How to have a Green Christmas!!

Despite having green trees and red and green themes, the Christmas period hasn't always been and frequently isn't good for the environment. Here are a few tips to enjoy yourself over the coming month without putting too much strain on the planet - and perhaps feel good about it too!!

Packaging - No need to go the whole hog with multiple layers of glossy crinkly paper - in the UK, 50,000 trees go into Christmas wrapping each year (enough to gift-wrap Guernsey). So how about using newspaper (with an environmentally friendly story for the person recieving it to read) as wrapping paper, a little ribbon and card, or a bag that can be re-used?

Trees - go natural and British rather than imported plastic trees - and hopefully your council will compost the tree at the end of the festive season!

Energy - Christmas may be in the winter season, but you don't have to turn your house into a tropical paradise by cranking up the heat. A jumper will feel nice and snug. Turn down the lighting too (fewer fairy lights?) for to create that relaxed mood and make sure you turn off the tree lights at night!! Take the opportunity to switch to green electricity with Ecotricity!

Food - Go local for your Christmas dinner and cut down on food miles - the average Xmas dinner made with imported ingredients travels 24,000 miles from farm to plate, while a UK-sourced dinner can be as low as 376 miles!! Local turkeys, free-range eggs, British apples, local ales and beer - take the challenge! Waste not too - why not start composting if you aren't already!

Give Green Gifts - what better way to show how much you care by giving someone an eco-friendly gift - and inspires others too! From organic and ethically-made clothing (e.g. Natural Collection) to food (pop into your local Oxfam shop for luxury Divine Fairtrade chocolate), eco-friendly books(check out Friends of the Earth's mega-collection or take out a subscription to The Ecologist) or better yet - recycled gifts from antique shops and flea markets! Check out the online shops at the Centre for Alternative Technology and WWF for a range of just about anything and more ideas are from Green Gifts!

The new trend are virtual gifts - a goat in Ethiopia, latrines in Indonesia, for instance - run by several charity groups (see Oxfam, WWF, Christian Aid and CAFOD for starters). You buy the goat here in the UK, and it gets delivered to the project that the charity is working on. You're giving twice - to your friend/family member, and to people on the other side of the world!

Ultimately, in whatever you do - recycle the post-Christmas mess (esp glass, paper and cans), re-use what you already have, and reduce so things don't even have to enter the waste stream!!

If everyone in the world lived the way British citizens did, we'd need three planets to sustain us all (which we don't have, by the way). Take the opportunity that Christmas presents to spend more time with family and friends, and less time with gifts and money.

Celebrate a green Christmas - and celebrate making the world a better place.

School of Arts heads to Barcelona

I understand that the School of Art organizes an annual field trip around Easter, and this year they are going to Barcelona. I asked them how they are travelling there, and the reply that I got was by plane.

Air travel is enormously destructive to the environment, and has significant implications for climate change. An average calculation of the carbon footprint for air travel from Liverpool to Barcelona from Climate Care was 0.31 tonnes of CO2; a calculation from the CarbonNeutral Company was 0.4 tonnes for CO2 for a journey of 2778km.

I asked the School of Art whether they had considered going by other means of travel; I know the Biology department travels to Spain for a summer field trip by ferry and there are also trains and coach networks across Europe. Going to Barcelona, these modes of travel obviously take longer, but have a far smaller carbon footprint. The answer that I got back was that they had asked the Art students and all of them preferred going by plane. Thus, 'it is the students I need to convert'. It's all too easy to pass the buck - 'oh, we tried, but they just didn't want to do it' and just like that, climate change falls through the gap.

There is a valid point that was made to me - not everyone is aware of the impacts of aviation on climate change and campaigners face the constant task of getting the word out - as we come to understand climate linkages better we have to communicate those effectively. But climate change requires an assertive stance, and the School of Art should have not made air travel an option.

Marketing people call this choice editing - the choices we make are from a range that have been selected by others. Insisting that air travel was a no-no would have been a powerful sign of how seriously we are taking climate change and make it easier and encourage students to be green.

It is short-haul air travel that we can do plenty about. The most popular flights out of the UK are to Paris and Amsterdam - easily accessible by Eurostar. There are plenty of other options for further beyond on rail, ferry or coach. Short-haul flights are the most inefficient (on a per km, not an absolute basis) because the aircraft is in the air for only a short period of time and the extra fuel needed for take-off and landing isn't exploited. And short-haul flights are the ones that we can do without.

George Monbiot made a striking point in one of his columns a month or so ago that the real threat to our ability to face up to the climate change challenge are not the 'climate deniers' - ExxonMobil et al. The real theat comes from those of us who are aware of what climate change is and what its impacts are, but who do nothing about it and do not change their lifestyles accordingly. We can all say the fuzzy words of concern - but rhetoric means nothing without action.

For more information on aviation and climate change, visit Spurt - the website of those who favor more runways, expanding air travel and building bigger airports...

Who Eco-Inspires You?

A really nice article in today's Guardian on the top one hundred green campaigners of all time, compiled by the Environment Agency.

Number one is Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring in the 1950s focusing on the DDT pesticide, and credited with inspiring the beginning of the modern popular environmental movement.

Other familiar names (to me, at least):
#3 Jonathan Porritt, head of the UK's Sustainable Development Commission which advises the Government on its sustainable development plans and policy

#6 Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2004 for her work with the Kenyan Green Belt Movement - planting over ten million trees

#9 Al Gore - he may have shot to prominence recently with An Inconvienient Truth, but his environmental interests date back quite a while - read Earth in the Balance, written before he became Vice-President.

#23 George Monbiot - People and Planet's patron and Guardian columnist

#25 Ken Livingstone - Mayor of London who brought in the idea of the congestion charge on a large scale

#32 - Jim Hansen - NASA scientist who came out saying that his warnings to the US Government on climate change were being stifled for political reasons

#56 - Caroline Lucas MEP - Green party politician

#100 - Father Christmas - 'carbon-free delivery'

Feel Good About Your Shopping!

Been under a heavy weight of work for the last couple of days so sorry that there haven't been any posts for a while...

A new survey on ethical spending in the UK has just been released by the Co-operative Bank - and the headline statistic is that we now spend more on 'ethical' products that we do on tobacco and alcohol!

This is obviously terrific news - it means that more people are making consumption choices that are better for the environment, offer a fair deal for producers, and support human rights. We consume every day of our lives, and the growth of the ethical market offers great opportunities to raise concerns over international trade and the environment in an easily comprehendable way for the consumer. The hope is that buying ethical products helps to kick off a greater awareness of the broader issues behind the product and what is so unethical about the 'normal' products.

The entry of the big supermarkets, while crucial to mainstreaming ethical choices and making it easy for consumers to go ethical, does raise an important concern that standards need to be maintained and that supermarket power should not be used to squeeze even more profit out of ethical products while compromising the very values of the product itself. Organic farming is what is at the top of the mind, but a range of 'fairly-traded' labels appears the potential confusion for the consumer is growing. A supermarket 'own-brand' fairtrade label could have significantly different criteria than the general Fairtrade mark, but to the vast majority of people they will appear one and the same.

So while I do about half my shopping at the Co-op - which is already near the top of the heap for its existing ethical commitments - I do my very best to go to local bakeries, the Treehouse for fresh veg, the Oxfam shop for Fairtrade products, and the farmer's market when it rolls into town every couple of weeks. It may be a few pence more expensive (and always assume that it is) but it is about supporting local farmers and producers for whom it makes a difference - we do, after all, live in an agricultural-rich area of the country!!

I was glad to hear that Tyrrells, who grow their own potatoes to make crisps, refused to supply to Tesco earlier in the year because of the way in which Tesco has browbeaten potato farmers across the country into forcing prices down to the point where the business is no longer viable.

Biology setting off on the green road

I've just heard that the Biology department (Institute of Biological Sciences) is embarking on a project to embed and integrate sustainability into its curriculum and teaching!

They've recieved funding from the Higher Education Academy to carry out this nine-month project, whose aims are to assess the content and delivery of teaching and research in terms of sustainability and being green, scrutizining suppliers for their green credentials, encouraging students to be greener and more sustainable and to identify impacts and areas for improvement in IBS activities!

Getting a start at the departmental level is terribly important - the departments, their teaching and research is what a university is all about, so hopefully this will give some impetus to other departments to be green!

If you're a IBS student and want to find out more, please contact Zena Wilmot (azw@aber.ac.uk)!

Go Green and Fairtrade Stalls

Pictures from our snappy Go Green and Fairtrade stalls in the union to garner support and let people know we're here!

The Week that Was...

Two higlights from last week - the Queen's Speech and the international climate negotiations in Nairobi, Kenya.

"My government will publish a bill on climate change as part of its policy to protect the environment, consistent with the need to secure long-term energy supplies. "

One line in a speech, but that's what we've been waiting for for a while. It wasn't a secret that we've been waiting for with great angst and anticipation, having known about the impending announcement for about two weeks now, but there will hopefully be no further backtracking with a new Climate Bill passing through Parliament in the next twelve months.

Now, the big question - what kind of Climate Bill will it be? Obviously, we want it to be a Climate Bill that 'does stuff', as I like to call it. Earlier in the year, DEFRA announced that Britain was likely to fall short of its 20% cut target for CO2 emissions by 2010 - it would cut around 15-17% instead. Even if Ministers have talked about a 60% cut by 2050 for a while, there's little, save for momentary political embarassment, to actually ensure that that cut is made. Now that the target will become law, the policies and strategies have to be put in place across the economy and society to make sure that these cuts happen.

A new Bill is needed to provide a binding framework to meet this target. Initial plans sound iffy on the idea of annual cuts, but if not annual, then every two-yearly targets need to be set to hold on to short-term commitments and deliver a sense of immediacy and urgency to cutting carbon emissions. The other main thing being mooted is a 'carbon committee', an independent committee to monitor progress on the targets. But detail is still thin on the ground, with both the committee and the shape of the rest of the planned legislation, and much more detail will be forthcoming over the next few months, with hopefully a public consultation to appear soon, when we can make clear what we want in a Climate Bill that does stuff.

You can also comment on the Climate Bill (or any other aspect of the Queen's Speech) and have a reply from the Labour Party.

The end of the United Nations climate negotiations in Nairobi, Kenya, focused on a review of the Kyoto Protocol and beginning negotiations on its successor (it expires in 2012), however, has less of a warm glow to it.

The real sticking point was on a post-Kyoto global binding deal. The tricky thing about Kyoto, and one of the main objections to it, was that in recognition of the historical responsibilities and contributions of the industrial, developed countries to climate change, they were the ones who had binding targets placed upon them to cut carbon emissions. This excluded China and India, who are some of the world's largest emitters (even if not on a per capita basis). But since Kyoto was agreed in 1997, we've come a long way in recognizing the impacts that climate change will have, and a new agreement needs to bring developing countries, in particular the two members of the billion-citizen club on board.

The outcome of the Nairobi summit was a general commitment for in-depth negotiations to begin next year with an ideal conclusion by the end of 2008. No commitment was made in principle that developing countries should have to make cuts at all, driven largely by the perspective that cutting carbon emissions will damage economic growth.

To a certain extent I can understand this point - tougher standards and requirements will increase red tape and deter business - but you've got to take the longer-term view (which unfortunately too few politicians operate in) in recognizing the costs of addressing and adapting to the implications of climate change. The time for prevention of climatic change for the next twenty-thirty years has passed, and we'll be having to find the cures for the hundreds of millions of people who feel its effects - but there is still time to prevent the thirty-odd years that follow it, because it we don't, we may not be able to do much about it then.

So, in both cases, a start and a step forward - but much more remains to be done.

UPDATE - A conversation between Tony Juniper (Friends of the Earth director) and Tony Blair to which you can contribute...

Getting the Going Green Going

We've sent the letter explaining what Go Green is all about to senior university staff members, we've begun to petitions signed (we have a stall on Monday in the union to kick things off and there should also be a petition at the Student Union reception all the time), now we need to wait and see what comes back from the VC.

But in the meantime, we'll be busy getting the word out and around - a motion has been submitted for the next Union General Meeting in early December, we've gotten a Go Green/Bydd Wyrdd banner made, and much more to come!!

Does Anyone Have a Thermal Imaging Camera in the Back of Their Closet?

Now, if I can get my hands on a thermal imaging camera...

What I'd love to do is to take pictures of the buildings on the university campus using such a camera, which produce images like the one below - illustrating heat loss from buildings (cooler parts are blue, warmer parts that emit heat are red)


This picture is of the Houses of Parliament, showing that most of the heat loss comes through the big windows. Such images, here in Aber, would demonstrate the difference between the new Interpol building and the older 1970s concrete buildings in terms of energy efficiency and retaining heat (which after all is one of the biggest uses of energy on campus)

I've contacted the Maths/Physics dept and the Geography/Earth Sciences dept but they've both said that they don't have the equipment. Any ideas, anyone?

(Picture credited to the British Fenestration Rating Council)

A Plastic Bag Tax?

One idea that's been at the back of my mind for an awfully long time is to introduce a charge on plastic bags - so that they're no longer given out free. I've been frustrated by the responses that I've recieved from the big supermarkets so to take action where we can, I will be proposing that the Union shop begin to charge for plastic bags that they give out.

Unfortunately this has slipped my mind everytime I blog, which is why it's only appeared now - and I need to formalize the idea and submit it in a motion to the next Union General Meeting by Friday, so I'm open to a four-day consultation process (please tell me your thoughts via the comments link on to the post)

-Will such a charge be effective?
-How much should this charge be?
-Where should the money go?
-Any thing else that you think is relevant to this!

(Picture taken from the Brighton and Hove Green Party)

Go Green Goes Live

Later this week we launch our Go Green campaign which aims to transform Aber Uni's environmental performance.

Close your eyes (after you read this sentence) and imagine a university that offers a comprehensive recycling system for students across campus, runs a green landlords scheme for private accommodation options, low-energy lightbulbs everywhere, multi-flush toilets, solar panels and wind turbines on roofs and lights, sources its food from local farmers, actively reuses and reduces, demands that its suppliers are green, sustainable buildings...

It's done elsewhere across the country, so it can be done here in Aber!

My biggest fear for the long-term future is that I'll come back in ten years and find that the entire campus has been concreted over. The new Interpol building and ongoing Visualisation project (the thing by Cledwyn) will have been completed within one calendar year of each other, the extension to the Film and TV building further slicing off the space between residences and academic buildings, converting the space between Ed Llwyd and Cledwyn into a gravel parking lot. There are three main empty existing spaces for new buildings - in front of Penbryn, in front of the Hugh Owen building, and next to Llandinam.

But back to the happy stuff. We begin to collect signatures on a petition, raise awareness among students with some crazy creative stunts, and start communicating with the VC on Tuesday. I really have no clue how long we'll need to put the pressure on to achieve our campaign aims. But as long as we get a good start, I'm confident that we'll be here for the long-run beyond the end of this academic year.

There are a whole host of reasons why the university should Go Green: being green saves money, being green offers a better image and reputation, being green gives back to the local community, and being green sets an example at a time of unparallelled awareness about our impact on this planet, especially in terms of climate change. I think, at least, at the most basic level, if you ask me why the university - our university - should Go Green, I'd like to ask you: why not?

Carnival of Climate Chaos!

Here are a few pictures from the Sat Nov 4 Carnival of Climate Chaos marching through central London, heading to Trafalgar Square for the I Count rally



At the start of the march - from left, Ellie, Stu, Phil, Jon, Jenny, Ed, Rob, Holly










Tom and Matthias in the middle of the procession, with Charlotte trying to hide from the camera in between them











Looking down the street - the art installation that is the Carnival of Climate Chaos! We were going for a completely different look to the regular cacophony of banners and placards and it was really impressive seeing a sea of weather symbols stretching down a street!








Ellie and Jennie with shaker (no, that's not a water bottle) and I Count badges!












Ed with his tongue out:

1-2-3-4 Cutting carbon must be law
5-6-7-8 2010 may be too late!










The mega art installation arrives in Trafalgar Square to a sea of people already there - it must
have looked really cool to have this stream of clouds and suns and lightning bolts flowing down from one street into the Square!










Packed to bursting point - the crowd didn't thin even when a technical failure with the sound system resulted in a short delay! (needed to get onto a backup diesel generator)










Jon says I Count! (together with about 25,00 other people) Check out Big Ben down Whitehall over Jon's shoulder to the left











Razorlight on the main stage in Trafalgar Square!

Mark Williams MP's Letter to the Environment Secretary

If you weren't able to get to last week's People and Planet meeting, here is the text of the letter that Mark Williams MP has sent to the Rt. Hon David Miliband MP, Environment Secretary, following our meeting with him earlier in the month on a new Climate Bill. It is dated 30 Oct.

"Dear David,

I am writing to ask you to support legally binding targets as the way to stabilize greenhouse gases and prevent dangerous climate change, and to urge you and your Ministerial colleagues to introduce a Climate Change Bill in this year's Queen's Speech.

I was pleased to see that the Government felt able to lend its support to the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill, which includes provision for an annual report on progress towards climate change targets to be made by the Government to Parliament. I was also pleased to read your comments yesterday, acknowledging the importance of climate change legislation.

I, and over half the MPs in Parliament have signed up to Friends of the Earth's campaign for a Climate Change Bill to be included in the Queen's Speech. The Bill should commit the Government to cutting the UK's carbon dioxide emissions by at least three per cent year on year.

I note your intention to put into statute an intention to cut emissions by 60% by 2050, and to consider interim targets, however I am concerned that without firm year on year targets, real and swift progress will not be achieved. I firmly believe that we must set an example as a developed nation, and drastically change our habits in order to bring down our individual carbon footprints.

Public awareness of the need to tackle climate change is growing rapidly, but a UK government target to set its own legally binding emissions targets, together with a package of financial assistance and advice, would send out a powerful message.

I also hope that the Government will consider altering the tax regime to bring about a green tax switch. By doing this, we can help to change people's habits, and stimulate the growth of ore environmentally friendly technologies.

I note your intention to bring forward legislation as soon as Parliamentary time allows. I hope that you will do all you can to ensure that a Climate Change Bill forms part of the Queen's Speech on 15th November.

Sincerely,
Mark Williams."

New University Electricity Supplier

I've just heard that the University has changed it electricity supplier from British Gas to Scottish & Southern. The relevant bit? Scottish and Southern derive a higher proportion of their electricity from renewable sources than British Gas do - 8.4% for S&S instead of 4.2% from British Gas. Think about it this way: if a lecture lasts 100 minutes, the lights are powered from renewable sources for 8.4 minutes.

Now, before jumping for joy at this increase - the reason for changing suppliers was not to bump up the renewable proportion, but it was done simply as part of a regular re-tendering exercise after the old 2-year contract with British Gas had come up for renewal. The University could just as easily have switched to a supplier that had a smaller proportion of renewables, but thankfully this wasn't the case.

The University (and you in your homes) can go 100% renewable by switching to a green electricity supplier - either Ecotricity or Good Energy, which get 100% of their energy from green, renewable sources. And switching suppliers isn't troublesome at all - you can do it online! You won't notice any difference at all to your home electricity supply, which will still come through the national grid - you're just paying a different company for your electricity, increasing demand for renewables at the same time and the knowlege that your electricity isn't releasing tonnes and tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change!

All energy companies have to provide a certain proportion of their electricity from renewable sources as part of the Government's push to cut carbon emissions. In technical terms, this is known as the Renewables Obligation - and if you're really interested in this, the Department for Trade and Industry has a ongoing public consultation on the future of the RO, what is required of electricity suppliers and encouraging large-scale electricity production from renewable sources.

The Warmth of Renewable Energy

Quietly springing up around campus have been a set of solar-powered streetlights - the only one's I've seen so far have been one outside Penbryn and three behind the TV/Film building - if you've seen any others elsewhere on campus flag it up here (there should be 20 in total)! Pictures here are from the one outside Penbryn...

So, how's it work? These are photovoltaic (PV) solar cells, which means that electricity is generated using sunlight (not sunshine, so they still work on an overcast day and don't need to be in direct sunlight), stored in a battery during the day, and kicks in at night to power the streetlight.

Solar radiation is converted into energy - PV cells consist of layers of a semiconducting material - most commonly silicon, and when sunlight shines onto the cells, and electric field is generated across the layers (physics students please correct me here).

Solar energy is 100% renewable (well, at least until the Sun dies out and all that) so there are no fuel costs, just the initial costs of purchasing and installing the units and maintenance thereafter - which over its lifetime will be more than recovered through electricity savings (no need to take power from the coal-fired plants off national grid, thus cutting carbon emissions and fighting climate change)!

The overall impact of these streetlights will be pretty small compared to the overall carbon emissions of the university - but it's a start.

Small-scale installations like these are known as 'microgeneration' sources - so they are integrated into existing structures and buildings instead of being built on an large solar-farm development (e.g. in Australia)

These panels are oriented towards the south - this is to enable maximum sunlight capture - and the greater the intensity of the light, the more power generated!

Want to install your own PV cells on your roof? Contact the Energy Saving Trust for advice, especially on grant schemes available that can sometimes cover up to 50% of the costs.