Gordon Ramsay, nouveau environmentalist

On Friday morning I heard Gordon Ramsay talk on the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 about banning out of season fruit and vegetable imports. He also suggested fining chefs who use out of season produce. Mr Ramsay, who is a highly successful chef and businessman, thinks that it is terribly important to have a [...]

Eco bullying

Everyone talks a good environmental game, but very few actually know the rules, so the standard of play is very poor indeed. In the United Kingdom we have a series of disconnected environmental “signals” and schemes and consultations.
 
We have to be dragged almost screaming by the European Union into any cogent environmental laws and [...]

Political debate and sorry, Mr Brown

In the real world of politics the politicians were given one of their too infrequent doses of reality on 1st May when elections were held for many local councils and the important position of Mayor of London. I think that all the major politicians who were up for election have an sense of moral justice, [...]

Wind turbines or peat lands Scotland makes a wise choice

The Scottish Parliament has always been a supporter of renewable energy; its record is exemplary – far better than Westminster’s on renewable energy, so when it announces a decision to reject an application to build 181 wind turbines to generate electricity on the Isle of Lewis some eyebrows were raised.
 
I am sure that the application [...]

Overhauling solar grants by leaving them “same old same old”

When is an overhaul not an overhaul? The answer is simple; when the Government of England and Wales adjusts an incentive program without really making any changes.
 
The Low Carbon Building Programme has been “overhauled”. The scheme is in effect a way of subsidising householders who want to install some form of microgeneration.  The most popular microgeneration [...]

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 [...]

Carbon Feet -emissions by microgeneration and other renewables

Iain Fraser posted a response to my post of 10th March asking me to cite my sources for my figures. It is a perfectly reasonable request but as I was away from my office it was hard for me to do that. Mr Fraser may think that I have a bee in my bonnet about biomass [...]

Green Taxes, reports gathering dust, and polluters that should pay

I decided in October last year to “blog” about the environment and have posted articles almost every day since then. I called this “Ideas for the Environment” because ideas about improving life sometimes turn into real improvements and without the ideas there will be no improvements. 

Porsches, the London congestion zone, fairness and justice

Porsche are a very successful company that make expensive high performance cars. Its last published figures show that it sold 7.4 billion euro worth of new cars, (over 97,000 of them) made up of 39,000 911s, 26,000 Boxters and 33,000 Cayennes. It employs over 11,500 people and makes excellent profits. 
Its well designed cars high on [...]

Who is listening now?

People have compared the present state surveillance powers to those in the old communist eastern bloc countries. The comparison is unfortunately true. We are spied upon by the state (whose only justification for existence is to serve and protect us), as rigorously and with as little control and with as little respect for our fundamental [...]