My Environmental Wish List

Here's a list of things I'd like to see happen over the next few years: 

1) A new, legally binding climate change treaty to be agreed by all nations. Not some useless, vaguely worded, cosey little agreement like the Copenhagen Accord, but something with targets, deadlines, and teeth if countries start back-sliding.

The next chance to do just this will be in Mexico later this year. The U.S. could make or break it. Sadly it's unlikely they'll get a bill through in time for the President to make the promises he wants.

2) Solar technology to advance to the point where solar panels and heaters are so cheap that almost any home or third world village can afford one.

3) All forms of renewable energy to advance to a point where they can out-compete fossil fuels economically.

4) Batteries for electric cars to become a lot cheaper, more compact, and more efficient (Currently, when the batteries die after several years, you face a bill of thousands to replace them; They also limit the range of electric cars between charges).

5) Governments across the world to work with car manufacturers to establish the infrastructure required on a national basis to encourage the rapid take up of fuel cell and electric cars (i.e. Make refuelling stations available everywhere, not just in cities like London).

6) The U.N. to set-up a research lab with the specific aim of advancing all forms of renewable energy to the point where 2) to 4) above are possible. The lab would employ all the best minds available in the required fields.


7) Someone to come up with 'killer' climate change evidence. Something so undeniable, yet straightforward, that everyone will say "Oh yeah. Of course". So we can finally put all the climate denier nonsense behind us and get on with sorting out the planet.


To be honest, there's a mountain of solid evidence for climate change, the trouble is most of it's in the form of statistics, graphs, and solid scientific argument, not nearly as immediate and attention grabbing as a blog headline saying "Climate Change Lies".

8) A new, legally binding agreement to halt the decline in biodiversity to be agreed by all nations. Biodiversity is not a nice-to-have, it's a necessity: Nature provides us with huge economic benefits (from bees pollinating crops to mangroves protecting coastlines) and it will cost us all dearly if we ignore that fact.

9) A new international law to be passed that means that any proposed geoengineering project can only go ahead if scrutinised and approved at a world level (A new U.N. body?). Geoengineering should only be attempted as part of an overall CO2 reduction plan (See item 1 above).

Cheapest Hybrid Car

It's kind of frustrating to want to get your hands on a second-hand hybrid (i.e. electric/petrol engined) car but find they all seem to be £8k+ in price. I just don't have that amount of money to throw around.

However, I've kept going and discovered that the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight aren't the only game in town. The problem with them is that they're too recent to have come down sufficiently in price. What I really need is a hybrid that's been around for a while and was made in large enough numbers to be easy to find now...

Enter the Honda Civic IMA. They've been around since 2003, they're hybrids and you can find them for as little as £4k. Apparently they're a good drive, reliable, a lot cheaper to run than my current car, and have a third less carbon emissions.

Worth a look!

Note: Apparently hybrid sales in the States have dropped dramatically recently - especially the Prius. I guess this is down to the recession, the imminent arrival of a range of electric vehicles and, in the case of the Prius, bad press with all those recalls.

Fuel Cell Breakthrough

Wouldn't it be great if our homes could be self-sufficient in energy? Well, that possibility seems to have come a step closer with a recent announcement: Scientists have discovered a way of increasing the efficiency of fuel cells (which generate electricity from water) by 200-fold.

The technique is licensed to a company called Sun Catalytix who have the aim of bringing personal 'power-stations' to homes and small businesses within 2 years! It could provide all the electric, heating, cooling and car fuel they require!!

If this is anywhere near possible on that timescale then the fossil fuel and energy providers must be seriously sweating. It could end their businesses almost overnight. More here.

How We've Reduced Our Carbon Footprint

The carbon footprint for my family is currently 9.62 tonnes, or 2.4 per head. That may sound a lot but the national average per head is 9.6 in the UK and about 15 to 20 in Australia and the U.S. (Check out your own country's average here).

It's thought that we need to get the average down to 2 tonnes per head worldwide to make it sustainable in the long term. That might seem like a ridiculously low figure but our footprint shows that it is possible without having to go back to the Stone Age or spending loads of money.

The main things that have contributed to low footprint are:

• We switched our electric bills to a green tariff taking 1.4t off our footprint.
• We work locally, so our annual mileage is about 5k for each of our 2 cars.
• We apply these travel rules when deciding on our holidays.
• We recycle/freecycle/compost as much as possible.
• We buy as much local and seasonal produce as possible.
• We don't go mad on getting the very latest gadgets.
• We eat mostly white meat and fish.

We have not bought solar panels, wind turbines, brand new low emission cars or any other expensive item. And we don't do anything that we'd consider to be 'putting ourselves out' like going completely veggie.

There are still things we can do to reduce our footprint like improving the insulation in our loft and replacing our cars with used ones that have lower emissions, so we may get very close to that 2 tonnes per head target within the next year.

Geoengineering? Are You Kidding?!!

Apparently some influential people are giving serious thought to something called 'geoengineering' to meet the challenge of climate change.

What is geoengineering? According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control) it's about "options that would involve large-scale engineering of our environment in order to combat or counteract the effects of changes in atmospheric chemistry". For example, pumping vast quantities of sulphur into the atmosphere to cool the Earth down, or seeding the oceans with masses of iron in order to encourage plankton to take up more CO2. More examples and detail here.

There are many problems with this sort of thing (See the link above for a list) but my main objections are: a) Will we really know what we're doing? We have such a bad record on influencing Nature, how can we predict the ultimate outcome? We could end up make matters even worse; b) Most forms of geoengineering (including the ones I've mentioned) would undermine efforts to reduce carbon emissions, and encourage a business-as-usual attitude to using our planet as a toilet. They're not solutions, they just papering over the cracks.

At this point, you're probably thinking that geoengineering is just science fiction. However, it is seriously being looked at by governments, groups, and wealthy individuals right now. The U.S. has already carried out testing on the idea of dumping iron in the oceans, whilst the Russians are experimenting with spraying aerosols into the atmosphere to cause localised weather effects.

Nervous? You should be. Geoengineering is like a Pandora's Box: Once we open it, we may regret it for generations to come.

Should We All Go Vegetarian?

The cover of a recent issue of New Scientist (17/7/2010) caught my eye, asking the intriguing question "What happens if we all quit meat?". Intriguing because it's a known fact that going vegetarian or vegan can reduce your carbon footprint and is better for the environment. So wouldn't it be even better if everyone went veggie?

All agriculture hurts the environment: Forests and grasslands are cleared; fertilisers and pesticides pollute the rivers; and carbon emissions are created by agricultural machinary, processing of the produce, and all those farting animals.

Clearing forests and prairies further increases agriculture's carbon footprint because it removes trees and grassland that would otherwise be absorbing CO2.

Livestock farming produces the most carbon partly because we have to grow crops to feed them. In fact, our livestock consumes one third of all the grain we grow! If we all went vegan, we could return a fifth of the land used for crops back to Nature and reduce carbon emissions by 18%. It would also reduce nitrogen polution (by up to 60%), soil erosion, and pesticide useage.

However, these animals don't have to be fed grain. Grain is just more efficient.

Getting rid of livestock would deprive us of by-products like leather, wool, and even manure.

And livestock is essential to up to a billion rural poor, because it provides the opportunity for extra income and a good source of protein.

So, if not vegan, maybe we could all go vegetarian (giving us eggs and dairy products)? Well, you can't produce milk without meat. Cows need to calve every year to continue producing milk and half of those calves would be male. How do you justify keeping large herds of non-productive bulls and retired cows? The only logical choice is to kill them for meat. A similar argument would apply to chickens.

So a meat-free World would make no sense.

Having said that, I see no reason why we in the Developed countries shouldn't reduce our meat consumption as far as we choose to. If we all need to reduce our carbon footprint to 2 tonnes per person, then having meat-free days could be a part of that (e.g. You can save up to half a tonne by going vegetarian, more if you go vegan). And, to be honest, if meat prices go up in the way that's predicted in the future, meat may end up being an occasional treat anyway.

Oz Trip Part 2

One of the many things that struck me about Australia was the number of 4x4's there were on the roads.

In Britain, these are little more than status symbols. Most of them have never gone off-road in their lives. I've even seen them driven around large puddles on the road! A lot of them seem to be used for little more than the daily commute or taking the kiddies to school. Hence, the nickname they have over here of the 'Chelsea Tractor'.

In Australia though, they're something of a necessity: Away from the cities and the major coastal highways, the roads can be surprisingly dodgy, with large potholes appearing at regular intervals, even on the highways. And you still need to go off-road for many out-of-the-way places. The country is vast, with a lot of road. It must be difficult to keep up with it all, especially when you see the size of the lorries that pound these roads:-

So I guess I'm saying that my view of 4x4's (or 'utes' as the Aussies call them) has changed: You can't just hate them regardless, there are actually legitimate uses for them outside of farm vehicles. Just not in Britain ;-)

Solar Cell Breakthrough

A little known fact about solar cells is that they become increasingly inefficient the hotter they get. So sticking them out in a desert doesn't get as much energy as you might expect.

Now though, scientists have worked out a way to use both the light and heat from the Sun at the same time, more than doubling the efficiency of solar energy production. This, and the fact that the new technology uses cheap materials, means it could compete on even terms with oil based energy. More here.

Largest Tidal Power Device Due For Orkney

The world's largest tidal power machine will be installed off the coast of Orkney, Scotland. This experimental device will use the ebb and flow of the tides off the island to generate a megawatt of electricity a year, enough to power 1000 homes. More here.

Britain hopes to be world leaders in the development of tidal and wave energy technology. It has a number of wave related projects going on around our coast including one off Cornwall which should be plugged into the national grid sometime next year.

Toyota Add The Auris To Their Hybrid Range

It looks like Toyota are hoping to build on their dominance of the hybrid car market by giving the Auris the same system as the Prius.

A new one can be yours for less than £15000, about £4000 less than the Prius.

However, it looks like the Auris hybrid makes hard work of hills due to the extra weight of the batteries. Oops.

July 2010 NOT the hottest on record!

You read that heading right. July failed to follow the trend of the 4 previous months this year by being the hottest across the world since records began.

In fact, it was only the second hottest on record.

Oz Trip Part 1

We've just returned from a 3 week holiday in Australia. It was great. We managed to cram in a lot of sightseeing and even got to meet several of our relatives. We loved it....except for those interminable plane flights there and back! Urghh!! Why do people think of air travel as quick and convenient?! Hours spent driving to the airport, sitting around waiting for the flight, the flight itself, and all that mucking about with baggage, passports and security. Door-to-door from our Sydney motel to our home was 32 boring, sleep deprived, hours. Hoorah for modern living...

Anyway, to the point of this posting: What am I going to do about our carbon footprint? 4 people on a return trip to Oz equals a 23.5 tonne footprint. Or, about 3 times our normal annual footprint.

So I've decided to 'offset' the flights i.e. Pay to have the footprint balanced out by stuff like tree planting. It'll cost about £180 but that's just a fraction of the total cost of the holiday. So why not?