Shower like a submariner

There is much talk that we should conserve water and energy to save the planet. Usually, this involves sacrifice. Let’s face it, apart from masochists, most of us do not like sacrifice. But there are some great energy saving ideas that allow us to conserve with no sacrifice.

A simple idea is to shower like a submariner. We are all told we should shower instead of taking of a bath to save water. This saves some water. But occasionally when I have stayed in a hotel with a shower in a bath I have put in the stopper to see how much water I used. Often my shower will more than half fill the bath. There is a water saving for showering relative to filling the bath but it is not absolutely massive.

But when showering on a submarine or other naval vessels you have to conserve water. Fresh water is scarce on any sea vessel especially submarines. On ‘Das Boot’ and other WWII submarines there were no showers and sailors shared bunks sleeping in 3 shifts, but modern nuclear submarines are not so cramped. But they can be underwater for weeks on end without surfacing so they do need to conserve fresh water.

So how do they shower? Turn on the water and wet their bodies. Turn off the water and shampoo and lather up. Turn on the shower again to rinse and that’s it. There is a major water saving because the water is not left running while lathering. There is the added benefit that half the soap isn’t rinsed away before it has a chance to soak in properly.

I have started to use a variation of this technique and am saving lots of water, and more importantly, the energy used to heat it. In high summer my solar panels produce enough hot water to waste but now after the autumnal equinox, I have to supplement the solar energy with expensive oil water heating. I wet myself, turn off the water, shampoo and lather, rinse my hair and face only, turn off the water, add conditioner to my hair and rub it in, turn on the water slowly to rinse my face and off again, rub shaving oil on my face, turn on the water slowly to rinse again and shave. Finally, I turn up the water full blast and rinse the conditioner from my hair and the soap from my body.

By learning to use the on off knob in the shower I am saving lots of hot water and it is no sacrifice! Save water and energy. Shower like you’re in a submarine!

The Emperor's New Clothes and IPCC AR5 Report

This week's meeting of the IPCC (Intergovernmental panel on climate change) to agree the summary of AR5, the fifth climate change report, reminds me of the problem with the story of the Emperor's New Clothes. I often felt like the little boy and wondered why few others could see the naked emperor. Then I realised that the Hans Christian Anderson story is a fairy tale and fairy tales always have happy endings, unlike real life.

In the story the emperor loved fancy clothes. A pair of chancers exploited this weakness by selling the emperor clothes spun form the lightest, most delicate fabric available - so fine only the most sophisticated people could see it. The emperor and his advisors did not want to be thought of as uncouth so they all 'saw' the clothes. The story of these wonderful new clothes that the emperor was having made went out through the empire. The chancers continues to 'spin' the fabric and 'weave' the clothes and were very well paid for their clothes. On the day the emperor paraded in his new clothes everyone cheered at this fantastic new clothes. Except for one little boy at the back who had been away when the story of the new clothes was going out in the land. He could not understand why the emperor was buck naked and everyone was cheering his new clothes. He said the emperor is naked and then everyone saw it.

This is the fairy tale part.  In real life he would definitely be told by everyone he was unsophisticated and uncouth for not seeing the marvellous clothes. If he persisted he would be ostracised. In a violent country place he might even be lynched.

But the part of the story about the great and powerful seeing invisible clothes, that is not incredible. We only have to look at the global warming crisis, aka climate change, and its associated 'new clothes' like windmills, electric cars, bio fuels, carbon capture, even huge mirrors in space. Many chancers are selling a lot of invisible clothes. And anyone who questions the need to spend money on these 'new clothes' is pilloried and compared with holocaust deniers or others.

David Bellamy is a good example of what can happen to someone who points out the transparency of the issues. For many years David was a prominent nature correspondent on BBC and popular with viewers. But in 2004 he dared to question the climate change crisis. He lost all his work with the BBC and other organisations and was pilloried in pejorative terms by politicians and media. I remember having a discussion with a former classmate a few years later who criticised a radio programme host for interviewing Bellamy as if he were some sort of pariah who had no right to be heard. I scoffed and stated that climate change was BS and expected my classmate, also an engineer to have a similar view. But he asked me what my religion was - was I someone who believed that the Earth was a constant giver! I was shocked that an engineer would respond to the issue in religious terms, but he is employed as a lecturer in a technical college and is involved in Engineering society politics. These areas are ones where belief in this issue is more important.

The number of little boys questioning climate change is growing and many in the media are now questioning. But the emperor and advisors - world governments and EU commissioners still see the fine fabric. They are meeting in Stockholm this week to hammer out the AR5 summary for policymakers without mentioning the fact that temperatures have not risen as predicted by models. This fact undermines the whole thesis that we have to worry about CO2 emissions, that we have to accept windmills on the landscape, that we have to subsidise electric cars, that we have to burn food instead of feeding it to the hungry, that we have to come up with fantastic machines to trap CO2 or radiate sunlight into space.

The emperor will soon look very naked and the advisors very stupid. It is no wonder they are fighting hard to produce a document to perpetuate the story when it is becoming obvious to all that climate change and CO2 emissions are nothing to worry about. But maybe sometime there will be a happy ending.