We all know that, to stop climate change, we need to stop burning fossil fuels. The government says we need nuclear power to do this. Our new film explains why nuclear power can’t stop climate change – and lays down a better, cheaper, more convenient solution:
Right-click on these links and select 'Save link as...' to download the film as a Quicktime (30MB) or Windows Media (27MB) file.
Convinced? Find out what you can do to make sure the UK gets a genuinely clean and efficient energy system.
Not convinced yet? Read on.
The single biggest use of fossil fuels in the UK isn't for electricity or for transport, but for creating heat to warm our buildings and power our industrial processes. So any solution to climate change needs to contribute to heating, as well as to electricity generation.
Nuclear power contributes almost nothing to our enormous heating requirements. In fact it contributes less than four per cent to our overall energy needs. And building new nuclear power stations (as the government wants to do) won't increase that share.
So what is the solution? Well, in the same amount of time and for less money, we could implement an energy system that will do far more to stop climate change and ensure energy security than nuclear power: a combination of renewable energy, efficiency, and combined heat and power:
Posted by jamie — 14 July 2007 at 4:31pm
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It's just after 3pm now and all of the main teams of volunteers have either been removed from or left their respective branches of Woolworths after clearing the shelves of inefficient light bulbs. The management at head office seems clearly rattled as their press officers have been telling our Light Brigaders (or is that Brigadiers?) that there'll be an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss their light bulb policy. We'll keep you posted on what, if anything, transpires next week. In the meantime, there's our cheap-as-chips video and photos from the day of action on Flickr to keep you entertained.
Posted by jamie — 14 July 2007 at 10:20am
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It's going to be a busy day at branches of Woolworths across the UK today as the Greenpeace Light Brigade pay them a visit to ask why they're still selling old-fashioned, power crazy light bulbs. Woolworths came bottom of our new league table, ranking light bulb retailers according to their commitments to phase out inefficient bulbs, so our volunteers have decided to take matters into their own hands.
Posted by jossc — 12 July 2007 at 5:03pm
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As you've probably guessed by now, we here in the Greenpeace UK web team love our animations, particularly if they're funny. If they're funny and they have something to say that's relevant to our campaigns, we like them even more. If they're funny, relevant and have a surreal twist to them, then we start to get over-excited and have to go and lie down for a while. Which is kind of what happened when we saw the following during Live Earth. Made by our long-time collaborators at Airside, 'a beginners' guide to giving a damn' gently ridicules some of the more excessive aspects of the western lifestyle while pointing out the positive benefits of reining in unnecessary consumption.
Posted by jamie — 6 July 2007 at 6:38pm
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With 2 billion pairs of eyes expected to be firmly clamped on the Live Earth concerts tomorrow, the word about climate change will be spread far and wide. Although, as George Marshall argues, perhaps enough people already know and they're just waiting to be forced into doing something about it through new laws introduced by their government.
We don't have to wait, though - in fact, we can't wait. Even the most optimistic predictions about the effects of climate change say that we need to take immediate action. So if watching Madonna cavorting around has spurred you on, what can you do here and now? Funny you should ask...
We've been arguing for a long time that nuclear power can't stop climate change - because replacing our whole fleet of nuclear power stations would only reduce our carbon emissions by four per cent, some time after 2024 (far too little, far too late).
The Oxford Research Group has just published an interesting study on the subject. It says that, for nuclear power to make any significant contribution to a reduction in global carbon emissions in the next two generations, the industry would have to construct nearly 3,000 new reactors globally - about one a week for 60 years.
