Greenpeace Blog

There's a great opinion piece in today's Independent, in which Johann Hari argues that leaving the fate of planet to consumer choice and voluntary action isn't going to work. His words echo those of George Monbiot and Mark Lynas, and he looks to government to force us all to use less stuff:

In reality, dispersed consumer choices are not going to keep the climate this side of a disastrous temperature rise. The only way that can ever happen is by governments legislating to force us all – green and anti-green – to shift towards cleaner behaviour. Just as the government in the Second World War did not ask people to eat less voluntarily, governments today cannot ask us to burn fewer greenhouse gases voluntarily.

Ken Livingstone wants it for London, Hilary Benn is giving money to it and Adam and Debbie are bringing it to Ambridge. After a couple of millennia in the sidelines, anaerobic digestion has finally hit the big time (well, The Archers, anyway) - which is why we've chosen it for this second edition of the Weekly Geek.

Every year, we bury thousands of tonnes of waste food in landfill sites around the UK. We produce almost one and a half million tonnes of sewage a year (don't do the maths - it's disturbing), which is mostly spread on land, incinerated or buried as landfill. And we produce enormous amounts of agricultural waste on our farms. All of this waste breaks down to release greenhouse gases as it decomposes.

Yesterday, EU farm ministers voted on whether to approve the use of new GM crops including a variety of potato developed by chemical giant BASF. According to Reuters, they failed to reach a consensus which is good in the sense that the proposed crops weren't approved, but bad because the decision will now be passed back to the European Commission. The EC is heavily pro-GM so it's likely that all five crops under consideration will be approved with a nod and a wink.