Climate change has been blamed for causing what could end up being the hottest April Germany has seen since records began. DWD, the German Weather Service has reported temperatures that have been on average 4.5 degrees higher than normal for this time of year. Wolfgang Kusch, president of the DWD said yesterday,
“The climate change train is not just rolling, it’s getting faster and faster. If the next two days pan out as expected, we will have a new record month.”
Vestas Blades, Britain’s only wind turbine manufacturing factory, shut down operations and announced closure yesterday. The decision to close down has been blamed on a lack of demand for wind turbine parts in Northern Europe and the effects of the global financial problems currently affecting the world.
Workers at the plant have been given 90 days’ notice of the imminent redundancies, however environmental campaigners Greenpeace have questioned whether Gordon Brown could have done more to prevent the factory having to close down, commenting that although last week’s Budget commitment is a positive move, it is “too little too late”.
A major MoD nuclear submarine base in Faslane near Glasgow yesterday released information under the Freedom of Information Act detailing a number of embarrassing incidents involving nuclear and radioactive waste and admitted inadequate staff training for employees.
Angus Robertson MP, Leader of the Scottish National Party Westminster, and their Defence spokesperson commented,
“This utterly damning disclosure reveals repeated and serious nuclear safety breaches, and the MoD cannot be above the law. We are not talking about a one off incident but a whole catalogue of serious and frankly shocking failures.”
The company behind the innovative USBCELL battery have today launched a new campaign, Save Battery Waste. The campaign aims to increase public awareness of the importance of recycling batteries, and with over 15 billion of them being manufactured and thrown away each year, it’s not difficult to see why.
Moixa Energy Ltd began their campaign at the UK Aware conference held on 17th and 18th April at London Olympia by holding a collection at their hybrid solar PV and battery run stall. Their collection of spent batteries totalled 90kg by the end of the event, which shockingly is only about 1/100th of the amount of batteries currently disposed of in the UK every week.
National Trust has joined with Natural England to begin a project to bring awareness and conservation to the traditional orchard. Traditional orchards are in danger of becoming a thing of the past, with most fruit trees now being grown intensively with the use of chemicals and small scale fruit producers having been hit by difficult economic situations over the years.
One of the major reasons behind the project is concern for the future of many rare varieties of apple, such as the Polly White Hair and the Hangy-Down. Plum and pear varieties are also affected, as are habitats of creatures such as bats, birds, insects and small mammals. National Trust’s head of nature conservation, David Bullock, commented,
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A report by two climate scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego warns that the effects of climate change could lead to shortfalls in targeted water supply for homes serviced by the Colorado River; an area that has never before suffered a shortage.
The area, made up of vast areas of farmland and millions of domestic properties is estimated to be affected by shortages up to 90% of the time by 2050. Even without the expected effects of climate change, however, shortages would still be expected due to the targets being based on water levels of the Colorado River during the 20th century, which analysis of tree rings has shown to be one of the wettest centuries of the last 1200 years.
Make do and mend, one of the major policies employed during the war, is being hailed as a key way of making it easier to survive the recession. People have become used to being able to pop out to the shops and buy new clothes, appliances, cars, carpets, and any other consumer products you wish to name. And not only because existing ones are worn out, but just because they fancy a change. Well change is here.
With less money in the system and many families restricting how much they spend, making do with what we have, and repairing goods where we can, has been suggested as one way we can get through to the other side of the recession. Sadly with busy lives, less people have the skills to repair clothes, darn socks, fix broken furniture or mend electrical or mechanical goods. Even less of us have the tools to do so anymore. So maybe what we need is a revival in learning skills to fix our own broken and faulty items to help increase their livespan, save us money and reduce the amount going to landfill all in one go.
The government has given the go ahead for a new generation of coal fired power stations with the caveat that carbon capture and storage technology must be installed by 2025.
Executive director of environmental activism organisation, Greenpeace, John Sauven commented yesterday on Ed Miliband’s proposed action to tackle the issue of polluting coal fired power stations, stating:
“Finally a cabinet minister has faced up to the massive threat coal poses to the climate, but we’re not there yet. Very significant questions remain unanswered, with environmentalists concerned that emissions from coal could still be undermining Britain’s climate efforts for years to come.”
As their contribution to Earth Day, yesterday saw the launch of Greenpeace’s new video which aims to inspire watchers to become climate activists. Earth Day began in 1970, and was the brain child of Senator Gaylord Nelson, who decided to begin a campaign to kickstart public awareness and action about the environmental issues affecting the planet.
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National Geographic and Merscom, a global video and games publisher, today launched ‘Plan It Green’, a new time management game that challenges players to create their own green and sustainable cities.
Kirk Owen, Merscom’s CEO, believes that the game has been launched at the right time, with green issues and sustainable living being so high on the public agenda, commenting that,
“This is the right product for the times. Not only is it a fantastic game, but it integrates a theme we all hear hundreds of times a week.”
