Changing The Mindset

The UK Committee on Climate Change has published their second annual report in which they call for a change in policies from the UK government in order to meet carbon reduction targets.

Actually, I would argue that there needs to be a change in mindset throughout the government before they even think about policies. Changing Whitehall's viewpoint on things will then lead to a change in the policies, not just in regards to climate change but in every other department.

The CCC reckons there are four main areas where changes need to occur - electricity generation, home insulation, targets for electric cars and fertiliser use.

I have no beef with those, but I would add a fifth - transmission charges. It's an ongoing sore within the renewables industry that those who are furthest away from "civilisation" get charged more for providing energy to the grid.

Instead, I'd like to see transmission charges based on carbon emissions - those who pollute the most pay the most to provide their power.

Regardless of that, we're still in a "wait and see" mode with regard to climate change with this new government.

Eigg Islanders Mocked

The Isle of Eigg is verging on being the greenest place in Scotland. With their wind turbines, hydro power schemes and solar energy systems, the islanders have got to the stage where they feel they can ship their old diesel generators back to the mainland.

Living with renewable energy has it's ups and downs, of course, as you have to consider whether you have access to power, when you will need it and for how long. Which makes the BBC's story about the islanders using less power (it doesn't say they don't have any electricity at all) due to a lack of rain to power their hydro schemes a bit of a non-story.

I would have read the page, chuckled about my friends who live on the island (as long as the beer is cold, they won't mind!), and moved on.

But then my eye caught the section to the right of the story, the bit where the BBC attempts to fend off criticism of it's Goliath status by linking to other websites carrying the same news:



It turns out the link is to a comment piece about the island by James Delingpole, climate-change denier and caveman-technology advocate.

And he has indeed entitled it "Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Delingpole openly mocks the islanders for attempting to wean themselves off of backyard generators, a power source I'm sure he's never had the displeasure of having to use.

He'd rather have the lower orders set fire to some rocks in a big building miles away from him, in order to keep him in the manner to which he has become accustomed.

Like I said, Caveman Technology and Caveman Thinking from a Neanderthal.

Power Use Report Card Apr - Jun 2010

Another quarter of the year has passed, so it's full disclosure time again. You can see the report for the 1st Quarter here.

Gas Stats:

Length of Period: 91 Days

Total Usage: 44 kW/h

Average Per Day: 0.5 kW/h

If Applied Over The Year: 182.5 kW/h

Average Yearly UK Household Gas Use: 19000 kW/h

CO₂ Emissions From My Gas Use: 8.36 kg

CO₂ Emissions From Gas Use Last Year: 15.39 kg

Difference in Emissions: 45.7%

Electricity Stats:

Length of Period: 91 Days

Total Usage: 509 kW/h

Average Per Day: 5.59 kW/h

If Applied Over The Year: 2040.3 kW/h

Average Yearly UK Household Electricity Use: 3700 kW/h

CO₂ Emissions From My Electricity Use: 218.87 kg

CO₂ Emissions From Electricity Use Last Year: 220 kg

Difference in Emissions: 0.5%


I'm extremely pleased with the drop in my gas use this year. The boiler spends a lot of its time switched off completely, so unlike last year I'm not heating water unnecessarily. The only time it gets switched on is if I want to wash the dishes - and as I work shifts this doesn't happen every day!

As for my electricity use, I'm less pleased with that. The World Cup and Wimbledon has seen a rise in the last couple of weeks, but my electricity consumption still tends to follow my shift pattern. If I'm going to reduce this by 10% then I'm going to have to do something drastic!


Figures for average UK energy use and CO₂ are taken from the book How to Live a Low-Carbon Life by Chris Goodall

Green In The Media 28th June - 4th July

It looks like last Thursday's listing for Panorama was supposed to be for this week's episode.

Monday 28th June

Panorama
On: BBC 1
Time: 20:30 to 21:00 (Also BBC News Sun 2030)
What's Up With the Weather?.
Despite governments, scientists and campaigners telling us the world's climate is changing, increasing numbers of us simply don't believe in global warming. Panorama goes back to basics and asks what we really know about our climate and how it will affect us. Tom Heap speaks to some of the world's leading scientists on both sides of the argument, to find out what they can agree on and uncovers some surprising results.

Thursday 1st July

Live Energy and Climate Change Questions
On: BBC Parliament
Time: 10:30 to 11:30 (Also 0100, 0330)
Live coverage of questions in the House of Commons to Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne and his ministerial team.

One Planet
On: BBC World Service Radio
Time: 10:32 to 11:00 (Also 1530, 2030, 0130, Sun 0630)
One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Ramblings
On: BBC Radio Four
Time: 15:00 to 15:27
Clare Balding Walks the South Downs Way.
6: Clare walks the final stretch of the route, starting at the Sustainability Centre at East Meon. The group walking with her have all opted for a life that's as green as possible, and includes Mary Lewis, who lives with her family in a yurt on the site of the former Naval Signals base where Tim and Maddy Harland run their green publishing company. Joining them is Alan McVittie of the Old Winchester Hill Hampshire Downs Reserve, and for the very end of the trail heading into Winchester, Andy Gatticker of the South Downs National Trail, who met Clare back in Eastbourne at the start of the series.

Sunday 4th July

Countryfile
On: BBC 1
Time: 19:15 to 20:15
John Craven speaks exclusively to Prince Charles about his new scheme to connect shoppers to the countryside, and discovers how it will help rural communities most in need. Adam Henson and Ellie Harrison head for the Howardian Hills in North Yorkshire to find out about a pioneering project to use river water to generate electricity - without harming the fish who live there - and why our graveyards are an unlikely haven for wildlife.

Rain
On: BBC 4
Time: 20:15 to 21:15
Documentary series about the weather. This programme uncovers the true shape of a raindrop, shows how and why rain falls and tells stories of how we have adapted or succumbed to this elemental force of nature, such as James Glaisher's hot-air balloon ascent in 1862. The Victorians believed that they could master the rain, but today climate change threatens us with rain that is wilder and more unpredictable than ever.


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

91%

- fall in nightingale numbers in the UK since 1967 #

77 million

- number of people poisoned by arsenic in their drinking water in Bangladesh #

9

- countries laying claim to ownership over some parts of the Nile #

550 litres per person per day

- amount of water that the United Arab Emirates consumes, four times that of Europe #

$19 billion

- money that UK and US businesses can save by 2020 by using Telepresence facilities #

Saving Humanity Not An Excuse For Lawbreaking In Scotland

Photo by Plane Stupid

The Climate9, the Plane Stupid activists who broke through the perimeter fence at Aberdeen airport last year and disrupted flights, have been found guilty of Breach of the Peace at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.

Firstly, I think it's quite ironic that anyone could claim there was peace on an airport runway to be breached!

But the most important thing to come from this trial is that there is now a divergence of opinion between Scottish and English law.

If you recall, Greenpeace activists who climbed Kingsnorth power station in Kent were found not guilty last year after a jury decided that they were preventing "a higher crime to humanity through carbon emissions".

The Sheriff Court in Aberdeen has decided that justification won't wash in a Scottish Court.

I don't know if the Climate9 will be appealing their convictions, but from an observer's point of view it might be interesting to hear the top judges in the country debating the merits of the defence - can you use trying to prevent an event affecting the whole planet as justification for your actions?

Is This Madness Or Far-Sighted Genius?

Oh boy, here we go again: another big-name industrialist wanting to rip up Scottish land for a vanity project.

This time it's Sir David Murray, glorified pipe-fitter and owner of Rangers, but the difference between him and Donald Trump is that Murray already owns the land - a substantial part of Edinburgh's Green Belt.

The "Garden District" scheme (doesn't adding the word 'garden' make it sound green?) will consist of 3,500 'sustainable' houses, 3 schools, a medical centre, a library and a 25,000 seat sports stadium.

Wait, a what? A 25,000 seat stadium? In an eco-village??

The stadium is not being billed as the main attraction, though. That honour goes to "The Calyx", a giant garden inspired by, er, other giant gardens.

Even with the sparse details in the papers today this has got so much wrong with it I barely know where to start. But I'm appalled that Murray thinks he can get away with building on Green Belt land by pretending that this housing estate will be "green", just because everyone will have a garden and encouraged to grow their own veg.

If he really wanted to build low-cost, sustainable housing - in fact, forget the low-cost, if he merely wanted to just build sustainable housing - then there are plenty of brown-field sites in and around Edinburgh begging to be turned into something useful and not just another hotel.

I'm in complete agreement with SNP councillor Norman Work who says in the Herald:

“It’s a housing scheme with a glorified garden centre.”

But there's also another red flag waving in front of my face here.

The planning applications will take around 3 years just to submit according to some sources. By then, I suspect the project will be scaled back and scaled back and scaled back, until all we're left with is that 25,000 seat stadium, with handy access to two major motorways and the tram system.

And aren't Hearts always looking for a new stadium?

Fully Charged

Robert Llewellyn, best known as Kryten in Red Dwarf and the presenter of Scrapheap Challenge, has for a while been doing small videos intended for YouTube and iTunes based around cars.

But wait, they're not just any cars. Robert is an "afficionado" of electric and hybrid cars, to the extent that Mitsubishi has even given him a loan of one of their new iMiev cars to test it through a whole year of daily use.

After posting a number of small videos under the title of 'Gearless', he's taken the decision to revamp the show and call it Fully Charged.

Here's the pilot episode, in which he explores some of the myths surrounding electric cars and takes a couple of pops at Top Gear:

As always, if you are reading this via email or on some RSS Readers then you may have to click through to the website to watch the video.

Nazi Seagulls From Hell: The Propaganda War

I was sitting reading The Independent today and turned the page to discover it had been turned into a propaganda rag by the Nazi Seagulls From Hell.

A prominent 2-page story written by the author of While Flocks Last about how the gulls were on the brink, how their natural habitats could no longer support them, how botulism and predators were devastating gull numbers.

I was almost starting to feel sorry for them. Almost.

Then I remembered the Nazi Seagull who took offence at my walking down the street on Sunday. It swooped so low that it could have parted my hair with it's wing, if I had hair. It squawked loudly as it turned for another pass over me, letting fly with a huge pile of guano all over someone's car as it did so.

I thought perhaps that it had built a nest nearby and had seen me as a threat to it's young. But when I got to the end of the street I looked around, and another guy was walking nonchalantly and unharrassed down the pavement with no seagulls in sight.

Then this morning as I was standing waiting for the bus, the bus stop was suddenly surrounded by shrieking gulls. They were on the pavement, on the roof of the shelter, on the road in front of me. There was no obvious reason for them all to descend suddenly like that, and it scared me into cowering in the corner of the shelter until the bus arrived.

I can only conclude that I was targeted deliberately. They're on to me. They know I'm Maquis and they're determined to single out those who don't collaborate.

God help us all.

Same As It Ever Was

Photo by mattbuck

For the last couple of years, the Conservatives were saying all the right things about the railways.

They admitted that they'd got privatisation wrong, that they had gone about it ham-fisted in an attempt to get British Rail off the government books before the 1997 election. They urged other European countries to do it differently. They even, at one point, suggested that perhaps the railways shouldn't be privatised at all.

Now that they are back in power, though, we're seeing their true colours.

At the first opportunity, they're privatising parts of the network again.

High Speed One, what was previously known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (it was renamed in the vague hope that maybe someday there will be more than on high-speed line in Britain), will be sold off to the highest bidder.

Because privatising the tracks worked out well before.

Because privatising the maintenance worked out well before.

Because privatising the regional and intercity companies worked out well before.

Because privatising the Tube worked out well before.

Rather than learning from past mistakes, the government seems to be in a continual loop of repeating their own stupidity.

Or perhaps they just don't have a clue what to do with the railways?

Green In The Media 21st - 27th June

Monday 21st June

Panorama
On: BBC 1
Time: 20:30 to 21:00 (Also BBC News Sun 2030)
BP - In Deep Water.
Two months after an explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 people, Panorama's Hilary Andersson tells the story of America's 'greatest environmental disaster.' Dubbed an environmental '9/11' by President Obama, the leak caused by the explosion is still releasing thousands of barrels of crude oil a day into the waters of the Gulf - livelihoods and ecosystems are threatened, fishermen are unable to work and billions have been wiped off the value of BP shares.

Thursday 24th June

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 Caroline Spelman and her ministerial team.

One Planet
On: BBC World Service Radio
Time: 10:32 to 11:00 (Also 1530, 2030, 0130, Sun 0630)
One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Panorama
On: BBC 1
Time: 00:30 to 01:00
What's Up With the Weather?.
Despite governments, scientists and campaigners telling us the world's climate is changing, increasing numbers of us simply don't believe in global warming. Panorama goes back to basics and asks what we really know about our climate and how it will affect us. Tom Heap speaks to some of the world's leading scientists on both sides of the argument, to find out what they can agree on and uncovers some surprising results.

Saturday 26th June

Ramblings
On: BBC Radio Four
Time: 06:07 to 06:30
Clare Balding Walks the South Downs Way.
6: Clare walks the final stretch of the route, starting at the Sustainability Centre at East Meon. The group walking with her have all opted for a life that's as green as possible, and includes Mary Lewis, who lives with her family in a yurt on the site of the former Naval Signals base where Tim and Maddy Harland run their green publishing company. Joining them is Alan McVittie of the Old Winchester Hill Hampshire Downs Reserve, and for the very end of the trail heading into Winchester, Andy Gatticker of the South Downs National Trail, who met Clare back in Eastbourne at the start of the series.

Electric Ride
On: BBC Radio Four
Time: 10:30 to 11:00
Four-part series in which Peter Curran takes a bold 4,500 mile trans-European journey in an electric car. Accompanied by environmental writer Richard Scrase, Peter has made it to Scandinavia. He visits the carbon neutral Danish island of Samso, calls in on Norwegian manufacturer Th!nk, tries to achieve a world record for the largest convoy of electric vehicles and takes a carbon neutral boat trip around Copenhagen. Meanwhile, the pressures of covering enough miles each day and finding places to plug-in start to take their toll.


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

5,000 hectares

- amount of trees planted last year in the UK #

2,753,251 tons

- carbon footprint of the World Cup #

60%

- UK adults who think that bottled water is a rip-off #

2 billion litres

- bottled water sold in the UK last year #

400,000 tonnes

- amount of carbon that Southern Ocean sperm whales "absorb" each year...via their poo #

Tram Them To Hell

It's a hard life being a tram-lover in Edinburgh.

I've long since given up on trying to justify the complete incompetence on which the whole project has gone forward.

I've long since given up on trying to justify the constant roadworks that have seen roads opened and closed and then reopened and then closed and then...

And I can feel myself starting to give up on the trams themselves. The latest from Edinburgh Council is that they're about to tell the main contractors to bugger off, they'll have to borrow £55 million from somewhere, and the trams might not go where they've been telling us they'll go for the last five years.

In fact, Leith might have to take down all those tram pictures they've put up in the last few months. The chances of the tracks being laid on Leith Walk are slimming considerably.

For a country that has such a great engineering tradition, the whole scheme has been an embarrassment from the word go.

Perhaps, rather than a new Forth Bridge, those lonesome tram tracks in Princes Street will prove to be Alex Salmond's epitaph.

In 20 years' time, when the tourists are puzzling over the couple of dods of steel that line the street, the tour guides can tell them the story of Mad Eck's Incompetent Cooncillors

Thanking The Bus Driver...Again

So there I was standing at the bus stop this morning waiting for the Night Bus. It was due at 0422, but finally appeared at 0424. I had my headphones on, listening to a podcast and I was the only one getting on the bus.

I put my £3 into the money slot and cheerily said "Single please!"

Actually, okay, it's 0424 so I wasn't that cheery.

But instead of pressing the button to issue me a ticket, the driver muttered something I didn't catch and peered into the money slot.

I took out one earphone and gave him a quizzical look.

"This is still the Night Bus", the driver said.

"Yes, I know," I replied, "that's why I put £3 in there"

"I can see that, but you should have asked for a Night Single. If you weren't wearing the earphones you would have heard me."

And at that he pressed the button and issued me my ticket.

During my journey to work I pondered whether the driver was pedantic, irritable, or just plain bored.

Either way, he'd left me annoyed at him. What should have been a 2 second transaction was turned into a production for no apparent reason.

So did I thank him when I got off the bus?

Of course I did. I figured he's going to be on the Night Buses all week, and that's one bus you don't want to go sailing past you because you didn't thank the driver the day before!

Bus Tracker Heading Out Of City

The BBC is reporting that the Bus Tracker scheme is to be extended outwards from Edinburgh into East Lothian, the Borders and Fife.

This is good news - I firmly believe more people would use the bus if the uncertainty of when the bus would arrive was taken away. It makes the wait at the bus stop a whole lot easier when you know the next bus is only 3 minutes away.

On the other hand, now that they're extending it throughout South East Scotland, perhaps they can see their way to putting a tracker screen next to one of my most used stops - the one at the top of Waverley Steps. This is a well-used major stop but a bus tracker screen is just a dream.

Before extending out of the City, perhaps ensuring coverage in Princes Street should be a priority?

Asleep At The Wheel

This is actually TwoDoctors' joke, I wash my hands of all responsibility!

I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that the Scottish Government are asleep at the wheel.

They seem to have run out of ideas. Run out of spark. Run out of creativity.

There is a lack of motivation in everything they do. Ever since the budget this year, whenever you hear a government minister speaking you could be forgiven for getting the impression that all they're doing is shrugging their shoulders and saying "Meh".

Actually, when it comes to one of them then I think he's just not up to the job. And that's Stewart Stevenson, our esteemed Climate Change minister.

As Rob Edwards reports in yesterday's Sunday Herald, he has delayed publishing a plan on how to save energy for a sixth time.

He's blaming a new working group which he has set up to look at his failed emissions targets - remember that promise to cut a whole 0.5% in the next year?

Even then, it's taken him a fortnight to get his finger out of his arse on that one. Here's Green MSP Patrick Harvie being scathing about the letter that Stevenson sent him:



Every time I see Stewart Stevenson standing up in the debating chamber in Parliament, I get the impression that he's bewildered how anyone can disagree with what he says, and there's just no sense of urgency from him.

But then again, there's no sense of urgency from any of them. Are we going to get a cabinet reshuffle to freshen up the team before next year's Scottish elections? Do the SNP have a plan to come back after the summer with amazing plans which will set the heather on fire?

I doubt it.

Green In The Media 14th - 20th June

There's still a dearth of greenery this week. Ah well, I guess you'll just have to watch more football...

Tuesday 15th June

In Living Memory
On: BBC Radio Four
Time: 21:30 to 21:58
Contemporary history series. Chris Ledgard tells the story of the battle to extract Dorset's oil, after geologists discovered the biggest offshore oilfield in western Europe there in the late 1970s. The oilmen were faced with the dilemma of how to open up a major oilfield around the Isle of Purbeck and Poole Harbour, one of the most important and protected stretches of landscape in the British Isles. But BP was determined to do so and, after a long battle to persuade people that it could drill for oil without destroying the environment, its plans were passed.

Thursday 17th June

One Planet
On: BBC World Service Radio
Time: 10:32 to 11:00 (Also 1530, 2030, 0130, Sun 0630)
One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Sunday 20th June

Countryfile
On: BBC 1
Time: 18:00 to 19:00
Adam's finding out just what challenges face one farmer in his struggle to go organic. With genetically modified crops back on the political agenda, John Craven investigates whether GM should be welcomed or banned forever.


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

40%

- proportion of French oyster farms that could close due to a virus #

475 tons

- hybrid Monsanto seeds that Haitian farmers have rejected as a "gift" #

272

- number of oil spills from rigs in the North Sea in 2008 #

2016 ± 3 years

- date at which the Arctic will be ice-free in the Autumn #

£6,000

- price tag for a new car which does 450 miles on one tank of fuel designed by the team behind the McLaren F1 #

Follow The Leader

Very early in the life of this blog, I received an email from someone complaining that I was yet another out of touch "preacher" and that saner people lived in the real world thank-you-very-much.

I decided at that point that I would publish my power consumption on a quarterly basis, firstly as a full-disclosure method against the email attacks (haven't had one in a while, mind you) and secondly to show that people can live a fairly "normal" life and still reduce their energy use and CO₂ emissions.

Those copycats at the Department of Energy & Climate Change are now doing the same thing, but with knobs on.

Instead of publishing results every quarter, they are showing their energy use in their headquarters every five seconds on their homepage.

Clicking on the widget also discloses some figures for the last year - Gas Use is down a whopping 56%, Electricity is down by 10%.

If they're "preaching", then it's only fair that they show they're practicing what they preach, too.

PONGS Wins

Photo by D'Arcy Norman

I have to admit, I'm not entirely displeased every time Viridor gets a kicking.

They've just had their appeal against Edinburgh Council's decision to reject their latest plans thrown out.

Cast your minds back to July 2008. Viridor wanted to shut down the current road-to-rail waste terminal in Broughton Road, close to the city centre. They would then open a new facility in Portobello, on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Which would do the exact same thing.

Of course, back in the booming economy days of 2008 Broughton Road was prime real estate territory, which would have no bearing on Viridor's decision at all, would it?

Anyway, the good people of Portobello took to the streets with their pitchforks and burning torches and have now vanquished Viridor. The protest group - appropriately called PONGS (Portobello Opposes New Garbage Station) - are naturally delighted, as is Peter McColl who tells how frightening it was having to give evidence at the appeal.

It remains to be seen just which other greenwashed initiative Viridor comes up with next. They seem determined to get an incinerator up and running somewhere in the Lothians.

Thanking The Bus Driver

Photo by www.theedinburghblog.co.uk

Just what is the etiquette for getting off a bus?

I never quite know what to do - thank the bus driver or not?

After all, very few people get thanked just for doing their job.

And what are you thanking them for? Not killing you during the journey? There are a few who have come close to that over the years with me. I particularly recall the driver who seemed to be attempting to leave skid marks behind him at every stop.

He was leaving skid marks, all right. Just not on the road.

If you're first in a queue of people waiting to get off, do you thank the driver? What if you're last in the queue and no one else has thanked them?

What if you're 5th in a queue of 8?

What if everyone else getting off the bus has thanked the driver and you don't? Will he or she think you're a rude bastard? Or will they think you're a weirdo if no one else thanks them but you do?

What about the Night Bus? Do you give the driver a sympathetic thanks knowing that he's got a night of thankless drunks ahead of him? Or thank him for delivering you to work bleary-eyed at 4am?

And can you ever get away with just a grunt or a mumble, no matter the time of day?

More to the point, is the driver expecting to get thanked? Can they even hear you behind the plexiglass?

Or am I just over-analysing this every time I stand up to get off the bus?

When Our Attention Wanders

Photo by US Army Africa

As a species, we like a good disaster.

We enjoy reading end-of-the-world stories and watching disaster-porn movies. We tut and fret over real-life disasters, our hearts breaking about those poor people caught up in the latest hurricane or volcanic eruption or earthquake while we try to imagine what we would do in the same situation.

And then, when the excitement is out of the way and no one is in danger any more, when all the stories seem to be about living day-to-day instead of imminent death and destruction, we turn our backs and look elsewhere for our disaster-porn fix.

And I'm as guilty of it as the next man.

So you can imagine the sigh I gave out while sitting on the bus and listening to this week's Earthbeat Radio podcast when they mentioned Haiti. Wasn't that fixed already? Wasn't that yesterday's news? Why aren't they talking some more about BP?

And then my jaw hit the floor.

The lady being interviewed was Beverley Bell, who had written a piece in the Huffington Post. The Earthbeat interview was based on that.

She was telling how Monsanto are trying to muscle into Haiti. The island has mostly organic agriculture - not by choice, but because they're too poor to afford fertiliser.

Monsanto has gifted 475 tons of "hybrid" corn seeds (they have assured the Haitian government that it is not Genetically Modified). The seeds are treated with chemicals that mean farm workers are required to wear protective clothing to handle them. As you can imagine, protective farm clothing is a bit conspicuous by it's absence in Haiti.

The plants also do not produce seeds of their own, so the farmers would be forced to buy more seed next year.

Beverley Bell also mentions in the interview that the markets in Haiti have been flooded with free rice from other US agribusinesses. The local farmers cannot compete with "free", so their rice harvests are going unsold. This means that poverty is increasing in the country and the local economy is suffering.

So what are the Haitians doing about it?

Well, in this piss-poor country which is crying out for help, they're going to burn all the Monsanto seeds. Yep, all 475 tons of it. They might need it in the short-term, but they don't want it.

Because sometimes, the poor know what's better for them in the long run, when the rich Northerners have forgotten all about them and moved onto the next tsunami.

I Say Chaps, Let's Plan Another Hotel!

I sometimes suspect that Edinburgh's planning department has a collective meltdown if a fortnight goes past and no one has announced that they want to build a new hotel in Edinburgh. Indeed, Councillor Tom Buchanan says in this article:

"There are opportunities in the hotels market for Edinburgh..."

It's the monstrosity of the hotel which catches the eye in the article - 26 storeys. This would make it Edinburgh's tallest building.

Actually, I don't have much of a problem with tall buildings, as long as they're not in the city centre. But do we really want Edinburgh's tallest building - and a landmark from across the Forth - to be a sodding hotel?

As for the rest of the plans, I'm broadly in favour. And that's because the dreaded words "retail opportunities" are not used in the article.

Because if there's one thing Edinburgh needs less than hotels, it's more out-of-city-centre shopping.

Green In The Media 7th - 13th June

Slim pickings. Very slim pickings. On the plus side, there's plenty of football!

Tuesday 8th June

The Reith Lectures 2010
On: BBC Radio Four
Time: 09:00 to 09:45 (Also Sat 2215)
Surviving the Century. Episode 2.
Scientific Horizons: Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, Master of Trinity College and Astronomer Royal, delivers four lectures exploring the challenges facing science in the 21st century. Recorded at the National Museum in Cardiff, Prof Rees continues to explore the challenges facing science in the 21st century. Our planet is coming under increasing strain from climate change, population explosion and food shortages. How can we use science to help us solve the crisis that we are moving rapidly towards, as we use up our natural resources ever more quickly?

Thursday 10th June

One Planet
On: BBC World Service Radio
Time: 10:32 to 11:00 (Also 1530, 2030, 0130, Sat 2030, Sun 0630)
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

10 years

- amount of time that Alaskans will be allowed to hunt whales if the US supports lifting the ban on commercial whaling #

15 years

- time in jail that anti-whaling Sea Shepherd activist Pete Bethune could get in Japan #

12 hours

- global consumption of oil that BP was drilling for in the Gulf of Mexico #

5.5 million

- new estimate of the number of species on the planet. Previous estimates ranged up to 100 million #

690 million tonnes of CO₂

- carbon footprint of a nuclear war #

Science? Pah. I Know Better.

This is...well, I was going to say great, but it's more "outstandingly stupid".

It's an MP3 snippet from a guy called Norm Kalmanovitch, a climate change denier from the group "Friends of Science" which is a misleadingly-titled group set up to debunk the theory on global warming.

The MP3 itself suggests that although Norm is a "Friend of Science", he doesn't actually understand any of it.

It only lasts a couple of seconds, but I would advise having a cloth handy for wiping the coffee from your keyboard after you spit it out in laughter.

MP3

Thank you to Friends of Gin and Tonic for providing us with this delight!

It's A Gas, Gas, Gas

Photo by NIOSH

I mentioned yesterday that with dwindling fossil fuel supplies, companies will start to turn their heads towards trying to extract resources from previously uneconomic sources. And so it's proving.

A Fife-based company now wants to attempt to extract gas from the coal fields which are underneath the Firth of Forth. Underground Coal Gasification involves pumping oxygen and steam into the coal seams, then capturing the gas which comes back out.

I'll admit that it's (slightly) better for the environment than the actual coal itself, but it is still trying to exploit a non-renewable fossil fuel. UCG is merely a variation on a 19th Century technology.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if a company hears this and decides to try and mine the coal under the Forth! There will come a point when even that is economic.

12 Hours

Photo by US Coast Guard via Wikimedia Commons

I'm reading a book at the moment called The End of Oil, which is about peak oil and the end of the hydrocarbon economy. It was written in 2005 so it's a tad out of date fact-wise - there is speculation of what would happen if oil hits $50 a barrel - but the main core of it is sound.

And that is that the big oil companies and petro-states will take ever-increasing risks to develop oil fields that they wouldn't have gotten out of bed for previously.

So it was astonishing to read in an almost throwaway line in a comment piece in yesterday's Independent just how much oil BP was trying to tap in the Gulf of Mexico.

What size of oil field did 11 people and countless marine mammals and fish lose their lives for? How much oil did the fishermen and pleasure-craft owners lose their livelihoods for? How much oil was worth the local boat crews developing respiratory problems because they rushed to help clean up the spill?

12 hours.

The entire oil field that the Deepwater Horizon was trying to exploit only contained 12 hours worth of global consumption.

Turning Stations Back Into Community Hubs

Photo of Haymarket via Wikimedia Commons

I was gazing at Haymarket station from the bus yesterday and thinking how nice it looked when you took the time to stop and stare. Understated and elegant, it's the kind of building that today's architects wouldn't even dream of designing.

Indeed, various plans for the Haymarket area of Edinburgh have seen architects want to knock it down, encase it in glass and turn it into a shopping mall.

It's just one of a number of station buildings in Scotland that are sitting there only half used. Built during an era when the railway actually had staff working at the stations, they now sit with the extra rooms being used for storage or even boarded up.

This state of affairs is starting to be recognised, and the Scottish Government has just pledged some funds to bring a number of stations back into community use. To my mind, the more the community uses a station building, the more it will cross their mind to actually use the station whenever they want to go somewhere.

Unfortunately Haymarket isn't one of the stations getting funding - Edinburgh City Council has other plans for it. They don't know what those other plans are yet, but you can be damn sure the words "understated and elegant" won't be employed!