There’s been much rejoicing and back-slapping recently in the London Borough of Merton, satellite state of the People’s Republic of Suburbia. The Wimbledon Park area of Merton is set to be the first part of London to go plastic bag free with the launch of  Sustainable Merton’s Bags for Better Lives initiative.

As part of the project, volunteers have been knocking on every door and handing a fairly traded cotton shopping bag designed by the Bags for Better Lives team, and a second fairly traded cotton bag from The Co-operative’s Wimbledon Park food store, to every one of approximately 3,000 households in the ward. The volunteers are asking residents to use their new bags every time they go shopping and to support a ban on throw-away plastic bags. Says ‘The Guy From Sustainable Merton‘:

“Around 9,000 plastic bags are handed out by traders in Wimbledon Park each week. If the initiative achieves a 50% reduction in bags issued, about 234,000 fewer plastic bags will be used each year. If the reduction is 75% bag consumption will fall by 351,000. Traders’ annual spending on throw-away bags could be cut by £8,000-£12,000. Even if not every retailer abandons plastic bags immediately the environmental impact will still be significant.”

Great news, but why has it taken so long for an initiative like this to reach London? Many other countries around the world are years ahead of us:

• Australia is calling for a phase-out to start by the end of 2008
• Bangladesh banned all polythene bags in the capital Dhaka in 2002
• Bhutan banned bags in 2002
• China banned production of ultra-thin bags in January this year, and will ban their use in supermarkets and shops from June
• Eritrea has had an outright ban since 2005, with fines for anyone imprting, producing, distributing or selling plastic bags.
• France plans an outright ban by 2010
• In India, six states have bans or are considering them. Mumbai banned bags in 2000 and Himachal Pradesh banned ultra-thin bags in 2003
• Ireland imposed a plastic bag tax in 2002, reducing use by 90%
• Italy imposed a levy in 1998, with an outright ban to be introduced by 2010
• Kenya and Uganda banned thinner bags and imposed a levy on thicker ones in 2007
• Papua New Guinea banned the import, manufacture and sale of plastic bags in 2004
• Rwanda and Somalia banned bags in 2005
• South Africa banned ultra-thin bags in 2003
• Switzerland requires supermarkets to charge for bags
• Taiwan banned bags in 2003
• Tanzania banned their import and manufacture in 2006

Do you notice a trend here? It’s the developing nations who have introduced outright bans, while developed countries rely on taxes to discourage use, if they’re doing anything at all. The UK has traditionally used ‘encouragement’, or ‘discouragement’ depending on how you look at it, to reduce bag usage. Even in the face of mounting disquiet over the environmental problems caused by these unnecessary trinkets, the UK government’s ‘toughened’ stance involves putting pressure on retailers to follow Marks and Spencer’s lead and charge customers for bags.

‘Gordon Brown gives supermarkets one year to start charging for plastic bags … or else‘

‘M&S to roll-out charging for food carrier bags across UK – All profit donated to national environmental charity‘

Why does every environmental measure have to come down to money? Why does the UK government take such a determined stance on issues of personal liberty such as ID cards and detention without charge, yet show such timidity with regard to telling people how they should carry their shopping home? Why haven’t we got the courage to just say “These things are bad for the environment, they’re a waste of precious resources, they’re totally unnecessary, they’re banned”?

Or, as Sir Alan Sugar might say, “You’re a waste of space. You’re fired”.

Photo: zappers

Plastic’s been getting a pretty bad press for quite a while now. Bloggers like my erstwhile colleague Matt over at The Coffee House (‘The Dead Zone – plastic fcuktastic‘) have been covering the problem comprehensively, and quite right too. There can’t be too many people left who aren’t at least aware that plastic bags are a Very Bad Thing. How many of them take the issue seriously enough to actually do something about it is another matter.

Claire Morsman felt strongly enough about the media coverage of the thousands of marine creatures killed by ingested plastic each year, to make her own reusable cloth shopping bag, the Morsbag. This single individual act inspired a worldwide movement of over 200 ‘pods’ (groups of Morsbags creators), in the UK, America, New Zealand, Spain, Japan, Morocco, France. Since the ‘sociable guerilla bagging’ campaign began, the tally of Morsbags has reached 17,869, potentially saving 8,934,500 plastic bags. Says Claire Morsman:

“I’ve learned there are a lot of people out there who want to do something about environmental issues but don’t necessarily know how to start. There’s so much energy and emotion and intelligence ready to be unleashed. I’ve always thought there are many more good people than bad in the world, but now I’ve learned how brilliant people are! They’re joining in and not giving in to desperation.

“Everyone inspires each other. It’s a win-win situation. Anyone can do it, it’s completely universal, and you’re making a bag. How fabulous is that?”

For more information about Morsbags and instructions on how to make your own, go to www.morsbags.com

Black carbon particulate pollution, or soot, may be making a much greater contribution to global warming than previously thought, according to a study published this week in Nature Geoscience. In “Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon”, atmospheric scientist V. Ramanathan and chemical engineer Greg Carmichael conclude that the atmospheric warming effect of soot is three to four times higher than the consensus estimate released in an IPCC report last year.

While CO2 traps solar energy radiating back from the Earth’s surface, soot particles absorb solar radiation as it enters the atmosphere, increasing its heat. When they subsequently settle on snowy areas, the reduced albedo increases heat absorption leading to melting of ice and snow.

Black carbon’s warming effect in the atmosphere is about 0.9 watts per square meter, compared with the IPCC estimate of 0.2 to 0.4 watts per square meter. It is the second most important contributor to global warming after CO2. 25% to 35% of black carbon in the atmosphere comes from South and East Asia, caused by the burning of wood and cow dung in household cooking and the use of coal to heat homes. In the US and Europe, diesel engines, wood fires and barbecues are major sources of black carbon. Forest fires also make a significant contribution. In addition to accelerating glacial melt, affecting water supplies for millions, soot-based smog has serious health implications, with the inhalation of smoke during indoor cooking linked to the deaths of an estimated 400,000 women and children.

While CO2 persists in the atmosphere for decades, soot particles remain airborne for a matter of weeks, so eliminating black carbon offers a nearly instant return on investment, the researchers said. Commercially available products that could substantially reduce black carbon emissions already exist. Ramanathan is seeking sponsorship for Project Surya, which would provide 20,000 rural Indian households with smoke-free cookers and monitor air pollution levels to measure the effect of the cookers.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography news item

Nature Geoscience article

I promised myself I’d ignore it, but I failed. The grotesque circus that is Formula 1 motor racing is on the move again. The 2008 season has kicked off in Australia, with Britain’s golden boy Lewis Hamilton winning the Melbourne Grand Prix. Now everyone’s off to Malaysia for Round 2, the juggernauts and executive jets spewing out even more CO2 on top of what’s generated by the actual racing.

I hate motor racing. I hate the waste, of time, money, energy, resources. I hate the way it glamourises speed. I hate the way it turns a practical activity, getting from A to B for a purpose, into a mindless sideshow involving driving round in a circle for hours on end. I hate the way the drivers are idolised as super-heroes, when they’re really just overpaid, obsessive, prima donna control freaks. I hate their chav baseball caps and overalls covered with decals and logos for their sponsors and whoever else can afford to buy space on them and their cars for whatever products it’s legal to advertise wherever we are this week. I hate the way they waste perfectly good champagne.

Some might say that racing drivers are highly skilled athletes, and I wouldn’t argue. I’m sure they’re tough as nuts, what with the heat and the G-forces, and being able to drive at such speeds with such small error margins is admirable in its way, I suppose. What I find so depressing is the sheer banal pointlessness of the whole thing. Take that fitness and stamina and do something useful with it; join the army or a conservation group. Use those skills for the good of all; drive an ambulance or a police pursuit vehicle. Or a bus.

You might argue that motor racing benefits us all because technical innovations developed for the F1 circuit eventually show up in production vehicles. I’d be more impressed by that point of view if Grand Prix were contested by family hatchbacks, powered by hybrid engines, using regenerative braking, backed up by roof-mounted solar panels. I’m aware there are species of motor sport where the vehicles look a bit like the car on next door’s drive, apart from the fins, spoilers, internal roll cages and what’s under the bonnet. They are, however, as different from your bank manager’s Nissan as Lewis Hamilton’s McClaren.

The idea of racing ordinary cars does have a certain vicarious appeal, as it obviously does for the Hamilton-worshipping oiks who stage suburban street races on Friday nights. Citroen 2CVs are still raced in France, although as this photo of the 2006 2CV 24 Hour race at Spa shows, they’ve been modified a little! The excitement generated by Top Gear’s regular slot Star In A Reasonably Priced Car shows there has to be mileage in this. Funnily enough, this season’s rule changes banning exotic gizmos like traction control and electronic driver aids made Melbourne one of the most entertaining races in years (so I’m told), with tonks galore and less than a third of entrants finishing.

Perhaps, if motor racing did reflect the real world, with identical Toyota Prius‘s chasing each other round a simulated urban circuit, I’d start watching. Better still, have half the entrants driving the other way. Even Lewis Hamilton might find that challenging.

A court in Paris has found oil giant Total responsible for the sinking of the tanker Erika. The world’s fourth-largest oil company must pay a fine of €375,000 for negligence, plus €200 million in damages.

The incident, in December 1999, caused a 20,000 tonne slick of heavy oil which polluted 250 miles of the French Atlantic coast, killed or injured 300,000 seabirds and left a toxic legacy in the food chain. In all, 270,000 tonnes of waste comprising seawater, oil, sand and stones, had to be cleaned up. Prior to the court ruling, Total had already spent €200m on the cleanup operation. This may sound like a lot, but it’s a fleabite compared with Total’s latest record profits of €12 billion.

This is tremendous news. A major reason for global oil companies like Total being able to report such huge profits is that they can use a maze of paperwork and off-shore registration to evade or conceal responsibility for cost-cutting policies such as chartering unseaworthy rust-buckets like the Erika. Ségolène Royal, head of the Poitou-Charentes region, said in the Guardian:

“It is a very severe warning to careless transport groups, to the floating garbage cans that cross the seas, often in total impunity”

I hope this puts the fear of God into all companies. Quite frankly, anyone responsible for envionmental destruction on this scale should be tried on the same basis as war criminals.

Last week the government launched its consultation into plans for a third runway and sixth terminal at London Heathrow. Greenpeace has been in touch with The Coffee House, asking us to support their ‘Stop Heathrow Expansion’ campaign. As in most issues nowadays, the prime arguments against the expansion are climate change and economics. To quote Greenpeace:

Already the busiest airport in Europe, the plan would mean a 70 per cent increase in flight numbers and a corresponding rise in climate change pollution. It’s crazy to be paving the way for such big increases in greenhouse gases when we should be doing all we can to reduce emissions.
What’s particularly short sighted about this proposal is that a third runway at Heathrow really isn’t needed. Well over a fifth of flights from Heathrow are to short-haul destinations, already well served by trains which cause ten times less damage to the climate than flying.

Hidden away in the small print are a few references to the effects on the local residents of additional noise and pollution. Nothing about wider environmental impacts on habitats and biodiversity. You get the impression that if this development was a Tesco rather than an airport no-one would bat an eyelid.

Contrast this with the campaign being fought in Florida against the dual expansion of Fort Lauderdale International Airport and Port Everglades. Citizens Against Runway Expansion give a whole list of reasons why the project is a bad idea. Here are a few:

• Eradication of protected mangroves, some of which are Essential Fish Habitat
• Loss of hatching and nursery habitat for numerous aquatic, terrestrial and avian species
• Destruction of Manatee habitat
• Decimation of 15 or more acres of our coral reef system
• Detrimental effects from noise pollution on wildlife
• Probable damage to the potable water supply from leaching of toxins from dredged fill during dewatering and compaction processes

OK, I know we’re not comparing apples and apples. I doubt if Heathrow has many manatees or coral reefs, but there might well be some great crested newts. It’s still interesting how the Heathrow campaign has taken a completely different spin from the one in Florida, which even accepts that increased capabilities for trade and leisure travel are benefits, rather than Public Enemy Number 1 as they are seen in the UK.

Photo: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

The New York Times has been running a series of in-depth articles ‘Choking For Growth’, exploring the extent of the pollution crisis in China. In the latest instalment, ‘Far From Beijing’s Reach, Officials Bend Energy Rules’, Howard W. French shows how China’s campaign to cut energy use is having little effect outside the capital.

When the Beijing government announced a nationwide energy reduction campaign two years ago, officials in the western Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region started work on creative schemes to evade the requirements.

Local officials were required to raise electricity prices to discourage the growth of large energy-consuming industries and to force the least efficient to close down Instead, fearing local economic impacts, the regional government brokered a special deal for the Qingtongxia Aluminum Group, which accounts roughly 10% of the region’s GDP. The company was removed from the national grid and supplied directly by the local company, exempting it from expensive fees and allowing it to continue to get its power at the lowest price.

Before the national energy consumption campaign began, Ningxia officials worked to get around environmental regulations that could hinder growth. In 2002 Beijing issued rules limiting the number of new coal-burning power plants, but Ningxia has built at least three that either did not have the required permission, or failed to meet new environmental standards.

Even after Beijing cancelled company exemptions to special consumption fees in 2004, the local government extended them for another year, obtaining huge savings for its metal industries. As recently as 2005, regional officials continued to argue that the exemptions should remain. Many of the region’s strategic metal working industries had been spared Beijing’s mandated price rises until as recently as this May, nearly two years after they were announced. “That favourable price wasn’t approved by the state. It was a regional policy”, said a company official. As French says in his article:

“The tug of war between localities and the central government also shows the limits of China’s ability to impose change on a vast, unruly country by edict, while exposing the weaknesses of a one-size-fits-all approach to reform in a country where regional economic disparities are rapidly growing.”

One could say much the same about the United States, where individual states are increasingly ploughing their own furrow at a local or regional level. The big difference is that US states are acting on their own initiative to exceed inadequate Washington environmental directives. In China, they’re busting a gut to avoid compliance with regulations that stand in the way of the drive for growth.

Talking of green cars … as you’d expect from an event taking place in California, the greenest place on the planet, the 2007 Los Angeles Auto Show is packed with models that would be powered by various combinations of alternative fuels or hybrid drive-trains, if only the motoring masses could get their hands on them.

Volkswagen unveiled the latest and most advanced member of the up! family of concept cars. The space up! blue is powered by a pioneering high-temperature fuel cell linked to a set of 12 lithium-ion batteries. A bank of solar panels built into the roof allow the charge in the batteries to be topped up by available light. Many of the surfaces are constructed out of recycled materials – the instrument panel and the door mouldings are made out of organic plastics or biopolymers.

The space up! blue has a range of around 65 miles on batteries and 155 miles using the fuel cell, giving a maximum range of 220 miles. As for performance, on batteries it can reach 62 mph in 13.7 seconds, with a top speed of 75 mph.

I wish I could drive. Sadly, a production version won’t evolve before the end of the decade.

New York Times on the Auto Show

Twelve Chinese companies reported for environmental violations have had crucial bank loans recalled, suspended or rejected. The first list of thirty offending companies was submitted to the People’s Bank of China and the China Banking Regulatory Commission by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) in July this year. China’s new ‘Green Credit’ policy is intended to starve notorious polluters of operating capital. Under Chinese law, polluters are subject to a maximum fine of 100,000 yuan (about 13,500 U.S. dollars).

“The deterioration of China’s environment tells that it is not effective to rely on just one department to monitor pollution emissions,” said Pan Yue, deputy minister of SEPA. “The environmental watchdog needs to work hand in hand with financial policymakers to find ways to punish polluting factories.”

Wang Jinnan, a senior expert at the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, said: “The listed plants are small and medium-sized plants, which face more challenges than large companies when applying for loans from financial institutions. The green credit system is a reasonable way to control pollution from the small and medium-sized plants. But if large companies were on the list this time, the policy would be more influential and effective.”

None of the names on the list have been made public. However, most of the factories were in the paper-making, coking, pharmaceuticals, iron and steel, and brewery industries. This week’s report outlined several cases, including:

• a brewery in East China’s Anhui Province whose 10 million yuan ($1.35 million) loan application was rejected owing to continued violations in waste-water discharge.
• a power company in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, whose bank loans were recalled after it failed to pass an environmental assessment.

Wang Jinnan, a senior expert at the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, said: “The listed plants are small and medium-sized plants, which face more challenges than large companies when applying for loans from financial institutions. The green credit system is a reasonable way to control pollution from the small and medium-sized plants. But if large companies were on the list this time, the policy would be more influential and effective.”

We shall have to wait and see whether the green credit system will have a real impact on pollution in China. If SEPA continues to ignore the large companies, this policy may prove to be just window dressing.

Chinaview

Chinadaily

Presenters Billy Bragg and Mark Viduka show their emotional involvement in the issues

Well I’ve ploughed through the first part of CNN’s much-vaunted eco-documentary ‘Planet In Peril’, and I wasn’t that impressed. A series of episodes filmed around the world, loosely linked by a cobbled-together ‘theme’ of interlinked ecosystems under threat from human exploitation, it kicked off with a slot about illegal wildlife trading in Thailand. After 15 minutes of shaky footage of sad caged creatures and police raids, we were off to Madagascar, a biodiversity hotspot with only 10% of its natural environment remaining. We followed a Conservation International RAP (Rapid Assessment Program) team as they surveyed the forest for rare species. Inevitably, a tiny lizard was found which might or might not be a completely new species. After a brief aside on the economic pressures driving the locals to over-exploit their environment, we were off again, this time to the US.

Yellowstone Park is a “pristine ecosystem”, and we reviewed the progress of the re-introduction of the grey wolf in 1995. A natural predator for elk and bison, the wolf has brought about a ‘trophic cascade’ benefiting all levels of the ecosystem. After establishing the vital role of the high-level carnivore in maintaining ecosystems, we went to Cambodia where a small team of park rangers funded by the Wildlife Alliance are struggling to keep tiger poachers at bay. Collateral damage from indiscriminate laying of snares has reduced the population of wild elephants in Cambodia to 2-3000. The Asian elephant is a “keystone species”.

Tigers are hunted for their supposedly therapeutic body parts, so our next visit was to China, the world’s number one destination for illegal wildlife. Apparently, “the Chinese will eat anything”. Despite swift punishment and hefty fines for selling endangered species, the trade continues to grow. Traditional Chinese medicine is driving species to extinction, leading on to a discussion of general resource exploitation, shortages, pollution and health problems. Cancer is the leading cause of death in China. Finally, back to the USA for a slot on “body burden” testing, highlighting the accumulation of pollutants and toxins in the human body and their effects on health.

All a bit of a muddle really, but how refreshing to see a 90 minute (excluding adverts) documentary about the environment that didn’t mention global warming once. That is still to come in Part 2. Sadly, I can’t find any trace of that having been uploaded to P2P. Perhaps the guy who uploaded Part 1 lost the will to live after watching it.

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/planet.in.peril/