Green focus column from Laura G, Taunton Green Parents

• There are the usual straight forward solutions to saving energy – insulate, insulate, insulate! Curtains, carpets, types of fabric, double glazing; keep windows and doors closed when the heating is on! How simple is that last one? And yet it is the one I often forget to do!
• Try and keep heating around 16 degrees, (understandably hard in very cold weather), hound your energy provider for a smart meter and wrap extra layers of clothing and blankets around you and your loved ones when jack frost nibbles at your toes.
•  Heat pumps – if you can afford them and your house is suited for one, these are a great idea. Unfortunately, they are ridiculously expensive and we have no government incentive to help us afford them.

So...

• Lobby your MP! Don’t be fooled by blue hydrogen! Vote for politicians that support the move to cleaner energy and funding for heat pumps, solar panels and zero carbon homes.
• Choose energy providers that use a high percentage of renewable energy resources. Energy prices are not increasing because of renewables! Renewables are cheap, and no one goes to war over a solar panel.

Despite the current nonsense from some sources that in order to solve an energy crisis, you have to dig up more oil and gas, doing this will NOT reduce your energy bill.

It will also lead to further conflict over fuel shortages.

Fossil fuels run out. Renewables do not – that’s why they’re called renewables!

Fracking will only give the U.K an extra 5% more gas and yet some argue we should reinstate it.

Everything is interconnected. We have to loosen our grip on our addiction to fossil fuels. It is becoming increasingly more obvious that existence and peace depend on it.