Composting Capitalism and Environment Week

To more or less wrap up the public side of my activities for this year, this week is Environment Week, and the highlight is a guest public lecture titled 'Composting Capitalism', on the impact of the market capitalist economy upon climate change. The presentation will be delivered by Gerry Gold, of campaign organisation A World to Win, in B22 Llandinam on Tuesday 1 May at 6.30pm.

There will be stalls in the Student Union throughout the week, including carbon footprinting on Monday and Tuesday, People & Planet's Ditch Dirty Development campaign on Thursday, and an array of eco-friendly products on Friday!

And for those who can't be fussed to search through this blog's archives, there will be a big board where you can write down your questions about the university's environmental impact - and then I'll pass them on to the relevant people within the university to be answered!

Aber is Green Festival

Next week, and into the Bank Holiday Weekend is the annual Aber is Green festival - taking over the Bandstand to run exhibitions and activities to get your hands green!

The weekdays are all uniquely themed:
Tuesday - Recycling and Packaging
Wednesday - Fairtrade
Thursday - Our Local Environment (green spaces, landscapes)
Friday - Energy Efficiency, Conservation and Alternative Energy Sources
Saturday, Sunday, Monday - all this and a lot more!

So do drop by to check things out - every day from 10am to 5pm!

Dum dum duuum dum dum dum....

On June 5, World Environment Day, People & Planet will be releasing the Green League 2007 - a ranking table for higher education institutions ranking them on their environmental performance.

Universities will be awarded a first, 2:1, 2:2, pass - or even a fail. Who will be the greenest in the land (and the least greenest)?

On a similar note, the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges (the body for HE and FE to push for progress on green issues) announced its Green Gown awards for 2006-07, (see a write-up in the Times newspaper) for environmental improvement at universities and colleges across various criteria such as student initiatives, sustainable construction, course content, continuous improvement and energy and water efficiency.

New Links

Now adding a couple of new permanent links to the list on the left

The BBC's Green Room - a space for all kinds of environmentally-related commentary from public figures, academics and activists, writing on recent issues and a huge range of perspectives - from the carbon trade, EU policy, fishing and giant squid, climate change education, organic v non-organic farming, and so forth.

The other one is the Centre for Alternative Technology's Carbon Gym - an online calculator to have a quick stab at estimating your personal carbon emissions and the one that I would recommend out of all the various similar tools and programs on the net, just because of its simplicity and clarity.

Enjoy!

I'm back from my work-imposed moratorium over the last week-and-a-half, and when going through recent emails to make sure I hadn't missed anything, came across an online survey on what students think and experiences.

This one, the Universum Graduate Survey, administered by Universum Communications, instead of promising iPods or free driving lessons and whatnot, offers something different instead: a carbon offset.

I nearly glanced over the section explaining the details without quite realizing what it was - that's how unexpected something like this was, even to me. This is their explanation:

"Global warming caused by the greenhouse effect and CO2 is an increasing problem that according to many will lead to severe problems in the future if not stopped. We give you the opportunity to slow this development down by filling out the Universum Graduate Survey.

"For every student who chooses to participate Universum will remove an average student's weight of 75 kilo of CO2. Please click here to get more information"

It's a bit odd because it uses the average weight of a student (75kg apparently) to calculate how much carbon to 'buy' up, but there really isn't any kind of correlation between individual weight and carbon weight. If anything, I think it's probably an arbitrary number that they've picked out of the air and simply found some way to link that to being a student.

The information that they've provided would suggest that they offset through the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which is buying up carbon permits from industry, and then simply not using these permits. While this idea itself is fine in principle (leaving the question of emissions trading itself aside for the moment), the ETS has been plagued by problems over its effectiveness - including the recent assertion that far too many permits were distributed, letting the price fall and thus removing the entire financial incentives behind the scheme.

On the whole, I guess it probably can't hurt too much. At the end of the survey though, it asks you to choose between the iPod, free travel option or the carbon offset option - which sounds like an opt-out clause for them as I gather most respondents will still go for the free stuff. Still think it's a really odd idea though...

Home Energy Monitors

What's this? Something FREE. Well, in that case I definitely want it!

A story that all households in the UK will be able to get a free household energy monitor (no, not a kind of lizard) is being carried by the BBC, as part of the upcoming Energy White Paper to be released by the government.

What this monitor is, is basically a device that you plug or clip into your electricity metering box in your house, that is able to tell you exactly where and how much electricity is being used - in real time too. So you'll know that right now, your fridge is using x amount of electricity, the oven is using y amount of electricity, the lighting is using z amount and so forth. Being in real time means that you switch the light off and you can see the reading drop more or less instantly. This device generally also involves a handheld monitor, so you can take the monitor anywhere around the house and keep an eye on your consumption at that time!

Interestingly, the article also notes that this is part of a more general EU requirement to provider consumers with real-time information about their energy use. The scheme will not be up and running until next year, but the idea is simple - to show people how much they're using, and how much they can save, to turn 'cut the carbon' into something tangible. That's the way forward.

Might we see this for campus residences? It's been suggested to me by a few people so you never know...

Carbon Offsetting, Travel Plan

Looks like things are picking up a notch - a few new general initiatives to report on after I went for the first meeting of the Energy and Water Management steering group last week.

A policy for guidelines on e/w management and processes was agreed, including a target of cutting carbon emissions 10% for academic buildings and 5% for residential buildings by the 2009-2010. This target will be reviewed in the 08-09 academic year. Other parts of the policy have some slight revisions to it, so I will report on that later. This is also a draft policy - it still has to be approved by the rest of the university bureaucracy so it could still (hopefully not) change at a later stage. The policy includes 'an Energy Manager', and the current consultant that is employed to begin work into some monitoring systems was at the meeting too to report on his work - but the precise shape that this Energy Manager will take remains hazy at best.

A small working group to look into setting up a university-facilitated scheme for carbon offsetting for travel is being established and I'll be feeding into that - I put up my own thoughts on offsetting here a while ago. A travel plan will be developed over the next academic year to integrate and see how more sustainable forms of transport can be used and promoted. A waste reduction group will also be set up soon to devise a plan for cutting waste, improving recycling and so forth across campus - but I've yet to hear anything directly on this so I'm not quite sure what its overall remit will be.

All these elements (and these are just the highlights) are part of the university's Environmental Strategy, which will be presented to the Health, Safety and Environment committee meeting in June before again having to move through the bureaucracy to become a formal part of university policy.

Not on guilt, but on passion

I've got a fair bit of respect for the way that Arnold Schwarzenegger has turned himself around into a credible and influential politician. I suppose it helps too that he's dragging his state, and the rest of the USA too, onto the climate bandwagon. He now makes one important point - that governments are built not on guilt, but on passion, and our challenge is to make climate change the raison d'etre of what government is really all about!

"The environmental movement must become "hip and sexy" if it is to succeed, California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has said.

"Speaking at a conference in Washington, he urged campaigners to focus on the positives of cutting carbon emissions rather than making people feel guilty. The movement must change its image just as he helped transform the "sketchy" reputation of bodybuilding, he said.

"California is seen as leading the way in tackling climate change in the US. The state - the sixth largest economy in the world - signed a law last year which set a target of cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020. And while Mr Schwarzenegger cannot stand for president in 2008 because he is not US-born, he has made it clear he wants his views on climate change to play into the race.

"Addressing a largely student audience at Georgetown University, Mr Schwarzenegger said he was optimistic attitudes to the environment were changing. But, he said, campaigners on climate change needed to shake off the image of being "tree-huggers" and "fanatics". "Environmentalists were no fun, they were like prohibitionists at a fraternity party," he said to laughter.

"The Republican governor - the former body-builder turned film-star turned politician - invoked images of pumping iron to make his point. Weight-lifting was once considered a pursuit for weirdos, he said, carried out in dungeon-like gyms by people embarrassed to admit to doing it. But with positive marketing "it became mainstream, it became sexy, attractive, and this is exactly what has to happen with the environmental movement", he said. The same thing happened when the John Travolta film Saturday Night Fever made disco-dancing hip and sexy, he added, reaching even his little village in Austria.

"Mr Schwarzenegger, who has been criticised in the past over his fleet of Hummers, pointed out that his vehicles now run on bio-fuel and hydrogen. "We don't really want to go and take away the 'muscle' cars, the Hummers and the SUVs, because that's a formula for failure," he said. "What we have to do is make those cars more environmentally muscular." He rebuffed criticism from US carmakers, saying the fact they had to meet Californian standards on vehicle emissions would ensure they kept up with foreign competitors.

"And he urged campaigners to move away from using guilt to pressure people over greenhouse gas emissions. "Successful movements aren't built on guilt, they are built on passion," he said. He believes the environmental movement is approaching a "tipping point" where it will enter the mainstream, galvanising business and individuals.

"And California is leading the way, Mr Schwarzenegger said, especially as Republicans and Democrats are working together to pass pioneering legislation on the environment. "California is big, it's powerful and what we do in California has unbelievable impact and it has consequences," he said. "

Much ado about climate change

A week, ago, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published part-two of its mega new assessment on climate change, this time focusing on the impacts (part one was on the science, and part three, published in a couple of months time, will be on mitigating and adaptation strategies).

Hundreds of million, the vast majority of them already living in poorer, less wealthy countries will bear the brunt of a changing climate - drought, flooding, rising sea levels, biodiversity and ecological balances tipped onto the wrong side, and so forth. And it's not just a case of 'will' or 'might' - these changes are already happening, and the hotspots for change are the Arctic (melting ice), sub-Saharan Africa (drought), small island-states (sea level rises) and mega-populated Asian river deltas (flooding).

This is not just a case of balancing the economic books and figuring out a cost-benefit analysis, but a profoundly moral choice. Do we have responsibilities to people living elsewhere in the world who are and will continue to suffer because of the high-energy lifestyles that have become the norm here in the West?

It was good to read of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stepping in and using his profile to push the issue higher up the global agenda to do the hard work for a new international treaty, as we are confronted with ever more evidence of the change happening around us - a new report illustrates the change that we could expect to see in global landmarks such as the Great Barrier Reef, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and Venice. See pictures here.

Fairtrade Status at Aber

I'm pleased to report that several other students are making headway with the campaign to achieve Fairtrade status for UWA, with the first Fairtrade steering group meeting in the last week of March. Regular steering group meetings are a required element of Fairtrade status, in helping to guide the further availability and awareness of Fairtrade on the university campus.

The other criteria are:
- A Fairtrade policy - there is one for the Guild of Students but not for the university.
- Fairtrade products available in all shops - chocolate bars are available in the student union shop, all coffee, tea and hot chocolate served in the student union is Fairtrade, and the same is available at university catering outlets.
- Fairtrade tea/coffee served at all university and student union meetings - which is only currently true for the Geography department and the student union, as far as we are aware.
- A commitment to campaign on Fairtrade - which People and Planet are leading on.

The main people to contact regarding our local campaign are Charlotte cel4[at]aber.ac.uk and Robin rsl5[at]aber.ac.uk. There will be another steering group meeting later in the year in early May.

50 other universities in the UK have achieved Fairtrade status, with staff and students working together to achieve common aims, and we will hopefully join them soon!

Just Down the Road

In the town of our sister University of Wales institution just down the road in Lampeter, a fascinating public meeting took place last week on the town making a transition to beyond-oil living. The Guardian reported on it in a fairly lengthy article this past weekend, and I have arranged for one of the speakers at that meeting to deliver a presentation/lecture here in Aber at the end of the month - more to follow later.

The meeting was about how Lampeter can prepare, and take the first steps towards adaptation, for a world when the oil has run out. According to some accounts, we have passed the peak oil point - where world oil production peaks, and supply is only going to gradually decrease from here. And oil does run our world - all the plastic in our lives, transport, heating, medicines and drugs, machinery. So when it does run out, we'll be in a bit of a pickle.

The organizing concept is a Transition Town where the town as a whole, and most (hopefully) of its residents begin an 'energy descent' - cutting down on oil consumption, so that when the squeeze does happen, life isn't thrown into turmoil. Everything has to begin somewhere, and Lampeter is following in the footsteps of other towns elsewhere in the UK who have already set down that road. May it prosper and serve as an inspiration to all of us.

Health Warnings, Eh?

The smoking ban that has just come into force here in Wales is only the next step in a long line of initiatives to cut down the dangers of secondhand smoke - and of smoking in general. It was, after all, many years ago that we first saw the health warning labels on cigarette packs.

Now, a leading think tank (ippr) is proposing that we do the same for carbon-busting flying and high-emitting vehicles with messages such as Warning: Flying Causes Climate Change.

Provide the information, make it highly visible, make people think and think again. What would be really cool is including a carbon calculation with your ticket, so you know how much CO2 the trip will actually emit. The Alliance Against Urban 4x4s and Greenpeace already have been cheekily doing similar things to vehicles - putting recall notices (failure to consider the environment) and parking tickets (for poor vehicle choice) on high-emitting vehicles. And, of course, taxation increases need to be ring-fenced and massively ploughed back into joined-up rail and bus travel.

Cure the addiction! We could set up helplines for free advice on 'how to quit' and travel low-carbon instead, increase taxes (like they do on cigarettes and alcohol)...there are a whole heap of possibilities! Somehow, though, High-Carbon-Travellers Anonymous doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

How Green is Your Computer?

If you don't use a computer regularly these days, you're probably still living in the Stone Age. E-mail, research, news - computing is central to our 'modern' lives and consequently computing waste is becoming a central problem of living in a throwaway society.

Greenpeace has just released a green electronics rating scheme - at the top of the list is Lenovo and Nokia, at number 1 and 2 respectively, and the 14-company table is brought up by LG, Panasonic and Apple, second last and last respectively. Boooo.

What this table measures is the policies and practices of global IT equipment manufacturers on eliminating harmful, yucky chemicals from their products and taking back and recycling their own products when they become obsolete and consumers want to dispose of them. The chemicals are the biggest worry - chemicals that when sent to landfill, seep out and can cause toxic contamination, such as (take a deep breath) brominated fire retardants, beryllium and polyvinyl chloride. Therefore it is important that companies offer take-back facilities so that they can safely recycle equipment, and Levono, at the top of the list, offer take-back in all countries where its products are sold.

The UN now even has global e-waste targets and recently-launched initiatives, recognizing, among other problems, that black-market recycling to meet demand for computing equipment is conducted in dangerously unsafe conditions, often using child labour.

On campus, university-owned computers are recycled centrally - that is, they are collected, stored and then taken away for 'safe' disposal. Unfortunately this scheme doesn't extend to personal computing equipment. The best bet for that would be Craft Recycling, at the Aber train station - but I make no guarantees that they will actually take it. You can recycle mobile phones at the university residence receptions, but this, like many other things, is severely under-publicized.

For any fellow Apple-equipment owners out there, check out Green My Apple - tell Steve Jobs to get a greener company.

Welsh Assembly - Green Hustings

With just under a month to go to the 2007 National Assembly for Wales elections, campaigning is well underway - a student hustings in the Student Union last week will be followed by a 'green' hustings, organised by Friends of the Earth Cymru next Tuesday to focus on environmental policy and issues!

Merched y Fawr, Vulcan Street, Aberystwyth
Doors open from 7.15pm, and Fairtrade (of course!) refreshments will be available

Candidates will be
Linda Grace (Labour)
Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru)
John Davies (Liberal Democrat)
Lisa Francis (Conservative)
Leila Kiersch (Green)

Come along, ask your questions! Most party manifestos appear to be available online now, so download from their respective websites and have a read!

Deadline for voter registration is 18 April - download a registration form and send it off!

The Action-Rhetoric Chasm

A new survey by the Energy Saving Trust on personal action to tackle climate change (or rather, the lack thereof):

"Two-fifths of Britons are doing nothing to cut energy use, although 80% believe climate change is affecting the UK, a report has suggested.

"Only 4% of people went on holiday without flying, although 32% said they would consider it, the Energy Saving Trust's Green Barometer report showed. The study suggested tougher measures such as road tolls and carbon rationing were also unpopular.

"Researchers interviewed 1,192 households in February this year. About 75% of people in the UK feel a growing pressure to change the way they live in order to reduce the impact of climate change, the report claimed. Trying to be 'green' is regarded as a virtuous quality by 70% and reducing home energy is considered as virtuous as donating to charity, figures suggest. But only 34% thought green taxes were socially acceptable, while the figure fell to 30% for road pricing and 28% for carbon rationing.

"Philip Sellwood, chief executive of the Energy Saving Trust, said: "There's lots of talk by politicians, industry and the media about environmental issues. For the first time the Green Barometer gives the public a voice in this debate."

"He added: "There's an enormous willingness to take on the environmental challenge, let's make the most of this window of opportunity to make a real difference. There are simple actions we can all do in the home to help reduce the amount of energy we use."

"The Energy Saving Trust said its Green Barometer report was the first national index of public opinion on green issues. These views will be tracked on a quarterly basis."

Coming hot on the heels of the latest figures last week showing that 2006 UK carbon emissions rose by a provisional 1.25%, this is cause for a moment's reflection. Government policy action and leadership at the national level needs to be married with the impetus to take personal action within our daily lives.

The introduction of the smoking ban today has lead me to think that 50 years ago, to think of banning smoking or for smoking to have the social mark of disapproval that it does today would be unthinkable; we don't have 50 years to see the same with carbon-wastefulness and personal behaviour, but hey, I remain optimistic that we can do it!

Recycling Wood

A note from UWA House Services - that you can now recycle wood!

"Recycling at the University is improving with a recent survey showing that 40% ofwaste from academic buildings is being recycled. Recycling of wood products can help further reduce waste that may be land filled.Paper and other materials purchased in bulk are often delivered on pallets or in crates made of wood. There are informal contacts for staff that reuse the pallets or simply use them for all sorts of stuff such as making fences or just for fire wood.

"If you can reuse, recycle or need some free fire wood, reply by email or telephone Alan Stephens wis@aber.ac.uk on extension 1681 in House Services and help make a difference."