Planet Savers blog

Well… now that Mr Bush is “taking climate change seriously” we can all sit back and relax. Phew! And it was getting pretty close, there. And thank goodness he stressed that any plans to combat climate change should not be detrimental to the economy. I am filled with the sense of reassurance that the right man is at the helm. Tough luck, America. So, whilst Bush suggests that “each nation must decide for itself…” I guess we will have to rely for EU recommendations.

Then, just when I thought it was Bush that had a problem, along comes Mr Stuart Dimmock. He is rather upset that our school children are being sent copies of Al Gore’s remarkable film “An Inconvenient Truth” for educational purposes claiming that it is 30% politics and 20% mush.

I’m sorry? When I came away from that film, I had a good idea of where Al Gore stood politically, it’s true, but I had an even better idea about the facts of climate change. Al Gore’s political persuasions aside, the message was for everyone, whatever their politics, and the message was loud and clear. WE HAVE A PROBLEM! Perhaps Mr Dimmock is not aware of this.

Well, it’s good to hear that yet another big name is looking at its total carbon footprint. According to the FT, Wal-Mart is looking at the full supply chain and is actively advising their suppliers on energy-saving measures. Greenpeace USA are hoping this will put pressure on other companies to report emissions.

Not so good, but not so surprising is the news that biofuels are not as green as their would-be investors would like them to be. In some cases, they are worse that hydrocarbons by up to 70%. I know I sound wise after the event, but the speed with which old crops were pulled up and biofuels planted gave me a very sinking feeling.

But before you rush out and by a hybrid, you might be able to make vast improvements on fuel consumption by taking a few tips from Wayne Gerdes. He is so obsessed about getting the most mileage out of his vehicle he has become the self-styled ‘hypermiler’. He and others are keen to teach their techniques to anyone who’ll listen. I don’t generally approve of addictions but if they help save the planet I’d better ameliorate my thinking on that one. Just don’t mention that funny twitch I get if I am away from my blogs for too many days!

It’s always great to see how humans are able to adapt in the face of change. One day you’re in a rut, then a door opens and, whoosh, life has changed.

So it seems to be for Vatagin who lives in that well known holiday resort and paradise, Siberia. (Okay, maybe not a resort as such yet but in the very near future…)

Whilst everyone else is tearing their hair out about the loss of the permafrost, Vatagin found that the thaw has bought him a new life in the bone business. As the frost receded it is laying bear the bones of prehistoric mammoths, woolly rhinos and lions that have been buried for thousands of years. He’s now running a business selling mammoth heads to collectors and the scientific community.

I’m, er, just going to dig up the back garden again and see if I missed anything last time…

Oh, the IPCC meeting in London today has predicted another bright side to global warming. Apparently the conditions will mean that Britain and parts of Scandinavia will be able join the wine-making set.

Well, at least I can get nicely drunk whilst I watch the rest of the planet drown and/or burn up. Pity we will never really have enough time to get a good vintage coz we just seem unable to stop the planet temperature rising by the crucial two degrees celcius over the next century. We’ve only got eight years left before it will be irreversible.

In the mean time, the chikungunya virus carrying mosquitoes are marching across Europe, several more species have gone extinct, and the outlook for the poor, the old, the young and the marginalised is getting grimmer.

Quote of the day goes to Pref Martin Parry of the Met Office speaking at the IPCC conference: “The choice is now between a future with a damaged world and a future with a severely damaged world. It’s quite striking how big the challenge is. It’s not so long ago that we were all talking about how our children and grandchildren would be affected by climate change. Now, looking at this evidence, it’s in our own lifetimes.”

Come on Planet Savers, we need to make more noise :>)

The hole in the ozone is big news again. Delegates from 191 countries are meeting in Montreal, Canada this week to take the climate change protocol to its next stage.

I confess, I thought we had knocked this one on the head a long time ago and had learned to produce ‘ozone friendly’ refrigeration units – but I was mistaken.

We’ve eliminated 95% of greenhouse gases since 1987 but we are still belching too much and the economic boom in India and China has upped the demand for air conditioning creating more ozone depleting substances (or ODS) are on the rise. ODS are global warming gases. Odious, indeed!

Let’s hope the world wakes up pretty soon: If the Montreal Protocol gets adopted, use of HCFCs is set to cease in developed countries in 2030 and in developing ones in 2040. But the hole is not likely to heal itself for a further 20 years or more. However, countries there profess support for a more rapid phase-out, the details have yet to be negotiated.

We’ll keep watching…

The over-riding message that seems to be coming through these past few days is: Oh! My gosh, we won’t make the deadline. Be is 2012, 2020, or 2050, everyone is starting to realise that turning off a few lights is not going to be enough.

The Cornish are doing their bit by granting planning approval to Wave Hub, a £28m wave farm project of its coast expected to start producing renewable energy by 2009.

One suggestion is that us Brits start cycling to work instead of using our cars. This will not only help on the pollution front but will also save us taxpayers more than £520m. Actually, this idea has some appeal to me and I would consider pedalling the six miles I travel each day but for one thing. Safety! My route is mostly country lanes and I’ve seen others try it. The way motorists cut them up is rather frightening.

The Lib Dems are suggesting a ban on petrol powered cars by 2040 as part of carbon neutral target for 2050. Sorry, in my book that is way too late. Give us more incentives now and most of us will be happy to change earlier than that. Incentives include things like, better public transport, cleaner and cheaper train rides and, while we are on the subject, how about making efforts on cyclist safety?

I’m sure I am not the only one who would be more than happy to use the train service far more than I do. Whenever I have an appointment that involves covering a fair distance across the country, I check the rail first. If I’m lucky I can get some kind of saver ticket, but if not, I could be facing a bill that runs into three figures just to travel 150 miles.

I would really like to see a lot more planning in the area of transporting these bodies of ours around the country. Since we a probably some way off the convenience of a teleportation system (not sure I could cope with all my molecule being spread out this way – it’s not natural!) why not do away with motorways and replace the carriageways with travelators. We drive on switch off, read a book, see our junction, start the engine and drive off. This will give us safe bonnet to boot travel. Thanks for the applause, I know its ingenious!

Well, it’s nice to see that the US have finally caught up with the rest of the world and worked out that climate change is a fact. Well, 90% certain anyway. Professor John Marburger, an advisor to President Bush reckons the planet will become ‘unliveable’ if we don’t do something about our CO2 emissions.

In line with all the required efforts, General Motors in California is about to install one of the largest solar power installations in corporate use generating half their warehouse requirement.

Interestingly, this story runs alongside an outcry from car manufacturers in Vermont saying that they can’t possibly be expected to reach the exacting standards set by California back in 2002 to wit, cut CO2 emissions by 30% by 2016 – and why? Because they don’t have the technology!

‘Xcuse me? Who are these people? They have until 2016 to do it and they reckon it is impossible? That’s not the message other folk are saying. David Doniger, a senior lawyer with the Natural Resources Defence Council says it rather well: “If the car companies put their engineers to work instead of hiring lawyers, they would already have solved this problem. All the technology that is needed to meet these standards is already on some cars. They simply need to put it on all cars.” See Climate Ark for more on this story.

Any balking on this level looks rather pathetic when you see the other news of the day that the World Conservation Union’s ‘Red List’ now has 16,306 species listed as threatened. That’s 188 more than last year. Not all of this is down to climate change, a lot is due to loss of habitat coz humans have a habit of cutting down trees. Quite often this is to make way for biofuel crops that are supposed to cut CO2 emissions in cars…

Now this one warmed my cockles. The European Parliament announced last week that 433 out of 626 MEPs signed a declaration demanding an end to experiments on great apes and non-human primates in Europe.

OK, so there is nothing legally binding here but we have an indication of the way they are thinking. Our furry cousins have done enough to prove that they are pretty similar to us in so many ways and I know I do now want to be stuck in a cage and experimented upon by crazy people who believe they are in some way more intelligent than me.

I am a firm supporter of the ‘hundredth monkey effect‘. If we get enough people together thinking in a certain way, change will happen. OK, so I’ve yet to get a hundred people reprogrammed in the same way in order to prove it, but I’m a believer :>)

Well, I’m glad to see some progress into the disappearing bees or Colony Collapse Disorder as it is named. They reckon a virus discovered in Israel got over to Australia and then got imported over to the USA. It wasn’t so bad in Australia because they don’t have bees already weakened by the varroa mite.

Someone has managed to put a figure on the threat caused by this lack of bees for pollinating. Since most of our crops rely on the little fellows to, well, crop, experts reckon the crop loss value is in the region of $14.6 billion. Forgive me for guffawing but, didn’t they work out that if we had no bees we would all be wiped out in seven years? Now, how does that compare with $14.6 billion? Let me think. Still, it keeps the accountants happy…

Oh, there’s a great pic of a honey bee with the National Geographic story. The story is also covered in New Scientist