Put a jumper on ... patio heaters big-up your carbon footprint for no reason.
There are now 1.2m patio heaters in use according to research from the Energy Saving Trust. These figures are set to double "in the near future". Apparently, Yorkshire and Humberside, has the most householders "planning to buy a patio heater" which is a bit like aspiring to buy a very energy intensive tumble dryer that can really big-up your carbon footprint, for almost no reason.
Friends of the Earth say that using a heat lamp for one hour uses the same energy as making 400 cups of tea. Every gas cylinder used (which is the equivalent of about 13 hours of heat) emits 35kg of CO2 - the same as making 5,200 cups of tea.
No surprise then that what really wound me up about Wimbledon this year, constant rain aside, was John Inverdale presenting the day's highlights outside beneath a duo of hulking heat umbrellas. What's more he consistently made smug reference to them, in an 'oooh, I'm so nice and toasty under my heat lamps' kind of way. Is he attempting to morph into Jeremy Clarkson?
Whatever way you looked at it, his consistent plugging of these canister-monsters was provocative. Perhaps he doesn't believe in climate change or at least the anthropogenic contribution?
Thankfully he is not on the board of Wyevale garden centres, which are not stocking heat umbrellas anymore. This looks like responsible retailing to me. Predictably, as soon as Wyevale announced it was out of love with heat umbrellas, Calor gas went on the offensive. It wasn't exactly a charm offensive. An expert was produced to set the record straight against "vilified" heat umbrellas when patio heaters contribute just 0.002 per cent of the UK's annual emissions. Yet, if they're so paltry why does Calor gas provide an offsetting mechanism?
