Walk It

Following in the footsteps of Transport for London's excellent journeyplanner, which makes pulbic transport so much easier when you are using an unfamiliar route, is WalkIt.com.

They only claim coverage for central London, but I've checked out as far as Archway and got reasonable directions. It recommended the exact route I take to work and while I wouldn't take their suggestion to my old office (I'd take a scenic route to avoid walking along the Holloway Road), it is probably the most direct way and easiest to follow if you don't know the area.

They give estimated journey times depending on your walking speed and as a bonus they calculate how many calories you will burn and tell you how much CO2 you've saved by not using a car or bus.

Black Gold - The story of coffee

Released in the UK on 8 June, Black Gold has already received rave reviews at festivals all over the world, comparing it to Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me and prompting a backlash from coffee giant Starbucks.

Count your carbon (and then cut it)

An excellent review of two Carbon Calculation books in today's Guardian by Jeremy Leggett, author of Half Gone: Oil, Gas, Hot Air and the Global Energy Crisis. He looks at Chris Goodall's in-depth calculator How to Live a Low-Carbon Life and Mark Lynas's pocket guide Carbon Counter: Calculate Your Carbon Footprint.

"I could nitpick about what is counted and what is not in these two fine books. But that would be futile. The point is this. If kilograms-of-carbon-saved becomes some kind of measure of wealth and health, then Microsoft's all-embracing carbon-counting software will not be far off. The carbon-aware future is coming. Despite the hills of carbon beans, and the need for fairly complex spreadsheets, it is going to be nothing if not interesting. Goodall and Lynas are the pioneers, and are doing a good job of taking us with them."

Urban air pollution 'more dangerous than Chernobyl'

Our London Green MEP, Jean Lambert, has warned before of the dangers of high levels of air pollution in our city. But today's report from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology comparing the impact of air pollution to the effects of fallout from Chernobyl follows hot on the heels of a report from Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution which said air pollution was responsible for 24,000 premature deaths in Britain every year.


If you live in London you can sign up at AirText.info to receive a text message warning if high levels of air pollution are forecast in your area.

Ban the Bulb - Venezuela leads the way.

I've been meaning to post about the Ban the Bulb campaign since reading Leo Hickman's article in the Guardian.

"As bright ideas go, it doesn't seem to get much more obvious than banning the incandescent bulb. The humble tungsten filament bulb has done a grand job lighting up the world for more than a century with little need for a change in design, but with more energy-efficient alternatives now widely available, many are asking why we still cling to this wasteful and outdated technology."

I'm reminded of it by this piece on the Australian GreenLeft site about a campaign in Venezuela which has replaced 45 million incandescent light bulbs.

Do you have a Useless Account?

In the spirit of the day and to fill in time while waiting for another "server busy" message from the Glastonbury website, I've created a Useless Account.