What did you do this summer? Getting your home ready for Climate Change Workshop

Climate change brings us more intense weather of all kinds – more heatwaves and droughts, more rainstorms and floods. This summer we’ve had a record temperatures and another drought. Demand for water hit a new Cambridge record on 1st July and overall demand was 20-25% higher than normal. How did the weather affect you? How did you adapt? Come and compare your experiences with others, and get expert advice, at the Getting Your Home Ready for Climate Change workshop on 15th October.

This summer was very dry but climate change will make heavy rain more common too. 

Cool ways for a hot Summer

This hot weather was great for a while, but now my veg patch is crispy,  everyone wilts in soaring temperatures and daytime productivity is at an all-time low.  It's time to find some new strategies to cope with extreme heat! Here are my top  eco-friendly, low cost solutions that you can do right now.

1. Cold towel technology

Take a cotton neckerchief or clean tea towel and wet it with cold water. Wring it out and shake it vigorously a few times,  it will feel cool and soothing. Wrap it around your neck or wrist for some instant relief from the heat. When the cooling effect wears off, just shake it out again.

2. Grey water winners

Save your washing up water for shrubs and trees in the garden. You can make it a cleaner shade of grey if you wipe  excess food residues off the plates using kitchen paper which can then go into the green bin. 

3. Cool sleeps

It's no fun trying to sleep in hot and humid weather!  If your home is super insulated, you may find a downstairs room is cooler than the bedroom because hot air rises. These environmentally and energy conscious ideas might help.

*Choose cotton sheets and  nightwear over synthetics which are better at keeping bodies cool.  

*Fill your trusty hot water bottle 2/3s with cold water and freeze it for a bed friendly ice pack. 

*A well known strategy called the 'Egyptian method' is to soak a  bed sheet in cold water, spin it out  to remove the excess water and use it as a cool blanket. 

*Leaving your feet uncovered  by the bedclothes may also work!   

4. Rain, rain, come again

Be prepared for eventual heavy thunderstorms by checking the drains at the base of guttering downpipes for debris. A buildup  of old leaves, dust and detritus here might cause localised flooding and overflowing when the weather changes. 

You can find more tips and information about staying cool over Summer here. 

What the Energy Group think about waste

Waste (and especially plastic waste) is much in the news at the moment and so the energy group decided to focus on that for their last meeting. I think many of you will be interested who didn't come to the meeting: this post is based on the minutes I have recorded. Blanca, Margaret, Bill and I (Nicola) had all prepared some material to discuss.

Blanca – how to reduce your household waste to very little

The waste hierarchy is conventionally Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover but Blanca has expanded this with some R’s on the front: Reflect (think) – Reject – Reduce – Reuse – Repair.

Blanca and her partner tracked their waste for a month and managed to get it down to an impressively small volume as shown in this picture.

This is the tiny amount of waste that Blanca and her partner generated in one month. Impressive!

Why should I fill in a survey about car clubs?

You may be wondering why Transition Cambridge now has a project (CleanWheels) promoting transport by car - and asking you to fill in a survey about it. Aren’t we supposed to avoid travelling by car completely? Public transport, cycling and walking have less carbon emissions than cars and have other advantages to. So what is going on?

Energy group on car sharing

Last night the energy group had a lively discussion on different kinds of car sharing, like car clubs and even community taxi schemes. If the group gets any more popular we will have to hire a room to meet in; last night we were 15 people. Fortunately Margaret's sitting room is large and has lots of chairs.

There isn't room here to cover everything but I hope to give you a flavour of what was said.

What we do at Christmas

How do you celebrate the Christmas holiday? Is it possible to have a great time and still keep sustainability in mind? I asked people at the Transition Cambridge winter social what they do and this is what they said. Food, presents and the tree were the main topics: here is a miscellany of answers, including a discussion of whether or not brussels sprouts contribute to climate change and how to mitigate the problem of discarded Christmas jumpers.

A venerable tree, with modern LED lights and some presents wrapped in reusable furoshiki cloths

We did it - world's biggest repair cafe

Our aim was to beat the world record which was 150 repairs. We didn't just break it, we totally smashed it with 232 completely successful repairs. Here are some pictures from the fabulous repair cafe at Wesley Methodist Church on Christ's pieces, Saturday 11th November.