Eco | News & Views

UK plastic bag use on the rise

Taken from The Guardian Online

Plastic bag use in Britain is on the rise after the limited success of a voluntary agreement by retailers to cut the number of bags given to shoppers, according to figures compiled this week.

By contrast, in Ireland, which imposed a tax on plastic bags in 2002, the number of plastic bags has plummeted. Consumers in the UK now use nearly four times as many plastic bags as those in Ireland.

According to the figures by the New Statesman from official government sources, the number of bags used a month by each person in the UK dropped from 11 in 2002 to 7.2 in 2009, but then rose again to 7.7 last year – equivalent to 475m bags in total per month. In Ireland, the equivalent figure – compiled from plastic bag tax receipts – has dropped from 27 in 2002 to 2 in 2009, suggesting that the tax is having a strong impact on consumer behaviour.

“Ireland’s shoppers are enjoying freedom from the endless unnecessary plastic bags, as these figures show,” said Julian Kirby, resource use campaigner for Friends of the Earth. “A standard charge in England would help save resources and cut climate-changing gases.”

Four years ago, single-use plastic bags became an environmental issue in the UK, after the residents of Modbury, Devon, banned them from the village. Photographs of wild animals caught up in plastic bags drew attention to the damage the bags were causing, and the Daily Mail joined the campaign, with a call in 2008 to “Banish the bags”, so that “our streets, fields, parks, seas, rivers and beaches will be cleaner for our grandchildren to enjoy”.

But, despite support from many sides, Gordon Brown backed away from imposing either a ban or a levy on the bags, and instead allowed retailers to create a voluntary agreement. The New Statesman’s waste policy report suggests the agreement – although initially leading to a drop in bag use – has had only a limited success.

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Sales of sustainable seafood soar in UK supermarkets

Taken from The Guardian Online

Sales of “alternative” species of fish and seafood have soared after being championed in Channel 4’s newFish Fightcampaign, the UK’s leading supermarkets reported today.

Consumers are favouring coley, dab, mussels, squid and sardines over the staple salmon, cod and tuna following the programmes last week, which highlighted the wasteful use of “discard” in fishing practices while encouraging shoppers to take the pressure off popular fish stocks by being more adventurous in what they eat.

The cook and Guardian writer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, credited with boosting demand for higher-welfare chicken three years ago, has taken the lead in the new campaign.Programmes from fellow chef Jamie Oliver have shown consumers new ways of cooking less popular species such as mussels, squid and trout.

Sainsbury’s said sales of “bycatch” from its fresh fish counter had been “promising” overall, while sales of pollack had leapt by 167% week on week. It said customers had responded well to the fish featured in Jamie Oliver’s programmes with sales of British and MSC-certified mackerel up 60% and mussels up 16%.

Sales of its sustainable “line and pole caught” canned tuna increased by 17% over the last week, while sales of organic salmon grew by 16% and normal salmon sales remained unchanged.

Tesco, the UK’s biggest fish retailer, said it had seen an increase in sales of between 25 and 45% for fresh sardines, coley, brown crab, sprats and whiting in the week since the first programmes. It said in a statement: “We sell around 40 species of fish on our fresh counters and our staff are trained to advise customers on trying new varieties. Sales of fresh cod, herring, mussels, mackerel and canned tuna also increased compared to last week.”

But the supermarket was singled out by Fearnley-Whittingstall for misleading labelling on its canned tuna, leading the company to pledge to catch 100% of its own-brand canned tuna using the “pole and line” method. Tesco last week came fifth out of the major supermarkets in a 2011 league table of sustainable tuna, compiled by Greenpeace.

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Surprising by-products of green oil

By lowcarboneconomy

With all the gathering interest in bio fuel crops, it is interesting to see some of the by-products the green oil industry is producing whilst farming the sustainable green oil crops.

The Millettia pinnata plantations in Queensland, Australia have many varied by-products, some of which would surprise even the most hardened advocate for bio fuel crops.

They utilise many natural ways to develop their crop yields and harness the experience of many years in the agriculture industry. They keep a huge number of bees on the plantation – as they manage to get the crops to flower for most of the year, thus virtually removing the old problem of seasons, this means the bees have a food source all year round. The abundant food for the bees allows them to produce a very high yield of honey, which is harvested and sold as one of the by-products of the green oil plantations. This approach removes the reliance on buying in bee hives to pollinate the crops, and removes some of the threats associated with colony collapse disorder which is threatening bee populations all over the world. It is thought that colony collapse disorder is being made worse by the practice of farms buying in bees for short periods of time to pollinate their crops – this could increase the spread of mites and viruses over much larger areas than the bees would normally cover, and allowing the bees to mix with other bees they would not normally come in contact with.

The plantations also provide cattle feed produced from the seed pods after they have been processed and the oil has been extracted. This biomass is called seed cake and is an extremely valuable source of cattle feed. The rest of the biomass is used to create biofertilizer; this is made up of prunings and cuttings from the Millettia trees themselves.

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Al Gore, Gary Neville or Cheryl Cole: who would you trust on climate change?

From the Guardian

We are often told that we are living in the “age of celebrity”. Yes, it’s an utterly depressing thought, but some believe we should exploit this collective obsession by putting to good use the mighty influence many celebrities wield. Charities have long latched on to the idea that for their message to be heard in the media mêlée it must have a “face” attached. And, of course, the media is heavily complicit in this “game”, too.

Environmental campaigners, like everyone else, have actively sought the support of celebrities to help not only broadcast their message, but also add an air of authority. The reason is simple: many people – whether they admit it or not – look up to celebrities.

Ahead of Climate Week – a series of events scheduled for March which “offer an annual renewal of our ambition and confidence to combat climate change” – the organisers have commissioned a survey to illustrate which celebrities would most likely get us to “act on climate change”. The results are intriguing and perplexing in equal measure.

Climate Week asked Millward Brown, a brand research consultancy, to utilise its “Cebra” (celebrity-brand) index. Twenty celebrities were chosen to represent a spread of people who were either a “well-known activist”, “environmentally inclined but not an activist”, or “not known for activism”. A “nationally representative sample of 500 adults aged 16-65″ was then asked how much influence each celebrity had on environmental issues. They were also asked to allocate a score to each celebrity using the measures of “familiarity”, “affinity”, “media attention”, “role model” and “talent”. And here, in order of influence, are the results:

1) Al Gore
2) Bill Gates
3) Arnold Schwarzenegger
4) Boris Johnson
5) David Beckham
6) Ken Livingstone
7) Chris Martin
Cheryl Cole
9) Gwyneth Paltrow
10) Duncan Bannatyne
11) Phil Schofield
12) Robbie Williams
13) Fearne Cotton
14) Leonardo DiCaprio
15) Holly Willoughby
16) Colin Firth
17) Graham Norton
18) Sienna Miller
19) Paloma Faith
20) Gary Neville

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Why use LED?

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are much more efficient at producing visible light than traditional light sources such as filament bulbs, and fluorescent lights. LEDs are made of semi-conductor material; light is produced when electrons are passed through the semiconductor material.

Unlike traditional light sources, LEDs do not get hot, so very little energy is wasted as heat. LEDs also do not produce ultraviolet or infrared rays, which are light waves which can not be seen by the human eye. What LEDs do is convert a higher percentage of energy into light within the visible spectrum which means that less power is required to produce the same amount of useful light.

The lifetime of an LED lamp is around 50,000 hours—that means that, under normal use, an LED bulb will not need replacing for 12 years. Using LED lamps means that replacement bulb costs are reduced, as well as man hours spent replacing the lamps. Most LED lamps consume between 1 and 3 watts of energy. This means that the electricity cost to run an LED bulb is much lower than standard incandescent, compact fluorescent and halogen lamps. In some cases, switching to LED lamps can yield a 95.4% saving on electricity charges.

Some materials used in the manufacture of other lighting sources, such as fluorescent lamps, require the use of harmful chemicals. Fluorescent lights contain mercury, which means that when the lamp comes to the end of its life it has to be disposed of in a landfill site. LED lamps contain no toxic materials which mean when they come to the end of their life they can be recycled, a better solution for the environment.

In the present day, everybody should be responsible for helping to reduce carbon emissions and halt global climate change. In the UK over 50% of household carbon emissions are attributable to lighting. Changing to LED bulbs would make a very significant difference to the amount of energy consumed by UK homes and businesses.

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Carbon Economy to create 1 million jobs

More than a million jobs will be created by the low carbon industries, according to Business Secretary Lord Mandelson speaking at the Prime Minister’s job summit, Lord Mandelson said that the low carbon sector of the economy was set to grow dramatically and that it could help ease rising unemployment figures.

Lord Mandelson said:”The global market for low carbon and environmental goods and services is currently worth about £3 trillion, and it is projected to grow strongly over the next decade as both the developed and the emerging world makes the shift to low carbon or post-carbon.”

He added: “We could see more than a million jobs in this sector by the middle of the next decade”.Last year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown suggested that people facing unemployment could find jobs in the green industries and offered retraining for some to learn to install insulation.

An Oxfam report recently noted that environmental issues and poverty should be tackled side by side and pointed out that insulation helped people cut both their energy bills and their carbon emissions.

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US wind industry forged ahead in 2010

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the national trade association of America’s wind industry, emphasises that the wind power industry combated challenges in 2010 and laid the foundations for a strong return in 2011.

While the industry “saw the all-too-real impacts of having no long-term US policies toward renewable energy”, the industry nevertheless made significant advances in 2010, said Denise Bode, CEO of the association.

Bode highlighted that wind power supply chain manufacturers continued to announce new US plants despite an uncertain economic climate. The industry reached over 50% domestic content for turbines installed in the US. In addition, advances were made in regional transmission plans, the market for smaller turbines grew 15%, and offshore wind took major steps on the path to the first US installations, said Bode.

The year 2010 closed out with Congress extending by one more year the Section 1603 Investment Tax Credit for renewable energy, a policy that helped the industry emerge as a bright spot in the US economy and keep 85,000 Americans working even at the depth of the recession, Bode said.

The numbers posted by the US wind industry in the third quarter of 2010 made for its slowest quarter since 2007. According to AWEA, once the year’s final numbers are tallied, they are expected to show that China installed approximately three times as much wind-powered electricity as the US in 2010, and Europe twice as much, as US installations fell to just over half of 2009.

Factors in the US decline included an absence of long-term US energy policies (such as a Renewable Electricity Standard), resulting in an unstable business environment, and utilities being less eager to enter wind energy power purchase agreements.

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UK spends more on carbon labelled goods

From LowCarbonEconomy

The total annual retail value of consumer goods sold in the UK bearing the Carbon Reduction Label has reached £2 billion, and could double in the next two years, according to a report by the Centre for Retail Research.

The announcement comes as new research shows that 9 out of 10 homes in the UK bought a carbon labelled product last year.

The milestone figure was reached after Tesco confirmed it has added the Carbon Reduction Label to its own brand dried egg and dried Finest pasta. It means that the average UK household spends £77 on carbon labelled products per year.

If sales of business (B2B) products were added, the total sales value of goods bearing the label would rise to approximately £3 billion. CEMEX UK, Marshalls plc and Continental Clothing all feature the label on their B2B products.

The Carbon Reduction Label also continues to grow internationally. Last summer, Aldi put the label on the bottles of its own-brand olive oil in stores across Australia. And last month, the New Zealand Wine Company became the first wine maker to measure and commit to reduce the carbon footprint of a bottle of wine, putting the Carbon Reduction Label on their Mobius Marlborough sauvignon blanc.

Euan Murray, director of footprinting at the Carbon Trust said:

“It’s great to see carbon labelling growing both in the UK and internationally through our partnership in Australia with Planet Ark. With the emergence of a carbon conscious consumer we are confident that more and more international brands will commit to carbon labelling as it will help deliver the triple benefits of reducing cost by reducing energy spend, boosting their company’s reputation and helping to ensure customer loyalty.”

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That snow outside is what global warming looks like

From The Guardian

There is now strong evidence to suggest that the unusually cold winters of the last two years in the UK are the result of heating elsewhere. With the help of the severe weather analyst John Mason and the Climate Science Rapid Response Team, I’ve been through as much of the scientific literature as I can lay hands on (see my website for the references). Here’s what seems to be happening.

The global temperature maps published by Nasa present a striking picture. Last month’s shows a deep blue splodge over Iceland, Spitsbergen, Scandanavia and the UK, and another over the western US and eastern Pacific. Temperatures in these regions were between 0.5C and 4C colder than the November average from 1951 and 1980. But on either side of these cool blue pools are raging fires of orange, red and maroon: the temperatures in western Greenland, northern Canada and Siberia were between 2C and 10C higher than usual. Nasa’s Arctic oscillations map for 3-10 December shows that parts of Baffin Island and central Greenland were 15C warmer than the average for 2002-9. There was a similar pattern last winter. These anomalies appear to be connected.

The weather we get in UK winters, for example, is strongly linked to the contrasting pressure between the Icelandic low and the Azores high. When there’s a big pressure difference the winds come in from the south-west, bringing mild damp weather from the Atlantic. When there’s a smaller gradient, air is often able to flow down from the Arctic. High pressure in the icy north last winter, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, blocked the usual pattern and “allowed cold air from the Arctic to penetrate all the way into Europe, eastern China, and Washington DC”. Nasa reports that the same thing is happening this winter.

Sea ice in the Arctic has two main effects on the weather. Because it’s white, it bounces back heat from the sun, preventing it from entering the sea. It also creates a barrier between the water and the atmosphere, reducing the amount of heat that escapes from the sea into the air. In the autumns of 2009 and 2010 the coverage of Arctic sea ice was much lower than the long-term average: the second smallest, last month, of any recorded November. The open sea, being darker, absorbed more heat from the sun in the warmer, light months. As it remained clear for longer than usual it also bled more heat into the Arctic atmosphere. This caused higher air pressures, reducing the gradient between the Iceland low and the Azores high.

So why wasn’t this predicted by climate scientists? Actually it was, and we missed it. Obsessed by possible changes to ocean circulation (the Gulf Stream grinding to a halt), we overlooked the effects on atmospheric circulation. A link between summer sea ice in the Arctic and winter temperatures in the northern hemisphere was first proposed in 1914. Close mapping of the relationship dates back to 1990, and has been strengthened by detailed modelling since 2006.

Will this become the pattern? It’s not yet clear. Vladimir Petoukhov of the Potsdam Institute says that the effects of shrinking sea ice “could triple the probability of cold winter extremes in Europe and northern Asia”. James Hansen of Nasa counters that seven of the last 10 European winters were warmer than average. There are plenty of other variables: we can’t predict the depth of British winters solely by the extent of sea ice.

I can already hear the howls of execration: now you’re claiming that this cooling is the result of warming! Well, yes, it could be. A global warming trend doesn’t mean that every region becomes warmer every month. That’s what averages are for: they put local events in context. The denial of man-made climate change mutated first into a denial of science in general and then into a denial of basic arithmetic. If it’s snowing in Britain, a thousand websites and quite a few newspapers tell us, the planet can’t be warming.

According to Nasa’s datasets, the world has just experienced the warmest January to November period since the global record began, 131 years ago; 2010 looks likely to be either the hottest or the equal hottest year. This November was the warmest on record.

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Carbon trading tempts firms to make greenhouse gas

From The New Scientist

A handful of Chinese and Indian chemicals companies seemingly have the world over a barrel or rather a large number of barrels of a super-greenhouse gas called HFC-23, which is 14,800 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

This week, apparently following Chinese threats to vent stockpiles of HFC-23 into the atmosphere, a UN panel issued two million valuable carbon credits to a company called Juhua. It has a factory in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, where the gas can be destroyed.

Nobody needs HFC-23. It is a waste by-product of the manufacture of a refrigerant called HCFC-22, used mostly in developing nations. To curb the release of HFC-23 into the atmosphere, the signatories to the Kyoto protocol agreed to pay carbon credits to refrigerant manufacturers that agree to capture and destroy it. The manufacturers can then sell the credits to western companies that want to offset their obligations to cut emissions of other greenhouse gases, under a Kyoto scheme known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

The offer only applies to HCFC-22 plants that were built before 2000. Even so it has proved highly lucrative. By some estimates, the value of the carbon credits is up to 100 times the cost of incinerating HFC-23. The resulting income of Chinese companies alone is estimated to reach $1.6 billion by 2012.

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