Crush the 4x4!

Friends of the Earth have just released a new awareness campaign, called ClimateSafe, which features ways of generating clean energy and cutting down on current consumption. It also includes a funky online game where you control the polar bear that has to shoot ice cubes at a 4x4 - before time runs out and the Arctic sea ice has all melted! You could even win InterRail train passes to travel around Europe...

International Relations - A Green Journal?

International Relations is a quarterly academic journal whose editorial board features some of the leading lights of UWA's International Politics Department, and is published by Sage Publications. The paper that it is printed on, however, may not match the pearls of wisdom contained inside...

The journal is printed on a type of paper called Amber Graphic (80sgm). According to Sage, this is not Forest Stewardship Council certified but is made from 'sustainable sources'. I asked what 'sustainable' meant and the reply that I recieved was

"The paper pulp is made from a combination of 70 percent 'virgin' fibre taken from sustainable sources (defined as from forests that are being replenished and managed in an environmentally responsible way) and 30percent 'mill broke' meaning unprinted waste paper that is broken down for re-use."

The manufacturer of this paper is Arctic Paper, a Polish/Swedish company. To be fair, it has ISO 14001 accreditation and has an EMAS environmental management and reporting system. I can take that as an assurance that the process of making the paper at the mills is fully audited, tracked and monitored and that efforts are in place to minimize waste, water and energy consumption.

But the raw material from which the paper is made - the trees in the forests - doesn't come with similar guarantees. Forest Stewardship Council certification is the only process that effectively guarantee that the forests are well managed and that associated environmental, economic and social issues are fully addressed. This also involves a system called chain-of-custody that tracks the timber through all stages of processing and is third-party audited to ensure that it meets the FSC Principles and Criteria of Forest Stewardship.

What is significant to me is that this company produces two other ranges of paper - twelve specific types of paper in all - that are FSC-certified. They're obviously doing something extra with these kinds of paper that they're not with the Amber Graphic range and their sourcing methods for Amber Graphic do not meet FSC standards. Finding out that the paper is 'sustainable' is obviously better than finding out that it comes from, for instance, illegally-logged Papua New Guinean rainforest - but I wouldn't be prepared to put money on the claim that it doesn't come from ancient, old-growth forest. In comparison to FSC-certified products, there are no cast-iron guarantees when it comes to a 'sustainable' product. There are, after all, a whole range of ways that the label 'environmentally responsible' can be defined (I'm reminded of the ammunition manufacturer that stopped producing depleted uranium munitions and called itself a socially responsible company).

And by the way, the only reason that I chose to look into International Relations is because I'm an international politics student - I would encourage you to look into similar issues for any journals whose editorial team comes from your UWA academic department. Let me know of any outcomes - good or bad! A useful starting point on the politics of paper/timber sourcing is Greenpeace's Protecting Ancient Forests campaign.

The latest word on climate change...

This Friday, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (known by the handy acronym of IPCC) will release its Fourth Assessment Report (the last one was in 2001) on the science of climate change. In two months time it will release a section focusing on impacts and vulnerability from climate change, and in May a third section will be published on what can be done to mitigate the impacts on climate change.

The UN IPCC is the scientific voice on climate change, bringing together the world's top climate scientists to arrive at a consensus on the future that we face together. The panel reviews all the scientific work on climate change that has been conducted in the last five years to achieve a big-picture overview on what kind of climate change we might see in the decades to come. Because it involves so many scientists, who aren't going to agree with each other all the time, the IPCC is also seen as a fairly conservative body of thought, where only the bits that everyone can agree on are included. This time around, there are already criticisms that it is too conservative in its assessment, in particular, its suggestion that climate change will have a minimal major impact on Antarctica.

The report, in any case, will make for some fairly grim reading:
- globally, the world will be warming by 0.2C per decade for the next two decades.
- current concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice core records going back for 650,000 years.
- continued greenhouse gas emissions are likely to cause changes to the global climate far greater than those experienced in the 20th century.
- changes in sea surface temperatures, snow cover and atmospheric circulation patterns are linked to longer and more intense droughts.
- the number of cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons per year is likely to decrease, but their intensity and effects will be greater.
- the timescale of climate processes, systems and feedback mean that even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilised, warming effects and sea-level rises would continue for centuries thereafter.

This picture, provided through the BBC, shows a retreating Austrian glacier over nearly 100 years. Mountain glaciers such as these are retreating nearly three times as fast as they were in the 1980s. The Alps are expected to lose 75% of their glacial cover by 2100. It's not pretty stuff and the scale and speed of change illustrated here can be found for the majority of mountain glaciers throughout the world - with effects for users of the water that melts from them - what will happen when the glaciers are gone and the streams stop flowing?

Guild Elections coming up...

Elections for next year (2007/2008)'s Guild of Students Executive are fast coming up at the end of the month and into March, for both full-time sabbatical positions and non-sabbatical officers (what I do as E&E Officer). The nitty gritty details about the elections process is available on the Guild website, but here's a short summary of the dates to keep in mind:

Nominations Open - 10.00am 21/02/07
Nominations Close - 12.00am 02/03/07
Candidates Meeting - 3.00pm 02/03/07
Canvassing Opens - 10.00am 09/03/07
Hustings: Penglais - 12.30pm 12/03/07
Election Day - 15/03/07

I'd encourage everyone to consider standing for the various positions - there are around twenty students on the Executive committee, and I've learned a lot from my time so far and I'm sure you'll enjoy yours too. Democracy at all levels needs a healthy sense of competition and the quality of what the Aber Guild of Students tries to achieve can only improve.

Feel free to approach me if you want to find out more about what the E&E job entails! You can be the change you wish to see in the world...

How to save the planet by living in private housing...

The booklets released this week by Residential and Hospitality Services include a short section that I had added on things to consider when choosing your house in the private sector. I had initially hoped to be able to say a few words at the information sessions that RHS were having later this week about ways to save energy and save money, but this was turned down as the agenda for those meetings was already full enough.

Still, including this text in the booklet itself is an important step forward to raising awareness of environmental issues (save the planet and save money at the same time - it is surprising how fast bills can rocket in a poorly-insulated house). I've reproduced the text here below...
----------------------------
How to save the planet by going into private housing…

So you’re moving in with a few mates into a house or flat – how can you save money and cut down on bills – and do a few good things for the environment too?

Ask your potential landlord about these – how green is your house?
Don’t miss out on the chance to save money and keep those bills low!

1. How well-insulated is your house?
o Carpeting? Loft insulation (heat doesn’t go straight through the roof)? Hot water tank lagging (keeps the water hot)? Curtains (keeps the heat in at night)? Door sweepers, double-glazed windows and letter-box flaps (keep out cold draughts)? Why spend money on heat that just goes to waste and leaks out through the walls and windows??

2. Does the house come with low-energy lightbulbs?
o Compact fluorescent lightbulbs use 60-70% less energy than conventional incandescent lightbulbs – and last up to eight times longer!

3. How is your house heated?
o What kind of boiler? A condensing boiler can cut a third off your bill!
o Are there thermostat controls? Turning the heat down by 1˚C can save up to £30 a year!

4. Are there meters?
o Can you track your electricity and water consumption easily so you can see how much power and water you are using?

5. Can your electricity supply go green?
o Ask if you can decide who you want to supply your electricity – then choose a ‘green energy supplier’ so that your power is generated from renewable energy. It still all comes through the grid, just like normal – except it doesn’t come from dirty coal power plants and it doesn’t always cost more! For example: Ecotricity and Good Energy

Cut Carbon Emissions* – You can do it too!
*Housing accounts for 30% of carbon emissions – keeping your house as well-insulated and energy efficient as possible will make a difference to tackling climate change!
------------------------------

The Big Beast of Recycling

One of the first associations with any mention of 'green' behaviour is recycling. Somehow, the third-best option in the triple-R 'reduce, reuse, recycle' mantra has become the action that most people are familiar with.

So if it is at least the action that most people are familiar with, it has to be where we begin towards changing attitudes and patterns of behaviour for ecologically-responsible options....

A single glass bottle that is recycled can save energy to generate a 100watt lightbulb for an hour. And you can recycle glass indefinitely without loss of quality. By recycling, not only do you save the energy that it would take to make a new bottle from scatch, but you also reduce the use of raw materials needed, as well as cutting down on the amount of waste being landfilled. The UK recycles a smaller proportion of its household waste than any other of the big European economies - and EU targets mean that recycling will have to be significantly boosted in the years to come.

If you live in town, you're lucky to have a kerbside collection provided by Ceredigion County Council. And if you live in university accommodation, I can hear your protests that 'there aren't any recycling facilities in my hall', no need to shout. I think a fair assessment of recycling in university-managed accommodation is patchy, and access to recycling will be one of my priorities for the rest of the year. There is a colossal amount of waste that is generated on campus that could be recycled, but currently isn't. I made this point to Jim Wallace (director of residential/hospitality services) last week and will be having a number of follow-up meetings in the next couple of weeks.

The fundamental point is that being green has to be the easy option, the default option. I'm a big fan of choice editing, and recycling has to be shaped in a way to make it the default option for students, to really cut down on the amount of waste for landfill - and ultimately the costs of disposal for the university. If recycling is also that basic measure of environmental commitment, and students don't see that the university is trying to help them be greener, there's no incentive to take some initiative yourself. It really is a vicious cycle. I don't blame students who don't recycle because they'd have to trudge from Penbryn to the bottle bank in the Cwrt Mawr car park dragging a big bag of glass bottles, and do it every week because there isn't space in the kitchen to keep them there for any longer. When you have a simple kerbside collection arrangement like in PJM, it becomes so much easier, just like that.

What particularly exercises me is paper - a university almost by definition is going to generate huge amounts of paper, but the opportunities for students to recycle this is pretty much minimal - or at least it is not made very obvious at all.

What you can do (besides recycle, obviously): Email your residence manager and ask why there aren't better recycling facilities in your hall. The more students complain, the more likely action is going to be taken on it. It'll take all of five minutes to type and send - and it will help to make my job easier too!

Whether in Aber or at home, type in your postcode on the RecycleNow website to bring up a map of recycling bring-sites in your area.

You can also find a map of points on campus where you can recycle here. Do also check out CRAFT - the local organisation that not only will come to your house to pick up bulky things, but will recycle practically anything (electronics, bikes, furniture and so forth) and make second-hand goods out of them - check out their display room at the Aber train station.

What is also important is to try and buy products that are made out of recycled material - from Remarkable notebooks (covers made of old tyres) to glasses (old Grolsch bottles turned into goblets - re-used rather than recycled even).

Aber is Green festival 2007

Just a quick note on a planning meeting for the Aber is Green 2007 festival - a week in May of highlighting our choices for sustainable living, on the Aber prom and bandstand - on Wednesday 7thFebruary at 1.30pm at Art Alley (The Old Billiard Hall) 13A Portland Road. All are welcome.

The festival features, among other things:
- exhibition of environmental artists in the centre of the Bandstand
- displays by various environmental groups and societies arranged around the inside walls
- children's workshops and activities on the stage
- fairly calm and steady throughout the week
- absolute (organised) bedlam over the Bank Holiday Weekend

Carbon Emissions - Capping and Sharing

A major idea that is slowly gaining public and political awareness is a contraction and convergence. Convergence is where emissions for every single person in the world will 'converge' at a level that minimizes further climatic change (everyone is allowed to emit an equal, fair share). Contraction is where those people who currently emit above their global share must contract their amount of emissions produced to the global level.

At its core, C&C is about what share of carbon emissions each one of us on Earth are entitled to, and what we need to do to ensure ecological survival in the long run. We cannot say that people who live in the UK emit more CO2 because 'that's the way it just is' or that people who live in Equatorial Guinea must continue to live low-energy lifestyles because increasing emissions would contribute to destabilizing climate change. An acceptance of equity is fundamental to C&C. The concept is also generally associated with Aubrey Meyer, of the Global Commons Institute, and a ton of information and the science behind it is available on their website.

So why bring this up now? The parliamentary all-party group on climate change, chaired by Colin Challen MP, has demonstrated considerable interest in C&C, and I just recieved an email from some Oxford students today wanting to get a UK-wide student campaign on C&C up and running.

Yesterday evening, I was able to listen to a short overview by Dr. Will Howard, leading a campaign group called Cap and Share, which seeks to put contraction and convergence into practice by first setting a 'cap' on emissions, then 'sharing' out the right to emit carbon emissions equally among all people. Companies (the fossil-fuel burning ones) have to buy these entitlements from ordinary citizens in order to emit, which is effectively putting a price on carbon. The diagram below explains the basic idea.

Cap and Share is just getting off the ground (Will Howard is based in Machynlleth) so if you want to help out there are plenty of options available - just get in touch with him through the website! Also linked to Cap and Share is a kind of climate-Wikipedia-like thing, called Climate Cooperation, where anyone can contribute to building up a body of shared knowledge on climate change, get in touch with other campaigners in your area, and thoughts on tackling climate change - you provide the content!

Green Taxes?

Sir Nicholas Stern, author of last October's report on the economics of climate change, was said to call for higher green taxes to deter environmental damage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

He also called the failure to pay for the environmental damage that we cause "the biggest market failure ever seen". Market failure it most certainly is, the colossal 'tragedy of the commons' that is our environment. It also raises an important question over whether we can effectively address environmental damage through the market, which is fundamentally what emission trading schemes are all about. I return here to my fuzzy recollection of basic economics - taxes are hated by economic conservatives because they seemingly distort the marketplace. But we don't live in a market-uber-alles world, and what is the global public commons matters and needs to be protected. The market can only ever be a means to a social ends - so how far can the market serve ecological and human protection and a sustainable future?

But while the high and mighty pullers of the world's economic and political levers meet in Davos, don't forget that in Nairobi, Kenya, those whose voices are heard far less but whom matter no less , have been meeting for the 7th World Social Forum, whose rallying cry is 'another world is possible.' At the WSF, activists, coalitions and social movements of all stripes - from anti-war protestors to trade unionists under siege, minorities at the margins of survival and independent media organisations converge every other year to share ideas, synthesize and build hope.

Ideas for a Green Guide?

Over the next four months, I will be working on producing a 'Green Guide' for students for the next academic year. I met Jim Wallace, director of UWA Residential and Hospitality Services yesterday and he agreed to support the project through printing these guides and distributing them to students in university accommodation at the beginning of the 07/08 academic year.

What should be included in this? What can go into such a guide to help and encourage students to live greener - and ultimately better - lives during their time here in Aberystwyth? (without sounding too depressive or fatalistic at the future of the world, if possible). Feel free to contact me anytime in the next couple of months with your ideas and suggestions

New Energy Manager Hired!

A piece of good news is that the Estates Office has taken on an Energy Manager on a six-month consultancy contract who has just started work here at UWA. This post is also part-funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and comes as a consequence of UWA's involvement with the Carbon Trust Higher Education Carbon Management Programme (what a mouthful!).

As I understand it, a major piece of work will be to do with improving the building energy management systems for UWA buildings, to see how electricity usage for specific buildings can be monitored remotely (i.e. not having to send someone out to check the meter at the building physically). Another highlight will be conducting feasability studies for introducing biomass boilers in some buildings (these use woodchips, so burning them is an essentially carbon-neutral activity). I've been warned not to expect much physical change in the next few months though - the Energy Manager will have his or her hands full simply with developing costing analyses for various energy-related projects and the steps that need to be taken before engineers or engineering-type people (I plead ignorance at the natural sciences) can actually go out there and deliver changes for carbon savings.

The Low-Carbon Diet

I come across guides on how to be greener and cut carbon emissions fairly frequently, especially in short and snappy newspaper columns, but I thought this one from Lucy Siegle of The Observer was a refreshing take on going eco-friendly by linking it to diets and cutting carbs - producing the low carb(on) diet. It is littered with everyday examples and fairly easy to add up - so how about going on a different, life-changing diet plan?

A more detailed plan on counting carbon has also just been detailed from Mark Lynas, titled 'carbon judgement day'!

Some Hope for the Bottlenose Dolphin?

There is a glimmer of hope that Cardigan Bay may be excluded from being licensed for oil and gas exploration by the Department for Trade and Industry. The full announcement of the outcome of the current round of licenses has been long overdue, but a recent exchange in the House of Commons between Mark Williams MP and Alastair Darling, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry revealed that the delay in licensing has been due to continued environmental assessments for three 'blocks' of exploration in Cardigan Bay and one in the Moray Firth, Scotland (the other place in the UK where a population of bottlenose dolphins are resident).

You can add your name to the voices speaking out against drilling in what is a Special Area of Conservation (a designation of European-level significance) by writing to Alastair Darling MP, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, DTI, 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET to raise concerns regarding the impact on tourism and the exposure of marine wildlife to seismic surveying and the increased risk of pollution. If you haven't already, please sign the e-petition, which should be presented to 10 Downing Street soon - so hurry!

Carbon Neutrality Revisited

As has been pointed out to me, I neglected to mention a different version of what carbon neutrality can also mean in my earlier post on the subject.

A 'carbon neutral university' could also mean one that generates all its own electricity - so all the energy that is consumed by students and staff doesn't come through the grid from dirty fossil-fuel burning plants, but on-site clean renewable electricity generation. So this would entail photovoltaic solar cells (see 3 November 2006 entry in the archives), ground heat-pumps, biomass boilers (woodchip-burning), mini wind turbines, even anaerobic digestion from food waste in the way that Marks and Spencers have announced in their £200m Plan A eco-plan. In essence, this is what Gordon Brown meant when he announced 'zero-carbon homes by 2016' in his pre-Budget report last November. Maybe I'll come back to Aber in ten years time and I'll be pleasantly surprised...

Th label carbon-neutral could mean different things - offsets or renewable energy, which involve vastly different things - so don't take anything for granted.

Charging for Utilities?

Would it be fair to say that for those who live in university accommodation, energy efficiency doesn't really cross the mind because electricity and water bills are included in the overall price of accommodation? There's no incentive to save, or maybe even a sense that 'since I've already paid for it, I might as well use as much of it as I can'. Might charging for energy and water therefore be a way to really get a grip on cutting down on usage?

Electricity and water consumption, and accommodation pricing, I would imagine, almost works in a vicious cycle - students pay accommodation fees inclusive of utility bills, but have no real incentive to cut back, so end up using more than they need to, much of it wastefully. Then to reflect the additional costs that these incur (in addition to the trend of rising gas prices), accommodation charges for the next academic year end up increasing over and above inflation. Which further encourages profligate energy/water consumption, and so the cycle continues. Is thisa fair description - and if so, how do we break that cycle? How can we apropriately incentivize environmentally-responsible behaviour?

Might competition work - say meters can be installed in PJM houses, Penbryn corridors or flats in other accommodation - then whichever house/flat uses the least electricity or water per term gets a rebate from their accommodation fee? Or saying that each house/flat is entitled to 'x' amount of electricity per term (x being what is needed to live reasonably) and if the house/flat goes over 'x' then they are charged for it? How could we shape a system so that those who make a conscious effort to use less energy are rewarded for their efforts and don't have to pay the same amount as those whose lights are left on all the time, windows open in the middle of winter, charging devices always plugged into the wall...?

The Chocolate Challenge Manifesto - Yum!

A 'chocolate challenge' manifesto would sound like a list of election pledges to eat as much chocolate as possible, or as many different types, or something like that...

But the Day Chocolate Company, which make Divine chocolate and Dubble bars, have launched a new campaign urging people to sign up to their chocolate challenge manifesto as a sign of support for giving cocoa farmers in the developing world a better deal for their product. Signatures and the manifesto will be presented to the big chocolate companies and supermarkets during Fairtrade Fortnight, which begins at the end of February - and the goal is to have 100,000 names on that petition!

The Day Chocolate Company is part-owned by the Kuapa Kokoo Cooperative, which is a group of Ghanaian cocoa farmers, which means that profits from Divine and Dubble are directly returned to them. The majority of cocoa farmers across the developing world, however, aren't so lucky to recieve a price that they can live on, yet chocolate confectionary companies are making ever-bigger profits. Surely some of that can be returned to the cocoa farmer so that their families aren't struggling to survive? Where's the fairness in the current trading relationship? That's the underlying message behind the chocolate challenge manifesto.

Welsh Youth Forum for Sustainable Development

The Welsh Youth Forum for Sustainable Development (WYFSD) will be holding an introductory and planning meeting this Saturday (27 Jan) from 10am onwards at the Morlan Centre, in between the little Spar and Scholars. The focus will be on extending a climate change project that they have been working on to mid Wales after a successful time in North Wales.

You can contact Anna, one of the organisers at lbb00@aber.ac.uk for more information.

A Carbon-Neutral University?

The side of the box of cornflakes that I have for breakfast proclaims 'CarbonNeutral Company' and the entire side is taken up explaning what that means - that CO2 emissions created in the processing and transport of my cornflakes have been offset in environmental projects in the developing world. Hurray, my cornflakes aren't contributing to climate change.

Or are they? The last few weeks have seen a burst of headlines about the idea of carbon neutrality, from Tony Blair saying that 'it's a bit impractical, really' to cut down on air travel (and then subsequently saying that he'll offset the emissions from his Christmas holiday in Florida) to the House of Commons Environment Audit Committee announcing hearings on the carbon offset market (you can submit your responses until next Monday) and DEFRA launching a scheme to set 'gold standards' for carbon offset schemes.

In the same way that my cornflakes manufacturer can become a CarbonNeutral Company (and that billing is just particular to the firm - the CarbonNeutral Company - through which the offsets are made), UWA could become a CarbonNeutral University by paying for forestation or energy projects somewhere else in the world that will 'soak up' or cut a corresponding amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

In my view, however, the carbon offset market is fraught with uncertainty which leaves me undecided on whether a CarbonNeutral University would be a desirable thing. The New Internationalist dedicated its July 2006 issue to examining the value of offsets, titled CO2nned? which raised concerns over biodiversity, indigenous rights, and well, the fact that you can go to four different offsetting companies and get quoted four different prices to offset a given plane journey.

Another concern, particularly relevant to how we communicate climate change, is the message that offsets make it 'OK to fly to Barcelona three times a year as long as I plant a few trees in Kenya." To be perfectly honest, when I first heard of offsetting about two years ago I thought to myself 'this is great, now I can travel guilt-free'. Even if the impact of offsetting is what its proponents (i.e. the companies offering offsets) claim to be, it completely de-urgent-izes the need for individuals and governments to cut carbon emissions and find ways to live differently. A carbon-neutral university could, incredibly, still be one where computers are on 24/356, buildings leak energy and landfills most of its waste. We can't buy our way out of climate change and continue to live in the same way that is disproportionate to what the planet can support. I'm not even sure whether to call carbon offsets a second-best option because I'm not convinced that there is a guaranteed net positive outcome from offset schemes.

I'm looking forward to the completion of the EAC findings in a few months time, mainly for what it will say about the regulation of the offset market. I might offset in the future, but only if I can be sure that the project isn't actually doing any harm, and that I've done everything that I possibly can to minimize my own emissions. The offset will be a token gesture of solidarity with a distant community who will feel the brunt of climatic change, and there'll be no illusion that I can make the carbon burden from whatever activity I'm involved in just go away.

The end is nigh?

Dum dum dum duuuum dum dum, duuuum dum dum...(to the Star Wars theme)

Last week, scientists judged climate change to be such a threat to the future of humanity that they moved the hands of the 'Doomsday Clock' two minutes closer to midnight. The clock is an assessment of how close we are to the edge of the abyss of catastrophe (i.e., midnight) and is managed by a group of scientists called the 'Bulletin of Atomic Scientists'. The name is reflection upon its Cold War origins when nuclear annihilation was deemed to be the main security threat that could lead to worldwide chaos and threaten the survival of mankind.

The addition of climate change is a significant one; the hands of the clock, which now stand at 11.55pm, has mainly been adjusted in response to nuclear-related incidents, such as arms treaties, tests and proliferation fears. The character and scale of climate change is such that the keepers of the Doomsday Clock said that "the world has not faced such perilous choices" since the atomic bombs, and for an organisation that has really only focused on nuclear catastrophe to recognize climate change as a comparable threat to humanity is another sign of just how big a hole humanity could be in over the next century or so if we don't get our act together.

My computer - helping to stop climate change

Last spring the BBC launched the BBC Climate Change experiment, which involved downloading a program onto my computer to run a climate simulation experiment in the background while the computer was on and I was using it. Over 250,000 people downloaded the software to run the experiment, and the results will be broadcast in a program presented by Sir David Attenborough on Sunday evening on BBC1.

This experiment involves using all that untapped computing power by users spread all over the world - two-thirds were in the UK, but the other third were from 170 different countries. The point was to do more testing, but to economize on supercomputer testing time.

The BBC experiment itself has ended, but you can still download the program to run from climateprediction.net, and it will continue to work on climate change modelling. Full project details and instructions are explained on their website.

(But this is not a reason to leave your computer on 24/7 - to say that it's busy involved in climate-saving modelling (nice try). Turn your computer off when you're not using it and the program will get the time it needs during the hours that your machine is already on!!)

The Man in Seat Sixty-One

Travel by train - anywhere in the world overland! While getting distracted from revising (ahem) I stumbled across the Man in Seat Sixty-One - a website that will get you from the UK to anywhere in the world without commiting any more carbon crimes.

It tells you all about the different connections you need to make, service times, the types of trains and ferries you can use and about local transport at your destination. The writer has travelled on most on them, so its exclusively from his personal experiences and plastered with pictures. So now I know how to get to Egypt without flying if I end up visiting a friend there. Unfortunately there are no easily-publicly accessible services from the UK to Australia - you can get as far as Indonesia on train and ferry, but you'll have to catch a freighter ship onwards to Aussieland.

So, especially for that next European holiday - take the train and ask the man in seat sixty-one how to get there!

A Better, Reliable Train Service?

Claim compensation from Arriva Trains Wales for delayed services on the Cambrian Line from Aber towards Wolverhampton/Birmingham New Street - how?

If your journey is delayed by more than 30 minutes due to 'a fault of Arriva Train Wales', you can claim compension in the form of travel vouchers - i.e. so instead of paying cash for your next journey you can use these vouchers for some of the value. You need to pick up a Customer Comments Form, available at train stations or probably onboard from the ticket inspector, fill it out and detail the delays you experienced, include your train tickets, and send it back to the Freepost address provided. You need to do so within 28 days of travel.

I can't believe it took me two and a half years to realize this - I've complained via the website before but nothing came of it then. The Customer Comments Form doesn't say 'compensation' anywhere on the front of the leaflet - you have to flip it open and read the notes to realize that you can claim compensation.

I was travelling from Aber to Birmingham NS at the end of term in December. The train service stopped at Wolverhampton and I missed the Virgin service that I was supposed to be on that would take me onwards to London. In the end, I arrived in London an hour later than I was supposed to - which has become an expectation in my time here in Aber. I spotted the comments form while waiting at Wolverhampton, filled it in, and when I returned to Aber four weeks later, a letter of apology was waiting for me, and £4 of travel vouchers. That's right, a whole £4. I don't know if that's a standard amount, or calculated by the value of my ticket - which was only £8.25 anyway for the one-way trip - and it probably won't put too much of a dent in Arriva's bottom line, but if more and more people claim compensation, and Arriva end up having to pay out more for a shoddy, perpetually-delayed service - that might just be the incentive to get the trains rolling on time.

UWA Pension Fund - Backing Corruption?

Last week I posted some comment from the local Cambrian News on the UWA pension scheme's continued investments in weapons manufacturer BAE Systems. The media this week has been awash with stories that focus on the bribery and corruption that the company is allegedly involved in, which I'll briefly sum up here.

In late December, an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office - which investigates major corruption, fraud and so forth - into BAE Systems for allegations that it had paid bribes to Saudi Arabian officials to secure a massive - £50bn - arms deal in 1986, was suddenly dropped after proceeding for around two years. Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith declares that this was in the public interest - 'national security'.

Was this decision in any way linked to large potential arms contracts that BAE has with Saudi Arabia? Could Saudi Arabia have threatened to cancel a new contract with BAE if the investigation continued? The OECD has demanded an explanation, considering that the UK could have broken its pledges to combat terrorism. On Monday, the Guardian reported that BAE had paid a $12m payment to a Tanzanian middleman for Tanzania - not the richest country in the world - to buy a state-of-the-art radar system. On Tuesday, it was said that the head of M16, Britain's secret intelligence system disagreed with the government's claim that the SFO inquiry was jeopardizing 'national security'. Today, top BAE executives were revealed to be considered corruption suspects by the Serious Fraud Office.

There is extensive commentary and reporting on more facets of investigations into corruption by BAE Systems at both The Guardian and BBC websites.

I don't know the ins and outs of how pension funds work and accordingly, how the right kind of pressure can be exerted on the trustees of the pension fund to disinvest in BAE Systems. If you are a UWA staff member, who presumably has pension contributions made through this fund - and refuse to condone blatant corruption, bribery and human rights abuses - I would be appreciate any advice or assistance on simply how to effectively campaign for change. You can contact me confidentially via e-mail, union.environment@aber.ac.uk.

Welsh Universities Going Green?

People and Planet colleagues at other Welsh universities - Cardiff and Swansea - have also been busy persuading their university management to take the green challenge and really live up to their responsibilities to students, the wider community and the environment! Read about what they're up to - and know that our effort here to Go Green isn't being done in isolation!

No Snow, Just Mt. 'Don'.

From the BBC, research conducted by the Countryside Council for Wales and UW Bangor scientists - Mount Snowdon could be snow-free in just fifteen years.

Climate change isn't something that happens 'to other people'. We can see its effects around us right now, and these are only going to be amplified in coming years to come. It's not just the plants and animals which live in Snowdonia National Park which will be affected - the local economy (heavy emphasis on tourism) will also be affected.

For a simple introduction to climate change impacts in Wales - visit a website by another UWA student who did this as part of a project for his biology course, and draws upon a BBC documentary last spring called 'Wilder Wales' (I have a copy if you want to borrow it, just ask me)

On Your Bike...in Aber!

A road...but instead of cars and traffic, it's filled with bikes!

That's the idea of critical mass bike rides, and the Aberystwyth Gwrp Beic (bike group) organises one through the streets and boulevards of our little town every last Saturday of the month beginning at 3pm outside the Glengower Hotel on the seafront. Check out their website for more details and contact information.

The image of a street full of bikes helps to keep cycling in the public eye and raises the profile of the need for safe and sustainable cycle paths to encourage more people onto bikes - for health and for the environment! And, I'd imagine, its a bit of fun too.

Fairtrade Sales at the Union

Some information that I recieved a few weeks ago - the basic gist is that sales of Fairtrade products at the Student Union shop haven't been doing very well at all - boo!

- Fairtrade products account for less than 2% of the Union shop's turnover, as of October 20o6
- Confectionary products - i.e. chocolate bars - are only in the bottom half of top-selling products.
- After a previous trial in vending machines did not go well, the Shop manager does not think that overall demand has improved enough to warrant a fresh trial.
- Sales of TeaDirect boxes of teabags are outsold by non-Fairtrade Tetleys teabags by almost two-to-one.

The one glimmer of hope is that Cafedirect jars of instant coffee do outsell the non-Fairtrade; this is by about a 3:2 ratio (i.e. 3 Cafedirect sold for every 2 non-Fairtrade sold)

This kind of, unfortunately, works in a cycle - the lower sales of Fairtrade get, the fewer products are stocked as they give way to products with higher sales turnover, and the few products are stocked, the less choice there is and sales are likely to dip again.

So, the message - if you want a Divine or Dubble chocolate bar, or Fairtrade tea or coffee - buy it from the Union shop and help to give Fairtrade sales a bit of a lift!!

Recycle Your Christmas Cards

If you've got a pile of used Christmas cards from the festive season that you want to dispose of - recycle it at the WH Smith (next to the 24hr Spar)

This is part of a scheme run by the Woodland Trust and WH Smith to recycle Chrismas cards into new ones, and raise money for the Woodland Trust at the same time - the nationwide goal is to recycle 90million cards!

This scheme lasts until the end of the month and you can find more details (including a good graphic of how the paper recycling loop works) here.

I'm getting back into the swing of blogging but really should be getting back into the swing of studying...

The Carbon Scales - the UK and the World

A new campaign has been launched by the World Development Movement, which focuses on UK carbon emissions compared to the rest of the world, called the Carbon Calendar, which if I'm not mistaken is the first time WDM are directly engaging in climate change campaigning - always welcome!

This is really part of a growing trend among NGOs to understanding that the environment and development affairs can no longer be treated in separate conceptual boxes - climate change is and will have tremendous consequences for development efforts, and how countries try to 'develop' (for all the academic debates around that term) will influence the global capacity to respond effectively to climate change. It is the poor, not the affluent, who will suffer the most from climate change.

Anyway, what this calendar does - is for every day of the year, to list the countries whose citizens will have emitted as much carbon dioxide over the whole year as the average UK resident up to that date in the year. For instance - by today, 15 Jan - the average UK resident will have emitted as much CO2 as the average citizen of Cameroon. So in just two weeks, we have emitted as much CO2 as the average person in Cameroon will over all of 2007. On the first of January, we had already emitted as much as the average person in Afghanistan and Chad will for the next twelve months. On the 9th of February, we will have emitted as much as the average Indian will - and so forth.

Once you get your head around it, and just think in terms of the averages, it is some pretty sobering stuff - how we relate on a per capita basis compared to the rest of the world. There is an accompanying snappy, very readable report (use the same link as above) that discusses the significance of particular dates and what we need to do about climate change.

University Paper Usage - Part 1

I've been in touch with the UWA printing services department in trying to find out how much paper the university as a whole uses. The answer that I recieved was that existing records do not take into account the different types of paper used and their environmental record. That's a fair point - having one big number for paper usage may also mask its varying environmental impact - some may come from properly-managed FSC forests, others from uncertified sustainable forests, others just with no environmental background at all.

Still, the fact that I haven't been able to get a plain answer to the sheer amount (probably in the tonnes) of paper illustrates a fundamental point behind the Go Green campaign that we are currently running - things generally won't change unless there's someone there to change it.

We're calling for the university to employ at least one full-time member of staff responsible for environmental management as part of a broader environmental management framework. It doesn't sound sexy, but this is the kind of thing that that person would be involved in - and would have data on paper consumption at his/her fingertips, and someone that I could go to to find out things like paper consumption.

More to follow on the main type of paper the university uses.

A Somewhat Belated New Year's Resolution

If you're poking around for something to do in between studying for exams - how about registering to vote? You can find out more and download the form easily to send off to the local authority at Aboutmyvote.co.uk

Welsh Assembly elections are due on the 3rd of May 2007 to elect representatives to the Assembly which sits in Cardiff Bay and anyone living in Wales is eligible to vote.

The elections use a system that tries to balance between first-past-the-post and proportional representation means that everyone gets two votes (yay) - one for the constituency (Ceredigion) in the same way as parliamentary Westminster elections work - and a second one for the region (Mid and West Wales) based on PR where votes are weighted depending on party's performance in the constituency vote (heavier if they didn't do well in the constituencies). Or something like that, it gets a bit technical and I'm probably not the best person to explain that to you.

In any case, 40 Assembly Members are elected through the constituences and 20 AMs through the regional vote (five per region). Don't leave it too late!

Green Living: How to

A new section on the public services DirectGov website has been published by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on greener living and what individuals can do to live with a lighter footprint on the planet. This seems promising in covering most of the issues in fairly simple detail and easily navigable pages - well worth a wander!

University arms trade investments

I've just gotten back to Aber, and been glancing through the local Cambrian News from the past couple of weeks and there have been a few things on UWA's arms trade investments by chief reporter Patrick O'Brien. Ceredigion MP Mark Williams was quoted as saying that he will be seeking a meeting with the VC to raise the issue.

To be fair I think nothing much has changed since the Campaign Against the Arms Trade released its report on university investments well over a year ago, and highlighting UWA's place as within the top ten university investors in BAE Systems. UWA's response has been that its pension fund is legally required to seek the best investment, be it in companies that contribute to gross human rights abuses or otherwise. Time permitting, I will be trying to do a bit more digging over the next couple of weeks on the issue. Any suggestions are more than welcome.

This is the editorial from the Jan 4 2007 edition:
"Uni's arms trade link indefensible

Aberystwyth university's attempted justification of its continuing connection with the arms trade is indefensible.

Despite widespread condemnation of the Government's highly controversial dropping of the Serious Fraud Office probe into a ₤40bn arms deal between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia, involving an investigation into alleged bribery and a ₤60m slush fund, the university this week confirmed it was keeping its 92,000 BAE shares, currently worth about ₤390,00.

It must urgently reconsider that decision. BAE runs major operations across five continents, but buyers of its Hawk jets have included countries condemned for human rights abuses.

The university says its pension fund must get best return for its members. Where human rights are concerned, this is indeed an inadequate argument. In any case, the Church of England, for one, has demonstrated that ditching arms company shares and adopting an ethical investments policy need not to any degree dent the performance of funds.

To its great credit, Lampeter university has now turned its back on the arms trade, selling its shares in Smiths Group, whose products include Hawk gun-pods and F-16 weapons-aiming systems. Aberystwyth university should not hesitate to follow that lead in the case of BAE."

Don't Lose Your Bottle...

Sustain, a food and farming lobby group, earlier this week released a report on the health and environmental benefits of tap water compared to bottled mineral water, and encouraging people to drink tap water instead of bottled water. Apparently only two government departments and one agency serve tap water (in jugs) at their meetings and events...

Their press release and report (only 20+ pages - very readable) can be downloaded here - 'Have You Bottled It - how drinking tap water can help save you and the planet'.

I've always thought it ludicrous that people choose to drink bottled water instead of tap water. Transport, packaging, waste...millions of people around the world struggle to survive simply because they don't have access to clean drinking water and here in the UK this resource is just taken for granted. When you think about it too, you pay more for bottled water than you do for petrol for your car...

So my next little project is to survey UWA departments as to whether they serve tap or bottled water - check back for responses in a few weeks time!

Naughty, naughty capitalist airlines...

'The unacceptable/irresponsible face of capitalism' - Environment Minister Ian Pearson in some pretty strong criticism of airlines and climate change.

Pushing airlines into a lax European emissions trading system, however, which is what the Government proposes, probably doesn't go anywhere near far enough. The criticism is timely, although it shouldn't detract from the wider effort on climate change - especially with the rail network.

Sorry there's been such a long break - had some technical problems in the last few days with the blog.