Tim Weller , who works in Birmingham and lives in the Black Country, contributes some suggestions for the new year. As a matter of interest, how many times a day do most people eat meat? Comments please…

• In Sept 2008, the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate  Change – part of the UN – was asking for everyone to give up meat for one day a week.  What about having meat on the other six days, ONCE each day?
• Livestock is taking up fertile land to grow food for them that is needed to grow food for humans.
• Livestock farts and burps are adding to greenhouse gas emissions – the growth of which the planet has never seen before at such speed and quantity from us humans.
• OR, upgrade the loft insulation of your home.  I did ours in 1976, the year that I moved here.  Yet, when I cleared out my dad’s bungalow in 2005, there was virtually no loft insulation – and in a bungalow, too!
• OR, work out your annual air mileage around the planet in 2008 and, in 2009 cut it by 10%.  For me, this would mean cutting my car mileage by 10%, since I don’t fly.
• OR, if the above is too much to ask – just sign my petition for some no nonsense transport sense in three Black Country boroughs to make life more bearable for rail passengers at New Street Station!

Thanks very much and happy 2009!

Tim Weller
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Please view my petition for trains back on our local rail line, at:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/empty-rail-lines/