Next round of Carbon Conversations groups start soon!
Join the community of over 500 local people who have taken part in a group. Learn how to reduce your carbon footprint in a friendly, informative and supportive atmosphere.
Each group meets 6 times, usually at fortnightly intervals. Details for January 2012: Continue reading
During these financially-hard times and when interest rates are low, where can you get good returns on your savings, assuming you have any? Fortunately gardeners can still get an excellent return – percentage rates you could only dream about at your local bank or building society!
Take a packet of lettuces containing well over 100 seeds. Assuming just 3-4 grow and mature, you have paid off for the packet of seeds (assuming you would have bought them). The money saved by a growing a few others would contribute to other costs you make in a year (tools, allotment rent, sundries, etc.). If you save some of your seeds from one year to the next, the costs come down further. Swapping seeds at community events like Trumpington’s ‘Seedy Sunday’ (sorry just gone!) improves the ‘interest rates’ even more. I think my father only bought one packet of broad bean or runner bean seeds in his gardening life, spanning several decades, since he saved a few every year for the next.
In the same tradition, some parsley I first sowed in 2009 is now self sustaining. When the plants eventually flower, go to seed and die (being biennials) I place the dead stems, with seeds attached, in the soil where I next want them to grow. The seeds drop, as they would do naturally, germinate around September time and produce a new progeny of seedlings for another year. All being well, I should never have to buy another packet of seeds!
Some blackcurrant and redcurrant bushes I planted on my allotment some 25 years ago are still going strong. Most years, each plant produces up to 1kg of fruit – all from a plants costing a few pounds several years ago. All I have to do to get this is mulch around plants with some home-made compost in February and do some light pruning, usually just after harvesting the crop. As a result, in the summer months the plants produce many more punnets of healthy soft fruits than I would have bought (and without all the plastic packaging!) and involving very little time. It’s still time to plant fruit bushes and trees this month until March (at the very latest) to ensure yearly ‘interest’ payments!
Rhubarb is also long-lived and gives high returns. Just find a friend who has a good clump and ask to take a piece of root (‘crown’) bearing one or more buds. The ultimate ‘high interest account’ is undoubtedly…..the Jerusalem artichoke, especially if you obtain a few from a friend who has a glut. Just one tuber planted now (they are very hardy) will produce 10 to 20 similar tubers by the end of the year! Swapping plants, seeds and garden knowledge not only keeps your ‘inputs’ (as farmers refer to) low but gives great satisfaction and an abundance of seasonal produce.
Can’t tear yourself away from the keyboard? Love social media? Can’t stop sharing the latest on low-carbon living? Perfect!
We are looking for someone who can manage the CCF Twitter and Facebook accounts. We have over 300 followers on Twitter and 138 members on our Facebook group. It would be your job to keep these two accounts to be as active as possible, especially using both to promote our events, but also to share and re-share interesting articles, news and videos related to low-carbon living. We need someone who can be very pro-active about transfering event info from our website to these two mediums and keeping content fresh and updated. At a minimum you will need to attend to both accounts once a week.
If this sounds like you, get in touch with Stephanie (stephanie@cambridgecarbonfootprint) as soon as possible!
6 CCF supporters are spending 6 weeks just eating local food to find out how it works for them - and to cut their carbon.
They feature in Cambridge News and are blogging here about their experiences, with tips for delicious local food – even in the middle of winter!
| 7 February 2012 | ||
| 6:45 pm | to | 8:45 pm |
The Economics of Happiness: film showing at the Arts Picturehouse with a talk by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta
Cambridge Carbon Footrprint and Transition Cambridge are delighted to offer a screening of “The Economics of Happiness” by Helena Norbert-Hodge at the Arts Picturehouse, followed by a talk by renowned economist Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta. Set against a background of the lives of the people of Ladakh as their way of life is altered by contact with western capitalism, the film questions whether our current economic model is damaging our wellbeing.
Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta is the Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics, whose interests and writings include environmental economics. Tickets can be booked in the normal way through the Arts Picturehouse box office.
You can view the trailer and learn more about the movie here: www.theeconomicsofhappiness.org
| 8 February 2012 | ||
| 7:30 pm | to | 9:30 pm |
We have a very exciting prospect to warm us up in February! Tine Roche, founder of the Cambridge Cookery School, is generously giving a demonstration of how to cook gourmet
food with local, seasonal ingredients in the middle of winter. Tine will cook delicious food for us to sample, so don’t eat too much supper beforehand! Most food served on the night will be vegetarian, although I understand there will be some wild venison, too, from Radwinter Wild Game Company! (Vegan, vegetarian and meat recipes for us to cook at home will be included.)
As usual with our events, we will not charge for this, but would be grateful for a donation of around £5 per head to cover our expenses. Booking is essential, as we expect this event to be very popular and there are only 30 places, so the office at info@cambridgecarbonfootprint.org to book early! The demo will take place at the Cambridge Cookery School at Unit 9D, The Imre Building, The Michael Young Centre, Purbeck Road (behind Hill’s Road Sixth Form College) in Cambridge (detailed directions can be found here). Continue reading
| 13 February 2012 | ||
| 7:30 pm | to | 9:00 pm |
CCF will be having it’s next volunteer training session on Monday, 13th February at 7:30pm at the CCF office. For this training we will cover how to be a meet and greeter at our events, and how to calculate a carbon footprint (as we would do at stalls), as well as talking about what CCF does, and show you how to use the outreach materials, including our carbon abacus. If you plan to volunteer for stalls or events in the future, or just feel you could use a refresher and want to meet some new volunteers, this training will be extremely useful to you.
Booking is essential as we need a certain number of people in order to run the training, so please let me know if you can attend by emailing stephanie@cambridgecarbonfootprint.org.
| 18 February 2012 | ||
| 10:00 am | to | 5:15 pm |
The Cambridge Green Party has organised a conference on one of the hot topics of our time: how we can move away from the current model of economic growth which lies behind our disastrous overuse of resources and excessive carbon emissions. With leading speakers Tony Juniper, Molly Scott-Cato, Rupert Read and Miriam Kennett, the day will be a Day of Ideas, encouraging us to look at sustainable alternatives.
Cambridge Carbon Footprint will be having a stall at this event, so please stop by to say hello, or let us know if you would like to help out.
Find out more and book your place to the conference at St Paul’s Centre, Hills Road, on the Cambridge Greens website. Places are limited, so booking early is recommended.
| 22 February 2012 | ||
| 7:30 pm | to | 9:30 pm |
An exciting chance to go behind the scenes on a newly constructed Eco House. Join 
the owner in his new home for the complete story of the building of a house in the back garden of his former home (dating from 1930), complete with comparison energy bills, graphs showing savings, thermal imaging photos. A tour and refreshements will also be included.
The house is single storey, built in an L shape around a 50 year old liquidambar tree. A passive solar design, it includes a ground source heat pump, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, rainwater collection and reuse, solar hot water heating, and lots of thought to the sustainability of the materials used in construction.
The house is located on Madingley Road (full address will be given upon booking). The house can’t accommodate more than 25 people, so booking is essential! Please contact info@cambridgecarbonfootprint.org to reserve your spot.
