Newsletter Articles
20 August 2008
Beautiful new singer-songwriter Zeya is set to showcase her music to more than 100,000 people over the next six months but will not be getting platinum disks or number one singles. Her single is being given away for free with an innovative box set advising people how to get the most out of their gadgets.
20 August 2008
Renewable Energy Weekend
Date: Saturday 23 Aug 2008 to Monday 25 Aug 2008
Description: Enjoy an unforgettable renewable energy weekend at Trelay Farm, an inspiring small-holding where we aim to live lightly on the earth.
Venue: Trelay Farm, near Bude, Cornwall
Contacts: Jackie Carpenter 01840 230 423
E-mail: jackie@trelay.org
Web Address: www.trelay.org
20 August 2008
A documentary horror story. Without bees to pollinate all sorts of plants including our food crops and the plants our cattle eat, our society would be in serious trouble. Yet bees are threatened by Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) a mysterious ailment which wipes out whole bee colonies globally. In A World Without Bees, the authors, both amateur beekeepers, try to track down the possible causes, which may include diseases, pesticides, lack of genetic resistance cause by human breeding experiments, and the horrific Alien-like Varroa mite, which lives a parasitic life on the poor hard-working bees.
20 August 2008
To add a little encouragement for the Soil Association's planned drive to get more people organic gardening, we have put some simple organic garden tips below.
20 August 2008
It is indisputable that of all the fossil fuels, coal is the dirtiest and most polluting. With the UK government about to sign up to a reduction in emissions of 60% - perhaps even 80% - by 2050 it seems a peculiar decision to plan a new generation of coal power stations. Kingsnorth is an existing coal power station in Kent which is to be replaced with a newer station. Although theoretically the power station could reduce its emissions by using Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology, in practice this technology does not exist on a commercial scale yet, so the plant will be nearly as dirty as the one it replaces until some unknown date in the future.
20 August 2008
Leading environmental organisation The Soil Association is about to launch a self-sufficiency movement to the general public, mimicking the wartime “Dig for Victory” programme where people grew their own food in gardens and allotments. Alarmed at the lack of skills relating to food production, and worried by the way the “just-in-time” supermarket delivery combines with imported food to make Britain very vulnerable to disruptions in food supply – as nearly happened in the Tanker Blockade in 2000 – when the UK was actually down to its last few days food, The Soil Association has brought in master TV gardener Monty Don to get more people involved in food production on a small scale.
20 August 2008
The Brazilian Amazon Rainforest needs 11 billion pounds to save it. That is what Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said at the official launch of a new international fund to protect it. The lush rainforest is the “lungs of the world” – but every minute of every day an area the size of a football pitch is cut down. 14% of it has already been deforested.
20 August 2008
In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun isn't shining. Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy. By using biological sources, in imitation of photosynthesis, MIT's Professor Daniel Nocera has enabled solar power to be stored economically in a hydrogen fuel cell, for availability later. This is like having a storage heater for “off-peak” electricity, only instead of storing it at night, you might have a solar photovoltaic array working during the day, and then store the electricity for use after sunset.
28 July 2008
Fruit Tree Grafting - A half-day course
August 9th, 2008
Venue: Stanmer Park, Brighton, East Sussex
Learn how to propagate fruit trees by grafting on this half-day practical course.
Contact Details:
www.brightonpermaculture.co.uk
28 July 2008
Soil Remineralisation is a simple process that can be easily achieved by anyone, from the balcony urban gardener, to the full-scale farmer.
Firstly locate source of rock dust, like the SEER Centre.
Throughout the industrialized world the aggregate industry stockpiles rock dust as a byproduct (within the industry it is known as “rock dust,” “rock flour,” “minus #200 mesh” or “float“). The nearest gravel pit is the best place to ask first. Not only is this waste material readily available but it is very affordable.
28 July 2008
Forthcoming Climate Change film, The Age of Stupid, is a drama-documentary, ostensibly set in the future of 2055, which shows five human stories weaving themselves around all sides of this complicated issue.
28 July 2008
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has scrapped the CO2 Charge, which would have charged owners of large family cars £25 a day to drive in the Central London Congestion Charge zone, a large increase from the £8 they pay currently. This means there will be no increase in charge for drivers of Band G vehicles from October 2008. The Band A and B discount, which would give free entry to the zone for low or zero-emission vehicles has also been stopped.
28 July 2008
A remarkable document has been leaked to US magazine Businessweek this month. In it “a person with access to Saudi oil officials” reveals that Saudi Arabia will have reached the peak of its oil production by 2013. Peak Oil is when around half of an oil field's production has been reached – all the easy to extract oil has been sucked out – and the lower grade, harder, more expensive oil is left. The oil has not run out, but the good days are over.
28 July 2008
Every gardener knows that growing plants take nutrients out of the soil. There are many methods to return the goodness, from the short term fix of chemical fertilisers, through organic enhancers such as seaweed meal or manure, to nitrogen-fixing plants, and many others.
28 July 2008
The good news is that the government has launched its £50 billion renewable strategy. The bad news is it's another consultation. It aims to boost UK renewables to meet the EU target of 20% by 2020.
28 July 2008
On 13 th July Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, made an important environmental speech which was little-reported in the UK press, except the part about building new nuclear power stations. Addressing an organisation called the Union for the Mediterranean, which consists of EU and Mediterranean states, Brown outlined a post-oil energy economy for the future. He said:
“We must now leave behind the old wasteful, oil dependent ways of yesterday and embrace the new cleaner and sustainable energy future of tomorrow. The increases in oil and food prices we have seen over recent months are causing hardship to families and businesses in Britain and throughout Europe. They threaten economic instability and their production is environmentally not sustainable.
The years of cheap energy and careless pollution are behind us. We need a new strategy. Past total dependence on oil must give way to a clean energy future.”
27 June 2008
Eco Open Houses 28-29th June and 5-6th July 2008
Venue: Brighton & Hove
During the weekends of 28-29 June and 5-6 July 2008 people will be able to visit eco-houses in Brighton & Hove who will be opening their doors to the public.
www.ecoopenhouses.org/
27 June 2008
Use the pedals for some of the time – this will save battery power
Make sure the tyres are fully inflated to the correct pressure and that the throttle and brakes work properly.
27 June 2008
This book is three things in one: it is an engaging biography of leading climate scientist Wallace Broecker, Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, by popular sicence writer Robert Kunzig of Discover magazine, and voyage of discovery through the history of climate science; finally it is an analysis of how we could remove CO2 from the atmosphere by extracting it, particularly featuring the researches of Klaus Lackner (see Air Scrubber Invented article in this Carbon News).
27 June 2008
An ambitious project to place a barrage across the Severn river, which potentially could generate 5% of the UK's electricity, has come under sustained criticism in a report published of 12 th June by consultancy Frontier Economics for a coalition of green groups.
27 June 2008
Carbon Managers, publishers of Carbon News, have pledged to fund 20,000 trees in the beautiful Alladale Wilderness Lodge and Reserve in the Northern Highlands of Scotland, under its corporate tree planting programme ‘Trees 4 Business'.
Alladale is a pioneering nature project spanning 23,000 acres. The Scottish Highlands are considered one of Europe's last great areas of wilderness, yet much of the flora and fauna that once thrived there has been driven to extinction by the activities of man. Alladale Wilderness Reserve plan is to restore this remote area of the Highlands to its former natural glory.
27 June 2008
Adnams Brewery has launched East Green, the UK's first carbon neutral beer. Produced in its eco-efficient brewery in Southwold, Adnams' innovative new brew is distributed nationwide by Tesco.
27 June 2008
A Columbia University physicist, Klaus Lackner, claims to have invented a device which will remove CO2 from the air, so that it can be stored – sequestered – away, helping to reduce the likelihood of devastating climate change. In a further development some people have suggested that the CO2 thus removed should be used to make biofuels from algae, which need CO2 to procreate.
27 June 2008
Tired of pedalling uphill? Why not have an electric motor do the work for you? Electric bicycles have had a greater market penetration than electric cars, probably because they are cheaper and recharging at home is easier.
In recent years many have come onto the market, and there is even an electrically powered super scooter, which outperforms petrol engined competitiors!
28 May 2008
Renewable Energy Workshop 8th June
The EcoHouse, Leicester 1pm to 3pm. Pre-booking essential.
Would you like to generate your own renewable energy at home, but have no idea how to go about it? The EcoHouse presents a workshop to help you get started contact Caroline Harmon on 0116 222 0258
http://www.gwll.org.uk/
28 May 2008
Driving in an eco-friendly manner can help reduce emissions, and also, in these times of high fuel prices, reduce your costs. Obviously changing to a high-mpg, low emissions vehicle will make a great difference, but most people do not have that option, and have to stick with their existing car. Here are some top tips to help the environment while driving.
28 May 2008
Published by Green Books on 100% recycled paper, £7.95
This is a pocket book which details practical ways in which people can upgrade their homes in an environmentally fashion, from the smallest things such as using environmentally non-petroleum based paints, to large undertakings, like fitting a ground-source heat pump, for example.
28 May 2008
The first Climate Change legislation to be enacted anywhere in the world looks set to be passed by Parliament by this summer. It sets a target of 60% reduction in C02 emissions by 2050, but the opposition and climate change groups are lobbying to make this an 80% reduction – to take account of newer scientific research which shows that 60% is too low to prevent damaging effects on the environment. It is also likely that the government will bow to pressure and set annual targets, probably a 3% reduction per year.
28 May 2008
The London Array – a major offshore development of wind turbines that could have powered every house in Kent and East Sussex has had one of its main investors, Shell, pull out, putting the whole project in jeopardy.
The 1,000MW London Array placed in the Thames Estuary would consist of up to 341 wind turbines and be able to generate enough electricity to cater for the power needs of a quarter of London homes or every home in Kent and East Sussex. It would also avoid the emission of millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide over its life. This is one of the most significant offshore wind developments in the world, and the three partners (Shell WindEnergy, E.ON and DONG Energy) were funding a project costing £2.4 billion, spread over the next six to seven years. The costs have more than doubled since it was originally planned to cost £1 billion.
28 May 2008
350.org has been launched, to emphasise the need for humanity to reduce the carbon in our atmosphere to 350 parts per million (ppm). Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere now stands at 387 parts per million (ppm), up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.
28 May 2008
The price of oil continues to spike upwards, reaching over $135 per barrel on trading in New York recently. This was an almost $20 surge during the week. Oil has gone up nearly 30% in four months. The effects of these prices are felt throughout the economy as oil is built into every product either as a raw material, eg plastics, pharmaceuticals, as well as a transport cost for the fuel to take the product from producer to end-user.
28 May 2008
Which came first - the petrol internal combustion engined car or one powered by electricity? If you thought the former, you would be wrong: Robert Anderson of Scotland made his first electric vehicle around 1834. It wasn't until 1885 that Karl Benz created the first petrol-powered car. In 1900 when Rudolph Diesel exhibited his innovative motor vehicle, it ran on peanut oil: he had envisioned it being powered by biofuels created locally from nuts or seeds.
25 April 2008
Low Carbon Strategies 08
5th June 2008
Climate Change One-day event, aimed at businesses to show them how to formulate their organisation's low carbon strategy. Venue: Excel London.
www.greenbizevents.co.uk
23 April 2008
The indefatigable eco-campaigner Donnachadh McCarthy has just released his second book Easy Eco Auditing.
As its title says, it is a guide to making your lifestyle greener by “auditing” your home, leisure and work environments to reduce your carbon emissions, with a little of Donnachadh's fascinating journey from Irish National Ballet Dancer who had “not paid any attention to what was happening in the environment around me”, to ardent ecology advocate. Almost by accident he travelled to the Amazon rainforest in 1992 and visited the Yanomami Indians – here he had a damascene conversion: he resolved to return to the UK and do what he could to “stop Britain's consumerist lifestyle being so destructive to the planet and our fellow human beings.”
23 April 2008
Freecyclers should advertise widely, preferably several weeks in advance.
Join up with the local Freecycle group - use it to advertise the
event, but also offer to advertise their group at your own event.
Plan a date for a second event in advance, and give flyers about it to
people as they leave.
23 April 2008
A British-designed sustainable product, the USBCell rechargeable battery, has been awarded Gold status at the iF Product Design Award's (sometimes referred to as a ‘Design Oscar'). The battery recharges itself whilst plugged into a personal computer's USB port, so that toxic battery landfill waste and C02 emissions are reduced. Moixa Energy, the company behind the project, has been awarded Gold status at the iF Product Design Award's (sometimes referred to as a ‘Design Oscar'). It received a research and development grant from the London Development Agency in November 2005.
23 April 2008
Gordon Brown has announced plans to house 100,000 people in 10 new eco-towns. The proposed areas could contain up to 20,000 homes and are intended to combine the need for homes with helping the environment.
Councils will be invited to bid to host the other settlements which Mr Brown said would have bus routes, cycle lanes and schools designed in a way to make the communities carbon neutral overall. The plans were first rolled out last summer but a recent announcement has fleshed them out with more detail. 70 applications have been received, 15 will be shortlisted, and ten settlements actually built. The towns will have to be “zero-carbon as a whole” and an “exemplar” in at least one area of environmental sustainability.
23 April 2008
Junk. You've got a lot of it, clogging up the attic, in the garage, and festering in the cupboard under the stairs. It is said that one person's junk is another person's treasure, and that is where “Freecycling” comes in, which is just the greenies' way of saying “giving stuff away”. Freecycling events, Swap Shops, swapmeets, giveaways are where people get rid of things they don't want and take things they do. It's the same sort of thing as the local jumble sale.
23 April 2008
Green is the new black. People want to be associated with green initiatives. Recent UK research found that over 82% of consumers want to deal with a company that is eco-friendly. Being green can boost staff morale – many employees want to take environmentally sound initiatives at work. A survey of top UK Graduates by an accountancy firm showed significant numbers wanted to work for environmentally responsible organisations. Numerous other polls and opinion samples show that increasing numbers of people want to participate in improving the environment. Tree planting is one option that is readily recognised by consumers as a positive eco-action.
23 April 2008
The UK's poorly insulated, energy inefficient housing stock could be
easily transformed into cheaper to run, low carbon homes by the end of
the next decade. But a new report by WWF-UK How Low shows that
without a radical shift in Government policy the UK is set to miss out on the biggest
opportunity to cut household energy bills, and reduce CO2 emissions. The
first-ever modelling of the country's entire housing stock shows that
solid wall insulation and low and zero carbon technologies such as
ground source heat pumps and solar water heating are key to greening our
homes and getting the UK on track to meet its emission reduction targets
for 2020.
25 March 2008
Our main article is about the Transition Town movement. What if you wanted to “unleash” a transition initiative in your own locality. What should you do?
The method of starting a transition initiative has become more formalised. There are now a number of things that people need to know, or do, to start the group:
20 March 2008
Oil has been variously described as black blood, the blood of the dinosaurs, the bloodstream of the world's economy, and the Devil's Tears.
A Crude Awakening is a documentary on the origins and future of oil. Described as “A shocking wake-up call that is set to do for energy what Al Gore's ‘An Inconvenient Truth' did for climate change”, it intermingles archive footage of the development of oil, a wide variety of interviews, and then speculates on what will happen after oil peaks and declines.
20 March 2008
We all have become familiar with the method of carbon footprinting. Every product and service we consume has an impact on the atmosphere in terms of carbon emitted. Many of us are accustomed to considering the effects of taking flights or driving cars, but we don't necessarily worry about mundane everyday items. I wanted to find out what's the carbon footprint of the humble takeaway burger?
20 March 2008
The UK Government is proposing to build new Coal Fired Power Stations. As coal is by far the most polluting form of energy production this seems the most retrograde step in terms of ameliorating our carbon footprint.
20 March 2008
Power: our society runs on it – the raw calories of energy produced by petrol, diesel, Jet A1, natural gas, uranium, coal and renewable sources. We can't do without it, unless we want to shiver in caves, but we do have choices about how we generate it and what we use it for.
Information is also power. Unlike the physical stuff, it's not likely to run out. Nowadays we often suffer from an excess of it – information overload. Ideally what people need is to apply accurate, useful information to sufficient physical power to make things happen. This is the concept of empowerment.
Carbon Managers wants to empower workforces with A Green Day Out.
20 March 2008
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling delivered a budget that might be called “Watercolour Green” – a rather diluted transparent green wash. There were environmental measures, but not the decisive strokes that would position the UK strongly as a greening economy.
20 March 2008
“We are the most useless generation in history” says Rob Hopkins, pioneer of the fastest-growing social movement in the UK: Transition Towns, “most people in the past had many skills.” This is not a lament for bygone ages, however, but a call to action.
Fed up with obfuscation on climate change from central government people are voluntarily banding together to reduce their carbon footprint and green their area in transition to a low-carbon lifestyle. “A Transition Initiative is a community that is unleashing its own latent collective genius to look Peak Oil and Climate Change squarely in the eye and to discover and implement ways to address this BIG question:”
19 February 2008
Fronted by Leonardo DiCaprio, a new eco-documenary called “The 11th Hour” is about to open in UK cinemas. The film explores how we’ve arrived at this moment -- how we live, how we impact the earth’s ecosystems, and what we can do to change our course. Featuring experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolsey and sustainable design experts William McDonough and Bruce Mau as well as over 50 leading scientists, thinkers and leaders who discuss the most important issues that face our planet and people.
19 February 2008
The origins of Britain’s humble but popular dish are hidden in mythology. Both Lancashire and London lay claim to having “The First Fish and Chip shop”, in the 1860’s, but the dish of battered fish and chips was almost certainly extant well before then: Charles Dickens mentions a 'fried fish warehouse' in Oliver Twist in 1839. Street vendors probably sold it to hungry workers who wanted a solid, filling meal on their way back from the factory.
19 February 2008
Sea Trust South and West Wales monitors the seas, educating people about the glories of Welsh marine wildlife. These include; “Porpoise Picnics” and outreach such as an exhibition which opened at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff and then toured the UK.
18 February 2008
In a radical new move to combat climate change, London Mayor Ken Livingstone has modified the congestion charge – first instituted in 2003 to reduce the volume of traffic on London’s streets – to become the world’s first anti-pollution vehicle tax, where users are charge ffor the amount of CO2 they emit.
18 February 2008
Don’t use plastic carrier bags – use reusable ones. The bags are made from oil which is depleting and causes pollution, but worse than that they can end up in the sea. If they don’t choke a seabird or fish, which mistake them for food, they could end up in the continent-sized plastic drift in the Pacific.
18 February 2008
The sea round our island have long been a source of food, jobs and recreation. Most of us enjoy walking on a sandy beach or along majestic clifftops. Fish and Chips is one of our national glories.
This resource is being eaten away. 52% of global fish stocks are fully exploited, which means that they are being fished at their maximum biological capacity. 24% are over exploited, depleted or recovering from depletion, according to the Marine Stewardship Council. Much of our domestic fishing industry is under threat because “stocks have run out”. Translated this means there aren’t any fish left, or at least not enough mature ones to breed. Global warming plays its part – Cod, for example, spawn in very cold seas, but with the temperature of parts of the oceans increasing, they are not breeding properly. Many fish take quite a long time to reach maturity, such as Plaice and Haddock, which cannot spawn if they are caught before they are adult.
18 February 2008
Britain is blessed with an abundance of potential renewable sources of energy. Besides wind, there is also wave and tidal stream power. This is an industry in its infancy, despite being a source of electricity going back to the 1970s, because finance and innovation have not been forthcoming. If the German wind industry is a guide – the UK is in a position to create jobs and profits by being at the cutting edge of a new technology. In Germany a quarter of a million jobs have been created through the design, manufacture and maintenance of wind turbines.
10 January 2008
Carbon News interviewed Russell Smith about his decision to take on a deliberately challenging retrofit of an existing, and very non-ecological 19th Century end-of-terrace house for his showcase development.
10 January 2008
George Monbiot’s book Heat tells us how we can save ourselves from the Faustian bargain we have with fossil fuels. If we don’t want to roast – literally – we need to cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 90%. That is what the latest scientific evidence shows.
10 January 2008
Save water by putting a plug in the washbasin, and have showers rather than baths. You can reduce the amount of water used by flushing the toilet by putting something into the cistern to use up space, like a small plastic bottle filled with water; don’t use a brick – it could damage your toilet’s workings. Some water companies give out free “hippos” – little devices to do the same thing.
10 January 2008
TSolar Panels are, along with wind turbines, one of the two poster children for alternative energy. But like all technologies, they have disadvantages as well as advantages. The main one is that they are expensive and complicated to manufacture. Silicon, the basic material, is incredibly abundant and cheap. However making it into sheets is a very technology-intensive process, and in UK and similar latitudes, photovoltaic solar power generation is for specialised applications.
10 January 2008
Is the building you live or work in a stinking, carbon-emitting eyesore? You probably think not, but appearances can be deceptive. Many of the UK’s buildings waste enormous amounts of energy – it is estimated that nearly 30% of Britain’s carbon emissions come from buildings. New construction can be very eco-friendly, but unfortunately many of our buildings are very old and leak energy all over the place, wasting money and adding unnecessary carbon to the atmosphere.
10 January 2008
Picture a desert: baking heat, nomads on camels, burning sun, endless sand ……surmounted by arrays of polished aluminium generating massive amounts of electricity….excuse me?
28 November 2007
Be an Eco Driver! Efficient and economical driving style is a great way to save money and cut carbon dioxide emissions at the same time.
28 November 2007
The Keyboard Company, UK specialist keyboard and pointing device supplier based in Gloucestershire, has recently been in touch with Carbon Managers in search of consultation and help implementing a revised environmental policy. As a supplier of equipment to all sorts of locations in the UK and beyond, The Keyboard Company were keen to discover how they could operate their business in a more environmentally friendly manner.
27 November 2007
Taking the message to the public is part of the challenge faced by Carbon Managers. Whilst there is a vast amount of information and general awareness of environmental issues, our objective is to increase awareness through action thereby contributing on two fronts to the goal of reducing the carbon footprint of UK business.
27 November 2007
Every year our national energy consumption rockets as soon as the first frosts arrive. Its early November and right on queue here they come! The natural first reaction is to turn on the central heating (if you haven’t already) turn up the thermostat, spend more time indoors (with the heating on!) hunker down for the big chill. BUT….is it all really necessary?
27 November 2007
Those who support it see geothermal energy as a near-perfect source of clean energy with virtually no carbon emissions.
27 November 2007
Some parts of the UK are more carbon friendly than others. For instance people living in Plymouth and Newport are having the least impact on the UK environment while people in those living in Winchester are having the most, according to a new green league table of mainland UK cities.
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