Living Life and LOAFing It

CHRISTIAN ECOLOGY LINK PRESS RELEASE Living Life and LOAFing It – Green Christians ask churches to “Use your LOAF !” on sourcing sustainable food In the run up to Easter, Christian Ecology Link is asking supporters to think and act on how they source food for their church communities, with the aim of reducing the impact of unsustainable agriculture on their local area, and the wider world.

CEL have launched a new colour leaflet on the LOAF programme principles in time for Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras), or Pancake Day, on 21st February 2012. The key LOAF principles are that food should where possible be sourced Locally, grown and reared Organically, be Animal-friendly and Fairly traded. There is an action letter that can be downloaded from the website, urging church leaders to adopt the LOAF principles at community facilities. CEL’s Web Editor Judith Allinson said, “We hope that our members and friends will take the opportunity to join in sending a letter to their church leaders asking that their community LOAF during Lent, and then carry on LOAFing throughout the following year.” Green Christians are being encouraged to order free copies of the new LOAF leaflet to distribute during Fair Trade Fortnight, which runs from 27th February to 11th March 2012, by sending an e-mail to : jill-publications@christian-ecology.org.uk The new all-colour leaflet can also be downloaded from : http://www.christian-ecology.org.uk/use-your-loaf.pdf or http://www.greenchristian.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/loafUseYourLoaf.pdf CEL members and friends are being asked to submit LOAF-themed recipes which will be uploaded to the new website : http://www.greenchristian.org.uk/archives/category/food/recipes CEL’s Secretary, Barbara Echlin said, “Start the LOAF ball rolling in your own church by serving pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and make them with local free range eggs, organic milk and Fair Trade sugar. Ample food for all !” Guidance for LOAF campaigners includes the suggestion to send the campaign letter to local church leaders and regional church administrators; and asking cathedrals, conference centres, educational venues and large churches with a refectory or cafe to take part. CEL’s Information and Analysis Officer, Jo Abbess said “Good food is holy food – and good food comes from well-treated plants, animals and workers too. It’s not enough to choose organic over intensively-farmed – we need to choose co-operative food growers over convenience store profits.” ENDS NOTES FOR EDITORS 1. The LOAF principles were developed several years ago by Christian Ecology Link, and the new all-colour leaflet has been produced to accompany the launch of a letter-writing campaign – asking leaders and managers of all Christian venues to “Use their LOAF !” 2. LOAF stands for : Locally produced, Organically grown, Animal friendly, Fairly traded. 3. The full text of the LOAF letter is below. Members and supporters are asked to modify it as they wish, or print it as it is from the website. Dear As a supporter of Christian Ecology Link (CEL), I feel that many present aspects of food production imperil the wellbeing of Creation. This is why I am writing to tell you about CEL’s food campaign – LOAF – and to ask you to consider following these guidelines. CEL is asking churches, cathedrals, districts, diocese offices, and Christian holiday, retreat and conference centres, schools and colleges to try to source food which is :- * Locally produced Supporting local and national farmers and producers strengthens local economies and communities, and lowers carbon emissions. We need to combat the nonsensical policy of importing food which could be, and indeed is, grown and produced here only for export. * Organically grown Subsidised industrialisation of agriculture leads to severe biodiversity losses, to soil depletion, water pollution and agrochemical resistance. Organic farming is key to the recovery of interdependent ecosystems. Supporting organic production is also central to the struggle against GM biotechnology, which poses threats to other crops (via cross-pollination) and biodiversity. * Animal friendly UK animal welfare standards are higher than many countries. But shops still sell produce from hens caged, beak-trimmed and bred for unnaturally fast growth rates; pigs confined to barren sheds, teeth clipped and tails docked, many pregnant sows in farrowing crates; turkeys in dark, dirty sheds where they develop lameness and burns. The wellbeing of animals is entrusted to us. Will you consider sourcing only free-range eggs and free-range, organic or outdoor reared meat ? Also, a shift to a much higher proportion of vegetarian/vegan cooking is also vital as meat and dairy production requires far more land and water and is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions. * Fairly traded In a world where trade justice seems to recede and trade policies assist large producers rather than small producers, a commitment to serve only Fairtrade tea and coffee, for example, would signal support for the one certification guaranteeing minimum remuneration and community investment. I feel that we are called to renew, heal and restore God’s creation: an immense commission only to be realised by infinitesimal everyday acts – in His grace. Please find enclosed CEL’s new LOAF leaflet. More may be downloaded free from : http://www.greenchristian.org.uk/resources/loaf I look forward to your response. Yours

Open Letter to Renewable Energy Deniers

To all Renewable Energy Deniers,

Things are getting so much better with renewable energy engineering and deployment – why do you continue to think it’s useless ?

We admit that, at the start, energy conversion efficiencies were low, wind turbine noise was significant, kit was expensive. Not now. Wind and solar farms have been built, data collected and research published. Design modifications have improved performance.

Modelling has helped integrate renewable energy into the grids. As renewable energy technologies have been deployed at scale, and improvements and adjustments have been made, and electricity grid networks have adapted to respond to the variable nature of the wind and the sunshine, we know, and we can show you, that renewable energy is working.

It’s not really clear what motivates you to dismiss renewable energy. Maybe it’s because you’re instinctively opposed to anything that looks like it comes from an “envionmentalist” perspective.

Maybe because renewable energy is mandated to mitigate against climate change, and you have a persistent view that climate change is a hoax. Why you mistrust the science on global warming when you accept the science on everything else is a continuing mystery to me.

But if that’s where you’re coming from when you scorn developments in renewable energy, you’re making a vital mistake. You see, renewable energy is sustainable energy. Despite any collapse in the globalised economy, or disruption to fossil fuel production, wind turbines will keep spinning, and solar panels will keep glowing.

Climate change has been hard to communicate effectively – it’s a huge volume of research, it frequently appears esoteric, or vague, or written by boffins with their heads in the clouds. Some very intelligent people are still not sure about the finer points of the effects of global warming, and so you’re keeping good company if you reserve judgement on some of the more fringe research.

But attacking renewable energy is your final stand. With evidence from the engineering, it is rapidly becoming clear that renewable energy works. The facts are proving you wrong.

And when people realise you’re wrong about renewable energy, they’ll never believe you again. They won’t listen to you when you express doubts about climate change, because you deny the facts of renewable energy.

Those poor fools who have been duped into thinking they are acting on behalf of the environment to campaign against wind farms ! Wind energy will be part of the backbone of the energy grids of the future.

We don’t want and we can’t afford the concrete bunkers of deadly radioactive kettles and their nasty waste. We don’t want and we can’t afford the slag heaps, dirty air and melting Arctic that comes from burning coal for power. We don’t want and we can’t afford to keep oil and Natural Gas producing countries sweet – or wage war against them to keep the taps open.

Instead we want tall and graceful spinners, their gentle arms waving electricity from the breeze. We want silent and dark photovoltaic cladding on every roof.

Burning things should only be done to cover for intermittency in wind and sunshine. Combustion is very inefficient, yet you support combustion when you oppose renewable energy.

We must fight waste in energy, and the rising cost of energy, and yet you don’t support the energy resources where there is no charge for fuel. Some would say that’s curmudgeonly.

When you oppose renewable energy, what is it you’re fighting for ? The old, inefficient and poisonous behemoths of coal hell ? We who support renewable, sustainable energy, we exchange clunky for sleek, toxic for clean. We provide light and comfort to all, rich and poor.

When you oppose renewable energy, you are being unbelievably gullible – you have swallowed an argument that can ruin our economy, by locking us into dependency on energy imports. You are passing up the chance to break our political obedience to other countries, all because wind turbines clutter up your panoramic view when you’re on holiday.

You can question the net energy gain from wind power, but the evidence shows you to be incorrect.

If you criticise the amount of investment and subsidy going into renewable energy, you clearly haven’t understood the net effect of incentivisation in new technology deployment.

Renewable energy has a positive Net Present Value. Wind turbines and solar panels are genuine assets, unlike the liabilities that are coal-fired power stations and nuclear reactors.

Renewable energy deployment will create meaningful, sustainable employment and is already creating wealth, not only in financial terms, but in social welfare terms too.

Renewable energy will save this country, so why do you knock it ?

Quizzically yours,

Methane Concentrations : Losing Control

Biomassacre : Agrofuels Aggro

Rooftop Solar : Summer Highs

Image Credit : Intelligence Squared

George Monbiot is right about a lot of things, but on rooftop solar power, I believe he is wrong. Yes, he’s right that solar photovoltaic systems are being incentivised more than other micro-generation, but there are several good reasons for that. For a first, the unit price of an adequate rooftop solar power system is in the region of the price of a car. Most people use finance schemes to purchase cars, with monthly charges for example.

Similar schemes are not available for solar PV, where you have to borrow the whole amount for the system up-front – or take it from a savings account if you’re lucky enough to have one. It is the sheer size of the cost of home solar that means that people won’t do it without subsidy. The one overriding concern of people when I ask them about what green energy they could consider buying, is the size of the initial outgoings. Read the rest of this entry »

Natural Gaza (4)

What’s wrong with this map ? Yes, the same old question. And the answer is again the same – the lack of geographical accuracy in the map reflects the lack of legal accuracy on the part of Israel in appropriating marine Natural Gas that belongs to the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

The map is taken from a new research paper by Brenda Shaffer, of the School of Political Sciences at the University of Haifa, which has been accepted for publication in Energy Policy at some point in the near future :-

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421511004113
“Energy Policy : Article in Press, Corrected Proof : doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2011.05.026 : Israel – New natural gas producer in the Mediterranean : Brenda Shaffer : Received 7 November 2010; accepted 16 May 2011. Available online 2 June 2011″

Read the rest of this entry »

A Green Van for all the People

Green Jobs ! Green Energy !

Cool poverty

They’ve never had it so cold. The British have just shivered through another long, centrally heated winter, and people are receiving enormous gas bills. Social campaigners and parliamentarians are rightly concerned that a clutch of harsher winters and rising energy costs could reverse gains made in tackling fuel poverty. The UK Government’s recent Budget announcement to reduce fuel poverty assistance payments is another blow to maintaining decent and warm homes for the vulnerable, the elderly and children. Proposals to cap the amount that energy companies can charge people in their bills is welcomed by some, but feared by others – as it could jeopardise energy company funding for the Green Deal – a free-to-the-consumer loan scheme for insulation and renewable energy installation. And there’s another problem waiting in the wings. Unlike the United States and Australia, the average British home doesn’t have air conditioning, and it costs real money to install it. If outsized summer heatwaves continue to pop up more frequently in Europe, UK households will face “cool poverty” in summer – a lack of cooling.

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Pakistan : Inundation Nation

[ UPDATE : Don't tell me. I know the images are mostly from India, but the music is Punjabi... ]

http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=32170&Cat=6&dt=2/21/2011

“Draft of national climate change policy finalised : Noor Aftab : Monday, February 21, 2011 : Islamabad : The draft of National Climate Change Policy has been finalised after two years of deliberations and now the Environment Ministry would present it to the federal cabinet for final approval, the sources told The News here on Sunday. The sources said the recommendations in the draft would certainly test the government’s commitment as it has been proposed to go for alternative energy resources instead of using fossil fuel, considered one of the major reasons for environmental degradation. The sources said the draft recommendations prepared by a core group of the Environment Ministry mainly focuses on two areas including adaptation and mitigation with an aim to enable the country to cope with fast increasing environmental challenges. One of the top officials of the Environment Ministry told this correspondent that continuity of casual approach towards environmental sector has now made economic managers and policy makers feel the heat as environmental degradation has started costing five per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in Pakistan…”

“Sunday, February 20, 2011 : UK to keep helping Pakistan’s flood victims: Sayeeda Warsi : LAHORE: Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a British cabinet minister of Pakistani-origin, said on Saturday that the United Kingdom would continue supporting Pakistan in the post-flood operations. “Today I have been heartened to see and hear how the UK is helping millions of people in Pakistan rebuild their lives, but there is much more to do, with widespread malnutrition and the risk of disease outbreaks,” Warsi said while talking to reporters in Islamabad. The primary purpose of Warsi’s visit to Pakistan is to learn how the country is recovering, what more needs to be done, and to see how more than Rs 27.7 billion from British people is supporting the flood victims. “When I was here exactly six months ago in August at the peak of the floods with the UK International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell I saw scenes of devastation,” the British lawmaker recalled. She said that some areas of Sindh were still under water, adding that reconstruction of millions of houses, bridges and schools that were destroyed would take years…”

One For Pakistan

Please consider signing the ONE.org petition to the International Monetary Fund to freeze Pakistan’s national debt.

The country has been subject to a cataclysm, most likely made worse by Global Warming, which is most likely mostly caused by humankind’s fossil fuel burning, mostly caused by the actions of rich people in the West and North :-

http://www.one.org/international/actnow/pakistanfloods/index.html

“OVERVIEW : The sheer scale of the floods in Pakistan is staggering and the country will need all its available resources to help it recover from this crippling crisis and to fight long-term poverty. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) – the institution that oversees debt repayments – can play a key role in this. Ensuring all of Pakistan’s debt is frozen for 2 years would mean an extra $6 billion available to help those affected.”

This is how I signed :-

Dear Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF Managing Director,

Please help freeze Pakistan’s debt to ensure the country’s poorest people are able to recover from the devastating floods.

I believe it is an ethical and economic inevitability that, since global economic instability will continue, all debts to undeveloped nations will need to be permanently frozen or annulled.

The aid, development and emergency organisations are struggling to make their funds cover all the current needs and disasters, and the situation is being made worse by Climate Change, and will only deteriorate.

The poor are unable to pay back, and these debts therefore are becoming odious as well as untenable.

I think it would be appropriate to begin the process of recognition of this evolution by starting with Pakistan, whose people are suffering unimaginable catastrophe to their agricultural way of life, and are at high risk in the short-term of malaria, respiratory disease and water-related digestive system infections.

If you are in the United States of America, or Europe, you can afford to buy insurance against disaster. In Pakistan, you can’t, and anyway, in this case the disaster is so overwhelming, a normal risk-based financial product simply couldn’t restore the cropland, livestock, homes, public utilities and water sources for something like 20 million people.

Insurance is all about “all for one and one for all”. For Pakistan it’s too late, too impossible, for insurance.

Go on – show you’re an altruistic human and ask for Pakistan’s national debt to be frozen !

Let’s be one, and all for Pakistan.

A Combustion-free Future

Combustion of Fossil Fuels and Biomass is a major cause of chronic respiratory problems around the world.

Many people seem to know that smoky stoves in the Global South cause lung disease for millions of children in poverty.

But what will happen as more so-called Renewable Energy is built in the United Kingdom ?

This answer from Almuth Ernsting points the way :-

“Forth Energy have put in a planning application for a power station in Dundee which will burn 1 million tonnes of mainly imported wood per year. Altogether, they want to build four power stations in Scotland which will burn a total of 5.3 million tonnes. That’s the equivalent of nearly two-thirds of the UK’s annual wood production. Such a large new demand for wood will, directly and/or indirectly, mean more industrial tree plantations and more logging at the expense of forests, climate and communities. If approved, Forth Energy’s power stations would attract an estimated £300 million in subsidies every year – paid as “Renewable Obligation Certificates” through a levy on electricity bills. Local residents would be affected by more air pollution in a city with already high levels of pollution. There are also serious concerns about the impacts on the Firth of Tay and Eden Estuary,which is a Special Area of Conservation. There has been a large number of objections from residents in Dundee already. To read more background information and to object to the application through our webform, please go to: http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/forthsep2010.php”

The solution : stop burning things to make energy ! It’s really, really simple. Use Wind Power, Solar Power, Wave Power, Tidal Power, Geothermal Power…

“The Two Marks” – Mark Delucchi and Mark Jacobson make similar arguments :-

Hungry for Change

People often talk about the weather in relation to Climate Change, but neglect to talk about the possible obvious and inevitable side-effects – hunger and starvation.

Frontline Club will screen the film “The Hunger Season” on 1st October 2010, and follow it with a panel discussion hosted by BOND and Oxfam UK :-

http://frontlineclub.com/events/2010/10/liberation-season-screening—the-hunger-season.html?utm_source=Frontline&utm_campaign=074ce4510f-Announcing+October+events&utm_medium=email

“Across the world a massive food crisis is unfolding. 
Climate change, increasing consumption in China and India, the dash for Biofuels are causing hitherto unimagined food shortages and rocketing prices. This has already provoked unrest and violence from the Middle East to South America and there is no end in sight in the coming months. The people who are going to be most sorely affected are those already living on the razors edge of poverty, those dependent on food aid for their very survival. As commodity prices have risen by 50%, the UN Agencies have barely half the budget they need to meet the needs of 73 million hungry people they are currently feeding…”

Biofuel targets may not be the only factor behind food price rises :-

http://www.wdm.org.uk/food-speculation/great-hunger-lottery

“In The Great Hunger Lottery, the World Development Movement has compiled extensive evidence establishing the role of food commodity derivatives in destabilising and driving up food prices around the world. This in turn, has led to food prices becoming unaffordable for low-income families around the world, particularly in developing countries highly reliant on food imports. Nowhere was this more clearly seen than during the astonishing surge in staple food prices over the course of 2007-2008, when millions went hungry and food riots swept major cities around the world. The great hunger lottery shows how this alarming episode was fueled by the behaviour of financial speculators, and describes the terrible immediate impacts on vulnerable families around the world, as well as the long term damage to the fight against global poverty…”

Read the rest of this entry »

Caroline Spelman Shrugged

The British Government is about to announce that the people be left to the ravages of Climate Change and cope by heaving-ho and a rolling-up of the sleeves and display war-time grittedness through voluntary “Big Society” :-

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/britain-must-adapt-to-inevitable-climate-change-warns-minister-2077175.html

“Britain must adapt to ‘inevitable’ climate change, warns minister : As experts call for action now, the coalition withholds green funding and appeals to private enterprise : By Matt Chorley and Jonathan Owen : Sunday, 12 September 2010 : Britons must radically change the way they live and work to adapt to being “stuck with unavoidable climate change” the Government will caution this week, as it unveils a dramatic vision of how society will be altered by floods, droughts and rising temperatures. The coalition will signal a major switch towards adapting to the impact of existing climate change, away from Labour’s heavy emphasis on cutting carbon emissions to reverse global temperature rises. Caroline Spelman, the Tory Secretary of State for the Environment, will use her first major speech on climate change since taking office to admit that the inevitable severe weather conditions will present a “survival-of-the- fittest scenario”, with only those who have planned ahead able to thrive. Adapting to climate change will be “at the heart of our agenda”, she is expected to say…”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7997668/Climate-change-is-inevitable-says-Caroline-Spelman.html

“Climate change is inevitable, says Caroline Spelman : Britain can no longer stop global warming and must instead focus on adapting to the ‘inevitable’ impacts of climate change such as floods, droughts and rising sea levels, Government ministers will warn this week. : By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent : Published : 13 Sep 2010 : For the past few years Government policy has concentrated on trying to make people turn off lights and grow their own vegetables in an effort to bring down carbon emissions. But as global greenhouse gases continue to increase, with the growth of developing countries like China and India, and the public purse tightens, the focus will increasingly be on adapting to climate change. The Government will set out plans to protect power stations from flooding and ensure hospitals can cope with water shortages during dry summers….”

Read the rest of this entry »

Are You Ready for Pakistan ?

Compassion fatigue appears to have set in early in the Western Media – yet the existential problems of simple human survival, health, shelter, food and clean drinking water have only just started in large parts of Pakistan.

I was speaking with a contact recently who is just about to go out East to help coordinate an emergency mission in the region, and my first question was, “Are you ready for Pakistan ?”, because I don’t think anybody “parachuting” into the country will be.

Plus, this may be the worst crisis that the world’s humanitarian network has faced in the last half Century, but it’s not the only one ongoing and just about to start :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Pacific_typhoon_season

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Atlantic_hurricane_season

Human interest stories have been the bread and butter of holiday media for decades – now is the time to roll cameras for the never-ending rollercoaster of disaster Climate Change is turning out to be.

It’s been raining really, really heavily, catastrophically somewhere on the planet practically non-stop since the beginning of the year.

Surely that’s not just a story, that’s a whole narrative ?

And it’s about weather, too, every journalist’s favourite subject.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oil Salesmen

Advertising imitating Life…but just which photograph is the fashion shoot ?

Unqualified Opinion (1) : Dan Gardner

There are several journalists out there who simply can’t cope with the real risks posed by dangerous Climate Change.

Following a rather reasonable, rational article by Louise Grey, Tom Chivers gave the “loaded dice” metaphor to straighten her up on language :-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/7937269/Pakistan-floods-Climate-change-experts-say-global-warming-could-be-the-cause.html

“Pakistan floods: Climate change experts say global warming could be the cause : The world weather crisis that is causing floods in Pakistan, wildfires in Russia and landslides in China is evidence that global warming predictions are correct, according to climate change experts. : By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent : Published: 10 Aug 2010 : Almost 14 million people have been affected by the torrential rains in Pakistan, making it a more serious humanitarian disaster than the South Asian tsunami and recent earthquakes in Kashmir and Haiti combined. The disaster was driven by a ‘supercharged jet stream’ that has also caused floods in China and a prolonged heatwave in Russia. It comes after flash floods in France and Eastern Europe killed more than 30 people over the summer. Experts from the United Nations (UN) and universities around the world said the recent “extreme weather events” prove global warming is already happening. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-president of the body set up by the UN to monitor global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the ‘dramatic’ weather patterns are consistent with changes in the climate caused by mankind. “These are events which reproduce and intensify in a climate disturbed by greenhouse gas pollution,” he said. “Extreme events are one of the ways in which climatic changes become dramatically visible.”…”

Read the rest of this entry »

Death by Hot Tub

It’s been a bad month or so for ignominious ends in unusually hot and sticky conditions : drunk Russians drowning as they try to cool off from a once-in-a-thousand-year heatwave centred on Moscow; hundreds of Chinese swept away; a Darwin award surely going to the man who died whilst participating in the World Sauna Championships, thousands of Pakistanis snatched by flood waters, and then there’s poor Matthew Simmons, leader of the Peak Oilers, bursting his aorta in a private spa :-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7891040/Drunk-Russians-drowning-due-to-heat-wave.html

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/08/10/sauna-championships-tragedy-the-weird-and-frankly-lethal-lengths-people-go-just-to-win-a-contest-115875-22476900/

http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2010/08/09/controversial-peak-oilist-matthew-simmons-dies/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-09/matthew-simmons-investment-banker-peak-oil-theory-advocate-dies-at-67.html

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/08/09/without-matt-simmons-has-peak-oil-well-peaked/

“AUGUST 9, 2010 : Without Matt Simmons: Has Peak Oil, Well, Peaked? : By Michael Corkery : Matt Simmons, the maverick investment banker who championed the concept of peak oil, died of a heart attack in a hot tub in Maine. He was 67. Simmons is best known for raising the alarm, in books, in lectures, television interviews and to anyone who would listen, that the world’s oil reserves had peaked. The concept of “peak oil” wasn’t new when Simmons wrote Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, in 2005. In fact, peak oil was first posited by a geophysicist named M. King Hubbert in the 1950s who predicted that world oil supply would peak in 1995. But Simmons helped to being the theory to the mass media, after traveling to Saudi Arabia in 2003 to research that nation’s secretive data on oil reserves, or the amount of oil able to be pumped out of the ground. His book became an instant classic among conspiracy theorists…”

Hey ! Don’t disrespect the dead ! He made a very valid contribution to the world’s understanding that the Fossil Fuel free ride won’t last forever, and is, in fact, stopping short as I write…

Read the rest of this entry »

Unpicking Kyoto (6) : Black Carbon

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/july/soot-emissions-ice-072810.html

Unpicking Kyoto
Jo Abbess
20 June 2010
Updated

PART 6

CONTINUED FROM PART 1, PART 2, PART 3, PART 4 AND PART 5

Linking Climate Change to Health

During the first few years of my childhood education, I used to walk to and from the school alongside the road that was originally the main highway between London and Cambridge, England.

At that time, the density of cars in that part of town rose dramatically, as did the number of vehicles idling in long traffic jams, and I remember just how much of an impact it had on the air quality, particularly in summer.

This was despite the fact that the road was flanked by a large number of trees, areas of grass and bushes, and even ponds.

My recollection is that what had originally been a pleasant walking route became unbearable and toxic.

One day, I hope that the internal combustion engine is virtually outlawed, so that urban people can start to get some clean air.

At a recent UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) conference, the Claverton Energy Research Group invited Dr Mark A. Delucchi of the University of California at Davis to speak on the “Transportation in a World Based 100% on Wind, Water and Solar Power”, a piece of work that he did in collaboration with Professor Mark Z. Jacobson at Stanford University :-

http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.php?page_ref_id=2662

http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=766

This chart from the presentation gives a comparison between BEVs (Battery Electric Vehicles) with the electricity coming from a variety of sources; against internal combustion engine vehicles, either running on two kinds of BioEthanol (E85) or standard Gasoline.

Read the rest of this entry »

Save Oxfam

In an unguarded moment, I allowed myself to watch television, and found myself watching this campaign advertisement from Oxfam.

The first thing I felt was empathy with the unhappy woman shown in the opening sequence, as the narrator told us that her baby had just been washed away by floodwaters. How dreadful for her. How awful for her child.

The second thing I thought was how shocking it was for an aid and development agency to use this person’s grief as a marketing tool.

The third thing I thought was to ask myself why the makers of the appeal didn’t mention the aggravation to the environment caused by Climate Change, but instead just refered to “more people than ever are dying because of floods, drought and lack of clean water”.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Population Question (2)

Image Credit : Lauren Manning under Creative Commons Licence : “World Population Growth From 2008 to 2050″

Who could have guessed that my previous post would not be the final word on “The Population Question” ?

As anybody who has ever looked at this question and its surrounding myths will know, there is layer upon layer of mis-fact, swirl around swirl of supposition and conjecture on the topic of human-to-land density in the imaginings of the newspaper-reading populace.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gasland

Holy hydrocarbons !

Seems like BP America’s favourite unconventional fossil fuel is out of control.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/22/josh-fox-gasland-filmmake_n_621341.html

http://www.ecorazzi.com/2010/06/23/gasland-filmmaker-josh-fox-ignites-conversation-on-the-daily-show/

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/gasland-documentary-film-trailer-natural-gas-fracking.php

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Gasland

Don’t Believe The Heat ?

Don’t believe that the globe is warming up ? Not even after scanning the available sources ? Well, that’s probably down to the failure of your public and private Media, who are, for the most part, seemingly institutionally incapable of telling the full unexpurgated facts :-

http://www.climateshifts.org/?p=5505

“19 June 2010 : Contrary to the impression you might have gained from the media, the global climate is NOT cooling. In fact, the last twelve months, June 2009 – May 2010, has been the hottest June-May period on record, in both the 31-year satellite record of lower atmosphere global temperature and the 131-year surface global temperature record. In both data series the last 12 months have been more than 0.4C hotter than the average temperature of the last two decades of the 20th century…”

And why just stop at the evidence from the temperatures ? Don’t believe the oceans are deteriorating ? Why not look at the full range of research ?

Read the rest of this entry »

Climate Union : Sharing Principles

Image Credit : Gilbert & George, “Nettle Dance”, White Cube

I’m in the Climate Union. Are You ?

Soon we could all be, if the expansionist plans of a group of social campaigners come to fruition.

Taking in the unions, faith communities and the usual rag-tag bunch of issues activists, the Climate Union aims to establish itself as a political force for Low Carbon.

First of all, however, it has to tackle the uneasy and prickly problem of the exact name of the movement, and the principles under which it will operate.

The flag has been flown : a set of principles has been circulated for discussion amongst the “Climate Forum”. I cannot show you the finalised document yet, but I can offer you my comments (see below).

If you want to comment on the development of this emerging entity, please contact : Peter Robinson, Campaign against Climate Change, mobile/cell telephone in the UK : 07876595993.

Comments on the Climate Forum Principles
Jo Abbess
28 June 2010

I am aware that my comments are going to be a little challenging. I made similar comments during the review of the ClimateSafety briefing, which were highly criticised.

I expect you to be negative in response to what I say, but I think it is necessary to make sure the Climate Forum does not become watered-down, sectorally imprisoned and politically neutered, like so many other campaigns.

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Burning Things Is Wasteful

Centre for Alternative Technology

Burning things wastes a lot of energy – even burning waste.

1. Plain Old Inefficiency

The systems and infrastructure for the generation and distribution of electricity in the United Kingdom is extremely poor, nigh on immorally wasteful. See the diagram above from the Zero Carbon Britain 2030 report :-

http://www.zcb2030.org/

There are so many things that could be done to improve on that enormous loss of energy, and save on Carbon Dioxide Emissions at the same time.

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Fossil Fuels versus Corn Ethanol

So, digging up dirty old decaying fish causes massive coastland and marine pollution. Would bioethanol from corn be better ?

http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2010/06/14/is-bps-oil-spill-an-opportunity-for-the-ethanol-lobby/

Not really. First there’s the amount of land required to grow all that corn to burn in all those tanks (see diagram at top of page).

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