Dear Shops: Close Your Doors

Why would I say this? That’s an easy one. Wasting energy is bad because: a) in the immediate future, energy suppliers may have trouble coping with demand this winter, and b) in the longer term, the more heat that escapes out of an open door, the more heat a shop has to use to keep the shop warm. And that’s a on a planet experiencing global warming.

It’s not just heating. Air conditioning in the summer months costs energy too.

Yes but do shops need to be told? Yes, because they do not close their doors. They do not close them because they are afraid shoppers will think they are closed, or because they imagine their competitors keep their doors open and so are afraid to lose customers to their competitors.

How Much Heat Is Lost – Is It Really A Problem? Cambridge University did a study in 2010, monitoring two shops. They found that:

The gathered energy consumption data indicate that an average savings of 30 % for Cambridge Toy Shop and 54 % for Ryman Stationery can be achieved during the heating season by keeping external doors closed.

That’s clear evidence that there’s a lot of waste.

What About A Voluntary Policy

Campaigns to get shopkeepers to sign up to keeping their doors closed have come and gone, and nothing has changed.

If you google for information about it, and you will find articles over the past fifteen years pointing out how much energy is lost by keeping shop doors open.

To those shops that have a closed door policy in their own shop — congratulations. But it is minimal — nearly all shopkeepers are just too worried about making the first move and fear losing out.

Speaking To Shopkeepers

My wife, Tamara, has been speaking to shopkeepers about the heat they let escape through the doors they leave open wide.

She has seen the attitude of shop managers change from the previous ‘who is this person coming to make my life difficult?’, to ‘I would, but…’

The climate risk is more well known now, and shopkeepers are more positive about closed doors. But they say that it is out of their hands, that head office insists they keep the doors open. Or they say it is a great idea but they are afraid their customers will think their shops are shut, so they can’t want to make the first move.

Now everyone knows there’s a global problem. But shopkeepers still worry about losing custom — and that is too strong a headwind for a voluntary ‘close the door’ idea to battle against.

Why Legislation

If there is an easier way, I would prefer it to legislation. But this problem is not going away and the amount of heat lost is costing everyone and warming up the planet faster for no good reason.

So instead of waiting for people to make the first move — just say that everyone has to keep their doors closed.

What Does The Petition Say

The petition says to the Government — please make legislation that everyone has to keep their doors closed, then no one should think they are at a disadvantage and everyone benefits.

If the petition gets enough signatures, government will debate this, and if they like it they will introduce legislation so all shops will have to keep their doors closed (that is, not fixed open) during shop opening hours.

Update 4 June 2023

The petition is now closed. It did not reach the number that would have prompted a Parliamentary debate – nowhere near.

No Gas? Burn Lignite

Lignite, sometimes called ‘brown coal’, is a soft, brown sedimentary rock that is essentially compressed peat and is used almost exclusively as a fuel in steam-electric power stations.

Lignite is a poor fuel. Compared to other types of coal it produces less heat and more carbon dioxide and sulphur. Some brown coal contains toxic heavy metals that get burned off or remain in the fly ash.

Lignite Or Bust

But if it’s all you’ve got then that’s what you burn, up and until someone points out what a bad idea it is environmentally.

The Garzweiler surface mine in Germany is an opencast lignite mine. It’s huge, a long scar stretching north west to south east covering 48 square km.

And now for the news. It’s going to get bigger.

Because Russia turned off the gas tap, RWE who own the mine, need more space so it can mine more lignite. That means dismantling an array of eight wind turbines near the Garzweiler mine.

Under its licence, Energiekontor, which owns the wind turbines, has to dismantle the turbines by the end of 2023. Why, I don’t know. Three turbines have gone, already.

I guess that if the lignite mine did not need the space, then eight new wind turbines could have gone up.

But that’s not what’s happening.So no gas, but lignite.

Putin’s War

How can we look at the invasion of Ukraine? In the short term, there is all the death and destruction that is polluting the environment. In the future there will be rebuilding and more pollution.

On the plus side, the move to cleaner fuels has a new urgency.

What is the overall balance of environmental cost between gas and lignite? It’s worse, that’s clear. How much worse, I don’t know. But lobbyists at COP27 are promoting gas as a clean fuel.

Report It Or It Didn’t Happen

I read about the plan to increase the Garzweiler mine, and I thought about the news in Britain in December last year when Levelling-Up Secretary Michael Cove granted planning permission for a new coal mine in Cumbria. And I thought about how, if the EU were to object that it endangers the environment, that Michael Gove could point to the Garzweiler plan, and tell the EU to mind its own shop before it criticised Britain.

There have been protests in Britain about the new coal mine. Where were the protests in Germany? That’s when I caught the news printed in The Week, 14 January 2023 edition on page 5, that protests against the lignite mine have been going on since 2020.

Report it, or it didn’t happen.

Lützerath, Germany Mine standoff. Hundreds of climate activists who’ve occupied the site of a 35sq km lignite mine in Germany were engaged in a showdown with police this week, as eviction orders came into effect. The village of Lützerath in North Rhine-Westphalia was evacuated of its last residents some years ago, to allow for an extension of the Garzweiler opencast mine adjacent to it. But in 2020 activists moved in, occupying abandoned buildings and constructing tree huts. Although Germany is trying to wean itself off fossil fuels, about a third of its electricity currently comes from coal-powered plants.

The Smile On The Face Of Liz Truss

It was an accident, Guv’nor, unintended consequences. Who could have predicted it?

Ah, Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng introduce a mini budget that sends the pound reeling. Wealth Funds short the pound and win big. Of course, they only win big with these newly cheap pounds. What is needed now is for the pound to rise again. Rishi to the rescue, and the pound begins its march back to solvency. It will be tough, lads, but we have to bite the bullet to get Britain back to its proper place at the big table.

What if the two premierships were a plan from the outset. First we let the Conservative populace decide on Liz, as we knew they would. She pulls the plug on the economy and then she steps aside for the man of the hour. And it’s a home run because this time we don’t let the Conservative populace decide, because that would risk the plan falling apart.

Looked at this way, the pound sinks and the pound rises, and some rich people make money along the way. Perfect. And it is not over yet because the British people have to bite the bullet for years.

Do you remember the smile on Liz Truss’ face when she stepped away from the lectern after resigning?

Of course, I am not being serious. Who would hatch such a plan to the detriment of the British public and the gain of a few? No one in their right mind, if only for fear of being found out. There again, such a plot has a certain British feel to it.

They Love Me But My Colleagues Do Not

This is effectively what Boris Johnson said when he declared that he would not enter the leadership contest that Rishi Sunk won. Johnson repeated what he said when he was dismissed as leader – that the broader membership of the Conservative Party loved him, but his backstabbing, self serving colleagues did not, more fool them. The implication is that the real worth is in the party members up and down the country, that only they know the true worth of Boris Johnson.

“In the last few days I have been overwhelmed by the number of people who suggested that I should once again contest the Conservative Party leadership, both among the public and among friends and colleagues in Parliament.
“I have been attracted because I led our party into a massive election victory less than three years ago – and I believe I am therefore uniquely placed to avert a general election now.
“A general election would be a further disastrous distraction just when the Government must focus on the economic pressures faced by families across the country.
“I believe I am well placed to deliver a Conservative victory in 2024 – and tonight I can confirm that I have cleared the very high hurdle of 102 nominations, including a proposer and a seconder, and I could put my nomination in tomorrow.”
“There is a very good chance that I would be successful in the election with Conservative Party members – and that I could indeed be back in Downing Street on Friday.
“But in the course of the last days I have sadly come to the conclusion that this would simply not be the right thing to do. You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament.
“And though I have reached out to both Rishi (Sunak) and Penny (Mordaunt) – because I hoped that we could come together in the national interest – we have sadly not been able to work out a way of doing this.
“Therefore I am afraid the best thing is that I do not allow my nomination to go forward and commit my support to whoever succeeds. “I believe I have much to offer but I am afraid that this is simply not the right time.”

The fact is that Johnson would have caused a collective depression, a sigh of wonderment that we are back here in this whirlpool nadir once again.