£100bn investment (200bn USD) in renewable energy has been proposed meaning that thousands of wind turbines will be built.

The prime minister has described these plans as his “green revolution” and suggested it is to be the country’s largest energy initiative since nuclear power.

The North Sea – formally a huge source of energy for the UK with its oil and gas supplies – has now peaked and Brown wants this to be turned into a stretch of water oozing with wind power.

Middelgrunden in Copenhagen’s harbour (see photo above) has long been a wind farm I have yearned should become a blueprint on a global scale. It serves as a good example of what the view off the UK’s east coast may one day resemble. Quite beautiful.

Should these proposals come to fruition, then they should ensure we meet the EU’s agenda that states that countries must produce 15% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020.

As reported in the Guardian, the good news doesn’t stop here:

“Householders will be encouraged to reduce their bills through energy-saving incentives due to be announced later this summer. Within a decade … every householder able to do so [should] fit loft or cavity wall insulation, install low-energy light bulbs, and use low-energy consumer goods.”

Perhaps the political green tide is turning here in the UK. A man who has caused many green campaigners absolute anguish has listened and begun that revolution.

Sources:

Greenpeace

The Guardian

Image Source:

andjohan at Flickr under a creative commons license.

It turns out that Lyme Bay – just an hour’s drive from here has had the victory we’d all hoped for.

One of the UK’s finest marine wildlife sites is set to be protected from damaging scallop-dredging, thanks to the introduction of a 60sq mile exclusion zone.

Paul Gompertz, Devon Wildlife Trust’s director, said: “This is one small step for marine but one giant leap for marine-kind. It finally acknowledges that our seas need vital life-support systems like Lyme Bay reefs.

“It’s taken 18 years, hundreds of thousands of fundraised pounds, the energy and dedication of many people - and a host of setbacks and heartache along the way. But it has all been worth it - to see a new day dawn for the future of marine conservation in this country. The Government is to be congratulated on a bold step. Now we need to see the exclusions enforced.”

Simon Cripps, chief executive for Dorset Wildlife Trust, said: “This decision represents a landmark for both wildlife protection and sustainable fishing, showing that there is potential for conservation and fishing interests to work together in the future.”

The Wildlife Trusts have been campaigning for a 60sq mile exclusion zone around Lyme Bay reefs, since concern was highlighted in the early 1990s by divers who observed damage to some areas. Survey work by Devon and Dorset Wildlife Trusts has shown that scallop-dredging is damaging the reefs and that time is running out for their preservation.

Lyme Bay is home to around 300 recorded species of plants and animals, including dense populations of the nationally protected pink seafan and the extremely rare sunset coral. As well as a haven for sponges, starfish and coral, the reefs also support a range of seafood animals, including crab, lobster and scallops.

I have said in the past that the UK, essentially two islands, should look upon our waters with the same importance as that afforded our lands.

Though of course this is good news, can you really believe that it has taken 18 years to cement the deal? I of course want to tread (water) lightly here, and not negate the positives but we really must look after our oceans.

Image Source:

Neil Phillips at Flickr under a Creative Commons License.

Slimy

Actions speak louder than words. I can write no more scathing an attack on the leader of the opposition than he can achieve merely by being him. So it was that the man who instinctively knows where the camera is cycled to work whilst his chauffer followed just out of site driving a pair of shoes.

Fatuous, slimy, ultimately laughable. A joy to read. Silly boy.

So, now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s ponder on cycling here in the UK.

Exeter

My hometown of Exeter, a few years back, introduced a green bike scheme similar to that in Amsterdam. The council kindly gave the city’s citizens some bikes painted green – the intention being that you just hopped upon one, cycled it to your destination and then left it there for the next person. Within days, they’d all disappeared and had been painted another colour to avoid detection. Not quite what was intended.

Drug dealers rejoiced. They were able to pedal medication at greater speed on transport that, when the paint chipped, revealed that familiar green from the week before.

But the city, on a more positive note, is quite accomodating towards the cyclist. Cycle lanes abound, though before you know it, the lane has suddenly become a bus lane but you’re not quite sure at what point along the route, it suddenly became so.

All you know is the lane is suddenly a different colour, the number 50 is tailing you and all you can hear is diesel behind you, and the frantic sound of a thundering heartbeat betraying an imminent coronary brought about by ill-health and fear.

But a journey along the river or canal can be pleasant enough, as we doff our caps to each other.

And as the city council’s website states:

“Cycling in Exeter is popular both as a recreational activity and as a convenient way of getting to work or the shops. The combination of flat areas in parts of the city which are easy to negotiate for the novice cyclist and the more challenging routes in the surrounding areas for the more experienced cyclist, allows everybody to enjoy this healthy activity.

”The City Council considers the promotion of cycling very important and works in conjunction with a number of different groups and individuals to encourage cycling throughout the city and the county as a whole.”

Fat

England is fat. We cheer the fact. Every time the news reports that we’re the most overweight in the European Union, pride and roars of approval sweep the land. It’s all we have left since we gave Hong Kong back.

Bike Week 2008

So, next week can’t come soon enough. Yes, it’s Bike Week 2008 here in the UK.

The theme this year is for families to ride together and discover a freedom that can be enjoyed away from the TV.

Thousands of events are due to take place across the British Isles. The idea is to re-engage people with the joys of two wheels of the man-powered variety.

Bike Week Manager Andre Curtis said: “Plenty of parents have forgotten how much fun cycling was as a child. We want this year’s Bike Week to revive those memories and act as a catalyst for families to spend more quality time together.”

I think then, in all honesty, that the UK has come to the realisation that we’ve collectively reached critical mass around the waistline. I’ve got a bike in the garage and, with this week’s focus topic being what it is, it may just have been enough to galvanise me to get back on the road. Devon is an incredibly picturesque county and it seems an absolute waste to be constantly watching soccer on the TV, when outside lies the undulating greenery of England.

I think Bike Week 2008 may have earnt itself another supporter. The website says:

“Encouraging quality family time and values, cycling will also be shown to help focus minds on the environment, enabling families to reduce their carbon footprints by reducing car usage and enjoying the great outdoors.”

And you can’t argue with that.

Other Articles in Ecoworldly’s Bicycling Series

• Forget Sky-high Gas Prices, Biking Beats Them All! by Sam Aola Ooko
• UK: Bike Week 2008 by Pem Charnley
• Bicycle powered water pumps and filtration systems by Nayelli Gonzalez
• Italy’s Two-Wheeled Cities Speed Up Your Life Quality by Eva Pratesi
• In Chiang Mai, Social Attitudes Crush Bicycling Prospects by Masimba Biriwasha
• Google’s Sexy Bicycle Giveaways and Africa’s Versatile Bike Trucks by Sam Aola Ooko
• South Korean Bicycle Ninjas Do Battle Against Asthma by Gavin Hudson
• Of Course Cycling in Australia is Healthy, But What To Do With the Cars? by Ross Kendall
• Cheer up! Bicycling in Italy is a Daily Adventure by Eva Pratesi
• If You Want a Blissful Sex Life, Don’t Ride a Bike! by Sam Aola Ooko
• Bicycling in Peru: An Art of Adaptation by Levi Novey

Image Credit

micsten at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

Whereas they may swill the grape juice, inhale the aroma and swoon over the subtleties cascading o’er the taste buds, I’m already on my third can and the match yet to start.

But my, how I jolted when I came across a story suggesting that English vineyards may, in decades to come, suffer because our summers are set to become too hot.

Yes, the British wine industry is our best kept secret – so much so, that I was barely aware of it, looking instead to my continental cousins as the more likely producers.

However, Professor Richard Selley has written a book: The Winelands of Britain: Past, Present and Prospective.

In a BBC report he said: “I have been able to map how British viticulture could change beyond recognition in the coming years.”

So, yes, of course I was being glib above, but this is yet more sobering evidence of climate change.

If a wind and rain swept isle is to enjoy the dubious pleasure – arguably within my daughter’s lifetime – of summers with a 5 degrees’ increase by 2080, this really does drive home – to this writer at least, just what we are dealing with.

A nation with a relatively unknown wine industry will in 70 + years have summers unsuitable to grow grapes.

Wine aside, what other crops may suffer from this increase in temperature?

Well, initial research reveals that – on the face of it, a greater window of opportunity exists for farmers here in the UK.

Milder weather brings with it longer seasons. But dig beneath the surface – if that was a pun, it certainly wasn’t intended – and one finds that such a relatively rapid change in temperature is going to leave crops woefully ill-prepared.

Frosts will become rarer, a crop’s defence mechanism against said frost will lessen. Should there be a cold spell, the crop won’t prove so resilient against it.

Less harsh winters may prove kind to the crops, true, but they will also prove kind to pests. Farmers formally presuming a cold winter would kill pests would see them survive and earlier, warmer springs would bring earlier flights of pests into contact with the food.

This post, by its very nature, is designed to just give a taster of the complications that may arise – but I gleaned the above facts from the website Farming Futures should you wish to investigate more. You’ll find fact sheets available covering all aspects of UK farming in the face of climate change.

So, anything positive from all this? Well, perhaps just the one fact. Apparently Britain may become a chief grower of apricots.

All well and good I suppose, yet I’ve never really been that keen on them. Id’ rather just stick to potatoes that can survive frosts and pests, thanks.

Image Credit:

Harris Graber at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

Speaking at the Hay Literary Festival in Powys, Wales, Wallace Broecker suggests the way forward must surely lie with the construction of millions of “carbon scrubbers.”

These carbon scrubbers would be giant artificial trees that would pull CO2 from the atmosphere via a specially designed plastic and the gas would either be liquefied under pressure to be pumped underground or converted to mineral.

So how exactly does this all work? From The Guardian:

The team [led by Klaus Lackner, a physicist at Columbia University in New York] says [the device] can trap the CO2 from air on absorbent plastic sheets called ion exchange membranes, commonly used to purify water. Crucially, it has discovered that humid air can then make the membranes “exhale” their trapped CO2. The discovery was “some serendipity and some working out,” Lackner said. “When I saw it the first time, I didn’t believe it.

Guardian coverage in full with a full explanation of the potentials behind the project.

An extremely interesting idea and one I hadn’t personally come across before. The concept appears to me to be a hybrid of Isaac Asimov and Lego and not at all off-putting.

There will of course be those who bleat, maintaining that these pretend trees are going to look somehow ugly. These same people casually watch the news each evening but always find it infinitely more interesting to wander over to the fridge when there’s some feature detailing further destruction of rainforest.

Personally, I find the concept of 60 million of these devices constructed worldwide (the figure given in the BBC report) not nearly so offensive a view as a bunch of apes driving around in machines yelling at each other in a smog of road rage and inconsideration.

Source:

BBC Click here for initial source.

Image Credit:

garryknight at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

What is a green option?

A green option is a solution that prevents the emission of CO2 into the Earth’s atmosphere until carbon levels are back to something approaching pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

A less selfish approach to life, one that turns the Tragedy of the Commons on its head, a solution that thinks about the future, a solution that respects the global community of humans and all other species and the very basic right to life.

A solution that is - god forbid - not for profit, but inherently beneficial for survival.

Solutions have been found but governments desist and funding is limted, yet wars that cost trillions are fought.

They’re cooking the books.

And that shouldn’t be.

Enjoy your day.

I was a mere toddler, blanket in one hand, thumb in mouth (think Linus) - wondering what all the fuss was about.

It was dusk and the bats were out, darting this way and that, catching insects as the summer’s sun slid from view, leaving that beautiful blue light before darkness descends.

I shrugged in an awfully precocious manner, looked at mummy, then turned my eyes back to the bats.

And today, Defra (the UK’s Department for Environment, Food And Rural Affairs) have announced that bats are to be used to help measure the biodiversity of the UK.

Bat populations are vulnerable, so they serve as a good indicator for the wider health of the UK’s wildlife. Pressures faced by bats including landscape change, agricultural intensification, development, and habitat fragmentation are also relevant to many other wildlife species.

Wintering waterbirds such as the Whooper Swan have also been included in the UK Indicator* for the first time, helping to measure the effects of a changing climate. A recent decline in numbers has been associated with a spate of warm winters allowing the birds to remain in continental Europe.

Joan Ruddock, Minister for Biodiversity says:

“The state of our wildlife is an indicator of the health of our environment and life itself. We can be proud of our efforts to slow and halt the decline of wildlife. More money is being spent, more people are volunteering for conservation and more woodland and farmland is managed for wildlife.

“Bats are integral to the environment and are a good indicator of the wildlife we often don’t see - such as the insects they feed on.”

Amy Coyte, Chief Executive of the Bat Conservation Trust says:

“Bats are an excellent indicator of the state of the natural environment. As our wildlife continues to struggle against many threats, it is vital to have indicators of whether current efforts are working. By adding bats to the suite of indicators, we will gain a greater understanding of how our wildlife is faring.”

* You will note many times the term “indicator” used within this piece. From the following page:

A suite of biodiversity indicators for the UK was first published in June 2007. The indicators show changes in aspects of biodiversity such as the population size of important species or the area of land managed for wildlife.

Further reading:

Fear of bats - as suffered by my late dad.

Let’s Talk About the ‘C’ Word: Shirley Siluk Gregory

Coral Adventure on East Africa Coast: A Safari to Kenya’s Reefs: Sam Aola Ooko

Defra’s Press Release regarding this story

Image credit: oddsock at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

SAS flies slower to save fuel and lower carbon emissions.

Well, when I read this headline, conflicting views sprang to mind.

Firstly of course, being an Englishman with no sense of irony, I immediately leapt to my feet and saluted my queen and her armed forces.

Then I faltered slightly, and thought, if a crack team of SAS marines were being air dropped into some war-torn despotic state, surely, speed is of the essence, to ensure that the paras can be in and out again with time for a cup of tea a mere hours later.

And of course, well, I thought the SAS were used relatively infrequently – as a last resort. Surely the carbon savings are going to be miniscule.

Also, come to think of it, is it politic to announce slower-moving troops to the enemy…?

As you can tell, my mind by this time was racing with all the possibilities, all the negatives surrounding this piece of news. And I still hadn’t clicked on the link!

So I did so to find the opening paragraph reads:

“Scandinavian airline SAS is flying slower to save on sky-rocketing fuel costs and curb emissions of carbon dioxide in a new push to green up its image.”

Oh.

Oh, I see.

Relief all round I’d say. The full story can be found here detailing real positives surrounding Scandinavia’s decision to try and get a grip on air travel’s dreadful CO2 emissions.

Please also read: Fly Me to The Moon, But not via Heathrow – written by EcoWorldly’s Zurich correspondent, Mark Seal. Particularly relevant as it details the UK’s own lacklustre approach to the skies.

(I also found it interesting to learn about the story behind the image I decided to use. Rather fun and informative link here.)

Image credit: ladyb at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

But the citizens, it seems, are having the last laugh as it has been reported this week that the town is to be the first in the UK to make use of the sewer system in a whole new way.

Rather than rely on the rather un-environmentally friendly process of digging up swathes of countryside and road to lay cables, H2O Networks Ltd have been called in for the gig.

As is so often the case, simple ideas seem to have manifest benefits and using sewer systems to lay fibre optic cables is a case in point.

As already stated, there is no need to dig up roads.

Conventional cables are normally laid a mere 45 cm below ground. Utilising the sewer systems means that the cables lie a full 10 metres below ground, decreasing the likelihood of damage and increasing security in potentially dangerous situations.

And of course, with no digging needed, with the sewers already in place, getting the fibre optics laid can be achieved far more quickly.

So, as many Britons languish behind with slow internet access, Bournemouth is casually reinventing itself as a rather fast, happening town, and in the not-too-distant future, will enjoy internet speeds approaching 100Mbps.

The UK has 360,000 miles worth of sewers. As Elfed Thomas, CEO of H2O Networks says:

“This is just the start of bringing next generation connectivity to the UK.”

Sources:

Yahoo UK

I.T. Professionals

Further Info:

H20 Networks Ltd

Image Source:

Photo of Victorian sewer courtesy of Flickr

I know now why I write for Green Options. Hope and the lessening of fumes, just nature being nature.

All is resolved. Hierarchy restored. Me the observer of something more. Something to be treasured.

Hard to imagine that at exactly this time last year, I drove off with the family to the neighbouring county for an Easter break and coincided our holiday with an absolute blinder of a heatwave.

The normally pallid writer who blinks mole-like in the daylight returned a week later a bronzed sex god.

Yes, hard to imagine, because I awoke this morning, drew the curtains and saw snow. Large flakes falling from the sky complementing a crow perched on my window ledge, carrion and madness and winter reflected in those eyes.

Sure, the cycles of weather change, have always changed, climates ebbing and flowing through the millennia as species appear, go extinct, do their thing.

But what a chilling example – literally – of how rapidly the weather now fluctuates, whole regions of the earth thrown into vacation confusion, as the planet tries it damnedest but fails valiantly to absorb as much Carbon Dioxide as we can throw at it.

How can farmers plan their crops? When to sow, when to reap?

The school ground bully. The oil magnate. One and the same. The distilled essence of all in a human that makes me sick. Pinching dinner money and eating caviar.

Kurt Vonnegut leans into the microphone and says:

“I have a message for future generations and that is: Please accept our apologies…”

And so it goes.

My sincere thanks to a good source at Stumble Upon for this. Hilarious.

The British Empire

Oh yes, think 4pm, the duchess summoning Jeeves to bring the best china, hallowed guests gather on the front lawn, croquet temporarily suspended as we congregate to imbibe.

So imagine my delight when I came across the following:

A kettle that boils the water in just three seconds.

Despite the romance of the scene described above, the empire has fallen, duchesses spin in graves, country estates now overgrown.

Yet tea is still tea and integral to our daily lives.

So thank you Tefal. For those, who like me, have patience worn thin by the intensity of modern life, at least we can now have scolding water in three seconds and the tea brewing before you can say Jack Flash.

Energy Saving

An energy saving of 65%. Watch out. With tea available so quickly, we’ll have that empire rebuilt in no time and the lawns shipshape before Jeeves can dust down his evening jacket.

How does it work?

“The Tefal QuickCup uses a heating system called OPTI Quick, a technology exclusive to Tefal, which heats water instantly without any preheating. OPTI Quick allows water to pass through the heating system in a spiral motion…”

Fact:

As a nation, Britain gets through 165 million cups of tea a day. When you take this into account, the energy saved as a nation could be astronomical should this product take off.

Source: Image courtesy of Flickr.

Remember CFCs? They had the power to flavour teenage armpits and work wonders on refrigeration.

There’s two things I remember from when I was growing up. Well, not two things literally. That would suggest a woebegone adolescence. No, two things of environmental importance.

At 15, Chernobyl. A complete nuclear meltdown causing Europeans to duck for cover to avoid the prevailing winds.

Yeah, so plants are safer now, aren’t they? Well, look, personally, when you play with atoms, I still think of Hiroshima and Chernobyl, once smiling communities now nothing but cancerous shells of their former selves. Higher safety standards lead to greater complacency. No-one reading this can guarantee that another nuclear disaster won’t happen, so please, let’s leave that one alone. I’ve heard it all before.

(I don’t like things that glow in the dark really. I have innate misgivings.)

And as well as Chernobyl, we had an enormous hole in the ozone layer recognised for the first time.

But we often need a reminder of what ensued. The Montreal Protocol. Widely adhered to on an international level, a superb piece of cooperation and a credit to all involved.

Sure, the ozone layer is still in a poor state, but that should never reflect badly on what leaders are capable of when acting as one.

I guess the ozone layer was more tangible to the human eye. You see hurricanes, heat waves, enormous slabs of ice falling to the sea, you don’t see climate change. It’s not visible per se.

They’re still seen as natural events, two and two still equalling five for the oil baron, business as usual, money more important than hideous legacy.

Something’s going to happen. Something so cataclysmic. Maybe a global tempest, maybe the peaceful protests of millions acting as one, cooperating as leaders once did in Montreal.

It’ll happen. And when it does, I’ll be there with you, breathing deeply from the fresh air, oil wells silenced.

Events unfolded when an unusually powerful gust of wind swept along the Thames, picking up debris and in so doing, blew a hole in the face of Big Ben.

The ensuing gale caused the iconic bell to monstrously chime in the wind – a knell that shuddered and brought the capital to a standstill - the normally ignorant Londoners actually pausing from earning obscene amounts of money and contemplating their existence.

But it was a wake-up call for more than Joe Public. Realising the enormity of events, our prime minister called an emergency press conference.

The normally stoic Scot, tears visibly welling, announced he was leaving office, citing the weather as, and I quote “the wind of change.”

He described his guilt at climate change, his previous inability to comprehend that mankind’s future must come before personal ambition and apologised for ill-conceived green washing.

As the press gathered, cameras flashing, Dictaphones whirring, he said:

”It is with deep regret that I announce today [his tongue then did that strange action filling the left cheek] that climate change is real, political ambition selfish, fame empty and I cannot damn the planet any longer by bowing to the nuclear sector.”

I bustled myself to the front and, avoiding security, took the former PM aside. A shock decision, I wagered.

“It’s a lie. My whole life, a wrong decision. I can’t believe world leaders deny the inevitable, funded by money rather than the future. I can’t be a part of it any longer.”

As the cabinet no doubt regroups, I fear a re-election. To have the leader of the opposition sniff opportunity rather than class A’s would be disastrous. A Machiavellian figure who spouts green when he can smell victory, a hideous hypocrite of the highest order, the posh boy playing the common man, a con man, an insult to the conscious.

Brown may be gone, his surname anything but green, but I fear worse is to come, a good politician buried in guilt who should have saved us.

And the date? April Fool’s Day.

Source:

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Amy Winehouse

If you appreciate irony, as I’m sure you do, then you’ll understand there’s something quite beautiful about the fact that Amy Winehouse will shortly be securing a $700,000 deal to sing at the opening of a nightclub in Rotterdam, Holland.

Irony, yes, because the club will be powered by widdle and Amy’s career is going down the pan due to a vicious circle of relapses. (Rehab? No thanks.)

So, I hear you cry: A club for degenerates powered by urine? Of course. That’s why I’ll be there, wondering about the best female voice of a generation as she battles through the set. A voice that effortlessly combines honey, mess and heartbreak.

As a writer more used to the logistics concerning wind or tidal power, I have to confess that the concept behind a residence having its electricity fuelled by wee is alien to me, but with Google my trustworthy steed, I’ve soldiered on.

But even with my friend, I glean only limited joy. My best bet seems via here and from the page, I learn that:

“Nanologix has a patented renewable hydrogen production method that instead of using the traditional energy wasting methods requiring natural gas or electrical power, creates the gas out of waste water and other biomass using bacteria in a “Hydrogen Bioreactor”.

The bacteria eat the hydrocarbons in the waste and exhale hydrogen gas. Not only does this truly create energy, it also cleans the water. To the best of our knowledge Nanologix is the only public company producing hydrogen from waste.

This process solves the storage/transportation problems as well, since the hydrogen can be converted to mechanical or electrical power on site. If more energy is produced than can be used, it can be transported over the existing electrical grid.”

I can only presume that’s a clue. Whether that is the concept behind the club’s waterworks is as yet undisclosed, though it seems a reasonable bet.

And there we have it. You won’t find a finer source of wee than a nightclub. A confident money spinner for the club’s owner as he hikes up the price of the lager, knowing the clientele are going to find the whole process enjoyably innovative when it helps the environment an hour later.

And the name of the club? Watt.

(Her: Where are you off to?

Him: Watt.

Her: I said: Where are you off to?

Him: Yeah, and I’ve told you!

And so it goes on.)

Source:

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Of course, one of the reasons that the UK’s public transport grid is in disarray is because the ministers are clueless….

This clip is from the much-missed comedy show Big Train but I thought it rather apposite. Enjoy.

The wind howls, the setting some kind of Arctic wind tunnel. Sure, there’s a waiting room over there, but it’s deserted. And no wonder. The strip lighting such an intense hue that it dazzles – a fluorescent goldfish bowl that makes the squall preferable.

There’s only a few people here. A mum yells at her kids, then tells her friend about her recent sex life, the wind carrying her conquests to the damp corners of the platform and anyone unfortunate enough to have hearing as functional as her genitals.

To use the bus is not a green option, it’s the last ditch attempt of the stranded.

I loathe the fact I can’t drive tonight. My mind drifts back to when I was 17 and stole a car, took me and my mates to the hills before writing it off and waking up in hospital to be told I’d need an operation to rebuild my nose.

The joys of youth. The joys of joyriding. I never got behind a wheel again. I instinctively always put my pedal to the metal and treated country lanes as the world rally championships. I now know that I’m being punished.

Tonight, I wish I’d got a car.

The bus drivers awaiting their shift huddle around the No Smoking signs. Smoking. Scaffolding obscures the bay where my bus is due and the twenty minutes remaining stretch off into the blackness. I bury my chin inside my coat collar and wait.

The bus arrives. I pay. I take a seat. Just me and three others. The stench inside is overpowering. I imagine a hobo’s armpit. I bury my nose inside my coat collar, ruing the fact they rebuilt it.

As we collectively navigate our way along the roads, a rogue cola can chimes with the bends, rolling first that way, then back again. The atmosphere is cloying as all the passengers stare straight ahead, eyes appearing haunted by the experience, all desperate for their destination.

This is a travesty! An insult to the tax payer. A Dickensian scene powered by diesel. The chancellor’s coffers funding an illegal war rather than tackling this disgrace.

I thank the driver, alight, glad it’s over.

A short trip, yet another reminder that the UK’s public transport has a long journey ahead. How can this land have stooped so low?

Source:

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

And with this born in mind, a UK garden center has launched ‘Plan Apple.’

It is now offering its customers a recycling facility for the millions of plastic plant pots which are discarded by gardeners throughout the year.

Image courtesy of Flickr

What’s the guide all about? In Greenpeace’s words:

“The Greener Electronics Guide is our way of getting the electronics industry to face up to the problem of e-waste. We want manufacturers to get rid of harmful chemicals in their products. We want to see an end to the stories of unprotected child labourers scavenging mountains of cast-off gadgets created by society’s gizmo-loving ways.”

Nintendo came bottom of the league with no public policy on toxics elimination or recycling. And although the guide describes the behaviour of electronics giants regarding toxic waste, energy usage is not taken into account – something I want to discuss here.

It’s important to try and keep our chins up when outlining environmental issues – sometimes an extremely tough exercise, because I’m haunted by Nintendo’s name.

You browse their website, looking for clues as to who their target audience is, but you don’t need a keen eye for demographics to know that it is the younger generation that feeds off Nintendo’s products.

And in so doing, they’re feeding off the national grid to fire them to the next level of each game.

It bothers me that, just as humankind wakes up to carbon emissions, the generation behind me seems indifferent. I’m no eco-saint. Far from it.

How did I spend my leisure time when younger? On my bike, playing football, all the usual things. Now I feel old for even admitting that.

You speak to kids these days and ask them for their views regarding the energy usage resultant from computer games. Shrugs, a lack of concern, apathy. Climate change a million miles away. That seems the attitude here in the UK anyway.

Green energy is not a widespread commodity. Not yet. Until that becomes a reality, we must continue to tighten our grip on energy use per se.

And for that to become a reality, green alternatives must become the stylish options. Currently, the games console is the stylish option, environmentalism the choice of the martyr.

Responsible parenting and green issues central to a school’s curriculum are the voices of authority and therefore, by their very nature, a complete turn-off for the kids.

So how do we lead the young away from electricity? How do we inject style and fashion into what is still seen by the young as a lifestyle frought with sacrifice?

If the next generation are more reliant on electricity as a means to fending off boredom than ever before, where does the buck stop?

Sources:

Greenpeace

Picture courtesy of Flickr