Global Warming continued

(Continued from page 3)

So if the planet is warming up the question is why. Most scientists say the main cause is the greenhouse gases. This is mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels ie oil, coal and gas. So the simplistic answer for the future is to soak up the carbon dioxide and limit the burning of fossil fuels.

Plants use carbon dioxide to grow so the obvious way is to grow more vegetation. We in South Wootton are very lucky to have plenty of vegetation. We need to maintain it and ensure there are plenty of trees in any new developments. I was guilty a few years ago of digging up a dying Leylandii hedge and replacing it with a fence! We need to encourage trees, hedges, grass and limit the amount of paving and concrete.

What can I do personally to reduce energy and reliance of fossil fuels? We were fortunate 8 years ago to takethe decision to install solar panels. They were expensive at the time but as predicted they paid for themselves in 7 years. Now our electric company pay us nearly three times as much as we pay them! It annoys me that new builds do not have solar panels fitted as standard. We have electric battery powered hedge cutters and grass trimmer and when our petrol mower packs up we will get an electric battery powered one (we have free electric from the sun).

We have a diesel car and when we bought it 4 years ago it was supposed to be more environmentally friendly than our previous model. The government thought so as well so we save over £200 a year on vehicle excise duty. We now know that everyone was misled over the emissions (even though our make of car was not implicated). The government says the future is electric vehicles. We have had a look and at the moment there is not one suitable for us but hopefully in the next couple of years there will be.

The other way we use a lot of fossil fuels is flying away on foreign holidays. Our next summer holiday is to France and Germany by train via the Channel Tunnel; unfortunately we do like a winter holiday in a warm place and that requires a flight but we are getting older so age may take over there!!!