Archive for CO2 emissions
April 5, 2010 · Filed under Carbon Dioxide emissions, carbon footprint, CO2 emissions, reduce carbon footprint · Tagged 10:10, Eugenie Harvey, reduce CO2 emissions by 10 percent
Ethical and Green has become one of many to join Eugenie Harvey’s 10:10 campaign to reduce carbon emissions by 10% in 2010. You can sign up as an individual, business or organisation. 10:10 emails you tips to help reduce your CO2 emissions on a daily basis.
When you sign up you’ll be asked to invite your friends too. Here is a copy of the email they send out:
‘Everyone’s looking for something to do about climate change. What’s needed is something straightforward, immediate and meaningful. I think I’ve found it. Today I joined thousands of individuals and organisations from across the country to unite behind one simple idea: that by working together we can achieve a 10% cut in carbon emissions during 2010. It’s called 10:10, and everyone can be a part of it.
Cutting 10% in one year is a bold target, but for most of us it’s an achievable one, and is in line with what scientists say we need right now. By signing up to 10:10 we’re not just promising to reduce our own emissions – we’re becoming part of a national drive to hit this ambitious goal country-wide. In our homes, in our workplaces, our schools and our hospitals, our galleries and football clubs and universities, we’ll be backing each other up as we take the first steps on the road to becoming a low-carbon society.
To find out more and sign up go to www.1010uk.org To read coverage of the campaign from the Guardian go to www.guardian.co.uk/10-10.’
Ethical and Green would encourage all readers and the companies they work for to sign up. If we all pull together we can make a real difference to the world we live in.
March 29, 2010 · Filed under carbon footprint, CO2 emissions, reduce carbon footprint · Tagged climate change, cool the world, low carbon day, teaching, teaching packs
Calling all teachers! Are you doing any lesson planning this Easter? Need some inspiration? Check out the following article and not only educate the children but do your bit for the environment as well!
It would be great if as many schools as possible could sign up for Low Carbon Day so check out the links.
Schools Low Carbon Day Launches to Educate 1 Million Children about Climate Change
National Schools Campaign to Raise Awareness about Climate Change on June 24th 2010
An annual event for both primary and secondary schools is announced today which aims to educate 1 million pupils across Britain about climate change and make them more aware of the impact they and their family have on the environment.
Organised by Cool The World, a registered charity set up by a group of mothers, ‘Schools Low Carbon Day’ has been designed to raise awareness of climate change among those who will be most affected by it – the younger generation – and give support and resources to schools looking to teach their pupils about this issue in a fun and engaging way.
On June 24th 2010, schools up and down the country will dedicate the morning to teaching their pupils about climate change and inspire them to do something to reduce carbon emissions in their home or school.
1000 schools representing some 350,000 pupils have already registered to take part, but the aim is to generate mass participation and teach 1 million pupils on the same day – to maximise the impact of the initiative and make pupils feel they can affect greater change together.
The structure of the morning is flexible and ultimately down to individual schools and teachers, however it is suggested that teachers planning to take part in the event split the morning as follows:
· An ‘academic’ period, learning about climate change and energy use
· A ‘practical’ period; possible activities include designing a poster, making a solar powered boat, holding a debate on nuclear power or climate change
· An ‘action’ period during which children will calculate their carbon footprint and pledge to do something about it
Teachers can access online resources from www.lowcarbonday.com and find lesson plans which meet curriculum objectives in Science, Geography and Design & Technology and include lessons for Key Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4.
“Schools Low Carbon Day is about mobilising the people who will be most affected
by climate change: our children. Schools have a vital role to play in educating children about the issue and by focusing attention and resource on one particular morning in the school calendar, teachers can educate their pupils about the environment in a fun and engaging way” says Erica Charles, mother and Cool The World charity founder.
To find out more information about Schools Low Carbon Day, sign up and download example teaching packs and educational activities go to www.lowcarbonday.com
March 28, 2010 · Filed under carbon footprint, climate change, CO2 emissions, going green · Tagged Ben Fogel, Earth Hour 2010, earth hour 2010 a success, stephen merchant, the queen, tom jones, WWF
As you should know last night was the night for the 2010 Earth Hour. Today WWF hailed it as a global success as the world went (partially) dark for an hour. Ethical and Green did it’s part by reading a book by candlelight and switching off all the electricity in the house.
In total, all seven continents, 125 countries, and more than 4,000 cities and towns took part in the event, which asked people to sign up and switch off their lights for one hour, to show that they care about tackling climate change.
In the UK there was far more celebrity backing for this event compared with last year. The Queen and PM got involved alongside celebs such as Ben Fogel, Stephen Merchant, Colin Firth and Tom Jones. It appears that going green is on everyone’s agenda this year. Let’s hope that this encourages more people to go green in 2010.
WWF have loads of information about Earth Hour on their website. Check out this link. Every year it seems that the event is growing in popularity, not just in one country but around the world. This is great for the environment.
Of course helping the environment shouldn’t have ended at 9.30pm yesterday. There are so many things we can do on a daily basis to help cut our CO2 emissions and reduce our carbon footprint.
January 11, 2010 · Filed under Carbon Dioxide emissions, CO2 emissions, Companies going green, reduce carbon footprint · Tagged companies cutting CO2 emissions, Condorcet Paris, converting wast heat, data centres, Telecity
The technology boom and rise of the internet has lead to for data centres that house computer servers. These are vital to power the digital economy and keep us logged on. However as you can imagine the consume a vast amount of electricity. In fact some data centres use as much electricity as a small town!! Those of you who know about computers will have noted that not only do the computers need power to work they also need energy to cool them down.
The company Telecity realised it was pumping a lot of hot air into the atmosphere and when designing its new data centre in Paris it coupled with a company to take away its heat. The French national agronomic institute built a greenhouse next to the data centre that will allow scientist to study how plants adapt to global warming. In Amsterdam the waste heat is used to warm an office block and heat the water supply of a hospital.
Telecity estimate that the data centre will save 2500 tonnes of CO2 each year. They will also have a white roof to reflect solar rays and therefore stop the sun heating the building.
So there we have an example of how a company has looked at their waste and come up with a solution to help other businesses. Good stuff! Hopefully Telecity will act as an example to other companies about how to cut their CO2 emissions.
January 4, 2010 · Filed under climate change, CO2 emissions · Tagged barrack obama, climate change, CO2 emissions, copenhagen
Just when the talks at the Copenhagen seemed to be on track for at least some form of agreement the American President turns up. In what should have been the Americans arriving to help cement the agreements on CO2 levels Obama managed to enrage the Chinese envoy.
In a thinly veiled attack on the Eastern powers Barrak Obama single handedly stopped the summit. Having thought that Obama represented hope after George Bush’s ignorance on climate change it appears that this was not the case. Yet again America puts the world’s health on the line. Copenhagen was a chance to make significant steps towards cutting CO2 emissions. Other countries appeared to be willing to compromise and negotiate for the good of the planet. Regrettably this was not to be…..
April 21, 2009 · Filed under Carbon Dioxide emissions, climate change, CO2 emissions · Tagged CO2 emissions, earth day, earth day 2009, green fuel
The 22nd April sees the return of Earth Day. So a year on and Ethical and Green ask if there have been any big changes since last Earth Day? We think there have. Over the last year environmental issues have been headline news and on the front pages of newspapers, compared to small articles previously.
America has a new President who spoke of environmental and green issues in his inauguration speech. It is now common place for Governments to have policies on the environment alongside the economy, health and education. This is progress indeed! Just today climate change made the news with the UK government still opting for coal fuel but pumping emissions under the sea! Interesting….Possibly not the best idea in the world but at least climate change and reducing CO2 emissions are on the government’s mind.
On a smaller level it seems that people at home are taking advantage of loft insulation schemes, buying environmentally friendly light bulbs and recycling. People are more clued in to buying low Co2 emission or green cars and other electrical items. All in all this is great news for the environment.
If you want to check out some ideas for Earth Day 2009 take a look at this website. Become believe that this Earth Day page (http://www.become.com/resource-center/earth-day.html) will offer readers the power to find; natural cosmetics, resource conserving appliances and tips on how they can do their part to reduce waste for the environment. Check it out! Happy Earth Day!
January 12, 2009 · Filed under Carbon Dioxide emissions, carbon footprint, climate change, CO2 emissions · Tagged carbon footprint of internet searches, google CO2 emissions, google harms the environment, John Buckley
Google is a company that has ethical and green credentials- or so we thought! Recent research by Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist has shown that using Google can actually harm the environment.
Google likes to pride itself at being at the forefront of green computing. There are tools on Google that allow you to calculate your carbon footprint and it is a supporter of Earth Day that highlights environmental issues. (Interestingly though you will be hard pressed to find figures on the size of its carbon footprint or energy consumption.) So how can a company that is going green actually be harmful to the environment?
The problem lies in the way Google works. Using a search engine generates CO2 emissions because the search request goes to more than one server that can be thousands of miles apart. Google have servers in the US, Europe, Japan and China. It has been estimated that the number of internet searches in a day is around 200 million. Can you imagine the electricity consumption and greenhouse gases that this releases? It’s estimated that the global IT industry has a carbon footprint similar to that of the airline industry. That is to say that the IT industry could account for as much as 2% of global CO2 emissions.
Google’s response? They feel that they are amongst the most energy efficient search engine out there. However in order to get the fastest search you have to offset the fact that this releases more CO2 emissions. Perhaps the most interesting statistic comes from John Buckley of www.carbonfootprint.com. They feel that doing a Google search can emit anywhere between 1 and 10g of CO2 depending on whether or not the computer had to be switched on. Others have put this figure at 7g to 10g.
So are we going to stop using Google for our searches? Ethical and Green doubt it very much. The figures show that using search engines in general cause an increase in CO2 emissions. This is not going to change until companies such as Google look into their processes to make them more energy efficient. Google is committed to reducing its carbon footprint and therefore you can expect their searches to be the most efficient out there.
December 9, 2008 · Filed under Carbon Dioxide emissions, climate change, CO2 emissions · Tagged climate change, co2 emissions aviation industry, Ed miliband, Matthew knowles, plane stupid, protesters at Stansted Airport, stansted airport
Yesterday 50 protesters broke through the perimeter fences of Stansted Airport and causing flights to be cancelled and generally causing chaos. The protesters were making a stand against the government go ahead for a second runway at Stansted Airport. BAA want to increase passenger numbers from 25 million to 35 million and to increase flights from 241,000 to 264,000 a year.
The protesters were members of the climate action group Plane Stupid. Their website showed that the protest was aimed to bring attention to the CO2 emissions from the aviation industry. However, whilst they managed to create massive media attention in the UK it seems that their message may have been somewhat lost in the panic over the security breach at Stansted Airport. The media and public have been outraged at how easy it was for 50 protesters to break into the airport. Security officials for BAA pointed out that the protesters did not make it to the runway. They were also quick to point out that the runway is about 2000 acres in size making it difficult to protect in it’s entirety.
Passengers who were due to fly out of Stansted on 8th December were advised that their flights had either been severely delayed or cancelled. Most of the flights affected were Ryanair flights causing relations between the budget airline and BAA to become rather stretched. Passengers were angered and not at all impressed by Plane Stupid’s protest. Rather than highlighting the environmental issues with the aviation industry the protest angered most people. Those involved now face criminal proceedings.
On the plus side some media reports have highlighted the climate change issues surrounding the aviation industry. Ed Miliband, the UK’s Energy Secretary told the Guardian newspaper that world leaders need to act on climate change amid fears of economic repercussions. He said that there needs to be a ‘mass movement’ along the lines of the Make Poverty History campaign.
Matthew Knowles from the Society of British Aerospace Companies condemned the protesters saying that they were ignoring the changes that the aviation industry is making for climate change. He quoted that although flights have increased by 50% the noise disturbance around Stansted Airport has decreased and aircrafts are 70% more fuel efficient. Further cuts are due to made by 2050.
So, it would appear that rather than promoting the topic of climate change in a positive manner than protesters with their illegal protest have in fact angered the public and people within the aviation industry. This adds weight to the stereotype that people who care about the environment aren’t law abiding citizens and have a general disregard for the people whose lives they affect by their actions. The other side of the coin is that they might just have highlighted a massive security issue at Stansted Airport……
November 2, 2008 · Filed under Carbon Dioxide emissions, carbon footprint, CO2 emissions, reduce carbon footprint · Tagged F1, F1 carbon footprint, F1 goes green, Lewis Hamilton, Lewis Hamilton wins F1 world championship
Firstly congratulations to Lewis Hamilton on his great achievement. Despite not being a fan of F1 it was a great race. Seeing how much fuel the cars use and being sponsored by companies such as Shell it made Ethical and Green wonder about how green the sport could ever be and what effect this would have on driving as a whole.
It has been estimated that 20 cars emit around 9,150 kg of carbon emissions per race which is quite staggering! So that’s the cars. What about all the lighting, power cables, tourists who travel from all over the world….When you add it up the carbon emissions of an F1 race are HUGE!!
We all know that a huge amount of money is invested into F1 so if they go green the investment into new technologies could benefit us all. Max Mosley, president of the International Automobile Federation is keen for the sport to cut down on it’s carbon footprint and this season F1 cars had to have some biofuel in their tanks. Practice laps have also been dropped to stop wasting fuel. This is great but what next?
Well next season clean technology systems to harvest kinetic energy from deceleration and to capture heat from machines engines will become mandatory. Hotels in cities where the races are held should also stand up and be counted. For example the Singapore Freeport skylounge at the Fullerton Hotel built a solar canopy to offset half the energy it used to entertain its 250 guests during the Singapore Grand Prix. Wouldn’t it be great if other hotels took part in this.
It’s great to see that F1 racing is taking onboard it’s responsibilities to the planet. However, in a sport where efficiency isn’t a priority it will be interesting to see how the proposed changes to the sport will be received by the makers of the cars.
October 20, 2008 · Filed under carbon footprint, CO2 emissions, reduce carbon footprint · Tagged carbon neutral Sky, half price sky + HD, Sky, sky plus HD
This Christmas if you want to enjoy films on TV in High Definition you might want to take a close look at Sky’s latest offer. SKY is the only multimedia company to be totally carbon neutral so why not invest in their box.
Sky are currently offering their Sky+ HD box for half price. So you can combine reducing your carbon footprint with saving those all important pennies. It’s worth a look!
