THE seed was sown last Tuesday for The Greening Alton and Holybourne Campaign (GAHC). It is a campaign which will see Alton taking up the cudgel, as the largest town in East Hampshire, to champion the grass roots fight against climate change. And it will be officially launched on Saturday, June 7, when it is hoped residents will leap on board. Scores of people turned up at the Alton Maltings Centre for the inaugural public meeting where they were inspired by project manager, Chris Chappell and her committee, and in particular by Greening Campaign initiator, Terena Plowright, manager of the East Meon Sustainability Centre. Set up by Terena in response to the threat of global warming, the Greening Campaign is an innovative idea to help motivate people to reduce their energy consumption and lower their personal and community carbon footprint. The scheme works by encouraging householders to take a branded information card, which gives them a list of ways to save energy in the home and at work. They then undertake to put into action a set number of these ideas and display the card in a front window. The information from these cards is collected and used to calculate the level of reduction in CO2 achieved by the community as a whole. Petersfield adopted the campaign last May, since when the CO2 saving has been recorded at 23 tons of carbon dioxide (a ton of carbon dioxide would be the size of a four-bedroom house). The message from the Greening Campaign is that while the problem of global warming may appear too massive for an individual to tackle alone, by working together people can begin to make a difference. The aim of the exercise is to encourage residents to make achievable changes which can be seen to have an impact, in terms of reducing energy bills and on the environment as a whole. In Petersfield, the campaign has had a knock-on effect which has seen businesses and surrounding villages clambering to get on board, and in Alton their were signs already that the villages will take the 'greening' message and run with it. In her address, Terena had told her audience: "Small changes can make huge differences if everybody makes them together. We need to look at what makes people stick with it – they need to feel part of it, and that they can be successful, in a way that is simple a cheap." It was a theme enlarged upon by the Greening Alton and Holybourne committee. Jerry Cullum spoke of conflicting messages being transmitted by everybody, from politicians to the national media – from TV advertisements for gas guzzling 4x4 vehicles when the government is trying to tax us off the roads, and to plans for a third runway at Heathrow while holiday makers are made to feel guilty for considering air travel. It was all about compromise – about making choices, and if enough people made the right choice, it would make a difference. Bill Jabelman introduced some facts and figures: Energy saving light bulbs use up to 80 per cent less electricity than a standard bulb but produce the same amount of light. By replacing three bulbs the average family can save £15 a year, equating to 62 kg of CO2. Topping up loft insulation to 10.5 inches could save £60 in heating costs (248kg CO2) and cavity wall insulation would save the average family up to £160 a year (661kg CO2).
