The banking industry has a big part to play in financing the emerging green economy. At the same time, it continues to finance the biggest polluters, the coal industry in particular. On the one hand, the banks’ job is to fund industry, not to change our energy mix. Surely that should be the job of [...]
Archive | climate change RSS feed for this archive
The end of the road for carbon labeling?
This week supermarket chain Tesco announced that they have dropped their plans to introduce carbon footprint labeling across their range. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The project was announced in January 2007, and 15 months later the first 20 products hit the shelves. Crisps, orange juice and light bulbs were among the [...]
What’s the best way to offset carbon emissions?
A couple of months ago I expressed my interest in offsetting the remain carbon emissions that I cannot cut myself. I’ve cut my own carbon footprint down as much as I can, but to make my household carbon neutral, I need a little help. So what’s the best way to do that? Around five years [...]
Offsetting gone wrong
A couple of months ago I expressed my interest in offsetting the carbon emissions I can’t cut, clearing the decks as best I can at the end of the year. I still intend to do so, and am looking into how best to do it. Not all offsetting schemes are created equal, as The Ecologist [...]
Britain’s carbon footprint inequalities
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has conducted a study of the social impacts of climate change in Britain. It includes analysis of where CO2 emissions comes from, and who is most vulnerable to climate change. Among their findings are the contrasting carbon footprints of Britain’s poorest and wealthiest households: Britain’s top earning 10% have double the [...]
The climate lock-in
Yesterday the International Energy Agency released their annual World Energy Outlook. Since many world governments take their cues from the agency’s figures, it’s well worth paying attention to what the IEA are saying. This year, they’re warning about a climate change lock-in. It’s not a term I’ve seen used much, but it’s a useful one. [...]
Skeptic’s favourite confirms a warming trend
When it comes to climate change, I’m prepared to accept that some people have differing views on why the earth might be warming. Those that hold out that the earth hasn’t warmed are a different matter. Plenty of such people exist, and many of them justify their views with criticisms of the data sources that [...]
Chinese whispers and climate skeptics
Last week saw a rather bizarre spate of news stories about the weather, and particularly about Britain facing a new ice age. Needless to say the claim was gleefully repeated by the climate “skeptic” blogs, and it provides a rather interesting case study in internet noise. Here’s a sample skeptic headline: British mainstream news media [...]
How much of your carbon footprint is government services?
After last week’s post on carbon offsetting, Byron asked for some clarification on the amount of our carbon footprints that can be attributed to government services. Since it’s not information that’s readily available online, I thought it was probably worth re-posting my reply as a separate post. Each of us has a carbon footprint, a [...]
A positive angle on carbon offsetting
Carbon offsetting is the practice of reducing CO2 emissions by carrying out carbon positive action somewhere else. I could pay a company to plant three trees on my behalf in Costa Rica, and by balancing their carbon absorbing capacity against my carbon emitting activity, the net result is a zero carbon footprint for me. There [...]
Books
No data found
