Tie Your Camel

According to the BBC, David MacKay (who will be the government’s new energy advisor) has warned that if we don’t step up our conversion to greener energy, we will start facing blackouts when we phase out coal and nuclear power stations.

I’m not really sure of the veracity of this story and it could simply be a piece of ‘Flat Earth News‘. I doubt the Government would allow the phasing out of the plants if it would lead to significant blackouts. However hyperbolic the claim, it does contain an important message: we should be switching as far as possible to greener sources of energy. I’m seriously considering investing in putting solar panels on my roof so that in the summer I can start using solar energy instead of energy from the grid. I’m still investigating the possibility.

In the mean time, remember to do the basics: switch off your lights when you’re not using them or when they’re not necessary; do unplug your electronic equipment when you’re not using it and (this is rarely done), do write to your local businesses and MPs and complain about the habit of leaving on lights, signs, televisual equipment etc throughout the night.

The recording industry isn’t the only one failing to move with the times and adopt new business models. Arnaud Nourry, of French publishing group Hachette Livre said to the FT:

“On the one hand, you have millions of books for free where there is no longer an author to pay and, on the other hand, there are very recent books, bestsellers at $9.99, which means that all the rest will have to be sold at between zero and $9.99,”

According to the FT, he also complains that the trade in the hardback industry could be destroyed by e-book pricing.

Good.

I’m not sure why he complains about providing millions of books for free (presumably both where copyright has expired and so-called ‘orphan works’), but whining about how publishers won’t make money on books anymore really doesn’t cut it for me.

The digital book or e-book is really beginning to make headway. The Amazon Kindle is driving it in the right direction. No, it doesn’t have the tactile satisfaction of holding (or smelling the chemicals lacing the pages of) a real book. Conversely, it will work out cheaper. No more purchasing fiction for £19.99+ on release for a hardback. No more clutter. No more lost books. And it transcends books. I’m fed up of waiting for my subscriptions to arrive. When the Royal Mail does get my magazines and journals to the right address, they’re inevitably late and out-of-date. I’ve been waiting for an issue of Private Eye for a month now. As magazines and newspapers transition to an electronic format (no, not webpages) you can subscribe and receive the new editions first thing in the morning. I could even see stores like WHSmith and newsagents saving space and time – imagine a coin-operated machine: plug in Kindle Version x, pop in 20-50p, press a button for the relevant newspaper and you’re off with your digital read.

Yes, it will probably drive down prices for publishers. It will also drive down costs. It should also increase consumer demand.

So, weigh up the amount of recycling and rubbish we’ll avoid (we love you mother earth!), the amount we as consumers will save and the convenience and sustainability of the system against missing the look and feel of a book… I know which option I choose.

If you’re a little to the left like me and you give a damn about the environment and sustainability, you might be interested in having a look at this website: Breathing Earth. It has realtime updates of the global population, births and deaths per country, and CO2 emissions. It will also give you detailed stats for each country when you hover over it with a mouse. Go check it out!

Not so much 'breathing' as 'suffocating'