A failure to reduce CO2

Just after the new year I calculated my carbon footprint, and I came out as producing up to five and half tonnes of carbon dioxide. I say up to as it depended upon what site I visited and it ranged from two and half tonnes to four and half tonnes using these sites. However I did my own calculations and included all the hidden CO2 that these sites often exclude and five and half tonnes is a figure that I would say is most accurate.

That is more than half of the average in Britain and nearly a fifth of the average American who emits a whopping twenty-five tonnes of CO2 per year.

Therefore I know that I am doing as much as I can to use only what I need. If I had more money I know I could do more. There are no convenient outlets to buy local food for me. Those that are around require me to travel there adding to my travel and carbon costs. Add to that often the price of produce at the Farmers markets etc is extortionate. While I am prepared to pay for quality, the prices are not reflective of any fair trade. The farmers criticise the supermarkets for excessive profits and can have mark ups of four or five hundred percent upon the price that the farmer gets paid. So why then is it right for farmers to then try charging, in some cases, double the price the supermarkets charge?

Equally I am trying really hard to not use plastic bags or any plastic packaging at all. But it is nearly impossible to buy goods without loads of plastic. As one of the shops in the UK, Marks & Spencer's announces that its going to start charging for plastic bags as a way of reducing the 1700,000,000 that we in the UK use each year, it makes me realise just how far we have to move to stop the effects of pollution and climate change.

Therefore, it did not surprise me that the big switch off day produced no noticeable effect. Those people like me who take climate change seriously are already doing what they can. And while locally I have helped a small number of people towards reducing their energy bills, I know that none of them would have done anything if it had not been for a hike in gas and electricity costs here. Further not one of them really cares about the environment.

Even many of the people who say they care about the environment and global warming still drive cars and must have their holidays in the sun, taking flights, as well as consuming all the latest gadgets. These people loose their concern for our planet as soon as it starts to impact upon their way of life or their freedom to pollute.

Then there is the hard core majority that don't care at all. Or delude themselves that some technological fix will come along and we can do all the things we have always done, and us environmentalists are just doom and gloom merchants.

While I am a pragmatist and realise that we do need lighting heat and power, there is so much that we could be doing. Take plastic bags as one example; around the globe we use one point two trillion of these per year. If we stopped using plastic bags that would save the equivalent of twelve million flights from Heathrow London to JFK New York. That's 12,000,000 all those zeros. That simple action alone would save well over four hundred million tonnes of CO2 per year.

Recently I have been talking to a tree about Low energy light bulbs. She posted on her Blog about mercury vapour in the bulbs. I pointed out that the amount was minuscule and there is no real danger from them, yet products like these need to be recycled and disposed of properly. However, the real point is we all need light and as these bulbs are much more energy efficient we should all be using them. As well as turning off lights that are not needed.

It will not be until we clearly see the effects of Climate Change that the majority of people will even start to take action. By then it will be to late. Sir David King the former chief scientist in the UK said that Global Warming was a greater threat than Terrorism, on that he was spot on.
The reality is that unless we all stop polluting we will all suffer. Not only that we will make our children suffer. While there are many projects that are aimed at reducing CO2 emissions, we all need to reduce our CO2 emissions by changing our behaviour.

Further reading on the switch off day

Closing Down Four Coal Fired Power Stations

Yesterday, because of the poor weather forecast, I decided I would do my shopping early. Following my previous comments about wanting to avoid the chemical contamination of my foods by the “Food Industry” I have been using up more of the ingredient, stock and store cupboard items that I always keep, so I knew that this would be a big shop. At times like this I keep on saying I should hire myself out as a pack horse.

Sticking to my resolve of avoiding anything that would be better suited to a chemical factory, I loaded up my trolley. I knew it was not going to be a cheap trip, but even I was surprised when the bill came in at under forty pounds. Normally when I have to restock its over fifty.

So while its not yet proof, it does look as though avoiding processed foods is cheaper. Nor had I stinted on quality or quantity. But I had looked for any bargains. One of those bargains that I got was a Brisket of Beef, that was reduced because of a short sell by date. While I prefer to use the butchers, a joint of properly matured, 21 day, British beef was not one I was going to miss out on. And as I write, I am happily digesting the first meal this produced.

The other item that I bought was a Chicken from the high welfare standard range. Normally I would only buy free range, but I wanted to make a statement to the supermarket, that I will only buy chickens, or any meat for that matter, that comes from a high welfare standard. I also noted that the “Standard” low welfare birds have actually gone up in price. Further, the supermarket has signs up saying that following the television programmes, that they were striving to meet the increased demand for the higher welfare standard chickens, but there was now a shortage. Coincidently when I got home I made some enquires and discovered that the price rise on the “Standard” low welfare birds was forced upon them partly by farmers who are now earning triple from each bird, up from three pence to nine pence, but more importantly from customers who were appalled by the fact that the supermarkets were only paying the farmers third world prices.

Back at the supermarket, as Consett is situated at the top of a hill, it gets quite battered by the weather, and the high winds were battering us yesterday. However, while waiting for the bus to get back home, I spotted a bird that I surprised to see a Great Bustard. I wished I had had my camera with me, but with all this shopping to carry...

That was not the only pleasant surprise I had either as when I got back home I took my recycling to the recycling point and discovered that the council has installed a new bin for plastics. It has long been frustrating that plastics the biggest polluter and the greatest volume in most peoples bins, is not recycled. Finally it is happening.

Then to top all this, I got a phone call. As I mentioned in a previous posting, I helped one woman in the village reduce her electricity bills. Suddenly with the substantial rise in gas and electricity prices people are starting to see the wisdom of reducing energy consumption. I was being asked to help a small group of five women who were trying to reduce their bills. So today I went and had a chat with them.

The first comment I had to make was just how hot it was, in this woman's home. Granted it was blowing a blizzard outside, it was boiling in the house and everyone was wearing tee shirts. So the first thing I suggested was that everyone put on a jumper. The woman who was hosting this symposium said; “Oh no need I will just turn the heating up”

By explaining that it a lot cheaper to put on a jumper (American translation: Sweater) than racking up the heating they could all save up to forty percent off their heating bills, suddenly they could see the point. For example one woman last year had a winter quarter gas bill of over four hundred pounds. She is still paying this off. So reducing her bill by one third or more would make a real difference to her and her family.

The real shock was that all of these women had each got two low energy light bulbs but had not fitted them. One of the tabloid papers here, I will not name one of Rupert Murdock's trashy papers here, on 19th January gave away four and half million low energy light bulbs. All of them had these twin packs, but none had bin fitted. So I did a trail around fitting light bulbs. I gave some other advice but I am amazed at how people don't seem to be able to do the obvious things. I know that this is all small scale but little by little people are realising the value of saving energy even if only to save money.

However, the real story here is that in this consumer give away, if all those bulbs were fitted, in one year alone it would stop three thousand five hundred tonnes of CO2 going up into the atmosphere. Even more staggering is if we all changed to low energy bulbs we would reduce energy consumption by the equivalent of closing four coal fired power stations.

So why not change your bulbs today?

Save the Cow, Save The World

Recently the militant vegetarian organisations, Viva, were saying that the way to solve Climate Change was to stop eating meat and to switch to a completely vegetarian diet.

As I used to be a vegetarian I wanted to look at the data, as it seemed that if what they were saying was correct then I may have missed something. However, while I some sympathy for what they are saying, I do feel that we do eat to much meat, the science is not only flawed it is wrong. Further, they are trying to push their animal rights agenda on the back of climate change. Also while anyone changing their diet to a vegetarian one will not do themselves any harm, the organisation, Viva, will harm the environment as anyone following their agenda will be distracted from the actions that really need to be taken.

At the heart of their claim is the myth regarding the methane that cattle and ruminants produce. More than once in the media here in the UK, mainly the tabloid press it has to be said, Climate Change has been blamed on farting cows. While it is true that bovines produce methane as part of their digestive process, most of it is released via belching. Further while methane is twenty times stronger as a greenhouse gas than Carbon dioxide, it doesn’t stay in the atmosphere.

If this was the cause for Climate change then when the buffalo herds were slaughtered in the North American plains then we should have suffered a global cooling. Also we used to use horses as the main form of motive and agricultural power and again they produce methane too. The simple fact is that while there is to much methane released into the atmosphere, it is not the cause or a major contributor to climate change. Any methane released today will be lost to the vacuum of space in five to ten years.

The difficulty with the approach that Viva want is that if everyone did stop eating meat, there would then be sixty billion animals extra to feed. That’s how many are killed for food each year. I suspect that if there was a great change in diet from meat that these animals would suffer. Also good traditional agricultural practice needs the manure and waste from livestock to fertilise the land to produce the vegetated crops. Without animal fertilisers then more polluting artificial fertilisers would be used.

What I find frustrating with so many of these organisations that are trying to push their agenda is that they miss the point. We all need to drastically change what we do. These organisations fool people into thinking that if they just do that one thing they will be doing all they can. However, we all need to do many things. We need to always think about the environmental impact of everything we do.

Also we do need to be cynical about the companies and businesses that are trying to “sell” us their product(s) as the solution. Nor should we allow ourselves be fooled by green-washing, companies that claim to be acting environmentally but are only doing what looks good. Its like Airlines who claim they are carbon offsetting, while planting trees and taking other measures to mitigate the carbon dioxide is useful, it is not the solution. The only real solution is to stop adding to the CO2 in the atmosphere by stopping consuming and only travelling when needed.

Good News Bad News

When this Mouse switched on his computer this morning, there were two news stories that caused my whiskers to twitch. The first was that Kevin Rudd the new Australian prime minister had as his first action after being sworn in has ratified (signed) the Kyoto Protocol. That leaves only the US as the only major developed country not to have signed the treaty.

All this is happening just as government representatives are meeting in Bali to discus what follows Kyoto. While it is taking time, little by little, politicians around the world are finally taking the issues of climate change seriously. I have even noticed that in the media they are no longer referring to the process as Global Warming, but are calling it Climate Change. As calling it global warming makes it sound like a jolly nice thing to happen, I am glad to see that the media is finally taking the matter seriously.

Then I came across this story:

The Story on the BBC

An investigation has revealed that some airlines are flying longer routes to avoid paying higher Air Traffic Control fees. In doing so they are burning (Wasting) more Fuel and creating an extra three tones of CO2 per flight. That’s six extra tones for each aircraft in every round trip, all this to save a whopping ninety-nine pounds sterling.

The airlines in question say that they do it to maintain schedules, but if the Air Traffic Controllers didn’t have to adjust flight and holding patterns to accommodate aircraft like these coming in via the back door, there would be no delays.

Until we have people and industries thinking and acting in an environmentally responsible way, we all face the effects of the irresponsible.

Business as usual for Bush on Climate Change

One of the greatest difficulties for all of us in our attempts to tackle climate change is the lack of political leadership, especially from the largest polluters. While not the largest population the change of leadership in Australia will be good news in tackling climate pollution.

However while US president Bush has finally been acknowledging that climate change is a problem, events this week shows that the Bush Government intends to do nothing to reduce the Carbon-dioxide emissions from the US. Here in the UK, in the Financial Times, the leading business and financial publication, a conglomerate of international businesses, in a two-page advert, called for leadership in dealing with climate change. The response from the white house was simple, the US will not do anything to cap CO2 emissions and it, the bush government, can not even say when the US will be able to start reducing its carbon footprint.

The science and the evidence is so compelling now that, international business people realise that real action has to be taken. The difficulty is that unless the US, the largest economy in the world, takes political action and tackles climate change then business can’t plan for the investment in a low carbon future.

While there are some businesses that are making the effort, if we have a large economy like the US that refuses to impose regulation, then those businesses will loose money and or profits. Put simply the people that make the effort will always be undercut by the most polluting countries. In some ways this problem is similar to the way that manufacturing has chased the low wages in china. However, unlike this chasing of low wages, governments like the US allowing carbon pollution to occur will kill all industry.

The greatest problem is that oil men like Bush see climate change as an advantage as it is allowing access to the vast oil and gas deposits that are untapped in the artic circle. Further, the US Japan China and the EU are all looking to the probability of mining helium three on the moon, as a new wonder fuel. That is why there is a new moon race and why so many countries are rushing to land men on the moon again. The carbon footprint from these enterprises are vast and will mean that we will seriously damage our climate in trying to obtain this new fuel for an unproven technology.

Further, the US bush government; in particular, assume that the loss of the sea ice will not be that serious for the climate. However that is based upon a false assumption and reliant upon out of date science. In the last five years the unexpected acceleration in the melting of the sea ice has allowed the Greenland Ice cap to start melting. It is loosing up to 150 cubic kilometres of melt water per year. Further this is increasing and this water is flowing into the sea.

Also the Greenland Ice Cap is suffering from cracks and crevices opening up on the suffice of this vast glacier. This means that lakes of melt water that form in the summer are draining down to the bedrock where it is lubricating the flow of the Ice. But this melt water doesn’t re-freeze during the winter as just as happens in a pond or lake the ice on top insulates the water and stops it from freezing. All this is making the three kilometre thick glacier that is the Greenland Ice Cap very unstable.

It will not take a lot for this ice to break up. Scientists are monitoring the Ice and recording the vibrations of the cracking up of this glacier, known as Ice quakes, they occur every twenty minutes. There is an inevitability that sooner rather than later there will be a large area of this glacier will calf and slip into the sea. This will raise sea levels.

Further, any sizeable earthquake nearby could provide the trigger to allow very sizeable chunks of the Ice cap to slide into the sea. This could trigger Tidal waves as well as a sudden and substantial rise in sea levels. What makes this scenario even more disturbing is that the trigger is already in place. Mount St Helens in the US, an active volcano has a bulging plug in its calderas, and when that blows, the quakes and vibrations from that could well be all that it takes to see the glacier slip into the sea.

This is not something that will happen in some mythical time years hence, but within the next four to five years. I just hope that when it happens it finally shocks the US government into taking action on climate change.

I make a clear distinction here between the American people who want action taken on climate change and the Government who have their head in the sand.

Unhealthy Skies

While I know that some of my readers think I “Bang On” about Climate Change far too much, it is the greatest threat we face. This Article on the BBC website should send a chill down all our backs. It contains a warning by Nobuo Tanaka, the Executive director of the International Energy Agency; he is warning that our energy demands are outstripping resources. However it is the figures quoted about the current global CO2 emissions that are most frightening. In 2005 they were 27 giga-tonnes! That is 27 trillion, trillion tonnes of new CO2 released into our air that year. I say new but its really old carbon that our planet locked away millions of years ago.

We are rapidly returning our home world back to the primeval first stages of life. The result will be that most of the Fauna and Flora will not survive, and Homo sapiens will become a footnote in the evolutionary history of our planet.

The BBC Article

Mass Extinction and Climate Change

When I saw the headline of this story on the BBC web site, I thought this is not news, the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) have already reported that we will have up to a forty percent loss of species as a direct result of this man made pollution we call climate change. However, this research is new and marks an important change in the attitude of scientists. Previously the language used “Hedged the Bets” and spoke of what was theoretically possible rather than what was actually happening.

Part of the problem in dealing with the man made pollution that is climate change, is a psychological one. In the past we have seen pollution as localised, and no matter how bad it got, when action was finally taken, the environment improved and the problem dissipated. Even with acid rain as that was a regional problem, in Europe for example, when Europeans acted collectively the situation reversed. And while there still is some sulphur pollution that is causing acid rain, it is relatively negligible.

With Climate Change, we can not see (or at least some can) that there is anything we can do, as we psychologically assume that there is no point as China or India or what ever other country we want to use as an excuse, are not doing the same. What is needed is leadership, and that should be coming from America and Europe. As the USA is the biggest polluter, producing 24 tonnes of CO2 per head of population they should be taking the lead here.

But the problem is that everyone is hoping for that technological fix, that mythical grail of pollution free energy. As a planet we have squandered our energy resources. We have allowed a culture that is so reliant upon oil to develop that we are prepared to fight wars for access to it, and allowed our whole way of life to become dominated by the automobile. The problem is that to power our way of life we are burning billions of tonnes of oil and releasing all the carbon dioxide that the planet sequestrated away back into the atmosphere.

What this new research shows is that while climate change has naturally occurred in the past, and effected the biodiversity of our planet, our current man made driven warming of the globe could wipe out most of the life on our home world. That as I am sick of having to point out includes us.

If we lost important pollinators like bees how long would we last? That’s not a rhetorical question, but fortunately minds far better than mine have already done the research and tell us that we would last only six years. We would loose our ability to grow over ninety percent of our food. That is what mass extinction will do to us.

Even now when there are clear signs of the effects of Climate Change in the forest fires in California, we still do nothing. Unless we act now, if we survive, we will become the most hated generation of humans within our children’s history.

The BBC Article

Catching Up

Today and part of yesterday I have been playing catch up. I have been so busy out of the house, that even my cat, was asking who I was when I came in. So it was down to all the boring housework bits. However, because of where I am living as I hung my washing out on the line, I saw two of the Red Kites glide over in the distance. It even made me feel less peeved at having to do the housework.

In between doing essential bits around the house I have been trying to catch up on some emails and letters, so if anyone is expecting a message from the mouse it will be coming, soon…

Its not all been hard work though and I did get some time for a stroll That’s when I saw this Phaeoulus schweinitzeii although I took this image off it a few weeks ago. I was surprised it was still there, as frequently the kids destroy any of the fruiting bodies of fungi they see.

Because I was playing catch up, I was able to find the time to read some of my friends Blog's, and one made an interesting point. Because of where she lives, it sounds like a paradise the way she writes about it; she has to use wood as her fuel. However, it concerns her that it adds to her carbon footprint.

The simple answer is no it doesn’t, as it is part of a closed carbon cycle loop. The tree grows, capturing carbon, which is only released when it is burnt.

However, it is a little more complex than that as that carbon that is released will be around for about fifty years before it is reabsorbed. Thus while it still is that closed carbon cycle it is the timescale that prevents the answer being simple. This is also why carbon offsetting is so unrealistically simplistic.

This is where people pay for trees to be planted as a salve for their conscience when they jet off on holiday. Even if everyone did that from now on it would not be for fifty to seventy five years that those trees would start to have any impact upon carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

The real problem with burning any fuel is understanding its source. If that fuel was produced using the suns energy from the last couple of centuries, then it is part of a closed loop carbon cycle. With using the suns energy stored in fossil fuels is that it old energy and ancient carbon, that became locked away to provide the breathable atmosphere we have to day.

By releasing that old carbon we are changing the atmosphere back to a state when life barely existed. Not forgetting that plants were first, we are in danger of wiping out all animal life on the planet.