I have built a page on squidoo.com which discusses these issues; please take a look at it: Methane is a Greenhouse Gas.

This page expands upon that whioch I have mentioned here and also suggests some reading material. There is also place to vote on which source of methane poses the greatest threat to the environment in terms of its contribution to the greenhouse effect.

environment, global warming, climate change, greenhouse effect

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What appears to be a breakthrough in technology by Go Sun Solutions in New Zealand could make solar power an attractive prospect for every household. Current solar panels are based on silicon which is an extremely common element within the earth's crust, however, refining it into a form useable for solar panels is a very energy-hungry process and gives fuel to those that argue that solar panels are an irrelevance (given this fact, they could be right).

In this new breakthrough scientists use photo sensitive dyes to produce electricity at a greatly reduced cost. Fortunately, isolating the elements needed for these dyes is a low energy process. Apparently many companies are interested in using this technology and these new panels could be in production by the end of this year. If this is true it could result in a massive change in the way we get our electricity, particularly as these solar panels work at low light levels. If solar energy beomes financially attractive, large numbers of people may make the switch, reducing carbon emissions and giving individuals greater freedom from large corporations.

Sometimes the sustainable living ideology gets taken too far - the idea of eating roadkill isn't likely to persuade many people to live in a more sustainable way. I think that the push for locally produced food is a good idea, not only in terms of the environment but in terms of taste. I remember the first time I tasted a watermelon immediately after picking it in Australia. I couldn't beleive that the delicious thing I was eating was the same as the tasteless pap that passes for watermelon in supermarkets in the UK. Still, sometimes things just aren't available locally; I like coconuts and they just aren't going to grow well here in East Yorkshire and I guess that the coconut is just about the only export product from many small tropical countries.

Locally produced food, though, has the advantage of reducing carbon emissions through a decrease in transport and often in terms of the amount of energy used in processing and packaging, as locally bought foods often come straight from the farm to the market.

One particular farmers' market in Canterbury, Kent, provides not just locally produced food, but locally hit roadkill! Fergus Drennon has been a forager and scavenger of food since the age of 6 or 7 apparently, and only eats meat when he finds it dead on the road, regularly selling foraged food at the market in Canterbury. In a way I quite like this idea - I don't like seeing things wasted and I'm sure that many freshly killed animals are quite tasty. However, maybe it's the sort of thing best kept to oneself? Whilst people like Fergus may pride themselves at the sustainability of their lives, this type of environmental fanaticism may well discourage many people from making sustainability part of their lives.

Fergus, though, does share my distaste for supermarkets (maybe he worked in one too), saying that it is unlikely that supermarkets will stock the unexpected treat of unlaid eggs within a roadkilled bird!!!! Still, he says that he is very happy with his lifestyle, and that is what matters, and I would assume is something that many supermarket shoppers could not honestly say. At least this is what it seems to me by the miserable expressions on the faces of most of the customers where I work.

I've just found out that the sun is directly responsible for global warming!

Apparently solar energy originating from the sun penetrates the earth's atmosphere where it warms the planet to just the right level for it to sustain life. However, it doesn't warm the earth equally across it surface, some areas receive more solar energy than others, meaning that they are warmer. To confuse this further, planet earth orbits the sun and rotates on its own axis, meaning that solar energy levels affecting various points on the globe vary periodically throughout time. Add to this that the earth's orbit is slightly elliptical and it varies in its degree of ellipticality with time and the solar energy reaching any one point on earth is extremely variable. This results in weather patterns that are different on different places on earth and ones that interact with each other in a stable but fluctuating fashion. This is known as climate.

The climate is changing.

Before humans had become very numerous the climate could change and no one very much cared about it. Climate change probably happened fairly slowly giving species a chance to migrate to more suitable areas, this wasn't really a problem as there were large areas of suitable habitat for these species to move to. Some species did become extinct as we know from fossil records, but others evolved to fill the niches left by the extinct ones. Throughout all of this the Sun did its job properly.

However, now the Sun doesn't seem to have caught on, it's not moving with the times. It hasn't adapted to humans pumping large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere where they trap heat. The Sun hasn't moved further away or colled down so that the natural speed of climate change can prevail, instead it has stubbornly remained in the same place as it has been for at least 5 billion years collaborating with greenhouse gases to speed up the rate of climate change to a level at which species (other than humans) are unable to adapt. At the same time the Sun has refused to supply enough solar energy for vegetation to grow faster than humans can clear it, so that now insufficient habitat remains for species to migrate into as the climate changes. Instead, suitable habitat is much reduced and fragmented so that many species are unable to make the migration to safer regions, particularly now the Sun has increased the rate of climate change. Because of this irresponsible behaviour of the Sun, the process of evolution is unable to operate properly to fill the ecological niches vacated by unusually high rates of extinction, because in many cases these niches only exist in small isolated pockets.

However, there is some hope.

Humans are coming to the rescue by inventing ways to combat the refusal of the Sun to either cool down or move further away. Plans are afoot to make machines that sequester carbon, to reduce the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere (an important greenhouse gas), these will in effect be robotic trees. Other heros have come up with the idea of artificially creating cloud layers to reflect the sun's rays before it can be trapped and my contacts at NASA have hinted that there is a project underway to build a "solar tug" which will be able to tow the sun further away or drag it closer as required.

Until this miracle is realised by humankind we can all do our bit. We can all shave our heads and paint them silver to reflect more solar energy back into space. Alternatively we could walk around with silver umbrellas for the same effect. Another idea is to get rid of the leaves that rot and release CO2, drain the oceans from which eminates huge amounts of CO2 or kill all those disgusting wild animals to prevent them from emitting methane (another greenhouse gas) as animal flatulence is a major contributor to global warming - the millions of domestic animals kept for the benefit of humans would be exempt from this cull as they are "tame" and polite beasts with far better manners than their wild cousins.

Alternatively we could stop being such dirty, wasteful bastards and reduce the amount muck we pump into the atmosphere. Some people could become slightly less rich from this though.

Damn you Sun!

Okay, so I'm not setting any records for exclusivity here, this is last weeks news, but the EU have pledged to phase out the use of traditional incandescent lightbulbs, to be replaced by the energy efficient type.

Apparently this follows similar decisions by the Australian government and the State of California in the US.

The switch to the new lightbulbs is estimated to mean a reduction in carbon emissions by about 20 million tonnes per year. Not only is this good news for the environment, but it makes good economic sense to make this switch. Indeed, a number of developing countries made this decision years ago, purely based on economic factors.

As I have written before, energy efficient lightbulbs make real monetary savings - this quite surprised me in fact. Each bulb saves about £7 per year on an average usage. Multiply this by the number of bulbs in your home (5 in my small apartment) and you have a noticeable saving (at least its noticeable if you are a student like me).

The construction of power stations, wind farms, hydro-electric dams etc is very costly, and even in a country where utilities have been privatised, the construction of these costs the tax payer a lot of money in grants. By reducing our energy demand this tax revenue can be spent on other things. Essentially carbon emissions represent inefficiency, which costs money and these costs are passed onto consumers, hopefully some of the economic benefits of the lightbulb switch should be passed onto the consumer as well. Hmmm?

Finally, by becoming the market leaders in this sort of energy efficient tchnology our economy can be strengthened. When other countries follow suit where will they buy their stocks from? Where will they get the expertise to develop energy efficient bulbs? From companies that have invested in developing and marketing these bulbs. German and Japanese industry has benefited from this philosophy for many years now.

There will be problems with this change over, the cost of switching manufacture over to the lightbulbs is likely to cancel out the benefit of lower electricity bills. However, with more investment and increased demand, the price of these bulbs should come down quickly. In fact some supermarkets already sell these bulbs for as little as 49p. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, pointed out that many energy efficient lightbulbs are somewhat dimmer than incandescent ones. This is true, but now that companies will be forced to invest in these bulbs this problem should be ironed out soon. In fact, some bulbs are already as bright as the old ones.

Hopefully this is a decision that both environmentalists and capitalists can harness effectively.

I'm off to build a lightbulb factory (an eco-factory of course, built entirely from recycled garbage).

The latest advertisement on UK television for a KFC "meal" (how anyone can describe rubber chicken, batter and a spoonfull of coleslaw as a meal I'm not sure) not only encourages people to eat a meal of dubious nutrition, but patronisingly tells us that by throwing all the packaging - boxes, large plastic bucket, plastic wrappers, cutlery and napkins - in the bin we can contribute to a "mum's night off"!

What about encouraging the use of regular plates and cutlery and the kids giving mum a night of by doing the washing up? Not only more sustainable but contributing to a society where youngsters are encouraged to be helpful people instead of lazy morons, contributing to a rubbish mountain.

It seems I'm not the only one fed up with this advert, J at Future's Green has also written on the subject: KFC advert.

Whilst this is not crime of the century it is annoying to hear the government constantly proffering the idea of more taxes on the individual to encourage environmental responsibility whilst allowing retailers such as KFC to run an advertising campaign which actively encourages an irresponsible lifestyle. As the largest proportion of our "carbon footprint" is indirect (created in the production of items before we purchase them) it is quite irritating that the government puts the onus on policies that restrict the freedom of individuals instead of forcing companies to make changes such as not providing frivolous amounts of disposable tableware.

If you should wish to be a busy body and complain to the buffoons at KFC here is their UK office number : 08457 532532 or, as J suggests, you could complain to the advertising standards agency : www.asa.org.uk

Easter eggs are in the shops already; the supermarket I work in has a whole aisle devoted to them and I'm sure that extra packaging has been used just to annoy me.

This is quite a tricky issue, no-one wants to suggest that children shouldn't enjoy receiving their easter eggs, I for one used to get quite excitied about it, but this shouldn't be an excuse to ignore the fact that unacceptable levels of packaging are used for many chocolate eggs.

What can we do?

There are options for "greens" to minimise their impact at easter time and still give easter eggs to friends. One suggestion is to buy chocolate bunnies etc. that are just wrapped in foil, even this foil can be recycled and it creates far less waste then the egg covered in foil, inside a plastic mould, inside four layers of cardboard.

Some eggs, however, don't have as much packaging as many others. I've noticed that there are a number of cadbury's eggs that don't use too much packaging - just a simple box and foil. I've also noticed that many eggs that use a plastic mould don't now use foil as well, so it seems that manufacturers are paying some attention to this issue. In fact, I read that overpackaging of easter eggs is the largest cause for complaint about any product in most supermarkets.

Sainsbury's have made announcements the last three years in a row that the packaging on their own brand of eggs has been dramatically reduced each year, so it would be worth checking these out. However, I have noticed that the eggs that are presumably branded as "high class" continue to use a ridiculous amount of packaging with massive boxes that hardly fit on the shelf but less chocolate in them than a regular large bar of chocolate.

For chocoholics that like to be environmentally friendly the good news is that a huge bar of chocolate is better value for money, has more chocolate and has far less packaging than an easter egg - so no need to get involved with wasteful eggs to get a chocolate "fix".

Inevitably, people will buy easter eggs, particularly if they have children; one of the best things you can do if you are buying an egg is to make your opinion known to the store manager about the level of packaging used and request that they reduce this next year. If enough people voice their opinion in this way, large retailers will make changes.

Of course, having eaten the egg, please recycle the packaging. The plastic mould and the foil is recycleable for most local authorities and if you are in an area where cardboard is not collected for recycling take it back to the store you bought it in and ask them to put it in their baler. The contents of which are sent for recycling.

Remember, not only is all that packaging bad for the environment, but the shop is probably making more money selling you the box, plastic and foil than they are from selling the chocolate.

Maybe I'll set up a shop that sells useless peices of plastic and cardboard next easter, there seems to be plenty of people who want to buy them!