Preaching to the Converted

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Not going could cost the earth

Well we are screwed then… today I went to see the FU+URE LONDON exhibition in currently on in Brick Lane. the exhibition was put on by the London assembly I think and its aim was to try and persuade Londoners to use greener methods of living. The exhibition moves to the Science Museum until the begining of October and there is more information on their website.

The problems I have with this exhibition are threefold:

  • Firstly putting the exhibition on in Brick Lane seemed a bit pointless the majority of people who spend time in Brick Lane work in new media which is already quite progressive in terms of environmental awareness. The rest probably wouldn’t go in anyway.
  • Secondly, most of the ideas put forward by this exhibition that I wasn’t already putting into practice (and have been for some time) were completely beyond me, ideas that seemed good at the time such as adding a wind turbine or solar panels are in reality completely impracticle because the majorty of Londoners live in flats where they don’t have access to the roof or rented accomodation and who is going to spend 2 or 3 grand upgrading a heating or electricity system whent he might be moving out in a couple of years. Ken Livingstone has got his priority’s wrong here, legislation is needed to make London a greener city, new buildings should be forced to produce some of their own electricity, especially office buildings, and landlords should be forced to put energy saving measures in place. For example forcing all let properties to put in double glazing would be a good start.
  • Thirdly, the actual exhibition was pretty good, they had added the shock factor to try and scare people into doing more and the solution they offered were generally pretty good, as long as you owned your own home and car. At the entrance there was a sign saying that this was an interactive exhibition, apart from tasting some organic juice I didn’t find this the case. There was one notable exception, there was a mockup of the inside of an environmentally friendly house which had a next generation electricity meter, called a smart meter, hooked up, this meter was supposed to show you how much electricity you are using at any one time, I read about these some time ago through the BBC this example though, just didn’t seem to work.

So it would seem that this exhibition was a good idea, poorly thought out out and situated in the wrong place. It should have done the rounds outside the centre of London where more people would own houses.