Dirty Old Coal is back on the agenda. Due to public and goverments’ panic around soaring oil prices (which seem to be on the decline again), there are plans the world over for more coal-fired power plants: India has plans to build another 73 coal plants in the next 10 years. There are plans to build over 150 new coal plants in the US in the next few years and my understanding is that China, Germany and the UK all have coal plants somewhere in the pipeline.

The world seem to be divided today between those who wants to go 150 years back and those advocating to invest all our resources in developing green and clean energy technologies. After reading few articles on this topic I must admit I’m rather confused. Coal has a high potential in future energy supply, only once new technology to reduce CO2-emissions from coal combustion will become economically viable. But currently they aren’t and the fact of the matter is that 40% of the global carbon dioxide emissions are due to coal.

If you want to read more on this subject you should read the debate between George Monbiot and Arthur Scargill few months back in the Guardian. The EU Energy Policy Blog also written some illuminating facts about the future of coal-based energy.

The reason for this lengthy introduction is a new Greenpeace campaign. Inspiring, engaging environmental campaigns are difficult to pull out. Especially these days, when the economic meltdown is contributing to the already short and fatigued attention span of the general public in relation to green issues you have to produce something that will stand out and cut through and I think that Greenpeace have managed to pull a nifty little campaign called….CoalFinger:

The campaign is topical and full of funny moments and the microsite is nicely designed with clear, plain English articulation of the problem.

Well done Greenpeace.

Here I pose a hypothetical question: would it be ethical to burn fossil fuels if it didn’t cause climate change? Supposing that the scientific consensus turns out to be wrong. That the warming we are currently experiencing is actually part of a natural cycle unconnected with the billions of tonnes of carbon being pumped into the atmosphere by humans. Would that mean that the continued use of oil, coal and gas would be justified?

I believe that there is a strong, moral argument against the continued burning of fossil fuels even if it didn’t cause climate change. What is the basis of this belief?

Firstly, the rate of fossil fuel use is increasing year-on-year as demand from economies such as those of India and China grows. In tandem, many experts predict that we are close to (or have already exceeded) peak production of fossil fuels. Simple economics shows that increased demand and decreased supply equals increased prices. In my view, this situation will inevitably lead to further conflict as countries vie for an increasingly scarce resource. And even if we weren’t already at peak production then the conflict situation will only have been at best postponed.

Secondly, increased demand for fossil fuels is leading to encroachment into, and destruction of, natural habitats such as those in Alaska and Africa. Even offshore oil drilling is now firmly on the agenda in the US (depending on the outcome of the election). The result will be further degradation of forests, wildlife and natural habitats to feed a growing oil addication.

Thirdly, and probably the most obvious yet most overlooked point, fossil fuels are fundamentally a finite resource. It really doesn’t matter whether we are at peak production or not – fossil fuels will ultimately run out and an alternative will be needed. Talk of ‘it won’t be in my lifetime’ or ‘it will be way in the future’ is really just apathy and denial from people who lack vision. Global economies cannot simply be switched from one energy source to another – it takes many years, even generations, to make the transition. The pragmatic approach is to start the shift now from our reliance on fossil fuels to renewable and sustainable energy sources.

Finally, economies which rely on fossil fuels are becoming increasingly vulnerable. Recent events have shown that increases in oil prices can destabilise markets and send inflation soaring. Longer-term stability and economic growth cannot be sustained in economies which are heavily oil-dependent – a point now begrudgingly accepted by politicians.

Of course, if the burning of fossil fuels is a major cause of global warming as most scientists now believe, then the preceding points simply add weight to an already compelling argument!

…First female US Vice-President?

“I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country,” she said. Bring it on I thought, this is America’s first possible female Vice President. Sarah Palin’s gusto image invoked a warm glow in my soul. Don’t be deceived, this Alaskan coined herself the pitbull with lipstick for a reason.

You may be thinking why you should care about what the British, or for that matter any other country, think who you vote for. Well unfortunately for the rest of us, American policy influences so much of the world. I hate the fact that any country in the world has so much power. But that’s the legacy that World War II has given us.

I hope that those that were brave enough to start the new world in the name of freedom, democracy, trust and liberty can see the light of day, and vote with their heads and their hearts. The world desparately needs leadership styles we haven’t seen since the likes of the Second World War, to tackle issues just as important: Climate Change, Poverty and Energy Crises.

“We must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.

More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas.” Not my words, but those of former President Harry Truman and call me skeptical but I don’t think he’d like Sarah Palin.

Green isn’t a dirty word - It’s an opportunity. An opportunity to bring the world together, to unite to solve common goals, to change the way we make a living for the better. In many ways, the problems we now face require the embodiment of the American spirit. Which lets face it, is the reason we used to love America in the first place.

You can be a hunter, a fisherman and a member of the National Rifle Association and still be green. Many professional hunters, kill for food in a sustainable manner. Some may say it’s cruel, but at the end of the day if you are a meat eater you can’t deny that this free range method is better than factory farming. Some hunters even seek to conserve the environment to maximise the quality of game, take the British Association of Shooting and Conservation as an example. Unlike economists these people already recognise the importance of all parts of the ecosystem.

Palin couldn’t give a hoot about Green Issues. Check out some of her environmental credentials:

1. Has supported oil drilling in some of the most ecologically sensitive areas in Alaska - The Trail, 29 Aug 2008
2. Sued the ‘Bush Administration over its decision last week to place the animal under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, claiming that climate models predicting the continued loss of sea ice - the main habitat of polar bears - are unreliable.’ - The Times, 23 May 2008
3. Has oppposed protections for salmon from mining contamination. On the Issues, Aug 2008
4. Doesn’t attribute Climate Change to being man made. Time 1 Sep 2008

So forget the consensus from 1000’s of scientists, forget what the Pentagon have said about the threat of climate change, just forget all that climate change mumbo jumbo. Palin knows best, and she’s on her way. (Apparently!)

“I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country,” but she can only really do this if she wakes up to climate change.

Ironically Governor Sarah Palin’s official website for Alaska has just declared that it’s Energy Efficiency month. Call me cynical but I can’t help but wonder if that’s political spin, or a genuine concern.

Why not drop Governor Palin a line and make this thing called democracy work for you?

Perhaps you’d like to tell her how much you know about climate change? Or maybe just throw her a few wise words.

governor@gov.state.ak.us

But whatever you do, just vote in a good pair of good leaders this time. Whoever they are.

There is a misguided perception in some quarters that the looming energy crisis in the UK can only be solved if we accept that environmental damage is inevitable.

The argument goes something like this; if we rely on fuel imports then we are forever at the mercy of foreign governments. If we re-open the coal mines we can become self-sufficient but our carbon emissions will start to increase. If we take the nuclear option then we are left with the legacy of dangerous radioactive waste. The argument usually then goes on to claim that renewables are well-intentioned but will never provide enough energy to meet all our needs.

There is some truth in this latter point but only if we continue with our current high levels of energy consumption and gross inefficiency. A determined and courageous policy of large-scale investment in renewables coupled with energy-efficiency measures (e.g. legislation to compel manufacturers to remove stand-by buttons from appliances, banning patio heaters and standard light bulbs, etc…) could lead us to a truly sustainable future. It is a vision but an achievable vision.

In a field by my parents’ house in Norfolk, my dad has planted 600 trees. Those trees will one day grow into a wood that my children will play in as they grow up. By planting those trees, my dad is being a good grandfather, even before his grandchildren are born, and I can’t help thinking a similar principle should apply around climate change.

While the impacts of a warming planet will be huge in our lifetime, they’ll affect our children even more. I don’t believe it’ll be enough to teach my children well and to earn enough money to put food on the table if climate change brings chaos to the world they grow up in. I don’t think we can build walls high enough to protect our children from the world outside so if we want to protect them, we have to protect that world.

It has been said that the next generation will be the first in human history whose standard of living is actually worse than the generation which came before them. Doesn’t look like we’re doing a very good job for our children so far, does it?

But I still think this link between what we do now and the world our children inherit offers an opportunity for everyone who is concerned about climate change. I think there’s only one thing which people love more than themselves – and that’s their children. If we can make the fight against climate change a matter of duty to our children, we can carry far more people with us than we do right now.

That’s why I’ve been trying to get people in their 20s and 30s to take more action on climate change, both taking small steps in their own lives and asking the Government to do more as well. Persuading people to take these steps is often an uphill struggle but I’m driven on by the knowledge that one day, if we don’t do something, my children will ask me why I didn’t do more to protect their futures when I had the chance.

I recently received a letter from a sceptic who claimed that the link between carbon emissions and climate change was a hoax, and that warming and cooling were part of a natural cycle that had always occurred throughout the Earth’s history. The scientific research linking the change in global temperatures to man-made emissions was apparently bogus and ‘most people’ intuitively knew that.

This is not a lone voice. Speaking to people generally, my experience is that of a stubborn and persistent belief that climate change is a cyclical phenomenon unrelated to human activity. For example, I have frequently heard stories that the Earth has had ice ages and very warm spells in the distant past long before humans had evolved, and that solar and volcanic activity have more impact on the climate than man. Often, these views are not backed up by scientific evidence, but instead are perpetuated by word of mouth almost to the point that they are regarded as established fact.

Whilst it is certainly true that all the preceding phenomena affect the climate and that there are natural variations in the Earth’s climate over time, these views are misleading and dangerous for several reasons.

Firstly, it gives intuition precedence over scientific evidence. This situation is made deliberately worse by large corporations with vested interests in encouraging doubt and disagreement surrounding the debate on made-made climate change. In actuality, there is now a widespread consensus amongst the scientific community and environmental researchers that human activity is the chief cause of current global warming. The climate is changing much faster than the very long timeframes over which previous changes occurred and there is a strong correlation between the recent changes and man-made emissions.

I have often seen a parallel between this situation and that of the tobacco industry when research first suggested that smoking may cause lung cancer. The tobacco industry dismissed the claims as erroneous and suppressed its own research, while smokers themselves reassured each other that the scientific evidence was wrong. It was only after the scientific evidence became overwhelming that the link between smoking and lung cancer came to be accepted, but the intuitive misconception that smoking does not damage health still persists amongst some people today. In tandem, the tobacco industry still seeks to deny that its products are addictive and injurious to health. The oil industry is pursuing a similar strategy with respect to climate change.

Secondly, what happens when the oil runs out? There is no ‘plan B’. Many experts believe that we have passed the point of peak oil production and that steadily increasing oil prices are inevitable as demand from the Chinese and Indian economies grows. Fundamentally, oil is a finite commodity and whether you accept that climate change is linked to man-made emissions or not, alternative energy sources are going to be needed at some point in the future if we are to sustain our economies.

Finally, is it not also intuitive to believe that pumping out billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere and clearing millions of hectares of rainforest each year might just be causing some damage to the planet? It seems to me that denial and apathy must be overcome before there can be widespread acceptance that human actions are having a harmful effect on the planet. It could well be a slow process.

Dr Gary Robertshaw - The Green Providers Directory

I asked a number of people at the festival what they were doing in their own lives to tackle climate change and also what they found the most difficult.

Sharia - Greenpeace Fundraiser

‘I shop locally, eat locally, manage my own allotment, and cycle to work. I don’t use supermarkets, so for me fitting in all my shopping, along with everything else is difficult. But the vegetarian and vegan co-operative I’m a member of, makes this slightly easier.’

Joe - LetsTalkGordon.org.uk Campaign Co-ordinator

‘I’m getting active politically, at the moment I’m co-ordinating LetsTalkGordon.org.uk a campaign dedicated to getting the Prime Minister to make a televised address to the nation on climate change, launching the national debate about how we should respond.

I’m trying to eat less meat and cut down on flights. It’s difficult because my brother lives in New York. I offset, but am not convinced. Not being a vegetarian, eating less meat is not easy.

Helen - Festival Go-er

‘I’m growing my own veg in the garden, going to local farmers markets and buying too much cheese! I try to buy eco-products like organic, fair trade clothes and earth friendly toiletries. Overcoming my own laziness is the hardest part.’

Three Drunk Blokes on Cider

‘Arhhhhhhhhg.. Take a photo.. hic’

Gemma - Anti-Slavery Campaigner

‘Buying energy saving light-bulbs and saving energy around the house. I find the hardest part is seeing how were all making a difference, knowing that the part you play is just a small part in the whole thing.’

This year’s Glastonbury Festival was one of the greenest yet, but there was still room for improvement. It will be remembered as ‘one of those fantastic years’.

Keep coming back for a review of the Festival’s Greener Side in the coming days.

At Glastonbury Festival, The Green Fields provide an environmentally friendly guide to life.

A number of entrances to the fields exist, but many will come along the old train track. Decorated by campaigners, the old track contains a number of climate inspired messages. ‘Did you know if all the bees died, life on earth would cease to exist after 60 years’, ‘Walk your kids to school’.

This year the Green Fields are showcasing a couple of low impact homes. Practical tips on how you can insulate your walls with sheep wool, build with green timber and make but use of your natural environment.

Despite all this greeness, the festival motto ‘Love the farm, leave no trace’ has clearly not struck a chord with some.

The Guardian recently reported that a study by Julie’s bicycle, revealed that large music festivals (i.e more than 40,000 people) can generate around more the 2,000 tonnes of CO2.

This year I’ll be going to Glastonbury Festival, and Camp Bestival and living by 10 greener festival tips as The GreenFestivalMan.

Number TEN - Fashion
Don’t waste money buying new clothes that will get trashed. Shop around charity or thrift Shops for pre-festival bargains. A large number of UK festivals have charity shops on site.

Number NINE - Toilets
This applies to guys more than girls. Festival toilets can be pretty grim but less grim than the thought of 10′000s of people urinating at random in a field. Doing so is tantamount, to empting the content of a large toilet right over the entire festival. Poor santitation = nasty stomach upsets and ecosystem pollution.

Number EIGHT - Lighting
It’s dark you need light. Use renewable power torches and lights, like the Puma Dynamo Torch available from EcoOutlet.co.uk. (It even has a strobe light).

Lights comes in all forms from solar to water powered.

Number SEVEN - Tent pegs
Made from potato starch, Millets.co.uk have launched a range of biodegradable tent pegs from GreenStake. Reusable, but won’t harm wildlife if you lose them in the ground.

Number SIX - Fire!
If like me you need fire be sociable and gather round someone else’s.

Use deadwood, don’t pull any branches down. Using charcoal? make sure it’s from a sustainable source. Charcoal in the UK should be FSC certified and can be sourced from British woodlands.

This year I’ll be using the WoodGas Biomass Camp Stove. Originally designed for developing countries to minimise smoke pollution. There are only a few UK stockists at the moment, but a larger number in the USA.

Number FIVE - Power
Use recharagable batteries or personal renewable power sources.

A number of personal solar panels are available to charge various different electronics like MP3 players, batteries and mobile phones. Most can be found for reasonable rates on the internet.

A recent addition to the pack, is the HYmini wind powered generator and handheld charger.

Number FOUR - Cleanliness
Use natural, bio degradable, wet wipes. Better still, take a flannel, remember those?

Use biodegradable soap and Eco-friendly toothpaste. Many ‘non-green’ hygiene products release nasty chemicals. These chemicals eventually get into food chains.

Number THREE - Rubbish / Trash
Leave no trace. Leave nothing but footprints. Use on-site recycling facilities or take home waste to recycle and/or compost.

Don’t trash your tent or burn it, give it to an organisation like Globalhand.org for recycling. If it does get trashed, salvage the useful bits. Tent poles can make good flag poles. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Number TWO - Food
Buy local, eat seasonal – try out the local food stalls. Meat eaters can cut back their carbon footprints but eating more vegetarian food. Cut it out or cut it back. This year at Glastonbury I’ll be only eating vegetarian food, but only if I can find another 15 meat eaters to join me. Sign up on www.PledgeBank.Com/GoVegetarian .

If going vegetarian isn’t your bag try to make the special effort to get something that’s local, free range and preferably organic. The meat tastes better that way and will have taken less carbon to produce.

A good range of organic and fairtrade museli and granola bars are available (excellent munchie food).

Decant soft drinks into a re-usable bottle, like CamelBak’s innovative BPA free range.

Alcohol from local breweries will quench the festival thirst. Find yourself stuck with a bottle but no way of getting in to it? Show your friends how old stuff can be reused. EcoOutlet.co.uk retail bottle openers made from recycled metal spoons.

• Number ONE -Transportation

Most of your Carbon footprint originates from the way you travel to the event. Use public transport where possible, many festivals across the world can be accessed by trains and coaches. Rock am Ring in Nurberg and Glastonbury included.

Going by car? arrange a lift share via liftshare.org or find a travelling companion on boards like eFestivals.com or networking sites like isanyonegoingto.com. Whatever your means offset it a few times using audited carbon offset companies like Climatecare.org.

Have a happy Festival and Camping Season. See you at Glastonbury or Camp Bestival.

GreenFestivalMan

(aka Gareth, GGG Editor)

It’s safe to say that the use of social networking sites worldwide has exploded in the past year, with popular sites seeing total visits increase by as much as 270 percent, according to a recent study by ComScore Inc. MySpace, alone drew more than 114 million global visitors in June 2007, a 72 percent increase over the past year while Facebook, experienced a 270 percent increase in worldwide visitors over the past year.

Alongside the growth of these networks the emergence of niche networks is also growing, coupled with the increased media attention on climate change its no wonder that we are now seeing a host of green social networks emerging. Personally I welcome this for a host of reasons but primarily anything that puts climate change at the centre of the debate is both necessary and essential. While I enjoy dabbling with Facebook and other networks the communication involved seems to be rather limited and the content rather egocentric. This is not a criticism rather an observation and it’s totally natural given that we are really just beginning to explore the potentials of this form of communication.

What ever your beliefs in regard to climate change and its effects it’s hard to ignore the problems we are facing in relation to escalating fuel prices, food shortages and extreme weather conditions. Whether we believe it or not they are inextricably linked and the need to address these issues is paramount. For the first time in human history the Internet offers us the tools to communicate and collaborate on a global scale. While the net may not offer all of the solutions it does however allow each of us to partake in the discussion and therefore it is unquestionably a truly democratizing tool and one that needs to be safeguarded.

As I said earlier I welcome the proliferation of green focused networking sites and I myself am part of a new networking site www.edenbee.com that offers users a platform to tackle climate change through better personal choices (with a little encouragement from like-minded souls). It has all of the essentials of a social network — ways to build a network with friends, and groups and discussions — but on Edenbee, personal profiles get a unique spin with “Lifestyle Profiling” and “Carbon Logbooks,” and a framework for setting goals against the two.

Edenbee encourages not only information sharing, but also a way for people to cheer each other on. If you are looking for up to date news and information you can browse through the blog posts that offer a host of news and interesting articles on how to be more eco conscious and other topical green issues. We feel that we are encouraging a more meaningful conversation, one that is necessary if we are to leave any kind of lasting legacy for future generations.