The Week In Green Numbers

65%

- greater CO2 emissions of CD's compared to downloads #

52.5 billion kWh

- the amount of electricity generated by nuclear power in the UK in 2008 #

809 billion kWh

- the amount of electricity generated by nuclear power in the US in 2008 #

80

- number of proposed nuclear reactors in China #

60%

- number of Americans who now back "cap and trade" #

£70 million

- cost of a 190-hectare plot of land next to Sellafield nuclear power station in England, bought by a consortium of European energy companies #

The Day The World Came Together

I'm in Glasgow today at the BBC Good Food Show, trying my best to be shouted at by Gordon Ramsay. Well, you haven't lived until that happens, have you?

In the meantime, here's a video to inspire you. Last weekend thousands of people across the globe got together to spell out one message. Edinburgh gets a quick mention, too. I wasn't there myself, I was, erm, a tad hungover:

We're Gonna Need A Bigger Bill

Photo by nothing

I'm quite willing to admit that there are some things in life that I'm completely ignorant of. I like to think I know a little about a lot and a lot about a little, but then when it comes to wildlife I have to admit that I know diddly-squat.

I guess I could blame growing up and living in a city but that hasn't stopped others. For example, I'm continually amazed at Crafty Green Poet's ability to name birds along the Water of Leith. The first time I saw a heron there, I pointed, stammered and backed away as far as I could, convinced I'd discovered a pterodactyl living amongst us.

There used to be two things of which I was certain: the Asians killed sharks just for their fins, and the Canadians shot seals. Both practices I find barbaric, but I always felt remote from them. After all, they were on the other side of the planet and that sort of thing could never happen in Scotland.

Little did I know that Scottish fishermen were making a fortune cutting the fins off sharks to sell to Asia, and seals were regularly shot in Scottish waters.

It's not a nice feeling, having your moral high ground whipped away from under you!

Sharks can breathe easier, though - finning is to be banned outright in Scottish waters, and there is pressure being put on the EU as a whole to ban the practice throughout the continent.

As for the shooting of seals, they'll have to wait a while. The Marine (Scotland) Bill starts it's way through parliament today, and the Scottish Green Party have introduced an amendment which would see the shooting of seals banned during breeding season.

It's a start, but I'm now wondering what else goes on in this country that I'm blissfully unaware of. Do we have our own version of The Cove? Does the Grassmarket get turned into a bullfighting arena every Saturday night?

Photo by me!

Trump To Start Work Today

So it seems that Aberdeenshire Council have laughed in the face of all those opposing the Trump golf course at Menie. Despite facing legal action, and questions being asked in Europe, the council voted to let Trump start work on the course today.

The sand dunes at Menie, where Trump wants to build his "world-famous" resort, are a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest. His plans will sanitise the area bringing with it an environmental apocalypse.

This is a beautiful animation from the Tripping Up Trump campaign:

But all Aberdeenshire Council can see is that someone is investing nearby. They see no benefit to them of having an outstandingly beautiful landscape. After all, how many people come to Scotland to see the scenery?

Trump is right about one thing, though. His new building site is about to become "world-famous". Perhaps not in the way he hoped.

Rack 'Em Up

Photo by Alex_Lee2001

I've been laughing the last couple of days at the Guardian's Bike Blog series, where people have been recounting their stories of travelling on trains with their bike. Not laughing manically in a "look at the stupid cyclists what do they think they're doing?" kind of way, but more of an ironic, knowing laugh.

I have to admit, there are some of my colleagues who hate bicycles being on board their train in a way that I've never understood. Even before I bought my own bike, I was always happy to see a cyclist. I'd rather that than see someone jump out of their car at the last minute and stroll onto the train, having idled their engine for the last twenty minutes (Alnmouth in Northumberland is bad for that).

The articles on the Guardian website hint at arcane procedures and changing goalposts - and they're right! My own company, for example, used to have space for 6 bikes which didn't have to be reserved. Then they got new trains, with space for 4 which had to be reserved. Then they decided you didn't have to reserve. Then changed it so you had to reserve. Then they redesigned the interior of the train and the bike spaces fell to 3. But you could only reserve 2. And you didn't have to reserve.

Clear, yes?

Unfortunately every train is designed differently, and every train company has different rules. There's a possibility of a standardised system of whether bikes have to be reserved or not, and I know it makes my life a lot easier if I'm expecting a bike on at a certain station.

But to not offer the chance to book a bike on a train online in the 21st Century is unforgivable, and I'm afraid that some of the Guardian writers are right. Cyclists are an afterthought to the railway companies.

Wheels On Fire

This is not the definition of zero waste!

Quite ironic, though, that they were on their way to the incinerator.

Go-Ahead For Giant Pylons?

The BBC's Politics Show Scotland reported at lunchtime that a decision is to be made this week to allow the controversial Beauly to Denny power line.

This is the scheme to upgrade the existing power line running from Beauly in the north of Scotland to Denny in the Central Belt. There's not much argument about the need for the enhanced power lines (although Brian Wilson* did his best on the show). If we're to get renewable energy from the energy-rich north of the country to the energy-guzzling south with fewer transmission losses then we need the upgrade.

What is controversial is that the pylons carrying the power lines will be up to 200ft tall, twice the size of the existing pylons (although there will be less of them). A large number of NIMBY objections have been submitted which all seem to assume that this will be the death of Scottish tourism.

Of course, it's a stupid argument. When I went to the Shetlands this summer, I don't recall seeing any electricity pylons. I know they were there, since they showed up on my photos of the beautiful landscape, but they didn't register on my conscience at the time. And incidentally, the ones which were on my photos were easily photoshopped out!

So even if tourists do stumble across this power line, it's very likely that they won't remember even seeing it when they recall their vacation. As for those who live within sight of the pylons, they will become as much a part of the landscape as the current ones.

However, it does seem to me that the alternatives - burying the cables, or running them undersea down the coast - weren't as widely researched as they could be. The power company involved seem to have come up with this (cheapest) plan and stuck to their guns through thick and thin. This decision shouldn't mean that there will be an assumption for overhead power lines everywhere.

* There are some people in life who you take against because of the things they say. There are some people in life who you take against because of the things they do. And then there are some people in life who you just take against full stop. For me, Brian Wilson is one of them. He could announce that he is personally investing in enough renewable energy to shut down all Scotland's coal-power plants, giving everyone in the country a free electric car, and building a rocket that will allow me to fulfil my ambition of becoming the first Scot on Mars, and I would still scream at the telly whenever his face appears. This perhaps reached it's nadir a few weeks ago when I was willing the entire Harris Tweed industry to fail just because Brian Wilson had invested in a mill.

Green In The Media 26th October - 1st November

This week seems designed to make you give up on food completely, with two different programmes looking at what is in our food. Which should set me up nicely for going to the BBC Good Food Show on Friday, where my ambition is to be screamed at by Gordon Ramsay!

Monday 26th October

Dispatches

On: Channel 4

Time: 20:00 to 21:00

Do You Know What's in Your Breakfast?.

It is the most important meal of the day, but all too often, breakfast in the UK is far from healthy. In this edition of Dispatches, reporter Jane Moore reveals how nutritious the nation's breakfasts really are and the marketing techniques employed by this lucrative industry to sell their breakfast cereals, drinks and bars.

Costing the Earth

On: BBC Radio Four

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

Countdown to Copenhagen.

Tom Heap looks behind the jargon and political scene-shifting to ask whether or not a definitive new deal on climate change will come out of the talks at Copenhagen in December. He also hears from some of the people who will have to live with the consequences and asks how their voices are working their way into the Copenhagen process. These include the people of the Carteret Islands, some of whom have already had to leave their homes because of the encroaching seas, and the President of the Maldives, who fears the same will happen there. Children in Sri Lanka explain how they have been exchanging experiences with English counterparts by the sea in Essex, and the students of a Birmingham comprehensive gather to poke a spoke in the wheel of John Prescott's green bandwagon by asking about his infamous fleet of Jaguars.

Wednesday 28th October

Jimmy's Food Factory

On: BBC 1

Time: 19:30 to 20:00 in rest of UK, 21:30 to 22:00 in Scotland

What's in My Sandwich?.

Science series in which farmer Jimmy Doherty tries to find out what really goes into supermarket food. His novel approach is to set up a food factory in a barn and recreate his own versions. In this programme Jimmy asks, 'What's really in my sandwich?'. How does supermarket bread stay soft for over a week? If processed cheese only contains 60% cheese, what else is in it? He also discovers the lengths to which one bagged-salad producer goes to ensure we never find a caterpillar or bug in our bag.

Thursday 29th October

Live Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Questions

On: BBC Parliament

Time: 10:30 to 11:30

Live coverage of questions in the House of Commons to Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Hilary Benn and his team of ministers.

One Planet

On: BBC World Service Radio

Time: 10:32 to 11:00 (Also 1630, 2030, 0130, Sat 2030, Sun 0630)

One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Sunday 1st November

The Drowned World by JG Ballard

On: BBC Radio 7

Time: 18:30 to 19:00 (Also 0030)

The author's 1962 debut novel set in a submerged London of the future, transformed by global warming. Read by Robert Glenister. Episode 1 of 4.

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

I'm experimenting with adding sources to the numbers, where available, in case you want to investigate further.

136,000

- number of hens that suffocated to death at a farm near Edinburgh after a break-in #

213,000 tonnnes

- amount of CO2 that the Scottish Government claimed would be generated by their 7 biggest road building schemes #

4.24 million

- actual amount of CO2 that will be generated by the roads #

373 billion kWh

- annual UK electricity consumption

95%

- amount by which Europe has offered to cut it's emissions if there's a deal done at Copenhagen #

The Untied Shoelaces Show

The title of this post comes from an early-80s kids Saturday morning TV show broadcast from Glasgow that was incredibly bad. I've put the only YouTube clip in existence at the bottom of this post if you can bear to watch it!

I remember my dad taking the piss out of me when it first appeared in the schedules - "Oh look, they're making a programme about you!"

You see, I've often wondered what other people know about tying their shoelaces that I don't.

I can tie them all right, learnt at a very early age and was proud that I was about the only one of my Primary 1 class who could tie his own shoes. It was keeping them tied which was the problem.

And, I'm embarrassed to admit, still is.

You see, I like a tight shoe. I can't stand the feeling of them sliding off me with every step. So I tie them tight and like to keep them tied tight. Maybe it's the way I walk that loosens the knot within 100 yards. Or maybe it's just the knot itself.

You're probably wondering what this has to do with the environment. Well, I have another problem with shoelaces that no-one else seems to have. I go through an extraordinary amount of them.

In the last 24 hours, I've snapped two laces. I don't think I've gone a month in the last few years without having to buy laces. And that's an incredible waste.

But why does no-one else seem to have this problem? Am I alone in a sea of broken laces?

Now, check out the BBC Micro graphics:

Blind Acceptance Of The Sceptic's "Facts"

When I was out and about yesterday I heard a trail for the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 in which a climate scientist was going to try and persuade some sceptical members of the public that climate change was real. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to listen to the show live but I've just caught up with it via the BBC's website (Listen here, from the 1:09 mark to 1:34).

The setup was a simple one - take two members of the public, give them a wee tour of the Tyndall Centre and then sit around discussing climate change and answering their questions.
So was the professor successful in his persuasions?

Let's just say it left me, well, Despairing.

One of the members of the public had come armed with the sceptics playbook and went through the points one by one - cooling since 1998, warmer in mediaeval times, humans are too small to influence the whole globe, etc.

Both of the members of the public ended the discussions claiming that they had not been convinced and that they were confirmed sceptics - in fact one of them has set up a website to debunk global warming, which rather bizarrely states

Allan felt that there was far too much blind acceptance of "facts" based on "consensus science"

Which kind of ignores that all science fact comes from consensus - someone comes up with a theory, they do the maths or conduct an experiment, someone else does the maths or conducts the experiment to confirm it, and eventually everyone agrees after reaching a consensual view that the theory is correct.

After the two members of the public who were given the guided tour had had their say, three or four listeners got to phone in with questions. One topic was repeated by a couple of them, and it's something that I hear a lot from colleagues - climate change is a hoax perpetrated by governments in order to either control the population or to get more tax money out of us.

And it's this which leaves me despairing. It doesn't matter what you say or do, it doesn't matter if you give someone a whole day to pick the brain of a scientist who specialises in climate, some people don't want to see the truth and therefore never will see the truth - they'd rather believe that we're all in a big conspiracy against them.

Dear Lidl

Dear Lidl,

How would you like to save some money? Follow my one simple tip and not only will you save thousands of £££'s, but you'll also help the environment too!

But first, I have one simple question. How do you pronounce your name anyway??? Is it Lid-el or, as my stepmum insists on saying, leed-el?

I also have a confession - I've never been inside one of your stores. Until recently, there was never one near me. And now that there is, it's in a place I pass by, not in a place that I stop to shop.

I mention this in case you're thinking that snobbery is what has prevented me from handing over my hard-earned dough in exchange for your German wonders. There's a Somerfield near your store too, and I've never shopped in there.

Your goods are German, aren't they? I've heard this is your business model - buy cheap German tins of beans or hot dog sausages in bulk, and then ship them over here. Perhaps I'm wrong in that. Or perhaps I'm mistaking you for the competition, Aldi.

But anyway, I digress. I promised to save you thousands of £££'s while helping to turn you ever-so-slightly green, with just one simple method.

And when I say the method is simple, I mean it. It requires absolutely no effort on your part at all. Which makes the money savings quick and effective, and will give you more in your pocket to bulk-buy German ketchup.

So are you ready to save? Are you ready to learn the secret that will have your company directors weeping with delight?

Ok, here it is: stop with the mailshots.

Yes, I realise it's your main form of advertising, but it's failing. And I'll tell you why.

I live in a tenement in Edinburgh, with 16 flats in the building. Twice in the last month, I have come home to a huge pile of Lidl fliers sitting just inside the front door.

Obviously, your minimum-wage delivery guy has looked at the stairs of the tenement and thought "Sod that". He has then grabbed a wedge of the poster-sized leaflets and dumped them on the ground. Then walked away.

And there's always more than 16 in that pile.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure it's not a natural human reaction to actually increase the amount of junk mail we get. So no one picks one up, and the pile of Lidl advertising that you have obviously spent ages crafting isn't even looked at.

Then I come along. Good environmentalist that I am, I tut loudly. I tut at the paper waste. I tut at the ink waste. I tut at the waste of petrol that the delivery vans use - to the printers, to the distributors, to the streets. I tut at the power that the computers used when you were crafting your missives.

After 2 days of the pile being at the foot of the stairs, I pick the pile up, walk 10 yards along the street to the paper recycling bin. And dump the whole lot in.

The mailshot has been read by no-one in the tenement. Do you know how many tenements their are in Edinburgh? Neither do I, but it's a lot.

So repeat this scenario a couple of thousand times, as an estimate.

That's tens of thousands of wasted bits of paper, produced by you and read by no one.

So do us all a favour. And by "us", I mean the whole planet. Stop wasting resources.

Stop with the mailshots.

Survival Of The Fittest

One incredibly plucky penguin tries to avoid becoming lunch...

Green In The Media 19th October - 25th October

The fish in the world's oceans have just 50 years left at our current consumption rates. The End Of The Line on Tuesday has the story of how we got into this mess.

Monday 19th October

Costing the Earth

On: BBC Radio Four

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

Guilt-Free Flying.

Can technology turn aviation green? A new report suggests that flying has a 4.9 per cent share of the overall contribution to climate change. That is a figure that seems certain to rise once the dampening effects of recession disappear. Tom Heap asks if this means that the era of cheap flights is over, or can man's infinite capacity for invention keep the industry alive? Tom explores the options with Iron Maiden singer, professional pilot and keen enthusiast for 'green aviation', Bruce Dickinson. They examine the use of lighter materials for aircraft, changes in air traffic control to cut down time spent in the air and more radical solutions, from biofuels to the rebirth of the airship.

Tuesday 20th October

The End of The Line

On: more4

Time: 22:00 to 23:50 (Also 0055)

The True Stories strand, which showcases the best international feature documentaries, presents Rupert Murray's acclaimed film looking at the consequences of unchecked, unregulated sea fishing across the globe. It is not a film about what might happen, it is a film about what has happened. The collapse of the cod population saw the end of 40,000 jobs; the bluefin tuna is being hunted to extinction; it takes five kilos of anchovies to produce one fish farmed salmon. And while there are some positive signs, with Walmart and McDonalds both selling fish from sustainable sources, some outlets still sell endangered species. But the final chilling conclusion is that unless more radical steps are taken globally, including the reduction of overfishing, it will take just 50 years for the world's ocean's to be all fished out.

Wednesday 21st October

The Biggest Loser USA

On: Sky3

Time: 17:05 to 18:00

Reality weight-loss show. The red, blue and black teams all go green for the week, participating in recycling and learning how to implement new environmentally-friendly habits.

The Plight of the Bumblebee

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 21:00 to 21:30

Louise Batchelor investigates the reasons for the declining number of bumblebees and looks at efforts to conserve the most threatened species - and even reverse the last extinction. The programme also features the world's first working bumblebee sniffer dog, trained to find their elusive nests, which is a vital part of the research.

Thursday 22nd October

One Planet

On: BBC World Service Radio

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

One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Saturday 24th October

How to Look Good Naked

On: E4

Time: 08:45 to 09:55

100 Naked testers get to the bottom of organic moisturisers.

Sunday 25th October

Countryfile

On: BBC 1

Time: 19:00 to 20:00

John Craven investigates the disappearance of our green belt, as developers start building hundreds of thousands of new homes.

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

£4.5 billion

- amount spent by councils in England & Wales on dealing with refuse

£43 million

- amount spent by councils in England & Wales on minimising waste

11%

- increase in the UK's transport emissions 1990 - 2007

33.6%

- people willing to pay more for environmentally-friendly products

11.2%

- rate of decline of Arctic sea ice per decade

20 years

- time left before the Arctic is ice-free during the summer, according to the latest study

Water Of Leith To Generate Power?

I've mentioned the Water Of Leith before, the river that runs through Edinburgh before meeting the sea at Leith Docks. It's not a grand river in the mould of the Clyde or the Thames - in fact I managed to live in Edinburgh for five years before I even knew it existed! - but it is outstandingly beautiful.

Back in Ye Olden Days the river was used to power mills and to transport goods to the docks. Now Greener Leith has reported that funding has been received for a feasibility study into using the river for some micro-hydro energy generating schemes.

I've got mixed views on it, with the caveat that I think all ways should be explored for getting renewable energy into the National Grid. But I think I'd prefer these smaller schemes along the river to generate power for just one or two buildings at a time rather than the energy getting "lost in the mix". The Water Of Leith Visitor's Centre would be ideal, for example., and I'm sure there are a number of small businesses along the river who would be delighted to get their power from a small hydro scheme. Small schemes for small buildings just "feels" right for this river, if they're going to do it.

Although with the "industrialisation" of her beloved Water, Crafty Green Poet may be on the rampage!

Blog Action Day: Climate Change. Am I Still Despairing?

It's Blog Action Day today, with more than 7,000 bloggers around the world all talking about the one subject: climate change. So just to be different, I'll talk about Ancient Peruvian Art...

Well, okay, maybe not!

But I have been wondering this week whether I'm still as "despairing" as I was when I set up this blog a couple of years ago. Since then, we've had climate change legislation from a number of countries which have self-imposed targets - whether it was Japan's recently-changed laughable 8% emissions cuts, or Scotland's world-beating 42% cuts by 2020.

Actually, I have to admit, I'm rather proud of Scotland's targets and legislation.

What I'm not proud of, and what has had me despairing lately, are the politicians who seem to think that setting targets is all we have to do. It's a bastardisation of "If you build it, they will come".

If you target it, it will happen.

No, it bloody won't. Not unless you actively go out of your way to make it happen. New Labour have been the masters of this for the past dozen years, with targets and league tables for almost everything. They've never seemed to grasp the fact that hitting a target doesn't mean you've actually done anything good - it just means you've hit a target.

But I digress from climate change. The Scottish Parliament passed the Climate Change Bill this year with that 42% target and everyone patted themselves on the back for a job well done. Then the government got on with completely ignoring it and continuing as before with new roads and less public transport.

So am I as despairing as I was back in 2007? In a way, yes. At least back then there was the hope that climate change legislation would change the way the entire country thinks about things, the way the government approaches those big-ticket projects.

On the other hand, there have been some victories, not least this very week. To completely mess up the song: Kingsnorth no more. Hunterston no more. Dunbar incinerator no more. 3rd runway no more.

Maybe one day the Hope will overwhelm the Despair.

Make Love, Not Carbon

I thought you'd enjoy the latest video from 350.org:

Flash, I Love You, But We Only Have 88 Months To Save The Earth...

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking across the concourse of Newcastle Central station when a couple of teenage lassies started dancing a few yards in front of me. My first reaction was "WTF?" My second reaction was "Oh god, it's one of those flashmob things".

Flashmobbing has been a weird phenomenon, seeming to spring up out of nowhere to the point where it now seems mainstream. This is perhaps due to every second advert on the TV attempting to outdo the last with their own faux-flashmob.

As it turned out, the two teenagers dancing around in Newcastle weren't part of a flashmob. They were just drunk.

Here's some loonies from Powershift dancing in London on Monday. As cynical as I am, it looks like fun:

Dong Gone

At the end of my post yesterday, I wrote:

So now that we've had three "victories" (well, okay, two victories and a mothballing) in a week, what will the next seven days bring us?

How about another "victory"?

The Danish company Dong Energy have pulled out of their joint venture which would have seen a new coal power station built next to the existing Hunterston B nuclear power station on the west coast of Scotland.

Being a Danish company, Dong knew that they would never get regulatory approval for such a plant in Denmark so had gone looking for a government that would embrace coal wholeheartedly without thinking through the consequences.

Which is how they ended up in Scotland.

Just to add further insult to injury, Dong announced that they would be importing all the coal for the plant - Scottish coal is just too dirty! Oh yeah, and to keep those unwashed greens at bay, they said that at some unspecified point in the future, the plant MAY burn biomass.

With the Danes gone, it is left to the other partner in the joint venture, Peel Energy, to carry the torch for this plant. Hopefully it won't be too long before they see sense and abandon the power station altogether.

Good Things Come In Threes

Photo by Matt From London

And here was me thinking that it was only bad things that come in threes.

It's been a momentous week for environmentalists. First we had E.ON's decision to shelve the plans for a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth. Despite the greenwash about it being a demonstration plant for Carbon Capture and Storage, the power station would have contributed a huge chunk of Britain's carbon footprint as well as giving other countries ammunition with which to defend their own emissions in negotiations.

The second bit of good news is Glasgow Airport's consideration of mothballing their second terminal for the winter. It puts a smile on the face of environmentalists for two reasons. Firstly that there's obviously not enough demand for flights to keep the second terminal open. Secondly that the power used to keep a half-empty and little-used building will not be consumed. Actually, there were a couple of businesses in yesterday's Guardian piece about 10:10 pledges that were looking into closing or mothballing offices in order to reduce their energy use.

The third bit of good news to come our way this week is that BAA have decided not to pursue their plans for a third runway. It sticks in the craw to say it, but it appears that it was the Tories wot won it. Their pledge never to allow a third runway if they came to power just followed the popular mood, but it seems to have caught BAA off-guard. They've now accepted political reality that the third runway will not be built, so why spend millions pursuing the idea?

So now that we've had three "victories" (well, okay, two victories and a mothballing) in a week, what will the next seven days bring us?

Green In The Media 12th October - 18th October

Sod all the green stuff, there's a new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm starts Thursday!!

Monday 12th October

Caroline Lucas Speech

On: BBC Parliament

Time: 09:40 to 10:05

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

Costing the Earth

On: BBC Radio Four

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

Dire warnings have been made from leading charities and officials that environmental campaigners are under threat from new rules and regulations. Tom Heap finds out what's at stake and who is listening.

Wednesday 14th October

Battlefront

On: Channel 4

Time: 09:30 to 10:00

Seventeen-year-old Aimee Nathan from London, a keen coffee drinker with green credentials, feels she has to do something about coffee cup wastage in the UK. Aimee she gets to grips with the capital's coffee consumption and digs around in dirty civic sites, as she develops from a scatty schoolgirl to blossoming campaigner. Aimee organises a flash mob outside a coffee chain to encourage people to bring their own mugs. With the help of Battlefront mentors she even gets celebrity endorsement from Jodie Marsh. But Aimee needs an army of friends to support her stunt: can she get enough friends out of bed early on a half-term morning to support her, and will the press turn up?

Thursday 15th October

One Planet

On: BBC World Service Radio

Time: 10:32 to 11:00 (Also 1630, 2030, 0130, Sat 2030, Sun 2330)

One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Friday 16th October

China Stories

On: BBC 2

Time: 11:40 to 12:00

Director Feng and Yang Xi Wen.

Educational series. Community leader Director Feng has a surprising approach to cleaning up the environment. Yang Xi Wen spends around twelve hours a day on China's closely controlled internet. What is life like for them in modern-day China?

Relocation, Relocation

On: more4

Time: 19:00 to 20:00

Kirstie and Phil are going all green; Sue and Neil don't just want two new homes. They're self styled 'chico warriors' who want a house to help stop the planet getting hotter, but it's simply got to be cool. They want a home in Devon where they can create as much energy as they use and design a modern funky interior. And there's still a flat in Brighton to find so that Sue can visit her daughter and grandson.

Saturday 17th October

Our World

On: BBC News

Time: 05:30 to 06:00 (Also 1430, Sun 1030, 1430, 2330)

Mine Games.

The BBC's Southern Africa Correspondent Karen Allen reports from the conflict zones of Eastern Congo, to trace the minerals that make it into global electronics goods and mobile phones.

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.

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

6.4%

- drop in passenger numbers on the London Underground

52%

- amount of their waste that Londoners send to landfill

1%

- amount of waste going to landfill in Copenhagen

40,000

- estimated number of jobs that would be created if waste was diverted to recycling or processing plants

23,000

- number of nuclear warheads in the world

36%

- reduction in deforestation in Madagascar in the last 10 years, thanks to conservation measures

73 billion kWh

- the extra electricity used by all the couples in America who divorced in 2005

20 miles

- stretch of the River Trent which was contaminated with cyanide this week, killing thousands of fish

52%

- amount of Britons who don't think climate change will significantly affect them

15%

- amount of Britons who still wouldn't change their lifestyle if they knew that climate change was going to have a serious effect on their children's lives. Which is astonishingly selfish.

Kingsnorth And All That

The news about Kingsnorth being cancelled came on a day when time seemed to disappear into thin air for me, and the day before a long shift, so I decided to leave it to others to record their ecstasy about this momentous decision.

And besides, how could I compete with the phrase "don't worry darling, it's condom ready"???

I just wanted to quickly say that I'm delighted with the decision, although I'm sceptical that there has been such a big downturn in our energy use during the recession. I think it has more to do with the CCS "competition" that the government is running, to find a way of making CCS work. If I was in charge, I'd want to know it can be retrofitted to an existing plant, as Scottish Power are attempting at Longannet, rather than build a whole new coal-fired power plant thats, well, condom-ready.

Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone

Photo by Joe Shlabotnik

I mentioned last Friday that my gas boiler has been broken since July. (Whaddya mean you only looked at the pretty graphs???)

I went on holiday and switched off the boiler. I came home, switched it on and...nothing. I pondered on it for a bit, and then decided that I could live without it for a few weeks. It was summer, so the central heating wasn't needed. The shower is electric, so the only hot water I would need was for washing the dishes, and I could boil a kettle for that.

So that's what I did. Of course, I forgot one other crucial thing. Shaving. Shaving in cold water is no fun, and in fact there's a moment of terror before that first splash of water hits your face at 4am.

Another thing I noticed, and it's not a new observation, is that water boiled in my ecokettle never retains it's heat for long. It's as if the kettle just reaches boiling point and immediately switches itself off. Any hot drink made with it is cold within 15 minutes, and I found that washing the dishes became time-consuming as I had to boil the kettle three times to fill the basin, then maybe boil it again to reheat the water in the basin.

But you know what? I got by. Having no hot water was a minor inconvenience, certainly compared to those on our planet who have to walk miles for their meagre supply of cold water.

Last week, I decided that with winter approaching it was time to get the boiler fixed, so yesterday the heating engineer finally replaced the valve which had stopped working. I washed my dishes in scalding water, and then this morning I shaved without letting out a banshee-like scream.

It's the little things in life that we rarely think about that are luxuries, really.

The Outstanding Stupidity Of Man

Photo by visualpanic

"If only we could be at war every day!"

That was actually said to me a few years ago by a passenger on my train. It had snowed for about 20 seconds in London, so naturally the media were reporting that the whole of Britain had ground to a halt. I fell into a conversation with this guy about the "Blitz Spirit", and how people just aren't prepared for anything outside of the normal bland any more.

I was reminded of this sentiment yesterday. At the risk of sounding like Uncle Albert, during the war Britain became almost self-sufficient in food. We had to be. Rationing helped, of course, but people were encouraged to turn every piece of spare ground into a vegetable patch. Much in the same way Cubans are today.

Throughout the years since then, the UK has been self-sufficient in wheat. In fact, I'm led to believe that the Europeans take the piss out of Britain for being a nation of bread-lovers. Next year, that self-sufficiency is going to come to a grinding halt.

Has the population grown too much, increasing demand? No. Have farmers turned their back on the crop because of plummeting prices? No. Are we about to do something so spectacularly stupid as to make any reasonable person gasp in disbelief? Yes.

As The Times reported in it's business section yesterday, a new biofuel plant is almost ready to open. It and another plant being built by BP will consume a whopping 20% of Britain's yearly wheat harvest.

20%. It beggars belief.

But surely, I hear you cry, there must be some beneficial trade-off? How much fuel does 20% of our wheat produce? The answer is in the article:

producing vehicle fuel equivalent to about 2 per cent of all the petrol consumed in Britain

20% of our wheat for 2% of our fuel. Did they let Fred The Shred do the sums on that one?

How Smart Is Smart?

Photo by Gilgongo

I despair of the government quite a lot. Normally, it's the Scottish Government which has brought forth my ire. They have a habit of trying to be seen to do the right thing, but in reality doing it half-heartedly on-the-cheap.

The UK government isn't above this. They say the right things and then fudge and prevaricate before finally coming out with a hodge-podge of the original ideas. TPWS is a great example of this, the system where a computer will bring a train to a halt if it goes through a red signal...but only if the train is going under 75mph. After every train crash, John Prescott would assure the gathered media that a system to stop trains would be put in place. But as soon as the spotlight was back off the railways, the proposed system was watered down and watered down until we arrived at a kind of half-way house that was cheap and slightly-effective.

So how to combat this tendency to plump for the cheap and nasty? How do you bounce the government into doing what you want? That's what the Energy Saving Trust is trying to do today.

After the government announced they would put a smart meter in every home, the Energy Saving Trust saw through the fine print - a smart meter in the home didn't necessarily mean that the consumer would benefit from it. It didn't mean, as I took it to mean, that the homeowner would have a digital readout where he could see his energy consumption in real time.

And that's the crucial point. Anyone who has ever used one of these meters has told of their shock at how much energy each household appliance uses, and how they immediately went about trying to reduce their consumption.

We can't continue down this path of ever-increasing energy consumption. We can't run the country on renewables alone if we don't take some measures at efficiency and demand-reduction. We have to give every individual the greatest possible chance of reducing their own emissions, by themselves, without nagging. And an electronic readout of their own consumption isn't the government or a green lobby group nagging at them - they can clearly see their sky-high power bills are their own fault.

Wake Up!

Green In The Media 5th October - 11th October

The evolution of war has seen us go from fighting over territory to fighting over resources, from mining regions to oil reserves and pipeline routes. With climate change, will the next major wars be over water? The Middle East looks shaky enough as it is, but it's a prime candidate to see the first war over water. Next saturday's Our World on the BBC News Channel investigates

Monday 5th October

Costing the Earth

On: BBC Radio Four

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

The Three Peaks Challenge.

Every year around 60,000 people set out on the Three Peaks Challenge, aiming to climb the highest mountains in England, Wales and Scotland. Most do it to raise money for charity but there are increasing worries that the challenge is putting too much pressure on the environment, destroying some of our most beautiful places. Alice Roberts sets out with a group of enthusiastic trekkers to find out if the environment is suffering as charities prosper.

Thursday 8th October

One Planet

On: BBC World Service Radio

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

One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Saturday 10th October

Our World

On: BBC News

Time: 05:30 to 06:00 (Also 1430, 0330, Sun 1030, 1430, 2330)

Politics Of Thirst.

With hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the drought-stricken areas, Our World looks at the impact that water scarcity has on security in the already fragile Middle East.

Sunday 11th October

On Your Farm

On: BBC Radio Four

Time: 06:35 to 06:57

An organic farm in Sussex is changing the lives of London's homeless. Adam Henson visits Uckfield near Lewes to meet people who have vowed to stay drink and drug free for a day as they work the land. For some it will be the first time they have left London in years. For others, planting crops and mucking out stalls has become a regular event and has radically altered the way they look at the world.

Countryfile

On: BBC 1

Time: 19:00 to 20:00

Sales of organic food are down by 13 per cent in 2009, so what can be done to rekindle appetites? John Craven investigates.

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

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