it's a grey morning (what was horsemouth expecting?) and yet bbc weather shows a long weekend of sun and 22C (woo-hoo!). thereafter it returns to 'seasonal averages' (yuck!).still that's good news, horsemouth's tomatoes could do with a helping hand.
and so from weather onto climate change.
'large landmasses in the north are warming fastest - europe is the fastest warming continent'
horsemouth's main concern is with the atlantic meridional overturning circulation should this collapse, this would be one of the tipping points in global warming, then the effects of global warming on the UK would be undone and the weather may actually get colder.
however we, my fellow britons, would not entirely dodge the bullet, this would not be all gravy.
'in 2020, a study had assessed the impact of an AMOC collapse on farming and food production in great britain. it estimated that AMOC collapse would reverse the impact of global warming in great britain and cause an average temperature drop of 3.4 °C. moreover, it would lower rainfall during the growing season by around <123mm, which would in turn reduce the land area suitable for arable farming from the 32% to 7%...'
of course the AMOC might not collapse, it may just weaken.
ok let's leave the AMOC to one side and assume that we do as a planet reach net zero (but by the longest possible route giving everybody a chance to pump as much oil as they can, drive on their motorways as much as they can and stick as much CO2 in the atmosphere as they can). what are the effects upon the microcosm that horsemouth knows, the communal endeavour for housing.
well the endeavour still has to hit the various government targets for insulating social housing. the first one is coming up in 2030. now the good news is that the endeavour, having failed to stick a bid together for wave2 of the social housing decarbonisation fund, has found out that the government has just launched wave 3.
this is good news in that if another successful bid to insulate properties can be stuck together then once again the government will pay half (or something like that). the bad news is that instead of routing around the bid and moving directly on to taking the measures to insulate our homes we are now back in the problematic of putting in another bid and dependent on the other bid partners doing their bit (with all the outcomes delayed one year).
of course it is not just insulation to reduce carbon emissions that the homes of the communal endeavour will require. they will require measures to stop heat ingress in summer (blinds, shades etc.) though the insulation will help with this.
beyond this there will be solar panels and heat pumps and alike. and the way it looks is that these will entirely have to be self-funded by the communal endeavour out of people's rent cheques. now horsemouth is of the opinion that electricity prices will rise as the cost of expanding the electricity grid to enable all these heat pumps to be run (instead of gas boilers) crystallises. thus solar panels will become a better deal, the batteries for them will become a better deal, the benefits of insulating the property will become a better deal.
also hopefully winters will be warmer.
unless the AMOC switches off (or significantly weakens) in which case the country will stay cold (or get colder).
yesterday an off and on kind of day. there was a phonecall from horsemouth's brother. horsemouth's mum went up the garage to buy a few things and to drop off some eggs at a neighbours. horsemouth got off for a wander round the common later on (that eased his worried mind). he did some scything, he did some watering, he did some digging. horsemouth's mum was complaining of tiredness so horsemouth tried to help out with the cooking. horsemouth discovered that the classic soviet horror film viy was available on youtube (so he watched that). he then watched the news.
rishi rich (PM) gave a speech at the tory party conference.
'at the next election the choice that people face is bigger than party politics. do we want a government committed to making long-term decisions, prepared to be radical in the face of challenges and to take on vested interests, or do we want to stand still and quietly accept more of the same?'
this is the same rishi 'no high speed trains north of birmingham (unless they are going slow)' sunak. and the tory party are the same in office for 13 years and are only now starting to sort things out (allegedly). in fact sunak puts the 'go slow' in british politics back 30 years (to the end of thatcher).
horsemouth thinks this is true (but it is hardly a selling point).
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