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Abingdon Carbon Cutters

Find out about the Carbon Cutters in Abingdon.

Abingdon Carbon Cutters Meets (usually) 2nd Wednesday of the month St Ethelwold's House, 30 East Saint Helen Street, Abingdon.
It's a small informal group (approx 10 who turn up - more on the mailing list), set up in November 2006 with the aim of increasing our own awareness and knowledge of globing warming and general sustainability issues. The group was originally loosely based on Weight Watchers, ie that members would be trying to gradually reduce their carbon footprint.
Currently we meet monthly at St Ethelwolds House, Abingdon, bringing a shared vegetarian contribution for a simple supper and discuss how we can improve our own performance and spread the word in an appropriate way.

We are a new Community Action Group exploring ways to tackle locally the challenges of:

climate change
issues arising from the fact that the world's oil resources will soon be in decline (‘peak oil' will be passed)
re-using, recycling and reducing waste
reducing carbon emissions

Why not come to our next meeting?

We shall be thinking about how to involve the whole community in these challenges.

What we have been doing:

Showing films:

An Inconvenient Truth
The Power of Community
The End of Suburbia

Plus

Making contact with other local groups in South Abingdon, Long Furlong and Wallingford
Researching ways to make Abingdon ‘plastic bag free'
Exploring ways Abingdon might become more resilient as climate change and ‘peak oil' effects become clearer

10 things we can all do now

Use low energy light bulbs
Insulate our houses well and turn down the thermostat
Recycle as much of our waste as we can - use green and brown bins
Refuse or reuse carrier bags
Send unwanted possessions to a Swap Shop, Charity Shop or use the freecycle website
Buy locally produced goods
Grow our own produce
Leave the car at home whenever possible
Fly less
Buy less ‘stuff'

Books and DVDs to borrow on carbon-cutting

DVDs

The End of Suburbia - Oil Depletion and The Collapse of the American Dream

Peak Oil - a view from Australia

Books

The Transition Handbook - from oil dependency to local resilience - Rob Hopkins 2008

How to Live a Low-carbon Life - the individual's guide to stopping climate change - Chris Goodall 2007

Peak Everything - waking up to the century of declines - Richard Heinberg 2007

The Rough Guide to Climate Change - Robert Henson 2008

Save Cash & Save the Planet - Friends of the Earth 2005

The Energy Age - Robert Kyriakides 2006

Reduce Reuse Recycle - an easy household guide- Nicky Scott 2004

Permaculture in a Nutshell - Patrick Whitefield 2000

The Permaculture Garden - Graham Bell 1994/2004

Abundant Living in the coming age of the Tree - Kathleen Jannaway 1991

Vegetarian Cooking for Children - Rose Elliot 1995

What we've done so far:

replaced the light bulbs at St Ethelwolds with low energy lightbulbs.
viewed the Channel 4 'Great Global Warming Swindle' programme together with 'an expert' who helped us to differentiate between fact and fiction.
shown an Inconvenient Truth to a wider audience of 40 people

An Inconvenient Truth 9 May at St Ethelwold's, 30 East Saint Helen Street, Abingdon

The room was filled to capacity (about 40 people).

Most of them left their details and viewed the bulb library We will invite them to our next meeting on 13 June which will follow up on the film and decide what to do next.

Article by jo_hamilton
in Lo-carb Living