Posts Tagged degradation
What a Fracking Week!
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Shale Gas on April 18, 2012
For the last year or so I was beginning to believe that our war against shale gas was going the right way. In just the last week, however, two separate pieces of news come along that lead me, depressingly, to think that may not be the case.
Regular followers of the Green Review (hi both) will be aware that I have been against fracking for some time now, and that this is not my first post on the subject. Fracking – the term used to mean hydraulic-fracturing – has time and again been proved to be destructive, causing earthquakes in Blackpool and polluting water sources in America – check out this video with the flaming tap at the end (it also gives a good explanation of why fracking is so destructive). It would also appear that Pennsylvania residents are being forced from their homes in the pursuit of shale gas.
In the year since I first wrote about my concerns over fracking, there seemed to be a general feeling of contempt for this ‘untapped energy source’ and I really couldn’t envisage a future for shale gas; the government even banned it for a time. However, the energy companies in keeping true to form have obviously spent this time lobbying the UK government hard and the government now seems to be caving under the pressure; not just the pressure from lobbying, but also the pressure from increasingly high energy prices. In the first of the articles I referred to in the title, this certainly appears to be the case:
The bit of news I’m talking about is a BBC story claiming the UK government may indeed be siding with the fracking companies. It says that the coalition will allow shale gas extraction and that it may “continue with checks”. What does that mean? A check could involve some clipboard-wielding government bureaucratic-type person turning up at a drilling site once a month and asking the foreman, “Any earthquakes today?”
“Nope,” replies the foreman.
“Any water pollution?”
“Nope,” replies the foreman again.
“Okay. Thank you very much,” says the government regulator as he puts two ticks on his clipboard and walks away. Checks complete.
Ok, so that may be a little far fetched but what I’m trying to say is that we need incredibly strict regulation on this industry, not ‘checks’. Our banking industry was ‘checked’ and looked what happened there.
Now, the second bit of news, which I’m sure is completely unrelated to the government’s recent decision (yeah, right), is that the UK “may have enough offshore shale gas to catapult it into the top ranks of global producers”. Admittedly this is in reference to offshore shale gas so many of the dangers posed to local water sources may not be an issue here. Nonetheless, the part of the story that got me was that they say we will have to wait for oil to hit $200 a barrel for it to be viable to set up the offshore industry. What!? Is that the government’s plan? Wait for energy prices to be so high that we can’t afford to heat our houses and then at that point – hooray! – the UK can once again be a player on the global energy market. What about renewable energy? What about energy efficiency? If we have the carrot of future energy self-sufficiency dangled in front of us, what incentive is there to strive for a clean energy future?
I just wonder how much of the money that could have been spent on building the UK a clean, renewable energy industry will instead now be spent on getting the offshore shale gas industry on its feet all ready for Dash For Gas part 2 … “this time it’s more expensive”.
Let’s not forget that shale gas is still a fossil fuel; the climate is still warming and we are still on the road to self-destruction. Now though, it seems that with our newly found energy savior we can forget about mitigating climate change because we can all look forward to future powered by gas. Again.
Am I wrong to feel like this? Should securing a future energy supply come above all else? What do you think?
GR
If you have anything to say on this article, or indeed anything raised in The Green Review, please join the discussion on the facebook page. The more contentious the better…
Why Are We So Behind in the War on Plastic Bags?
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Resource Efficiency on February 7, 2012
While the UK may be no eco-angel, it is nonetheless fairly good when it comes to environmental initiatives: a firm governmental backing of renewable energy and domestic recycling programmes are a couple of examples that spring to mind. When it comes to plastic bags, however, we are well behind other countries.
I spend quite a lot of time in the US, and one thing that constantly strikes me on my visits here is how well US businesses have done at lowering the use of plastic bags in their shops. We like to look at America as an environmental bad boy, but when it comes to the environmental plague of plastic bags, we fall far behind them. Of course there are still plastic bags issued in the US, but the majority of shops I have visited recently are giving away paper bags: Walgreen’s, Whole Foods, Crate and Barrel, Victoria’s Secret (ahem) and even Walmart – yes Walmart – have gone down the paper bag route.
In France – another country not really known for its eco-credentials – their biggest supermarket, Carrefour, now charges for plastic bags. So what’s wrong with the British retailers?
If you contact any supermarket about this matter, they will give you their usual spiel about how they are taking the plastic bag issue seriously, doing their bit, blah, blah, blah… What they really mean is they’re paying lip service, but can’t actually be bothered to tackle the problem properly.
Anyway… my reason for this post isn’t simply to have a moan (my usual reason for reaching for the keyboard), but to share a government petition that I think deserves our attention. It reads as follows:
17 billion plastic bags a year are given to British consumers. The average Briton accepts 5 times a weeks. 200 million tonnes of plastic is produced worldwide and 10% ends up in the ocean. When plastic bags get into the ocean they can entangle, suffocate and even kill marine animals. Plastic doesn’t biodegrade, it just breaks up into smaller pieces. The number of plastic bags issued by UK supermarkets in the past year has risen by 333 million. Plastic bags are becoming a big problem and there are better solutions! Instead we should have reusable cotton bags/recyclable paper bags/biodegradable starch based bags. Banish the bags and go with reusable/biodegradable ones instead! If we want to cut the amount of waste sent to landfill this is the big step forward…
These bags are menace to the planet and apart from offering meagre rewards as an incentive, UK supermarkets seem adamant on sticking to their current polices.
Ideally we should all be using reusable bags when we go shopping, but that’s not always possible, and besides, it’s unfair to place the entire obligation for this on the consumer. The retailer also has a duty here.
So assuming there will always be a necessity for retailers to provide bags, the natural alternative is for the traditional polyethylene bags to be replaced with paper ones. Now nobody can argue that the production of paper is without its own environmental impacts; but it’s much better than plastic. It doesn’t use fossil fuels to manufacture, the primary component can be gained from renewable resources and – most importantly – when discarded, the paper will biodegrade, causing far less damage to the natural environment.
So that’s it. If you’re a reader of this blog, you don’t need me to labour on about the perils of polyethylene. All you need to do is go and sign the petition and get the government to put pressure on the retailers. We live in one of the great democracies of the world… let’s use that voter power.
Sign it here. Thanks.
GR
If you have anything to say on this article, or indeed anything raised in The Green Review, please join the discussion on our facebook page. The more contentious the better…
Oh Canada. What Are You Doing?
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Climate Change on December 19, 2011
You may have read recently that Canada has officially pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. Although the move has long been expected, it still comes as a disappointment to many. This action, however, is not a protest on Canada’s part because it feels the accord isn’t working – it is working. Nor is it because Canada feels that the weak agreement just isn’t strong enough to really effect a positive change on the planet. Oh no, quite the opposite. It’s pulling out because it can and it will and nobody has the power to stop it, so there.
The Canadian government has stated that meeting its targets for reducing greenhouse gases is too expensive. Apparently, the country hadn’t realised that there would be some form of cost attached to saving the planet and everything on it.
What gets me about this whole fiasco is the way countries can convene at a summit like Kyoto, fail to agree on anything put forward, argue over the exact text in a document, insert a comma here, remove a legally binding cause there, while all the time watching these proceedings trudge on for days and days upsetting no end of politicians, diplomats and official representatives of various organisations. And all of this for what? So that we end up with an agreement where any country may pull out simply if it doesn’t work for them. Nobody said this was going to be cheap or easy, but I guess Canada didn’t notice that part of the final draft.
I remember when Canada used to the country everybody loved: America’s more intelligent, less offensive next-door neighbour. Home of the Mountie, maple syrup and Bryan Adams. Now it seems to be taking on a new persona; that of a corrupted, greedy, former environmental advocate.
We’ve always frowned at Canada’s financial and logistical assistance for those partaking in the Arctic seal hunt, and they’ve played no small part in the collapse of North Atlantic cod stocks. However, in more recent years Canada appears to be also cementing itself a new image as an American-idolising devotee to environmental destruction. With its push to extract oil from tar sands, a product often referred to as the world’s dirtiest oil, and now the shunning of Kyoto, it seems that this once highly-regarded country is turning its back on protecting the planet in order to turn a profit.
Withdrawing from Kyoto is effectively a message to the rest of the world that Canada doesn’t care about the future of this planet (as long as it will cost, that is). Naturally the politicians are saying that they will adhere to their own targets and lower carbon emissions their own way, but it’s perfectly clear to the rest of us that whatever measures are adopted won’t come close to the measly 6% cut in emissions they were committed to under Kyoto – in reality they have actually increased carbon emissions by about 16%.
Another aspect of Canada’s withdrawal is that they would face stiff penalties under the agreement for falling short of the agreed targets. I can’t belive that to get away from paying the penalties that they agreed to in 1997, a nation can simply just pull out. Surely that makes a complete mockery of the penalty system in the first place. I mean let’s imagine this: it’s the 2014 World Cup final: England are playing Spain and are winning 4-3. There are two minutes left to play. Wayne Rooney brings a Spanish player down in the penalty area as he’s about to score a goal. Consequently, the referee awards the Spanish player a penalty kick. Now, if this game were being played in ‘Canada’s world’ Wayne Rooney would just sulkily turn to the referee, tell him that a penalty kick is far too stiff a punishment for this offence, announce he’s not playing anymore, leave the field and thus the Spanish would no longer have their penalty kick. They loose, England win. It’s bizarre (although the addition of the ‘Canada Rule’ may add another dimension to football).
Let’s face it though; no one can really blame Canada for this. The true fault lies with the politicians who cannot look further than their own term of office or their own GDP. The original Kyoto Protocol was put through the grinder and watered down so many times that it became the wishy-washy, toothless, non-binding agreement that allows countries to do these type of things. Because countries (and their governments) are inherently selfish, we will never see a truly monumental climate agreement and countries like the US and China will be free to avoid any commitment while countries that do commit will also be free to… erm … uncommit.
What Canada has done just reinforces my view that politicians will only attempt to save humanity as long as it’s feasible for them to do so and if it will earn them either a few extra votes of a little cash on the side. Meanwhile, it makes a mockery of any future global agreements on pollution, climate change, deforestation, biodiversity, etc, etc…
The thing that worries me now is that any such accord in the future will be looked upon as just a piece of paper that you sign at the bottom, but don’t actually have to take action on if you don’t want to or you can’t afford it. It sets a really scary precedent for other nations to look to.
Anyway, to finish off, let’s move on to other un-related matters: Does anyone fancy defaulting on a trillion Euro debt? Anyone? Anyone? Yes, Greece; I’m looking at you…
GR
If you have anything to say on this article, or indeed anything raised in The Green Review, then do join the discussion on the facebook page. The more contentious the better please…
Photos courtesy of Christina Deridder Vasyl Helevachuk and Alexey Gostev
Tesco: Whatever Next?
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Just some nonsense on November 21, 2011
Everyone loves to hate Tesco don’t they? (Well, apart from the millions of people who shop there that is.) I will happily admit that I am a Tesco-hater myself. Nevertheless, this post isn’t about that. This post is looking at how what was essentially a grocery store has branched out into a mind-boggling array of other businesses and now has its chubby little fingers in more pies than one could possibly imagine.
I was doing some research for a post the other week on supermarket nappies and I was so amazed by what I found on Tesco’s website that I just had to share it with you.
I have to admit that this is a bit of a lazy post and that the entirety of my research was spent simply trawling through Tesco websites, but I really wanted to find out exactly how much can be accomplished through what we all still essentially think of as a supermarket.
So what do Tesco offer then?
As one would imagine, they still sell food and drink (although it would be very easy to miss that). In 1974 they became the first supermarket to sell petrol, which of course was soon copied by many other supermarkets. From here – also like many other supermarkets – Tesco have expanded into pharmaceuticals, books, music, clothes and electronics – all of which can be bought in store and all of which have left a trail of devastation amongst local businesses and high streets.
However, it’s since the 1990’s that they have really gone to town and now Tesco offer all of these extra services: a mobile phone network; flowers; photos; car insurance; home insurance; life insurance; health insurance: dental insurance; pet insurance; optician services; hotel accommodation; flights; car hire; travel insurance; personal loans; gas & electricity; credit cards; child trust funds; gold exchange; DVD rental: estate agency services; savings accounts; breakdown cover; music downloads; used cars; and finally, a whole catalogue of everything you could ever possibly want to buy in the entire world.
Of course if you’re a customer who owns a Tesco Clubcard (the loyalty award scheme) and also uses all of these services they provide, the points must really stack up. However, imagine all of the information about you this company then has access to. For example what groceries you buy, how often you fill your petrol tank, how much you home is worth, where you go on holiday, what your pets are called, etc, etc. Personally, I think that this is far too much information for a single private company to hold on one person. But then again – points make prizes.
Maybe I’m just living in the past, but to me the above just seems excessive and greedy. I understand that a business has to grow; but this is astounding. Why can’t Tesco just be content with being a supermarket? Or, perhaps, has the definition of a supermarket now changed to that of a company who can offer such a vast array of different services? For me, this just looks like the slippery slope down into “Tesco World” where independent business and freedom of choice is quashed by the few multinational corporations who can afford to do everything. That’s not the kind of world I want for my grand children and I can see why there are a number of different anti-Tesco groups out there, Tescopoly being the biggest. If you want a more damning look at Tesco, please go and visit them.
So where next for Tesco then? My guess would be they’ll branch out into broadband, mortgages and international arms selling.
I truly fear for the future with regard to companies like Tesco. It seems they are unstoppable in their march toward expansion and world domination. Every year they seem to take on another aspect to their business and every year the world of commerce gets just that little bit tighter. When will it stop?
GR
If you have anything to say on this article, or indeed anything raised in The Green Review, then do join the discussion on the facebook page. The more contentious the better please…
Photo courtesy of Ceasefire Magazine and Tesco (obviously)
Eco-Lie#5: Eco Nappies? Not When They’re Disposable
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Eco-Lie on November 7, 2011
It’s been while since the Eco-Lie outbreak began, and it appears that humanity still has no cure in sight. The sights of today’s post are set on Sainsbury’s and their Little Ones Eco Nappy range.
For me, to put the word ‘eco’ on a disposable nappy is wrong. Let’s face it, the only true eco nappy would be one that doesn’t exist at all – but we can all imagine the consequences of that! The fact of the matter is that to stop new parents being swamped in a deluge of nasty stuff, we need nappies.
Having had two children myself, I’m a bit of an authority on nappies, but I’m also no eco-angel: I’ve used the lot: reusable nappies, ‘natural’ disposable nappies, huggies (once) pampers (twice) and even a tea towel fastened with a safety pin (a one-off emergency measure). And yes; I’ve also used my fair share of Sainsbury’s Little Ones nappies (hangs head in shame). The huggies and pampers are horrible, plastic, chemical filled things that I only used because a friend lent me them when I was caught short. I used washable cloth nappies for my first child (lift head in pride), but just didn’t have the time or space to do the same with the second (re-hang head in shame).
I’m not going to get into the ‘which nappy is best’ debate. Suffice it to say that plenty of research has been done and the results show that reusable nappies are, by far, the most planet-friendly and wallet-friendly option. Plus, the more children you have, the better value they become. You can read a different article I wrote on the subject here.
Disposable nappies, though, are a menace to the environment: they use up valuable resources to manufacture, can take up to 200 years to decompose and 90% of them end up in landfill. Does this sound eco to you? Now I’m sure these Little Ones nappies are an improvement on the above, but not so much that they merit being called ‘eco’.
Sainsbury’s say their eco nappies use a minimum of 60% plant-based material, but I’m sorry, they shouldn’t be going anywhere near the word ‘eco’ until that’s up to at least 99.7%. I do know of a brand of nappies that come in compostable packaging, but do these ones? Nope. It’s polyethylene all the way on this eco-friendly product.
Are they alone?
Just so Sainsbury’s don’t feel hard done by, I thought I’d have a look at the other supermarkets and see what name they give their own range of eco nappies. Do they try and fool us too?
Asda: Yep, just as I suspected, they’ve pulled a fast one and called them Adsa Eco Nappies. They’ve had to recall them though due to a complaint about the materials used – very eco, well done Asda.
Tesco: They don’t have their own eco brand of nappies. I did notice, though, that next to the description of its Value disposable nappy, Tesco inform us about the nappy’s carbon footprint. Now I hate to sound snobbish here, but I’m going to anyway: do you really think that the people who buy Tesco Value nappies care about the environment? No, I don’t think so…
Morrisons: Not sure, as they don’t have an online shop (how last decade) and I couldn’t be bothered to go in a store to have a look.
So then, it’s not only Sainsbury’s who try and fob off the environmentally conscious (but very busy) parent, with a disposable eco nappy, Asda do it too.
Staying on the subject of Asda for a minute: one other thing that came up during my eco nappy hunt was the Asda Little Angels Eco Nappy Sacks… What?!!! Eco nappy sacks? You have got to be joking! There’s no need for nappy sacks at all: it’s a complete waste of resources to use an individual plastic bag for each nappy that you end up putting into that giant plastic bag… called a bin. Here’s what Asda say, “We have added a special ingredient which helps this product degrade 30 times faster than a normal nappy sack, protecting the planet for your little angel.” Oh, so that’s just 33 years for these eco nappy bags to degrade then, well that’s fine – what a wonderful eco-friendly product.
In summary then…
I’m aware that Sainsbury’s aren’t the only company to stock eco disposables, but they are the ones who I’m picking on today (Asda just happened to get in the firing line). While I do applaud any attempt to make a product less damaging to the environment, this doesn’t detract from the validity of the statement that eco disposables are an oxymoron. Nothing that’s used in such massive numbers as nappies and is also disposable can be at one with the ecosystem. Again, this is a blatant attempt by the marketing men to sell more products on the back of our guilt over killing the planet.
There’s nothing really wrong with using these nappies, as they are a better option than some. But please, please don’t be fooled into thinking they are good for the environment, they are not. You can find much better alternatives out there.
GR
If you have anything to say on this article, or indeed anything raised in The Green Review, then do join the discussion on the facebook page. The more contentious the better please…
7 Billion People on the Planet (and now I know where they’re putting them)
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Climate Change on October 31, 2011
So then, the Earth is now home to 7 billion people, or to put it another way – 7,000,000,000 people; an awful lot of zeroes don’t you think? Still, this post isn’t really about that; it just happens to coincide rather nicely with what I was going to write anyway, which is the tale of a rather scary drive I went for recently.
So was this scary drive a hair-raising blat in an F1 car? Nope, I should be so lucky. A high-speed burn around roads with vertical drops on either side perhaps? No way. A pillion ride on the back of a motorbike with a one-armed, mentally unstable, blind driver. Definitely not… No, this was the drive from Hong Kong city to the airport.
So why did I find this drive so scary you ask? Well, to begin with it was at night. No, I’m not scared of the dark (much). But the darkness does bring into very stark reality the massive, illuminated high-rise apartments that line this route to the airport. There are literally thousands of homes that stretch across your field of vision, from one periphery to the next, top to bottom and way off into the distance. Each lit window perfectly highlighting the degree to which we are packing ourselves onto this planet and the huge amounts of energy and resources that we are consequently consuming. For someone who lives in the UK and is used quant Victorian terraces, these things are monstrous.
For mile after mile my view was filled with these towering high-rises. They weren’t, however, striking simply because of their height, but additionally because of their mammoth width and depth. These things aren’t just a thin wall of steel concrete and glass – they’re more like a forest, stretching back in numerous layers for as far as the eye can see – literally over the hills and far away. A truly momentous sight to behold.
Without meaning to brag, I’m a pretty well-travelled individual. I’ve been to many of the world’s cities and high-rise building themselves are nothing novel to me. However this wall of windows and balconies really is quite breath taking, due in no small part to the sheer number and density of these buildings.
To see these types of constructions and trying to picture the masses of people that they allow to be crammed into such a small area is staggering. As I mentioned earlier, it really brings home the resource and energy consumption required to feed this relentless expansion of humanity and the pressure we’re placing on our planet.
Keep reading – it’s not all doom and gloom
I did, strangely enough, find myself in two frames of mind on this journey. First, as you know, I was agog at what I was seeing and fearing for the future. Simultaneously though, I caught myself admiring mankind’s ingenuity and far from fearing for the future, rather bizarrely, I actually felt quite optimistic. Surely any animal that can design, build and sustain this kind of… colony… has the capacity to go much, much further.
Ours is a culture that has given birth to War and Peace, The Beatles, Salvidor Dali, IVF, space exploration, and Santa Claus. Surely we must also be able to save ourselves from self-destruction?
Conversely though – and swinging back to the fear for the future once again – ability isn’t the problem is it? It’s not that we are unable to build and power ourselves toward a clean, sustainable future. That’s the easy part. It’s whether or not we have the inclination to; whether or not our Humanity will come and rescue us from our Human affliction.
These high-rises went up not because somebody wanted them, but because they needed them. When is mankind finally going to feel the same about stopping our destruction of Planet Earth – the very thing that allows us to thrive like this? Do we have to witness ever more destructive natural events and wait for something really disastrous to happen before we – universally – feel the same need to tackle it? Will it be too late by then?
Back to the 7 billion…
I’ve always felt that we in the UK are slightly sheltered from this population explosion. Yes we’re overcrowded, yes we have a problem with immigration and yes we all know of someplace where a beautiful piece of green land has been given over to a housing development. However, the population spikes are not happing in our country and it’s very easy to see them as simple statistics.
Seeing this overload of humanity in Hong Kong however, brought into glaring reality the fact that this planet is small, and getting smaller all the time. The growth of humanity is not a bad thing independently; we just have to make sure we put into place all of the necessary mechanisms to keep us alive without completely wrecking the planet and the environment that sustains us – all 7,000,001,111 of us. That’s right, in the few minutes it’s taken you to read this, over 1000 babies have been born.
GR
If you have anything to say on this article, or indeed anything raised in The Green Review, then do join the discussion on the facebook page. The more contentious the better please…
Photos courtesy of planetware, redbubble, bubble.love, Micheal Wolf (magicalurbanism), An Informal Perception and quangas
Five Stupid Quotations From Climate Change Sceptics (and how I’d answer them if only I could think on my feet)
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Climate Change Denial on October 24, 2011
As an environmentalist … No. Stop. Not environmentalist; I hate that word. (Thinking out loud again, sorry)
Ok. Take 2:
… As an advocate of the movement to save this planet and everything on it from extinction due to climate change; pollution; deforestation; drought; famine; irresponsible multinationals; GM food; banks; nuclear proliferation; media moguls; desertification; Audi drivers and oceanic acidification, I often find myself embroiled in a heated debate over climate change with people I like to refer to as The Denialists.
Occasionally, I will manage to have a meaningful, in-depth, well-researched, enlightening discussion with one of these people. All too often, though, most denialists just seem capable of coming up with the same tired arguments and replies regarding the realities of climate change and environmental degradation. Below are the five that I hear time and again:
Stupid quote#1: “Man-made climate change isn’t real: Earth’s climate has always gone in cycles”
Answer#1: Yes agreed, the earth’s climate has always gone in cycles – hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold, etc. Well done. However, what we are doing by polluting the atmosphere with too many additional greenhouse gases is interrupting the delicate process that causes these cycles thus pushing the whole system into overload. Ironically, we are jeopardising the precise mechanism that denialists so love to wave in our faces.
The earth has maintained an intricate balance over the last few billion years because it had all the tools it required: sunlight, clouds, ice, forests, gases, minerals, plants, animals, etc, etc. What we’ve done over the last few centuries is come along and thrown some truly momentous spanners in the works. Still; the unbelievers think that we should just let the Earth get on with it while we do the same. Ok. What an interesting experiment…
Stupid quote#2: “What’s the point in curbing carbon emissions when China and India are building a coal-fired power station every week?”
Answer#2: Yes, yes, yes. That’s the attitude. Why bother? We’re buggered anyway.
Geeeeez people, since when did two wrongs make a right? Of course this makes the task before us even harder, but we’re tougher than that, aren’t we? This life we currently enjoy must be worth fighting for, if not for us, then for our children and our grandchildren.
An analogy that springs to mind here is that it’s like the guy who goes to the gym and is then perceived to undo all the good work he’s just done by having a burger and a cigarette afterwards. Yes, you could argue that there’s no point in going to the gym if he continues to eat junk food and smoke. I would argue, though, that whether or not he eats badly and smokes, he’s still ultimately doing himself more good by going to the gym than if he’d stayed away.
If by curbing our destructive ways of life we are – at best – just cancelling out what China and India are doing; well then at least we’re doing something.
Dr Jorge Argibay also added this valid point: “It is precisely by doing something about carbon emissions that we can acquire the authority to ask China and India to do the same!” Exactly, thanks Jorge.
Quote#3: “The Earth will survive no matter what we do to it”
Answer#3: Perhaps. But we’re talking about our survival here, aren’t we? Excusing inaction by offering this quote is dumb at best. Surely we want to protect this planet’s ability to sustain life so that our ancestors can also enjoy life… don’t we? To say something like that shows up a selfish streak a mile wide.
Anyway, how do we know the planet will survive? Has it ever been tested like this before? I agree, that it’s managed to thaw its way out of an ice-age or two, but let’s remember: the earth has at its core a massive nuclear fusion reactor that’s hot enough to melt rock. So it’s not really surprising it has the capacity to thaw itself. But to cool itself when so many of its cooling mechanisms have been stripped away, altered or poisoned? Who really knows?
Stupid quote#4 “We’re not running out of fossil fuels. We have loads of oil, gas and coal left”
Answer#4: Agreed, but this oil and gas is continually getting harder and more expensive to find and extract. This also comes at great risk.
I’ll just sum up with these three words: Deep. Water. Horizon.
Stupid quote#5 “Climate change is a myth fabricated by the big corporations and governments of the world so that they can increase profits and raise taxes on the back of it”
Answer#5: So the entire world’s scientific community is on the payroll of the corporations? Oh please. That’s as silly as saying that George. W. Bush planned and executed 9/11. Admittedly, there are plenty of vested interests in keeping the climate change debate alive, but the fact that it’s made up simply to make money just doesn’t ring true.
As for the governments; well, they don’t need excuses to raise our taxes, let alone an excuse that costs as much as concocting something as big as climate change. Get real people.
In summary then…
So then, if like me, you find yourself confronted by climate change denialists who seem intent on spouting these ever-used quotations to back up their arguments, then please feel free to call upon the answers above, if like me, you also find that you can only ever think of a suitable repartee once the debate is over (usually around a week later in my case).
Of course you are probably clever enough to counter to these dumb-assed quotes for yourself. If you do have cleverer, wittier or shrewder answers to these arguments than mine, then please let me know and I’ll add then to this post (and also use them myself, if I may). Thanks.
GR
If you have anything to say on this article, or indeed anything raised in The Green Review, then do join the discussion on the facebook page. The more contentious the better please…
Photos courtesy of Arvind Balaraman, Valerij Dedkov, An Apollo astronaut and Kostas Tsipos
A Personal Shade of Green
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Guest bloggers on September 21, 2011
I’m very excited this week to present my first guest blogger: Alberta Ross. Alberta is author of the Sefuty Chronicles; a series of dystopian books set in a world following catasprophic climate change. As part of her tour for the third book in the series, Jack’s Tale, she is writing as guest on the ‘Review.
It’s an honour to have Alberta write for me this week, so without further ado, I shall hand you over…
A Personal Shade of Green – by Alberta Ross
Gareth has let me in here as I take my Sefuty Chronicles on a book tour. I have written, indeed still am writing, a post apocalyptic dystopian series on the after effects of extreme climate change. There are as many scenarios as to our future as there are versions of history. Mine is just one. It is dependent on us running out of resources in the south of the globe and having limited resources in the North.
I have been ‘green’ for a few decades now – consciously since the early 1980s and really I suppose all my life in some form or other. Brought up straight after World War 2 it was an era of rationing, compost heaps, recycle and reuse. I remember my father’s string box (large, everything back then seemed to be tied with string not Sellotape) every inch collected and knotted to the previous. My mother darning socks endlessly – I was in my time a champion darner! Fruit picking and bottling, veg growing – chicken raising (Boxing Day and Easter treats! No £2 chickens then) I have always had a slightly parsimonious soul.
When I set off on my travels around the world I always preferred overland as one could get the feel of the changes of landscape and culture better. Travelling always on a shoestring also meant less air travel, the time of cheap flights via the internet was well into the future. Green because that’s how it was and then as I say in the 80s green from conviction.
Most of you reading this will be a variety of shades of ‘green’ with a common interest in ‘saving the planet’. But just how much difference can we make as individuals?
I am writing a post apocalyptic series of novels about life after extreme climate change has wrecked the world. My vision of civilisation’s collapse! Ignited I suspect in one of my glummer moments.
How green am I, are you? Some folks garner our admiration, those who have stepped off the grid, live by their own sweat and not only go barefoot but hover just above the soil leaving no footprint. I do admire them and know I fall short.
I love my terrible computer/printer/iPod/mobile phone/radio/car sort of in that order. If my vegetables are eaten by bugs or struggle against the weather I nip into the village for replacements. I buy too many books and now I have an e-reader download too many! Although my annual mileage is now below 4000 I don’t want to give up the freedom the car gives me.
I make choices which not only include carbon footprints but all the other peripherals to green living, ethics, morality and safety. These last do complicate the matter.
I try to buy organic food because? Animal welfare should be better (I should have said at the beginning I’m an old lady and have learnt a fair amount of cynicism in my life); the condition and heart of our oh so thin covering of soil should be better. But then do I buy organic from abroad over the UK non organic, better still local; jobs for the Brits, jobs for our neighbours but not organic, which? Take an organization which makes Fair Trade chocolate as a side line to its ordinary chocolate – does one buy the Fair Trade knowing the other is made with at best exploitive work practices at worst slave trade and stolen children? Or take a cosmetic firm which has a natural non-tested on animal range along side its more dubious powders and potions – do you put money in their coffers?
Life is full of choices such as these. We can rant at government’s lack of political will, that’s easy. Yell at the radio/TV when we hear the latest idiocy, easy. Throw up hands in horror at the latest exposé, even easier. It is so easy to know what should be done, so difficult to do.
Take plastic bags (beloved of one of my characters in the second book, 100 years in the future
‘I thought about his words and decided that if a material would never rot, it couldn’t be classed as a nuisance but a blessing.’ The Storyteller’s Tale.
Of course this is set in a time of resource famine. But a plastic bag or a cotton for life bag? Resources for manufacture of both will trash the planet but the cotton probably faster. One will be manufactured in factories – what work ethics? Cotton production is still mired in unethical practices world wide. The Aral Sea is almost dead and gone because of the intensive use of water for the growing of the crop and the chemicals from the manufacture of it leaching into what lake is left. Plastic/cotton? They can both be reused and the cotton can be composted and will rot fairly quickly, leaching chemicals into the earth as it does, and the plastic will eventually decades later enter the food chain. Which to choose?
I like cotton to wear and thought I was being ‘good’ until I found out about the issues. Now I feel obliged to recycle the old instead of buying the new. But I put precarious lives at risk of loosing employment.
Can one individual save the world?
Can many save the world in the time we have allotted to us to do so?
Should you and I shout at the politicians for not having the political will for thinking past the next elections? Can we, justifiably, if we are all reading this online? What about our usage of electricity, of the data banks of server providers’ use of electricity? I switch off as I am sure many of you do too. We are few; the computer data bases are many.
Councils are forced into lip service to recycle and what a minefield that is! Which plastic? Which ‘can’ goes into which bin? We buy less plastic bags, begin to reject excess packaging. Are we insisting on food grown in this country i.e. green beans from here not from Africa? Do we always eat in season? No more tomatoes in winter, strawberries in April. Do we insist on paying the proper price for food or do we always want cheap out of season flown in at vast carbon expense food? Do we update our ‘toys’ when a shinier one arrives. Do we trash our clothes at the end of the season or treasure them?
How ‘green’ are we all really? Are our choices mere pin pricks? Do my underground rainwater collector and 13 water butts make me ‘green’? Does the fact that I compost and recycle everything in the garden make me ‘green’? How much of a contribution to saving the world from climate change does my disconnecting the computer make?
Does my small effort make a difference, does yours? Of course it does.
Will it help to change anything? Of course it will.
Will it be in time to halt climate change? No.
Will it be in time to prevent the catastrophic events I write about in The Sefuty Chronicles?
Maybe. Hopefully. Fingers crossed and please do not let the following wind die and becalm us.
I am hopeful, why? I am an incurable optimist. I see and hear the younger members of society caring. I believe in the goodness of humanity and stand in awe at how ‘clever’ Homo sapiens can be (for goodness’ sake isn’t that why we are in this mess after all!)
So in The Sefuty Chronicles my bunch of survivors, a handful admittedly – I did kill 8 billion before the books even started! – continue humanity onward, hopefully. I found I couldn’t extinguish Homo sapiens completely; I have fiddled with their genetics a trifle, just to help them along! I hope we find a way to continue on this planet, it would be a shame if we make ourselves extinct!
AR
If you have anything to say on this great post, please feel free to use the comments box below (Alberta will see them), the ‘Review’s facebook page or contact Alberta on twitter.
Alberta’s Bio
I spent the first part of my adult life travelling the world, the middle years studying and now have settled down to write. From the first part I have endless photographs, memories and friends. From the second I have a BSc Hons, an MA and friends. Now in this part everything comes together.
Over the years my interests have expanded, as has my book and music collection. A short list would include reading (almost anything) science, opera, folk, gardening, philosophy, crazy patchwork, freeform crochet, ethics, social history, cooking (and eating of course) gardening, anthropology, climate change and sustainability.
My parents gave me, apart from a love of reading and music, an interest and curiosity in everything which in itself has become a total inability to be bored and for this I am always grateful.
Have You Heard of Neonicotinoids? No, Nor Had I, But They’re Killing Our Honey Bees
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Agriculture on September 5, 2011
The national press recently told us about a resurgence in UK wildlife, with otters, red kites, egrets, salmon and peregrine falcons all making a healthy comeback. However, while this is great news, there is still one species – the honey bee – that is dropping off in alarming numbers.
It has been widely reported over the last 5 -6 years that honey bees are in trouble. But if you’ve missed all that here’s a quick recap:
Honey bees numbers are currently decreasing at an alarming rate, and nobody really knows why. The thing that is baffling entomologists is a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder (CCD). CCD was first observed in the USA about 6 years ago and has been perplexing and alarming beekeepers and scientists ever since. Basically what happens is the worker bees from a colony will simply disappear, leaving behind them a hive full of honey, larvae and one very lonely Queen bee. Mysteriously, in most cases no dead bees are found in or around the hive. (It’s almost like something from an M Night Shyamalan movie)
In 2007/2008 it was estimated that 70% of honey bees in the US disappeared due to CCD. Various reasons have been blamed on the dramatic decrease in bee numbers and a 2009 report into CCD (the first of its kind) reported that a “combination of different causes” we’re responsible. Now, I’m sorry, but for me that’s like the BBC saying the weather tomorrow will be ‘rather unsettled’ – in other words, they don’t really know what’s going on.
As humans relying on agriculture to survive, we consequently find ourselves dependent on the humble honey bee. It is estimated that bees pollinate 80% of our fruits and vegetables, or, to put it another way, the British Bee Keeping Association (BBKA) say, “One in three mouthfuls of the food we eat is dependent on (bee) pollination”. That’s a lot of food.
Let’s be clear here: This isn’t just about honey production people; this about the food supply for the entire human race (although I do rather enjoy honey too). Plus, if we loose this pollinator, it will make the food price increases we’re currently suffering seem like a mere inconvenience.
It is estimated that the value of the pollination from honey bees in the US alone is worth around £8bn; that’s a lot of extra money to find if the bees disappear.
Even more alarming is the research conducted by some French and German universities who put the cost of bees disappearing at €350bn (£310bn). The Soil Association has reported that, in 2007, Lord Rooker, then a DEFRA Minister, said, “If nothing is done about it, the UK honey bee population could be wiped out in 10 years”. None of this sounds like good news to me.
Of course that’s not all. If I remove my anthropocentric (selfish human) hat for a moment, it must also be noted that bees are a cornerstone species and losing them would be a massive blow to global biodiversity.
So what about these neonicotinoids then?
Ok, now to the point of this post: While nobody can say for sure what is causing this catastrophe, many factors have been blamed, including: GM crops; Varroa mites; mobile phone masts; climate change; a new pathogen called Nosema Ceranae; bad beekeeping practices; hive beetles and Asian hornets.
However, there does seem to be a consensus currently evolving that says neonicotinoids could be the primary suspect in this ‘who done it’ mystery.
Neonicotinoids are pesticides that are primarily designed to kill whitefly. They come under various different names and are inceasingly being recognised as a weapon of mass destruction when it comes to the bees. The trouble is that farmers are liberally spraying their crops with this stuff to protect them from pests, but as the bees pop in for a spot of lunch, they quickly find themselves the unintended victim.
These pesticides don’t kill the bees outright – which is part of the reason their effect may have gone undetected for so long and also why they are deemed ‘safe’ in agricultural trials. What they do is disrupt the neurological receptors in the bees, inhibiting their communication, foraging and homing abilities, smell, immune systems and learning functions; all of which are essential to the survival of a colony species, such as the bee.
France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia have all banned neonicotinoids to one degree or another, but far more action still needs to be taken if these chemicals are found to be responsible – even partly – for bee deaths.
Keith Pettitt, an experienced Sussex beekeeper, commented that ”urgent adequate funding from governments on a global scale to support authoritative, coordinated, independent research to establish if these insecticides are responsible for bee mortality and possible links to CCD is badly needed.”
Adding their weight to the beekeepers’ “widely held belief … that these insecticides are contributing or are directly responsible for bee mortality”, a number of concerned companies have now launched campaigns to ban neonicotinoids. Do have a look at these, and perhaps even get involved:
Scarily, there are many who argue that if nothing is done to protect them, the honey bees could be gone in just 20 years. Albert Einstein, is reputed to have said: “If the bee disappears off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left.” So if we do nothing or – even worse – if we can’t actually figure this one out, then by my calculations, humanity has about 24 years left. Well then, at least we can stop worrying about climate change.
This story almost feels like we’re back in the 1960′s and listening to Rachel Carson as she tells us about the effects of DDT. Will we never learn? Even if it turns out that the synergentic effects of all the suggested factors are causing a decline, and not just neocotinoids, surely we should still look to having them banned. They’re nasty. We can find a way around harmful pesticides.
Finally, moving to a much broader subject than just food production; bees have long been seen as a barometer for the health of the planet, a canary in the coalmine, so to speak. If what is happening to them is also happening to the natural world at large, we’re in big trouble.
I was going to produce a list here of things we can all do to help the bees, but Buzz About Bees has already done it, so use this link instead.
Let’s hope (and pray) we find a solution to this problem soon.
GR
If you have anything to say on this article, or indeed anything raised in The Green Review, then do join the discussion on the facebook page. The more contentious the better please…
For more information, check out the trailer for what looks like a really cool documentry, The Vanishing of the Bees
Photos courtesy of Vladimir Ivanov, Buzz About Bees and Mykola Velychko
Searching to Save the Rainforest
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Products and Tips on August 15, 2011
There’s an internet search engine I’ve been using for the last couple of months, which gives 80% of the money it receives from sponsored links towards rainforest conservation. Great in principle, but does it work? Well, read on…
The search engine is called Ecosia, and if you haven’t heard of it yet, then I recommend you give it a try. Initially I thought this would be just another green gimmick; but as I have subsequently come to realise, there is very little difference between this search engine and most of the others out there. The overriding difference is that by using this one you come away from the computer feeling that you may have actually done a little bit of good while performing what is an ever-increasingly, everyday task.
Now, please pardon my laziness, but all of the following information is taken from Ecosia’s own literature so do excuse me if I just copy, paste and let them tell you the important stuff:
How It Works: In a nutshell
- You search with Ecosia.
- Perhaps you click on an interesting sponsored link.
- The sponsoring company pays Bing or Yahoo for the click.
- Bing or Yahoo gives the bigger chunk of that money to Ecosia.
- Ecosia donates at least 80% of this income to support WWF’s work in the Amazon.
Why the rainforest?
Six reasons why sustaining the world’s rainforests is important:
- Tropical rainforests are the most diverse ecosystems on our planet. More than 30 million species call these regions home – that’s two-thirds of all the world’s species.
- Deforestation and the resulting increase in CO2 emissions are considered the second largest cause of climate change today.
- Rainforests function as the “lungs (of) our planet“: they absorb and trap a massive amount of CO2 from the Earth’s atmosphere, keeping the natural balance in check.
- Thanks to their pivotal role in regulating Earth’s climate, tropical rainforests help sustain the lives of all humans beings – not just the estimated 50 million natives inhabiting these regions.
- The past 50 years saw the destruction of half of the world’s tropical rainforests. At the current rate, an area the size of thirty soccer fields is destroyed every minute.
- Despite the immense threat that exists to the rainforest, purely political solutions to its destruction have proved insufficient.
So does it really give money to the rainforest, or is it just a publicity stunt?
Well, if you look at the screenshot above which was taken on the 6th of July 2011, and compare it to the screenshot taken today (15th August 2011), you can see that in the space of 40 days, Ecosia has donated £16,621 to the rainforest. So yes, it does work. What it also highlights is that I’m in the wrong business; sixteen grand in just 40 days? Blimey, no wonder Google has more money than God!
And my verdict is…
Well after a couple of months use, I have to say that this is now my search engine of choice. It easily does the job as good as any others, such as Ask. However, having said that, for a more in-depth search I have had to resort back to Google a couple of times. If, for example, you are searching for a reasonably well-known blog or product, then Ecosia will sort you out with no worries (and you may end up helping to contribute to rainforest conservation). If your search is for something a little bit more obscure then you may have to look elsewhere; but like I said, this has only happened to me once or twice.
In summary then…
Ecosia is a great little search engine: It’s quick, it’s thorough and unlike many novel ideas such as this, it actually works just as well as its counterparts. I’ve made it my primary search engine for about a month now and would highly recommend it to anyone.
GR
If you have anything to say on this article, or indeed anything raised in The Green Review, please join the discussion on our facebook page. The more contentious the better…
Photos courtesy of Ecosia
