Carbon Emission Figures

My attention was drawn to this post by Martin Francis on climate change and Brent Council.  It is a fairly typical example of the style.  From an anonymous author, it seeks to twist the Council's very good record on carbon emissions and denigrate it.  The anonymous character allows Martin to deny any responsibility for what is said.

I suspect an 11% cut in carbon emissions is actually quite good in itself, but of course Martin is completely ignoring his bete noir, Brent Civic Centre.  In itself building the Civic Centre _ one of Europe's greenest buildings _ reduces Brent's carbon emissions by about 20%.  The snag is of course that this effect only started to come in as the Council started to move into the Civic Centre in June.  Thus, you will not see any effect until you measure this year's total carbon emissions.  Even then it will not be a full year effect, partly because the Council had not fully moved into the new building and out of the old until quite a long way into the municipal year.  The full effect will also be delayed because it is also dependent on people gettting used to new ways of working _ how the heating and lighting works, not printing so much documentation, altering travel patterns and so on. 

Anyone who thinks about this can see that that has a dramatic effect on the figures.  It does, however, get in the way of Martin's efforts to spread cynicism.