Manchester Arndale to go Green

All the businesses in Manchester's Arndale shopping centre have pledged to go Green, cutting their carbon footprint and increasing recycling. The only problem is that a shopping centre exists to encourage consumption. Before the goods arrive and after they leave they have an impact on the environment, no matter how green the shops that sell them are.

Technorati tag: Shopping

The Leading New York General Contractor Goes Green

I'm not sure what the UK equivalent of a general contractor is, some sort of one stop building renovations. My Home say they're they're the leading general contractor in New York and have announced in a press release that they intend to promote green options for their projects.

There are some deniers whose argumnents have moved on to moaning about the cost of going green. They just can't see, or refuse to acknowledge, the flip side of their argument- that the economy is going to get a boost from all the companies being paid to work on green projects.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Battle of the Green streets

Streets with Green in their name are competing against each other to see which can save the most money and energy. the winning street will get £50,000 toward community projects.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

One solution for city centres

Science fiction blog io9 has concept sketches for a possible repurposing of a mundane and moribund city centre.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Green home blues

The Prince of Wales plans to build a low carbon house out of natural materials, even if that means it won't attain the highest possible green building rating.

Some people are becoming convinced that the Government's stamp duty rebate for zero carbon homes is actually a con. It's possible the scheme will take off slowly, but I would be unsurprised, though a little disappointed, if the requirements for eligibility have been set too narrow deliberately.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Climate change denial can lead to poverty

Iain Martin roles out is a tired old argument that I've heard several times before. So this is as good a time as any to reply.

"but it makes no sense to send our economy, or those of developing countries, into reverse gear on the back of apocalyptic warnings by those who enjoy predicting disaster"

Really? Who is going to build the windmills? Manufacture and mount the solar panels? Build all the low energy houses? Bring existing houses up to standard? Where are they going to spend the billions that stand to be made? What are home owners going to do with the money they save by cutting down on waste?

How blinkered do you have to be to miss the huge opportunities that are available to the early adopters of energy saving technologies? You can finesse your arguments against climate change as much as you want, but you'd be an idiot if you couldn't see the advantages of switching to renewables and becoming more efficient.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

To Timbuktu on Chocodiesel

Biotruck took a biodiesel processing plant to Timbuktu in Mali, so the locals could produce fuel from waste cooking oil. They made the journey carbon neutral by powering their truck with biodiesel derived from waste chocolate.

via BoingBoing

Technorati tag: Biodiesel

Environmental news round up

Nuclear clean-up bill £12bn higher than predicted.

Manchester Council announces carbon cutting plans.

Using thermoelectrics to cut fuel consumption.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Grown up green

grownupgreen aims to encourage people to think and act in ways which protect and improve the natural environment and shows how sustainable development is relevant to all of us.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Grant Management - Green letting agency

Grant Management promise that all the properties they let are carbon neutral because their energy use is offset by buying trees. If that were all it would be nice, but just a bit of canny marketting. However, their About Us section suggests that the commitment goes deeper-

About Our Commitment to the Environment

Grant Management has embraced the environment by achieving carbon neutral status. This was accomplished by reducing the company's carbon footprint and offsetting the balance through tree planting via Global Trees. Additionally, Grant Management has made the properties it manages carbon neutral, recycling, re-using and sharing environmental knowledge and ideas with other individuals and companies.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

The useful + agreeable house

The u + a house is a pre-designed (not pre-fab) pod with a skin of aircraft grade aluminium, minimal footprint and built in solar and other energy saving features.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Environmental news round up

Trees absorb less carbon dioxide as the world warms up.

The ability of forests to soak up man-made carbon dioxide is weakening, according to an analysis of two decades of data from more than 30 sites in the frozen north.

Oil price hits $100 per barrel for the first time.

German cities ban the most polluting cars.

Solar school in Trafford.

A School in Trafford is about to become one of the country's 'greenest' when solar panels are installed on its roof as part of a renewable energy drive.

Sale Grammar School is being given the panels, which are worth about £20,000, by the Co-operative Group.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

Comparative Planetology

Kim Stanley Robinson has some interesting things to say about mankinds effect on the environment and the badly thought out assumptions behind some ideas of sustainability.

It’s easy to imagine people who are bored in the modern techno-surround, as I call it, and they’re bored because they have not fully comprehended that they’re still primates, that their brains grew over a million-year period doing a certain suite of activities, and those activities are still available. Anyone can do them; they’re simple. They have to do with basic life support and basic social activities unboosted by technological means.

And there’s an addictive side to this. People try to do stupid technological replacements for natural primate actions, but it doesn’t quite give them the buzz that they hoped it would. Even though it looks quite magical, the sense of accomplishment is not there. So they do it again, hoping that the activity, like a drug, will somehow satisfy the urge that it’s supposedly meant to satisfy. But it doesn’t. So they do it more and more – and they fall down a rabbit hole, pursuing a destructive and high carbon-burn activity, when they could just go out for a walk, or plant a garden, or sit down at a table with a friend and drink some coffee and talk for an hour. All of these unboosted, straight-forward primate activities are actually intensely satisfying to the totality of the mind-body that we are.

Technorati tag: EcoHouse

The XR-3 Hybrid

The XR-3 plug in hybrid is a self build project that promises between 100 and 225 miles per gallon (US gallons, US=3.785411784 Litres- UK=4.54609 Litres, according to this page). You can pre-order the instructions, $170 for the basic set, $200 for the deluxe version with lots of data on a dvd. There are plans to produce body and chassis parts within the year for those of us who aren't so adept at laying carbon or glass fibre.

via Jalopnik

Technorati tag: Green Transport

The Green car show

Wired went to the International Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exposition to drool over pollution free motoring and photograph lots of cool technology.

Technorati tag: Electric car

Wind power for all

Great Britain could get all its energy from offshore wind farms.

Technorati tag: Wind Power

The power of cheese

An Austrian cheese factory now gets some of its power from a gas burner that uses methane released when whey is heated. The system, created by a Rochdale business, is dual fuel, switching to piped natural gas when methane production is too low, and has helped the factory cut its carbon footprint by 30%.

Technorati tag: Renewable Energy

Chicago's green alleys

Chicago, which claims to have more square miles of alleyway than any other city, is starting to pave them with permeable materials that will reduce run off and cut the heat island effect. They'll also be installing low energy lighting. The initial costs are greater than just relaying concrete or tarmac but cut the risk of flooded basements and other knock on effects.

Perhaps the scheme could be extended to pavement outside the ally and other pedestrian areas. Far too many of the pavements around here drain off into huge puddles on roads or where there are dips. Take it another step further and let's have rules that require these materials be used in domestic paving to mitigate all the short sightedconcreting of front lawns that's become so prevalent.

via Common sense Agriculture, Conservation and Energy

Technorati tag: Drainage

Europe's trees are absorbing more carbon than expected

The forests of Europe are a more effective carbon sink than previously believed. Between 1990 and 2005 they absorbed nearly 11% of emissions, over twice the amount calculated in 1992. Forestation isn't going to solve all our carbon emission problems, but it has to help.

Technorati tag: Forests

Using Africa's sun to power Europe and provide fresh water

Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan has proposed a grand solar power scheme to the European Union. Using cheap land on the African and Middle Eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, a string of concentrating solar power stations could be constructed to generate power for local towns and Europe and run desalination plants to provide fresh water.

It's another grand scheme, and I'm dubious of grand schemes, but it has the benefit of being made up of lots of smaller components. Rather than waiting a decade for one big power plant to come online, as with nuclear or plans like the Severn Estuary barrier, saller plants can be built in shorter time periods and start making a difference immediately.

Technorati tag: Solar Power