Blog: Climate

Share the music, save the world

Posted by bex — 9 January 2008 at 1:15pm - Comments

Calling any music-makers who'd like to share their music in the name of a good cause.

We're producing more and more videos for the web these days, and we always need royalty-free music to use for the soundtrack. Rather than trawl through the music libraries out there, we thought we'd see if any of you have tracks that you'd like to donate to the cause, in exchange for a credit and a link.

New bulbs for old in London bulb amnesty

Posted by jamie — 9 January 2008 at 12:36pm - Comments

As Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone might not be the perfect politician but at least he's streets ahead of central government on climate change and reducing emissions in the capital. His latest ploy is to hold a light bulb amnesty during which Londoners can exchange their old incandescent bulbs for a bright new energy-efficient one.

According to london.gov.uk, you can take up to two old-fashioned bulbs to any London branch of B&Q between Friday 11 and Sunday 13 January and exchange them for compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) provided by British Gas. Nice.

From the video vaults: climate change in 1958

Posted by jamie — 8 January 2008 at 3:14pm - Comments

Al Gore's The Inconvenient Truth has been hailed as a revolution in the climate change debate, but it looks like he was way behind the times. Thanks to Martin at Making Waves for posting about an excerpt from The Unchained Goddess, an educational film made in 1958 (that's 50 years ago, fact fans) about the dangers of carbon dioxide emissions. The performances are a little ropey but it's prescient stuff, and involved the talents of no less than Frank Capra and Mel Blanc.

Green light bulbs give you cancer and other tall stories

Posted by jamie — 8 January 2008 at 2:25pm - Comments

"Environmentally friendly light bulbs 'can give you skin cancer'" claims the Daily Mail

The Mail waxes lyrical about its favourite subject

What fun the media has been having with light bulbs lately, peddling claims that they are extremely dangerous due to the mercury they contain and that they could cause skin cancer. With an eye recently sobered by new year abstinence, let's take a closer look.

GM crops can help prevent climate change? Shurely shome mishtake

Posted by jamie — 8 January 2008 at 11:25am - Comments

Those pesky biotech companies never give up. After recently spinning the line that GM crops can be used to safeguard food production from the ravages of climate change, their latest wheeze is to try and convince us that GM technology can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Industry insiders give Brown a drubbing on nuclear

Posted by bex — 4 January 2008 at 12:53pm - Comments

See all updates about nuclear power.


We've been banging on about the sham nuclear 'consultation' for ages now, but today 17 scientists, academics and nuclear industry insiders piled into the debate, giving Gordon Brown a drubbing over well, pretty much everything to do with nuclear power.

I wanted to share a few highlights from their report but the arguments are so compelling I just couldn't stop cutting and pasting. So here, have more quotes about nuclear power than you can shake a stick at, or read the full report for yourself at www.nuclearconsult.com:


"An accumulating public sense of a lack of independence and a lack of transparency behind government initiatives in this area, and a hidden industry agenda belittling the problems seem to emit a strong whiff of mortgaging the long-term future to short-term interests. The issue is one of trust in government..."

Dr Paul Dorfman, University of Warwick
Prof Brian Wynne, University of Lancaster

The problem with carbon capture and storage (CCS)

Posted by bex — 3 January 2008 at 3:50pm - Comments

E.ON is arguing for its new coal plant on the basis that it will include carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. So, is CCS is a silver bullet? Or is it just another false solution, touted by an industry desperately trying to stay relevant in a carbon constrained world?

CCS is a means of separating out carbon dioxide when burning fossil fuels, and then dumping it - underground, or else at or under the sea bed.

CCS isn't commercially viable; there are no commercially operating CCS plants in the world. And for all the industry's obfuscation, the new plant at Kingsnorth won't be able to capture and store carbon; it will just be ready to incorporate CCS should the technology ever become viable in the future.

New coal: the battlelines are drawn

Posted by bex — 3 January 2008 at 11:15am - Comments

Coal fired power plant

It will be the UK's first new coal fired power plant in 34 years. It will emit as much carbon dioxide as the 30 least polluting nations in the world combined. And the world's leading climate scientist has called it "a tipping point for the world".

The proposal for a new coal-fired power plant at Kingsnorth in Kent has been given the go-ahead by Medway Council. At a meeting last night, only three of the 16 councillers objected to E.ON's application, meaning that the plant - which will generate electricity in the most climate-wrecking way known to humankind - has been approved, potentially starting a new coal rush in the UK.

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