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A couple of months ago, on a bit of a whim, I bought an Efergy energy meter from Nigel’s Eco Store. It’s an electricity “smart meter”, designed to display your live consumption, as well as provide a weekly and monthly historical reading, in various metrics: kWh, CO2 and £.
A current meter clips around the live [...]

On Thursday evening I went to the Friends Meeting House on Euston Road, for a public meeting entitled “How can we win the race against climate catastrophe?” It was a well attended event, run by the Campaign against Climate Change, with George Monbiot, John Sauven (Director of Greenpeace UK), Claire Fauset (Camp for Climate Action) [...]

I just saw a fantastic advert on TV this morning for the Government’s Act on CO2 campaign.

As the camera tracks a number of people going about their daily lives (washing, driving, etc), it slowly becomes clear that there is something wrong… Their footsteps are leaving behind black goo. As the folky twangs of The Kinks [...]

To my MP.
Dear Cheryl Gillan,
As I’m sure you’re aware, climate change is the greatest threat to our planet. Statistics from a parliamentary question in 2004 indicate that flights release approximately nine times more CO2 than rail travel [1], and have a much more damaging effect (estimated at 2.7 times [2]) due to their release height [...]

I dropped into Generic Supermarket A on Sunday to grab a bottle of water. As usual when presented to a vast array of essentially the same thing, I froze. During this freeze I noticed a few bottles near the top of the shelf, claiming to be good for penguins.

Belu is a mineral water company making [...]

I’m a bit behind on this, but last Thursday Channel 4 showed ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’. It laid out an argument that all this climate change talk is a load of nonsense, all caused due to solar activity, and paraded some scientists from reputable organisations that agreed.
Unfortunately I missed the programme, but my housemate [...]

So, the IPCC report came out today, and there was much doom and gloom to be had. The Guardian also had a piece about how ExxonMobil have been trying to buy off scientists for $10K a pop.
Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest [...]

A wheel of the climate change denial wagon came off yesterday at Congress’ hearing on the Bush administration’s tampering with the work of climate scientists.
At a hearing of Congress, scientists and advocacy groups described a campaign by the White House to remove references to global warming from scientific reports and limit public mention of the [...]

Just in case you didn’t get the memo, we’ve got less than 10 years to to save the world.
The stark warning comes from scientists who are working on the final draft of a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The report, due to be published this week, will draw together the work [...]

Just to clear up some misinformation about the carbon dioxide impact of various types of travel in the UK.
London to Manchester

CO2 emissions
per passenger
per journey (kg)

Aviation
44.9

Rail (Class 90—modern electric train)
5.2

Car
36.6

Coach
4.3

Lorry (per tonne)
60.4

London to Edinburgh

CO2 emissions
per passenger
per journey (kg)

Aviation
96.4

Rail (Class 91—modern high speed electric train)
11.9

Car
71.0

Coach
9.2

Lorry (per tonne)
116.9

The source is the answer of a parliamentary question in 2004.

I’ve just finished reading George Monbiot’s book ‘Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning‘. In it, he explores, using the UK as a model, how the world can reduce it’s carbon output by 90% before 2030, the currently believed ‘tipping point’ for irreversible damage.
He explores various aspects of our lives that output carbon, such as [...]

Hurrah!
A generation of environmental activists is set to emerge from Scotland’s schools after it was agreed every pupil in the country will hear Al Gore’s “powerful message” about the dangers of climate change. The Scottish Executive announced yesterday - as the former US vice president flew in to Glasgow to address business people, environmentalists and [...]

I’m currently reading George Monbiot’s book ‘Heat’, exploring ways we can actually make a 90% reduction in carbon emissions (which is what’s needed by 2030) without destroying our comfortable lives. I’ll reserve comments and opinion until I’ve finished, but I’m a big fan of Monbiot’s work, and seems like a well thought out and supported [...]

If you’ve paid any attention to the news today you might have spotted that M&S are winning the supermarket eco-brinkmanship game at the moment, with their announcement of a £200 million plan to do good shit. It looks like a good start (albeit quite late), with even Greenpeace and WWF grudgingly agreeing it’s a step [...]

Useful information about how to talk to a climate skeptic, including typical denialist arguments.

I finally got round to seeing An Inconvenient Truth this weekend. For those who haven’t stumbled across it, here’s a quick synopsis. For the last 8 years Al Gore has been jobless. He’s been going round the world performing a lecture about climate change, and now he’s turned it into a film. It’s no romcom, [...]

I was going to write an entry about this, but it made me too angry, and I didn’t have anything to say about it that didn’t seem rediculously obvious. Do watch the videos though, if you can (the server seems a bit dodgy).
But this… this is awesome…

… for about 10 minutes, and then you’ll wish [...]

I can’t really remember if I blogged about The Perfect T-shirt before. The concept is… a company called Better Thinking decides they want to make the most ethical t-shirt possible, and sell it. They consult with experts, ask for opinions, write a blog and generally put lots of resources into making it the best they [...]