Everybody Needs Good Neighbours

You may have seen this in the papers today. An estate agent in England is selling this idyllic cottage:


As estate agents do, they forget to mention one or two things. Like the nuclear power station next door!

A Winter Sewage Wonderland

Photo by Randy Son Of Robert

There's a short article in today's Scotsman that had me blinking furiously in disbelief (it was 4am, that's about all the reaction I could muster!)

Apparently, some sewage treatment plants in Scotland lower their standards during the winter.

The sewage is treated less vigorously than during the summer months. And the unbelievable part? It's government sanctioned!

Apparently they can get away with it because a "bathing season" is enshrined in law. The logic being that no one in their right mind would be in the waters off Scotland or using the beaches during the winter so why bother treating the sewage so much before it's pumped out to sea?

Surfers are complaining. I'm sure the fish aren't too happy about it either.

Oh, The Humanity!

USS Los Angeles over Manhattan, 1930

There is a growing section of the green community that is enamoured with airships. I have to admit, I can see the appeal and wouldn't mind having a go on one myself.

But it's not people-transport that the modern day blimp is being designed for. It's cargo.

As long as your freight is not time-sensitive, then an airship could potentially offer the greenest way to deliver your goods from A to B.

There are other advantages too. Can you imagine fully-assembled wind turbines being delivered from the factory to the hillside without touching a bit of tarmac? How about getting those supplies into a small jungle clearance?

I said it could potentially be the greenest form of transport- there's a lot of surface area in which to install solar panels, and that's exactly what the French team in this report are trying to do. They plan a test flight over the Channel soon.

Still, as much as I'd like to fly on one, I wouldn't like to be one of the guys holding a rope at the end of the report!

66 Years To Insulate The Country

Way back in the mists of time...well, okay, the start of this year, the Scottish Government were trying to get their budget through parliament. Because they are a minority government this means some horse-trading with the other parties, some give-and-take.

Except at some point, they forgot that they had to give-and-take and decided that instead they would swat the Green Party like an annoying fly that can't find the open window.

The Greens were willing to close their eyes and pretend that money wasn't really going to road projects, if the government would pay to insulate every home in the country. The project would have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by almost 6% a year, and would have saved every family over £300 a year in heating costs.

The government got annoyed when the budget failed on the first attempt at getting it through parliament, and so went cap-in-hand to the other parties while blaming the Greens for the whole thing and refusing them something they had previously been warm to. Instead, they went for a poorly-funded alternative scheme.

It's no surprise that they've now admitted that the scheme is failing. They reckon that it will now take 66 years to insulate all of Scotland's homes to a basic standard.

It's yet another example of the SNP government talking the talk but not walking the walk. I'm sure they found it funny to cut the Green Party out of the budget back in February. I'm not sure future generations will find it so hilarious.

Green In The Media 28th September - 4th October

It's the return of Autumnwatch on Friday, albeit in a "new format". They've decided not to show it every night, but to have it as a "regular" weekly show instead. Shame!

Monday 28th September

Bristol: Cycling City

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 11:00 to 11:30

In 2008 Bristol won the bid to be the demonstration 'Cycling City' for the rest of the country, despite having lots of hills, narrow roads and a huge level of car dependency. A year into the launch of Cycling City, Miles Warde bikes round Bristol to find out how the initiative is working on the streets, where the 22.8 million pounds that has been ringfenced for the project is going, and the chances of reaching the highly ambitious target of doubling the number of cyclists in the area within three years. He hears from a range of cyclists, some of the people responsible for the budget, and a couple of cycling visionaries who sense that a better world is within our grasp.

Costing the Earth

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 21:00 to 21:30 (Also Thu 1330)

The Great Mineral Heist.

Over the past 70 years the levels of crucial minerals in our basic foods have declined significantly. This is bad news for consumers in the west, but potentially deadly news for those in the developing world who cannot afford a perfectly balanced diet. Alice Roberts sets out to uncover the culprit and find a solution. Do we need to shorten our food chains, de-intensify our agriculture, or simply turn to the varieties of fruit and veg enjoyed by our grandparents?

Tuesday 29th September

Home Planet

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 15:00 to 15:30

Richard Daniel and the team discuss listeners' questions about the world we inhabit and our interaction with it, from astronomy to geology, biology to environmental science.

Wednesday 30th September

Room For Improvement

On: more4

Time: 09:45 to 10:15

Angus and Dave visit Epping in Essex, where eco-warriors Colin and Petra Huber want to convert their loft in an environmentally friendly way.

Thursday 1st October

One Planet

On: BBC World Service Radio

Time: 10:32 to 11:00 (Also 1630, 2030, 0130)

One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Sunday 4th October

Countryfile

On: BBC 1

Time: 19:00 to 20:00

John Craven investigates whether anti-wind farm campaigners are standing in the way of the UK achieving its green energy targets.

Excerpts taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from http://www.getdigiguide.com/?p=1&r=20818

Copyright (c) GipsyMedia Limited.

The Week In Green Numbers

7,900

- acres of garden lost in London in the last 5 years through "development"

50 gigatonnes

- global greenhouse gas emissions today

48 gigatonnes

- global emissions in 2020 thanks to measures already announced

44 gigatonnes

- emission level needed to limit global warming to 2C

35-40%

- efficiency of a coal-fired power station in Britain

<25%

- efficiency of a coal-fired power station in China

6%

- expected fall in US emissions this year, thanks to the recession

2.6%

- expected fall in global emissions this year

5,000 tonnes

- amount of toilet paper exported from the UK to Germany each year

4,000 tonnes

- amount of toilet paper imported from Germany to the UK each year

Emerging, Blinking, Into The 21st Century

It's been a funny sort of week. Well, fortnight really. I was on a run of backshifts that left me with what seemed like very little time to myself. My life pattern became eat-sleep-work in quick succession, with a small amount of computer time lumped into the start of each day (hence the scarcity of posts). One weird thing, though - my main provider of news in the last 2 weeks became the humble newspaper. Thank god they're not quite dead yet!

Meanwhile, back in the 21st Century Google has been busy supporting the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. They've got a page where you can view tours of Google Earth showing you various scenarios (more tours to be added), and a YouTube channel that you can add your own videos to.

I like getting interactive with these sorts of things. It's much more exciting than looking at a graphic in The Times.

Here's a short introduction from Al Gore about the Google Earth tours:

Planning For The Future

The planning system in Britain isn't always the friend of the climate change campaigner - only around a third of proposed wind farms in England and Wales in the last three years have gained planning approval. Different regions have different criteria for buildings and structures with the homeowner not knowing if he can put solar panels on his roof without the council's permission or whether a faceless bureaucrat holds the ultimate authority on whether he can save money in his own home.

So it feels kind of weird to be cheering on a campaign group called Planning Democracy. I have to admit I've never heard of them, and my first reaction was that they are perhaps the kind of weary-willies who would object to absolutely everything just because they could.

But perhaps I'm wrong about that. They've managed to start legal proceedings against the proposed new coal-fired power station at Hunterston in Scotland, on the grounds that the Scottish Government broke planning laws.

My hope is that this approach may hold more sway in getting the project abandoned than if environmental campaigners chain themselves to the gates. Although the latter will probably happen too.

When it comes to fighting coal plants, then any way is welcome.


(Incidentally, sorry about the lack of posts this week, my shifts have left me with very little time in front of the computer)

Where There's Muck There's...Energy

Photo by **Maurice**

A Scottish pig-farmer in Dunbar has decided to use the resources that the pig produces in order to make electricity.

You're probably wondering what resources a pig produces, other than bacon. Think about what comes out the back end!

The slurry will be mixed with vegetable waste from the local community in an anaerobic digester to produce both electricity and heat.

Perhaps they can nudge their near neighbours in that direction, too. Viridor, also based in Dunbar, continually come up with proposals for highly-polluting and toxic waste incinerators. I'm sure they could persuade Edinburgh City Council that an anaerobic digester would do wonders in reducing landfill waste.

Radiation For The Nation

Photo by Akuppa

If you listened to the UK government over the past year, you would be forgiven for thinking that all was sweetness and light in the world of nuclear power.

Accidents at nuclear plants are a thing of the past. This is the modern era, dont you know, and places like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were built by third world countries. The new-fangled reactors that Britain will be getting are so safe and easy to build we can throw them up in a day and you'd never know they're there...

Except nuclear accidents aren't a thing of the past. We just seem to be a bit more blasé about them. It's as if having had a serious meltdown, the public aren't interested unless a nuclear accident can top that.

One of Scotland's two nuclear power plants, Hunterston B, has admitted that it discharged thousands of litres of radioactive waste into the Firth of Clyde in May this year. Just in time for the holiday season when thousands of people decide to brave the temperatures of the Scottish beaches and go for a wee paddle. I wonder if they found the water a tad warmer than usual?

(Hang on...this happened in May? Did they allow anyone to wander the corridors of Hunterston who could sabotage the place just before that???)

Rob Edwards has a list of accidents at Hunterston since 2001, a spine-shuddering litany of fires and carbon dioxide releases. Except, as I said, the public don't seem to be interested. I fear this latest accident will be met by a collective "meh".

(Incidentally, the photo isn't of Hunterston, it's Dungeness in England. I just loved the sign on the wall. Click here to read it on a larger photo)

Green In The Media 21st September - 27th September

It's political conference season. At the Lib Dems on Monday Tim Farron makes a speech on the environment and then next Sunday Ed Miliband does the same at the Labour conference. Times for the speeches are unknown, but the conferences are on BBC Parliament all day.

Monday 21st September

Costing the Earth

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 21:00 to 21:30 (Also Thu 1330)

Supergrid.

The possibility of carbon-free energy could be a whole lot closer if we join forces to form a Europe-wide 'Supergrid', but what is it, how will it work and who will pay for it? Tom Heap finds out.

Tuesday 22nd September

Home Planet

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 15:00 to 15:30

Richard Daniel and the team discuss listeners' questions about the world we inhabit and our interaction with it, from astronomy to geology, biology to environmental science.

Wednesday 23rd September

Room For Improvement

On: more4

Time: 10:15 to 10:45

Angus and Dave visit Sawbridgeworth with Charlotte and Paul Pritchard, who want to extend the kitchen of their modern house in an eco-friendly way on a budget of £10,000. Angus takes them to a 17th-century cottage with a modern extension under the back garden full of environmentally friendly ideas that they could copy.

Thursday 24th September

One Planet

On: BBC World Service Radio

Time: 10:32 to 11:00 (Also 1630, 2030, 0130)

One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Sunday 27th September

On Your Farm

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 06:35 to 06:57

Elinor Goodman meets the Devon farmer who has decided to embrace the predictions of warmer and wetter summers by climate change experts to grow a diverse range of crops. On Otter Farm, Mark Diacono grows guavas, grapes, olives, apricots, grinding pepper, kiwis and loquats. He believes that not only will growing more exotic foods be possile in the future, but by providing these crops from this country rather than abroad we will cut down on air miles. Elinor finds out how he is getting on and tries to find some fruit to taste.

Excerpts taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from http://www.getdigiguide.com/?p=1&r=20818

Copyright (c) GipsyMedia Limited.

The Week In Green Numbers

$92,000

- cost of fuel saved by a cargo ship travelling from the Far East to Europe via the North-East Passage

56

- days in a row that it rained on the Isle of Skye this summer

84%

- increase in rain over the average for Scotland as a whole this summer

90%

- decline in the oyster population off North Carolina since 1900

24,000

- number of Britons who die from air pollution per year

6.96 trillion kW/h

- projected energy that China could produce from wind turbines until 2030

16.9C

- average ocean surface temperature this summer, the warmest on record

99.4%

- the amount of it's electricity that Botswana gets from burning coal

100%

- the amount of it's energy that Malta imports

Pro-Road Government Cuts Rail Line

Photo by Photos8.com

I'm just catching up with yesterday's draft Scottish Budget published by the government. It's funny - in the sense that if you don't laugh, you'll cry.

It was widely trailed that budget cuts would have to be made, although it was never quite going to be the austerity budget that Ireland is getting.

But first, the good news. An attempt was made to carbon-cost every item in the budget. I say an attempt, since it doesn't appear to have been too successful. As Patrick Harvie points out:

The largest road-building programme in Scotland since the 1960s is apparently less polluting than administering Scotland’s pensions

I guess we'll have to wait for the first time that a proposal is removed from the budget for costing too much in carbon-terms rather than money-terms.

So what was the bad news? The Glasgow Airport Rail Link is gone. The government has tried to soften it by saying that the NHS needs the money instead. And who could argue that the NHS deserves money?

I'm surprised that John Swinney didn't also turn his beady eye towards the Waverley Rail Line as well, since that has had it's coat on a shoogly peg for quite some time. The SNP were never fond of it although they repeatedly said they wouldn't cancel it. They do seem to be slowing it down to a crawl though. As they've done with Edinburgh's Trams.

Which leads me to wonder...are they setting the Glasgow Airport Rail Link up to go the same way? Are they enticing Labour to amend the budget to include the link, then the SNP government can say that they are being "forced" to build something they can't afford in the same way as the trams? To the general public, this may leave them looking quite reasonable.

(Incidentally, I've got no idea what's going on with the formatting in this post. I've tried to fix it so many times it's ended up looking like a dogs dinner. Sorry!)

The Time Has Come

Thanks to a couple of 11 hour shifts this week, blogging will be light-to-non-existent. Meanwhile, enjoy some music:

A Bunch Of Scrubbers

Photo by three7zero

Today has been designated cleaning day here at Despairing Towers, so it's time to break out the vinegar while listening to the Iain Banks interview on the radio.

I always use a combination of shop-bought "eco-friendly" cleaners and my own concoctions, which aren't too far off the one that Lucy Siegle makes in this video. I have to admit though that I'm a bit less posh - my vinegar isn't of the white wine variety and I don't use fresh lemons, I use bottled lemon juice! On the other hand, her kitchen looks like it has been scrubbed to within an inch of it's life, whereas mine...well, mine could probably fit into one of her cupboards.

There are plenty of sources for "recipes" out there for making your own cleaner, including on About My Planet. Now, if only I could afford to hire the cleaner to use all those bottles I've filled with vinegar...

(Incidentally, no the photo is not of me, and clicking through to three7zeros's flickr page may make you want to take the vinegar to your own eyes!!)

I (Don't Want To) Ride My Bicycle

Photo by jesse.millan

Scotland has the best carbon emissions target in the world.

Scotland has the best carbon emissions target in the world.

Did I mention that Scotland has the best carbon emissions target in the world?

Because the government who implemented it just a few months ago seem to be doing everything in their power to increase emissions.

This has made me livid: consultation documents have revealed a plan to charge bicyclists road tax.

They could have gone the other route. They could have given all adults a rebate off buying a bike to encourage more of the population to leave their cars at home.

But no, this is the Scottish Government. It's got to work against it's own legislation.

I truly cannot tell you how angry this makes me.

Green In The Media 14th September - 20th September

There's slim pickings this week, but I'm loving BBC Four's Scotland series so instead of watching green, you can watch Portillo debate independence. I wonder what side he'll come down on?

Monday 14th September

The Food Programme

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 16:00 to 16:30

Indigenous Veg.

Sheila Dillon looks at work to promote indigenous vegetables in Africa, an attempt to improve nutrition, maintain genetic diversity and respond to concerns about climate change. Are there lessons for developed nations as well?

Costing the Earth

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 21:00 to 21:30 (Also Thu 1330)

Buildings.

The places where we live and work account for well over a third of the energy the world uses - our homes, offices, cinemas and sports centres are a much bigger problem for the planet than cars, lorries, planes and ships. Does that mean we can fly as much as we like as long as we sort out the problems on the ground? Tom Heap investigates.

Tuesday 15th September

Home Planet

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 15:00 to 15:30

Richard Daniel and the team discuss listeners' questions about the world we inhabit and our interaction with it, from astronomy to geology, biology to environmental science.

Thursday 17th September

One Planet

On: BBC World Service Radio

Time: 10:32 to 11:00 (Also 1630, 2030, 0130)

One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Excerpts taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from http://www.getdigiguide.com/?p=1&r=20818

Copyright (c) GipsyMedia Limited.

The Week In Green Numbers

30%

- the drop in output of tea in Kenya, thanks to drought

165 million

- number of cups of tea drunk in Britain every day

3000 billion tonnes

- amount of CO2 locked up in the world's current reserves of fossil fuels

1 million tonnes

- amount of discarded North Sea fish per year

113 gigatons

- amount of carbon locked in Russia's peat soils which they now plan to mine

A Call To Action

Here's a new slideshow from 350.org, with a global call to action:

(My tip is to forget the play button and just press fast forward to go through the slides)

350.org PowerPoint Slideshow

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Stayin' Alive

This is my 1000th post.

I pondered long and hard yesterday (for at least a good five minutes!) about what words of wisdom I should impart to mark the occasion. Then I pondered long and hard on how many S's the word occasion has, whether the inventor of Bejeweled has been beaten to death by someone who hasn't slept for three days, and why we haven't domesticated foxes yet.

But perhaps I shouldn't let you into my thought processes too much - I don't think they make organic straitjackets.

So to celebrate the 1000th, I decided that I would throw out my doomy, gloomy, suitably despairing self and celebrate some good news.

Scotland's first offshore wind farm has begun generating electricity. The Robin Rigg site will eventually have 60 turbines up and running, and will hopefully see the start of a new dawn for Scottish energy production offshore.

Hang on...Robin Rigg? Wasn't he in the BeeGees?

Heads In The Clouds

Photo by BobMacInnes

We've known for a long time that if we want to keep our personal carbon budgets down, and also fly, then we have to make cuts elsewhere.

It's pretty self-evident that the less carbon we use in our everyday life, the greater the percentage of our overall annual carbon usage that flight takes. Well, it seems self-evident, but our politicians don't seem to have grasped that fact.

Today the UK Climate Change Committee spelt it out for them: if you want overall emissions to reduce by 80% by 2050, but you want the aviation industry to grow, then everyone else must cut their emissions by 90% by 2050. And that includes all other industries.

I've just heard someone on Radio Scotland (I missed the name) argue that - and I paraphrase - "poor people are only now able to afford to fly, and you can't just take that right away from them".

James at Two Doctors nails that lie over on his blog:

These same people also claim that saving the world is an attack on the poor, as if budget airlines are actually full of folk on the breadline. One study showed that the richest 24% of the population took 40% of budget flights, while the poorest 32% took less than 8%

I'm pretty certain the third runway at Heathrow won't be built, as the Conservatives have promised they will scrap the plans and it now looks certain that they will win next year's general election. But here in Scotland the government have plans to expand airports and roads regardless of their climate change bill. Perhaps this report will give them pause for thought. Although given how much in thrall to the airline industry they are, I doubt it.

What's The Worst That Could Happen?

I have a confession to make.

I ate a baked potato today.

From a styrofoam box.

With a plastic fork.

And a can of Dr Pepper.

I know, I know. Dr Pepper. How could I?

Well, I saw the can sitting there on the shelf and I thought 'What's the worst that could happen?'

It turns out that the worst that could happen was the styrofoam box. You should have heard my yelp of anguish when I opened my lunch parcel in Newcastle messroom and discovered it.

If I promise never ever ever to buy a baked potato from that shop again, can I keep my membership of the Green People's Club? Please?

Will The EU Sue The UK Over Grid Access?

Photo by myyorgda

It's been a while since I mentioned the fight to get a fair price for renewable energy going into the National Grid.

It's a simple enough argument, from both sides. The National Grid and the UK government charge energy companies to access the grid depending on how far away from civilisation they are. Civilisation in their case is classed as London. They argue that it costs more to transmit power from outlying generators to the major conurbations than if the power plants were on the doorsteps of the UK's cities.

The flip side is that all the good areas for generating renewable power are by their very nature, in the middle of nowhere. This squeezes the profit margins and dissuades companies from investing in greener energy schemes.

In an ideal world, all power companies would get charged the same price to provide energy to the grid, regardless of where that energy was generated.

And that's what one MEP wants Europe to force the UK to do. The argument has been rumbling on for years now with no sign of the government or the energy regulator budging on the issue. So Alyn Smith wants the EU to take the UK government to the European Court of Justice to impose a fairer charging scheme.

The sooner this is sorted out, the sooner we'll see more money being ploughed into the renewables sector, although to be honest I don't have high hopes.

Car Free Day @ The Shore

Anything Times Square can do, Leith can do!

Greener Leith are going to shut down The Shore to traffic for a car-free day on 20th September. Expect fun and frivolity for all the family.

Green In The Media 7th September - 13th September

Thousands of families decided to holiday in Britain this year instead of going abroad. I have visions of doctor's waiting rooms being filled on Tuesday morning with Precious Little Darlings after parents watch Monday night's Panorama with a growing sense of horror.

Monday 7th September

Panorama

On: BBC 1

Time: 20:30 to 21:00

Britain's Dirty Beaches.

With the quality of bathing water on the UK's beaches in decline, Panorama investigates the outflow pipes that discharge sewage, tampons and condoms after heavy rain, and commissions its own scientific tests, with some disturbing results. Declan Lawn reports.

Costing the Earth

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 21:00 to 21:30 (Also Thu 1330)

Sell-By Dates.

We throw away over five million tonnes of food each year. Confusion over display until, best-before and use-by dates is a major factor, but can we really do without them? Tom Heap finds out.

Tuesday 8th September

Nature

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 11:00 to 11:30 (Also Wed 2100)

The Isle of Man government is considering designating an area of their coastline as a marine nature reserve, protecting invaluable habitats and species. The island is famous for its marine life, not least the basking shark, so, Brett Westwood asks, how feasible is it to set up a conservation area in the sea?

Home Planet

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 15:00 to 15:30

Richard Daniel and the team discuss listeners' questions about the world we inhabit and our interaction with it, from astronomy to geology, biology to environmental science.

Thursday 10th September

One Planet

On: BBC World Service Radio

Time: 10:32 to 11:00 (Also 1630, 2030, 0130)

One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Saturday 12th September

Caroline Lucas Speech

On: BBC Parliament

Time: 22:00 to 22:30

Recorded coverage of Green Party leader Caroline Lucas' speech to the party's conference in Hove, from Friday 4 September.

Eco Solutions

On: CNN

Time: 23:30 to 00:00

Eco Solutions gives the viewer a unique peek into the situations that plague our planet and proposes real solutions to help us understand why we should make a change.

Sunday 13th September

The Food Programme

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 12:32 to 12:57

Indigenous Veg.

Sheila Dillon looks at work to promote indigenous vegetables in Africa, an attempt to improve nutrition, maintain genetic diversity and respond to concerns about climate change. Are there lessons for developed nations as well?

Countryfile

On: BBC 1

Time: 19:00 to 20:00

John Craven investigates whether food shortages mean it is time to think again about legalising genetic modification.

Last Chance to See...

On: BBC 2

Time: 20:00 to 21:00

Northern White Rhino.

Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine head to the ends of the earth in search of animals on the edge of extinction. On a journey across Africa towards the war-torn Congo, the travellers encounter chimpanzees, gorillas and elephants, but are there any northern white rhinos still alive in the wild? The news is not good but there is some hope in the remarkable project under way to save the black rhino in Kenya.

Excerpts taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from http://www.getdigiguide.com/?p=1&r=20818

Copyright (c) GipsyMedia Limited.

The Week In Green Numbers

80,649,000

- world bottled water consumption in 1997

154,381,000

- world bottled water consumption in 2004

£100 million

- annual amount that we should be spending on geo-engineering, according to the Royal Society

10%

- increase in the UK's energy consumption between 1990 and 2005

21%

- increase in the US's energy consumption between 1990 and 2005

40%

- decrease in Cuba's energy consumption between 1990 and 2005, thanks to their post-Soviet Union oil shock

2.47 C

- increase in the mean temperature in Australia this winter, the warmest on record

My Oil Has Run Dry

Long time readers will remember...actually, no, scratch that. No one will remember that back in October 2007 I wrote a post about shaving.

I had been disappointed at the lack of male grooming products on the market, and wanting an alternative to shaving foam or gel I finally happened upon Somerset's Shaving Oil:


At the time of the post, I had been using it for five months and couldn't believe how long that tiny wee bottle (barely bigger than my thumb) was lasting me.

Well, the oil finally ran dry this week. The 35ml bottle lasted two and a half years. In this day and age, that's quite remarkable.

Although at some point I'll go back to the shaving oil since I loved the product, I've been aware that there's a lot more choice now than there was back in spring 2007 when I bought the oiland have been hankering to try some of it. So I headed down to Real Foods yesterday to peruse their shelves. I should have realised that "a lot more choice" on the internet doesn't mean that Real Foods' shelves would be groaning under the weight of male grooming products. I finally bought some Burt's Bees shaving cream, and tried it this morning for the first time.

My first reaction was "Ugh, greasy". It smells okay and it has left my skin soft, but I think it may take a while for me to like it. And I can't see the tube lasting two and a half years.

The World's Energy Use

A new table has been published, showing energy consumption for each country of the world in 1990 and 2005.

It's a fascinating snapshot which perhaps focuses the mind to the scale of what we need to do to achieve our climate change goals. 1990 has become the standard year to peg our emissions to, so it is sobering to see how much more energy most of the world is using since then.

The UK has increased it's energy use by 10% since 1990, the US by 21%. China has almost doubled their energy usage.

But perhaps more interesting is seeing those countries who have decreased their energy use, and trying to work out why. The list of decreasing countries includes most of Eastern Europe as they came out of communism - Georgia has decreased energy use by a whopping 74%!

After a cursory trawl through the figures, which you can see here, I could only find one "western, developed" country which has reduced their energy consumption since 1990, by 2%

Take a bow, Germany.

Except...the figures will include East Germany. Damn, there's that communist thing again.

8 Years To Stockpile Candles

Photo by Jason Cartwright

I've mentioned before how much I hate the phrase "keep the lights on". It's a catch-all used by politicians and journalists, but it's also used as a scare tactic by both the coal and nuclear industry.

Yesterday, a UK government report surfaced telling us that we only have 8 more years of the lights being kept on. "Widespread powercuts" are predicted thanks to the decrease in the amount of power generated by 2017.

This was, of course, used as fodder for the coal industry to demand new power plants are built now. I didn't hear anyone from the nuclear industry on the radio yesterday talking about it, but that is perhaps because they know that a new nuclear plant can't be built in just 8 years.

I did, however, hear someone (whose name I didn't catch) say that the problem will only get worse because of, bizarrely, electric cars. Better to keep petrol-driven ones then, so we can keep our homes lit...

Despairingly, absolutely no one talked about reducing energy demand. It was just assumed that we would have to continue producing more and more electricity. No one made the connection, on the day that the EU banned 100W incandescent light bulbs.

10:10

By now you've probably seen or read about the launch of 10:10, the new campaign from the makers of the film The Age Of Stupid. The Guardian has been all over it today.

It's an outstandingly simple aim: to get as many people as possible to cut 10% of their carbon emissions during 2010.

Go visit their website and sign the pledge (if you're the kind of person who signs pledges!!) and then ponder on how exactly you can cut your emissions by 10%.