What's your carbon footprint?

I've put a link to a carbon calculator in the Links section... it's really interesting to work out what your carbon footprint for the year is. Mine's higher than it normally would be because of travelling to Jamaica, but it's not something I do every year so I'm hoping that next year's will be a lot lower. You never know, I might even make it down to a ton!

Talking of a ton, have a look at the One Tonners blog!

This is a common sight around Gloucester at the moment... You can see more pictures at www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire

This is a water bowser, located in Churchdown near where I live. I didn't know what a bowser was until this week!

Water, water everywhere....

Sorry, I've been silent for a while - busy getting back from Jamaica, going back to work, then staying at home as the flood waters rose! I've been lucky where I live, but the surrounding areas have been almost devastated by flood water from the river Severn. Until we had no water, I didn't realise how much I used in a day... loads of businesses in Gloucester and Cheltenham have had to close because of lack of water, and the University of Gloucestershire where I work has been closed this week too.

The problem came after we had torrential rain on Friday (20th July 2007), which caused the rivers Severn and Avon to overflow. This flooded the local water treatment plant which cut off the water for Tewkesbury, Gloucester and Cheltenham, plus the surrounding areas. People's houses have been ruined and many have had to stay in refuges because they have nowhere to live.

It's amazing really, it's really brought it home to me how much we all depend on water and electricity in this country. I knew that climate change was a reality, but it always seemed to be something that would happen in the future - not now. But it's happening! It's made our trip to the Footstep 11 conference all the more important.

Well - other news... on Sunday 2nd September the four of us (Lucy, Katie, Anesta and myself) will be giving a presentation about the conference and our experiences there. It should be interesting, and will give us a chance to give some feedback about what we've learnt.

That's all for now, but I'll be updating the blog again soon!

Welcome to the Local Footsteps Gloucestershire Blog!

Welcome to the first posting of the LFGlos blog! We're still in Jamaica at the moment, but when we get back we'll be busy setting up our local footsteps group (after we've recovered from the trip!). Watch this space for news from LFGlos...