Pete Smith @ February 16, 2009 # One Comment
A new documentary series kicked off on the UK Discovery Channel yesterday. ‘Ways to Save the Planet‘ explores what happens when, in the channel’s own words, “what if?” meets “why not?”, as “some of the world’s leading scientists” put the most ambitious geo-engineering ideas to the test in order to tackle global climate change. The [...]
Pete Smith @ March 28, 2008 # 2 Comments
This is the first of an occasional series in which Change Alley looks at the state of environmental debate at the grassroots. No deep analysis here, local opinion will be allowed to speak for itself for the most part, although it may prove hard to resist the odd comment or two in passing. The Western [...]
Pete Smith @ January 10, 2008 # No Comment Yet
On 7th January, BBC News carried an item about a large hydro-electric scheme in Scotland. Monday saw the completion of a major phase of the project, with breakthrough at the end of a 5-mile tunnel at Glendoe, near Fort Augustus, Loch Ness. The cameras were there to capture the moment as the 220 meter long [...]
Pete Smith @ January 6, 2008 # No Comment Yet
The wires are buzzing today with reports that the world’s first 30-storey vertical farm is to be built in Las Vegas. This story appears on blog sites left, right and centre, but they all seem to have their origin in an article at enn.com, which in turn references a story at nextenergynews.com. You can spot [...]
Pete Smith @ December 7, 2007 # 2 Comments
Last month The Coffee House drew your attention to the Worst EU Lobbying and Greenwash Awards 2007. The winners were announced at a festive awards ceremony in the Witloof Cellar in Brussels on 4 December 2007. Winner of the Worst EU Lobbying Award 2007 BMW, Daimler and Porsche – nominated together in the worst EU [...]
Pete Smith @ December 6, 2007 # One Comment
The use of “bland and ineffectual promotional language” puts organic food at risk of becoming “just another commercial brand”, concludes a study by the Open University’s Centre for Research in Education and Educational technology (CREET). Their report ‘The Discourse of Organic Food Promotion: language, intentions and effects‘ says that retailers and campaigners are failing to [...]
Pete Smith @ November 28, 2007 # No Comment Yet
The environmental propaganda machine continues to rumble forward on ‘The Archers’, BBC Radio 4′s venerable soap opera and green information channel. Tuesday’s episode featured an earnest discussion of anaerobic digesters on farms, turning animal muck into methane and generating electricity for sale back to the grid. According to jet-setting career agriculturist Debbie Aldridge, calling home [...]
Pete Smith @ November 28, 2007 # 4 Comments
At Scientific American it’s all about climate change, “humanity’s first planetwide experiment”. In ‘Clash: What Will Climate Change Cost Us?‘, they talk to three leading economic policy thinkers on the topic of how cutting emissions of greenhouse gases would affect the global economy. Sir Nicholas Stern, Bjorn Lomborg and Gary Yohe On a lighter note, [...]
Pete Smith @ November 24, 2007 # 4 Comments
More evidence, if any were needed, that climate change has irrevocably invaded the consciousness of Middle England. The BBC Radio 4 soap opera ‘The Archers’ featured a touching scene in which a young member of the Archer clan, disturbed by a school lesson on the impact of climate change, quizzed her parents on what they [...]
Pete Smith @ November 22, 2007 # 5 Comments
I’d like to recommend an excellent CNN article about food and the environment. Here are some highlights: According to the UK’s Soil Association, 50 percent of the increase in global CO2 emissions between 1850 and 1990 has been tied to changes in land use –mainly because of farming practices. The Food Climate Research Network estimates [...]
