26.01.2007 from LogicalScience blog:
This turbine is claimed to be very quiet, usable around buildings, easily integrated into towers and the general urban environment.

26.01.2007 from WorldChanging:
A carbon emissions calculator designed to help fellow students learn about their school's energy use and calculate its carbon footprint.

25.01.2007 from Treehugger:
Great to find a product that is new, different and actually available (in North America anyway). It's a 'Magnetically-Levitated Axial Flux Alternator Vertical Axis Wind Turbine' which really runs best on a rooftop. Impressive.

10.01.2007 from Thrilling Wonder blog:
Modern offshore wind farms promise to be exceptionally energy efficient. When the weather is calm they also look fetchingly beautiful. Enjoy this pictorial guide.

09.01.2007 from alternative energy:
Complete plans and instructions of how to build your own solar heating system including detailed information about how the system operates, how it performs and what costs are involved.

08.01.2007 from Environment Times:
A new waterwheel that can operate in small rivers and streams has been proven to convert water power into electricity at a commercially viable rate and the company that developed it is now planning to sell them to the public in late 2007.

08.01.2007 from Guardian Unlimited:
You may have the will, the land and, crucially, the weather to become self-sufficient in energy. But first there's all that red tape to negotiate: "The government is going to have to remove all these hoops and hurdles. They're going to have to make grants bigger and force the grid to accept renewable energy, no matter what, if they want people to do this stuff." Absolutely!

06.01.2007 from ecolocal blog:
From now on, all cars in the European Union can be recycled for free.

05.01.2007 from Treehugger blog:
This new prototype turbine, called Stormblade, works by accelerating the wind onto the blades and is therefore more efficient at low as well as high wind speeds. It's bird- and bat-friendly too.

05.01.2007 from GroovyGreen:
How to get more miles out of your hybrid (or any other car for that matter).

01.01.2007 from Green Maven:
Not a blog but a new search engine gateway to the Green Web.

31.12.2006 from British Wind Energy Association:
BWEA have launched a guide on choosing and siting a small wind system, electricity savings, payback times, grant funding and how to contact manufacturers, aimed at consumers from the domestic, public and business sectors.

27.12.2006 from The Energy Blog:
The new, improved performance G-Wiz AC drive electric car from GoinGreen is now available for sale in London.

27.12.2006 from Mur Crusto eco-farm blog:
The passive solar conservatory construction is underway, but what about the eco-cottage and the planning department?

23.12.2006 from It's the Planet, Stupid! blog:
The idea is simply for anyone to find out just how dependent we all are on fossil fuels.

20.12.2006 from What's Next In Science & Technology:
The advantages of a train and a bus are united in the AutoTram.

17.12.2006 from unplugged living blog:
This £2000 system can be customised to suit your specific needs.

14.12.2006 from ecotivity:
For an economical and practical solution to meeting at least some of your home’s energy needs, you should seriously consider wood-fuelled heating.

12.12.2006 from It’s Getting Hot In Here blog:
'Solar Photovoltaics (PVs) are cost-effective. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise,' comments Matt Reitman.

07.12.2006 from ecostreet blog:
A new American initiative which allows you to choose green energy while eliminating the large upfront investment costs.

07.12.2006 from AutoblogGreen:
A little crazy but it doesn't consume any fossil fuels and the only CO2 emissions come from the pedaler.

30.11.2006 from downsizer.net:
Ahh, warmth...we all want it. Here's a way of getting some.

20.11.2006 from Cleantech blog:
Wind turbines may 'not yet be setting the world on fire like rooftop PV solar products, but I’d certainly like one on my roof,' claims Neal Dikeman.

20.11.2006 from SkySails:
SkySails has developed a wind propulsion system based on large towing kites, which, for the first time, meets the requirements of shipping companies.

17.11.2006 from sustainablog:
WorldCoolers desktop application is designed to drive both action and interaction around the issue of of the changing climate.

17.11.2006 from Ramsay Home blog:
Bernard Malin is the first person in Massachusetts to own a residential 'micro combined-heat-and-power' system, also known as micro-CHP. But he’s not likely to be the last.

16.11.2006 from Danish Wind Energy Association:
Thinking of installing a turbine? How do you work out whether it will work as you want it to and where you want it to? This excellent site gives you all the details you could possibly want. e.g. Click 'Know How' and take the 'Guided Tour'.

13.11.2006 from ramsay home blog:
Technologies collectively known as concentrating photovoltaics are starting to enjoy their day in the sun.

12.11.2006 from aboutmyplanet:
Five things to keep in mind when installing a wind turbine.

10.11.2006 from Green Car Congress:
With a fuel economy - per passenger - equivalent to a hybrid car carrying two passengers, this quiet 'flying wing' may have a future.

05.11.2006 from What's Next In Science & Technology:
The University of Nottingham is helping to battle climate change by constructing a new experimental house on campus that will cut 'greenhouse gas' emissions by 60 per cent.

31.10.2006 from Treehugger blog:
Colin Challen MP thinks that a quarter of the space in car ads should be given over to environmental impact data.

29.10.2006 from Gristmill blog:
The U.K. is going offset-crazy, but how much is it helping the planet?

28.10.2006 from It's the planet, stupid! blog:
Could the world's great faiths mobilise the potent force of the faithful to tackle climate change?

26.10.2006 from World Changing:
Kinsale, Ireland, is en route for for weaning itself off fossil fuels, thanks to a timetabled strategy. Totnes, UK, could be next.

24.10.2006 from The Energy Blog:
A UK company has successfully designed, built and tested a 1kW fuel cell stack - the fundamental building block of micropower generation - which can generate sufficient power for the average home.

19.10.2006 from Oil Change:
Either countries reduce aircraft travel or they will not be able to reduce their carbon emissions. There is no technical fix.

18.10.2006 from It's the Planet, Stupid! blog:
'There is something rather special about happy days out in which the only CO2 you add to the atmosphere is from your respiration.'

17.10.2006 from Unplugged Living:
Make major power savings with this unique fridge idea.

16.10.2006 from Natural Capitalism Solutions:
In response to the federal leadership void, state, local and private organizations are taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

15.10.2006 from GreenLivingUK:
Even with a modest diameter, KiteGen should produce half a gigawatt of energy.

14.10.2006 from Hugg:
The latest generation muscle-powered, 3-wheel electro bicycle with fuel cells.

13.10.2006 from The Energy Blog:
Diesels are 30% more efficient than petrol engines. So they are 'the best medium-to long-term solution for our dependence on foreign oil and our transportation accelerated global warming'.

13.10.2006 from blog:
A German-based company has developed a hybrid fuel cell powertrain that includes a battery pack and have installed into the first of a series of buses.

12.10.2006 from It’s Getting Hot In Here blog:
'I launched this tool awhile ago but it is just starting to pick up speed and I think it is ready for prime time,' says Arthur Coulston.

09.10.2006 from autobloggreen:
The latest car share scheme to hit UK cities has started up in York.

06.10.2006 from Treehugger:
A new type of compact wind turbine that sits on the parapets of a building rather than the roof.

28.09.2006 from Renewable Energy Access:
A new ceramic fuel cell stack could be integrated into a micro-CHP system.

25.09.2006 from sustainablog:
A Texas company has patented a new ceramic electrical storage device that can power a car for 500 miles on a $9 charge of electricity.

22.09.2006 from The Energy Blog:
'These L-cells can provide peak powers between 1kW and 10MW and backup capacity of 4 hours to 10 days. The devices are seamlessly integrable with power grid, solar and wind installations.'

20.09.2006 from Mur Crusto eco-farm blog:
Passive solar, microCHP and other renewable energy sources should help make this farmhouse energy neutral.

15.09.2006 from inhabitat blog:
Four basic plans of attack for making sure your home is best suited for both your indoor comfort and the global climate.

09.09.2006 from Earth Meanders blog:
'You have the power to cut your greenhouse gas emissions, live more simply and fully, while not buying timbers from ancient forests (certified or otherwise). Get closer to the land. Plant and care for trees and Gaia. Become carbon neutral or negative,' says Dr Glen Barry of Ecological Internet.

07.09.2006 from The Watt blog:
The Sorne Hill Windfarm will be one of the largest wind farms in Ireland when it's complete. What's new is that the power it generates can be stored in special batteries.

31.08.2006 from Ecostreet blog:
The house has been designed to sequester carbon dioxide and withstand extreme weather of all kinds, using standard commonly-available construction materials. It's also easier and cheaper to build than traditional homes.

29.08.2006 from It’s Getting Hot In Here blog:
A DIY turbine which any practical person can build.

26.08.2006 from Green Car Congress:
"The [independently-monitored BP] scheme should help raise awareness of the links between driving and climate change," claims Jonathon Porritt, director of Forum for the Future.

25.08.2006 from The Greening of Hedgerley Wood blog:
"Now after ten months of operation and a lot of adjustments, we are getting a clearer idea of the running costs," explains Peter Armstrong.

24.08.2006 from The Greening of Hedgerley Wood blog:
Before next winter we want to try and improve the performance, and cost, of the ground heat pump system (visit Home Heating link on left for more). So one clear step was to put in more insulation.

16.08.2006 from ecostreet blog:
We probably all know that but here's some real evidence.

15.08.2006 from Cleantech blog:
Will architects and contractors pick up the challenge? Carbon-neutral buildings in 24 years.

14.08.2006 from Concord Monitor:
"It's a way of life," says Betsy Janeway. "It takes discipline. But I've loved it. I've always lived this way."

13.08.2006 from Wheel Revolution blog:
Portland luminaries dropped their car keys in a lock box and committed to using alternative forms of transportation for a month...

10.08.2006 from TerraBlog:
First London and now Stockholm. 'Perhaps the most appealing aspect of these schemes is that they appear to work.'

10.08.2006 from sustainablog:
Local renewable installations make so much sense in areas of the world still untouched by electricity.

09.08.2006 from grownupgreen:
Cutting traffic pollution and jams is about to get much easier, thanks to this new online car sharing scheme.

07.08.2006 from theWatt blog:
Biodiesel, microhydro, wind turbines, photovoltaics, solar thermal: life can be very comfortable with renewables.

31.07.2006 from Treehugger blog:
Build your eco-home from cannabis.

28.07.2006 from Treehugger blog:
A British travel company is now planting a tree for every flight booking it takes.

26.07.2006 from Climate Change Action blog:
People running forestry offsets are 'well intentioned but, in my opinion, misguided'.

25.07.2006 from EcoStreet blog:
The Co-op Bank hopes to make driving greener at no extra cost.

21.07.2006 from Treehugger blog:
The UK environment minister has been hatching a radical plan. Even the Queen will have to take part.

17.07.2006 from The Energy Blog:
'Intelligent' solar heating and cooling system for homes seems too-good-to-be-true... but it is true.

10.07.2006 from ecostreet blog:
If you’re planning a seaside trip, make it a green one: catch a train to Brighton and hail a virtually-emission-free tuc tuc at the station to get you to the beach.

03.06.2006 from two steps forward blog:
Everyone should by now know the three Rs of solid waste, says Joel Makower who now proffers 'an admittedly kludgy version' for energy.

31.05.2006 from Europa portal:
'Climate change is a global problem, and yet each one of us has the power to make a difference.' Make your difference by following some of these tips.

24.05.2006 from the climate 'extremist' blog:
At last! Proof that driving gently makes real sense if you want to reduce your CO2 impact right away.

19.05.2006 from Treehugger:
'Every time they do a demonstration [zero energy house], they run out and they hire some brilliant architect and they go off and they build this one-off amazing house that sticks out of the neighborhood like a prairie chicken, and it costs a million dollars.' Not any more.

17.05.2006 from Grownupgreen:
It is great to build new ecohomes – but we ignore the great body of older houses at our peril. We love old houses, but they are leaky and inefficient. We wanted a home with space and light but we also wanted to live as lightly as we could, explains Penney Poyzer.

16.05.2006 from Terrablog:
What's up to 93 times more polluting than a modern car? That's right: motor lawnmowers. So just push to make a real impact.

10.05.2006 from Exeter Climate Action:
The recent international conference on Climate Change held at Exeter’s Met Office came to the dramatic conclusion that the world is close to the "point of no return". So the people of Exeter aim to set a shining example of how to change things.

02.05.2006 from Sustainablog:
"The British will add another feature to their testing of new drivers in 2008: their ability to drive in a manner that conserves fuel," notes Jeff McIntire.

29.04.2006 from Dvorak Uncensored blog:
A new windfarm, south of Glasgow, will produce enough electricity to power 200,000 homes. But what about the NIMBYs?

13.04.2006 from the climate 'extremist' blog:
Signs of an emerging no-flying movement and a pledge you can make to halt airport expansion in the UK.

06.04.2006 from the Low Carbon Network:
This inspirational Earthship project now has power, hot and cold water and waste services. It has already won a renewable energy award and its completion date is spring 2006. You can visit online or take an actual guided tour.

04.04.2006 from marklynas.org blog:
"The UK government is promoting aviation growth whilst at the same time pretending to deal seriously with climate change." But there is a way forward: a no-flying movement is beginning to take shape.

30.03.2006 from Cleantechblog:
A new type of combined heat and power microgeneration system, the Home Energy Station, will also produce hydrogen to fuel up the family car.

28.03.2006 from the Carbon Coach:
Join the launch of the People's Power Station on Tuesday 4 April.

25.03.2006 from EcoStreet blog:
Here's a great list - complete with links - showing how we can all make a difference. Everything from energy efficiency to eating...

24.03.2006 from Tree House Clapham:
"We hope that Tree House will be a shining example of the potential for environmental architecture and design to deliver great results for the individual as well as for the planet," says Will Anderson, its creator.

21.03.2006 from Solarbuzz:
That's what this solar energy portal suggests when you've installed a solar energy system. To help, it has useful guides to the various systems and includes links to suppliers and installers around the world.

19.03.2006 from Treehugger:
"Driving a big SUV is like smoking - it is becoming socially unacceptable," says Lloyd Alter. When will this happen in the UK?

16.03.2006 from the BBC:
"To make the substantial cuts in emissions we are going to have to make, there are only two ways to do it - taxation or rationing." Domestic Tradable Quotas, personal pollution allowances, have to be the answer.

15.03.2006 from Ill Considered blog:
This blog is a fabulous resource to counter the climate change sceptics: a layman's guide to defending against the assorted specious attacks that are out there.

14.03.2006 from EcoStreet blog:
What have green tomatoes got to do with being able to take a cab in London without putting more pollution into the atmosphere?

13.03.2006 from the British Association:
During National Science Week (10-19 March), what could you do to tackle climate change? Make a pledge and, with others like you, make a real impact.

08.03.2006 from Green Car Congress:
This first US domestic trial of a micro-CHP system offers more than 85% efficiency in converting fuel energy into useful heat and electric power. This is a big improvement over conventional heating appliances and grid-supplied electric power.

06.03.2006 from Treehugger:
Here is sustainable architecture at its best: the new National Assembly of Wales. The building employs impressive low energy and renewable solutions and shows how big public buildings of this type should be built.

16.02.2006 from the BBC:
This gives everyone with a computer a chance to be part of efforts to tackle a warming world. Your computer works while you're not, an approach first used when searching for ET and successfully continued by Climateprediction.net.

01.02.2006 from Union of Concerned Scientists:
So many of us feel we'd like to do something to help slow climate change... but do nothing because we feel that nothing we can do will make a difference. Yet we as individuals can do plenty. Here are ten steps you can take to reduce your global warming impact.

30.01.2006 from WattHead blog:
This new concept in personal transport is an ultralight hybrid diesel electric 3-wheeler. The prototype should be on the road within months but will it be safe?

24.01.2006 from theworkshop.ca:
Frank Gombik has a workshop, but this is no ordinary workshop. Get inspired by his examples of converting soft drink cans into solar collectors, burnt-out fans into wind turbines and much more.

23.01.2006 from Ashton Hayes village website:
The Cheshire village of Ashton Hayes is aiming to become carbon neutral. From 'eco-driving' to elephant grass, there will be plenty happening in Ashton this year. Isn't this what all of us should be trying to do?

16.01.2006 from Peter Armstrong's blog:
It’s become clear from monitoring electricity use over the 3 months that the heat pump has been running that it is using far too much current. Today Dave Greenwood from ICE Energy, who first introduced me to the idea of heat pumps, came out to find out what was wrong with the set-up.

It's great that it's carbon-free, but hardly viable if it costs even more than oil. So what can be done?

13.01.2006 from Guardian Unlimited:
"It's difficult to be so environmentally active when you've got children and a mortgage and suddenly you find you haven't the time, energy, or money to do half the things you used to." Now environmentally aware people are forming support groups to ensure their sustainable lifestyles don't slip, while exploring new ways to greener living.

11.01.2006 from Triple Pundit:
The Irish government plans to build what will become the world’s largest offshore wind farm. With a price tag of $630 million, it will dwarf all previous marine wind farms with its 200 turbines.

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This popular proposal will reduce Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions by 13 million tonnes per year and generate around 10% of its electricity.

10.01.2006 from Sol3g:
A sunflower doesn't just look like a miniature sun; it tracks it across the sky. So too does this Spanish photovoltaic module, the GS200.

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These modules, weighing just 25kg each, can be interconnected and located on any flat site. Because of their sophisticated concentration and tracking systems, power from the Gira-Sol should cost much less than 'traditional' flat-panel systems.

09.01.2006 from rowanlangley's Journal
Here's a blog to watch. Rowan Langley, a city dweller like most people, is taking some serious practical steps to reduce his impact on the environment.

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He doesn't use a car, preferring bicycles, and generates a proportion of his daily electricity from his backyard photovoltaic setup. On his blog, he describes how he set up his system (e.g. scroll down to November 4, 2005) and adds daily reports on how it is working. This could catch on...

02.01.2006 Anuradha Vittachi, Director, OneWorld UK

Till 2005, the vast majority of the general public, and even most global justice activists, saw climate change as ‘an environmental issue’ of secondary importance to ‘people-issues’. But OneWorld lists just a few of the multiple connections beginning to emerge between climate change, poverty and social justice. We are grateful to OneWorld’s network of partners, and especially to IIED, as expert sources for the information below.

1. When Hurricane Katrina struck the United States, it did more than expose the uncontrollable violence of climate change. It exposed a new brand of social injustice - climate injustice – since the vast majority of those who suffered or died needlessly came from New Orleans’ impoverished communities.

2. Climate injustice is even more pronounced between rich and poor countries, as the Asian tsunami revealed. Hundreds of thousands of people died who could have been saved had there been an early warning system protecting the global south, like the systems in place to protect citizens in the north. The tsunami may have been a ‘natural disaster’ – but it was the combination of natural forces and unequal human protection that turned it into a tragedy.

3. Poorer people suffer greater consequences not only because they have less money but because they have less political clout. Until people living in marginalised communities are empowered through participatory media supporting participatory politics, their human right to a climate-friendly future will be at risk.

4. That marginalisation is suffered also by southern governments. Mozambique’s government understood the systemic, spiralling character of poverty creation and eradication. Six months before the floods hit, it appealed for just $2.7 million for disaster preparedness - but received less than half this meagre amount. After the floods, Mozambique received $100 million in emergency assistance and a further $450 million was pledged for rehabilitation. But a stitch in time could have saved nine.

5. Most climate change disasters are not sudden and spectacular, like a tsunami, but silent, stealthy and with spiralling effects. Critically, for example, climate change destabilises rainfall patterns so that they become erratic and extreme – leading to droughts and floods. These in turn create major obstacles for the smallholders who are the main food producers in the global south. Even where their valiant struggles to adapt to changing weather patterns succeed, their crops may now yield less per hectare than they used to. This reduces national food supplies and increases hunger - among people who have no margin left for reducing their nutritional intake.

6. No or low yields also erode the farmers’ sustainability. Where rainfall goes on being erratic, farmers with no financial margins find their livelihoods quickly sliding out of their hands. And that affects a great many people. In the south farmers do not make up the small proportion of the population that they do in the north. In Africa, 70% of working people are small-scale farmers: so hundreds of millions of people are affected by climate change in terms of reduced livelihoods on top of the hundreds of millions suffering from the reduced food supply.

7. The poverty spiral doesn’t stop there. Poor people with less food have lowered immunity to illness. And those with lowered immunity are not only more likely to catch diseases but to suffer severer impacts when they do. It should come as no surprise – although it should stay shocking – that 90% of the millions who die of malaria in Africa are children under five years old.

8. Sickness in an already-poor family makes the family spiral quickly down into still greater poverty. Malaria alone is estimated already to have slowed economic growth in Africa by up to 1.3% each year.

9. Scientists are also pointing out that climate change has the power to change disease patterns (e.g. it can introduce malaria to areas previously free of it). And malaria is just one example from a vast range of health stressers – from air pollution to heat stress - caused by climate change. WHO estimates a loss of 5.5 million ‘disability-adjusted life years’ directly caused by climate change in the year 2002.

10. As climate-related droughts bite harder, water wars will vie with oil wars to bring about the most violent way to die. The UN’s environment agency (UNEP) warned back in 1999 that 14 African countries were already subject to water stress or water scarcity and a further 11 countries would join them in the next 25 years. Migrants will move across borders in search of water, rather than public health services. And though the world will have to find ways to do without oil, we can’t do without water: December’s bangs at Buncefield [the burning oil depot] will be nowhere near as nightmarish as the whimpers of thirst to come.

11. In all these ways – and others that I have no room here to list - people living in poverty are hit not just a little bit harder by climate change than their richer counterparts but spectacularly harder.

12. Although the poorest people are left to suffer most of the consequences of climate change, they are also the people who least responsible for causing it. And the rich are not just a little more culpable than the poor in creating climate change, but spectacularly more culpable.

13. So are the rich world’s policy-makers racing to mend their ways, now that the climate cat is out of the bag? The feeble responses at the G8 Summit in July (which purported to care both about global warming and about poverty), and again during the Millennium Summit in September (which avoided climate change commitments like the plague), and even during the December conference in Montreal, all proved how little political stamina there really is to right this hideous wrong.

14. The problem isn’t a shortage of money. (Where did those hundreds of billions of dollars materialise from, for bombing Iraq?) It’s a question of priorities. In 2003, the World Bank spent 86% of its energy budget on fossil fuel projects - and only 14% on funding renewables.

15. People – especially politicians – talk about climate change as if it will begin to affect us seriously in 50 or even 100 years’ time. But there are scientists who say that solar dimming may have been responsible for the millions of ruined lives, for example, causing the epic Sahelian droughts of the mid-1980s. If they are right, it is a huge irony that LiveAid should have arisen in 1985 as a response to a climate-induced tragedy – and yet Live8 and MPH twenty years later focused on the traditional themes of aid, debt and trade, to the determined exclusion of climate change.

16. It is not just human life that is under threat: 20% of all known species in the world live in the increasingly fragile ecosystems of Africa. Who can assess the spiralling, long-term consequences of such lost biodiversity?

17. So what is at the root of all this inertia? Just selfishness and myopic denial? A fear among those in power that it is actually us citizens, their voters, who are too selfish and myopic to stand for the kinds of serious changes that are needed? It apparently shows ‘leadership’ to drop bombs from a safe height on families thousands of miles away - but to risk unpopularity at home by banning gas-guzzling cars or curbing air-travel is too scary for these heroes. We citizens will need to lead the way for governments lacking the courage of their convictions.

18. There is no time left to waste. We hear about climate change beginning to be a serious problem in 2050 or even in 100 years’ time. That’s nonsense. Climate injustice, as we have seen above, is steadily eroding and destroying the lives of hundreds millions of the world’s people right now. We just don’t label the cause correctly. Millions of children under-fives died of malaria in 2005 – and that’s not ‘just a health problem’, or ‘just a poverty problem’, it’s a climate change problem too.

19. Even those of us who live in the north, deaf and blind to the misery of our brothers and sisters in the south, have very little time left. The people living in the south are merely our vanguard. It’s not a problem that will strike the planet and its people when we are safely dead. Within our lifetimes, and those of our children, we will have released the sleeping giants of undersea methane, new epidemics, water wars, melted glaciers, economic chaos and famine - if we go on as we are. Irreversibility Day is set for 2030 – unless we each commit to taking serious personal action now.

20. Nothing less will do.

02.01.2006 Mark Lynas, Author, High Tide

One of the less well-reported effects of the 2003 heatwave in Europe was its impact on the continent’s carbon emissions. Europe-wide monitoring systems showed a 30% drop in primary productivity (basically plant growth) across the continent, as plant photosynthesis began to shut down in response to the twin stresses of high temperatures and crippling drought. From the deciduous beech forests of northern Europe to the evergreen pines and oaks of the Mediterranean rim, plant growth across the whole landmass slowed and then stopped.

Instead of absorbing carbon dioxide from the air, the stressed plants instead began to emit it; around half a billion tonnes of carbon was added to the atmosphere from European plants, equivalent to a twelfth of total global emissions from fossil fuels. This is a positive feedback of critical importance, because it suggests that as temperatures rise – particularly during extreme heatwave events – carbon emissions from forests and soils will also rise, giving a further boost to global warming.

A similar and even more dramatic positive feedback is predicted to emerge from Amazonia as the tropical forests there begin to die back in a warming climate, releasing billions of tonnes more CO2 into an already overloaded atmosphere. Warmer soils also lose carbon due to increased respiration by bacteria, and even greater quantities may reach the atmosphere through this route worldwide.

Polar regions too hold the potential for global warming tipping points. One may already have been passed. Global warming is amplified at the poles because as ice melts, revealing a darker ocean surface, more solar radiation is absorbed, ramping up temperatures still further. In the last decade, the northern polar ice-cap has reached all-time lows – with September 2004’s record being swiftly broken by a still greater melt extent in September 2005. Even if greenhouse gas emissions stopped tomorrow, it is unlikely that this ice would return.

In Siberia, huge areas of frozen peat bog are already melting, and will release billions more tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane as they warm, potentially pushing the planetary climate past a point of no return after which global warming becomes virtually unstoppable. It is unclear how much this warming can be limited by human emissions reductions – Siberia is already one of the most rapidly heating areas on the globe.

The Greenland ice cap provides another tipping point – and one which holds enough water to raise global sea levels by 7 metres, enough to flood major coastal cities around the world like New York, London, Mumbai and Shanghai. Studies suggest that less than two degrees of average global warming will be enough to tip Greenland into irreversible melt.

Many different groups – including campaigning NGOs like Friends of the Earth and WWF and inter-governmental bodies like the EU – have identified two degrees (above pre-industrial temperatures) as an absolute limit above which global warming must be avoided. Although climate impacts would still be dramatic, from melting glacial ice to biodiversity losses, some of the most catastrophic changes like the loss of the world’s coral reefs and the rapid melting of Greenland will hopefully be avoided with such a limit. The target would also – the groups hope – make passing global warming points of no return much less likely.

However, avoiding two degrees of warming with any high degree of probability requires stabilising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere at 400ppm (parts per million), according to the International Climate Change Taskforce. This in turn requires urgent cuts in emissions. Currently CO2 concentrations are rising so fast that the limit will be breached within fifteen years – a sobering thought indeed.

02.01.2006 Mark Lynas, Author, High Tide

Humans are a very clever species, but haven’t so far been quite clever enough to deal with global warming. Our brains are very good at helping us confront and overcome immediate dangers, but not so hot when the threat is insidious, invisible and long-term. To a certain extent, we’re simply not equipped with the right evolutionary mental baggage to undertake a task as large as this – and that’s why progress so far has been so depressingly slow. That doesn’t mean that solving the problem is impossible, but it does mean that it’s going to take tremendous effort.

When an oil tanker hits the rocks and tar-coated birds die on beaches it’s pretty easy to see cause and effect in action. Not so with climate change: there’s nothing intuitive linking someone’s car exhaust pipe with an early spring or unseasonably heavy rain. Similarly, the long time delay between cause and effect further confuses us. The earth system has huge thermal inertia, so emissions from fifty years ago are still heating the planet today. If we want to make sure that the world in 2050 isn’t overheating, we need to cut back on emissions now, not in five decades’ time.

The frog in water metaphor is a cliché, but an apt one. (For those who haven’t heard it, the story is that a frog put in cold water, which is then slowly boiled, will never reach a point where it decides to jump out.) The world is heating up all around us – of that we are sure, thanks to modern science – but how hot is it going to get? How hot can we tolerate it getting? And how long will it take for the effects to become clear? For these questions, there are no agreed answers even from scientists, and so the greenhouse gas experiment in our atmosphere continues.

Indeed, because of the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change on both our species and wider natural biodiversity, the day-to-day decisions we make today – whether to take that flight to Miami, whether to drive to work each morning – will have cascading effects for thousands of years into the future. When it comes to driving species like the polar bear to extinction, the effects will last forever. That’s not easy to keep in mind for people trying to get the kids to school each morning.

Moreover, we’re not talking about a simple technological change such as removing CFCs from refrigerators to save the ozone layer. Greenhouse gases are much more difficult to get rid of, because the fossil fuels that produce them underpin the entire energy basis of industrial society. Each year the world consumes the equivalent of 400 years’ worth of solar energy in the form of fossil fuels that were captured as carbon via plant photosynthesis many millions of years ago, and later transformed into coal, oil and gas by geological processes. It’s a huge energy subsidy from the past, and now we’ve got to reduce our energy consumption from 400 years’ worth of ancient sunlight to just one year of current sunlight. That’s what weaning ourselves off fossil power and onto renewable power actually means.

We have a natural tendency as humans to blame our problems on someone else – preferably outsiders. Many people feel that global warming is happening because George W. Bush is bad, and Exxon-Mobil is greedy. But which of us is entirely innocent on the greenhouse gas front? Hence the need for us all to take personal responsibility for our emissions, and to do so urgently.

About half of all carbon emissions in the UK come from activities which we as individuals have direct control over: personal transport, and use of energy in the household for heating, cooking and electricity. Despite the daunting challenge of re-engineering our entire economy to make it carbon-free in coming decades, some of the steps that individuals can take are surprisingly easy. It takes just a few minutes to switch to a renewable provider of electricity, for example. Many changes – such as better insulating your house – can have financial benefits too. Walking or cycling instead of driving improve health and fitness as well as reducing pollution

One of the reasons people frequently cite for failing to take action is their own sense of powerlessness when confronted with a problem as huge as global warming. They also know that their own perceived sacrifice is rendered meaningless by other peoples’ profligacy. Why should I give up my car if someone in America is about to buy a Hummer? This illustrates the need for individual action to be part of a collective effort. When people act collectively it sends a message to governments that the constituency for climate change action is growing, and that its voice is getting ever more powerful. Marching on the street is important too, but first we need to put our own houses in order.

30.12.2005 It is easy and financially rewarding for individuals to have a positive impact on climate chaos. This section explains how you can help by saving energy and lowering your carbon emissions - and in return you could save money.

30.12.2005 It's the people, stupid. But who exactly?

30.12.2005 A detailed insight into the science behind global warming and climate change. The impact of recent climate reports are explained in a no-nonsense language as are many of the common terms and phrases often used by the press and politicians alike.

30.12.2005 from Peter Armstrong's blog:
The day arrives... After all the weeks of preparation, Dean from ICE Energy arrived this morning for the commissioning of the heat pump system.

The sequence was: check all the plumbing and electrics and then add glycol to both the ground loops. But will it work?

29.12.2005 Princeton's Robert Socolow has created a very useful concept he calls "stabilization wedges" to illustrate the idea that we need a combination of approaches to climate change.

With stabilization wedges, a multitude of projects, from efficiency to de-carbonization to sequestration and more, combine to reduce overall carbon emissions, a task that at times can seem impossible. Individually, the wedges are difficult but achievable. As Scolow is quoted by the Economist, this approach "decomposes a heroic challenge (eliminating the emissions in the stabilisation triangle) into a limited set of merely monumental tasks."

Check out his very graphic animation explaining the concept - and showing that smart ways of living at home can produce a saving of a billion tonnes of CO2 over the vital next 50 years.

29.12.2005 from The Energy Blog:
Green and Gold Energy, Australia, is about to launch its innovative Sunball solar device.

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It's a meter across and tracks the sun automatically during the day. This appliance is claimed to be able to produce electricity at prices competitive with the grid, with a cost of US$1,100 per unit or US$3.33/W. Exports are expected in summer 2006.

18.12.2005 From Peter Armstrong's blog:
At last we are underway with our heat pump system. The instruction manual says: dig trench, lay pipe, pressure test and backfill. But it ain't that easy. We've got excellent JCB drivers, Diddy and Richard, working with our long-time builder, John. We plan a route across the lawn and through the wood that gives us the necessary 400 metres of trench.

We've decided to cut a nine inch trench for each pipe, rather than a 1 metre trench for a pair, because of the amount of extra digging. It starts well, but we immediately hit problems.

17.12.2005 For my upcoming flight to Nairobi and Lusaka, Key Travel report that I will be producing 4 tons of CO2. To offset this I’m offered options for planting trees in Mexico or Uganda. I’ve chosen the Bushenyi District in Uganda where they say they are planting of mixed native woodlot for timber, including mahogany, cedar, African cherry, laurel, and silk trees, with boundary planting for fuel wood and fruit. My offset costs £16.43.

17.12.2005 Detailed pictures of photovoltaic arrays installed on the roof of St James Church, Piccadilly, London in November 2005.

The 44-panel PV system is estimated to generate 4,100 KW hours p.a. and save about 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

17.12.2005 From Andii Bowsher's blog:
Looks like a dream come true for run-around purposes. Less good for taking the family on holiday, but that's not so frequent.Got to remember that the average journey in the UK is 8 miles and one person is usually in the vehicle ... electric car with a minute TCO.

GoinGreen :: G-wiz :: Automatic Electric Vehicle

17.12.2005 From TreeHugger:
The Guardian asked ad agencies to spread the message of global warming out to the populace at large, instead of ‘buy more, buy more’. From Soul, an advert “inspired by the government's chief scientist Professor Sir David King's claim that the threat to the planet from global warming is greater than that posed by terrorism.”

17.12.2005 Alternative Energy Blog:
A miniature urban wind farm is being built on top of a 13-storey building in Manchester city centre using micro wind turbines.

The 24 turbines, which will stand 3m tall, will be erected on top of the CIS building on Portland Street. The turbines will produce 56,000 units of renewable energy each year, enough electricity to service about 5% of the energy needs of the building.

17.12.2005 The mini power station will start operating at the four bedroomed Berwickshire Housing Association house at Gunsgreenhill next month for a 12 month trial period and the energy system has been approved to European standards .

"It uses an electro chemical device to convert hydrogen into electricity and heat and after it's installed what you have is a mini power station in your property," explained Alastair Brown, Berwickshire Housing Association's director of operations.

17.12.2005 From Grownupgreen:
MYTH: We can meet our international obligations on climate change and still have unrestrained growth in aviation and airports

FALSE! Aviation is the UK’s fastest growing source of CO2 emissions and by 2010 the increase in emissions from aviation would wipe out the Government’s Kyoto and domestic reductions programme. (House of Commons Environment Audit Committee)

17.12.2005 John Nicholson's blog:
My wife is a nurse and she had to get to theatre early the next morning. The hospital in Bangor was twelve miles away and there were no busses that early. So I set to and made up my own form of diesel substitute by testing all kinds of oil I had in the house, including some vegetable oil. To my amazement the car went very well on this form of fuel, and I have been improving the recipe ever since.

16.12.2005 Interesting piece in the Guardian about a new mini wind turbine made in Scotland by Windsave. It’s said to produce 1kW in a 12 m/s wind. In our case it would only contribute a little, but at only £750 it’s worth it if only to experiment with and offset a little of the increased electricity use with the heat pump. What makes it possible for Hedgerley is that it is barely above the roof height, doesn’t require planning permission and plugs straight into the existing electricity meter.

16.12.2005 The basic wind story looks pretty promising. If an average house uses around 10,000 kWh a year, then a 5 - 15 kW turbine can made a sigficant contribution to this. A 10 kW turbine, for example, would cost around 20,000 pounds and payback in 15 years. A turbine operates in winds over 10 mph and typically produces in an average year 30% of its potential output. This suggests that if it runs successfully for 30% of the year (say 100 days) it should produce 100 x 24 x 10 kWhs = 24,000 kWhs.

But theory aside, we need to check out practical case studies from people who have done it.

16.12.2005 If you don't feel like blogging, you're welcome to share your thoughts or questions through our Forum.

16.12.2005 There is any amount of advice on blogging on the web and you can make it as complex as you like. But for the simplest solution, we would currently recommend going straight to Blogger.com

Not only can you get your blog online in a very few minutes, you will also find it very easy to update it. Even adding pictures has now become easy to do, if you have a reasonable connection. Blogging is easy and fun - but it can be addictive.

There are plenty of more powerful systems with very attractive features, but most depend on installing software and having acccess to server space to which you upload your postings. This is quite a good starting point for further advice.

As soon as you are underway and you would like us to feature the best of your postings on this site, please email us at:
carboncountdown@oneworld.net.
We just need to know the url of your blog. And make sure you have set the RSS or Atom feed feature in the software you are using.

If you'd also like to tell us more about yourself that will be good for the future when we hope to build the sense of community among those sharing our experiences of new ways of living.

16.12.2005 This is a contraversial area, both because of the underlying science and because of practical issues of whether there is enough land, whether new trees are actually being planted and whether they are being maintained.

How does it work?: forests take up CO2 from the atmosphere and store it as biomass. Some carbon may be locked-up for the long-term in roots and soils and some is released when trees are harvested. Forestry offsets are normally based on estimates of the long-term carbon storage, taking into account uptake and releases.

Strengths: probably the most practical way of taking carbon out of the atmosphere. Forests are an important part of the global carbon cycle; globally they absorb about 25% fossil fuel emissions on an annual basis. Forests also provide many other important benefits, such as timber, fuelwood, watershed protection and biodiversity. Forestry projects are popular for small-scale offset initiatives because they are readily scaleable.

Weaknesses: strengthening the carbon sinks does not address the main problem of climate change that is mainly caused by fossil fuels. Carbon uptake may be reversed if forests are cut down; while the risks of reversal can be minimised through careful management it is not possible to provide an absolute guarantee of permanent effect.

Take care: use projects that have been independently checked; that have been carefully designed taking into account of local conditions. Try to ensure that the project provides local benefits. Avoid “free-riders” such as conventional commercial forestry plantations.

Key Travel (who offered the advice above) links its flight bookings for charities directly into the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management. They in turn arrange for appropriate numbers of trees (that you pay for) to be planted and maintained in Mexico, Mozambique, Uganda and India. The price per tonne is extremely reasonable at £4.50. This seems to make it almost too easy to offset one's flights - indeed one's whole lifestyle - for very little money. But this is where the other arguments kick in - there isn't enough land to make this more than a very partial solution.

Another commercial company offering an offset scheme with British forests is The CarbonNeutral Company. Formerly known as Future Forests, they seem to be more gift-oriented and charge around £15 per tonne (£10 per tree), working with four forest managment schemes in the UK.

There are also other ways of offsetting your flights - check out Key Travel's advice.

16.12.2005 This is a vital but tricky question. Most commentators seem to settle on 2.5 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year as the target we need to aim at.

At COIN George Marshall argues that to be really equitable with the rest of the world, we should reduce to just two thirds of a tonne of carbon each.

16.12.2005 There are lot of carbon calculators on the web. We particularly like this one produced by COIN, because it's UK-based and includes the climate implications of what we buy and what we eat.

COIN also has a net dowloadable spreadsheet that will help you work it out without a calculator.

Alternatively there's a more international calculator from the World Resources Institute which works well and gives results directly on the screen.

16.12.2005 Grants are available for technologies like:

• Solar thermal
• Wind turbines
• Micro/small scale hydro turbines
• Ground source heat pumps
• Room heaters/stoves with automated wood pellet feed
• Wood fuelled boiler systems

as well as insulation and home improvement works.

For UK government grants check: Clear Skies

For local authorities check: Energy Saving Trust

And for solar check: here.

Whereas for wind.

16.12.2005 COIN - the Community Outreach and Information Network - has put together some first-hand stories on how people are changing their ways of living. And there's details of one eco ex council house you can visit virtually - the Yellow House in Oxford.

For another real-world example of what can be done visit the house belonging to Penney Poyzer and Gil Schalom. Penney featured in the BBC's environmental/energy efficiency home makeover show, "No Waste Like Home". You can check out her own house to see how she puts her principles into practice.

29.11.2005 Alternative Energy blog:
Domestic wind turbines have been described as "the new handbags" - the latest luxury items craved by those who want to be first to try new technology. But this description overlooks their green credentials, because any electricity powered by the elements is reducing CO2 emissions, which are blamed for global warming. And there are also the financial motivations. A household with a windmill can save money on bills and sell excess electricity back to the national grid. So could wind turbines become a nice little earner? They are certainly on the increase - 7,000 households have been given grants to get the turbines installed.

19.11.2005 Tom Dyson's blog:
I've attempted to compensate for the carbon emissions resulting from our recent flights to Greece and Denmark by funding a proportionate amount to sustainable energy and reforestation projects. I used an Oxford-based organisation called Climate Care, recommended by Nick, who neutralised the carbon output of his stag weekend to Barcelona, G8-style.