July, 2013

Tsunami alert required?

Since 1755 we’ve had a few tsunamis in Cornwall, but since the fella who was around at the time (see below) reported it wasn’t as bad in Cornwall as indicated by the Daily Mail, what’s the panic? It’s been a while, but let’s crack on with it anyway, its a more interesting approach to being prepared, after all some of us think a wave in 830AD took a forest down that used to surround St. Michaels Mount! It’s a more exciting way of looking at sea level rise. If you want to be enriched by more accounts of how the Lisbon Earthquake was felt or about the white horse (now seen on a family coat of arms) escaping the wave – get in touch, it’s a great story! Think about it….

” Those looking at the sea would have experienced it suddenly rush in from the east, swelling and rising continuously for ten minutes. It then retired, to the west, very quickly, for another ten minutes, now six feet lower than in the beginning. Then it all happened again and again and again. The third and fourth time was more violent, and the whole thing furiously continued, for two more hours. Gradually, they became fainter and the commotion stopped five and a half hours after it had started.
The experiences varied greatly around the bay, for example; with up to an hour difference between Penzance and Newlyn, with a rising range of 6–10ft, water flowed from the southeast, some included a ‘surprising noise’. Throughout the region and indeed the world a “day of universal tremor to all the sea-coasts of the western parts of Europe” had been felt, even in the Cumberland lakes, Loch Ness and Loch Lomond (Borlase, 1755 in The Historical Geography of the Submerged Forest in Mount’s Bay, Cornwall-Luci Isaacson).

Stop washing up? Fantastic!

So the water bill has come and I find myself working it all out, having pushed the local water company into telling me how much carbon it ‘costs’ to get it to my tap and where I can make savings.
So at 0.0057025 per litre its hard to think about cost, so I filled my washing up bowl to find out it costs me 3p, which doesn’t sound a lot, so how many a day will I use is the next question.
Most importantly, how much CO2 has it cost to get here? To be extracted, processed and transported via the network etc Surprisingly 2.1g! That’s quite a bit of contribution to changing the mix in the atmosphere so I can wash my hands , a cucumber, the dishes, trying to make my kitchen sparkly.
The solution: work it out, cut it down, simple.
NOW what shall we spend all those 3ps on?! Something with no carbon footprint…struggle…think…….