Matthew Parris sets out his plans. For him obviously money is no object, but it is interesting to see the possibilities explored, and no doubt he’ll report back on how it does.

The “no junk mail” sticker on my door seems to be pretty effective, so I particularly noted the Burger King leaflet deliverer who this morning kindly provided me with FIVE of their thick leaflets. (Now in the recycling bin.)

I rang up the company’s “careline”, which was notably uninterested … their money; pity about the trees.

Can’t remember where I found this now, but since I’m about to start a new “career” as a school governor, I should point to the website of the eco-schools programme:

The Eco Schools programme can help schools to:
• improve the school environment
• reduce litter and waste
• reduce energy and water bills
• devise efficient ways of travelling to and from school
• promote healthy lifestyles
• encourage citizenship.

… and what is more recommended by a committee of MPs headed by a Tory.

Work for the committee showed that when the purchase price and the CO2 emissions were taken into account, the VED on the biggest cars was proportionately about half that paid on the smallest cars.
A wealthy businessman being chauffeur-driven in a luxury Bentley Arnage R V8 auto, a petrol-driven saloon costing £160,203, will pay only 42p per gram of CO2. But the owner of a humble 1.3 litre Ford Ka costing £7,395 pays 68p per gram of CO2 and the driver of the 1.3 litre Toyota Yaris which costs £11,290 about 74p per gram of CO2.
“Tax differentials between higher- and lower-carbon cars must be made much wider if they are to drive market transformation,” the committee said.

Not that I can imagine any of my readers would be so anti-social, but if you were to earn one such I’d recommend getting rid of it quickly – they’ll be – they’ll HAVE to be, priced off the road soon.

The president of the Royal Society has called for an Apollo moon landings-style push to develop green energy.

“The Apollo project, like the Manhattan project, is an example where a goal was given a high priority and showed things can be done much more rapidly than would have happened in the normal course of events. The scale of funds needed is small in proportion to the scale of the problem and the trillions of dollars now being spent on energy,” he said.

Ben Macintyre in The Times has a constructive suggestion – bring back hitchhiking. (Given our risk-averse culture hard to see it happening in the traditional form, but perhaps if you did it in a semi-organised way – set up “stations” on the outskirts of big cities and record names it might work.

In the same paper there’s a sensible exploration of how to cool down a typical English hot-house – ceiling fans, shutters etc (with lists of stockists at least for the Southeast).

More simply, and most encouraging of all, a high street store (Curry’s) is starting to stock solar panels. If you’ve got the right sort of roof anywhere within reach of West Thurrock, Fulham or Croydon, why not explore the option?