There is growing concern amongst some members of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) about Japan’s request to allow them to hunt a limited number of whales around some of its coastal towns. They are agreeing to stop hunting the endangered Humpback whale in exchange for this. New Zealand and Australia are especially up in arms about it. Greenland, Russia and Alaska also want to increase their quota for hunting whales. While many countries are oppose to whale hunting, there are some communities that depend on the whaling industry for their existence. This is another example of human interest conflicting with the environment.
According to our government, nuclear power is the way forward for our future energy requirements. The supporters of nuclear power say it is far more environmentally friendly than many other forms of electricity generating methods. Nuclear power is cleaner, produces less carbon emissions and will eliminate our need to import energy, so the theory goes.
But Greenpeace have dismissed the green arguments for nuclear power as "like taking up smoking to lose weight". Although the government has promised to invest in renewable energy, this would not be sufficient to rule out the nuclear part of the equation. Do you think that nuclear energy has any part to play in a green Britain, or is the government simply ignoring alternatives that are just as effective?
[Via The Guardian]
There is a strong argument for introducing more renewable energy into the UK. Unfortunately some of these renewable energy projects will damage the local landscape and its wildlife. There is a big push by our government, notably by The Environment Secretary, David Miliband, Welsh Secretary Peter Hain and Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling to make Britain the first country to derive most of its energy from the tides. One such project being promoted at the moment is to build a 10 mile barrage across the Severn estuary. This £14 billion project is being pushed a consortium of six companies called the Severn Tidal Power Group. It all sounds good, getting electricity from the tides, no carbon emissions, but…
Having munched his way through more food than he would like to admit in front of the TV on Cup Final Day, Gareth Kane considers the environmental implications of what we eat.
"Great stadium, tedious game" was the general verdict on Saturday's FA Cup drudge match at the new Wembley. My personal prediction - that the only goal would be scored by Gullit, Jose Mourinho's fugitive Yorkshire Terrier, diving out from his hiding place under Jose's coat, tearing across the field and diverting an innocuous Chelsea backpass into their own net - was as wide of the mark as Ronaldo's shooting.
From an eco point of view, the dullness of the (in)action was eclipsed by the huge amount of grub the fans worked their way through. As reported in the Guardian (and quoted below), in the 2004 final, Manchester United and Millwall fans at the match put away 37,624 sausage rolls, pies or pasties, 26,965 sandwiches, 17,998 hot dogs, 12,780 burgers, 11,502 packets of crisps and 23,909 portions of chips. This made up a large proportion of the ecological footprint of the match as a whole.
The FA cup final at the new Wembley stadium is estimated to have left an environmental footprint 3,000 times the size of the pitch! Each fan travelling to the game and enjoying the culinary delights on offer would have a carbon footprint 10 times as large as the one they would have if they watched the game at home. Based on an analysis of the 2004 cup final by Dr Andrea Collins of Cardiff University, the environmental impact of such an event is massive. The major factors are the fans’ transport requirements and the huge amounts of processed foods they consume.
The environmental problem with processed food is the fact that it is processed. The industrial process of making and distributing the food is causing the damage to the environment.
While our government is talking ‘green’ and doing little to ‘be green’, a major cause of global warming goes unnoticed and virtually unreported. I knew that deforestation was damaging the environment, but I never knew it was as devastating as this. According to a fascinating article in The Independent today, just 24 hours of deforestation releases as much CO2 as 8 million people flying from London to New York. The figures in the article make very scary reading, for example, 2 billion tons of CO2 is released each year from deforestation and accounts for roughly a quarter of global emissions. 50 million acres of forest is destroyed every year. That’s an area the size of mainland UK.
How many of you watched ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ recently on channel 4? If you did, you will remember the whole programme was an attempt to portray global warming as a purely natural phenomenon caused primarily by solar activity. Even more disturbing, was the film-makers attempt to convince us the theory that global warming is being caused by human activity was false and basically a lie. Apparently we are all victims of a great big con.
Now it appears we were victims of a con. A con by the film-makers themselves. The programme has been referred to Ofcom, the regulatory watchdog, to consider a complaint by 37 scientists. The programme has been accused of misrepresenting the prevailing views and facts relating to global warming. Even one of the climate sceptics whose research work was used on the programme has accused the film-makers of broadcasting falsehoods.
Whichever political mast you nail your colours to, there is no doubt that Anthony Seddon Blair has dominated the political landscape for the last 10 years. And with everyone expecting him to announce his final bow this week, you won't be able to switch on your telly or open a paper without getting a lengthy run down of his 'legacy'. I've never been one to demur from plonking my lazy backside on a crowded bandwagon, so I thought I would add to the acres of verbiage and review his track record on the environment.
On the plus side there's been the landfill tax, variable car tax based on emissions and the climate change levy. The first of these started off a bit ineffective, but with a steady annual increment and a recent switch from funding local community based projects to funding major waste reduction initiatives such as Envirowise, the Waste Resources Action Programme and the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme, you could argue it has transformed the industrial waste picture. On the other hand, the car tax proposals rewarded the virtuous rather than penalising idiots in Chelsea tractors and the Climate Change Levy had opt-outs for the big energy users which rather undermined the whole idea.
It seems like people will never stop arguing about organic food and its benefits (or lack of them) so for those of you spending that extra 10p on your milk, here's a quick pep-talk from Hippyshopper's Dawn Mellowship.
1) Organic products certified by the relevant bodies in your country (The Soil Association in the UK) are required to meet strict standards and as such should be free of toxic chemicals, pesticides, insecticides and other additives.
Last time I walked past my local Sainsburys there were so many plastic bags caught in the bushes around the car park that at first sight I thought the bags were white blossom covering the plants.
Anya Hindmarch can design as many bags as she wants - it's not going to solve the problems caused by plastic bags until people start using them to put their shopping in instead of using them as status symbols or trying to flog them on eBay. The whole 'not a plastic bag' story has left me frothing with barely-contained green rage, so I was happy to read a truly positive story in the Independent yesterday; the town of Modbury in Devon has banished plastic bags.
I have just looked at the Pesticide Residues Committees Pesticide ‘Residues Monitoring Report’, so you don’t have to, unless you have school age children, in which case maybe you should. Sounds sad I know, but I take my blogging seriously.
Well the report has found that the small sample of fruit tested contained levels of pesticides below the official maximum residue levels, though some fruit contained multiple pesticide residues. That’s good you may think. The official line in the report, is “None of the residues detected would be expected to have an effect on health”. Is it me, or is this slightly worrying? It’s the ‘expected to’ that concerns me. If they are sure that the pesticide residues would not have an effect on health, why not say so?
Whilst the rising temperatures seem to making many people overjoyed at an early summer, I am slightly concerned. Some people seem to be more worried about getting a sun tan than global warming. Being a pasty faced soul, I don’t catch the sun anyway, rather it frazzles my delicate skin, premature aging just does not appeal to me and I am concerned about the state of the planet.
With scientists saying that even if we stopped all greenhouse gases now the average temperature in the UK would still increase for around 100 years, we should all be at least a tad more alarmed. That’s not to say that many people are not at all worried, or attempting to make changes, but most people I meet don’t seem too bothered, or they think that global warming is a myth.
I bet ExxonMobil wish it were a myth. Despite racking up $1 billion a day they decided to plant doubts about the validity of taking action against global warming.
Contrary to popular belief vegans don’t live off carrots and lettuce leaves and they do enjoy being vegan. Once at my mum’s house I was dishing myself up a vegan treat and one of my relatives said to me, “How long are you going to have to eat that for,” as if I was somehow afflicted. Although mildly entertained by the comment, I realised, that some carnivores (mainly the avid ones, who wouldn’t limit their meat intake for love nor money) view vegans with a kind of abject pity. It made me think of how I became vegan myself and my attitudes, prior to my, dare I say, ‘conversion.’
I have only been vegan for coming up to three years. I used to gobble meat on a regular basis. I didn’t really think about how the animals were reared and slaughtered and the means by which they came to be sitting on my plate. I think this is the case for many people. They see the animal as a pre-packaged item on a shop shelf.
It was that great sage Vic Reeves who said that "87% of statistics are made up". He wasn't kidding (well he was, but you know what I mean). I got up in grumpy old man mode today (my 2 month old has decided to try nocturnality as a lifestyle choice) and wading through pages and pages of dull press releases and news stories looking for some gems for this column has made me even grumpier. But what's really riling me today is the plethora of "surveys" demonstrating that a majority of Brits are either going green quite happily or think that it is far too expensive or whatever.
Controversy over climate change rumbles on with the publication of latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which says that the poor will be hit hardest by climate change. George Monbiot in the Guardian complains that the report has been watered down to remove, amongst other things, a paragraph stating that North America will suffer "severe economic damage" due to climate change. He compares this censorship with allegedly unfounded claims from the 'deniers' that scientists are under pressure to exaggerate man-made climate change. The excised paragraph also undermines the oft-repeated claims that the green movement is trying to take us back to the stone age.
From: Fashion weeks go Fairtrade