Are cyclones in Burma our fault?

Over a hundred thousand souls have lost their lives in Burma as a result of a cyclone. Many more are likely to perish in the aftermath when diease arrives in the wake of the devastation of the infrastructure.
A tropical cyclone is an event of extreme weather. They can happen frequently but a cyclone with [...]

Flooding and the need to decentralise energy supply

In all the uncertainties about climate change one thing is very clear. In the United Kingdom we are experiencing more extreme weather and we are feeling the effects of extreme weather more extremely than ever. I think that what is happening is that climate change is having an effect on our environment in ways that [...]

How much will sea levels rise and what will be the consequences?

New research has indicated that sea levels are likely to rise more than the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change has predicted. The IPCC forecast a rise of between 28cm and 43cm by 2100 but a latest study by the Proudman Laboratory suggests that the rise could be between 800cm and 1500 cm. This higher figure [...]

Christian Aid is lobbying for the wrong things

The Christian Aid charity is campaigning about climate change. There are advertisements in glossy magazines (I saw one in the Sky magazine) depicting poor southern Asians being flooded out of their homes by dirty flood water, with a call for readers to contact their MP to ask him to increase the emissions reductions in the [...]

Ice, deserts and the wisdom of the ancients

The vernal equinox has come and the days are getting longer. For those of us in the United Kingdom we can look forward to the weather getting warmer (although you would not think so from the unseasonal snow we have seen over the past few days) and the longer daylight hours mean, amongst other things, [...]

Biomass or biomess?

I wrote the article below for the Building Services Journal, who have kindly allowed me to reproduce it here.
Biomass is on everyone’s list of an environmentally friendly and sustainable energy sources, even though it involves burning fuel.  Many developers these days have to comply with the Merton Rule, whether they are environmentalists or not. This [...]

The Severn Barrage - we can do less environmentally harmful things first

Would the Severn Barrage end up as an environmental blessing or a curse? There is, of course, no free lunch in the world of environmental energy – there is no possibility of something for nothing so we have to approach decisions about things like building huge tidal barrages from the viewpoint of what will cause [...]

An unhealthy future as the climate changes

Professor Robert Maynard has chaired a panel which, under the auspices of the Department of Health and the Health Protection Agency, has done some very interesting work on how climate change is likely to affect health in the future. The good news is that the warmer weather will be likely to reduce winter deaths due to hypothermia. [...]

Why are we talking about the weather?

What do people from Mexico City, Norway, Central Slovakia, Northern China, and South Australia all now have in common with the British? It is talking about the weather. One time the weather was a subject that I only really heard the British talk about. We would be famous for going on about it, sometimes in minute [...]

Nuclear Energy - long live health and safety!

Things seem to have gone quiet on the nuclear front. So far we know that the Government is not opposed to the building of new plants, but that private industry would have to raise money for them. They are changing the planning laws to enable operators to obtain planning permission more quickly than they can [...]