Environment Chaos

Sorry but you can't read this!

2012-01-18T15:54:00.002Z

On the 24th January, The US congress is to vote on SOPA and PIPA two proposed pieces of legislation ostensibly to stop copyright piracy and intellectual theft. However the proposed legislation raises very serious concerns.
Under the proposed legislation, sites would have to check all user submitted content and could face shutdown if found to be infringing copyright or such. This would have really huge effects on e-activism, for example Greenpeace has famously used Nestle's KitKat logo and Mattel's (chainsaw) Barbie as part of its campaign to highlight rainforest destruction. It would make things like Adbusters subverts illegal. It would effectively give much of the power to police the internet into the hands of corporate America.

The freedom and power of the internet in helping to promote global change and awareness of the oncoming crisis and its causes is absolutely vital.
For this reason I oppose SOPA and PIPA.

There are some suggestions for action here and a petition to the State Dept for those of us outside the US here

New year 2012

2012-01-06T23:21:00.010Z

So it is now 2012.
So far:-
The EU Carbon tax on aviation is proving unpopular. The Guardian reports that China's 4 leading airlines are saying that they will not pay charges levied. This is not a good precedent. The tax is unpopular in Australia and in the US. With a Presidential election this year in the US, their response remains to be seen.

Chatham House has published a report which claims that the "just-in-time" model of business leaves the UK vulnerable to extreme events and that the UK could only deal for about a week of disruption in the face of a High Impact Low Probability event, before facing possible collapse. This is disturbing when you consider the recent IPCC report on extreme weather events and climate change. As Oxfam makes clear in its Media Briefing, Extreme weather endangers food security.

With the recent extreme weather in the UK, economic outlook for the coming year not seeming so positive and with the ever looming peak oil, our vulnerability seems starkly highlighted.

We must build community resilience now, we must adapt for the future.

Durban, Canada and Kyoto

2011-12-14T13:27:00.000Z

I am glad to say that I was proven wrong. The COP17 Climate talks at Durban did produce something of significance.
The agreement seems to have a few major points.

"Stopping the Clock" on the Kyoto Protocol
A new legally binding agreement which will include China, The US and India, to be negotiated over the next few years with a treaty to come into force by 2020
The setting up of a green investment fund to aid low carbon development

This is all good! However it is no panacea. As the Tyndall Centre has said, global CO2 emissions have risen to a record 10 billion tonnes, an increase of 49% since 1990, the reference year for the Kyoto Protocol.

The governments involved have also yet to declare the scale of their reductions and timescale, 2020 may well be too late.

Canada's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol is disturbing, given ongoing ecocide of the Alberta Tar Sands and the political pressures and connections associated with this, as well as the possible outlook regarding the exploitation of the Arctic. It also highlights that there are no guarantees that other countries will not walk away from their commitments down the line, even if they have signed a legally binding treaty.

Shameful

2011-11-28T20:23:00.000Z

The revelation in the Guardian, that at the highest levels, the UK government has been actively working with the Conservative government of Canada and the oil companies BP and Shell to oppose the proposed penalty for "highly polluting" fuels such as oil from the Alberta Tar Sands in the forthcoming EU Fuels Quality Directive should really come as no surprise. It really is the nail in the coffiin for the green credentials of "the greenest government ever", as 350 activist and founder Bill McKibben has said it is "idiotic" . Let us hope that there is similar outrage as there was in the US against the Keystone XL pipeline.

With the tar sands only about 3% burned and with only five years to transition we cannot allow our representatives to commit these acts in our name.

As the COP 17 climate talks in Durban begin our "leadership" is shown to be a corrupt facade.
With the the experience of Copenhagen and Cancun behind us, I would not expect anything meaningful to come out of Durban.

It comes down to us, and we do not have much time...

COPing Out

2011-11-20T23:48:00.000Z

What can I say? This Guardian article today left me feeling terribly bleak.
It is not really unexpected, we have seen before the worth of the political pledges when it comes to tackling climate change. But in the light of the recent reports from the IEA and the IPPC which are telling us clearly that we do not have the time to delay and that we will feel the impact of the crisis, I would have hoped for some real political will. To delay a climate treaty until 2020 however "realistic" is a failure in their duty to the people.

When you consider the likely impact of climate change on the lives of us all, particularly the global and national poor who will will be hit first and hardest, this failure is unforgiveable. They/we have had chance after chance and at each test have failed.

I am of the opinion that the Occupy movement has a point. That our politicial system is in fact a plutocracy masquerading as a "democracy" you only have to consider the defence of the financial institutions by the police,

the refusal (in the UK) to implement a Robin Hood Tax and things like this to wonder who our political masters are really serving. Perhaps it is time for us to embrace a direct democracy, to tap in to the creative potential of humanity to enable us to take the necessary action.
I see no meaningful soloutins coming out of Durban, I hope that I am proven wrong, but we will see...

5 years to Transition

2011-11-09T14:51:00.013Z

This article in the Guardian newspaper today is very disturbing. The International Energy Authority (IEA) is saying that we are likely to have lost any chance of avoiding dangerous climate change, due to the fossil-fuel power stations, factories, homes and other sundries we will, if we continue as we are, build in the next five years. It is said that if we are to avoid a 2 degrees C global mean rise, we must limit emissions to 450ppm of CO2 (e) in the atmosphere, currently we are running at about 390ppm. Given the woeful state of our renewable energy capacity and given developments like the southern Gobi potential coal boom, I do not see us even having that long.

The problem is, in part, our lifestyles. In the developed nations we have become accustomed to so many energy hungry luxuries and now consider them as "essentials" . The radical measures necessary then become politically unacceptable and at a national and international level little is achieved.

So we must push for green initiatives, we must remind our politicians how urgent it is and how green jobs might be the way out of the global economic crisis. We must stress how unacceptable any delay is and how appalled we are by the lack of investment in the necessary infrastructure. We must also prepare ourselves. make the changes to our own lives and start building resilience at a community level, begin the transition now and hope that it is not too late.

Bleak news

2011-11-07T15:58:00.005Z

The report from the US Dept of Energy, reported on by the Guardian makes chilling reading. It is reported that emissions jumped by 6% in 2009-2010 (an extra 512 tonnes) with increases in China and the US accounting for half of that jump. This, apparently, puts levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere beyond the worst case scenario in the IPCC 2007 report, and this situation is only likely to be exacerbated by China's vast coal mine development in the southern Gobi and the Keystone XL pipeline in North America.

China and the US are in conflict over the Kyoto protocol, which is due to expire next year. If we do not get a legally binding agreement including the US and China to replace the Kyoto Protocol we will be left with the non-binding statement of good intentions of the Copenhagen Accord.

The COP17 UN climate talks are to be in Durban later this month. One can hope that this news spurs the parties to take meaningful action, but I will not be holding my breath.

We need to start adaptation now, but with the ongoing financial crisis, it seems questionable that the resources will actually be invested, especially by cash strapped or politically vulnerable governments.

Feeling the bite.

2011-10-07T14:52:00.000+01:00

The recent well publicised remarks of the Chancellor that if he had his way the UK would cut "carbon emissions no slower but also no faster than our fellow countries in Europe". are being seen as an indicator that in times of severe austerity, serious green initiatives are too costly, leading to things like this.
This is unfortunate. If we are to have any real chance of weathering the oncoming crisis, we (especially in the developed nations) need to seriously de-carbonise.
With the Arctic opening up to supertankers and China likely to exceed its emissions forecast and become "locked in" to a carbon heavy cycle. With the US elections looming, the Kyoto Protocol due to expire in 2012 and likely to become a major bone of contention between the US and China , it seems unlikely that we will see much except more of the usual triumph of the National Economic Interest.
We must both take personal responsibility and pressure our politicians to act. We should be paying attention to the writing on the wall and not getting distracted. Only if we have real determination, will there be enough political will to take the necessary action.

There are  measures which could raise money towards de-carbonisation such as the Robin Hood Tax, which, although resisted by the government in the UK (tellingly a major Conservative donor has actively lobbyed against the Tobin Tax) is gathering much support elsewhere

While I am cynical, I have not yet given up all hope.   But we must act now, our window is short.

Scrooge moment

2011-09-25T11:15:00.000+01:00

In Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is shown the misery of the poor by the Ghost of Christmas Present and then he is made aware of his own imminent death, and the reaction to it, by The Ghost of Christmas Future.

I feel that we have been granted this "Scrooge moment." Through scientific data gathering and modelling, we are able to glimpse the broad outline of our future environment and have a fair idea of the impact this will have on our lives. At the moment, we continue on pretty much as before: there are some minor changes but we are not really diverting from the path we have been on since the industrial revolution.

The oncoming crisis demands our full attention. It should replace Big Brother and Celebrity Chef at the forefront of our media and our minds.

We have such a limited window of opportunity, it is essential to act with real determination now. We must be the heroes of the moment, not idle spectators.

Keeping the fracking lights on

2011-09-24T16:55:00.000+01:00

As the voices of Moving Planet ring out across the globe, as we pledge to move beyond fossil fuels, in the UK , the energy firm Cuadrilla has discovered a motherlode of shale gas under Lancashire. The Guardian reports that it is estimated to be as much as 5.6 trillion cubic metres. Given some of the experiences of people in the US, there is understandable concern about the effects of fracking on the local environment.
There is also the issue that shale gas is a fossil fuel, and the discovery and exploitation of this source of energy is not really compatible with the need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. There is also the question of how fracking will affect investment in renewables? In short, I do not think we should be doing this.
I believe that this desire on behalf of the government comes from desperation, a desperate need to "keep the lights on" in the face of declining North Sea gas reserves, energy insecurity and looming peak oil. When peak oil hits us, we still face collapse. Oil provides us with many, many things which gas cannot. Plastics, fertilisers, pharmaceuticals and so many other things.

While there is tighter regulation of fracking in the UK than in the US, investigation by The Guardian has exposed some alarming weaknesses in the regulatory regime. Among the most chilling are :-

• The recent energy and climate change select committee inquiry into shale gas did not consider tightening regulations, citing a lack of resources

• Confusion between the DECC, EA and HSE, the three government agencies which each have different responsibilities.

Donald Dobson, HSE's head of discipline, well engineering, says in a letter to former oil and gas engineer Mike Hill, that it is financially impossible to check each well. "Verification of an individual well is not the role of the HSE. The resource implications would be immense."

The citation of lack of resources as a reason for not tightening regulation and for a weak regulatory regime is worrying, in the present financial climate, adequate resources are not likely to be found for this. The confusion between the regualtory agencies allows the passing and hiding of responsibility (at least until a major mishap).
Without a strong regulatory regime, we fall back on asking the industry to self-regulate and I have no faith in that.

UK carbon target fail

2011-09-22T20:17:00.001+01:00

The Guardian reported recently on the publication of a report by Cambridge Econometrics which says that the UK has decisively missed the stated target of a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions in the period 1990-2010, despite the reduction in emissions in 2009 due to the recession.
This seems to me to highlight an issue which needs to be addressed. While setting targets is necessary, these targets must be achievable and the resources to meet these targets need to be invested. A recent DEFRA report looking at adaptation of UK infrastructure says that the govt plans to invest some £200 bn over the next five years, but given the ongoing financial crisis and the cuts to services which the UK (along with most of the EU, and the US) is undergoing, it remains to be seen if this will actually happen?

The political impetus to be seen to be green, and the well publicised statements, should not, I feel ,be taken at face value. We face huge challenges in adapting to Climate Change and both the reality which we are facing and the difficulties in meeting the challenges which this presents must be made clear to all. This is vital in terms of providing impetus for the radical actions which are necessary.

Check your privilege!

2011-08-29T09:54:00.004+01:00

According to the Huffington Post Senator and Republican Presidential Candidate Michele Bachmann, while on a visit to a Florida retirement community, said that with shale oil, coal and natural gas and with untapped oil reserves in the Arctic, the US should not be "begging" others for energy and that they were the "King Daddy Dogs" when it came to energy. She blamed "radical environmentalists" for bottling up that energy supply.and preventing it from being tapped. She apparently went on to claim that as "President Bachmann" she would shut down the "job killing" US Environmental Protection Agency with a single trip to "turn out the lights and lock the doors".

Among US Republicans, particularly those of the Tea Party, Anthropogenic Climate Change seems to have become a sort of "litmus test" for credibility. It leads one to wonder what sort of environmental policies we might see if they gain victory in the US presidential elections?

In the developed nations we are in a privileged postion. We are generally living lifestyles which are unsustainable and regard this as our right, without recognising the effects this has on others, including denying them that lifestyle. The energy hunger and climate impact of that hunger stems directly from this.

The big social injustice is that the poor are the ones who will be hit first and hardest by climate change.

Cynical thoughts

2011-08-27T14:48:00.000+01:00

Recently in the Guardian, it was reported that President Obama has approved the controversial 1,700 mile pipeline to transport crude oil from the Alberta Tar Sands in Canada to Texas. With breathtaking cynicism, Kerri Ann Jones, the assistant Secretary of State stated:-

"The sense we have is that the oil sands would be developed and there is not going to be any change in greenhouse gas emissions with the pipeline or without the pipeline because these oil sands will be developed anyway,"

So the role of US demand for Tar Sands in this development is nicely brushed over.

With the difficulties and adverse publicity which the Canadian government has encountered in the EU (with regard to the EU Fuels Directive) which I mentioned in my last post, it is likely that they are breathing a sigh of relief over this decision.

My cynicism around the issue of political will and the primacy of the national economic interest has been well documented on this blog.

While I think that a personal carbon allowance as advocated in "contraction and convergence" by Audrey Meyer is a good mechanism for reducing global emissions, I feel that it is unlikely to be realised in time. If such a mechanism was implemented, it would end much of the present social inequality, for this reason I think that it is unlikely. I cannot see the privileged in our society, willingly giving up their ability to live their massively carbon heavy lifestyle and having to become just an equal member. This also applies internationally. It would most definitely change international politics!

I honestly do not see us taking enough meaningful action within the window of opportunity which we have.

Canada Lobbying for Tar Sands

2011-08-05T16:39:00.000+01:00

Friend of the Earth Europe (FOEE) have released a report detailing "unprecedented" lobbying by the Canadian government both in the UK and the EU, in attempt to delay and derail measures within the proposed European Fuel Quality Directive(FQD) penalising the import and sale of carbon heavy fuel.
FOEE reports that there have been over 110 lobbying events organised by the Canadians on Tar Sands and the FQD since September 2009 (ie over 1 per week). Which promote the "key role" which Canada plays in energy security. The Canadian Government also seems to be trying to undermine peer reviewed European studies detailing the climate impact of the Tar Sands and promoting studies by IHS Cera, an institute which has definite links to the oil industry.

This comes as the UNEP reports that the contamination of the Niger Delta by the oil industry could take 30 years to clean up and cost over $1bn and in the UK, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has called for carbon heavy industry to be exempt from the proposed minimum carbon dioxide price, with concerns that heavy industry, whis is in part essential for the green recovery (for example the manufacture of wind turbines) would migrate abroad.

I think that one of the major issues underlying this issue in developed nations is our feeling of entitlement. We believe that we are entitled to our personal computers, TVs, cars, washing machines, mobile phones and all the other energy hungry products which have increased our household energy demand by 18% since 1970. This, alongside the impact of our food and other aspects of our lifestyle seems to me to be incompatible with the necessary reduction and fundamentally unjust, in a global
sense.

We in the developed nations bear the major current and historic responsibility for the oncoming crisis. I feel it behooves us to do more to reduce our national and personal footprints. Measures such as a personal carbon budget like the"contraction and convergence" model would perhaps offer a more socially just solution.

What the frack!

2011-07-03T14:31:00.000+01:00

With the recent controversy surrounding the introduction of fracking to the UK and the possible link to the recent tremors near Blackpool, it was very disturbing to come across this, a colouring book produced by Talisman, of Terry the Friendly Fracosaurus!

Really?.....

Social work

2011-06-03T15:48:00.002+01:00

I have recently been south onto Shetland Mainland doing a course learning to build dykes (aka dry stone walls). I was near Sumburgh head and so decided to visit the lighthouse. Near the lighthouse are some late 19th century dykes. According to local legend, these are "meal dykes" , where as a form of poor relief in time of hunger, the local tenants quarried the stone for and built the dykes in return for oatmeal, given by the local Laird.

Currently in the UK, we have a a reasonably good social security system. We have the National Health Service (Department of Health expenditure £98.6 billion in 2008-9)  and many ways of supporting those in need. My feeling is that this might not always be the case. In an economic downturn (currently the budget defecit is £149 billion) and facing an energy crisis, with the added financial burdens which climate change will place upon the state, I am concerned that the infrastructure and social systems of the state will be severely strained.

With the recent food price rises, and the likely future doubling of basic food prices highlighted by Oxfam, which will force millions more into hunger, and the fragility of our food supply, I wonder how we will cope.

How will we deal with the social issues around food? Will we repeat history and have rations doled out by someone who is living in relative luxury? Will we adopt a more mutualist approach, where if you contribute to the community you get food/support from the community?  Or will we go for the more idealistic "from each according to his/her means to each according to his/her needs" communist approach?
Will we rise to the occaision as our best selves or fall into warlordism and gang mentality?

Other questions arise from this, how will the less able fare? Will we watch families struggle to support someone deemed to be a non-contributor?
I think that most of us would find it difficult to watch another go hungry, but we are speaking from the position of the well fed.   I wonder if these are questions which we or our children will have to answer in the not too distant future.

Good News!

2011-05-15T23:50:00.000+01:00

The reported legally binding "green deal", to be announced by Chris Huhne is excellent news! The government's acceptance of the Climate Change Committee's recommendations for the Fourth Carbon Budget governing emissions reduction through the 2020s. It commits the UK to carbon emissions cuts of 80% (relative to 1990 levels) by 2050 and an intermediary target of a 60% cut (relative to 1990) by 2030.
This is huge!
After the much publicised cabinet split and the concerted efforts of several green campaigning groups. For the government to actually sign on to do this is really good. While my cynical self wonders whether this is just more politicising in order to be seen to be "the greenest government ever" , it is still a very good thing!

Now it remains to be seen if we can do it.

It is to be hoped that green technology companies will be encouraged by this to invest in UK sites, but when you consider the issues, which I have mentioned previously on this blog and when you consider the estimated average £40-50 billion needing to be spent each year between now and 2030 to upgrade and repair our necessary infrastructure in order to adapt to climate change. I feel that there is reason to be concerned.

Cold War 2?

2011-05-13T21:58:00.000+01:00

As Newsnight reports tonight, Wikileaks has revealed leaked diplomatic cables indicating the forthcoming carve up of the Arctics resources and an alarming comment from Professor Peter Wadhams about the likliehood of an ice free North Pole within 3 years.

The Conservative government in Canada under Steven Harper and Putin's Russia have both previously made inflammatory statements indicating their territorial ambitons and desire for a large share of the Arctics resources.
With the the involvment of the US and Denmark (which still rules Greenland) (both member states, along with Canada), one wonders whether NATO is likely to play a role, although Steven Harper has publicly expressed antipathy to this idea.

As the Arctic ice melts and the bonanza of its fossil resources is opened up, it is vitally important that we remember the reality of climate change. We must not get caught up in nationalism and our desire for that dangerous OD hit of cheap energy. The consequences would be far too heavy.

Hands off our land

2011-05-03T09:35:00.000+01:00

As part of the continuing Red Tape Challenge, it has been revealed by The Independent that Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, is considering ending the obligation upon councils to provide plots of land for allotments.
This is Not Good!

In February it was revealed that Saudi Arabia's oil reverves may have been overstated by up to 40% suggesting that Peak Oil may be even closer than we suspected. Considering the embedded energy in our food as well as the need to reduce our environmental footprint and reduce our food miles, this decision by the government seems bizarre.

The assumption that we will all have a garden to "grow our own" ignores all the urban flat dwellers and others who do not.

The potential of allotments as growing spaces, as social regreening and reskilling hubs in the urban wasteland, should not be underestimated. They can help to empower people, enable us to reconnect with the land and to take personal responsibility for addressing some of the urgent issues of our time. Even leaving all that aside, it is difficult to see how the government can justify its plans given the growing demand for allotment space; demands that, in some areas, have resulted in 10-year waiting lists of people keen to rent this land in order to grow their own fresh produce.

The outrage over this policy is growing. To join the campaign, you can visit LandShare.

Not only in America

2011-04-21T13:23:00.000+01:00

Just a short post.
If you thought that climate change denial was only a US phenomenon, think again.

With reference to the UK government's Red Tape Challenge, the Repeal the Climate Change Act Group have launched a petition to repeal the Climate Change Act.

What can I say....

GreenTape?

2011-04-18T21:09:00.000+01:00

The UK government has announced the Red Tape Challenge in an attempt to get feedback on what legislation is working and what is not (matters of national security are exempt) .   The idea is that every few weeks they publish all the regulations affecting one particular sector or industry. We can comment on the legislation and say what (in our opinion) is working and what is not. Based on the feedback they recieve, the government can act to reduce the red tape.

While this could be a very good opportunity to make our opinions known and may be an excellent time to propose measures such as the Robin Hood Tax , or other measures such as a carbon tax or a personal carbon ration, what has alarmed many environmentalists is the inclusion of all 278 UK environmental laws, such as the Climate change Act, The Clean Air Act, The Wildlife and Contryside Act on the list.

Given the recent proposal by this government to sell off English Woodlands and the Conservative's historical commitment to "the national economic interest" , it is no wonder that there is alarm.   "Green fatigue" and outright denial of climate change by some members of society leads me to worry about relying on popular opinion to preserve these laws.

Much of our environmental legislation is vital to protection the health and wellbeing of our land, our mental health and our future.    It is essential that this legislation is not scrapped or weakened to impotence, in favour of short term economic gain.

Dryas reprise?

2011-04-05T22:25:00.000+01:00

The Guardian today has reported on findings to be published by CLAMER (Climate Change and European Marine Ecosystem Research) an EU funded research project.

It appears that there is a huge and growing volume of fresh water in the midst of the Arctic Ocean, meltwater from the icecap and runoff from rivers. At some point, it is expected that this volume (or a large part of it), of freshwater will flow into the Atlantic Ocean. It is unknown what effect this will have.

The big fear is that it may disrupt Thermohaline Circulation. This is what is most commonly thought to be the main cause of the Younger Dryas Event around 12,900 years ago. Which resulted in a rapid return to glacial conditions in the North.

If we are facing a new younger dryas-like event, it could have very severe consequences for northern nation states.

Earth Hour 2011

2011-03-21T10:46:00.000Z

In five days, on Saturday 26th March, the largest voluntary eco-action so far is going to happen. Earth Hour 2011 is set to be huge! The theme is to switch off for the hour ( starting 8.30pm UK) and , importantly, to think about actions beyond the hour.

Think about all the fun things you can do in the dark, from having a candlelit dinner, to going for a walk, to fire breathing... the list is only limited by your imagination.

Savage Cuts

2011-02-23T22:54:00.000Z

The Republicans in the US are wielding the financial axe with gusto and determination.

They plan to deny all funding to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and are also proposing to heavily cut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s budget.  They are targeting the EPA's recent move to regulate greenhouse gases by denying $8.4 million to its greenhouse gas registry, and by preventing it, through spending vetoes, from regulating emissions from power stations and cement factories. The ability of the EPA to enforce regulations covering mountaintop removal coal mining will also be curtailed by targeted funding cuts.

Montana State Representative Joe Read (Republican), demonstrates blatant, if short-sighted, economic self interest in a bill he introduced to the Montana State Legislature (HB 549).

Part of the bill reads....
The legislature finds:
a) global warming is beneficial to the welfare to the and business climate of Montana;
b) reasonable amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere have no verifiable effects on the environment; and
c) global warming is a natural occurence and human activity has not accelerated it.

Denial, denial, denial.

Greenhouse gases do not respect national borders. The gutting of the EPA and the IPCC will likely severely affect their ability to research, regulate and inform.

As the US struggles to economically outcompete China, its emissions will increase adding more to the atmospheric burden. With less regulation and less internationally disseminated research, the rate of this addition is likely to increase.

This will impact on us all.

Oncoming train

2011-02-13T15:11:00.001Z

The Wikileaks US Diplomatic cable reported recently by the Guardian makes for very scary reading. The idea that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter may have overstated its reserves by nearly 40% is actually very worrying, when you consider the consequences.

With the price of crude oil at (on average) nearly $100 US a barrel and the huge input of oil into our industrialised food industry, it is no wonder that the UN FAO is reporting that the FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) rose last month, for the seventh consecutive month and is the highest since 1990.

At home, the Guardian reports that two thirds of British pig farms are facing collapse within two years and that the price of pork is going to rise due to the increased cost of feeding

We must wake up and take drastic action to avoid the worst consequences of being hit by this oncoming train. We are running out of time.

Save UK forests

2011-02-01T16:13:00.000Z

The parliamentary vote on the UK Government proposal to sell off publicly owned forests in the UK is tomorrow. Opposition to the proposal is growing. If you have not already done so, you can email your MP and/or sign the petition here

Our forests are vital as carbon sinks, wildlife habitats, for recreation and education. Let's keep them in public ownership.

Filthy Money

2011-02-01T16:00:00.000Z

The Canadian Energy Minister, Ron Liepert, has been visiting the UK to promote the Alberta Tar Sands as a "leading source of secure energy."

This has to do with the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) being negotiated between the EU and Canada (for the last 2 years), which is due to be finalised in 2012.

Of particular concern is the clause (reported by the Guardian), allowing corporations to sue states for compensation if they feel that their profits have been unfairly compromised. This is outrageous! What is more worrying is that this type of clause is not unusual. For example, Uruguay, folding under pressure from big tobacco or Dow Chemicals' legal action over Quebec's ban of 2, 4-D.

If CETA goes ahead, it may have an impact on the review of the EU Fuel Quality Directive, which is looking at whether to discriminate against carbon intensive fuels. This is certainly the concern of the UK Tar Sands Network, and a not unreasonable concern, looking at history.

Will we as taxpayers be forced in future to pay for compensation to Tar Sands investors?

A related, subsidiary point connected with this issue is the UK Government stake in The Royal Bank of Scotland, which has been investing in the Alberta Tar Sands.

What signal does this send to developing countries facing restrictions in order to be greener?

Forebodings fulfilled

2011-01-07T12:56:00.001Z

The Republican majority in the US Congress has wasted no time. The Guardian newspaper reports that on their first full day, the Republicans have put forward three bills which are aimed at limiting the scope and authority of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), specifically its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The three bills have been put forward by the Representatives of Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia and propose to remove greenhouse gas emissions from governance under the Clean Air Act, reversing a 2007 Supreme Court ruling. The second proposal aims to block funding to any US government agency involved in cap-and-trade. The third proposal is more modest (and possibly therefore more likely to pass) and it proposes a 2 year delay on the EPA management of carbon dioxide and methane emissions.

This is after they dissolved The Select Comittee for Energy Independence and Global Warming and after Rep. Darrel Issa (Republican California), who is now head of the new House Comittee on Oversight and Government Reform, has been asking business interests (many of them contributors to the Republican Party) what Obama Administration regulations they find most irksome.

The "National Economic Interest" triumphs again.

New Year thoughts

2011-01-06T11:36:00.000Z

As we enter 2011, I have some foreboding.

In the US, the Republican majority in Congress leads me to suspect that the climate will be downplayed in favour of the economy (more than it has been previously).
In the UK the coalition government has plans to sell off our forests and the second reading of the Energy Bill was described by one peer as "a dogs breakfast" .

It remains to be seen whether this foreboding is justified, or if it is just the usual post seasonal blues.

Cancun talks in Crisis

2010-12-07T15:01:00.000Z

The UN COP 16 climate talks at Cancun are in crisis.

Japan has refused categorically to sign up to continuation of Kyoto.

The leaked US Cables have revealed that the US strongarmed countries into signing up to the non-binding Copenhagen Accord, which is what they are now pushing for as the basis of future talks (the US never ratified the Kyoto protocol).

Many developing nations see the legal obligations, enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol, on the developed nations with the largest historical responsibility for climate change as absolutely essential.

There is criticism of some developed nations saying that they are not coming up with the money for developing nations to combat climate change fast enough and there is outrage over the EU's proposal that the money should be given as a loan rather than aid.

These are just some of the issues.

Competing national interests and scoping of future conflicts of interest, in my opinion, are also real unspoken issues.

Are we doomed to failure by economic self interest, religious mania and political short termism? Will our political leaders only start negotiating in earnest and genuinely co-operating when it is too late?

Maybe if the Global Commons Institute can actually raise enough awareness of "Contraction and Convergence" as proposed by Aubrey Meyer and politicians can see beyond the national economic interest and the next election. Maybe, if the Transition paradigm takes hold, maybe if we end capitalism, maybe if we use geoengineering.....

We might still be able to dig ourselves out of the worst of this mess if there is enough real will to cooperate and implement drastic strategies.

A billion homeless to come

2010-11-28T14:13:00.000Z

Today the Observer reports that at Cancun, Scientists are to present a report warning that up to a billion people face homlessness due to the impact of climate change in this century.

This is just one striking statistic. But the real impact will be tremendous. How will we cope with the floods of refugees from lost and collapsing nations? How likely is conflict to arise? Where will they live? How will they be fed and where will they get water?

The stated targets of a 2 degree C mean temperature rise are now just a pipe dream.

"Researchers such as Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Met Office, calculate that a 4C rise could occur in less than 50 years," (from the Observer article 28/11/10)

We must face the truth. we are staring into the face of a 4 or more degree warmer world. Huge changes are in motion and the effects will be felt in our lifetimes and the lifetimes of our children.

The clock is ticking.

UNEP Report on likely emissions gap

2010-11-24T13:45:00.000Z

The BBC reported yesterday on a report published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which points out that the pledges made by countries to curb emissions (even if fulfilled) are not enough to prevent a likely global mean temperature rise by around 4 degrees C this century.

The UNEP report mentions the promises made at Copenhagen (some of which deal with targets for 2020) and freely admits that projection beyond 2020 is inexact, however the report seems to conclude that the pledges made do not seem consistent with the stated aim of limiting temperature rise to between 1.5-2.0 degrees C.

Given the conditional nature of the pledges by some nations, depending on their ability to enact the required legislation. and the necessity (sometimes notably lacking) for real political will to act on this issue then I believe the outlook is not all roses.

It is imperative that, in the short window we have, we act personally and also force our politicians to act on this at Cancun.

Canada Kills (CO2) Bill

2010-11-19T14:39:00.000Z

The BBC reported yesterday (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11781175) that the Conservative-led Canadian Senate has defeated a bill calling for a reduction of national greenhouse gas emissions by 25% relative to 1990 levels. The bill had originally been passed by the Canadian House of Commons last year.

This is not altogether a surprise. The Canadian government, led by Stephen Harper is allowing the ecocide of the Alberta tar sands to take place in it's country.

This comes less than 2 weeks before the UN climate change talks at Cancun.
Alongside the results of the US midterms, this does not seem to me to offer much hope of anything truly real happening at these talks.

However...
The recent UN report by the High Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Funding (http://www.un.org/wcm/content/site/climatechange/pages/financeadvisorygroup/pid/13300) offers some hope, reporting that US $100 bn per year can be raised towards addressing the crisis.

Maybe I am just too cynical. Only time will tell....

GOP Lawmaker: God will Deal with Climate Change

2010-11-13T21:16:00.000Z

US Midterms, a concern for us all

2010-11-01T21:38:00.000Z

As a UK citizen, I have no voice in the imminent mid-term elections in the US. However, the outcome of the elections may well have an impact on us all.

As reported by the Guardian yesterday, the Republican Tea Party movement does not seem to accept human causes of climate change and seems set on reducing the power of the Environmental Protection Agency. They also seem very focused on the "National Economic Interest" at the expense of environmental concerns.

As the largest per capita emitter of carbon dioxide, it is vital that the US engage with its international neighbours in order to reduce emissions and do what is possible to meet the oncoming crisis. If a Republican Congressional majority (and maybe a Senatorial majority) is able to significantly hamper attempts by the Obama administration to engage with climate change, then it makes the outlook bleaker for all of us.

The Kyoto protocol ends in 2012 and a succesor treaty needs to be in place. We have a short enough window of oppotunity as it is; we do not need for one of the world's two largest emitters to disengage (again).

Climate Wars?

2010-10-16T19:02:00.000+01:00

The idea of climate wars may seem far fetched.

In an excellent book (Climate Wars, published by Oneworld, in 2010), the investigative journalist Gwynne Dyer offers several quite horrifyng future scenarios involving conflict between nations resulting from the impact of climate change.

Life sometimes imitates art.

Admiral James G Stavidris Supreme allied commander for Europe is reported by the Guardian to have warned in the foreword to a report from the Royal United Services Institute (available to buy here ) that global warming and the race for resources could lead to conflict in the arctic.

This comes in the wake of Edinburgh based Cairn Energy's declaration last month that it has found oil off the coast of Greenland, as reported by the Guardian here
If Peak Oil happens as predicted and given the rising energy demands of industrialised and the rapidly industrialising nations, conflict over energy sources such as oil and gas seems very possible.

This does not help our cause with regard to climate change.

We must reduce our demand for the planet's resources and recognise that if we are called on to line up behind the flag, it is a distraction from the bigger issue.

We must invest in renewable energy.

In the latest spending review by the UK government, the Department of Energy and Climate Change is having to cut £775m to meet the target of 25% spending cuts. See here

With governments around the world facing financial difficulies, maybe we should consider the Robin Hood tax ? This is a proposed tax on financial transactions which would use the revenue so raised to combat poverty and climate change.

We must remember that we will not be able to meet the challenges presented by climate change if we are divided, only by co-operation on many levels.

Copenhagen Reprise?

2010-10-08T16:22:00.000+01:00

On the penultimate day of the climate talks at Tianjin, the news is not good.
See the Guardian article here http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/08/china-us-blamed-talks-stall

The US and China are in conflict.

The US wants to build on the Copenhagen accord by co-ordinating national agreements and instituting an enforcement regime, with developing and developed nations commited to it.

China wants to preserve the two track approach based on the Kyoto protocol. With richer, more developed, nations making the first and heaviest emissions cuts.

While Europe, the least developed nations and some of the big rapidly developing nations like Brazil and South Africa seem ready to compromise, China and the US do not seem to be willing to do so.

Huang Huikang, China's special representative for climate negotiations is reported to have said
"I want to emphasise on our side no compromise on the two track process and no compromise on the interests of developing countries."

This would seem to reduce the likliehood of anything concrete coming out of the upcoming talks in Cancun and it raises the question of what will happen after 2012 when the Kyoto protocol lapses, if there is no treaty in place?

As Akira Yamada, Japan's negotiator, pointed out
"The Kyoto protocol parties emit only 28% of global emissions now and will be less and less in the future. It cannot be effective unless the world's first and second biggest emitter are involved,"

It seems to be the National Economic Interest again, with China and the US looking to economic rivalry in the future.

We do not have time for this!

Face to Face

2010-10-07T09:27:00.003+01:00

WWF in association with the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition is calling for a mass lobby of MPs on 5th and 6th November, see http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/campaigning/climate_change_campaigning/big_climate_connection_campaign/

The idea is that we meet our local MPs face to face and ask them to take action on climate change.

I think this is a great idea. So often, it seems our politicians do not really see us. And we do not see them. Maybe if they are face to face with real people who are asking them what they will do to take action, they will do something.

As I have said frequently on this blog, I am cynical.
However cynicism is not an excuse for apathy.

Tianjin talks

2010-10-04T10:15:00.000+01:00

Delegates have gathered at Tainjin in China, for the latest round of talks in the run up to November's UN COP16 talks which will be held in Cancun, Mexico http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11448632 see here http://unfccc.int/2860.php or a live webcast from the floor here
http://unfccc2.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/101004_AWG/templ/live.php?id_kongresssession=3082

The talks are meant to last until Saturday.

The meeting in Tianjin in China is to negotiate a draft treaty to be debated at Cancun, next month.

With the shadow of the failure at Copenhagen looming over them, one hopes that our politicans will be able to step up and get real, however I am not confident and Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has already warned
"Let me be clear - there is no magic bullet, no one climate agreement that will solve everything right now,"

So what can we expect? more competing national interests and next month a mediocre deal, which even if it is binding, will not go far enough or actually be enforced?

I hope not but my cynical self wonders.

True colours update

2010-10-01T21:08:00.000+01:00

Just a quick update. The UK government has (unsurprisingly) granted a licence to Chevron to drill off Shetland. Greenpeace are arguing that to grant the licence without a comprehensive safety review (after Deepwater Horizon) is irresponsible and may be a breach of EU and UK law.

Whatever the outcome, the truth is out about how green our government really is.

True Colours

2010-09-29T09:53:00.000+01:00

It appears as if our "greenest government ever" is likely to approve the first deep water oil wells since BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster. Despite Greenpeace's brave attempts to halt it, the Chevron chartered ship, the Stena Carron is off Shetland (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/sep/27/government-conflict-greenpeace-shetlands-drilling) where it is expected to drill.

The waters around Shetland are home to many,many seabirds, seals and orcas to name but a few inhabitants and the thought of another Deepwater Horizon here is very unpleasant.

The UK government also appears to have scuppered a motion put forward by Germany at a meeting of signatories of the Convention of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic, in Bergen, Norway. The proposal was for international scrutiny of oil drilling operations, after the Deepwater Horizon disaster (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/23/government-soften-scrutiny-offshore-oil-drilling).

I fail to see how this can possibly be in line with the necessity (given the scale of the challenge) to reduce our emissions within the next five to ten years

It seems that it is just business as usual.

Books and Seeds

2010-09-19T11:28:00.000+01:00

I have recently been doing a bit of reading.

Requiem for a Species by Clive Hamilton offers a very honest look at the reality facing us and questions why we do not face up to it. The book seems to me to draw on the work of Joanna Macy and others in accepting despair and utilising it as a way of inspiring action, it is a timely reminder of the scale of the oncoming crisis and the necessity for action.

In attempting to reduce my own footprint, I have recently found the following three books especially good.

How Bad are Bananas by Mike Berners-Lee gives you the carbon footprints of many common items and actions, from sending a text (0.014g CO2e) to buying a pint of milk (723g CO2e).

In The Economical Environmentalist, Prashant Vaze (a very experienced environmental economist) documents his attempt to transition to a low carbon lifestyle and what it cost. The book has lots of useful data and resources.

The Garden Cottage Diaries by Fiona J. Houston documents her experience living a year as if in the 1790s. It is well researched and full of information on useful and interesting skills such as making rush-lights and has information on seasonal veg and traditional recipes. In considering the fragility of our modern lifestyle, and the transition to lower impact communities, it is valuable to get an idea of alternative ways and to see what traditional skills and methods can be used.

One other resource I have found very useful, is the seed company More Veg www.moreveg.co.uk .
They do small quantity veg and fruit seed packets (including organic and heritage varieties). Their website has an excellent seasonal veg planner and their customer service is good.

I am sharing these in the hope that they may be useful to others. If anyone else has found any other resources particularly useful, please share them in the comments.

Coming soon to a place near you? 10:10:10

2010-09-10T10:30:00.049+01:00

1 Month from now on the 10th of October, people all around the globe will be taking part in a day of action. The 10:10 campaign, 350.org, Regurgence and many, many other organisations have signed up.

The idea of this day is a "get out and do something to reduce your carbon" day.

It is at the local level and by making a practical difference that we can connect to others and hopefully make a difference within our communities and it is through the internet and by being part of the global network that we can hopefully make a difference within the wider international community.

While accepting our own personal responsibility and reducing our lifestyle footprint is necessary and a very good thing. We must not allow governments and big business to elude their responsibility and shift the guilt onto us with "you are the ones buying it" or "If enough people would vote for it we would enact it." truisms.
They too have a responsibility, which currently they are failing to fulfil. We must make them do so!

If emissions have to peak by 2020 and then reduce drastically for us to have any hope of avoiding some of the worst effects of climate change then we do not have long.

All that said, I am reminded of the quote from Emma Goldmann, who is reported to have said "I don't want your revolution unless I can dance to it."

So let's get out and have some fun!

Earth Overshoot Day 2010

2010-08-28T10:41:00.000+01:00

According to the UK based think-tank The New Economics Foundation and the California based Global Footprint Network, we blew our global resource budget for this year on August 21st(http://www.neweconomics.org/press-releases/world-enters-ecological-debt-on-saturday-21-august-2010 ).

This is month earlier than last year
(I blogged about it here http://environmentchaos.blogspot.com/2009/09/earth-overshoot-day-2009.html) reflecting the beginning of the recovery from the recent economic crisis and also the increased economic power of upcoming nations which are adopting the northern consumer based lifestyle.

So we are now living on ecological credit....

Just waiting for the crash.

A small foretaste?

2010-08-10T21:04:00.000+01:00

We are having some dark days at the moment. The devestating floods in Pakistan,the Russian forest fires, and now the breakaway of a 260 sq km iceberg from the Petermann Glacier on Greenland (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/07/biggest-ice-island-greenland).

The breakaway of the huge iceberg is unusual and apparently the largest such event since 1962. It seems uncertain whether the event was directly caused by climate change or not.

But with report last year
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/11/greenland-channels-ice-loss) that the greenland ice sheet was riddled with channels which might speed up the degradation of the ice sheet, it seems ominous.
It raises concerns about sea level rise and also the possibility of a Younger Dryas like cold snap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas).

I suppose the really scary thing is that these are all real possibilities and may well be a foretaste of what is to come. As the hypocrisy, disagreement and finger pointing happens at Bonn, it is worth all of us remembering this.

Getting warm

2010-07-30T17:17:00.000+01:00

According to the Guardian newspaper (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/28/global-temperatures-2010-record), scientists from the Met Office and the US National Climactic Data Centre (USNCDC), have released data showing what they claim is "the best evidence yet" of a long-term rise in global temperatures.
The report was the first to collate 11 different indicators from air temperature to melting ice and sea-surface temperature. Data for each indicator was based on between three an seven data sets, dating back between 1850 and 1970.

It is to be hoped that this will help to dispel the growing apathy and loss of faith in the the scientific evidence of global climate change, exploited greedily by the climate sceptics in the wake of the UEA emails fiasco.
I am however,as always, a little cynical.

Margin of Error

2010-06-13T16:54:00.000+01:00

The former UK government chief scientist Sir David King recently announced that he believes that, as global demand for oil outstrips supply (peak oil!), oil companies will be forced to drill in unconventional places (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10278831.stm.)
We are already seeing the beginnings of this with the exploitation of the Alberta Tar Sands, which would not previously have been considered financially viable.

An important factor to consider is the Net energy: the Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI), i.e. the energy delivered by an energy-obtaining activity compared to the energy required to get it. According to the Ecologist magazine, cited in The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins (2008 edition), the EROEI ratio for tar sands is less than 2:1 (compared with 35:1 for offshore wind generation and 87:1 for tidal range). This is not really viable, especially when one considers the environmental impact of extraction from such places.

Alarmingly, Sir David King also said in his statement that
detailed, objective analyses showed that conventional oil reserves were actually 30% lower than generally accepted. and
"As early as 2015, oil production capacity is going to begin to be challenged in terms of meeting rising demand, particularly from continuing growth of the economies of China and India."
This is HUGE! Peak Oil in 2015?

Previously on this blog I have commented on reports that the 2009 World Energy Outlook, published by the International Energy Authority, had been distorted due to fears for the US market (see here http://environmentchaos.blogspot.com/2009/11/hard-choices.html ). If Sir David is right, we have no time.

The Hirsch report for the US government in 2005 stated the requirement for a 20 year lead-in to prepare for peak oil and avoid chaos. 2015 is only five years away. We must start our energy descent now, we must start building local resilience, planning for the twin impacts of peak oil and climate change, now. The alternatives are not at all pleasant!

Walking the walk?

2010-06-11T15:22:00.000+01:00

I am pleasantly surprised at David Cameron's announcement committing the UK government to cutting its carbon emissions by 10% in the next 12 months, in line with the 10:10 campaign. His decision to publish the energy use of government headquarters, including the cabinet ministers, is very positive. Now we have a chance to see if they will "walk the walk".

The inclusion of the Energy Bill in the Queen's Speech, with its promise of an emissions performance standard (if it is set at the right level), and the steps towards development of a "smart grid" are all VERY good.
The pressing need to wean ourselves off oil continues to be vividly illustrated by the BP-financed disaster, Deepwater Horizon. But we MUST realise that our consumer-led and massively resource-heavy lifestyle cannot continue.

It is not a question of just "switching over" to electric cars and wind turbines. The recent report released by the Royal Academy of Engineering (www.raeng.org.uk) says that switching all the 30 million cars in the country to electric would drain the National Grid of around one fifth of its capacity and increase current electricity demand by 16%. With the 70GW grid running at nearly full capacity, it would require building the equivalent of 6 large nuclear power stations or 2000 wind turbines to meet demand. With most electricity production in the UK still being generated using gas and coal then how much difference will be made?

Of course, this is looking at it a little bleakly, if the "smart grid" becomes fact and small-scale generators are able to feed in power to the grid, then extra demand on the grid may be met, at least in part.
This is an area where the potential for genuine community-owned decentralised power generation, with the added value of building local resilience, has real possibility.

I suppose the question is whether we can all "walk the walk" and reduce our impact enough to survive.

Pre-election thoughts

2010-05-05T17:09:00.000+01:00

One question that has been passing through my head for a couple of days is this

What is the carbon footprint of the campaign trail?

With the leaders of the three main political parties racing up and down the country and all the party minions on their local beats, in their planes, tourbuses and cars I wonder what this costs us in environmental terms?

With each party proclaiming their green credentials and seeking to win the green vote, it would be interesting to see which party has actually taken steps to reduce it's own footprint, or is genuinely looking for alternative ways of doing things. I imagine that the difference (if any) between them is very slight.

A google map showing where the party leaders visited is available here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2010/apr/06/election-2010-leaders-brown-cameron-clegg), we must draw our own inferences.

Fragile things

2010-04-23T21:45:00.000+01:00

While reading online news about the recent volcanic eruption under the Eyjafjallajoekull glacier in Iceland, I found this article
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/16/flight-ban-shortages-uk-supermarkets). The critical sentence which really stood out for me was this

The UK imports about 90% of its fruit and 60% of its vegetables.

This is actually quite shocking! Our food supply is that vulnerable to the impacts of peak oil and climate change. That we depend so much on imports to feed ourselves, and the environmental cost of all the food miles.

Connected to this issue of food security, a report by Engineering the Future Alliance, reported here by the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8628832.stm, examined the unsustainable importation of "embedded water" (this is the water used to produce the product, for example about 1,500 litres of water to produce 1kg of sugar) into the UK. Given our general high level of consumption, this has a huge effect on water security in developing nations. An interactive map, showing predicted areas of water stress as global population and temperatures rise is available here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7821082.stm.

Already many nations are using their groundwater at an unsustainable rate, often for agriculture, often growing crops for export.

It is short-sighted to continue to drain their water and expect the produce to continue to appear on our supermarket shelves, As these nations come under the predicted stresses, will they be willing or even able to supply the food we depend on?

This situation highlights how unsustainable and how dependent on imports our food supply is and its vulnerability, As the oncoming crisis unfolds, the impact on all our lives will be huge.

Copenhagen's legacy of mistrust

2010-04-11T10:10:00.000+01:00

There has been some discord at the 3 day UN climate talks at Bonn. Representatives of the poorer nations, such as Claudia Salerno, chief of Venezuela's delegation, and Tosi Mpanu Mpanu of the Democratic Republic of Congo speaking for the Africa Group, have been openly critical of the Copenhagen Accord. Tosi Mpanu Mpanu referred to the "draft Danish text" in his statement saying:

"The Africa Group believes that if we are to avoid a repetition of Copenhagen and repair this damaged process, then we must learn from Copenhagen."

And one of the lessons to learn, he continued, was that breaking away from formal inclusive negotiations and instead focusing on "a secret text put together by a selected few fundamentally broke the trust that is necessary for any partnership that aspires to be successful and enduring".
(source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8611811.stm)

Meanwhile the US has supported the accord, and in its written statement to the UN climate convention (UNFCCC) states, said that

"…it will be difficult to find consensus around alternative proposals that depart from the accord understandings." (source: BBC)

This seems to have been taken (perhaps rightly) as a way of saying that the US will not go further than the Accord. The problem is that the Accord is unlikely to achieve the necessary reductions in emissions in time to prevent a catastrophic rise in global mean temperature. It does not inspire trust in the minds of those from poorer nations, which are likely to be the first to be hit hard by the effects of climate change.

A legacy of mistrust has been engendered over the years by richer nations concerned for their economic position, culminating at Copenhagen with the production of the "draft Danish text." Under these circumstances, it is difficult to see how genuine agreement can be reached in time.

According to the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/09/us-climate-aid) the US is denying climate change assistance aid to nations opposing the Copenhagen Accord. The Washington Post (http://views.washingtonpost.com/climate-change/post-carbon/2010/04/bolivia_ecuador_denied_climate_funds.html) reports that the US is denying aid to Ecuador and Bolivia for this reason.

This practice is so familiar but still so unacceptable and only serves to stoke growing mistrust and anger.

Economy of failure

2010-03-24T13:42:00.001Z

The French government has decided to drop plans for a domestic carbon tax. In a telling statement, the Prime Minister, Francois Fillon told parliament: “We have to amplify measures that help reinforce the competitiveness of our economy.

“In that spirit, I would like to indicate that the decisions we are going to take regarding sustainable development have to be better coordinated with all European countries, so as not to widen our gap in competitiveness with our neighbour Germany." (source http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8583898.stm )

This illustrates one of the huge failures in our market-driven paradigm. As nation states and corporations are in economic competition with one another, it is unlikely that they will act in a manner that might jeopardise their ability to compete in the international economy in the short term, even if that action is vital and will be beneficial in the mid-to-long term.

It is true that France has a lower per capita emission score (6.2 tonnes per year as opposed to the UK's 9.4 tonnes according to the World Bank 2005 data) (a useful list of countries emission scores here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions), but nevertheless it illustrates the point.

As long as we place economic competitiveness first, we will fail to act radically enough to avert the oncoming crisis.

Spring thoughts

2010-03-15T17:36:00.000Z

It is that time of year again. The time of year when we look ahead and sow the seeds for our future harvest.

I have spoken before on this blog about the importance of regaining control of our food supply from the multinationals and about the surprising fragility of our food supply in the UK.

In terms of environmental impact growing some, at least, of our own food is probably one of the most significant actions we ordinary bods can take to reduce our environmental footprint.

While working towards doing just that, I have been inspired recently by two books. One Magic Square by Lolo Houbein details how to organically grow a significant portion of your food, starting with just a 1 metre square plot. As a childhood survivor of the Dutch "Hunger Winter" of 1944-45, the author appreciates the necessity, as few of us now living in the West do, of food security. The book contains a great deal of useful information on companion plants and seed saving, and features a variety of seasonal plot designs.

Living where I do, contending with lowered soil fertility, a shorter growing season and salt laden winds, container growing is very much an essential tool. In The Edible Container Garden, Michael Guerra applies the principles of permaculture to tiny spaces, specifically focusing on containers and raised beds. The book is very accessible, giving minimum container depths and companion plants for different crops. A focus on design and situation, such as roof gardens, focus the book for the urban dweller with limited growing space.

I have found these two books particularly useful for their focus on growing in a limited space. As most of us live in an urban situation, this is a significant factor. For the inexperienced or the short of time, it becomes possible to visualise yourself managing a 1 metre square plot or a few window boxes and containers rather than a bigger garden, making food growing an altogether less daunting prospect.

Intimately connected to our food security is the idea of seed saving. It is well worth saving seeds from what we grow, and perhaps starting a community seed exchange (http://www.ehow.com/how_5937020_start-seed-exchange.html) or a community seed bank (http://www.ehow.com/how_2270999_start-community-seed-bank.html).

I believe that, in the face of peak oil and increasing food prices, having the skills to grow our own food, and knowing how to save seed from our harvest for planting the following year, will only become more essential.

Profit and Loss

2010-02-28T18:55:00.001Z

Recently, the House of Commons voted against the proposed amendment to the Energy Bill (NC6) which would have set Emissions Performance Standards (EPS) (described as legislative CO2 emissions caps) on power stations.

In a recent campaign, several environmental groups proposed the amendment, and asked constituents to email or write to their MPs to ask them to vote in favour of it. In response the Energy Minister, Joan Ruddock, wrote to all Labour MPs (the Lib-dems and Conservatives supported the amendment) asking them to vote against it (a link to a PDF of her letter is here http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2010/02/24/leaked-government-response-to-our-climate-campaign/).

I notice that the first objection in her letter is that the introduction of EPS now would pose a threat to investment (a concern originally voiced by the TUC and the CBI). Boldface emphasis states that this could mean "no investment in new coal at all" and asserts that, as EPS would apply to gas also, it would threaten investment there too.

The vote was 252 against to 244 in favour. Very close.

You should be able to find out how your MP voted here (http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2010/02/25/energy-bill-how-did-your-mp-vote/)

Previously on this blog, I have voiced my concerns about Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and the government's regulation of the coal in the UK, along with the actual ecological destruction caused by extraction of the coal and disposal of the waste. These concerns have been voiced more eloquently by many NGOs such as FoE and Greenpeace.

To my mind, the argument of threat to investment (i.e., companies won't put money into it if it isn't profitable) highlights one of the big weaknesses of capitalism and the reason why we will not be able to buy our way out of the current environmental crisis. Given the limited window of opportunity we have before global tipping points are reached (if they have not already been passed) waiting until something shows a profit may not be an option.

It also leads me to question the priorities of business and governments (the UK government's controlling share in RBS and it's failure to act in the face of RBS's involvement in oil extraction from the Alberta tar sands illustrates the point in question, see the link here http://peopleandplanet.org/ditchdirtydevelopment/tarsands).

Some of these priorities are also clearly illustrated in an as yet unpublished report for the UN (reported by the Guardian here http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms-environmental-damage) estimating that paying for the actual environmental cost of their activities would cost the worlds largest 3000 companies about a third of their profit every year. They do not pay for it, of course, or anything like a reasonable contribution towards it.

It seems bizarre that we teach children to tidy up after themselves, but do not hold these companies accountable for clearing up their environmental messes.

In short, the rich get richer and the planet and the poor pay the price.

Empty Vessels

2010-02-08T10:05:00.000Z

The January 31st deadline for the Copenhagen Accord has passed with some announcements by politicians, declaring the pledges to cut emissions of their respective states as follows:-
EU 20% against 1990 levels
US 17% of 2005 levels (dependent on domestic legislation).
UK 40% against 1990 levels and 80% by 2050
India 20-25% emissions reduction by 2020
and China has pledged to de-carbonise it's economy by 40-45% relative to 2005 levels.

Unfortunately, these targets do not go nearly far enough, nor are there any mid-term targets; they are not legally binding (with the exception of the UK's targets under the Climate Change Act); they are not easily enforcible and, as several recent reports have highlighted, they may not actually be achievable.

In an attempt to show the collective failure at Copenhagen as some sort of "success" to domestic audiences, our politicians may be misguiding us (not necessarily deliberately).
The current debate centres around prevention of a 2 degree centigrade rise in global mean temperature, but while the error by the IPPC in their 2007 report regarding the demise of the Himalayan glaciers is seized upon by the sceptics, I believe that we are on course for a much greater challenge and that without full commitment and awareness at an individual and societal level we will fail to meet that challenge.

It is time to own up to our failures and admit the reality and scale of the challenge facing us. All available resources must be focused on adapting to this and there must be truth and openness with regard both to the margin of scientific error and to the realistic prospects (however grim) facing us.

Only then will we be able to do what is needed, both as individuals and collectively as the human race.

Mutual Aid and the myth of self-sufficiency

2010-01-20T10:22:00.001Z

Do you know the story?

Getting tired of the rat-race and/or realising the futility of it all, you pay to have an eco-house built, or put a solar water heating system on your roof, install a ground source heat pump and maybe a small turbine or a few solar panels. You cook on a nice wood-burning stove, use low-energy light bulbs and have a compost loo. If you drive, you drive a Prius. You keep a few chickens and are able to grow quite a bit of your own fruit and veg on your land; you preserve what you don’t eat straight away. What you can't produce you buy in from ethical sources. Your coffee is fairtrade, organically grown, your clothes are eco-labelled, you are actually a really nice guy and you are "green".

These are all good things to do, but there are problems with this story.

This story is, to some extent, just a re-packaged edition of the consumerist "good-life" that has led us here.

Sadly, I am still, to some degree, captivated by this myth, I homebrew and make my own wild-yeast bread and veggie soap, I forage for some food and hedgerow medicine and am trying to grow at least some of my own food. I do not drive, the flours I buy are organic, often traditional and my coffee is organically grown by a co-operative in Brazil.

But this myth ignores one of the fundamental injustices of our capitalist paradigm.

Climate change will hit the poor first and hardest.

As a tenant in a council or housing association property living on an estate (let alone if you happen to be renting privately or living on the street), it would be difficult to install a reed-bed water treatment system or a compost loo. Installing a heat-pump and benefitting from the feed-in tariff would also be difficult for a non-homeowner. Growing space and conditions may be limited. Organic produce costs a little bit more at Tesco and one's choice of electricity supplier is dictated by one's pocket.

There are other ways.

Skillsharing, a no-money mutual aid system, the freeeconomy (www.justfotheloveofit.org or freecycle).

Freeganism ie dumpsterdiving and diverting some of the tonnes of food that we waste each day from landfill.

Primitive Living, relearning some of the skills that enabled our ancestors to live within the landscape, making your own glue, cordage, nets, stone tools etc, www.paleoplanet.net is a good place to start.

Scavenging/foraging in your local area.

Local Transition groups, after all, it's all about building local resilience.

I think that what I am trying to say is that the idea of self-sufficiency (well-heeled hippies with a 5 acre smallholding) is not the only way or even the best way. I think it is impossible (or almost) in this society, particularly for the not-so-well-off, to be entirely self sufficient and the idea can lead to isolation, and a kind of elitism.

What is essential is to build community sufficiency and to free ourselves from the myth and the divisiveness capitalism has created. In the face of the oncoming crisis, I think that we will stand or fall on the skills and spirit of our community.

As Peter Kropotkin pointed out in his classic text Mutual Aid: a factor of evolution, just over a hundred years ago, the societies which prosper best are co-operative rather than competitive.

New Year thoughts

2010-01-10T08:26:00.000Z

Having had a personally very happy Yuletide, now returning to the everyday reality of living, I find myself reflecting on things.

To my mind, the disappointment of Copenhagen has highlighted the disconnection between rhetoric and reality. It has also highlighted the flaws in our paradigm with regard to nations competing economically against each other as well as the way that we have resigned responsibility as individuals to politicians and big business.

While some of the debate at Copenhagen centred around the need for agreement to prevent a 1.5 degrees C rise or a 2 degrees C rise in global mean temperature, Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, in an article in The Environmentalist magazine (7 December 2009: Issue 89) is quoted as saying:
"Moreover it is argued that the mainstream climate change agenda is far removed from the rates of mitigation necessary to stabilise at 550ppmv CO2e (3 degrees C)and even an optimistic interpretation suggests stabilisation much below 650ppmv CO2e (4 degrees C) is improbable."
When you consider that he is one of the UK's leading experts on the subject, this is stark!

Also, the findings of the Aldersgate Group (a coalition of NGOs, businesses, think-tanks and individuals) in their report "Mind the Gap, skills for the transition to a low carbon economy" (http://www.aldersgategroup.org.uk/reports) are thought provoking. They report that the UK Government's skills strategy is inadequate to meet the needs for a rapid transition to a low carbon economy. They also point out the example that two of the government’s recent high profile announcements, over carbon capture and storage (CCS) and nuclear power, have come at a time when roughly 30% of British Energy's workforce is due for retirement within 10 years, and when the UK has had no investment in coal-fired power for a generation, creating a considerable skills gap.

This skills gap is happening at a time when demand for engineers for major infrastructure projects (such as offshore wind power generation, flood defences, high speed rail services etc) is increasing, when many nations are attempting to de-carbonise at once, and therefore skilled workers may go elsewhere. In the near future this may be a serious issue.

On the issue of resigning our personal responsibility to businesses and politicians, I have commented here often. However, while we criticise governments for not taking strong action on climate change, it is worth contemplating the environmental cost of our recently passed annual consumption binge.

Oathbreakers

2009-12-23T16:48:00.001Z

After promising at Bali two years ago to make a real deal, world leaders have failed to keep their promises.

Due to many factors including domestic US politics, rival "national economic interests" and sheer frustration and rage, what we now have is a deal that seems to my cynical eyes to be worth nearly nothing, certainly not the emissions generated in it's making.

After all the hype and soundbytes, what do we have?
We have a weak, non-binding deal, which fails to set effective targets or a deadline, in effect, all we have is a statement of good intentions,along with much distrust and dissapointment.

Two positives to emerge from this event have been the motivation and engagement of ordinary people with the issue of climate change and awareness of the need for real and rapid change. This engagement and feeling of urgency has been communicated eloquently and forcefully to our politicians and we may hope that they will act accordingly

As I have repeatedly said on this blog, and as has been conclusively demonstrated at Copenhagen, we cannot rely on others, we must act for ourselves.

Squabbling for dominance

2009-12-12T08:39:00.000Z

I am not surprised, but I am saddened.

The Danish text, a draft agreement drawn up at Copenhagen by the "circle of commitment" which, reportedly, includes the UK, has severely damaged trust between the rich and poorer nations. The text was leaked to The Guardian newspaper and published on it's website

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2009/dec/08/copenhagen-climate-summit-text-danish-wordle

also reported on by the Guardian here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/09/copenhagen-summit-danish-text-leak
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/copenhagen-climate-summit-disarray-danish-text

and the BBC here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8402502.stm

The impact of this text and it's implications are huge. It is true that it was only a draft document, but it was drawn up outside the offical UN process and the intent, which it shows is actually very unpleasant.

To "lock in inequality" by allowing developed nations to emit more, while more severely restricting emissions from developing nations removes the fundamental ideal of equality from the negotiations and allows the already industrialised nations which bear the historic resposnsibility for a large proportion of atmospheric CO2 to benefit at the expense of those without that historic responsibility.

To also envisage placing financial control of the climate fund in the hands of the World Bank (removing the UN from centrality) and make it's distribution of money to developing nations dependent on their actions can also be viewed with understandable caution and trepidation by some, although it appears now that the proposed board to manage the fund would be accountable to the UN.

When taken with some of the criticisms of the cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme, which seems to be a central point of the negotiations, such as the profits to be made from this scheme by companies based in the developed nations, it does not paint an enchanting picture.

The intent of some to profit as climate change bites is actually quite shocking to me. Is this a symptom of our culture of consumption?

Meanwhile, the split within the ranks of the G77+China over the proposal by Tuvalu which posits emissions caps on developing nations as well as on developed nations (which are enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol), reported here by the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/09/copenhagen-tuvalu-protocol-split)
does not bode well.

I am saddened that in the face of the oncoming crisis, we have not all risen to be the best of ourselves and I am concerned that this squabbling for dominance will fritter away what limited time we have.

Calling Ed, missing The Wave and a light in the dark

2009-12-06T20:44:00.002Z

Yesterday saw the largest climate change protest in the UK. Tens of thousands of people turned out in London, Glasgow and Belfast to demand a fair and binding deal at Copenhagen (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8396696.stm).

I did not attend any of these actions, living where I do it would take me 2 inter-island ferries and an overnight ferry just to reach the UK mainland,or alternatively a short haul flight. Generating that amount of carbon to attend a demonstration calling for the rapid and drastic slashing of emissions seemed, to me, more than slightly ironic.

However, I was able to take part in the mass conference call organised by 38 Degrees (www.38degrees.org.uk) with Ed Milliband and despite my cynicism (well documented on this blog) I was inspired. The questions were well thought out, intelligent and to the point. Ed Milliband seemed genuinely involved with the conversation and actually personally committed to action.

I know that he is a politician but....

It is hugely heartening to see the massive upswell in grassroots support for action on Climate Change and to see our politicians taking notice.
In the last week US President Barack Obama has comitted to include the last day of the Copenhagen conference in his attendance and Manmohan Singh, Indian Prime Minister, has also announced plans to attend, and India has pledged a 20-25% reduction in emissions by 2020.

While I still have doubts,and think that this is not enough, I hope that this may be the first step we need.

On December the 11th People around the globe will be holding candlelit vigils to call for fair and meaningful action at Copenhagen, to find out if there is one near you or to start one go to www.350.org, lets keep the light focused on the need for a binding, fair and strong treaty to come out of Copenhagen.

Too little? Too late?....

2009-11-26T18:33:00.004Z

US President Barack Obama and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jibao will be attending the conference at Copenhagen. They will both be bringing a firm commitment to cut their nations' emissions to the table. This is good. This is very good.

But...
Being the cynical so and so that I am I wonder what this really means...

The US commitment of a 17% cut in emissions relative to 2005 levels by 2020 (reported by the Guardian here http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/25/barack-obama-copenhagen) equates to only a 6% cut relative to 1990 levels (the reference level for Kyoto), compared to the EU pledge to cut emissions by 20% relative to 1990 levels and 30% if there is a global deal.

China has said that it will reduce the energy intensity of its economy by 40-45% relative to 2005 levels by 2020 (reported by the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8380106.stm and by the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/26/china-targets-cut-carbon-footprint). Carbon intensity is a measure of the amount of CO2 produced per unit of GDP.

Several reports indicate that these commitments do not go nearly far enough.
1) The recent report from the Global Carbon Project which reported that emissions had risen 29% in the period 2000-8 (referred to in my recent post, Burning Out)
2) The IPCC third report (2007), described the necessity for our emissions to start declining by 2015
3) Recent peer-reviewed scientific literature review by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) (pdf here: http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/) suggested that predictions from the upper end of the 2007 IPCC report were becoming ever more likely.

There are questions that we should be asking.

These commitments made are meant to look like a good beginning, but might they simply be a photo opportunity for the politicians? Even if these pledges are set down in a treaty or other legal document/vehicle, will we be able to do it?

The recent Institute of Mechanical Engineers (Imeche) report, referred to in my post Hard Choices, indicates that the UK will be unable to meet the targets of the Climate Change Act. Is there any more certainty that other nations will be able to meet the targets of any treaty made at Copenhagen?

Will any targets set be legally enforcible, and what mechanisms will there be to enforce them?

From where I am sitting, it looks like too little, too late. I hope that I am wrong and that this is the start of the massive collective effort at all levels, by all, that we so badly need.

Only time will tell.

Burning out

2009-11-24T09:43:00.002Z

A report published in the magazine Science Daily on November 17th reports on the findings by the Global Carbon Project (http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/index.htm) saying, that global CO2 emissions are up by 29% in the period 2000-2008(41% 1990-2008) and that despite the global recession, emissions increased by 2% in 2007-2008, suggesting that we are on course for a 6 degree celsius rise in the mean global temperature (read the article in Science Daily here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091117133504.htm).

The article also reports that the researchers found that coal is now the dominant source of emissions, after 40 years of oil dominance, and that increased economic growth in some developing nations has meant growth in their emissions, a quarter of their emissions being produced by manufacturing items for trade with developed nations.

With the efficiency of planetary carbon sinks declining (also found in the report), this paints a bleak picture.

We do not have time to pussyfoot around, we must act radically and we must act now.

Hard choices

2009-11-24T09:40:00.002Z

The Guardian newspaper reported recently (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency) that a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency (IEA) is claiming that the IEA is deliberately underplaying the rate of decline from existing oil fields due to US pressure and fears that the market would go into chaos.

This is huge! the IEA Energy Outlook is used by governments around the world (including the UK government) as a tool for guiding energy and climate change policies.

The IEA Energy Outlook 2009 was released on Nov 10 and can be found here(http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/) The press release and the Climate Change Excerpt do not make pleasant reading.

The prediction that the current level of oil output can be raised from it's current 83m barrels a day to 105m barrels a day seems questionable and some of the assumptions for future scenarios including the "greener" 450 scenario, which assumes fossil fuel demand peaking by 2020 and zero carbon sources accounting for a third of global primary sources of energy, along with all the investment needed, seem unlikely to my cynical eyes, and the report by the Peak Oil Group(http://peakoiltaskforce.net/),(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/29/fossil-fuels-oil) an industry taskforce on peak oil and energy security, which reportedly states that the UK could be hit by a major energy crisis within 5 years or even as early as 2011 is frankly terrifying.

The recent report by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (Imeche) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8358077.stm)illustrates some of the challenges facing us. The report says that the government's targets are unacheivable, that there just is not enough time or infrastructure (eg wind turbines or other forms of generating power) capacity to meet the targets set out in the Climate Change Act (80% cut in emissions relative to 1990 levels by 2050 with an interim target 0f a 34% reduction by 2020)

The report points out that the UK will be competing for the resources to build the necessary infrastructure in a global market, where many nations are trying to de-carbonize (leading to competition and price rises and increased profits for the shareholders no doubt) and also calls for massive investment in green infrastructure/projects, including geoengineering such as artificial trees.

It is difficult to see where this money will come from. With our millitary costs and commitments to superficial projects such as the London Olympics as well as the economic crisis and the needs of the NHS, not forgetting our contributions to the international climate change fund when/if it happens. (Of course this is looking at things from a very nationalistic viewpoint,much of the competition grows directly out of the construct of statehood.)

We have a very limited time to make some very hard decisions and investments that will be absolutely critical in the coming decades and we must choose wisely.

Shock and anger

2009-11-08T08:41:00.031Z

I am writing because of an issue that I find unacceptable and which, unfortunately, I have encountered in person more than once recently. I am speaking of racism.

What, you might ask, is this doing on an environmental blog? Well, the issue arose during a discussion about reducing the global population and it was the same point of view that Dave Foreman put forward in his 1986 interview for Simple Living magazine, and later apologised for (everyone is entitled to make mistakes right?). The suggestion was that we should ‘stop all those people having babies in the developing world’ and even that we should ‘let nature take its course’ during and after natural disasters in developing nations. I was shocked, but sadly not completely surprised.

Maybe it is my age. I am in my forties and so I am sometimes (and in these cases I was) talking to people in their fifties and sixties whose upbringing was different. Maybe people younger than I rarely encounter this?

This opinion completely ignores the fundamental social causes of environmental degradation and destruction in some developing nations. The fact of the matter is that rich industrialised nations and multinational corporations have a long history of exploitation. It also completely exonerates the western consumer from responsibility by refusing to address the massive global inequality in allocation of resources. In every conceivable way, this view is morally indefensible!

Global overpopulation is an issue that desperately needs addressing, but when a medium sized pet dog in a developed nation uses more resources per year than a citizen of Ethiopia or Vietnam
(see New Scientist article here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427311.600-how-green-is-your-pet.html?full=true), then something is very wrong.

We must look beyond our personal and national ‘interest’ and recognise our common humanity. We in the industrialised nations cannot deny our responsibility for the mess that we are in both currently and historically. We must all act together and act fairly if we are going to survive.

Truth will out

2009-11-06T14:43:00.012Z

Two years ago, at Bali, politicians from around the globe vowed to finalise a binding treaty at Copenhagen next month. The UK government has acknowledged that this is now very unlikely (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8345501.stm).

With the massive and inspiring global day of action which happened just under a fortnight ago (see http://www.350.org/) I had hoped for something genuine. I now believe that it will not happen. I expect to see some sort of "deal" made but I suspect it will have no real substance and any gains made will be frittered away in the cause of "national economic interest".

We have relied on our politicians to save us and they are proving to be something of a broken reed. Now we must act for ourselves. We must build local resilience in the face of the crisis; we must adapt or go under.
Grassroots activism and initiatives such as all the Transition initiatives, the 10:10 campaign and all the local food groups are needed now. As individuals we must act in our own lives, each reducing our personal impact on the planet.

Whether our politicians act or not, there is trouble ahead, and we should accept our personal responsibility to address it.

The root of all evil

2009-10-21T07:47:00.021+01:00

In the light of recent news I feel both hope and desapair.

The EU has put forward an offer to cut its emissions by up to 95% by 2050 and by 30% by 2030 if a deal is reached at Copenhagen (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/21/europe-carbon-emissions). This is excellent news!

India and China have also agreed to work together in sharing and developing technology and reducing their emissions(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8318725.stm) This is also excellent news!

The British Prime Minister has adressed representatives from 17 nation, including several of the worlds biggest polluters, that we had "50 days to save the world from warming" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8313672.stm) (less now) and that a deal must be made at Copenhagen.

All this is very good, but being the cynical so-and-so that I am, I wonder...

In the same article that the Guardian reports the EU offer, it reports that there is disagreement over the funding package for developing countries. Poland and other poorer european nations are not happy at being asked to subsidise action in developing nations such as China, which have a strong growing economy.

China and India are both reported as stating that the measures needed to address climate change will harm their economies and that they require financial incentives from the developed nations which have historic responsibility for a large percentage of greenhouse gas emissions (despite China's vulnerability to climate change, see here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8311223.stm).

China and India, along with other developing nations, are reported to require that the Kyoto Protocol, with it's legally binding emissions targets on developed nations, be used as the basis for further negotiations.

Th US rejects this and is pressing for a deal not based on Kyoto and opposition in the US Senate, and fear that the Boxer-Kerry bill will damage US economic competitiveness seem not to promise much hope of a real, radical and binding deal being made at Copenhagen.

I am deeply concerned that our need to be economically competitive and to support our national economies will mean that we do not act radically enough or fast enough, that we will be doomed by our "national economic interest". We do not have the time, we MUST act now.

Arctic blue

2009-10-15T10:24:00.000+01:00

The BBC reports today (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8307272.stm) the findings of the Catlin Arctic Survey. The expedition trekked across 435km of ice earlier this year and was assessing the thickness of the ice.

The team found that the ice floes were on average 1.8m thick, typical of "first year" ice which forms during the previous winter and which is more vulnerable to melting than the thicker "multi- year" ice which they had been expecting to traverse. When the ridges of ice between the floes were included, the average ice thickness was 4.8m

Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, who has been studying the Arctic Ice since the 1960s, is quoted as saying that the Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the view that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years and that much of that decrease would happen within 10 years:
"You'll be able to treat the Arctic as if it were essentially an open sea in the summer," he said.

This echoes a modelling study undertaken by a group headed by Professor Maslowski of NASA in 2007 (reported here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7139797.stm). Using data from 1979-2004, this study predicted that the Arctic would be ice-free in the summer by 2013. A recent Met Office study predicted a temperature increase in the Arctic of as much as 16 degrees C by 2060.

As the Arctic opens up, access to the fossil fuel reserves in the region becomes easier and international tensions are likely to rise, as I've mentioned before on this blog. See here for Canada's territorial claims to the Northwest Passage (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7033498.stm ).

However, the most serious environmental risk is the methane locked up under the Arctic which could be released into the atmosphere as the temperature of the region rises. Methane release has been linked to the Permian-Triassic mass extinction which killed 96% of all life (Ryskin et al. Geology, September 2003 pages 741-744).

So we must consider not the immediate bonanza of easier access to fossil fuels (just in time to temporarily avert peak oil) but a further future, in which we face the very real possibility of extinction. Perhaps that will bring the resolve we need.

Peaking too soon

2009-10-08T17:39:00.003+01:00

Today, the UK Energy Research Centre published its Global Oil Depletion Report online at http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.php?page=Global+Oil+Depletion. This report reinforces the conclusions of the IEA Energy Outlook in December last year, which I blogged about in my very first post, Peak Oil in 2020? The executive summary of the report provides interesting, if disturbing, reading. The most telling sentence of the summary is:-

On the basis of current evidence we suggest that a peak of conventional oil production before 2030 appears likely and there is a significant risk of a peak before 2020.

Basically we are looking at peak oil of conventional sources in ten or twenty years (or less).
Given that the report by Hirsch et al (2005) for the US Department of Energy argued that a twenty year lead-in time was needed to avoid massive social upheaval, we don't have a lot of time.

The peak itself is important. But given the sheer physical limitations on oil extraction, it seems that the rate of decline (how much less oil can be extracted year on year) will be critical. Increasing demand for energy from rapidly industrialising nations such as China and India, coupled with the already high demands of industrialised nations like the US, suggest that competition for energy supplies will be fierce.

With our complete dependence on cheap oil for our transport, agriculture, heating and food distribution infrastructure, we need to stop ignoring this and hoping it will go away.

The Transition movement (see the wiki here http://transitiontowns.org/ ), with its emphasis on engagement and building local resilience, offers one way forward. I am encouraged by the increasing number of Transition initiatives around the globe.

Under the carpet

2009-10-02T11:07:00.001+01:00

In an interview with the BBC, Professor David Mackay is reported to have said that reductions in CO2 emissions since 1990 are "an illusion" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8283909.stm).
He was speaking about the fact that we have exported our industry and that much of what we buy is manufactured or grown in other countries such as China or India. A study by Dieter Helm from Oxford University in 2007 estimated that our true emissions footprint is roughly twice as big as it looks on paper, due to overseas manufacture of goods we consume.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, emissions were considered to be the problem of the country in which they were produced. We get to look good while China looks like the bad guy for producing goods which we are buying, no wonder they are unhappy with this situation!

This issue is going to be a hot one! How well will the necessary impact on our lifestyles go down in domestic politics in the US, the UK or other developed nations? And how will this affect the negotiating positons of these countries at Copenhagen or other international summits?
Already Barack Obama is reported to be downplaying the need for a deal at Copenhagen (see Guardian article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/25/obama-climate-change-deal-copenhagen-summit), while India's environment minister has challenged the US over it's "measly" efforts to combat climate change (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/01/india-us-climate-change)and Li Gao of China said earlier this year that developed countries should take responsibility for the emissions produced in the manufacture of goods for them (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/17/climate-change-china).
Our very status as nations the in G8 or G20 countries is based on our GDP which is a measure of consumption.

The issue we have to face is this, we cannot have our western consumerist lifestyle and avoid the consequences. Climate change is directly linked to our manufactured NEED for stuff, our cars and fridges and PCs and mobile phones and iPODs and just more and more stuff which we consume every year. We can no longer sweep it away under the carpet and blame another.

Closer than you think

2009-09-28T17:44:00.001+01:00

The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/28/met-office-study-global-warming) and the Daily Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6236690/Met-Office-catastrophic-climate-change-could-happen-with-50-years.html) are both reporting today on a study prepared for the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The study, by the Met Office, apparently states that unless serious action is taken to reduce emissions, there could be an average global temperature rise of 4 degrees C by 2060.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reported last week that an analysis of the latest peer-reviewed science indicated that many predictions from the upper end of the IPPC 2007 forecasts were becoming ever more likely (download the full report here: http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/).

In the UNEP report it is stated that carbon dioxide emissions from energy and industry had exceeded even the most fossil fuel intensive scenario developed by the IPPC: that aragonite (a substance in shells) corroding water is already upwelling along the California coast, decades earlier than existing models predicted; that losses from glaciers, ice sheets and the polar regions appear to be happening faster than anticipated; that an average sea level rise of 0.8-2.0m above the 1990 level is now plausible (compared with the 18-59cm scenario in the 2007 IPPC report). The list goes on...

Taken together, these reports indicate a truly horrific scenario, that we may already be committed to "damaging and irreversible impacts" and that unless there is co-ordinated and drastic action now, further environmental tipping points may be reached sooner than previously predicted.

Climate change is not just a distant threat to our grandchildren. The effects of climate change will be felt by people now living and those effects will be huge and unprecedented. Human civilisation has developed within relative climactic norms and we are facing the possibility of pushing the climate outside those norms.

We must act now and we must make our politicians act now. We must prepare for the impacts which will happen and do our best to avert those which might happen. Each one of us who takes no action now shares responsibility for what is to come.

Earth Overshoot Day 2009

2009-09-25T17:36:00.003+01:00

According to the Ecological Footprint Network (http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/) today is Earth Overshoot Day.

The earth can only produce a certain amount of resources and absorb a certain amount of waste each year. Any resource consumption or waste produced above this level is unsustainable. Year on year, we use more resources than the earth can produce and we produce more waste than the earth can absorb in that year. So, between 1st January 2009 and today, we have used up all the resources the planet can sustainably produce in an entire year: from today we are living on ecological credit. And we still have more than three months to go till the end of the year. Any householder can see that this is ridiculously unsustainable.

We first went into overshoot in 1986. By 1996 we had a 15% greater demand than the planet could meet and now our demand is around 40% greater than the planet can meet in one year.

Overshoot Day shows the day on which our total ecological footprint (measured in hectares) is equal to the biocapacity (also measured in hectares) which can be regenerated in 1 year. It is calculated by multiplying the ratio of available global biocapacity to global ecological footprint by 365, which gives the day of the year when we go into overshoot. (See here for more info http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/earth_overshoot_day/#calc).

Earth Overshoot Day 2009 is only one day later than last year. The global economic slowdown has not really cut our demand. And according to calculations by the Global Footprint Network, we have been moving 4-6 days closer to January 1st each year.

Earth Overshoot Day is yet another indicator that our overconsumption is killing us. As I have said on this blog many times, we MUST reduce our demands on the planet and there MUST be a more equitable distribution of resources and responsibilities. We in the developed world bear prime responsibility for this ecological debt and need to face up to that fact, both as nations and as individuals. Each of us must take individual responsibility for reducing our own ecological footprint.

On foraging and the right to roam

2009-09-24T09:37:00.002+01:00

From my viewpoint, which I recognise may be a little off-the-wall, foraging is an essential skill. Foraging allows us to "live within the landscape" in a way that is unique and goes some way to helping us reconnect to the planet on which we depend. It can also reawaken a knowledge of our dependence on the land and a sense of protectiveness towards it. This is, in my opinion, desperately needed.

At a time when world hunger is reaching epic proportions, our food supply is completely unsustainable: it is fragile in the face of peak oil and climate change. Reconnecting to the land and developing the skills to live more bioregionally are not only desirable, but essential.
Foraged food is really the ultimate in local seasonal food.
As a vegetarian of 23 years standing I have put some thought into my diet and have decided to eat flesh.

Where I live in Shetland there is an abundance of shellfish. As I walk by the sound I find edible seaweeds, maritime plants, oysters, mussels, cockles and crabs (along with winkles and whelks) within minutes.
After consulting the local offices of SEPA and the local Environmental Health Office regarding the legality and the safety (sewage, blue-green algae etc.) of foraging in the area, and having received some very positive support and clarification, I have decided to try my hand at foraging my own dinner once in a while.

If harvested on an individual scale with respect for their life-cycles and the local ecosystem, then I believe that my foraged seafood may have a lower environmental impact than Quorn, which is shipped in from the mainland, or cheese with all its associated animal-welfare and environmental issues.

One argument which I have heard against foraging is that "If everybody did it, it would not be sustainable", but it seems to me that this argument completely ignores the lack of sustainability of our present practices. Yes, care must be taken and I do not believe that foraging alone will provide food for all. But I think that if more people foraged (with care and respect), our worldview might well improve.

The right to roam or to gather shellfish, and access to the land and to the foreshore, have a long history in English and Scottish law. There is something very satisfying about going for a ramble and gathering food along the way, or going out with some buckets and a drop-net with the kids, or even going blackberrying, hunting puffballs and field mushrooms, or taking part in Abundance Project like the one in Sheffield (http://www.growsheffield.com/pages/groShefAbund.html).

Familiarity with our local bioregion and an understanding of our dependence on the planet that feeds us is critical to developing awareness of how unsustainable consumption impacts the planet, and in recognising that the results of our over-consumption will have a direct impact on ourselves and our descendants.
Land-rights and foraging-rights are vital as a means of educating ourselves, and may, in the future, become critical as a means of supplementing our families’ diets. They must be preserved.

Mr Brown goes to town

2009-09-22T09:34:00.000+01:00

The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has become the first national leader to pledge to attend the climate conference at Copenhagen in December. This is good news. I hope that his action will put pressure on other leaders to attend and to agree an effective, binding deal.

I am pleased that politicians are waking up to the gravity of the situation and to the possibility of public outrage and the loss of faith and consequently their jobs if they fail to show integrity on this issue. I am also innured to the capitalist vision of the economic returns from investment in a "green economy" and accept that this is the necessary driver for business. I hope that these will be sufficient to motivate even the most environment-blind politician to see the benefits of agreeing a strong global policy.

I am, however, cynical. They may talk the talk; now to see whether they walk the walk.

Feet of Clay

2009-09-16T08:27:00.017+01:00

According to The Guardian newspaper today (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/15/europe-us-copenhagen), in the Draft Implementing Agreement submitted by the US to the UN in May was a clause which stated that emissions reductions will be in accordance with domestic law. It’s clear to see what loopholes this opens up for the unscrupulous!

The problem seems to be one of domestic politics: the urgency of the oncoming crisis appears less appreciated by the US populace and climate change is lower down the list of national priorities than, say, jobs and the national economic interest. The US Senate never ratified the Kyoto Protocol and the Obama administration appears doubtful that a new global treaty would get the 2/3 majority it would need to pass in the Senate, hence the clause. It also appears that there is some conflict between the EU wanting to build on Kyoto and the US desire to sweep Kyoto away and negotiate a new agreement based on their own system.

Critically, this may result in no firm agreement being reached at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen later this year.

Re-negotiation could take years; years that we may not have. The IPCC report published in May 2007 indicated that global emissions must peak by 2015 in order to prevent a global mean temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius. A 2 degree rise would still affect millions, but a higher rise could be catastrophic (see an interactive map by New Scientist, depicting the projected state of the planet based on a 4 degree rise, here: http://www.newscientist.com/embedded/mg20126971700-surviving-in-a-warmer-world).

While I personally fear that we may be already too late to limit the temperature rise to 2 degrees, we must not despair. We must act! Politicians everywhere must be left in no doubt of the importance, both to us and to our future, of a strong, binding agreement and globally co-ordinated action now.

Business as Usual!

2009-09-09T08:50:00.012+01:00

A BBC news report today regarding the airline industry (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8243922.stm) reveals a situation that is nothing short of outrageous.

The article reports that the Climate Change Committee (CCC) is warning that the UK as whole will have to make more severe cuts in emissions than the planned 80%, in order that the aviation industry can continue to grow.

The CCC suggested in a letter to Ed Milliband (Climate Change Secretary) and Lord Adonis (Transport Secretary) that the aviation industry will need to cut its emissions back to 2005 levels by 2050. This is a much smaller emissions cut than is expected of any other sector, business or private. The overall UK target is to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 80% on 1990 levels by 2050.

So where will the slack be taken up? Who will really pay for this? Will our fuel bills get higher and our lives become significantly harder in order to pay for the jet-setting life-style of a minority? In an age of near-instant communications technology, much air travel is completely unnecessary. Up to a point, even conferences can be organised via the internet.

In its 2007 report, Dying on a Jetplane, the World Development Movement said: “Flying is an activity dominated primarily by the rich. The richest 18 per cent of the UK population are responsible for 54 per cent of flights, whilst the poorest 18 per cent are responsible for just 5 per cent.” It’s very clear to see who benefits.

David Milliband (UK Foreign Secretary) is reported to have said (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8244223.stm) that there is a "real chance" that the Copenhagen summit will not reach agreement. No surprises there, then! How likely is it that we can convince developing nations like China, India and Brazil of our sincerity and of the desperate need to limit their emissions when we are pandering to the desires of our own elite minority and of big business interests regardless of the consequences?

No wonder some critics talk of the neo-imperialism of emissions trading and carbon reduction protocols! Developed nations tell developing nations (often former colonies of theirs) to limit their consumption while at the same time making exceptions and cosmetic changes only themselves. The parallels with the "exceptionalism" of international diplomacy and dominance are quite chilling.

In the face of the oncoming crisis it is essential that we are in agreement on the necessity to act globally and that we think in terms of our common survival and not in terms of "the national interest". Economic growth and consumption are not true measures of the health and happiness of a population. We must not be enslaved by their siren song.

I'm Back/In a new place

2009-09-02T12:33:00.000+01:00

Hi All

Thank you for your patience. It has taken BT nearly a month to connect us after our move to Shetland, but finally we are back online.

In this more rural setting, life seems slower and the immediate environmental concerns here are different: sewage, overfishing, marine pollution and a large inappropriate development (of which more another time). But there is still awareness of the global challenges facing us.

The Unst Regenerative Growers Enterprise (The URGE)(http://www.unstmarketgardens.shetland.co.uk/), just down the road from my home, aims to “turn your food miles into food inches". They grow chemical-free veg and fruit in polytunnels using scavenged materials. Due to the poor quality of the soil locally, they "make" the soil using kelp, animal dung, compost and a lot of hard work.

I suppose the point of this post (apart from saying "I have returned") is that local solutions need to be found to local issues and also that local knowlwedge and engagement are both necessary and highly desirable in finding ways adapt to the crisis that we face.

Please continue to watch this space

2009-07-20T21:03:00.004+01:00

Hi All

I am aware that I have not posted for some time and thought I would offer some explanation.

I am in the process of a long-distance house move. The moving date is set for early August, so I am frantically packing. I have also been dealing with the death of a very close family member and, as a result, have also been engaged with funeral arrangements.

I will post again as soon as the dust has settled!

Local Seeds

2009-06-29T10:33:00.006+01:00

Last Monday, 22nd June, I attended the first meeting of Transition Bedford (http://transitionbedford.wordpress.com/) and I have to say that it was inspiring. The “stars” of the meeting were the local community groups who are already taking action in some aspect of preparing or building local resilience. Speakers included representatives from Golden Gardens, a community gardening project; Zero Carbon Castle and others.

The transition concept of building local resilience in the face of the combined global effects of peak oil and climate change is vital. With our society so heavily dependent on “just in time” deliveries and imported food, energy and skills, it is essential that we begin the process now.

The grassroots aspect of the Transition movement is the secret of its success. We are accustomed to “top-down” solutions to our problems, and have become passive. But there may not be time for a coordinated government response, even if there was the political will for such a thing. We all have valuable skills and knowledge; these are wasted if we rely on salvation from above.

One central theme that ran through the meeting was food. Eating is a visceral connection to the planet, and growing your own or communal growing seems to be a gateway to a greater environmental consciousness. As only ethically sourced and homemade food was provided at the meeting, conversation and networking really hit the right spot.

All attendees agreed that we need to live more bioregionally, to look at our local ecosystem and live within its means as far as possible.

All that Glitters

2009-06-28T17:51:00.002+01:00

I have recently been reading the report Dirty Metals: Mining, Communities and the Environment by Earthworks and Oxfam America (available here http://www.nodirtygold.org/dirty_metals_report.cfm). It is shocking.

Take gold as an example. About 2/3 of the gold in use is new gold and 2/3 of new gold is mined from open pit mines. Over 80% of gold is used for jewellery, such as wedding rings.

Open pit mines are hugely ecologically destructive and generate vast amounts of rock waste. Cyanide is sprayed onto the piles of crushed ore, to trickle through the heap and bond with the gold. The gold-cyanide solution is then pumped to a mill for chemical separation and the cyanide is stored in an artificial pond for re-use. Each bout of leaching may take months, after which the heaps get a fresh load of ore. The piles of cyanide-contaminated waste ore are often abandoned and can continue to contaminate the surrounding area for years.

Another very visible problem is the failure of mine tailings dams. Tailings are a soupy to semi-solid suspension of pulverised rock in water, generally toxin loaded. On-site tailings disposal generally consists of bulldozing some of the dried tailings into a dam which can hold more liquid waste. These dams are constructed and enlarged over the life of the mine, so structural integrity can be a problem. When the tailings dam at Omai gold mine in Guyana failed in 1995, it released some 3 billion litres of cyanide laden waste into the Omai River, which is a tributary of Guyana’s largest river, the Essequibo. The whole 51 km drainage from the mine to the Atlantic Ocean (home to 23,000 people) was subsequently declared an official “Environmental Disaster Zone” by the president of Guyana.

After chemical separation, the extracted gold is transported to a highly energy intensive smelter for processing. There is potential here for a conflict of interests as governments have to choose between supplying energy to smelters or to homes. For example, China’s aluminium smelters use enough energy each week to supply 2 million of its citizens for a year (see Bloomberg on this issue here http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aCUU6NbjPfmM&refer=us).

The purified gold is sold and made into its final product. According to the report, a typical 18 carat wedding ring produces (at a conservative estimate!) about 20 tons of mine waste (without including “overburden” i.e. the earth which was blasted away to get at the ore)!

This is symptomatic of our lives. Our need for status-objects from stone axe-heads to cars, designer clothes, gold jewellery and wedding rings is having a huge impact on the planet that we live on. As we become more affluent and our model of “success” is spread around the world, the burden we are placing on the planet increases.

We must change our priorities and give serious thought to our “status-objects” if we are to survive.

This blog is moving

2009-06-26T18:26:00.006+01:00

Hi All
Just a short post to say that I have been invited to join GreenPress an online host site for eco-bloggers and I am moving this blog over to there
Thank you all for your comments and feedback, I hope that you will all come and find me at
http://environmentchaos.greenpress.com/

PS I have decided to keep posting the same posts on here for a while to see.

Have Fun
Kester

Parental Responsibility

2009-06-22T16:23:00.000+01:00

My eldest child is 10 years old and already keen to “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. Currently, I am trying to teach her what little I know about foraging for food and wild medicine. This is because I think she will need these skills later on in her life.

Sadly, I think that society "as we know it" will alter radically in the course of her lifetime – perhaps in as little as 10 or 20 years – as peak oil and climate change impact our food security, pharmaceutical industry, health service and all aspects of our modern lifestyle.

We have a responsibility to our children and grandchildren. The decisions that we make now (and there is no escaping the decision, as doing nothing is itself a decision) will affect the world that they inhabit. The lifespan of carbon in the atmosphere, loss of biodiversity, ocean acidification and loss of cropland, among others, will have a huge and lasting impact.

In each of our actions we must consider the world which we will be leaving to our children, and we must teach them the skills to survive and prosper in that world.

I am not talking about a survivalist "I alone will survive" type of mentality. I think that community-based co-operation and sharing of skills is the only realistic way. But we must take our heads out of the sand and face the stark reality of the situation we have created for our children. Only then can we adapt. Only if we consider our children's future will we be motivated to act as we must.

Small Candles

2009-06-04T13:58:00.000+01:00

Rising from the present climate of frustration and despair (which I seem to express repeatedly on this blog), I see candle-flames of hope. Lights which are growing and which may lead to the changes we need.

The Transition movement (http://www.transitiontowns.org/) seems to me to be one such light. The community-based, decentralised nature of the movement with its focus on identifying local solutions and resources to meet local needs is a positive step towards the change of paradigm which we need. The very concept of "Transition" in its transformational nature expresses this.

For many years, writers and activists from the Deep and Social Ecology movements have been highly critical of "shallow" "reformatory" conservation. Writers like Arne Naess and Murray Bookchin argued convincingly that ethical and social transformation is a necessary first step towards dealing with the oncoming crisis and that without this we will be doomed to slow, despairing failure. The growth in environmental consciousness and grass-roots movements offer hope that such a transformation is possible.

I live in Bedford in the UK, which features in the excellent film Age of Stupid (http://www.ageofstupid.net/) – not in good way. But even Bedford has taken its first steps with the formation of a Transition Bedford group (http://transitionbedford.wordpress.com/) and people from this group attended the national Transition Town Conference recently. The fact that the Transition Town movement is now big enough to hold a national conference, and that even people from a green "desert" like Bedford attended it, is definitely a good sign. This is not to minimise the huge challenges we face, but it is encouraging that so many people believe they can make a difference and are making concrete plans to address climate change at the community level.

It is essential in this process that we communicate! Others have different skills, viewpoints and knowledge. There is no point in re-inventing the wheel, and discussion of differing views is essential to avoid parochialism and isolation. When we are planning for the eventual transformation of our society, then the "hows" "whys" and "what ifs" must be thoroughly discussed.

Green Dictator

2009-06-02T15:19:00.001+01:00

Recently I have noticed, both in conversation and in print, a marked increase in people calling for a dictatorship to solve the current environmental crises. This is a natural human response to fear for one’s family’s security, but I am very concerned by it. What people calling for a dictatorship actually want is for everybody to be forced to address the climate crisis, but a dictator might well do far more than that, and we would not necessarily approve of all his/her policies. Considering the history of twentieth century dictatorships and the recent rise in popularity of right-wing political parties in Europe and the UK, I fear the consequences of accepting a dictator.

As we grapple with ecological, political, financial and ethical crises; as we face the uncertain future, debate must not be circumscribed. All alternatives should be examined, from anarchism and non-statism to monarchism, nationalism and fascism; from voluntary simplicity to war for resources; from communal living to population limitation. However unpleasant some of these alternatives are, without honest and open discussion we risk sliding uncritically back into the old patterns and systems which have led us to this point.

What is needed is not just reform, but a radical change of paradigm.

Asking the right questions

2009-05-18T10:27:00.001+01:00

I have been wondering lately whether we are asking the right questions. Given that the impacts of peak oil and climate change are likely to be severe (particularly in combination) and that the timescale is short but uncertain, we need to think about what we actually need and what is achievable in the time available.

The question is not how we can maintain our comfortable urban western lifestyles. It is almost certainly too late for that. I think the question we should be asking is how can we survive the oncoming crisis?

We should invest the majority of our resources in adaptation. In the time available to us we need to change our paradigm completely. We need to focus on strategies which will alter us from a consumption-based, individualist, status- oriented society to one which can survive the challenges to come.

We need to envision the future, to create models of alternative societies. To do this we should look forward to examine the needs and constraints that we are likely face. Then, from various past and current cultures we can choose the tools required to meet our needs both socially and technologically. It is vital for us to seriously consider and implement a range of alternative social and domestic models in order to prevent us riding headlong towards the destruction of the majority of the human race.

Since the fall of state communism in the 1990s there has been no serious questioning of capitalism and with globalisation we have spread this model across the world. It is difficult to see how the capitalist model of continuous economic growth and ostentatious display is sustainable in a world with very limited resources. While I don’t believe that state communism is the way forward, we do need more co-operative thinking with more active and direct involvement of people in the processes of society.

Whatever our political views, we need to work together to meet the challenges facing us or face the possibility that we too, like the majority of species that have ever existed, will go extinct.

Coal Fired Power Stations

2009-04-30T07:16:00.004+01:00

Last week, Ed Milliband stood up in parliament and gave the go-ahead for a new generation of coal fired power stations.

These coal fired power stations are to be fitted with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology to capture a percentage of emitted greenhouse gases and transport them to empty gas wells in the North Sea where they will be stored. However those emissions which are not captured by the CCS system will be free to enter the atmosphere.

100% CCS is supposed to be (retro)fitted to all coal-fired power stations within five years of 2020. I remain dubious. CCS is as yet unproven in full. Parts of the process have been proven to work, but as yet no full scale plant is operational. It is possible - though not guaranteed, especially with the present economic climate - that the technology will be workable eventually. But what if it is not? Will the government then shut down existing power plants, knowing that the result will be a poor electricity supply? This would surely be a very unpopular decision, so we have to assume that coal fired power stations would continue to emit massive amounts of carbon.

Should CCS technology prove viable, there remains the issue of the long-term security of the carbon storage. We would need to be very certain that the carbon dioxide will remain trapped and not escape, perhaps adding significantly to ocean acidification.

The Guardian revealed recently (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/20/police-intelligence-e-on-berr) that secret intelligence on climate protesters was passed to E.ON ahead of the demonstrations at Kingsnorth last year. Given that E.ON is likely to be one of the companies involved in the construction of new coal-fired power stations, one might be forgiven for asking the Gramscian question "Who benefits?"

Surely we should be investing in efficient green energy technologies to generate our electricity. There are several tried and tested technologies we might promote:
• Biomass: Locally sourced biomass (e.g. used vegetable oil, vegetable waste or short rotation coppice) could be burned to provide electricity.
• CHiP: In CHiP, biomass is burned to produce electricity. The output heat is also captured and then used to heat the existing gas stream, then used to produce more electricity. The proposed Combined Heat "intelligent" Power (CHiP) plant at Becton in London is a very good example.
• There is also the possibility of generating electricity and heat (CHP) through incineration or gasification of rubbish. As with any heat producing plant, the waste heat can be utilised to provide heating and hot water for local residents via "district heating." Schemes.
• Biochar: Biochar kilns such as those provided by the Biochar Fund in Cameroon use pyrolysis to produce biochar and heat and electricity (CHPC). The Biochar Fund's stoves can also be used for cooking while the char is being made.
• In the UK, we have potential for good tidal current, wave and wind generation.

An important point to consider in the discussion of energy security is the role of decentralised energy: the use of local resources for local people. For example some areas are ideal for wind or tidal generation where others might be better burning rubbish or biomass: it makes sense to use the technology best suited for the area. This would result in a greater number of small-scale power stations or clusters of off-grid microgeneration, opening opportunities for community "ownership" schemes and local jobs building and maintaining the technology. These local schemes would be accountable to and would benefit local people, rather than corporations accountable to distant shareholders. Energy security should also be enhanced, where cables travel only short distances instead of across the whole country: energy outages in one area would not have a knock-on effect on another.

At the end of the day coal is a fossil fuel and has all the drawbacks associated with any fossil fuel – including the fact that, one day, we will run out.

Climate Change Now

2009-04-16T14:58:00.000+01:00

The climate change we are currently experiencing is a direct result of the way people have lived, especially in the last 200 years, and people are just one of its many victims.
• In November 2005 the Papua New Guinean government decided to abandon their 30 year battle to stop the Pacific destroying homes on the Cataret Atolls. In the following 2 years, the Cataret people officially became the first to be evacuated because of climate change.
• According to the International Red Cross report Preparedness for Climate Change (2003), over the decade prior to their report (1993-2003) weather-related disasters accounted for 90% of all reported natural disasters and 86% of all deaths from natural disasters. Subsequent to the publication of this report, we experienced hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Ike (2008), the Boxing Day Tsunami (2004) and the Pakistan earthquake (2005), which would have pushed the percentages even higher.
• In June last year the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, warned that climate change was forcing growing numbers of people in the developing world to flee their homes.
• The UNHCR 2007 Global Trends Report (http://www.unhcr.org/statistics/STATISTICS/4852366f2.pdf) states that the number of people under the UNHCR's responsibility had risen steeply for the second year running, from 9.9 to 11.4 million.
• According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre the number of people displaced internally by conflict increased from 24.4 to 26 million people. As climate change degrades already stressed environments, conflict for resources, which is at the root of the conflict in Darfur among others, (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200704/darfur-climate/2) are likely to increase.

In a Guardian poll (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/14/global-warming-target-2c) sent to climate scientists who met in Copenhagen ahead of the G20 summit (see previous post, Saturday 21 March 2009) 86% of respondents said that they do not believe that we will be able to keep mean global temperature rise to 2 degrees centigrade; the most likely outcome is a temperature rise of 5-6 degrees centigrade. We are likely to see this rise by 2100, and some delegates believe it will happen by 2050. But what does this mean in real terms? Climate modelling predicts dire consequences if the global mean temperature rises by 4 degrees centigrade: a world where much presently inhabited land becomes uninhabitable due to extreme weather conditions, including most of the USA and all of Africa and India. At the same time, the habitable areas will be struggling to cope with local crises caused by far more severe weather events than they have previously experienced. A very good map from New Scientist illustrating this can be seen here (http://www.newscientist.com/articleimages/mg20126971.700/1-how-to-survive-the-coming-century.html).

If this model is accurate, then over the next few decades we can expect to see a massive increase in the number of refugees and displaced people, some as a direct result of global warming and others as a result of conflict for increasingly scarce resources.

We face the dual crises of peak oil and climate change at the same time as a global economic crisis. As we struggle to deal with food and water shortages, flooding, cyclones and refugees fleeing uninhabitable areas, how will our modern "liberal" societies deal with the challenge?

People facing adverse conditions tend to become more rigid in their views, in a bid to conserve increasingly scarce resources for their own community of like-minded individuals. In times when people feel their very survival is at stake, there is a stronger reaction against minor crime, against foreigners, and against anyone who challenges the status quo. It’s difficult to imagine people welcoming an influx of refugees into already over-burdened communities. We may see the rise of fascism and nationalism, martial law or entrenched gang rule/warlordism, depending on the extent of collapse in the individual area, with competition and perhaps war for increasingly scarce resources.

How will states deal with the refugee crisis? A state facing severe shortages of basic necessities and with a populace fearful of increased demands on local resources is likely to refuse entry to refugees. Vast amounts of precious and increasingly scarce resources may go into maintaining a standing army to protect the nation’s food security.

How will a starving nation act to secure food, water and energy? One absolutely terrifying possibility is the use of WMD in this scenario. Will the knowledge that their weapons may pollute the very resources they are trying to secure prevent them using those weapons? Probably not if they have the technology to clean the area afterwards, or if there’s the slightest hope that even polluted resources will keep them alive for just a little while longer. Truly desperate people have nothing to lose.

Human history holds many unpleasant examples of atrocities resulting from competition for even non-essential resources, and we must make sure that they are not repeated.

Thoughts from The Age of Stupid

2009-04-15T13:27:00.009+01:00

I attended a public screening of the excellent film Age of Stupid last night. Between the film and the discussion that followed, two things really struck me.

1) The impact of globalisation
2) Our sense of "entitlement" in the developed world coupled with the aspirations of those in developing nations.

In the film, the Nigerian woman living in the polluted Niger delta, dealing daily with the consequences of our unquenchable thirst for oil and Shell's unquenchable thirst for profit, wanted to live in an American house like an American. The Indian low-cost airline entrepreneur was inspired by EasyJet. Our culture, which rides on the back of multinational corporations like Shell and McDonalds, is exported around the globe as "the good life," to the point that impoverished women all over the world buy manufactured baby milk – despite the fact that they cannot afford it – because it is more “civilised” than breast-feeding. Views of the world which differ from the current western norm are deemed “primitive,” "unrealistic" or "radical" and are marginalised or demonised. People who live in self-build houses made from natural materials in the developing nations are objects of appalled pity and often even scorn: those who live in similar houses by choice in the developed world are generally regarded as certifiable extremists.

We in the developed world are living at an unsustainable level. Our consumption of resources is vast and we seem to take it for granted. For example in my local Tesco there are organic strawberries from Spain, blackberries from Mexico, organic apples from the USA and organic bananas from the Caribbean. My organic sea-salt is from South Africa and my organic, fairtrade coffee is "produce of more than one country". We take all this and more (our bread, chocolate, cars, toilet paper, washing machines, gravel drives, computers, cotton clothing and mobile phones...) for granted. At a more basic level, our "right" to constantly available hot water and clean drinking water and 24-hour heating for our homes in winter goes unquestioned and we barely consider the impact that this has on the planet. Even "green" consumption still uses resources. Wind-farms still need concrete, steel and the energy to manufacture them, and organic veg box schemes still deliver bananas and oranges shipped from across the world.

We need to examine the fundamentals of our society and, as individuals, to examine our way of life. To reconsider the values and ethics which are the foundations of our lives both individually and communally.

Cold Rush

2009-04-02T08:34:00.005+01:00

As Barack Obama and Dimitry Medvedev meet in London, further north relations are not so warm.

According to the Guardian newspaper, (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/28/russia-gas-oil-arctic-nato) Russia has announced plans for a dedicated military force to patrol the Arctic.

As the Arctic warms and its ice melts, facilitating access for ships and offshore drilling rigs, northern countries (including the EU) are lining up to exploit the oil and gas reserves in the polar region. In 2007 Russia planted a titanium flag on the seabed under the North Pole, laying claim to the area, and last September Mr Medvedev said that the region must become Russia's strategic resource base for the 21st century. This attitude has heightened international tensions, and the suggestion by NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, in January that NATO should have a presence in the region was not well received in Russia.

The jockeying for position to exploit remaining fossil fuel reserves is short-sighted and runs directly counter to our imperative need to combat climate change. We need to stop burning fossil fuels and investigate other, cleaner forms of energy. The Arctic contains an estimated quarter of the world's unexplored oil and gas reserves and its exploitation will have a huge effect on the climate.

The benefits of a few more years of cheap "business as usual" cannot outweigh the costs. This short-term bonanza will have severe consequences for us all.

London Protest

2009-03-28T09:14:00.002Z

Thousands of people are expected to march for social and environmental justice today in London ahead of the G20 meeting next week. The protest will continue throughout the following week. London’s Metropolitan Police state that this protest demonstrates unprecedented planning and co-ordination between protest groups. Tonight, many more will join in the protest by turning off all the lights in their houses from 8:30pm local time in the highly visible global Earth Hour action.

At last, I am inspired with a little hope. I see some chance, however tiny, that the world leaders will recognise the popular support for change both here in the UK and across the globe and realise that they must act convincingly immediately. As climate change and social justice become widespread concerns, politicians will need to address those concerns or risk an even greater loss of faith in the political process than they already see.

We must make our voices heard. We must somehow tell our elected representatives how critical this is to us. For our own future and that of our children.

Voices Raised

2009-03-21T14:38:00.003Z

In the wake of the Copenhagen conference the UK government's chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, predicts a 'perfect storm' of crises peaking in about 2030, just 21 years from now (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/18/perfect-storm-john-beddington-energy-food-climate).

As food, water and energy shortages begin to bite it is the poor, and especially the urban poor, who will suffer most. Our current way of life is very resource-hungry, and if global population rises as predicted then conflict seems almost inevitable. Take into consideration diseases like the Stem Rust variant Ug99 which threatens our wheat supply and which has evolved resistance to controls, and the situation looks perilous. Development of new controls for such diseases takes time and resources which we may not have, and an already precarious situation regarding our food security may become critical.

Despite these warnings from the world’s senior climate scientists, Shell this week ended its funding of wind, solar and hydrogen projects, explaining in a press release that they are "not competitive in the current economic climate" (http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE52G4SU20090317).

The same economic short-termism characterises our political scene: our politicians look towards the next election and often choose not to make essential decisions which may lead to voter discomfort or job losses. In reaction, NASA scientist James Hansen has called for more protest and non-violent direct action, saying that the political process is not working fast enough to reduce carbon emissions and has been corrupted by corporate lobbying (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/18/nasa-climate-change-james-hansen).

A conflict, operating at personal, national and international levels, between the desire for profit and the need to act responsibly is at the core of the challenges facing us. Unless we address this, we will lurch from crisis to disaster.

Final Warning

2009-03-16T10:07:00.000Z

Over 2,500 scientists met at an emergency conference in Copenhagen last week to discuss the changing climate. In their statement, they warned of “devastating” consequences if global warming is allowed to progress at current rates, and called upon governments to "stand up to vested interests that increase emissions." Currently, governments are trying to address the concerns of businesses anxious to increase profits year on year at the same time as responding to the warning signs of serious climate change, and business interests seem to be taking precedence (e.g. the recent decision to expand Heathrow).

Delegates to the conference agreed that the EU target of limiting the rise in global mean temperature to 2 degrees C is now impossible: things have gone too far. They said that if governments take strong action now to reduce emissions, it may yet be possible to hold the temperature rise to 3 degrees C, but this is looking very unlikely. A rise in global mean temperature of at least 4 degrees C is now the most likely outcome, and we will probably see it by 2099 (some climate scientists believe it may happen as early as 2050, just 40 years from now). 4 degrees C doesn’t sound like much, but it will have catastrophic effects for most life on earth.

Climate change models predict the following results if temperatures rise by 4 degrees C:
• the Amazonian rain forest burns and dies, leaving behind an uninhabitable desert
• the Mediterranean region, along with most of the US and southern and central America as well as all of Africa, India and Australia become uninhabitable deserts
• refugees from these regions pour into more northerly areas, such as the UK, Canada and Alaska and parts of Russia, and also into those few areas which are far enough south to be inhabitable, e.g. New Zealand and possibly parts of western Antarctica
• Salination of the soil through rising sea levels leads to loss of cropland.
• the UK is battered by terrible storms, with parts of Scotland suffering cyclone strength winter storms
• the south of England faces winter flooding, eroding soils which are parched from the extreme summer heat waves.
• sea level rise threatens London

As the social consequences of this scenario unfold in severe food and water shortages leading to social unrest or perhaps even collapse, who will we have to blame? Ignorance will be no excuse; the evidence is clear. Our greed is robbing our descendants of a future. We must act individually to reduce our emissions and to consume less, and we must force our politicians to act now or we and our children will face the consequences.

Conflict of interests?

2009-03-08T15:47:00.006Z

Recently, I attended a local conference on climate change as a delegate of Bedfordshire Climate Change Forum, a not-for-profit organisation. It was well-attended, with delegates from local government, local businesses and a few other not-for-profit organisations.

We had a superb keynote speaker who gave a well rounded presentation on the issue, drawing on Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, outlining the problem and the causes. This was followed by presentations, discussions and short workshops on reducing carbon dioxide emissions in transport, business and at home. Feedback from these workshops will inform local authority thinking and policy.

Two issues raised at the conference really struck me.
1) How do you generate real grassroots engagement with climate change?
2) Is there an underlying conflict between the goal of business to sell us services/commodities and the necessity of reducing our consumption?

In addressing the first issue it is impossible to avoid politics. Some grassroots organisations are deemed acceptable by the mainstream while others (e.g. Earth First, Rising Tide, Plane Stupid) which take direct action to confront the root causes of climate change and to raise awareness of the issues, are labelled as "eco-terrorists" and often treated severely by the police. Individuals at demonstrations have been filmed and have had their details placed on the Crimint database (as reported in the Guardian on 07/03/09) or have been subjected to inappropriate use of anti-terror legislation. This - along with a widespread disenchantment regarding politicians and those in power - seems to me to contribute to a sense of apathy and powerlessness regarding our ability, as individuals, to affect climate change. Too many people say to me, "Whatever I do makes no difference." Using the internet to get positive information across and some sort of genuine empowerment of grassroots organisations may be a way to combat this.

On the second issue, I do think that there is an underlying conflict between the goal of business to sell stuff to us as consumers and the need for us as responsible global citizens to buy less and to buy right.

In the UK we emit about 1-2% of global carbon dioxide emissions directly and yet as consumers we have a greater impact. By buying food and other goods which are manufactured abroad and transported to the UK we are contributing to the emissions of those nations. China has claimed (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/23/china-carbon-emissions) that about a third of its emissions are the result of producing goods for the developed world. Given that China emits more carbon dioxide than any other nation we must accept our share of the blame.

In the UK, government and other organisations set targets for businesses and help them to reduce their emissions; also, many environmental management systems stress the supply chain angle. However, as consumers, we are often unaware of the "intrinsic costs" - the environmental and social costs of producing an item - which are not shown on the label.

In order for us to truly reduce our impact on the planet rather than just "outsourcing our emissions," all items should be clearly labelled with the intrinsic costs incurred in its production. This will involve a rise in the prices of many goods, particularly those which are resource-intensive; however, local and less resource-intense items may be relatively cheaper and local jobs may be generated by an increase in sales of these goods.

If we are to act as responsible global citizens we must become well informed and highly selective consumers. We should demand that all the information to enable us to make an informed decision regarding our purchases is openly and easily available.

Community now!

2009-03-02T18:19:00.001Z

Watching the BBC Natural World program A Farm for the Future got me thinking. With our agriculture and food industry based on the availability of cheap oil, who will be feeding us in, say, 20 years?

Most of our crops are grown using chemical fertilisers and pesticides which are made from oil. Farm vehicles are powered by diesel. In the UK we are a net food importer, so much of our food is transported in ships and aeroplanes powered by oil; it is often chilled or warmed in transport, requiring the use of still more energy. When it arrives in the UK it is trucked – using fuel - to distribution centres and thence to supermarkets for us to buy. As oil availability declines and oil prices rise how will this affect the current system? I suspect that supermarkets will be unable to remain open at all. So how will we be fed?

In the Second World War, the UK population was a little over 47 million. The “Dig for Victory” campaign resulted in local needs for fruit, vegetables and some meats (rabbit etc.) being largely met from back gardens and allotments, reducing the requirements for imported goods. According to the office of national statistics, in mid-2007, the UK population reached 60,975,000 (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?ID=6). Even with a massive "Dig for Victory" style campaign, it seems almost impossible, using conventional agricultural methods, to grow enough food to feed our current population, especially in the absence of cheap fossil-fuel based fertilisers and pesticides.

This is without even considering the impacts of climate change in terms of loss of cropland and water and suitable climate, or the other impacts of peak oil, for example on domestic use, the pharmaceutical industry and the National Health Service.

We need to radically alter the way we eat, grow and think of food. How many of us even know what is seasonal any more? How will our predominantly urban and de-skilled population cope as the supermarket shelves empty?

We need to

start building land-focused intentional communities to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels
look at alternative methods of agriculture such as permaculture, urban gardening and urban forestry.

We need to re-skill; we no longer have the luxury of time. If we continue as we have been the social and environmental costs will be catastrophic.

Resource focus

2009-02-18T20:26:00.000Z

In a previous post (Sunday, 18 January 2009) I mentioned that I had put in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Ministry of Defence. In this request, I asked for information regarding MOD greenhouse gas emissions and regarding the financial cost of UK operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The MOD very courteously replied to my FOI request, sending me an email detailing the financial costs and a link to the MOD Climate Change Strategy 2009 document online (http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/WhatWeDo/HealthandSafety/SSDCD/ClimateChangeAndEnergy.htm).

The climate change strategy document makes interesting reading regarding the predicted effects of climate change (such as water shortages, food shortages and sea level rise, leading to displacement of people and animals) particularly from a defence viewpoint.

However, back to the issues I asked about.

MOD Carbon Dioxide emissions:
· MOD direct carbon dioxide emissions for the period 2007/2008 were 6.1 million tonnes (source: MOD Climate Change Strategy 2009).

As a point of reference:
· According to DEFRA statistics for 2007, the UK emitted 544 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, which accounted for 85% of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions (about 2% of the global total).
· 40% of the carbon dioxide in 2007 was emitted by the energy supply sector.

Financial cost of UK operations in Iraq and Afghanistan:
· The total monetary cost of British activities in Iraq up to 2008 is £6,439 million. The predicted cost for 2008/2009 is £1,379 million.
· The financial cost for UK operations in Afghanistan up to 2008 is £3,086 million. The predicted cost for 2008/2009 is £2,318 million.
Presumably as operations in Iraq wind down and Afghanistan becomes the primary focus the costs will reflect that.

As a point of reference:
· A proposed 3 turbine wind farm near Santa Pod, which if built will provide electricity to about 3000 homes, will cost around £7million to develop/build (source: Nuon).
· The RSPB-Atkins study for the Severn "reef" development, projected to generate 20,000GW of energy each year, will cost around £13 billion to build.
· The cost for the 2012 London Olympics seems to keep rising. The China Daily website cites a cost of around £9 billion so far (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sports/2009-02/09/content_7458079.htm).

In the present financial and environmental crisis we need to invest our limited resources wisely if we are to achieve what is needed to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.

Exeunt without fanfare

2009-02-05T12:19:00.027Z

Here’s a scary thought – well, it scares me. There will be no fanfare as we pass a global tipping point. The sky will not turn pink. No articles in the newspapers or announcement on TV will inform us: “Today, we passed a point of no return. From here on, we all swim.”

As we heat our homes in this cold snap; as we drive the kids to school or ourselves to work; as we cook our food and buy those "made in China" goods or fruit from Brazil; as we turn our PCs on, charge our phones – in short, as we lead our daily lives – we are contributing to our own and our descendants' destruction.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is creeping up towards 400ppm. Permafrost is starting to melt, releasing the frozen methane hydrates. The ocean is acidifying, its surface slowly warming, making existence harder for marine life including one of our planet’s control mechanisms: the alga which pumps carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Sea level rise is threatening the croplands of the world.

We cannot afford to be complacent. We cannot afford to make exceptions to drastic emissions caps for our national industries, be it coal, steel or cement production.

Our present fixation on consumption is misplaced: we will never consume our way out of this; we can only consume our way deeper into trouble. If everybody on the planet consumed at the level of those of us in the so-called “First World,” it would take the resources of three to five Earths to sustain us all. Despite this, the Western consumerist ideal is marketed across the globe as "the good life," encouraging ever-increasing numbers of people to buy into the concept that possessions are the only real measure of a person’s value: a throw-away lifestyle that will binge away our planet’s resources in no time.

We need to have more equitable distribution of wealth; to separate our "needs" from our "wants;" to rethink what constitutes “value.” Those of us in the developed world need to face up and take the hit: we must reduce our consumption to acceptable levels. Maybe "contraction and convergence" as originated by Aubrey Meyer is the way to do this; it is at least a beginning. We no longer have the luxury of wait-and-see: we must act now or we will be exiting without a fanfare.

Polar warming

2009-02-02T16:04:00.000Z

Over the last 50 years, Antarctica has warmed at a rate of about 0.1 degree centigrade in the east of the continent and about 0.17 in the west per decade. The results of this research were published in an article by Steig et al in Nature magazine (Nature 457, 459-462 (22 January 2008). Discussing the results on the web (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/state-of-antarctica-red-or-blue/) one of the authors says that the trend is difficult to explain without taking into account the effect of global warming linked to atmospheric greenhouse gases.

If this trend continues, it will result in a major melting of the western Antarctic ice sheet. Taken in conjunction with increased flow from the Greenland ice sheet (IPCC Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report – Summary for Policymakers) we may be facing a serious rise in sea levels over this century. Clearly, this would have a huge global impact on people and wildlife, with the human population crowded into ever-decreasing amounts of space, with ever-decreasing amounts of land for growing food.

As the ice retreats, exploitation of the Arctic’s resources becomes easier, and the EU and other nations are lining up to exploit the oil and natural gas which are present. Fishing craft are exploiting the marine life, and tourism is also increasing in the region. As the lands fringing the arctic sea become green, trees, grizzly bears and caribou move northwards, competing with native arctic wildlife. Additionally, migration of polar bears and arctic island caribou may well be disrupted as the sea ice breaks up, and changing ecosystems will affect many arctic-adapted creatures and northern peoples. The darker land has a lower albedo than ice, which means more sunlight is absorbed, further warming the land and being trapped by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The melting of the permafrost has potentially catastrophic consequences, both in terms of erosion and subsidence and, more critically, in the release of methane. There is great deal of methane locked up in the permafrost and, as it melts, the methane (a greenhouse gas 21 times as powerful - if shorter lived - than carbon dioxide) is released into the atmosphere. It is also possible that the warming of the region and thawing of the permafrost will lead to the release of subsea methane hydrate as methane gas. This gas has been linked to previous mass extinctions and climatic changes, such as the Permian-Triassic mass extinction which killed about 96% of all life (http://pangea.stanford.edu/research/Oceans/GES205/methaneGeology.pdf).

Evidence of the release of methane hydrate was reported in the arctic region last year. Shakhova et al (2008) estimate that not less than 1,400 Gt of Carbon is presently locked up as methane and methane hydrates under the Arctic submarine permafrost, and that 5-10% of that area is subject to puncturing by open taliks (a patch of unfrozen ground in an area of permafrost). They conclude that "release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage [is] highly possible for abrupt release at any time" (http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EGU2008/01526/EGU2008-A-01526.pdf).

"Greener" Cars

2009-01-27T18:49:00.000Z

Peter Mandelson yesterday unveiled a package to support the UK automotive industry. It was stressed that this was to support the industry in its changeover to "greener" cars such as plug-in hybrid and electric cars.

Plug-in cars have great potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, there remains the question of how the electricity to power them is produced. Certainly with our current infrastructure, while the cars themselves are not producing problem emissions as long as they are running on the battery, the power stations which supply the charge for the battery are, often burning fossil fuels such as coal and gas to produce electricity. With the expected growth in renewables, this may cease to be a problem. If a "smart-grid" is used, it is even possible that plug-in cars could act as storage batteries for solar and wind-generated electricity, selling power back to the grid at times when demand is excessive or the turbines are not turning.

However, a major issue which must be addressed if electric cars are to be a truly viable resource is the battery material. Car manufacturers plan to replace the NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) batteries in their electric cars with Li-Ion (Lithium ion) batteries in the near future. While they can be recharged many more times than NiMH batteries, Li-Ion batteries are far from perfect, as anyone who has ever owned a laptop computer for more than a year can testify. Although re-chargeable, they hold an ever-decreasing charge over their lifetime until they are beyond practical use and must be disposed of and replaced.

It takes 1 million tonnes of lithium metal to make 5.3 million tonnes of lithium carbonate, which is what goes into Li-Ion batteries. Data from the US Geological Service (bit.ly/2LcRUd : based on a 1976 National Research Council report) says that global resources of lithium are about 14m tonnes, although Keith Evans (who worked on the original 1976 report) gives an abundance of 29.79m tonnes (http://www.worldlithium.com/AN_ABUNDANCE_OF_LITHIUM_-_Part_2.html). Even the more optimistic estimate doesn’t seem like nearly enough to keep our electric cars on the road for any length of time, especially as Li-Ion batteries are also used in other machines.

In 2007 global lithium carbonate demand was 93,000 tons, up 7.4% year on year, and China's battery output reached 33.4 billion, with an export volume of 25.168 billion: (source http://www.researchinchina.com/Htmls/Report/2008/5619.html). The Times reported on November 6 2008 that Japanese car manufacturers and electronics firms were adding lithium extraction and mining operations to their portfolios, indicating that they foresee increasing demand. Assuming that the US Geological Service’s figures are correct, this gives us less than 70 years worth of lithium, unless there is an improvement in mining and extraction methods in the meanwhile. But even then, this hardly constitutes as reliable a resource as, say, wood, which can be re grown more or less indefinitely.

There are several actions we might take to reduce emissions without over-exploiting our limited natural resources.

To avoid overexploitation of lithium, there could be greater investment in alternative transport: to move freight, we might, for example, use high speed electric trains powered by renewably generated electricity instead of trucks.

We could consider prioritising the needs of cyclists and pedestrians over those of drivers in our urban planning: this would encourage more people to leave their cars at home.

Taxation could be used to shift costs, reflecting the true inherent costs of petrol, for example, (while reducing income tax). This would increase the cost of car use which would encourage the use of alternative means of transport.

Mining and processing operations should be carried out with respect for the environment, the workers and the local population: this would almost certainly raise the costs of production and therefore the cost to the consumer, encouraging more careful use of our resources as well as raising the standard of living of the miners to an almost acceptable level.

Car manufacturers appear to view the Li-Ion car as a stop-gap while they attempt to develop completely different technology, probably hydrogen fuel cells. As a potentially cleaner fuel than fossils, this is a laudable aim. However, plans should be made to ensure that the Li-Ion car, which will inevitably become redundant, can be fully recycled and will not be the cause of yet more pollution at the end of its life.

Mind the gap...

2009-01-19T12:55:00.000Z

Recently, there has been much talk in the media about the necessity of slashing carbon dioxide emissions by 80% relative to 1990 levels by 2050. At the same time, coal fired power stations and airport expansion have been promoted. We are seeing here a significant gap between the rhetoric and the reality of our policy makers' approach to tackling climate change.

There is a similar gap in the perception of environmental issues in the general population. On the one hand we have a radical element in the green movement which predicts the total collapse of industrial society and a return to a kind of neo-pleistocene existence, and on the other hand the climate change deniers and the "business as usual" or the "small cosmetic changes will be enough" believers. In between these two extremes, the rest of our population ranges from the genuinely well-informed to the frankly clueless, passing through the well-intentioned but ill-informed and the gullible on the way.

Are we really too late to stop the earth warming by 2 degrees centigrade? Are we really facing sea level rises of 12m? How will these and other changes affect food, water and energy security for us all? While answering these questions with absolute certainty may well be impossible, I would argue that our policies regarding all environmental issues should be strictly based on the most recent, properly peer-reviewed scientific evidence, with wider dissemination of data so that the information is easily available to all. Of course, information by itself is useless to those without the skills to interpret it accurately, so easy access to education in critical skills is an intrinsic part of the solution.

Faced with a generally well-educated population able to regard their pronouncements with a critical eye, extremists at either end of the spectrum would find it difficult to persuade many to believe their inflated claims. It would also be easier for a well-intentioned government to push through sorely needed environmental legislation: legislation which will inevitably make our lives less comfortable and which, in the face of a poorly-informed populace, would be a sure-fire recipe for a government's growing unpopularity and ultimately loss of power at the next election.

We all need to be able to seperate the reality from the rhetoric. A well-informed populace able to identify the difference between policies which are based on good science and those which are based on ideology or political expediency is a populace which can insist that its long-term interests and those of its descendents are prioritised. It is a populace which can be part of the solution, rather than just part of the problem.

Where are we focusing our resources?

2009-01-18T11:10:00.000Z

I was reading Lester R. Brown's Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to save civilization. Using a value of 210 US dollars per ton of sequestered carbon, he calculates the cost of afforesting 171 million hectares in order to sequester carbon, conserve soil, reduce flooding and provide firewood over ten years at around 20 billion US dollars per year. Citing a Congressional Research Service study by Vatenfall and Belasco (2007) on the cost of US military operations in the "war on terror," Brown points out that this afforestation would cost less than 2 months of US occupation of Iraq (presumably each year).

I began to wonder what emissions are produced by UK activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and also what this involvement is costing the the country in financial terms. It would be interesting to calculate how much could be achieved with these funds were they to be diverted instead to combatting climate change. In order to find out, I have put a Freedom of Information request in to the MOD, asking about both emissions and financial cost: I will let you know the result if/when I get a reply.

Third Runway at Heathrow

2009-01-15T14:50:00.000Z

The proposed third runway at Heathrow got its long expected approval today, in spite of much protest and questioning.

A recent report co-written by the Sustainable Development Comission and the Institute for Public Policy Research called on the government to completely rethink its aviation policy.
Research by the Tyndall Centre (K, Anderson, A. Bows & P. Upham (2006)) shows that if the industry is allowed to expand as predicted, aviation alone would threaten the ability of the UK to meet its target of an 80% cut in carbon emissions by 2050.
The EU environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, has also expressed concern that if expansion goes ahead the UK may breach mandatory EU targets on nitrogen oxides which come into force in 2010.

All that before we even take into consideration the impact of high-altitude emissions released by aviation.

It is claimed that this expansion will bring many economic benefits to the UK. However, a report by CE-DELFT (CE-DELFT (2008) The Economics of Heathrow Expansion) questions the validity of the study used by ministers to assess the economic benefits of a third runway. It demonstrates that the official figures overestimate both the number of jobs generated and the value brought to Britain by extra business travellers.

The first most popular destination for travellers from Heathrow is Paris and the fourth most popular is Manchester, both of which can be reached by rail, which is much less carbon intensive.

With the economic downturn already affecting passenger numbers, and with solid grounds for concern that peak-oil may have a significant impact on the future viability of air travel, it seems increasingly unlikely that the benefits of this project could outweigh the costs.