The Renewable Heat Incentive and Solar Systems

After more than two years in the design process the United Kingdom Government has announced it Renewable Heat Incentive, covering renewable heat in England, Scotland and Wales. It is very good news for the environment, and exceptionally good news for environmentally minded people who want to save on their heating bills and on their carbon [...]

Oil and Gold

One of my readers, “dimitrianshah”  has pointed out on these pages that if we were to price oil in gold, rather than in US dollars, we would see that the price of oil has been stable, relatively speaking. Or, to look at things the other way round, the price of gold has always been relatively [...]

Eating the seed corn

If you live in the United Kingdom and turn on the BBC you will have heard a great deal of news about “cutbacks” and the hardship that they will cause. In truth, they will cause hardship in the public sector; most of the private sector has already suffered the pain. Our Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, [...]

A Road Map Leading Nowhere

Today the European Commission explain its policy (these days called a road map) on reducing emissions. The target is to reduce emissions by 20% (compared with 1990 level of emissions) and many people will be disappointed that the target has not been raised to 30%, or at least 25%, claiming that it will not cost [...]

The Gulf of Mexico is becoming a sea desert

We do not know the full effects of the Deepwater  Horizon oil leak in the Gulf of México. Most of the surface oil deposits have been cleaned up and many of the coats have been cleaned up, but we cannot clean up the deep part of the ocean and indeed we are only just beginning [...]

The times are changing

Most times are a steady an usually unremarkable continuation of the recent past, but at regular intervals in history there are time when some people try to effect fundamental change. Either times change and change us with them or we change times by our actions. The frenzy of a revolution can end in  establishing a [...]

Home thoughts from abroad

Officially very early March is still winter, in England, but the trees and plants do not know this and they live not on summertime or wintertime but on daylight. This year in England Spring has arrived a little later than usual but it is nice to see it come. This pear tree is covering its branches with [...]

Prices are Increasing and Resources are Diminishing

As parts of the world are changing so the price of commodities is increasing, and it is not always the obvious commodities which are becoming more expensive in real terms. Gold and silver are at record prices. Copper and oil are very expensive compared with last year and are likely to increase in price in [...]

Subsidising waste, pollution, and climate change

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has reported on investment in “green” sectors. They believe that this would produce high growth, decoupled from intensive consumption. I doubt if we will ever decouple high growth from intensive consumption because the “green” sector simply replaces one thing we are buying with another thing, rather than turning out [...]

Changes in the Costa Rican Forest

In 1976 researchers started recording the different types of trees in the Costa Rican forest over a twenty year period. Over that period of time they found that some trees became more successful and others less successful. There was a very large reduction in the number of trees in the forest that they studied and [...]