The Green Village News for June, 2009
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Following the intervention of President Barack Obama signing a Presidential Memorandum requesting the Environmental Protection Agency to review the decision to deny the greenhouse gas waiver request submitted by California. The waiver will apply to California’s greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicles produced in 2009.
Under the Clean Air Act, California is given the authority to introduce and enforce stricter standards for cars and trucks than current federal law dictates. The original request was submitted in December 2005 by the California Air Resources Board but was denied in March 2006 on the basis that there was no need for California’s greenhouse gas emissions standards to meet “compelling and extraordinary conditions”.
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Tags: barack obama, california, carbon emissions, clean air act, epa, fuel efficiency, greenhouse gases
Posted in Environmental Impact, Environmental Politics, Green Planet, Transport and Travel | 1 Comment
Monday, June 29th, 2009
Environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth have launched a new campaign promoting the reduction of carbon emissions by challenging local councils to get serious about CO2. The campaign was launched with the release of independent research conducted by Carbon Descent, leading climate change advisors for councils.
The campaign aims to highlight the role that local councils should be playing in helping reduce the UK’s carbon footprint by making a commitment to achieve a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 in their local area. In addition, councils are being asked to draw up action plans to explain how they’ll make their cuts in CO2, which Friends of the Earth’s research demonstrates could create 77,000 jobs in green industries across the UK. Jobs could be created in industries such as insulation, loft lagging and green building techniques, and that is without the consideration of warehouse and admin staff required behind the scenes.
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Tags: campaign, carbon emissions, co2, friends of the earth, get serious about CO2, local councils
Posted in Companies and Organisations, Environmental Impact, Environmental Politics, Green Planet | No Comments
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
Animal welfare organisation Compassion in World Farming have organised the Bake With Compassion week to promote baking with free range eggs and help campaign against caged and battery production. The weeklong campaign will take place between 6th and 12th July and aims to raise money through fundraising events to help promote the chickens’ cause.
The fundraising campaign will coincide with CIWF’s Good Egg Awards, which celebrate companies and organisations that switch to using free range eggs in their businesses and products and calls on budding cooks and home bakers to put on their pinnies and make some homemade goodies to promote the importance of using free range eggs.
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Tags: bake with compassion, baking, battery hens, caged hens, ciwf, compassion in world farming, free range, free range eggs, good egg awards, homemade cakes
Posted in Companies and Organisations, Ethical shopping, Events and Courses, Food and Farming, Green Family, Green Living, Green Planet | 2 Comments
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
Despite homeopathic treatment prescribed by the NHS being at the request of patients, the practice has received criticism due to the total amount spent on the alternative therapy totaling £12 million across the UK over the last three years. The treatment is based on the theory that like treats like, and patients are prescribed minute doses of plant extracts diluted down that aim to treat the underlying cause of illness, rather than simply relieving the symptoms.
Criticism has come from a number of people including Professor of Complementary Medicine, Edzard Ernst, who has said that homeopathic remedies are little more than sugar pills, and their effects are placebo. There have been calls for doctors to stop prescribing homeopathic treatment for patients as a result of this, although not everybody is of the opinion that homeopathy is a waste of time.
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Tags: alternative medicine, alternative therapies, annabel croft, complementary therapy, homeopathy, natural remedies, nhs
Posted in Green Family, Green Living, Health and Wellbeing | 1 Comment
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
Barack Obama has been accused of watering down the climate change bill following pressure from coal and oil companies. The policy that originally would have required companies wanting to build greenhouse gas emitting power stations and producing carbon emissions to pay for a permit and penalised them per tonne for carbon emitted has been diluted following discussions in Congress.
Criticism is borne from a number of changes, including a dramatic change in the percentage reduction in carbon emissions compared to 1990. This stands to be down to 4%, which Greenpeace’s Joss Garman pointed out on Newsnight tonight ought to be 40%. In addition, the carbon permits that were originally planned to be paid for will now be given out free to 85% of emitters; another aspect of the bill that is receiving criticism.
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Tags: barack obama, carbon emissions, climate change, climate change bill, co2, us
Posted in Energy and Resources, Environmental Impact, Environmental Politics, Green Planet | No Comments
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
Today marks the start of the 5th annual ‘Recycle Week’, a nationwide initiative looking to promote waste reduction and recycling across the UK. More than 330 events will take place over the course of the week from 22nd-28th June, with the theme of ‘Let’s Waste Less’.
As part of the campaign, Recycle Now is challenging people to pledge to kick start new environmentally friendly habits and recycle more of the waste we produce including textiles, glass and electrical goods, to making greener consumer choices such as choosing to buy peat free compost, to using leftover food for tomorrow’s lunch. The site also includes details of the many events taking place, including roadshows providing advice on recycling and composting.
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Tags: landfill, love food hate waste, recycle now, recycle week, recycling, waste reduction
Posted in Environmental Impact, Green Family, Green Living, Green Planet, Recycling and Waste | 1 Comment
Sunday, June 21st, 2009
Former President and Chief Executive Officer of Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Saudi Aramco, Mr Abdallah S. Jum’ah was the speaker at a Royal Academy of Engineering lecture and dinner on 17th June, which set out to discuss the issue of technology being the key to the sustainability of future energy generation.
In his address, Mr Jum’ah expressed his belief that fossil fuels will never be replaced by renewable energy, as there is still a plentiful supply of oil available for future generations to use; some of this however would be from unconventional sources such as tar sands, such as those in Canada. He argued that renewable energy sources used today, such as wind, solar and geothermal energy, contribute less than 1% to the energy we use, going on to say that he believed without considerable investment such as government subsidies to enable companies to improve efficiency, their market share would not increase.
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Tags: climate change, fossil fuels, oil, peak oil, renewable energy, tar sands
Posted in Energy and Resources, Environmental Impact, Green Planet | No Comments
Saturday, June 20th, 2009
The 2009 green university league table, compiled annually since 2007 by People and Planet as part of their ‘Go Green’ campaign to celebrate universities’ environmental performance, has been unveiled this week. The league table pits 127 UK universities against each other, ranking them on a number of environmental criteria and awarding them in degree style with differing classifications according to their performance; first, 2:1, 2:2, third, and fail. Universities that did not provide any information were listed under the ‘did not sit exam’ category.
This year’s top scoring institution was Nottingham Trent University who took the crown from last year’s winner, University of Gloucester, scoring 58.5 points. Second and third place went to the London School of Economics and Political Science and Oxford Brookes University respectively. Universities were ranked on issues such as carbon management policies, whether they have environmental staff, ethical investment and Fairtrade status.
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Tags: corporate responsibility, green award, green league table, green university, nottingham trent university, people and planet
Posted in Companies and Organisations, Environmental Impact, Green Planet | No Comments
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
The UK Climate Projections for 2009 (UKCP09), which has been informed by scientific data from the UK Met Office, has been released today, and provides an alarming insight into the potential effects of global warming on the UK climate. The projections include an array of scenarios including changes in temperature that we would expect to encounter, variation in rainfall, humidity and cloud cover across the year.
The report highlights the information based on high, low and medium amounts of emissions, and provides projections of expected climate change in the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s. The projections have been based on information put together from 400 variations of the Met Centre’s Hadley Office climate change computer model, and as well as providing a number of pre-prepared maps and graphs, enables users to create their own custom made maps and projections within a 25sq km.
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Tags: climate change, friends of the earth, global warming, uk climate projections, UKCP09
Posted in Companies and Organisations, Environmental Impact, Environmental Politics, Green Planet | No Comments
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
On 23rd April Ed Miliband outlined plans for clean coal technology to help reduce the UK’s carbon emissions and begin to take action against climate change. Today the details of the new coal consultation have been announced, asking for feedback on three documents published today on the Department for Environment and Climate Change website.
The proposals focus on three main areas and provide more detailed information about the plans in the pipeline to help reduce carbon emissions. The first part of the proposal will mean that all newly built coal fired power stations will only be approved if they include CCS (carbon capture and storage) technology that captures at least 25% of the power stations’ carbon emissions and pumps it back into the ground where oil and gas were originally stored beneath the North Sea.
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Tags: carbon capture and, carbon emissions, ccs, clean coal, climate change, coal, coal fired power stations, coal power station, decc, ed miliband
Posted in Energy and Resources, Environmental Politics, Green Planet | 1 Comment
