We are now in a state of Planetary Emergency

Glaciers melting faster:

The world’s glaciers are melting at rates faster than at any time since records began and at any time in the past 5,000 years, according to Professor Haeberli, director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service. Arctic ice melting has now reached a level that the IPCC (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change) and the Stern Report and other climate scientists didn’t predict would happen until the 2080s. The details are revealed in the latest report from the World Glacier Monitoring Service and will add to growing concern about the rise in sea levels and increased flooding, avalanches and droughts.

Experts have been monitoring 30 glaciers around the world since the 1980s and the most recent figures, for 2006, show the biggest ever 'net loss' of ice. Lester Brown, of the US-based Earth Policy Institute, said the problem would have global ramifications, as farmers in China and India struggled to irrigate their crops. “This is the biggest predictable effect on food security in history as far as I know,” said Lester Brown, which echoes what Vandana Shiva said at Cirencester Home Farm last Friday evening - that within 2 years we will be experiencing world-wide food shortages... time to start that allotment...

Slo-Travel to Munich

Last week I returned from visiting my childhood friend in Munich on a coach - or rather two coaches: The first was from Cheltenham (see above photo of me on my return!) and the second was a Eurolines coach from London Victoria to Munich via Brussels. The two coaches together took 23 hours each way so included two nights on a coach. The two journeys themselves were more like an adventure than a journey and I was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable they were.

George Monbiot recommends coach travel as having the lowest carbon footprint and this is the reason I chose to visit my friend by coach. Travelling this way meant I added an extra 200 kilograms of carbon (0.2 tonnes of carbon) to my annual carbon allowance of 1 tonne for personal carbon use, as opposed to the extra 600 kilograms of carbon (0.6 tonnes of carbon) I would have used had I flown - so I used a third of the carbon going by coach that I would have used if I had gone by plane.

I asked some of my fellow passengers their reasons for choosing slo-travel and all of them said it was because this option was cheapest. However, for me this was not the cheapest or most convenient option but the best option for the planet for those times when you really do have to travel to another country.

Week of Action against Agrofuels

Local campaigners staged a protest outside Tesco's petrol station last Saturday 26th January to highlight Tesco's use of biofuel in their petrol because Tesco are the biggest retailer of biofuels in the UK. Tesco also own a 25% stake in Greenergy, who claim to be the biggest supplier of biofuels in the UK. In case any of you have missed the latest Government and media reports on biofuel use, the basic facts are that biofuels are worse for the climate than fossil fuels because they are derived from monoculture crops of palm oil, soya and sugar cane - all grown in the tropics on land that used to be rainforests. Even in Europe, the most efficient crop for biofuels, which is rapeseed oil, has now been shown to have greenhouse gas emissions of up to 70% higher than fossil fuels. Biofuels not only create climate change, they require massive amounts of water, reduce soil quality and are linked to human rights abuses, biodiversity loss and issues over food security.

Biofuel is all about industry and business and making money out of climate change - it is NOT about reducing emissions, so is yet another wrong turn.

We need to rethink our addiction to economic growth before it's too late....

More flooding in Gloucestershire...

And so it goes on....

Increasingly I find myself not just at odds with the current economic and cultural philosophies of our time, but I am fast realising that all the solutions to the global environmental crisis facing us that are proposed from WITHIN those systems are completely INADEQUATE. We need REAL SOLUTIONS that come from OUTSIDE the current systems and economic philosophies...

Gloucestershire flooded again yesterday...

'We are armed... only with peer-reviewed science'

Climate Camp -
the birth of Hope

Climate Camp this week was exactly that - the birth of HOPE for the future of humanity and the future of the Planet... hats off to all those amazing people who managed to set up the camp despite injunctions and heavy-handed policing and to those who made the mass day of Action on Sunday 19th / Monday 20th such a success... you are all Climate Heroes.

Biblical Floods:

When are we going to start building the Ark?

Didn't it feel like the earth was crying yesterday?

At Last - the Solution - Zerocarbonbritain !

The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) today released ‘zerocarbonbritain', a blueprint for Britain to reduce its carbon emissions to zero by 2027. The report draws on CAT's 35 years of experience as well as consultations with world-renowned experts in climate science, climate policy and renewable energy technologies. Zerocarbonbritain outlines a framework of policies to drive the transition to a zero carbon economy. It defines a global carbon budget and identifies an equitable portion for Britain.

Paul Allen, CAT Development Director and co-author said, “What we are saying is that we need a huge programme, a bit like the US space project in the 60s. When that was launched it was known to be a huge target, but the driving force to make it work was there. We think that zerocarbonbritain can do that again - it can give us a positive future. It is a political challenge but we had the political willpower to abolish slavery even though lots of people said that would cost the economy too much."

Sir John Houghton, former Co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Director General of the UK Met Office said, “The authors of zerocarbonbritain present a time-scale for action that begins now. I commend their imagination (coupled with realism), their integrated view and their sense of urgency, as an inspiration to all who are grappling with the challenge that climate change is bringing to our world.”

Britain could cut carbon emissions to zero in 20 years but only if people accept a virtual end to air travel and stop using fuel-driven cars, a report said. Meat would also need to disappear off many menus and an "armada" of wind turbines built around the coast to achieve the goal, says the new research. Money would meanwhile be overtaken in importance by carbon credits traded by everyone using special smart cards. The radical vision was put forward by researchers and scientists from the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT).

People would be given their own carbon credits called Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs) and carry them on the environmental equivalent of the London transport Oyster card. Each year the free allocation would decrease as the country moves towards zero carbon, with the effect that the value of the quotas will go up. But every time consumers use fossil fuels, say by filling their cars up with petrol, they would lose these valuable credits, forcing them to choose low carbon alternatives. The resulting market would drive environmental change, providing the economic incentive to produce green products.