Climate Change

Bio-diesel: green fuel we can use today

Take some rapeseed, sunflower or soya oil, or recycle some used cooking oil, refine, mix with a diesel engine and voila! A non-toxic, biodegradable green fuel that can be used in any diesel engine.

Although the plant-based fuel is not pollution-free, it is significantly cleaner than its petro equivalent and causes just half the damage to the climate. Its widely used in the US, Germany and France, so why isn't the UK enjoying the environmental, economic and health benefits too?

As many parts of Britain lie under flood water, the relationship that these bouts of extreme weather have with fossil fuel pollution can no longer be separated. With more than 3000 homes and key transport networks falling foul of the flood waters, the answer can only be to change our ways, leaving coal and oil behind. If we don't, grab those sandbags because it's going to get worse.

So what? you cry, I can whip out my dinghy and pop down the local. Fun and community spirited it may be, but what many of us don't know are the underlying costs that these climatic changes have. In 1999, insurance claims wieghed in at a hefty 860 million, and this Autumn's stormy weather has already reached 500million, just think what is going to happen to your premium!

St. Kilda's precipitous cliffs, crystal clear water and massive seabird colonies have continued to attract generations of divers, sailors and nature-lovers to its shores. It ranks alongside the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon and the Great Barrier Reef as a World Heritage Site.

The islands once again find themselves on the edge of a change at least as big as that of the loss of its people. The industrial world is finally encroaching on the wild seas around St Kilda - oil companies are being offered thousands of square miles of the sea-bed of Britain's Atlantic Frontier including areas only 25 miles from St Kilda. In July 1999 the UK Government gave the green light for an oil rig to start drilling west of the Outer Hebrides, just 75 miles from St Kilda.

The IUCN, nature conservation advisors to the UN, have concluded that St Kilda is at high risk from oil developments.