will still be tweaking. But on the Friday of the second last week before the Easter break I had my last lecture. So now I can go into the last week with student contacts with that off my plate. And it feels good.

I am still teaching on my rather wide-ranging Earth, Climate and Evolution module. And there also is teaching in the tutorial module, and the fieldwork module in that week. But that will probably all stuff that I can prepare for without haste. Great! And of course the Easter break is not really a break; for instance, my big job will be to prepare for the dissertation presentations conference. But I can work on that with less interruption than normal!

Deeper into PMIP

Last year I mentioned I would focus my teaching in our Climate and Climate Change module on periods climate models have picked as potential analogies for our near future. As I write this, atmospheric CO2 is at approximately 420 ppm. In a normal interglacial period, it is 280 ppm. You have to go millions of years back to reach a value as high as 420. And you have to go even further back to find the values that are expected for the year 2100. If you want to chase the values we might reach if we end up in a high emissions scenario, you have to go tens of millions of years back.

I mentioned all this before. This year I'm teaching that again. But if I teach something for the first time, I am never satisfied with it! So this year I am spending quite a lot of time reading up more on these time periods, and what the modelling attempts tell us. What are the things the models are struggling to reconstruct? What are the things the models can't agree on? These are probably the aspects of our climate system we struggle to catch in equations, or of which we don't have sufficient understanding yet.

There are still some serious issues with faithfully reproducing these times. Ocean circulation still seems to be difficult to get right. Just how much warming you get from a certain increase in greenhouse gases as well. And the temperature contrast between the equator and the poles also seems to be difficult. So these would be among the things that can still throw us a curveball.

It is a fair bit of work, but it is fascinating stuff! And my guess is that next year I will do it again to make the series even better…

No side gig for now

Last year I was approached again by Adult Education Wales. Would I be willing to deliver my climate course again in the new year? I said yes. They were thinking about a January start. That sounded good to me; January is exam period, so not excessively busy. So I started thinking about how to make it a bit more interactive. It had a bit too much me talking, and not enough getting the participants to tackle things themselves. And some of it will largely stay that way; when I'm talking them through comparisons of the present with various periods in the geological past, I think most people have so little idea of that that they just wouldn't know where to start. But when it comes to just processes that is different.

Then a message to game. Not enough people had registered! Could we postpone? And I wasn't overly keen, as that would bring the start of the course beyond the exam period, but I figured I should be able to manage.

Then yet another email came. Even with that postponement, not enough people had registered! So the deal was off.

The idea is that we have a chat about how to tweak it and perhaps offer it in a different form. But I have said I don't want any of that to happen within the current term. It is busy enough as it is! So we'll see what the next step is. But for now, I only have my one full-time job to contend with!

Captivating carbon capture

For one of my modules, we expect the students to take a topic associated with marine geology, and write an article about it. They are also expected to present their work. And in order to give them a bit of an idea of the possible topics, we invite external speakers to give presentations about their field.

We have six speakers. The topics vary immensely! It goes from reconstructing climate from the geologic record via the porosity of aquifers to the dangers of mass movement on submarine cables. And we have a talk on geological storage of carbon dioxide. That's done by Allard. I noticed on LinkedIn his career had brought him in that direction and I saw an opportunity!

He did a fab job, and he must have touched a nerve with the students. Literally half the students decided to use his talk as the base for their project! And that inevitably meant a significant amount in repetition in the presentations, and in marking the popular scientific articles, but it was good to see he had been so inspiring, and that the topic resonated so much. I hope this branch of technology will need more employees in the near future! 

Is carbon capture and storage (CCS) actually the answer? Well no, of course we need to stop producing the CO2. But before we get there we need to make sure that the carbon dioxide we do create doesn't end up in the atmosphere. The energy transition will take time! Building windfarms, for instance, takes a while. So I think it is a fantastic idea. And I think our students agree…

The Sleipnir oil field, which is used for CCS. Pic by Bair175

Popular stable carbon isotopes

I teach a module in which the focus is on us inviting guest speakers from all sorts of directions in academia and the corporate world, who do something with marine geology. They just provide a lecture about their field of expertise, and the students can then take one of these topics and read up on it a bit more. They write a popular scientific article about it, and give a presentation. The idea is that they push the topic further than the guest lecturer did. We the resident staff provide a series of lectures that we use for trying to make sure that the students have all the background knowledge they need an order to understand these guest lectures.

I tend to talk about all the most common methods we are using to try to get useful information out of sediments or rocks. And in my general line of science, you can't get around stable isotopes. They are so incredibly useful! All elements have more than one isotope, and the isotopes are chemically identical but physically slightly different. And typically, when these elements go through a phase change, not only do some of the isotopes preferentially make that phase change, but also, the strength of this preference depends on temperature. So if you are reading this, and you have the faintest idea of what the temperature of any aspect of the system Earth was at some point in the past that is beyond historic measurements, you probably know this because of stable isotopes. So I had given lectures about that. And I know it comes back in at least one of the guest lectures.

What I said above about phase changes and isotopes also holds for carbon, but carbon is special; any creature that engages in photosynthesis prefers light carbon isotopes. I'm not sure why! But they do. As a result, organic carbon is isotopically a lot lighter than inorganic carbon. And it also means that you can basically find out whether there have been big fluctuations in photosynthesis in the geological past. Especially in the ocean. Many people might think of photosynthesis as something that mainly happens on land, but don't forget plankton! And plankton blooms!

A plankton bloom near Cornwall. Pic by NASA

You can probably imagine that if you have an awful lot of planktonic algae photosynthesising away at the sea surface, they can take up a lot of carbon. And if they then subsequently die, and then end up locked away in the sediment rather than being recycled somewhere along the way, you have effectively drawn carbon from the atmosphere. Anything that does that is currently of high societal relevance, of course!

So how would we know that that that happened? Well, if you have a lot of photosynthesis going on in the ocean, all the algae will pull all the isotopically light carbon out of the ocean (there is a lot of CO2 dissolved in it, and they can take it out) and then the ocean water ends up relatively isotopically heavy. If any creature is then precipitating calcite in that seawater, the carbon in that calcite will automatically also be quite isotopically heavy. And that calcite is quite likely to survive. Possibly for tens of millions of years! So in that sense, you can track the productivity of the ocean quite far back in time.

There is a flipside to this, of course. If you store all that isotopically light carbon somewhere, it might escape its  storage and come back to haunt you! Marine sediments contain a lot of methane. And that methane can also be released. It tends to be stable in low temperatures. If you raise the temperature of the sediments too much, your methane will basically just burp out. This has happened before! And you can imagine that that would turn both the atmosphere and the ocean suddenly quite isotopically light when it comes to carbon. And that, as well, is something you would quite easily see in marine calcite.

How all this carbon moves between the atmosphere (where we don't want it) and somewhere safely out of reach, like in marine sediments (where we do want it) is something we really want to know about. Some 55 million years ago, something went catastrophically wrong in the Earth produced the biggest burp known to man. It wreaked climate havoc! And the thing is; we are now on our way to create a much worse event. It's just not yet quite apparent; that event took about 10.000 years to unfold, which in geological terms is just a blink of an eye, but for a humans is an unimaginable amount of time. And we are releasing carbon into the atmosphere at about 10 times the speed that was seen back then. But we have only been at it for some hundred years! So the effects are only beginning to be felt.

Altogether, I hope you agree with me that stable carbon isotopes are important. And there used to be a guest lecture in which they were very important. It was the one by my old PhD supervisor Dick Kroon. He presented an amazing lecture where he went into detail about how often this kind of world burp takes place, and under what circumstances. Fascinating but also cause for concern! But when the pandemic started, he decided to stop giving this lecture because he was a big cheese in an ocean drilling program, and he needed all his energy to somehow mitigate the damage the pandemic was doing to that. And he has since died, so he never will give the lecture again.

So where am I going with all of this? I normally teach the students about stable carbon isotopes, but this year I figured none of our guest lecturers would actually discuss it. So then what was the point? I had my students for a double lecture slot, and I decided to use the first slot for things that I knew they would be needing for the guest lectures. And then we would have a tea break, and after that break I would tell them about stable carbon isotopes. I also told them that there would be literally no assessment at all within this module in which that would come back. So if they thought it was a waste of their time, they were totally welcome to go away and do something else! But if anyone would stay on, I would deliver that lecture.

I seriously considered the possibility that none of them would come back. But after I came back from my convenience break, I saw that almost all the students still there! I thought that was an uplifting view. And I quite happily delivered my lecture!

I think it is lovely that the students just want to know about these things just for the sake of knowing it! And not because it has any particular positive effect on their grades. Who knows what they will be doing with this knowledge in the future. They are part of a generation that will have a much tougher time dealing with carbon in the climate system than my generation does! And knowing what sort of havoc it has created in the past is, of course, by no means a guarantee for mitigating the damage in the present day in the future, but it is a start. There is hope!

Solar panels working!

I had had solar panels on my roof since early June. But because of communication issues, they did not work. They would only work once I would get the additional array of five panels on the flat roof. So now what?

I discussed this with the company that had had them installed. And when they finally agreed to just phone  me rather than exchange aggressive emails, I told them that I hoped to have the west facade re-rendered in only a few weeks’ time. The company had offered to exchange my big inverter for two separate inverters; one for the array of six and one for the array of five. Then the setup would just work both before and after the installation of the last panels. But with the path hopefully clear for everything to be finished within weeks, I suggested they hold their horses. On the condition that the renderer would actually show up and do the work.

The renderer was as good as his word! So we proceeded with the plan. And on Wednesday August 3rd I should get my final panels. That also gave me time to paint the wall. There was still a small spanner in the work; something had not been delivered, and it turned into the day after. But then they really came!

Given they only had to install some panels on an accessible roof, the men were done in a few hours. And then they were done! I quickly had a look at my electricity meter; indeed, it now ran backwards. I should have had a smart meter, of course, but the energy company had not been forthcoming.

Coffee break

When I had a look at what the installers had done I noticed there were six panels there, rather than the agreed five. I liked that; they had basically forced changes to the contract on me that were in my disadvantage, and now they had suddenly made a change in my advantage. Maybe that would cancel out!

The next day the company phoned. Was everything okay? And they said they had indeed delivered six panels by way of an apology. And I accepted that. I had calculated how much I had paid for my electricity since the panels had been installed, how far along their period of writing off the panels have got in the meantime, and how much I wanted to charge for the time they had made me waste. That boiled out to the same value as this sixth panel. It meant that the cost of having the installers come twice fell on me, but at least the relationship with the company was okay again. So we closed that case!

The next day when I came home from work I checked how much I seem to have generated. My electricity meter was 28 KWh less than it had been when the installers had left! This was going fast. It was totally evident my next electricity meter reading would be less than the previous one. Maybe that would kick the electricity company into action.

The weekend after getting my solar power I was away, but after that I could start adapting my life to this new power source! Do the laundry during the day rather than during the night; boiling water and putting it in my big flasks before the sun sets so I can do the rest of the day with hot beverages that have been produced sustainability, and so on. I'll try to do as much as I can with the power from the sun! Let's see how far I get!

End of the third iteration of the side gig

This last iteration of my climate course was not much of a success. There were five people registered, but in the first session only one person appeared and one person tried to appear. I was wondering if it had something to do with them having registered quite a while ago, and not received any communications about it in the meantime. I had only received registration information at the last minute! And things got worse when one evening my one attendee couldn't come. But there was even worse to come. The second last session, I had had to somehow splice together the third and fourth session, given that she had missed the third. And that made for a bit of an unbalanced session. I had had to do it on the day, as she had indicated the bit late how she wanted to go about things. And then the last session she just didn't appear. Maybe I just had not fascinated her enough in that combined session. It was a pity! But I know it is my task to be engaging and make sure that my sessions properly cater for the audience. So it mainly means I should step up my game. The organisation could probably improve on keeping people who register warm, as I am sure that would help, but the main onus is on me. 

My contact person is now on holiday, but I trust we will speak again in late summer. I have no idea whether there will be another iteration! I hope so. I would like to have one that is a success. With a sizeable group of people who keep coming. And contribute to the discussion. Watch this space! It might or might not happen…

No climate, but firewood

When my climate course ran for the third time, only one person showed up for the first session. I could tell that a second person was trying to get on for the second session, but it didn't work out. An email later turned out it had indeed been connection issues. And once you have missed the first two sessions it will probably be difficult to join in for the third one. By then you have missed 40% of the course!

I was just about to start the third session when I got an email that the one participant I had had so far couldn't make it that evening. I did start the zoom meeting just in case, but indeed, nobody showed up. A bit of a pity!

While I was just doing some stuff while seeing if anyone would show up, my eye fell on a posting on the village Facebook page. Somebody was doing up their house, and had some waste wood. Was someone interested? And I was! I had burnt up quite a lot of my stack over the winter, and some replenishment would be welcome. And I suddenly had spare time. So but I will certain the one was going to show up for my session, I jumped into the car and went just down the road.

The man who had advertised the wood was pottering around outside, and he kindly helped me put all the wood into my car. Went home I stacked it into the garage. I would have some sawing to do!

I recently had bought a saw horse and it would certainly come in handy. At the end of the sawing spree after the renovation of the roof, I had had a firewood stack taller than me, and by late spring it had come down to shin height. Time to do some sawing again, and build it back up to its original height! I didn't know I would be spending my evening on this sort of thing, but I suppose there is some similarity between spreading information about climate change, and avoiding yet a bit more use of fossil fuels…

The saw horse in action 

Solar panels not working

I had expected to be looking at beautiful graphs of renewably sourced power by the time the solar panel installers would leave on the Thursday. No such thing happened! Friday nothing happened either. On Monday I reminded the company; when would this process be finalised? I had already received the request for paying the final bill before the installers had even left the house, but I was not keen on paying that before the installation process had been completed.

On Monday afternoon I got an email from a lady of the company I had not had contact with before. She coolly explained that the inverter installed in my loft did not function with only six panels; it only would work after the additional five would have been installed. I didn't know what I was reading; they had just decided to put an inverter in the loft that would not work with the current setup? Without informing me? That really changed the entire deal. I had discussed the situation in detail with someone else from the company; the whole point of doing the installation in two stages was to start generating early on. And that had just been swept off the table. It meant I had agreed to pay for installers to come out twice with no reason at all, and now had panels on my roof that would just be sitting there, getting old and dirty and outdated and not doing anything in the process. That was not the deal! I sent an email back saying that I had a problem with this, and that I suggested they phone me to discuss the situation and find a mutually acceptable solution. They didn't.

I got an email back that did contain an apology, and an explanation that an inverter that could have worked with both setups would not be available for months. Nothing else. No acknowledgement of that by them unilaterally changing what they had delivered, I was being duped, and that that was a situation that needed to be dealt with. I was angry. You can't just shrug that sort of thing off!

I felt like they were trying to dismiss me, and I stepped up the assertiveness. I told them I had started seeking legal advice and that I wished them to compensate me for the incurred losses. This basically boil down to the power not generated, and the cost of having installers come out twice. I would never have agreed on the latter if it would have had no advantages, as it didn't now.

It got absurd from there. Or at least, it felt absurd to me. The company got back to me to suggest they just take my solar panels off the roof and give me a refund. How would that solve anything? So I rejected that. They then suggested something that made a lot more sense: putting two smaller inverters in the place of the one big one.

The situation is not resolved yet. One thing I know I want to do is get to the Small Claims Court and try to be compensated for the losses I have incurred. But the thing is: when to do this? I don't know what my losses are until I have a full 11 panel array that works. And the easiest way of getting that, in theory, is to just proceed with this company. But the atmosphere is not good at the moment, as you can imagine. If they bail out of the second stage of installation I will have to try to claim back the losses I may incur. And a lot now hangs on when I get my wall rendered. I have a renderer booked in, but I won't know when my roof will be ready for more solar panels until he is done. And he might just phone me the day beforehand saying he has covid and cannot come. And then what? Then it could take forever as tradespeople are not easy to find. I will want to seek compensation for a lot more loss if it doesn't work out with this chap! So I'm really wishing I have a fresh wall before the end of the month. That will keep the damage limited.  And in the meantime: watch this space for updates... 

Beautiful panels, doing nothing

Third attempt at side gig

In April, the second iteration of my climate course ended. So what would be next? When I discussed it with my contact person we decided she would advertise the course again for June, and she asked me about potential extra sessions. The discussion about extra sessions ended in me making a suggestion and that not being responded to, but the course was duly advertised. By coincidence, it would start really closely after my return from the Netherlands. Seven days before the start I was informed of recruitment; it was a list of five names. Not much! But I will work with that.

When I got back from the Netherlands the day before I sent an email out to those who had registered, to say welcome and remind them and generally make them feel like something was really going to happen. I also chased up a Zoom link from technical support. In the end I made one myself.

When the day came, only one person appeared. Oh dear! That's not good. The lady thought that maybe everyone else had sort of forgot about it, as they had registered quite a while ago, and my email seems to have been the first contact they received to remind them. I think I need to have a chat with the organisation about engagement. I can't contact anyone until I have been given contact information, and if they do that only a week before the start of the course, then there is a lot of time for attendees to forget about the whole thing and decide to spend their time differently.

I did have a lovely session with the one lady. So far from all was lost! And I later got an email from another participant who said their internet had gone down, but she would be there from the second session onwards. A 100% increase of participants! That's nice.

I could imagine they give it a break now, given the low numbers. But it has been an interesting experience!

Citizens assembly for sustainability

One day I received a letter. It announced that there was an initiative to create a Community Assembly in Dyffryn Ogwen. Its goal was to explore how the valley could be made more sustainable. And I was feeling a lot of community spirit that day! I decided to volunteer for it. I mean, I really would like this valley to be very sustainable. And maybe I have some good ideas, based for instance on my side gig. And then nothing happened for a while.

During the visit by my sister, I received a phone call from a number I didn't recognise. I did answer it but was a bit suspicious; who was phoning me? Was this a spam call? But it turned out to be from the bloke who was organising this assembly. He told me I had been picked as one of the 50 members! When she heard this (he was speaking English at the time) my sister was absolutely certain it was a spam call. Congratulations; you have been chosen! But it was serious.

Then the day came the assembly would actually take place. I wasn't sure what to expect. I biked to the rugby club where the events would take place; this is really close by. I was welcomed, ticked off a list, and given a sticker with the number 4 on it. I was asked to add my name to it. I saw what they had done there; we were organised in groups! So I found table number 4 and sat down. And I met my fellow assembly members. They were very friendly! But that was to be expected; if you do not want to try to be constructive with your fellow citizens, you don't volunteer for something like this.

I also got me a coffee. That is important! And after a while the event officially started. I had seen the programme, but will still not entirely sure what the practical execution would be of the various programme points. What would "community action" really entail? (Or rather, "Gweithredu cymunedol" as it was a Welsh language meeting, with simultaneous translation provided for those who needed it.) But we unsurprisingly first started introducing ourselves. And soon afterwards, we were given some pieces of paper with a phrase on it related to the assembly, and we were asked to write down what our thoughts were upon seeing said phrase. It was that kind of meeting. And soon also the flipcharts came out; a lot more writing down of thoughts we had. We were thinking about what experiences with climate change we had, what initiatives in the valley we were aware of, what initiatives outside the valley we knew about, what we would like to do in the next meeting, and things like that.

We were not only writing things on pieces of paper; there were also presentations from officials. One was a man from the School of Natural Sciences at the University who gave us some insight into how much more CO2 we could still emit if we wanted to stick below various climate thresholds, and how quickly we will do that if we didn't change emission rates. The answer inevitably was: not much! And soon! There also were two people from the Ogwen Partnership who spoke about the things they already do and the things they wish to do in the future.

The things I thought were most useful were the initiatives people know about; there was so much more than I was aware of! We seem to have a man who converts "normal" bicycles into e-bikes, and schemes where you can borrow reusable nappies and menstrual products. And courses in growing your own food. Such good ideas! And there were other people who were not aware of lots of other initiatives. There is a lot going on here in our modest valley!

The ideas for the next time were manifold; people wanted information about making your house more energy-efficient, wanted local politicians and local businesses to show up to see what interactions we could have with them, and more things like that.

It wasn't all hard work; we also had breaks, and I recognised a few people. There was a lady from Welsh class there (of course there was!) and Caro was there too. And I met some new people during lunch. And I got a lot of usual response I get when I meet new people from the area: "I've seen you running!"

Altogether I think it was a useful day. I can't say we have changed the world, but I absolutely believe in the merit of getting a lot of well-meaning people together who might be aware of how little difference they can make on their own. If we get together, we can do a lot more! And if we can join forces and make a small difference, then maybe we are part of a bigger movement where in every valley or other geographical demarcation there is an assembly like this, with people trying to make a difference together. What we need is a change in mentality and political will. And any step in the right direction is one!

The next meeting will be in August. I will be looking forward to that one more than I did this one, as now I have a clearer idea of what to expect!

Trying to avoid greenhouse gas emissions-causing foods

For my side gig, I shine a light on many aspects of climate change. One of the sessions is dedicated to what you can do as a private citizen, and one of the topics I deal with then is food. It makes a difference whether you eat energy-inefficient foods from far away, or just vegetables from your own valley. And on the 'our World in Data' website where you can get a reasonable estimate of the amount of CO2 emitted per unit mass of quite a range of foodstuffs. And you can toggle them on and off; you can avoid clutter by doubling the food you don't eat anyway. Then I toggled everything on I actually eat, and looked at the results. And my three main vices are: cheese, coffee, chocolate, with 21, 19 and 17 kg of CO2 per kg of food. Mind you; be a lot worse; beef is worse at 60. But still. Should I do something about this?

I suppose the biggest change would be to stop eating cheese. I have never stopped eating it, as the mind is willing and all that, but I have cut down my consumption years ago already. I suppose I should reduce it even more. Watch this space.

I don't eat chocolate as is; if I eat chocolate, it is because I have baked with it. And I bake all sorts of other things as well, so I don't use an awful lot of the stuff. I do go through quite a lot of coffee, though. Could I make an improvement there? I am aware that there are alternatives. My mother was drinking one decades ago. And I think it's okay. The local food co-op sells it! So I thought I'd buy a jar and see how I would get on. It doesn't have caffeine in it, but most of the coffee I drink is decaf anyway. So what I might do is have a phased approach: first replace my decaf with this stuff. I admit I don't know what carbon footprint is of this coffee alternative, but it is clearly based on the vegetable that just grows here. (A site of which I don't know the reliability suggests it is low.) And it is made of the root of chicory; I suppose that would be a waste product if it wouldn't be turned into this beverage. So it is likely this is quite an improvement per kilo consumed product! And while I am making this improvement, I will keep pondering the potential improvement I can make in the cheese department…

End to second iteration of side gig

My last session of the climate course is about what individuals can do. There is a lot you can say about that; you can go into how one can save energy, or how one can make sure that the energy used is as sustainably sourced as possible. But I also talk about what science has said about the efficacy of climate protest, and how it has fared people who have taken governments to court for being insufficiently proactive on the climate front.

The session was good. I really liked my participants! And then, a bit after 9 PM, I closed the Zoom meeting. The second iteration of my climate course was done! I filed the pay claim right away. Having done this course twice is still not enough to buy even one solar panel. This is not a way of getting rich! But it has been good.

In a few days, I will see my contact person again and we can talk about what's next. She has some ideas and I am curious to hear them. Although I am also happy that for now, I only have one job. One that I can do better now after having taught in a different way as well!

Rather Victoria than Putin

Climate change bothers me. And the war in Ukraine bothers me. And that combined made me at some point just grumpily switch off my boiler. I don't know where the gas comes from that powers it. It might be partially Russian. I know the Brits use a lot less Russian gas than continental Europe, but still. Even if it is not Russian at all, I am increasingly uncomfortable by burning any fossil fuels in my house.

When the weather turned the house got cold, obviously. But I have two wood stoves! So I should be okay.

Normally, when I have the fire on I am there to enjoy it. And sometimes I have guests there too. So there is plenty of opportunity to attend to it. But if it is only a heat source, I am actually upstairs in my office, focusing on different things. That's different! Time flies when you are working, and you have to pop down quite often to add some wood to the fire if you want to keep it going. But it does work! The stove warms up the room rather quickly, and you can feel the heat percolate upwards. I have not yet used both wood stoves at the same time, but maybe I should just for the heck of it. And I am burning through a lot more wood now than I otherwise would be, but that is okay because I have quite a lot in store. I am not anywhere near the bottom of the pile that was created when I had the roof of the garage rebuilt! And the garden keeps yielding new wood. And soon it will be summer and then the house will be warm on its own initiative. And by the time it will be winter again I might have made up my mind about what to replace the actual boiler with! Solar panels and infrared panels are all good and well, but only the start of my energy transition. And wood is renewable, but not very clean. Watch this space!

In the meantime I am feeling positively Victorian. There is something about waking up in a cold house and then lighting the fire! And about having to interrupt your chores regularly in order to fuel it! I'm sure it won't stay fun forever but for now I am enjoying this excursion into the 19th century…

My heating