Government ditches plans for free home energy monitors

One of the things that has become clear over the last year, is that trying to convince people to change to a low carbon lifestyle by frightening them simply doesn't work.

Andrew C Revkin in a New Yorks time article Challenges to Both Left and Right on Global Warming interviewed the author Michael Shellenberger who pointed out that "Martin Luther King didn't give the ‘I have a nightmare’ speech, he gave an ‘I have a dream’ speech".

The UK government had been planning to compel energy suppliers to handout £15 monitors that attach themselves to your power meter and show how much energy you use, but appears to have backed down to energy industry pressure who say this may complicate the roll out of smart energy meters. However, these meters are not due to be fully rolled out until 2020

We've got an OWL Wireless Energy Monitor from the Ethical Superstore and its been great in working out what uses lots of power. Friends of mine have used it to educate their children on power consumption and who now know the effects of leaving items on standby.

So what's so complicated here? Nothing that I can see apart from the fact that we might all start consuming less power and that's not necessarily a good thing for the power companies. That may sound a little cynical, but why else would then object.

The full article on this is Government ditches plan for free home energy monitors

Trees absorbing less CO2 as world warms, study finds

For all those people who were hoping to offset their carbon rich lifestyles by planting a few more trees, there's some bad news. According to Thursdays Guardian

"The ability of forests to soak up man-made carbon dioxide is weakening, according to an analysis of two decades of data from more than 30 sites in the frozen north.

The finding published today is crucial, because it means that more of the CO2 we release will end up affecting the climate in the atmosphere rather than being safely locked away in trees or soil.

The results may partly explain recent studies suggesting that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing faster than expected. If higher temperatures mean less carbon is soaked up by plants and microbes, global warming will accelerate"

It appears to be part of the long awaited and feared feedback loop whereby the increasing temperature has an impact on the surrounding environment and quickens the change.

An example of this is Siberian frozen tundra which currently has millions of tonnes of methane gas locked away. However as temperatures rise, the tundra melts and releases the methane gas. Methane is a worse climate gas than CO2 and again will help increase the planets temperature.

The full Guardian article is Trees absorbing less CO2 as world warms, study finds

An fuller description of how feedback loops can effect the enviroment can be found in James Lovelock book - The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back - and How We Can Still Save Humanity

Now that's what I call asking the customer

The Guardian reports that the co-op is planning to ask all of its members and customers about their green and ethical policies.

Worth reading for the comments from the head of co-op about the fact that growing roses in Holland generates six times as much co2 than in Kenya due to amount of heating and lighting used.

I don't know whether this is true or not but it is good to see a company that has the guts to take such a bold step, especially if they are planning to publish the results as a benchmark.

What's the Metros Agenda?

For those readers who live outside of the uk, The Metro is a free newspaper that is distributed in most of the major UK cities. Since it was first launched over 5 years ago, its proved very popular and many people, including a lot of friends have stopped buying a normal newspaper and just pick up the metro.

At least when you buy a paper, you normally know its political point of view, as you're going to choose a paper that matches your own. The Metro has very little actual analysis and normally concentrates on celebrity stories.

This mornings front page story was about a so called 'report' by the tax payers alliance into how UK families are paying £400 extra over the amount needed to cover their carbon footprint. Clearly the Taxpayers Alliance has an axe to grind over this and are certainly entitles to their point of view as is any individual or organisation.

What is surprising is that a survey run by a group with a clear right wing agenda manages to make it onto the front page of a national paper. If the conservative party was making a song and dance about this, I could understand.

Hence to the title of this post. The metro is owned by associated newspapers who also own the daily mail which is clearly aimed at white conservative middle class Britain, so what exactly is associated press up to?.

With so many stories that they could have run about the effect that global change is having, why concentrate on this non issue.

Instead of getting people to actually start thinking about the earth and each other, this article does nothing more than reinforce the Whats in it for me attitude.

At long last - Tetra Paks now recyclable

On my last recycling run to the tip on Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I can now finally recycles my tetra pack cartons.

HippyShopper has the full story and the Tetrapak website has a interactive map that allows you to see whether your local authority recycles them.

It would have been nice if they could have done a nice Google maps mashup so that I could see where the actual 4 locations in Swansea are, but at least its a start

Dash Into Biofuels Can Be Harmful Says Co-op

The Co-op and its financial services arm CIS are among a growing band of organisations who are warning about rushing into the biofuels market until further research into their impact and sustainability are investigated

Waitrose commits to sustainable farming

There is only one thing that I miss in Wales and that is a nearby Waitrose. Tesco's and Sainsburys are Ok, but don't have that special edge that Waitorose does.

Waitrose is part of the John Lewis group which is a workers cooperative and one of the original social enterprises. Like the Co-op, they have been at the forefront of trying to produce and enviromentally and ethically produced food.

This week they announced that by 2010 all conventional fresh, prepared and frozen fruit, vegetables and flowers on sale in is supermarkets would be farmed to high environmental standards using sustainable farming methods.

It'll be interesting to see if they can manage to actually to achieve this, considering the huge effort that this will take. The next step will then be to get all the other supermarkets to do the same.

Ignore this at your peril

Just in case you had missed all the fuss about climate change and still are not sure exactly what could happen, this very informative article from the Guardians Climate Change section, breaks down the possible effects if the temperature gets 6C hotter.

Effects range from increased rainfall all the way to a methane burp from the oceans floor which cause a massive explosion.

If you're still no convinced by global warming, take a look at the latest pictures from Greenland and you'll see just how much the glaciers are retreating

Offsetting your carbon by planting trees? Could be doing more harm than good

Carbon offsetting appears to be the new trend whereby instead of concentrating on reducing your energy consumption, people find it easier to carry on flying and buy a few trees to offset their carbon emissions. Also known as greenwashing!

A new report from the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in America indicates that unless the planting is done in certain areas, we could actually increase the amount of CO2 as planting trees on exposed areas may simply absorb the heat rather than reflect in back in the atmosphere.

Many companies now offer the choice of investing money in alternative technology as well as forestry. Lucy Siegel in the Observer has a piece on how to choose the best scheme

How green is hydroelectic power?

You'd hope that hydroelectric power would be fairly sound way of producing electricity and one that had a fairly low carbon footprint once you've constructed the dam.

However interesting new research indicates that the flooding of valleys to create the reservoirs are increasing the amount of methane emissions due to the trees and vegatations rotting under the water. The problem isn't too bad in cold climates such as the UK, but is proving to be a major problem in countries such as Brazil who have heavily invested in hydroelectic.

The Guardian covers this in more detail in a story called Hidden Dangers

Eco Kettles

When Meagan, Emily and I moved house, we realised that we didn't actually own a kettle, which gave me the opportunity to buy the Eco Kettle I had been coveting for a while. Meagans initial skepticsm that I was purchasing another gadget, has disappeared now that she has found out that she can boil just enough water for one cup of coffee.

If you're feeing really flush, try the Electrisave Electricity Monitor which will tell you how much electricity your house is consuming at one one time. Two of my friends have them and spend hours wandering around the house, turning items on and off and watching the consumption rise and fall.

I've linked to both items at the Ethical Superstore as that had the best price on the kettle but plently of other places have them.

All together now

Todays Observer has a story called Village that's saving the world. All the residents of Ashton Hayes in Cheshire have agreed to live a carbon neutral lifestyle and this ranges from doing simple things such as turning off chargers when they are not being used, to building a community grid for generating electricty.

The Guardian covered the story back in February in a piece called Village on the road to a carbon-neutral future and made the very good point that once the whole community became involved it became easier for people to become involved. Previously, people had said that while they had wanted to try the lifestyle, they hadn't wanted to be viewed as cranky.

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

Despite all the evidence presented in Paris over the last couple of days, its good to see that the oil companies and especially Exxon Mobil are still funding think tanks that continue to deny the existence of climate change.

If you havn't already seen it, I'd recommend either reading or watchingthe corporation which might explain why corporations as whole act in ways that we hope individual humans wouldn't.

Pester Power used for good

The Guardians ever excellent Ethical living section reports that once children get the ethical / green bug they start pestering their parents about not taking cheap flight and turning off the light.

Nice to see that pester power is being used to do some good rather than selling yet another fizzy drink.

Workers leave their green habits at home

Interesting story from the Guardian about workers who turn off lights and computers and adopt other green practices at home often fail to do the same in the office because they are put off by their employers' lack of action, a report said today.

You've got to wonder whether people are either too scared of their co-workers reactions or embarrased that they are being labelled a hippy to make a fuss about other people. That said, how much effort does it take to make sure your PC is switched off before you go home.

Storms will worsen, climate scientists admit

While the rest of the UK remains obsessed with Celebrity Big Brother, the Observer brings us even more bad news about global warming. According to the story...

Global warming is destined to have a far more destructive and earlier impact than previously estimated, the most authoritative report yet produced on climate change will warn next week.

A draft copy of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained by The Observer, shows the frequency of devastating storms - like the ones that battered Britain last week - will increase dramatically. Sea levels will rise over the century by around half a metre; snow will disappear from all but the highest mountains; deserts will spread; oceans become acidic, leading to the destruction of coral reefs and atolls; and deadly heatwaves will become more prevalent.

Hopefully news that companies such as Tescos are going to show the amount of carbon used to produce each food and Marks and Spencers are labelling which foods have been flown in, will start to convince the British public to fly a little less, walk a little more and not leave everything on stand by