May 2007

Seeing as the climate denial industry looks likely to be lucrative for a while yet, we thought we'd point you to a wonderful new tool for when you come across your own, local climate change skeptic. Or Martin Durkin.

I get a lot of book tokens for Christmas, birthdays and the like - I read a lot so it's an easy option for a hard-to-buy-for kind of guy. But they have a habit of lurking in my wallet for months at a time, as I've got into the habit of buying second hand books. Buy books cheaply from charity shops and return them when I'm done - it's the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) all rolled into one, with a dose of charitable intentions thrown in for good measure.

The only flaw in my cunning plan is that pre-loved books don't just spontaneously appear in branches of Oxfam, they begin life as a tree in a forest somewhere. Large amounts of fresh virgin paper are required to keep the publishing industry running, and if the production of that paper is causing the destruction of large and ancient forests, those book tokens are going to remain where they are indefinitely.

Ever wanted to make a real difference to the world but never seem to have the time? Well, here’s a chance for you to help cut around 20 million tonnes of Europe’s carbon emissions, in about two minutes.

Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog

Since Tuesday morning, we've been docked in Aberdeen. The Arctic Sunrise is dwarfed amidst some of the other huge ships here. As we waited on the pilot to take us in, we had small groups of noisy arctic terns bouncing around the ship. Then, on our way into the harbour, just at the breakwater, we were treated to a pod of about seven bottlenose dolphins, lazily feeding (with an occasional show-off jump).

50 per cent of fresh fish sold in supermarkets comes from farms

One obvious response to the disappearance of wild fish from our seas is "Why don’t we replace them with farmed varieties. We do it with land animals, so why not fish?" Of course this is already happening – over 40 per cent of the world's fish production already comes from aquaculture, and 50 per cent of fish sold in UK supermarkets comes from farms. These pen-reared fish grow at a phenomenal rate. For example, wild cod double in size every year, but hatchery cod quadruple in the same period. Given that size determines reproductive rate, at first glance this could be a solution to repopulating wild stocks.

Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog

Two pair trawlers we encountered yesterday admitted they were fishing for cod and told us confusingly fishy stories. One boat said it was catching lots of big cod, while the other reckoned they'd trawled loads of young fish. Either way they shouldn't be taking any – cod stocks are now only a fraction of what they were a decade or two ago.

Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog

We have a hitch-hiker on board: a small bird, which - from my frantic bird handbook thumbing - appears to be a juvenile stonechat or whinchat. Anyway, everyone's happy to have the tiny stowaway with us for a while although it may leave us when we get closer to land. For now, however, it's proving to be camera-shy and getting fed on breadcrumbs.