"Applying renewable energy within a Christian environmental morality"

This was the title John Twidell chose for his talk to Christian Ecology Link in Cheltenham this evening. Two dozen of us gathered for an excellent presentation, and wide-ranging discussion to follow.

John's faith motivated him to look for work in Africa after completing his second degree - teaching physics in Khartoum University. He saw the waste of a major energy source there (solar) as a failure in stewardship of God's creation, and thus began his experimentation with renewable energy. Returning to the UK, he invented a course in the subject at Strathclyde University, and then obtained the post of Professor of Renewable Energy at de Montfort. He and his wife Mary (whom he met in the Sudan) still live in Leicestershire, where their home bristles with energy-saving measures: they are happy to demonstrate them to any who turn up.

In his presentation, John contrasted green energy - diverting natural flows - with brown energy - digging up in order to pollute. We shouldn't be surprised that renewables are only just becoming accepted: it takes 50 years for people in school to graduate to becoming decision-makers. But the technology for harnessing especially the sun and the wind is now well proven, sophisticated, available and increasingly affordable. Of course, Government help is needed to establish it - the same with any energy source. But Government can equally well scupper it: witness the harm Eric Pickles is doing by his arbitrary overturning of appeal decisions and so preventing new wind farms from being established.

The speaker ended by advocating that we each list possible "my changes" - lifestyle decisions, taking up the issues through lobbying, even career changes (standing for election). And as for leaving the EU, that would be a disaster energy-wise: UKIP want to reopen coal mines!

PS There's an open day to view a community wind turbine not far away, on Sunday 28th: details here.

Church crawling

Jenkins to hand, Caroline and I set off inland today on a wet morning to look at two churches with seven stars between them. Even looking at lesser churches in Cornwall gives me great pleasure, if only for their churchyards' old slate tombstones: they last long enough to reveal much fine lettering still.

Getting to Blisland was itself a delightful journey of discovery, passing garden-gate produce stalls, ancient signposts and through a maze of narrow lanes. The church is almost worth visiting for its name alone: the only one dedicated to the brothers Protus and Hyacinth, whose feast was yesterday. John Betjeman raved about the Victorian screen, which runs gaudily across the entire width of the church. I especially liked looking up to the giddy-making wagon roof of the nave.

Blisland has a newish community building to boast of also: a vast shed, housing shop, post office, café with internet and large screen, doctor's surgery... all run, it's said, on as little energy as possible. There's a sign pointing out the cost of a drive to the nearest supermarket: "Shop here and save yourself a fiver."

St Neot's church is more celebrated even than Blisland's - "the cathedral of the Moor" - on account of its mediaeval stained glass. But it seemed less welcoming to me, possibly because of the sign forbidding unauthorised use of the photographs we visitors take. It's not as if there's a decent choice amongst the church's own photographic postcards. And anyway, dissemination of religious images is all part of spreading the Gospel surely! Why alienate visitors in this way?

Yes, the glass is interesting, especially the Old Testament scenes (Eden and Noah in particular). But give me Fairford any day.

During our stay, we met the owner of a remote Cornish home, who was moaning about a proposed wind turbine. "Only 450 yards away, and it will take £100,000 off my house," she had complained. We happened to pass by the property on our way to Blisland: it's sunk in a deepish, very wooded valley. Even if she's right about the loss in value - surely doubtful - you have to ask how many people in less fortunate circs. would give their eye teeth to be able to arrest an unwanted "development" within 450 yards of where they live; and to question whether one individual should be able to elevate her property rights above the needs of the world for more renewable energy. This, along with the extreme "whiteness" of the retired and holidaying community down here in Cornwall.

Brasov

The sun is shining here, and indeed it's rather too hot for sight-seeing; so after a mini-wander around (an an excellent lunch), I'm sitting in the cool lobby of Hotel Casa Wagner, in Brasov's main square, away from the Whitsunday crowds, with an equally cool beer to hand. In other words, it's a good life!

My train journey came to an end this morning at 10ish, just under 48 hours after leaving Cheltenham. The best part was the last: I had my 3-person sleeper from Budapest on the Ister Express all to myself, and awoke to see hills peeping out of the mist and the sun slanting across the landscape from left to right, rather than from right to left as last evening.

The train was not, thankfully, in a hurry, so I was able to enjoy the very attractive and varied landscape - fields much divided up, sheep (with shepherds), hay stooks, woodlands with banks of false acacia trees in bloom, lakes and rivers, birdlife (plentiful), and even a couple of horse-drawn carts. They obviously haven't all gone for lasagna.

In the villages, each house with its steeply-raked roof, there was not a lawn to be seen: gardens are intensively cultivated with vegetables - all of course far ahead of ours at home.

The final run into Brasov was across flatter territory, snowy mountains being now the backdrop, a reminder of Brasov's strategic importance in old times. I received an uninvited (but rather welcome) history lesson from a certain Peter, who was unashamedly out to earn a little money: he approached me with a distinctive brand of English (Orwell is his favourite writer) as I stood taking a photograph of three trumpeters in costume high up on the platform of the city centre tower (they perform at 12 each day as a reminder of the role of the human fire alarms of former days, Peter told me). Vlad the Impaler was, he assured me, a goody: having read a full and very gory description of his methods in my Rough Guide, I remain unconvinced.

I really do recommend coming by train if you are thinking of Romania for a holiday. I had a delicious dinner in Paris - at Brasserie Flo, the station restaurant: in Munich, I arrived off the Cassiopeia in time for breakfast near the Marienplatz; and in Budapest I ate well at the recommended Rosenstein. Both German and Hungarian sleeping cars were more than adequate, though, going for a shower this morning, I found it in full use as a broom cupboard. And loo paper is BYO.

Switching between French, German, Hungarian and Romanian may sound interesting, but - though this feels like a contradiction in terms - English is the lingua franca.

A new aesthetic

I hosted a wrap-up this evening, for our Cheltenham Eco Homes open day the other Sunday. A good discussion took place between the owners of the various houses that opened up to the public. One reported a caveat she'd heard uttered by a visitor, that any "greening" of people's homes needed to be "tasteful", which seemed - in that instance - to preclude "ugly" panels fronting the road: these were perceived as lowering the tone, and therefore house prices in the area. But surely, said another at our meeting, what about TV aerials?Aren't panels the chimneys of the 21st Century? You hear people complaining about turbines being located between the Lake District and the Howgills: where have these complainants viewed them from? Why, the six-lane M6 Motorway, that scythes throught that beautiful terrain.

Hits and misses - 2

Still to do is the sorting of photographs taken during our fortnight away - and the deletion of many of them. Some of the "hits" include this early morning scene from just outside our lofty Castillian B&B, where we spent the night we arrived in Spain. Wind turbines were everywhere to be seen in both Spain and Portugal. How do they get them up to some of those high places!

And we admired the engineering of all the many tunnels and viaducts on what is an astonishing motorway network: especially below the Picos de Europa, the views of both coastline and mountains are breathtaking, but no photographs alas! I was sorry also to miss the chance of trying to snap the pod of dolphins that accompanied us as our ferry made its way through the rather uncomfortable swell of the Bay of Biscay on Monday evening: my mind was on other things.

Springbank

Still in training for my bike ride next week, I rode across town this evening, to a meeting about recycling - but nobody else turned up! Still, it was a fine evening and there is blossom everywhere, lining the streets. And it gave me a chance to see for the first time Cheltenham's first and only wind turbine. As you can (just) see from my photograph, it's tiny! But it was whirring round merrily, and I count it as a sign of hope.

The Converging World ("TCW")

This is the name of a charity based in Bristol, the brainchild of John Pontin. He was at the UoG talking about it yesterday. I felt privileged to be able to go along.

TCW aims to generate equality through self-sufficiency; to reduce emissions, and to supply sustainable energy solutions in order to create long-term funding streams, to continue to finance the achievement of the main aim. Ambitious? Yes!

But it's an attractive and eminently practical idea. John has primed the pump via a family trust, which put up £1.4m for a wind turbine, on stream in Tamil Nadu, South India. Another wind turbine, erected with borrowed money, secured on the first, is also up and running there. Four more turbines are planned for 2010.

The revenue from these turbines goes, as to three-quarters for future wind turbine investment, and as to the other 25% for social change and development: TCW is working with SCAD in Tamil Nadu on climate change adaptation.

A great idea: needs packaging in a way that everyone can see its merits. And (as its name implies) its concentration is of course on convergence, not the equally vital matter of contraction: very important not to lose sight of that.

We can support TCW by donations (as with any charity); by buying its Gold Standard carbon credits, and by spreading the word.

("My" turbines, I saw whilst crossing the Mersey from Birkenhead last May.)

Cheltenham wind

I photographed these wind turbines whilst on the Mersey Ferry in May. Seldom enough in the British Isles do you see them in this sort of setting - to which even David Bellamy would have a job to take offence.

Good news therefore that our local Borough Council's Planning Committee have passed, without a dissenting voice, an application to build a 60 foot turbine tower in a park on the West side of Cheltenham! It's estimated to be able to generate about 17% of the electricity needed for Springbank Community Resource Centre, which seeks to regenerate one of the town's most deprived areas. Project advocate Andy Hayes was interviewed by the Gloucestershire Echo following the decision: "I think," he says, "the turbine is a thing of beauty - it represents very successfully the fight against climate change and the need for more renewable energy."

And on a rather different scale, one day earlier this month Spain saw over 50% of its electricity come from turbines. Chris Goodall as always writes positively and authoritatively on the background to this story in Carbon Commentary.

Madrid: pictures, pictures and more pictures

Our train whizzed along at great speed from Valencia to Madrid: we could watch the onboard video, listen to a choice of music (headphones provided by Renfe), or - as I did - gaze out of the window at the passing sierras, noting the wind farms en route: we saw them everywhere on our journey through Europe, but none more than in Spain - a sign of hope.

Madrid was one of two pivots for our trip: Thomas's move to Lisbon was the other. Majestic Wine came up with an amazing offer in August: buy a case of Marqués de la Concordia wine through them and you could stay for two nights free in the Marqués de la Concordia private Wine Club in the Barrio de Salamanca, the so-called Mayfair of Madrid. As Caroline and I had always wanted to visit the Prado, it was a no brainer. The bad news was that Caroline missed seeing anything of the Prado, either its permanent collection or the great Rembrandt exhibition, because of an enforced day in bed. The good news was that there was no more comfortable bed in which to spend a day during our entire trip. The Quinta turned out to be more luxy than any hotel we could have afforded.

Happily, we had persuaded our good friends Colin and Jessica to buy a case of Marqués de la Concordia too, so it was all four of us who had travelled together from Paris to end up here in Madrid. And we did all four together manage to visit and enjoy the two other big Madrid galleries, the elegant Thyssen and the excellent Reina Sofia: Guernica hangs there, a worthy setting.

After my day at the Prado in the presence of masterpieces by Velazquez and Rembrandt, I felt more comfortable with Velazquez, especially after seeing Las Menenias. Picasso's series based on that great work (dating from 1957: we had seen it in the Barcelona Picasso Museum) seems trivial beside the real thing.

Just being in Madrid is inspiring, even when you don't do any conventional sightseeing.