A Green Degree Blog: New Angles On Sustainability

January 7th 2013

Time To Put ‘Context’ Back Into Scientific Reporting: First Stop, Wind Turbines

Before I throw this first post of the new year into top gear, I just want to mention on the side that this isn’t going to be entirely focused on the topic of birds v wind turbines, although of course some of it will, as I’d like to use this opportunity whilst on the subject of context in science, to have a brief but hopefully interesting little poke around in it.

I’m sure many of you have read, or at least heard the debate raging between those who perceive wind turbines to be nothing more than trumped-up avian grinders, doing everything in their power to churn up as many feathered friends of the Earth as they can, or those who, and I’d like to say, with some rationality and understanding of the wider science, believe this to be some seriously outspoken hot air.

The reason I’m choosing to revisit this lovely little topic of conversation is due to a recent article posted in the not-so-environmentally-friendly ‘Spectator’, a well-known paper leaning on the Conservative side of the spectrum, and one which has sparked many angry rebuttals and responses in its time. This one, as I’m sure you can guess already, was aiming to yet again derail our well-earned trust and faith in wind farms worldwide, through the examining of some questionably outdated data on bird and bat deaths in Spain, Germany, Europe and elsewhere, written by what we should rightly assume to be a well-educated and reputable character, Clive Hambler, an Oxford lecturer and graduate in zoology. Seems legit right? Hmmm.

While I do not for one minute want to use this blog as a way to bash this man’s credentials and career, I do want to highlight just one of the biggest issues I, and as you can read in these articles, many others have with his piece; and boy is it a biggy. He’s missing a whole lot of context.

Posted at 10:00am and tagged with: wind, energy, birds, bats, death, anti, environmentalism, species, conservation, media, science, politics, data, context, rational, logical, debate,.

November 26th 2012

The London Climate Forum: The Best Bits (Inc. Talk Of Treason!)

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The London Climate Forum, not something I can honestly say I’d ever heard of prior to joining Imperial College just over 2 months ago, but in many ways, I’m unsure as to how I never got wind of it in the first place. In short, it is a fascinating, insightful and cutting-edge forum which anybody interested in climate and sustainability, even those who aren’t, should endeavour to get involved with.

For those, like me initially, who are not clued up at all on this project, let me provide a brief summary. The London Climate Forum is an entirely student-led and organised conference based within Imperial College, and is the biggest in London, and quite possibly the country in terms of size, attendance and speakers welcomed to the stage. It runs over just two days, Saturday and Sunday, but offers up some serious clout with it’s multiple leading thinkers in the worlds of sustainability, business, policy and academia, all of whom grasp the opportunity to reach out to the new generation of green ‘ecowarriors’ in an attempt to inspire the next big thing(s).

The Forum’s goal? To speak directly to those who are on the frontier of the climate agenda across a wide variety of sectors, whilst entertaining the chance that through events like these, the solutions we so desperately seek in solving climate change may be nurtured within it’s walls. So it’s a modest goal to say the least…but one which we are all highly invested in, and one which was in full swing this weekend as the Forum was expertly carried out.

I wanted to, as succinctly as I feel possible doing, summarise some of the major talking points and stances which the stage was party to over the weekend just past, just to scratch the surface of some of the subjects covered. And trust me, there were many, so bare with me!

Day One

The first day was mostly focused on the present; what the current climate is doing, why it is doing this, what we are currently (mostly not) doing to mitigate it, and how business is adapting to tackle the myriad new challenges such change is bringing about. Two eminent and, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind me saying this, highly outspoken campaigners filled the morning, in the form of Tony Juniper and Tom Burke, the latter part of a panel trio who, combined with the director of our very own Grantham Institute, painted a rather desperate and somewhat depressing picture of a story we all have unfortunately come to know intimately.

October 31st 2012

Reconciling China & The US Over Climate Change, Impossible? Just Improbable

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As part of my seminar work at university recently, we were tasked with acting out a mock debate between China and the United States, as though we were their respective leaders attempting to form an international agreement on climate change and emissions, all COP-like. Three of us were labelled China (me) and the other three the US, and for two weeks we prepared our sides of the argument with the ideas of fairness, equality and discussing topics which are rarely touched upon in the real world.

Now, our goal was to duke it out for 20 minutes or so, each bringing out our biggest guns on the topics of economy, climate policy, energy and poverty, with the ultimate goal of first debating who bore the better position on the global stage, before forming a bilateral framework to bring the rest of the world on board. Easy task eh! But fun nonetheless.

Our lecturer, an environmental barrister who has seen his fair share of global conventions and knows how they work and (mostly) don’t work, and was keen that we focus on one or two key attributes of a fair debate on this topic. Firstly, historical emissions, the idea that a figure can be derived to demonstrate how much greenhouse gas emissions had been accumulated over time by each industrialising country, generally from 1850 until the present. Secondly, the intent to damage, or mens rea, and associated legal issues such as liability were to be included, as these are generally ignored or swept under the rug in the conventions we’ve come to know and hate.

And who do you think holds the crown of the highest historical emissions between the US and China? Why the US of course, by a margin of about 220,000Gt of CO2, maxing out at ~340,000Gt, almost 30% of the entire worldwide past emissions accounted for. China on the other hand is responsible for around 9% of the share, and much of that has been in the last 30-40 years of rampant coal consumption and becoming the ‘manufacturer of the world’, a moniker the US has had much use out of. When you consider what we know of climate science and carbon dioxide today, that fantastically large proportion of emissions resulting from the States puts pretty much everything else into perspective, not least China’s emissions.

China has tried to use this against the US before, claiming that they should pay up for all the dirty CO2 and the years of unabated, joyful economic growth it brought with it; if China is to be expected to slow growth to mitigate climate change, then the US should compensate all those who have and will be affected by that 30% historical share, i.e. the entire planet. When they brought this demand to the table, the US used their secret weapon to shoot it down instantaneously, quickly brushing it out of sight before anything serious came of it. By claiming ignorance effectively, the US leaders merely stated that they could not have possibly known fossil fuel burning was damaging the environment as we now know, and to ask them to pay compensation for anything earlier than, say, the 1980s would be ludicrous. This is despite the fact that we as a society knew these emissions were damaging at least decades earlier, and certainly by the early 1970s, when the wider scientific community began studying the effects of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

Posted at 10:01am and tagged with: us, china, energy, climate, COP, debate, money, global, climate change, science,.

October 20th 2012

The Latest Terror Threat? The ‘Environmental Taliban’…What, What?

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Oh George, we marvel at how you consistently manage to spout something new and controversial, almost on a daily basis. You really are a character I don’t think people will be forgetting for some time to come, be that for better (unlikely) or for worse. So what has he done now? That’s if you haven’t already stumbled across the latest gobsmackingly stupid comment from the man who has simultaneously managed to upset both the wider public, most of the UK government including his own Party (22% of Tory’s voted for him out in a recent poll), the EU and most of the powerful energy industry players out there, and all roughly within a week or two. Amazing.

Mr. Osborne has now begun referring to those within Parliament who are campaigning for greener futures and a strong climate agenda as the ‘environmental Taliban’, in a stunningly short-sighted comment no doubt directed at Ed Davey and his keen followers, who in most cases are the majority of the public who know a thing or two about clean energy. It would seem that environmentalists have now moved on from being a Satanic cult (no joke, this was a real thing said by a real US political speaker) worshipping the devil that is the Earth/Gaia, and are now a group of radicals akin to dangerous terrorists. And he’s Chancellor of the Exchequer? Satan save us.

This name-calling comes at a very sensitive period for the entirety of UK energy policy, which is, for lack of a better phrase, a complete shambles, primarily driven by Osborne and his cohort of Tory followers who variously are either anti-wind, solar or renewables, and pro-offshore and fracking. Even if he meant the ‘Taliban’ reference as a joke, there will undoubtedly be people out there who do not take it so, and by extending his terminology to environmentalists as a whole, he’s including a huge number of people who believe climate change is real, we are responsible for the majority and that low-carbon is the only real solution. Hence why protests and Twitter campaigns such as #greenisworking have exploded in favour of condemning his actions (I’ve even seen one called #killgeorgeosborne, which is a likelihood seeming ever more likely…).

According to reports, the comment came as Ed Davey desperately attempts to push through a binding emissions cap on power plants for 2030, as well as clarifying legislation on the approaching switch to ‘contracts for difference’, a policy which aims to lock in value for renewable projects and promote low-carbon development, with the Treasury fronting the responsibility of guaranteeing support. Of course, Osborne doesn’t like this idea, and is rapidly becoming an aura of clean-tech skepticism and a loss of interest in decarbonising the grid, and as many fear, a reflection of the general Tory party backbench’s opinion.

Instead, Osborne has long rallied for a ‘dash for gas’, whereby abundances in domestic natural shale gas could be exploited to lower energy costs and secure resources for the future, a notion no doubt triggered by the explosion in gas extraction and a tumbling in energy costs over in America. While the idea of energy security and low costs are his way of appealing to a nation where 9% gas bill hikes are almost common place and keeping the house lit is becoming increasingly painful on the wallet, there are some rather major flaws in his plan.

Posted at 9:21am and tagged with: george osborne, Environment, taliban, energy, debate, policy, politics, ed davey, UK, parliament, Cameron, big six, coal, gas, fracking, oil, wind, solar, tidal, money, terror, green, jobs, PTC, US, Tory, climate, clean, low-carbon, Earth,.

June 20th 2012

Rio+20: One Big Melee Of Motives & Morals Going Nowhere

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Let me just start this post by explicitly stating my views on the upcoming Rio+20 convention, set to kick off later today in Brazil, which may hold the keys to a future radically different from our current one, either for the bad or good. I wholeheartedly hope and wish that something good comes from this meeting of leaders, that a proper binding agreement, with goals, punishments and harsh realities, one that actually kicks our lazy society into gear truly does rise from the ashes and usher in a new day; I would love nothing more than for this to be accomplished, and I have always thought this.

However, whilst hoping for this, I believe in an entirely different outcome - that nothing useful, meaningful or optimistic will result from Rio+20, or any future global event, and that not only will it simply prove to be a stage for multiple nations to bicker and fight for three days straight, but will also prove to give nothing towards to the future we want.

I nurture this gut feeling from past experience and current knowledge of the structure of such conventions on environments, energy and development. Most, if not all of the past +whatever conventions have resulted in absolutely squat, with the Kyoto Protocol the only real agreement I’ve seen which may have actually made a difference to our global society, and even that is set to die this winter without any hope of a successor. Add to this the fact that multiple powerful nations, of which I feel I do not have to name, have continually proven to be like children stubbornly refusing to go to bed, blocking all hope of a unifying agreement on anything from carbon emissions to green job investment. None of this has changed this year.

In my opinioin, when Rio+20 finally opens it’s door to its many leaders and closes it behind them, all that will proceed will be a mad scramble to see who can shout the loudest, point the straightest finger and pull the angriest face. Think of it this way; when you have some of the most powerful people in the current political and economical sphere, all whom harbour untold morals, ethics, hidden motives and plans under their bonnets, and who have all their life grown up not listening to others but actively seeking to control them, it is daft not to think nothing whatsoever will be accomplished. Continuing with this notion, it is not hard to stretch the imagination to the point where it is simply children fighting over a candy bar.

To take us back down to earth once again, consider this approach. Some leaders will want clear goals on emission reductions, such as Europe and Japan, some want advances in renewable energy investment and green sector growth, some want CCS and natural has to take centre stage, whilst others simply want to end the whole thing there and then and go back to their fossil fuel rich lands without legal requirement to stop pillaging them. You cannot expect to put so many powerful voices against one another and expect a resoundingly democratic response to come out of it, and that is the horribly unfortunate truth of the matter, one I’ve tried to ignore for so long.

Thinking along these lines, it staggers me to think how anything ever got done through this mass gathering process, and yet progress of a small calibre has been made in some areas. REDD+ was at least recognised and drafted in the mid-noughties, Kyoto set tough but realistic emission goals and the backing of giants such as US and China finally came on board to at least listen to the rest of the world in the past several conventions. These made future gathering look like ever closer to the final ‘this is it’ moment, when a real, legally binding, sustainable agreement would be ratified by all involved. But here lies the problem. Every time one fails to achieve what it set out to do so, everyone simply shouts that the next one is when it will really happen, and that waiting another year for something to result is perfectly acceptable, despite the ravaging the environment undergoes during this time.

This time however is looking just as bleak as the last, with many nations causing trouble across the entire board. The US has effectively rewritten the initial draft in favour of vague terms and practically pointless prose, whilst the UK has ruined its own climate policies and energy roadmaps with slashes in prices and restrcutrings entirely unnecessary. Couple this with the current economic crisis, elections and Euro woes keeping Obama and Cameron from even attending the talks, and highly destructive logging and fossil fuel practices in Brazil, the host nation for the damn convention, and we have a perfect storm of absolutely zero progress in any direction.

Despite this, there is perhaps a glimmer of hope. This year, the talks are party to the first attempt by a globalised social network of concerned citizens and supporters to actively influence decisions on the global stage. The endfossilfuelsubsidies Twitterstorm, Avaaz, 350, Rio+Social and multiple other outlets have all acted together to slam home how much this means to the global society, and that we desperately want our voices heard by each and every leader.

Alongside this, more and more nations now recognise the extreme threat that warming climates, rising seas, carbon emissions and biome degradation really carry, and with the science only getting stronger, there is less room for them to squirm around in and avoid the real issues. Perhaps, with a determined and combined pincer attack by the socially active public and the obvious knowledge that we have screwed with our planet for too long, something may actually come from Rio+20, just something.

I’m certainly not thinking of anything truly legally binding and goal-setting, but just maybe, a draft which demonstrates that our global leaders, the rich who hold the power to change how we treat this world, have listened for once, and considered what their public have to say. For me personally, a true decision on redirecting fossil fuel subsidies into renewable investment is my highest of priorities. The only thing that rides higher than this, is that we finally realise that by flunking this convention, we cannot hope to believe the next one will be ‘it’, because it won’t be. We are rapidly running out of time for these events to be occurring, so something must be done now.

Posted at 10:17am and tagged with: Rio+20, Rio, Rioplusocial, Debate, Economy, Politics, Ban ki moon, UN, China, US, emissiions, Fossil fuels, Energy, Global, Development, Future we want, Subsidies, Carbon, Future, Sustainability, Twitter,.