Car Sharing

I've finally got organised enough to car share with my wife on the way to work. It's only twice a week at the moment, and a round trip of 8 miles, but it's a start.

Apparently 93% of all car journeys in the UK are less than 25 miles. They contribute 60% of the CO2 produced by cars in Britain and car use produces 22% of all CO2 emissions here.

I wonder how much of this could be saved if we had a decent, 'joined up' public transport system? Having grown up in London, I know what such a system looks like: Frequent buses, trams and trains; good time table information; plenty of links with other routes and networks; transport deep into the night and at weekends; and all at a reasonable price.

By comparison, much of the rest of the country is in the Dark Ages. Even in some of the towns, where you'd expect the service to be best, it can be poor. I guess that's down to our 'public' transport system being in private hands: They only run the routes that make money. Words like "reasonably priced", "frequent", and "running all hours" don't necessarily fit in with that business model.

Political parties of various colours keep banging on about improving transport but nothing ever happens. Empty words.

So, for the moment, we're stuck with car sharing.

Rise of 3 degrees by 2100?

According to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research in Germany, there is more than an even chance of a 3 degrees C rise in temperature by the end of this century, based on the lightweight 'promises' made after Copenhagen. More here.

I can see it happening too. No major nation or group seems to have the backbone to go for anything bold. This, despite the fact that the worldwide recession has reduced emissions, making it easier to hit current targets. The EU, for example, is set to easily make it's target due to the recession and, for reasons I won't bore you with here, has gained a head-start when it comes to set it's next target for 2012 onward. Yet it seems likely they'll be anything but aggressive.

I do hope I'm wrong here: The world needs leadership from the EU. A demonstration of how to cut emissions and remain competitive. I'm sure, if they take the lead, others will follow. Whether the U.S., China, and India will be inspired too join them is another matter.

Tipping Points

There's an idea in climate science called a 'tipping point': A threshold where any further change to CO2 levels, no matter how small, will have dramatic effects.

These effects may range from the collapse of entire ecosystems (including ones we are dependant on) to effects which lead to a startling increase in greenhouse gases (which may, in turn, trigger further tipping points).

An example is where climate change reduces rainfall over the Amazon rainforest to a point where massive forest fires occur. The resulting deforestation effects the local climate and reduces the rainfall further, more forest fires result, and the cycle continues. The end result is a devastated ecosystem, lose of an enormous carbon sink (the rainforest absorbs a significant amount of CO2) and the release of vast quantities of greenhouse gases [GHGs] back into the atmosphere. Not good.

There are a number of potential tipping points known to climate science, like the loss of Arctic Sea ice (which currently reflects heat back into space), and loss of permafrost (which would release more GHGs). It's believed there are others we have no idea about yet.

This is why there's so much talk about keeping global warming down to a 2 degree centigrade rise: It's thought that, beyond this level, the risks of hitting one of these tipping points increases greatly.

So, if you feel comfortable with the idea of an almost imperceptible rise in temperature that 'only' effects a bunch of people on the other side of the world, think again. There are tipping points out there, just waiting for us trigger them. That's when things get really messy....

Energy Saving Tip #4: Washing & tumbling

Those large appliances around your house can make up a large proportion of your electric bill, so here's a few energy saving tips:

• When your old machines die, replace them with A or A+ rated versions. The better the rating the more money you save.

• As I've pointed out in an earlier post, dishwashers can actually be more efficient than hand-washing, but only if you run the dishwasher fully loaded.

• Washing machines: Try washing at 30 degrees C rather than 40. This can save up to 41% energy. 30 is not suitable for all washes, washing machines, or powders though, so check here for more info.

• Tumble Driers: Wherever possible, avoid tumble drying and either hang stuff outside on a line or inside on a rack if weather doesn't allow. Not only are you saving energy but you don’t have to clean the filter as much, use an anti-static sheet, or worry that the items you're drying will survive the high temperature.

The Met Office

Many people know that the Met Office provides the weather forecasts for Britain, but what is less well known is that they do important research into climate change. They have an excellent website, providing a wealth of information about their work. Take a look here.

'Climategate': Lot of fuss over nothing

It was no coincidence that the hackers who published loads of e-mails stolen from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in an attempt to discredit climate science, did so on the eve of the Copenhagen climate convention. They obviously thought that the e-mails would undermine the science and influence the outcome. It was even dubbed Climategate by the media.

In reality, it had no effect on the convention - which was always headed for failure - and was only seized upon by countries that didn't want emission cuts in the first place e.g. Oil producers.

Since the revelations, however, several investigations have been launched to see if any deception was taking place and to check the methods used to arrive at the claims of global warming.

The results of two of these investigations have already been revealed:

The Commons Science and Technology Committee (A group of UK MPs) decided that there was no case to answer as far as allegations of deception were concerned, and their only criticism was that the University were not responding quickly enough to requests for data from the public (Incidently, much of the data being requested was already in the public domain, so it wasn't as if they were trying to conceal anything).

Then today (14th April), an independant panel investigating the methods used by the University concluded that there had been no malpractice i.e. They weren't fiddling the data.

So, there you go. No deception, no fiddling, no case to answer. In short, a storm in a tea cup.

Bonn 2010: Useful or not?

The first U.N. Climate Change meeting since the abject failure of Copenhagen, has just ended in Bonn, Germany. Result? Agreement to add more meetings to the existing schedule leading up to the next big conference in Mexico in November/December this year.

This apparently intensifies efforts to line everything up in time for a more successful conference this time round. Let's hope so because all that came out of the last one was the so-called Copenhagen Accord: A vague agreement amongst 30-ish countries that commits the participants to nothing but let's them come away claiming success. The details of the Accord are here. Do try to read it, there's not much to it, either in quantity or quality.

Apparently, the U.S. has been pressuring other countries to endorse the Accord, threatening to withhold climate change related funding from poorer nations if they don't. That might be justified if the Accord had any credibility but it's actually nowhere near what the World needs right now.

If it were intended as a starting point for further work it might be okay, but it's really just a cynical ploy. I believe it's an attempt to prevent any chance of a stronger agreement coming into being. It's effectively an attempt to hijack all future negotiations.

Only time will tell if I'm correct. At the very least, the Accord will confuse matters in Mexico, as many countries want a considerably stronger agreement. So time will be divided between the two competing ideas. That's likely to mean Mexico will be a failure too. That'll make the climate sceptics happy.

Another Sign of Global Warming

An analysis of hundreds of thousands of UK records, has confirmed what many British gardeners already suspected: UK plants are flowering earlier. In fact, earlier than at any time during the last 250 years. And that change has come about in the last 25 years See here for more.

This comes on the back of smaller studies that have shown similar results with the emergence of insects, appearence of tree blossom, and hatching of birds.

Yes, Spring is coming earlier. Wonder why that is?