Climate Change

It's the environment, stupid

Posted by jossc — 7 March 2008 at 12:48pm - Comments

One of the world's premier economic forums, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), has openly identified environmental degradation as the greatest threat we face. While this is hardly news to those of us who've long been aware of the grave damage we've been inflicting on the planet in recent decades, for a mainstream economic organisation such as OECD it represents a fairly seismic change in thinking.

The key theme of its new report, 'Environmental Outlook to 2030', is that tackling climate change, pollution and other environmental hazards is urgently necessary to avoid irreversible damage.

Radio activism

Posted by jamie — 6 March 2008 at 7:09pm - Comments

Following last week's direct action maelstrom at Heathrow and the Houses of Parliament, the media has been courting the people involved with features popping up all over the place about the so-called new generation of eco-activists.

A particularly interesting piece went out last night on Radio 4: Graham Thompson (described by the Evening Standard as the "daddy" of the parliament protest group) appeared on The Moral Maze to argue the case that civil disobedience is an acceptable part of protest in the democratic process. Listen again for the inevitable seven days.

Meanwhile on the Guardian's Environment Weekly podcast, our own climate campaigner Joss Garman was in the studio to talk about the 'new breed' of activist. Listen again for... well, forever probably.

But if I come across one more reference to Swampy...

Climate camp goes to Kingsnorth

Posted by jossc — 5 March 2008 at 11:50am - Comments

Climate Camp 2008 will target Kingsnorth coal power plant in Kent

Kingsnorth in Kent is to be the main focus of this year's Camp for Climate Action. From 4th to 11th of August climate activists will gather at the site of E.On's proposed new coal-fired power station, the first to be built in the UK for 30 years.

Video: Plane Stupid vs Parliament

Posted by bex — 29 February 2008 at 5:20pm - Comments

From Plane Stupid:

London goes retro to beat climate change

Posted by jamie — 29 February 2008 at 2:36pm - Comments

Fashion is a fickle beast but now a whole city is going retro (well, not quite but it was too good a pun to waste). The long-awaited plan to retrofit all buildings owned and operated by the Greater London Authority (GLA) with energy-saving systems and technology is finally in motion with contracts awarded to companies which are going to slash the capital's emissions.

While much of the discussion about energy efficiency in buildings has focused on new houses, there are still millions of older buildings that lack proper insulation or top-notch heating systems. No matter how good those eco-towns are, if and when they're built they'll only represent a small proportion of the building stock in the UK. Fortunately, the GLA have a cunning plan.

Government "wobbling" over Heathrow

Posted by bex — 28 February 2008 at 6:35pm - Comments

Heathrow voices tour

Out and about on our Heathrow Voices tour last year.

If you're one of the many, many thousands of people involved in the opposition to Heathrow expansion, you may want to give yourself a pat on the back. The day after the 'consultation' closed, there's news that we're getting the message through to 'the highest levels of Labour'.

In one of two Heathrow stories in today's Evening Standard, the paper's chief political correspondent wrote:

Ministers are under increasing pressure to rethink plans for Heathrow expansion after 18,000 people lodged objections to the plans.

The scale of the protest is understood to have taken the government by surprise and is causing concern at the highest levels of Labour at the political fall-out if plans for a third runway are given the go-ahead.

Which is the real security threat?

Posted by jossc — 28 February 2008 at 3:13pm - Comments

Heathrow climate protest: yes it really is this serious

Two audacious and well executed climate actions have deservedly grabbed headlines this week - Plane Stupid's 'No third runway' banner drop on the House of Commons yesterday perfectly complimenting our own Heathrow Airport plane protest on Monday. Both sets of activists involved spoke eloquently to the media about why they were there: to expose the government's 'public consultation' as a sham, and to remind us all that climate change is the greatest threat that we face, and we have little time to start getting serious about it.

Energy companies sued by Inuits over sinking village

Posted by jamie — 28 February 2008 at 2:37pm - Comments

I just found this great story via Treehugger: a small Inuit community is suing 24 big, bad energy companies, claiming damages due to climate change. The melting ice pack has pushed up sea levels and exposed the residents of Kivalina to an increasing number of storms; the cost of relocating the entire village (which is sinking into the sea) is placed at US$400 million. Arctic communities are of course extremely vulnerable to the effects of changing weather patterns and are feeling the effects of climate change right now.

The Weekly Geek: micro-hydro power

Posted by bex — 27 February 2008 at 9:23pm - Comments

It's Weekly Geek time, and this week we're looking at micro-hydro power: a truly reliable, highly efficient, and extremely clean (it has no direct carbon emissions) way of generating electricity.

It needs no fuel but offers a constant supply of electricity which often increases in winter, along with demand. It has a long life cycle (typically 25 years or more). It can have low implementation and maintenance costs. And, unlike some large scale hydroelectric power schemes, it has minimal environmental and visual impacts.

Read all about it: our official response to the Heathrow consultation

Posted by bex — 27 February 2008 at 7:16pm - Comments

We've formally submitted our main concerns about Heathrow expansion to the government (almost as if this was a real consultation and the government was genuinely seeking views on airport expansion...).

You can read the full submission, but this is the introduction:

Greenpeace believes that if the government is serious about tackling climate change, there should be no question of increasing the number of flights coming in and out of Heathrow Airport. Instead the Government should be radically rethinking its out-of-date policy on aviation, implementing strategies to cap the number of flights at current levels with a view to reducing them in the future and move towards a sustainable, low-carbon transport system.

Greenpeace also considers this consultation process to be seriously flawed: designed to push through a decision that has already been made and without properly taking into account the effect on the environment, or seriously considering alternatives.

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