Solution, Not Pollution

Photo by Esparta

Back when I first started working on the railway, we used to still be using old Class 47 diesel locomotives to haul antiquated rolling stock. Or "real trains", as the old hands will tell you. If you were unlucky enough to have the Guard's Van directly behind the engine, then at the end of the day your snot would be black. I used to wonder just what I was breathing in for hours at a time, and what effect it was having on me.

But at least I could escape the fumes by walking away. Imagine living in a cloud of diesel or petrol fumes. That's just what happens to thousands of city residents around the world. The effects in Edinburgh are becomingly increasingly clear, with higher death rates in the most congested streets noticeable.

It's increasingly clear that Edinburgh needs a new, overarching and integrated traffic management plan. For the last five years, there's been very little planning forthcoming from the Council, other than the botched tram works. They need to be planning now for when the trams are up and running, just how the residents will traverse the city and how easy it will be to transfer from one mode of transport to another.

The Council also need to make clear that this is not a "war on the motorist" but is now a public health issue. For the lack of a decent transport plan, we all have to pay more to the NHS to treat the conditions brought on by air pollution. As well as the impending EU fines.

Besides, I've always wondered how a plan to get more people off the road, and therefore increase the pleasure of driving for those still in their cars, can be a "war on motorists".

Forth Contraflow Replacement Still Going Ahead

Photo by sarniebill1

At the weekend, we discovered that the Forth Road Bridge isn't falling down after all. I'm shocked and stunned!

Well, okay, I'm not. Especially when other bridges around the world have gone through the dehumidification process and been fine afterwards. Nevertheless, the Scottish Government is determined to push on with spending £1.6 billion on an unneeded replacement bridge. Remember, the current bridge could be re-cabled for just £122 million.

But what caught my eye in the Scotsman's story was this paragraph, quoting Bridgemaster Barry Colford:

However, he stressed the new crossing, which is expected to cost between £1.45bn and £1.6bn, was also required to avert major traffic disruption on the Forth road bridge during increasingly- frequent repair work.

So basically, what he's saying is that the country is spending £1.6 billion pound on a diversionary route - a 'contraflow replacement'. Money well spent, huh?

Green In The Media 27th February - 4th March

Monday 27th February


One Planet
On: BBC World Service Radio
Time: 12:32 to 12:50 (Also Fri 1930, Sat 0430, 1830)
One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Tuesday 28th February


Costing the Earth
On: BBC Radio 4
Time: 15:30 to 16:00 (Also Wed 2100)
The Fukushima disaster in Japan brought the nuclear revival to a halt. But could there be a cheaper, safer way to create nuclear energy? Julian Rush reports.

Wednesday 29th February


One Planet Special
On: BBC World Service Radio
Time: 15:06 to 16:00
David Attenborough discusses his life and work in the natural world.

Thursday 1st March


Live Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Questions
On: BBC Parliament
Time: 10:30 to 11:30 (Also 0130, 0400)
Live coverage of questions in the House of Commons to Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Caroline Spelman and her ministerial team.



Excerpts taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from 
http://www.getdigiguide.tv/?p=1&r=20818
Copyright (c) GipsyMedia Limited.

The Week In Green Numbers

100 - 130 feet

- drop in average global cloud height in ten years #

21

- bird species which have become extinct in the last 20 years #

1 GW

- installed solar power in the UK #

60%

- planned reduction in fossil fuel use in the US Virgin Islands #

500,000

- birth defects in Vietnam attributed to Agent Orange #

Invest In Us

The Scottish Government have been pushing for the UK government to site their new Green Investment Bank in Edinburgh. I don't think they're going to succeed.

The stumbling block isn't Edinburgh's expertise in banking (or should that be, former expertise?!). It's not Edinburgh's proximity to most of the UK's renewable energy industry, either. Nor is it a matter of local resources - there are plenty of empty office buildings in the city.

No, the stumbling block is the Scottish Government themselves, and their stated aims for independence. Whether they win or lose the forthcoming referendum, it seems ludicrous to me that the UK government would base a major part of the government's money in what could potentially become a foreign country. We wouldn't expect to set up the Bank in Belgium or Moldova, would we? So why do we think that they're going to risk setting it up in Edinburgh?

I'm all for the Green Investment Bank, although I think it's woefully underfunded, but I'll be majorly surprised if it bases itself in Edinburgh. So, here's my solution for the Scottish Government: set up your own Green Bank. Have an independent investment arm that can give money to the renewables industry. The SNP like the Norway Oil Fund, so why don't they take North Sea revenues and put it into a Scottish Green Bank, along with fines collected by SEPA and funds from the government itself?

I'm sure there are legal stumbling blocks under devolution, but it would be easily done under independence.

Held To Account

Photo by James Morrison

Back in a former life (the early 90s), I worked briefly at Mossmorran Ethylene Cracker Plant in Fife, when it was being expanded. My overriding memory of it is that it was a small plant, certainly compared to Grangemouth where I also worked. Oh, and the flare which burned day and night, which, if the atmospherics were right, you could follow all the way up the M90 from Edinburgh.

It emerged at the weekend that ExxonMobil, who run the plant, have been fined a whopping £2.7 million for misreporting greenhouse gas emissions. The worrying thing is, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency relied on ExxonMobil to report their own emissions...and relied on ExxonMobil to own up to the misreporting.

Obviously there are problems with that. If ExxonMobil hadn't owned up, would we have ever known? And now that they've had such a huge fine imposed, will they own up in the future?

When it comes to companies, and in particular large corporations like ExxonMobil, then I'm all in favour of using the stick as an incentive to reduce emissions. And quite frankly, I'm not going to cry over ExxonMobil losing what amounts to a small fraction of their daily profits. But there must be a better way than allowing companies to self-report emissions.

Green In The Media 20th - 26th February

Monday 20th February


One Planet
On: BBC World Service Radio
Time: 12:32 to 12:50 (Also Fri 1930, Sat 0430, 1830)
One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Tuesday 21st February


Costing the Earth
On: BBC Radio 4
Time: 15:30 to 16:00 (Also Wed 2100)
Tunnel Beneath the Thames.
Every time London suffers a serious rainstorm, raw sewage overwhelms the Victorian sewers and pours into the River Thames. Prof Alice Roberts investigates the proposed solution.

Thursday 23rd February


This World
On: BBC 2
Time: 21:00 to 22:00
Inside the Meltdown.
International investigative documentary series. When a tsunami struck Japan in 2011, it swamped the Fukushima nuclear complex causing nuclear meltdown and releasing radioactivity that would cost a hundred thousand people their homes. With unique footage and powerful eyewitness testimony from key figures in the drama - the engineers in the plant, firemen, soldiers, pilots, tsunami survivors, the Japanese prime minister and even the MD of the company operating the plant - Inside the Meltdown reveals what really happened when a disaster unfolded that Japan's nuclear industry said would never happen. Also revealed are the tensions between the plant's owners and an increasingly distrustful Japanese prime minister, struggling to get at the truth of what was happening, fearful the owners planned to abandon the plant. He reveals his experts at one point warned he might need to evacuate vast areas of Japan, even the capital Tokyo.



Excerpts taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from 
http://www.getdigiguide.tv/?p=1&r=20818
Copyright (c) GipsyMedia Limited.

The Week In Green Numbers

1 million

- jobs in the EU Renewable Energy industry #

200

- elephants killed by poachers in five weeks #

£30 billion

- amount that Scotland could raise from renewables over the next 20 years #

35%

- cut in emissions by The Co-op #

150 billion tonnes

- ice loss from glaciers and ice caps every year #

Feed The Beast

Photo by me'nthedogs

There are many problems with incinerators, but one of the main ones has just been confirmed by a company planning to build an incinerator in East Lothian.

Viridor have had a long-running battle to build an incinerator at Dunbar, to deal with the waste from Edinburgh and the surrounding environments. The locals don't want it, but the Scottish Government overruled them.

But the problem is, an incinerator needs fed. Which means that there's no incentive to reduce your waste or recycle. Viridor have confirmed this with the news that they now want to bend the rules that were imposed on the plant, by bringing in waste from much further afield than Edinburgh and the Lothians.

It seems crazy to ship waste across the width of the country just to burn it, and goes completely against the government's own recycling strategy. This plant needs to be killed off before it goes any further, and we end up just burning all of Scotland's waste.

Taxi For Brown

There can be very few jobs in the world where you are appointed with little to no experience of the industry in which you work.

There can be very few people in the world who, when appointed to a job for which they have little to no experience of the industry, don't then set about gaining some insight into that industry.

Step forward and give us a wave then, Keith Brown. Scotland's Transport Minister has, in the last year, shunned public transport. He has only taken four train journeys in 12 months, compared to using the ministerial limo 226 times. How on earth is he supposed to know what he's talking about when discussing the rail network when he barely sets foot on it?

And his excuse?

“Personally, my car acts as a mobile office, allowing me to catch up on work in between engagements in a way I wouldn’t be able to using other means of transport.”

Perhaps if he'd taken the train more often, he would have realised that you can work on a train too. And there's more elbow room. Hey, you even get a table to rest your ministerial elbows on. And lots of light so that you can read in the dark, winter mornings and evenings without blinding the chauffeur.

It really is a pathetic excuse. Scotland deserves a Transport Minister that actually uses transport.

Green In The Media 13th - 19th February

Monday 13th February


One Planet
On: BBC World Service Radio
Time: 12:32 to 12:50 (Also Fri 1930, Sat 0430, 1830)
One Planet looks at how we use our planet.


Storyville
On: BBC 4
Time: 22:00 to 23:20 (Also 0120)
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.
Nominated for a 2011 Academy Award, a documentary which tells the remarkable story of a young American environmentalist involved with the Earth Liberation Front - a group the FBI came to describe as America's 'number one domestic terrorism threat'. For years, the ELF - operating in separate anonymous cells without any central leadership - had launched spectacular attacks against dozens of logging companies they accused of destroying the environment. In December 2005, Daniel McGowan was arrested by federal agents in a nationwide sweep of radical environmentalists involved with the ELF. Part coming-of-age tale, part thriller, the film interweaves a verite chronicle of Daniel as he faces life in prison, with a dramatic recounting of the events that led to his involvement with the group.

Tuesday 14th February


Costing the Earth
On: BBC Radio 4
Time: 15:30 to 16:00 (Also Wed 2100)
Bambi Bites Back.
British deer numbers are rising, taking a heavy toll on forestry and ground-nesting birds. Tom Heap asks if we need to cull our largest mammals.

Friday 17th February


Britain's Empty Homes
On: BBC 1
Time: 11:00 to 11:30
Gas technician David Hall and his wife Heather, an architectural student, plan to downsize to a smaller house not too far from their present home in Ingatestone, Essex. David and Heather are keen to be green, and what better way to start than by recycling an empty house. They're hoping this will allow their 400,000 pound budget to stretch so they can afford to install as many eco features as they can. But it's not going to be easy being green as they've never done an eco renovation before. Jules Hudson is on hand to help them explore some of the options, introducing them to some green renovators who've taken advantage of empty homes to create their eco dreams.



Excerpts taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from 
http://www.getdigiguide.tv/?p=1&r=20818
Copyright (c) GipsyMedia Limited.

The Week In Green Numbers

2625 feet

- height of a solar power tower proposed for Arizona #

44%

- fall in the numbers of two-spotted ladybirds in the UK in 5 years #

£70

- "reward" from palm oil companies for killing an orangutan in Indonesia #

4 million

- homes with solar panels in the UK by 2020, according to the government #

55

- flamingos which died in France during a cold snap #

Victory In Fight Against Leith Biomass

Forth Energy confirmed yesterday that they've abandoned plans for a huge biomass plant in Leith Docks.

It's a victory for local campaigners No Leith Biomass and Greener Leith. It's also a victory for common sense.

The wood chips that the plant would burn would have to be specially shipped in from America, prompting a complaint from the American branch of Friends of the Earth, amongst others.

Unfortunately, Forth Energy still has plans to place biomass plants elsewhere on the Forth, at Rosyth and Grangemouth, and in Dundee. There can be no place for large-scale biomass plants in Scotland.

The battle is won, the war continues...

Trump Declares War On Scotland

He's finally lost it. Big time. Trump has declared war on Scotland.

He has turned on his heretofore ally Alex Salmond, telling him that

"you will single-handedly have done more damage to Scotland than virtually any event in Scottish history!"

That's quite a claim, although I suspect that Mr Trump gets his Scottish history from Mel Gibson.

(You can see Trump's full letter to the First Minister as a pdf here on Patrick Harvie's website.)

So what is it that has caused such ire? Ah yes, those wind turbines that will be popping up off the Aberdeenshire coast soon. Trump reckons they will

"[destroy] Scotland's coastline and, therefore, Scotland itself"

He goes on

"I have just authorized my staff to allocate a substantial amount of money to launch an international campaign to fight your plan to surround Scotland's coast with many thousands of wind turbines"

Well, good luck with that. Because most of the international community - ie not the wingnuts - I suspect will actually congratulate us on being at the forefront of the renewable energy revolution, and our efforts to tackle climate change.

Quite why Salmond ever did business with Trump is becoming increasingly unclear. Having been allowed to steamroller over our planning process and rip up large swathes of protected countryside, he's now throwing his toys out of the pram at every perceived slight. We should tell him to sling his hook, and to take his unneeded golf course with him - and then charge him to restore the dunes that he's ruined.

Not In My Changing Back Yard

The Guardian published a very interesting map online yesterday, that shows every windfarm in the UK that has been built or has planning consent, or is under construction.

Overlaid on the map is the constituencies of MPs who oppose windfarms. It's surely just coincidence that large swathes of these constituencies don't have any windfarms on them, isn't it?

There was a rather cheeky attempt at a land grab over the weekend, when Chris Huhne resigned as Energy and Climate Change Secretary. No sooner was his bum off the seat than a group of Tory MPs were urging the Prime Minister to change the planning rules for windfarms, to make it easier to block them.

While I don't think we should grant planning consent to every windfarm without looking at them and the environment they will stand in, I do think that planning should have a bias in favour of the windfarm.

After all, the landscape that we're trying to protect won't look like it does know if we don't get a handle on climate change.

Green In The Media 6th - 12th February

Monday 6th February


One Planet
On: BBC World Service Radio
Time: 12:32 to 12:50 (Also Fri 1930, Sat 0430, 1830)
One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Tuesday 7th February


Costing the Earth
On: BBC Radio 4
Time: 15:30 to 16:00 (Also Wed 2100)
Adapting Insects.
New techniques allow us to control the minds and bodies of dangerous insects. Dr Alice Roberts asks if we can turn this to our advantage in the battle against malaria.

Wednesday 8th February


Bees, Butterflies and Blooms
On: BBC 2
Time: 20:00 to 21:00
Villages, Farms and Countryside. Episode 1.
Documentary which follows Sarah Raven on a mission to halt the rapid decline in the UK's essential bees, butterflies and pollinating insects. She takes her mission out into the Great British countryside to encourage farmers and village communities to help recreate a network of crucial habitats for these insects. She meets the Farringtons - a Northamptonshire farming family. They investigate sowing perennial wildflower borders around their crops to increase habitats for insect pollinators and to possibly increase crop yields. She also attempts to change the attitude of a Northamptonshire village that prefers tidiness over wildflowers and, at home, she harvests some wildflower seed in order to develop her own wildflower meadow, something everyone can do in their own community or at home.

Thursday 9th February


Tonight
On: ITV1/STV
Time: 19:30 to 20:00
The Cost of Going Green.
Jonathan Maitland looks at whether the Government's commitment to renewable energy could increase our household bills. The Government aims for 15 percent of our energy to be provided by the likes of wind, water and solar power by 2020 - but what is the cost of going green?

Saturday 11th February


Tommy Walsh's Eco House
On: Quest
Time: 14:00 to 19:00
Tommy and his team get to grips with their latest challenge - to build a home in 60 days for less than £60k, making eco-smart living the next step in affordable homes.



Excerpt taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from 
http://www.getdigiguide.tv/?p=1&r=20818
Copyright (c) GipsyMedia Limited.

The Week In Green Numbers

2 million tonnes

- soil that has been decontaminated from the Olympic site in London #

3,500 km²

- usual size of China's largest freshwater lake, Poyang #

200 km²

- current size of Lake Poyang, thanks to a drought & the Three Gorges Dam #

15mph

- average speed of a car through Edinburgh at rush hour #

$40,000 per kilo

- current price of rhino horn #

Park And Ride

Photo by mil8

I had a (very short) letter published in the Evening News yesterday replying to this article by Helen Martin, and thought I'd expand on it.

In her article, Helen Martin condemns the Labour Party in Edinburgh for their plan to introduce a small tax on employee parking in the city. She reckons that people driving into work keeps the economy of the city going, as well as advocating the use of out of town shopping malls:

Any shopper with the IQ of a potted plant or more, heads to out-of-town centres

I have a number of issues with the article and with the whole argument that only drivers are consumers. To take my example from the letter, if you take the bus to work then you're more likely to buy a pint of milk from a local store, talk to and know your neighbours and take part in your local community.

The alternative is being sanitised from the rest of society, cocooned in your hunk of metal as you drive from your front door to your workplace, sit in an office for eight hours without setting foot outside, then driving home again. Are you then part of the community? Do you actually have an investment in the city?

She goes on to say:

Of course, the ideal situation from the council’s point of view is that more and more people will use the bus

Actually, this is the ideal situation as far as we're all concerned. Not only does it keep the bus prices low (they're about to go up again, apparently), but it reduces the carbon emissions in the city, and reduces air pollution - something that Edinburgh is struggling with at the moment.

Also, given the cost overruns of the tram project, the Council needs to raise money to pay for vital services. We've already seen a lot of cutbacks, and need to avoid future services being axed by being a bit creative with how we raise revenue. A Tourist Bed Tax would have been one way to ease funds, a parking levy would be another. And since we're talking money, the EU are going to start fining places that can't get their air pollution under control, so in 2015 Edinburgh could be trying to find extra pennies to pay those fines.

My last point on her article is the scaremongering as she declares that the parking levy could be "possibly just short of £300" for every parking space. An annual Lothian Buses Adult Ridacard currently costs £576. Those figures should be reversed. If we're ever going to tackle climate change, then public transport should always be the cheaper option.