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 [...]

Industrial farming damages your health and that of the planet

Farmers have always worked hard to improve their farm production. There has been a constant process of improving yields and productivity but often this has taken farming in places that it is better not to visit, with chemicals enhancing yields from crops and animals, sometimes with adverse effects on humans and on the animals that [...]

Damage we suffer from fossil fuel burning both seen and unseen

 
Environmentalists today associate burning fossil fuel with carbon dioxide emissions, which in turn are associated with climate change and global warming. This is a relatively new association, although the theory of global warming has been around for over a hundred years.
 
Before the greenhouse effect took root in the popular imagination the main effect of [...]

The new nuclear renaissance - an easy decision but…

John Hutton is Secretary of State for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. By training he is a lawyer, but he now is in charge of Energy for the United Kingdom. His problem is to set out an energy policy that will provide the nation over the long term with energy as cheaply and as low [...]

Biomass, wood smoke, particulates and cancers

When we breathe in we inhale not only air but dust, and very small particles of stuff that we humans have put in the atmosphere. We know that these can be harmful – coal dust and asbestos dust spring immediately to mind.
Because we are putting relatively speaking so much into the atmosphere scientists are [...]

What green taxes should do and how the oil price is rising

I am writing this before Mr Darling announces his budget, which according to the papers will be a “Green Budget” with “green” taxes. I have always been in favour of the polluter paying for his hers or its pollution. This is one of the four energy principles that I have written about in the Energy [...]

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. 

Marks & Spencers plastic bags and packaging

Marks & Sparks have decided to help the environment is they will make a 5p charge for food plastic bags from 6th May. Environmentalists have been asking for food supermarkets to review their practices on plastic bags for some years, and M&S feel (after trials) that by making a modest charge the use of plastic [...]

The China Argument and using cars less

I watched a television programme about Ms Kris Murrin, a woman who tries to persuade people to use their cars less and walk and cycle more. In the Channel 4 documentary series The Woman Who Stops Traffic, Ms Murrin encounters all sorts of arguments about why people should not give up their cars for a day, [...]

A very short guide to home renewable energy

Are you thinking of installing some kind of renewable energy for your home? If so, I offer this guide. 
These are the main ways of generating energy from renewable sources. All of them have their pluses and minuses. None of these forms of energy supply 100% of the energy that you need at all times, and [...]