Last Sunday a group from Winster, a lovely nearby village in Derbyshire, had invited me to open their roadshow at 11 a.m. The group, Sustainable Winster, had organised a Climate Change Awareness Day. The area climate-change bus had arrived for the occasion, there were displays, posters, free linen bags containing packs of expandable chips to put in the cistern of your loo so it uses less water, a Morris Man, two rangers from the Peak District National Park, bright sunshine and an atmosphere of friendly evangelism.
The turnout was small but enthusiastic, and as I dipped my bared foot into a tub of charcoal-water to make a carbon footprint on paper and accepted my basket of home-made honey and damson gin from Winster’s beautiful Carnival Queen, I felt ashamed of a momentary irritation, on awakening that morning, at having promised to come. Each of us needs a little seraph on our shoulder to whisper from time to time — and probably in our mother’s voice — ‘You’ll enjoy it when you get there, darling.’ We almost always do.
I did. Maybe it was not as much fun for my audience, because they were obliged to listen to a mini-science lecture from me, delivered in the middle of Winster Main Street. But they seemed receptive, and it’s perhaps worth repeating part of it in case you, too, should agree — or be at least persuadable.
I described the new ground-source energy scheme I’ve been installing, and recently commissioned for use, in a dwelling on my rural property. ‘Ground-source’ energy has nothing to do with ‘hot rocks’ or ‘geothermal’ heat, which is obtained from deep beneath the ground. The term (and the accompanying concept, ‘heat pump’) causes much confusion, I know. Needlessly, because the theory is simple but involves clearing one minor intellectual hurdle.
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