This is my last post for Community Care, and I'd like to thank all readers, especially the few who have written interesting comments, and my employers at Community Care who have been so good to me.
I want to start this offering with a correction. In my last column ('Our last chance to halt greenhouse gas emissions', Community Care Magazine, 28th May 09) I stated that CFC gases were 'nothing to do with... greenhouse gas emissions'. Well that is incorrect. Chlorofluorocarbons, once used as propellants in aerosol cans and still in many fridges and freezers, ARE greenhouse gases. They aren't as powerful as some, and their contribution to climate change is not nearly as much as the fossil CO2 were pumping out or the methane from cows and rice paddies, but they do add to the anthropogenic warming. I think it is important to get the science straight!
I found this out because I attended a workshop at the Transition Network Conference about how certain chemical/physical feedback mechanisms are accelerating climate change. These so-called 'positive' feedbacks (actually not very positive, and better known as accelerating feedbacks) include some which are quite easy to understand, for example: we all know that dark colours absorb more heat than lighter ones, so imagine the north pole of a planet covered in snow and ice. That reflects sunlight and heat and the area remains cold. Now warm it up a bit and melt some of the snow and ice, revealing dark rocks and dark sea water. This allows more heat to be absorbed, so the area warms up some more, and more ice melts. This is one simple accelerating feedback, and Earth has several, amplified by our CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. Anyone interested in learning more about this could check out this 27 page pdf or other bits of the Apollo-Gaia website, such as the video resources. The main thing we must take from this is that we have no time to lose if we're to stop ourselves making ourselves, and most of the other species on Earth, extinct. We are on our way to making this planet uninhabitable.
I attended another Film Premiere last night, that of a very educational documentary called The End Of The Line which is about the situation facing our fisheries, and overfishing. This is a powerful film which anybody who eats seafood needs to see. I thought that by not eating seafood (I've been vegetarian for 25 years) I was doing enough to reduce my impact on the World's oceans, but I could be doing more. I firmly believe that we in the developed countries, with access to lots of fruit, vegetables, grains, seeds and beans, do not need to eat any animals, but I understand that the majority of people like eating fish, and for between 1 and 2 billion people, fish is a key part of their diet. So, if you want to be able to continue eating fish (and this film shows that there won't be any left by about 2048, as we will have eaten them all) you can do your bit by asking your supplier about where the fish came from, how they were caught and are they from sustainable sources? There is a great website called fishonline which has a list of fish which are not endangered (fish to eat) and those to avoid.
And don't think that eating farmed fish is the answer either, as one kilo of farmed salmon uses 5kg of anchovies as food. Far better to use the anchovies direct, if you eat fish at all, that is! Some fish farmers are exploring using vegetable protein to feed their fish, and this means soya beans, often planted where rainforest used to be. So your farmed fish might be responsible for destroying the oceans or the rianforests... which do you prefer? You might now understand why I don't eat fish!
The film is now on release and will probably be on our small screens soon. Well worth watching as it has lots of information which should help us to preserve fish stocks for future generations.
These days there are hundeds of campaigns, schemes and groups aiming to 'save the planet', all of then well-meaning but of varying effectiveness. I don't actually like the term 'save the planet', as I tend to take things literally and in my view, the planet will be around for a long time... I prefer to think of these ideas as 'keep the planet habitable for humans and other life-forms' but that's much less catchy....
One such scheme is Earth Hour, which this year takes place on Saturday 28th March at 8.30pm. The idea is that for one hour, around the globe, all participating individuals, businesses, local authorities etc switch off their lights, computers and other electrical appliances for one hour. All well and good... it's not asking anything too difficult or complicated, it saves energy, gives people a sense of participation, and yes, this has made it one of the most popular campaigns around.
This year it is being labelled as 'Vote Earth' and the website claims that 930 cities and towns in 80 countries are participating; the aim is to involve a billion people. It started in Sydney, Australia, in 2007, with about 2.2 million homes switching off their lights, and last year an estimated 50 million people joined in. So, during that hour, a lot of energy was not used which would have been if things had gone on as normal.
The popularity of this event is evident when doing a search on Facebook for 'Earth Hour'... I counted up to 300 groups dedicated to it before I gave up. Some were for individual towns and cities, some for states or countries, some for supporters and fans. However, this search also showed a handful of groups with names like 'Anti Earth Hour', 'Earth Hour Sucks', 'People against Earth Hour', 'Earth Hour was Useless', and 'F*ck Earth Hour'. These groups fall into two broad categories, the so-called 'climate deniers' who think that the broad scientific consensus that man-made gas emissions are altering the planet's atmosphere is wrong, and that any observable warming is part of some 'natural cycle', and those who feel that just switching off your lights for one hour per year is a complete waste of time when what we actually need to do is to cut our total emissions by 80%. This view is promoted by the various Facebook groups such as 'Earth Hour Every Month' and the more radical 'Earth Hour Every Week'. Maybe I should start a Facebook Group called 'Earth Hour Every Hour'?
Unfortunately, I will be unable to 'attend' Earth Hour this year as I have a ticket to go and see the Ukuele Orchestra, and my guess is that they'll need amplification which is of course, based on electric power. I'll stick to my Earth Hour Every Hour concept, I think!
I quite like the idea of Lent, despite my not being Christian. I like the idea of giving up stuff... eating less... perhaps no chocolate, or stopping something more 'sinful' like smoking... Anything which can reduce our profligate consumption has got to be good, and if this reduction helps our health, even better.
I'm not sure if I have any regular readers... certainly no-one has mentioned my little break from writing this blog. I've had a month's holiday... over Christmas and New Year I just didn't feel like writing anything. And no-one noticed! Well, no-one asked why I wasn't keeping to my usual once a week routine. I didn't go anywhere on holiday, I've been at home, looking after the children, my wife, cooking, composting, managing logpiles, doing occasional Professor Fiddlesticks gigs and trying to keep on top of the paperwork. I suppose I've been a bit low, not as far as depressed, but not feeling my usual joyful optimistic self.
I was brought up as an atheist, but as an adult and a scientist, I believe that we cannot prove the non-existance of a Deity, and I have lots of people in my life who have assorted faiths, so being overtly atheist somehow seems wrong to me, so I'm officially agnostic; I'm a 'don't know'. This seems to be a respectful and honest position to take.
I attended a York in Transition meeting last night, the first Solar Panel Buyers Club. I was planning to extol the benefits of bulk buying this type of hot water system, but news this Monday morning from another airport protest means that some of this post will be discussing that too.
I only learned about the new 'Early Years Foundation Stage' a few weeks ago, catching up on a Summer Edition of Green World which had got lost in my cluttered day bag. I was appalled to find that very young children are now, by law, being compelled to explore ICT technology and are subjects of targets and literacy goals.
The current 'Credit Crunch' combined with high energy prices is seemingly causing a recession... a period of no economic growth or contraction. Part of me welcomes this, despite the discomfort we will all experience (such as reduced entertainment bookings for me) as in a greener world we'd consume less, and in a recession we do just that. One of the weird effects of this economic situation is that with reduced demand, some prices will fall... so I'm not suprised to see the fuel prices dip temporarily.
I became interested in poverty when I got involved in Local Agenda 21 in the mid 1990s, a few years after John Major signed a document called 'Agenda 21' at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. This committed all the signitory countries to explore and implement 'Sustainable Development' by encouraging Local Authorities to empower their local communities to find local solutions... I learned that sustainable development was a balance between our natural environment, our social environment and our fiscal (money) environment... and that the number one enemy of sustainable development was... POVERTY.
