Dog Days

And so a new month finds us. Behold July 2023! What surprises and challenges do you bring? What delicious secrets lie buried just below your surface, waiting patiently to be discovered? A gold coin perhaps? A magical artefact? The potatoes I planted?

Yesterday morning I awoke with a start following a dream our dog had been lost somewhere in the highlands of Scotland. There was no way she could find her way home. She was out there, alone, fending for herself. It was horrible. 

It wasn't like the dream of losing a child, like in a big city, which I've also had, and which was also terrible. But my child is at an age now where he has a pretty decent understanding of the lie of the land and how to communicate and get around. Our dog has only been in this world seven months. She's cute and cuddly, yes, but her communication skills are a little lacking. Opposable thumbs are few and far between. Using a credit card, even contactless, may be outwith the bounds of her skillset.

For these reasons having a nightmare about a lost puppy seemed to hit, not harder, but in a slightly different, more sensitive area, where one is not accustomed to be hit.

Upon returning to reality I felt such a wave of relief wash over me, it was indescribable. But let me try. Big. 

Even though it was still an hour before she habitually woke me up, I went straight downstairs to reassure myself that she was safe and sound on the sofa, and there she was, oblivious to the torment I had just suffered at the hands of my subconscious. "What are you doing here?" she seemed to think. "You still have an hour." Needless to say, cuddles and tummy rubs ensued.

Need someone to write mildly amusing doggy blog posts? Hold my beer.

How to Live a Low Carbon Lifestyle

In other news, I was pleasantly surprised seeing the numbers of our June energy usage, which I check the 1st (week) of every month. It being the middle of summer, they are naturally low, but due to our solar panels and the selling of the car, our carbon footprint is way, way down. Like silly small.

Red means winter, green summer. Far right column is year's CO2 output to date.

If my calculations are correct, in June 2023 we output less than the weight of our dog in carbon emissions. 20kg.

This is not including any land-based public transport usage by family members, as I consider the additional weight of a human on a vehicle which is traveling overground somewhere anyway negligible.

I'm talking about the energy for which we are directly responsible.

The gas we use for central heating and showers.

The electricity we use for lights, the kettle, the cooker, the fridge.

The petrol and carbon debt of the car, spread out mile by mile throughout its lifespan.

Note yellow line representing half of solar generation (estimated unused and going back into the grid) which is negative.

20kg of CO2 in a summer month is the lowest since I started taking records of our energy usage going to back to 1st Dec 2018. The closest is 44kg in July 2020 in the midst of the Corona lockdowns. In the winter of early 2019, when I regularly commuted by car to Edinburgh, it was as as high as 533kg. Half a tonne.

I'm not telling people how to live their lives and I know some folk depend on their private vehicles but damn, if you want to rid yourself of carbon guilt and feel better about the planet, sell your car. Tremendous mental health relief. Get a decent road bike with rack and panniers for shopping. Re-acquaint yourself with the sociability of public transport and sharing lifts. Normalise a slightly less convenient, smaller, slower world. Use the capital to install solar panels on your house.

You know it makes sense...

Hydrocarbon Hangover

Since selling our Toyota on Friday the 9th June, it's been a week of utter carlessness. 

Over the years our hybrid accounted for a third of our carbon footprint. I used it a lot for work, driving all over the country to film weddings and such.

But it has slowly become obvious it's now time to at least attempt a footloose and car-free existence for the following reasons.

• We as a family can no longer afford a car. It would cost £600 to repair the intermittent brake sensor problem, which we don't have. To me that's a signal to sell the car. Yes the Toyota gave 53 miles to the gallon, but our lifestyle sadly cannot stretch to that. Wise man say: live within your means.
• We as a species can no longer afford cars. You may or may not believe in human-caused climate change. But to me it's staring us in the face. It's a logical result of us burning a whole load of fossil fuels and cutting down a whole load of trees. Less rain, record temperatures every year, receding ice caps. Wild fires. Water shortages. The time to make sacrifices is here, if not past. We have to make changes on a personal, local, national and global level. Burning fossil fuels was a mistake at first, then a lie. Now it's unsustainable. The truth is, we were never meant to fly in jet planes. We were never meant to drive gas guzzlers. Those things were temporary luxuries. The golden age of burning oil willy nilly is over. We need to get back to cycling, horse-riding, hang-gliding - something, anything else. We need to accept that our worlds must shrink back to the smaller, slower way they once were.
• I've lost the taste for driving. Fighting to keep my eyes open while weaving home after midnight post-filming an event. Cars veering in off the slip-roads expecting you to move over. People not using indicators or driving on their phones. Feeling sick at the wheel. Being encased in a glass, metal stuffy coffin, hurtling along at break-neck speed. Back pain. Everyone complaining you're driving too fast, you're driving too slow, you're driving too badly, you're driving too well. Actually no-one's ever complained that.
• There are too many cars on the road. The days of cruising down the open road are long gone, because every other person and their lover are doing the same. It's nose to tail. Instead, you can undertake long lines of cars on a bike at the lights while inhaling their noxious exhausts and feeling the heat bouncing off their chassis.

I realise the hypocrisy of what I'm saying. I spent many air miles flying around the world. But shirking life changes due to fear of being called a hypocrite is just another excuse.

Yes, I overindulged carbon like there was no tomorrow. But now I've woken up and it is tomorrow. And must face the hydrocarbon hangover.

Case in point. Yesterday I traveled by train to visit my mum. Usually it takes 47 minutes one way in the car. It took four hours round trip. Instead of getting in the car in the driveway I had to walk a mile to the station with a heavy bag. Rather than focusing on the road, straining to hear music over the sound of the wind and worrying about drivers behind and cyclists in front (we need more cycle paths!) I sat at a train table, wrote the first half of this blog and did my accounts. I gazed out the dirty window at the passing scenery. I thought about life. I drank tea and guzzled an empire state biscuit. That leg lasted an hour. 

At Glasgow I got out and relieved myself in the (now free to use) Glasgow Central toilets, after almost going into the Ladies. I got on the train to my home town. It was too hot. I drank water.  Things cooled down a bit once we got moving. I looked out the window and pondered my next novel. I napped. I drooled. I spotted a missing playpark of my youth which had been turned to grass. This leg was half an hour. One leg shorter than the other. Strangely I was exhausted and beginning to realise I'd vastly overestimated the number of books I would read on the train. I climbed the last incline to the family home, lamenting the fact it was on a hill and has been for the past sixty odd years. Two hours later I'd arrived.

On the return journey I was too exhausted to even read on the train, and took the time instead to deal with the possibility of my phone getting hacked when I'd responded to a scammer's text to download a link, too late realising something was amiss. 

Changed trains again at Glasgow Central, where someone was expertly playing the free piano and bringing joy to a father on Father's Day. In the carriage, two older women dressed to the nines in pinks and yellows sat down at my table and ate a MacDonalds. Through the windows in the adjacent train a group of young girls were dancing and singing and waving at us. They stuck their 'American Catholic Trip' tickets to the windows to communicate where they were going or had been.

Because I had a wooden mug rack attached to my bag the two women at my table asked if I'd just moved house. I said no, I was clearing out my Mum's and this used to be mine. "You make assumptions, don't you?" the woman next to me said chattily. I wasn't chatty. I was tired. My back hurt from too much sitting. I realised they would have been old even in the 80s. But they were nice. I made minimal courteous replies hoping they wouldn't try to seduce me.

At a station on the way home, we stopped at a platform with significant police presence. I fought the urge to alight with my wrists out to confess. "It was me officer, I did it!" "Did what, son?" "I don't know. What's been done recently?" 

I walked home thanking my stars we live downhill from the station.

Life without a car is hard, but not impossible. Dare I say it, it's healthier and better for the planet. 

And more interesting.

Rename Sunday Earthday

On Sundays we used to rest. Nap. Potter around. Remember? Spend time with family. Because nothing was open. Perhaps the reason for this has changed, as beliefs change, but the effect was kind to the planet. And us. It gave the planet one day to breathe. And us a chance to relax.

As you may have heard, 97% of peer-reviewed scientists who studied climate change "endorsed the consensus that humans are causing global warming."

This is a problem for us on Earth, but not so much for the sun.

The sun can look after itself. We need to protect the earth. For this reason I propose we change the name of Sunday to Earthday, and on this day

• close shops and businesses
• limit non essential travel
• pedestrianise suitable roads
• encourage cycling, skating and other non fossil-fuel burning activities
• encourage local protests, demonstrations, talks in aid of the earth
• encourage meetings in local parks or halls for music, storytelling, poetry
• discourage non-renewable energy use
• plant trees locally
• celebrate our planet

Knowing our current situation is unsustainable, we should and eventually must change our ways as a tribe, country, people, species. It's that simple.

Better late than never. But what if late is too late? Imagine the good it could do.

Add your support to this cause by signing the petition. This petition is to the People Of The World. This means you. Because we don't need to ask anyone's permission to rename Sunday Earthday. New words are added to the dictionary every year. Because language changes. So we can just start doing it. 

Image credit https://www.hdwallpapers.in/planet_earth_stars-wallpapers.html

Wacom Bamboo Touch Pen & Tablet Rant

Well, I said I would write about this on my blog, so I suppose I should.

Recently my MacBook updated itself to Mac OS 10.15.5 Catalina. It's been fine. I've had no problems.

Apart from my Wacom Bamboo Touch Pen & Tablet, which isn't working the way it should, IE at all. So I get on to the Wacom website and download myself the latest driver for it.

Now this tablet I bought in Japan in 2007 ish and it's one of the only things I've been able to care for and look after enough such that I haven't lost the pen or pulled the wire out the tablet or anything like that. I even kept them all in a bubble wrap envelope for years. To be perfectly honest, it's been great this whole time. It's helped reduce RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) in my wrist, I've used it for drawing and designing and editing. It's been brilliant for 13 years.

Until now.

The driver is like, "Dude, no can work with Catalina." 

And I'm like, "Dude, yes can work with Catalina."

And it's like, "No dude, no can work with Catalina."

And I'm like, "But dude, must can work with Catalina."

So I get on the chat support and meet a very nice chap called Luis with a beard and I immediately get off on the weak foot when my autocorrect makes me write, "Hi sis."

This is a bad start. But I press on.

I told him the problem and he told me the problem. 

Wacom no longer supports my product for Catalina. It'll work on older OSs and Windows but alas, Catalina and my Bamboo Touch are now incompatible.

Damn.

I tried to not direct my frustration at Luis, who was only doing his job and very well, instead trying to make a case for corporate responsibility. I had hoped the whole chat conversation would have been sent to my email address so I could just copy and paste but probably when anyone threatens to 'write about it on their blog', they are not expressly given this option.

Anyway, I did manage to copy this rantette:

You know the world has a lot of problems right now, with the coronavirus pandemic, and a global depression. Everybody is feeling the effects, and I'm sure your company is too. But I can't afford to buy another product from Wacom at the moment because I have nothing in my business bank account. £5 or something. I don't think it's right for a company to stop supporting a product that a customer has taken care to look after, not break or lose, for 13 years, only to be recommended to buy another product, even when the first product is still in perfect working order. I can't afford to keep updating hardware like this. The planet cannot sustain such a 'throwaway' existence. Can you please forward this to your manager or decision maker regarding this as it's socially irresponsible and in my opinion poor business practice. I'll be posting about this on my blog, because quite honestly, it's heartbreaking.

I asked if it might be possible to be given a discount off a newer tablet in exchange for returning the now defunct 2007 product I have, but Luis didn't sound all that enamoured with my suggestion. He gave me a number to call in the UK which I'll try, but I won't be calling with much gusto. Anyway, as I only have £5 in may account I doubt that even with a discount I'd be able to buy a new tablet.

But wouldn't that be great though? A business that gives you money back on old models. It deals with waste and helps keep their loyal customers up to date with tech. I don't know, maybe I'm being too unrealistic since seeing the words 'Lifetime Guarantee' on my Zippo.

What am I supposed to do with a defunct but perfectly working Wacom Touch Tablet and Pen? I could use it to play ping-pong against myself. I could use it as the roof of a little hamster house. Ooh, I could use it as a cheese board. 

Anyway, I hung up the chat giving Luis five stars to try to make up for having to listen to me blowing off steam and then a cloud of dejection lowered upon me. The planet is screwed. I personally am in it now up to my eyes. This philosophy and practice is unsustainable.

I have been trying to live by the ideology of Billionism, (which I may have invented) which is to imagine what would happen if all the billions of people in the world took the same choice and made the decision as you. I use that to guide my actions. That's why I sign petitions. Plant vegetables. Plant trees. Walk instead of drive when possible. One man makes not much difference. But if Billions thought the same way and did the same thing, what a difference!

What the hell am I meant to do with a billion defunct but perfectly working order Wacom Tablets and Pens? What makes it more annoying is that it still works perfectly well. That really grates. If it was broken I wouldn't mind so much. But it's fine. I feel like the prize I get for looking after it all these years is for someone to say, "Right, get lost."

Within my cloud of dejection I didn't feel like writing a blog post. I felt like a white, male, privileged twat complaining about nothing. People are poor, hungry and dying all over the world.

Then I thought, well, what the hell.

 

More Cycle Paths in Scotland

On 28th June 2018, Scotland recorded its hottest ever temperature of 33.2 degrees celsius in Motherwell, Lanarkshire. 

One of the good things about the climate changing is that if we can expect warmer sunnier mediterranean weather in Scotland this means better days for cycling.

But according to this article, Scotland only has 1036 km of traffic-free cycle track, compared with 32,187 km in Holland. So Scotland only had 3.2% the amount of cycle paths Holland has.

Cycling, which has been hailed as one of the most efficient forms of transport, seems to be the way forward for this country and the world, if we want to continue living on this planet. These velomobile things look pretty cool too, but who's going to fork out for one of these?

By Bluevelo, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1052954

So, it might seem to make sense that to encourage more people to cycle to destinations under 10 miles away for example, we would need a better traffic-free cycle network, the benefits of which would be many, and not just for cyclists:

• Less traffic on the roads

• Less cyclists on the roads for cars to overtake

• Healthier citizens -> less strain on NHS. According to this article a link has been found between cycling to work and cancer and heart disease. "During the course of the study, regular cycling cut the risk of death from any cause by 41%, the incidence of cancer by 45% and heart disease by 46%."

• Less risk of car accidents for cyclists -> less strain on NHS. According to this 2017 article, which has a lot of information about cycling death and injury in the UK, about 100 cyclists die each year in the UK and more than 3000 are seriously injured. There are even a few shocking stories of motorists purposefully injuring cyclists.

• Less hazardous exhaust fumes for cyclists to inhale

• Better cycling tourism -> Better for the economy.

• Better local air quality -> Better for childrens' health -> reduction in asthma.

• Less national CO2 production. According to this report, in 2016 transport became the largest contributor to national CO2 at 26%.

Two American solar cars in Canada

How much could we save?

Let's take a look at the effects of 45% less cancer and heart disease on the NHS.

According to this article, "Last year the costs of cancer diagnosis and treatment across the UK NHS, private and voluntary sector were estimated by the report at £9.4 billion. This is equivalent to an average of £30,000 per person with cancer. "

45% of £9.4 billion is £4.23 billion.  

How much will it cost? 

This blog has some useful information about costs. Sustrans and TFL estimate it to cost anywhere between £100k and £900k per km of proper cycle track. Let's say an average of £500k per km of cycle track.

Scotland has 55,000 km of roads, but not all of these would, could or should be cycle-pathed. According to this report 1% is motorway, leaving 54,450 km. Let's calculate the costs to cycle path the roads up to Holland standards.

This would result in costs on average of £500,000 x 32,000km = £16 billion.

But we could estimate that we save £4.23 billions worth of health care in cancer prevention.

This alone could pay for 4,230,000,000/500,000 = 8,460 km of cycle track.

Imagine what another 8,460km of cycle track in the central belt could achieve in terms of health, cleaner air, less congested traffic, and reduction in CO2 production.

The Dutch Solaroad

Or Poland's solar powered bike path

According to this article, "The average distance commuters ride in a single trip within Scotland is 9.4 km." which would take about 6 miles. This would take about 36 minutes by bike.

Source : https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/33814/sct01171871341.pdf

So that's it. In this blog post I've hopefully outlined why more cycle paths in Scotland would be beneficial to our health, our country's finances and our planet's climate change crisis.

What's the next step? Email our MPs, contact our local councils, sign this petition : https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/more-cycle-paths-in-scotland

Thanks for reading.