Environment

UK Gives Big OK to Massive Wind Farms

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

ure-2.pngThe UK is going to expand their wind farms so that half of their energy will come from wind. Interestingly, they are taking a purely economically-driven take on this. I hope that people like Harper and Bush will soon start to notice that saving the planet creates jobs and helps create an economy that can prosper; after all, the Brits are doing it.

“The UK is now the number one location for investment in offshore wind in the world and next year we will overtake Denmark as the country with the most offshore wind capacity.

“This could be a major contribution towards meeting the EU’s target of 20% of energy from renewable sources by 2020.”

Hutton made clear the scale of the plans. The “first round” of offshore wind farms, in 2001, comprised a few small demonstration projects. The “second round” in 2003 limited development to the Thames estuary, the Greater Wash and the northwest.

And the BBC reports on the wind farm:

Business Secretary John Hutton says he wants to open up British seas to allow enough new turbines – up to 7,000 – to power all UK homes by the year 2020.

He acknowledged “it is going to change our coastline”, but said the issue of climate change was “not going away”.

The Truth About Recycling

- Adam Clare 10 Comments

The Economist looks into the truth about recycling and they have discovered some neat things. Of course, there are some complications with recycling, and it’s important to remind ourselves that nothing is perfect, but it’s good that we aim for perfection. Recycling is a really really good thing to do.

Based on this study, WRAP calculated that Britain’s recycling efforts reduce its carbon-dioxide emissions by 10m-15m tonnes per year. That is equivalent to a 10% reduction in Britain’s annual carbon-dioxide emissions from transport, or roughly equivalent to taking 3.5m cars off the roads. Similarly, America’s Environmental Protection Agency estimates that recycling reduced the country’s carbon emissions by 49m tonnes in 2005.

Recycling has many other benefits, too. It conserves natural resources. It also reduces the amount of waste that is buried or burnt, hardly ideal ways to get rid of the stuff. (Landfills take up valuable space and emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas; and although incinerators are not as polluting as they once were, they still produce noxious emissions, so people dislike having them around.) But perhaps the most valuable benefit of recycling is the saving in energy and the reduction in greenhouse gases and pollution that result when scrap materials are substituted for virgin feedstock. “If you can use recycled materials, you don’t have to mine ores, cut trees and drill for oil as much,” says Jeffrey Morris of Sound Resource Management, a consulting firm based in Olympia, Washington.

Internet Saves Millions of Tons of Carbon

- Adam Clare

Keyboard
The internet is quite kind for the environment, which I guess is why good news appears on this website and not on paper handed out on city streets. Ecogeek has a post about a published report on how much carbon is saved by using the internet.

E-Commerce will reduce emissions by 200 M tons
-Telecommuting will prevent 250 tons of carbon emissions from reduced driving, 30 tons from reduced office construction and 300 tons of energy savings
-Teleconferencing could prevent 200 M tons of carbon emissions (if it replaces 10% of face-to-face meetings.)
-Shifting newspaper from print to digital could save 60 M tons of carbon
-Digitally shipping other goods, such as music, movies and books would also contribute.

Coincidentally, an email arrived from a reader and wants to let people know about his new venture ensuring the internet continues to supports people who try to live green, GreenPDF:

FormRouter has declared war on paper forms and is offering free training
and educational resources to get organizations to create their own
online PDF forms.

We are doing this because paper forms are an environmental disaster. It
is estimated that 80% of all organization documents are paper forms.

Bible printed on FSC-Certified paper.

- Cam Proctor

The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Daily Bible is printed on paper that includes recycled content and comes from forestlands certified by the Rainforest Alliance’s SmartWood program, the leading certifier of forestlands to FSC standards.

Kudos to Thomas Nelson, Domtar and Green Press Initiative for working together to achieve this important first in the publishing industry,” said Tensie Whelan, executive director of the Rainforest Alliance. “This is further evidence of the growing trend among publishers to improve their sourcing strategies and lessen their environmental impact by seeking out environmentally preferable papers.

Beijing to build “Green Belt”

- Cam Proctor

Starting small, Beijing has reserved a 1 km swathe on the capital’s fringe for parkland and recreation. It may not seem like much, but remember that Beijing has phenomenal development pressure, soaring land prices and not much more land to work with.

Scroll To Top