I have decided to entitle this post "Carbon Arse Print" because I cannot see the point in calculating my households carbon footprint.

For those of you that wish to carry out this exercise, here is the Irish Calculator and here is the UK Calculator

When I was filling in all the information on these websites, I was amused on the level of detail that they were requiring, for example,

• "How many light bulbs in the house?"
• "What is the energy rating of your washing machine ?"
• "How many kms/miles do you travel by public transport every week?"

Unknowingly I began to answer these questions as best I could, I even got off my arse and looked at the washing machine for an indication of its energy rating, but to no avail. This is when the light bulb, a non energy saving one, went off in my head "Whats the feckin point of doing this?", there is no point, its all bollocks.

The reason why governments wants the ordinary person to calculate his/her carbon footprint is to deflect attention from their policies and strategies on waste management,traffic congestion, and the hefty profits that Bord Gais and the ESB make every year, whilst being semi-state companies.

For feck sake my green bin is only collected once a month,when I remember to put it out, everytime I go to the recycling bottle bank, its full.

Whats even more annoying is the fact that the largest polluters in the world, USA, Russia, China did'nt even sign up to the Kyoto agreement, so why the f*#k so the ordinary joe public be shamed in calculating his/her carbon footprint?. Is it going to be the topic of conversation down the pub on a weekend ?, I doubt it.

Anyway even if you did reduce your CO2 would you be any better off financially?. No most of the gas companies are putting prices up by 20-25%, so you use less and you still pay more, whats the feckin point?.

What does being "Carbon Neutral" mean?, the only way I can see anyone not contributing CO2 is by being dead, and a long time dead, as I'm sure decompostion must add some methane to the atmosphere.

This is a scam on a global level for someone else to make money as our expense. Carbon Emissions credits are traded on the ECX on a daily basis, thereby enabling business and Government to buy offsets, the cost of which will eventually find its way into your pocket.

Energy saving light bulbs are more expensive than ordinary light bulbs, in Ireland we pay a recycle tax on any electrical goods that we buy, even if the goods are at the highest energy rating, again showing that someone, somewhere is making money out of this.

If Governments want us to lower our CO2 emissions, they could, make energy efficient goods cheaper and make recycling easier for all.

I'm actually in denial it's the new year.  It can't really have passed by that quickly. They've missed out on some of the months. They must have done. Was there an April? And what about October, I don't remember there being an October?

I do remember The Rise of the Silver Surfer, the disappearance of Madeline, demolishing the garden shed, and a few other things really got my goat during the year, but here's my top ten....

1. Gordon Brown
   Continuing to annoy me. He became Prime Minister, bottled an election, quietly signed the Lisbon treaty passing further powers away to the EU, promised a government of "all the talents" then lost the personal details of 25million people, had a party funding scandal, pledged an end to spin while in the same breath claiming to have reduced the rate of corporation tax (not quite, there was an increase for small companies - the so called backbone of the economy). The Tories say he's the wrong man, but of course they would, wouldn't they! 
2. Carbon footprint
   In 2007 our carbon footprints became big business. The Chancellor has been rubbing his hands in glee at the prospect of being able to introduce new types of taxes, and companies have been dressing in floral prints designed by their marketers. This latest fashion of "social responsibility" is being paraded on the catwalk in front of us mug consumers. Meanwhile there seems to be a whole body of evidence accumulating to suggest man-made C02 plays only a minor, insignificant role in climate change. When trying to finds the facts on Google I found instead near Freudian hysteria and contributions from people who seem to think they're in a movie. The consequences of man-made climate change, wrote one budding actor, will be "worse, much much worse......eventual extinction".
3. Nobel Peace Prize
   In keeping with "the year of the footprint" this year the Nobel Prize for Peace was shared between an organisation and Al Gore. They each get half a prize " for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".  Why did Al Gore get a prize for his video? There's even doubts it was actually true, like, get down to the bookies - there may yet be a chance of Jeremy Clarkson winning in 2008 for his continued work on Top Gear.
4. Virgin Media
   Launched on February 14th, V-Day. Steve Burch, CEO of NTL, was quoted at the time as saying "Virgin Media will shake up the market by bringing the Virgin traditions of value-for-money, brilliant customer service and innovation to the world of entertainment and communications."  However, a bungled negotiation with BSkyB led to the loss of popular channels such as Sky 1, Sky News, Sky 2, Sky Travel, Sky 3.... 40,000 customers fled in the first three months, perhaps they knew the virgin traditions of "value for money, brilliant customer service and innovation" are a branding screen thrown up to hide a normal company. They don't mean anything. Did we see our TV charges reduce with less channels? No. Did we see phone charges increase? Yes Sir we did!
5. Windows Vista
   The biggest technological disappointment of 2007 despite an R&D bill of £10bn, Windows Vista, actually seems to be an operating system designed for teenagers to help organise their media files. It seems a ridiculous use of hardware to spend on unnecessarily indexing every file and on fancy graphics like transparency which don't add anything and, in fact,  hamper the experience.  First set of tasks to do if you're a consumer stuck with Vista and you can't return it - turn off windows sidebar, un-tick all files in Indexing options, change update settings, change control panel to classic view, change start menu to classic, and yes, download open office as you won't be able to use Excel. 
6. HMRC
   It doesn't look like we'll ever see a video podcast or a YouTube channel explaining the ongoing delays to VAT applications which continued throughout 2007. The HMRC website, now in 2008, still displays the same notice since 2006, "Please be aware we are currently experiencing processing delays with both paper and online applications".  Applications can take up to six months to process, clearly inconveniencing small business. No practical guidance is given by HMRC on what to do during this lengthy application period. They just don't care, they're opening premise - "everyone's a crook" - guides all policy.
7. Tesco
   What's Tesco becoming? On my last visit of 2007 to Tesco Express in Port Solent my conclusion was a village. It has it's own pharmacy, a Costa Coffee, a supermarket, what appears to be an Argos, a department store, a Krispy Kreme Doughnut, and an opticians. The trouble is the supermarket is a mess, boxes on the ground, empty shelves, off products and staff pushing cages everywhere. You have to literally dodge the cages because they can't see what's in front when they're pushing. And there are plans to add a dentist practice to this village. I'd actually prefer if they brought in another supermarket chain, a company that knows how to run a supermarket, because Tesco seem to have forgotten.
8. Celebrity Rehab
   Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse, Pete Doherty, Lyndsay Lohan et al, all seemingly gone off the rails. They go into rehab, they come out, they get drunk or spaced, get pictured without their underwear, get spaced, go into rehab, and it's all front page news. I'm just not intersted. Why can't they just get a grip?
9. Open Season on the Games
   The 2012 logo was launched on Monday the 4th of  June and was almost instantly and unanimously derided (including by me). The jagged, graffiti design was likened to Lisa Simpson performing a lewd sex act. Within three days almost 50,000 people signed an online petition calling for the logo to be scrapped, an animated version had to be pulled from broadcast over fears the effects cause epileptic seizure. It was open season on "the Games", all year in fact, the underlying theme being, it's being run by a bunch of incompetents who don't know what they're doing. It'll be wrong and over budget. Guffaw! How could they forget the VAT? See point six above on HMRC, who in the end decided they couldn't register.
10. Big Brother
    Following the celebrity Big Brother race row, the ugly bullying of Shilpa Shetty, and Carphone Warehouse withdrawing sponsorship for the programme, we quietly hoped 2007 would be the last year of Big Brother. But no, it's continued....

Happy New Year and God bless for 2008

Householders were reminded during the week of their prodigal attitude to wasting food. The blame for dumping 3.3million tonnes of edible food into landfill sites is tipped squarely onto us as the consumers. In landfill the food breaks down and causes "greenhouse gases" which, we're reminded, contribute to the type of weather which has left large swathes of the UK under water.

Earlier in the year, Jennie Price, a former Chief Executive of Wrap, the UK's waste body, advised us to look in the fridge or cupboard before shopping, and as far back as 2005 Lord Haskins accused us of having "eyes...bigger than stomachs".

Meanwhile the supermarkets are in the clear. You can still buy food off the shelf which is already rotting. You can still buy food where the use by date is the day you're actually buying it (and you're still paying full price). 

Every adult in the UK, according to Wrap, wastes approximately £400 a year on food that ends up in the bin. Where else is it supposed to go if you can't eat it?