Climate Change - SprintBio - Distibutors of environmentally friendly boilers, burners and heat pumps

The issue of sustainable food provision is hotter than ever in the UK as we try to move away from cheap, but actually rather expensive (in terms of environmental impact) food. We have grown used to walking into our supermarkets and seeing all manner of out of season or exotic items lining the aisles; whether it be Florida oranges in December, Spanish tomatoes in January, or even wild Alaskan Salmon and New Zealand lamb to name a few.

But what would one’s diet look like if we tried to adopt a near enough zero food-miles approach to our dinners? (N.B. Strictly speaking zero food miles would require all food to be produced in our back gardens which is perhaps a bit of a stretch - for the purposes of this article, zero food-miles refers to as close to zero as possible - but for someone who still buys, rather than produces, the food they eat).

With this in mind let’s look at which fruit and veg is domestically produced here in the UK.

1. Potatoes are one of the UK’s major arable crops. Sown in April and harvested throughout late summer and autumn, with an average of roughly 82% being used for UK consumption. They provide a versatile basis to many common meals and are available (and affordable) all year round. Apart from counting as one of your five-a-day fruit and veg portions, potatoes are a great source of energy and are low in fat (depending on preparation methods of course)

2. Peas and beans. Planted in either winter or spring, the UK has been growing such crops for over 3000 years, with just over half of today’s harvests being used for livestock feed, and the rest for human consumption. Interestingly perhaps the most common type of bean in UK supermarkets (the navy bean which is used in for baked beans) is not grown domestically but imported. Importantly peas can be a valuable source of iron - especially for vegetarians looking to compensate for the effects of reduced meat (and hence iron) intake.

Other notable, but less significant (in terms of land involved) crops are:

3. Cabbages and Brussel sprouts - High in Vitamin C and amino acids (which have great anti-inflammatory benefits).
4. Carrots - As well as Vitamin A (beneficial for vision), carrots are high in anti-oxidants and dietary fibre.
5. Turnips - High in Vitamin C.
6. Cauliflowers - Like brocolli and cabbage, cauliflowers are high in several phytochemicals, including sulforaphane - a beneficial anti-cancer compound.
7. Broccolli - Like peas a great source of iron, and sulforaphane (see above).
8. Lettuces - High in Vitamin A (improves vision) and folic acid.

As for fruit, the UK mainly produces currants, strawberries, blackberries and gooseberries, as well as cucumbers and tomatoes (often considered vegetables due to their ’savoury’ nature - but technically speaking the presence of seeds places them squarely in the fruit category) - all in all more than enough variety for an interesting and balanced diet. Similarly with regard to meat production there is plenty of domestic lamb, beef and pork produced locally, as well as abundant fish supplies such as Scottish Salmon, or trout and mackerel. Such options are drastically more environmentally friendly than the aforementioned Alaskan Salmon, and New Zealand lamb options.

As more and more people take an interest in the nutritional aspects of the food they buy, as well as the environmental and social impacts of producing it, it seems there has never been a better time to consider reducing our intake of exotic imported food and instead focus on developing a rounded, balanced and healthy zero (ish) food miles diet.

With some effective planning and raised awareness it seems it is not only possible, but also not at all difficult, to satisfy both the body’s nutritional, and the appetite’s imaginative, needs while reducing the environmental impact of enjoying our dinners here in the UK.

Dejan Levi

Last week American oil billionaire T.Boone Pickens added his name to the ever growing list of US politicians and businessmen calling for the lifting of the ban on offshore drilling in the US. George Bush and Dick Cheney have both also called for the ban to be lifted, but thus far the Democrat-controlled Congress has blocked such plans from becoming a reality.

Perhaps even more worryingly; some 60% of Americans would be in support of such a move according to a recent survey by Reuters. Pickens has talked of the imminence of the $300 barrel unless domestic resources are tapped up, while Cheney has stated his belief that only increased drilling, and not better technologies, can provide a solution to the problem. It is not hard to see why so many Americans feel this way when leading public figures talk so…

Probably the most misguided and irresponsible comments however have come from Republican Congress member Michele Bachmann, who has likened Democratic opposition to the move akin to having a locked larder full of food and denying a hungry population access. She could hardly have chosen a more apt simile for simultaneously vilifying the Democratic Party and also even further misrepresenting the issue.

Clearly some people will willfully ignore facts time and time again in order to pursue shortsighted but popular policies, as we are seeing from the above Republican figures (they are far from rogue voices - potential future president John McCain has sided with Bush and the party line on the issue).

Question is: what can we do against such prominent voices that seek to mislead and trick the public?

Well, one thing would be to help spread the truth - clear, honest facts, and then let people make up their own minds with sufficient information. While these powerful figures seek the exploit the misinformation and subsequent confusion spread in US media, here is a simple rundown of some key data which should clarify the matter a little:

US oil consumption : 20 million barrels/day (according to recent Cheney quote). This equates to 7300 million barrels a year.

(N.B. This data is from the Energy Information Administration (www.eia.doe.gov) - a provider of official energy statistics for the US govt).

TOTAL US crude oil reserves : 20,972 million barrells (in 2006 - the figure is surely slightly lower now).

Current rate of domestic production: approx 1,700 million barrels/ year (i.e. around 25% of annual consumption).

Therefore a rough calculation shows that the US in total has only enough oil to support itself alone for just under 3 years, at the current rate of consumption (which is ever increasing rather than stable).

Therefore even if Congress granted the Republicans their short-sighted solution to the oil crisis, and the oil reserves were accessible immediately (which is impossible - the financial benefits of such a move would take near enough to a decade to be noticeable), - even then the figures involved mean that the problem would only be offset by another decade or so (working on the rough assumption that domestic production might be doubled - obviously it could be increased by 500% - the relief would be greater, but proportionally briefer).

More drilling therefore is clearly not the answer - Why destroy thousands of acres of protected land and countless ecosystems for only a momentary and partial relief to the problem of oil prices?

Surely it is time to look for a more long term solution, that involves the far more difficult process of lowering demand rather than increasing supply. Such talk in the current US political climate will in all likelihood not be as popular as the Republicans’ quick fix solution, but the important thing to remember is that theirs is really no solution at all, but rather a campaign tool in the upcoming presidential election and little more…

Dejan Levi

We have a government target to cut our carbon emissions by 15 per cent by 2010, and far more stringent targets are being proposed. Patients don’t really appreciate how much energy and water we use. But in our trust, more people are aware of it - we’ve been banging the drum now for three years.

Read the rest of the article on the NHS goes green

The announcement by the Water Consumer Council a week ago that bills might rise by £30 per household and that more drought orders and hosepipe bans could be imposed, will pile pain on hard-pressed homeowners. But there are ways to harvest water for many of your needs and you could also be helping to reduce flash flooding.

Read more about how saving water can cut bills

Developers want to build a community with 5,000 homes and 2,500 jobs at the site of the former Rossington Colliery, alongside the M18. Under the proposals, a railway station and new road would be created to allow direct access for buses to Doncaster town centre, with the route forming the first link of a road between the motorway and Robin Hood airport. But to ensure the carriageways remained free-flowing for buses, private cars would be banned from using the road during the most congested periods.

Find out more about how motorists may be forced to give way to Eco-Road plans

The current Labour government is very keen on ecotowns as an ideal way of delivering a high volume of zero-carbon housing and satisfying the country’s demand for new homes. However there are some under-publicised points that rarely appear on press releases concerning the current proposals. Here are a few of them:

1. Many of the proposed ecotown sites lie partially on greenbelt land.

The Weston-on-the-Green site in Oxfordshire for example relies on such land for 12% of its total area. This means vast ancient woodlands and a nature reserve, protected for many years, would now be sacrificed to developers, as would be an even greater area of simply green (but not officially greenbelt-labelled) land. Farmland too will suffer; 2,046 acres would be lost at this site alone.

2. 12 of the 15 proposed ecotown sites are in Conservative constituencies (10 of which will be chosen for eventual development under current plans).

This is perhaps inevitable in the countryside, though it could also be argued that the measure has some degree of calculation to it - intended to minimise opposition (it has not really worked in that sense anyway, see point 9).

3. There is enough Brownfield land in the country right now to build roughly 1m new homes at medium density. In addition there are at least 600,000 empty habitable homes in England (according to Gordon Brown), plus, 9% of Commercial property currently lies empty.

In short, to build new homes in such a climate represents a lazy mismanagement of both land and resources. Granted it is more difficult to get brownfield sites converted than it is to uproot a few trees and build on already flat land - but it is also far and away the more prudent and efficient long term plan.

4. Ecotowns are supposed to be zero carbon. Except that they are in essence commuter communities which will inevitabely rely on more and more cars as their inhabitants make long journeys to work each day.

Ecotown press materials claim residents will use only public transport to commute - which must be either a shame-faced attempt at deception, or the view of a truly deluded and under-informed official. If we could instead convert existing brownfield land, most of which is in city centres, we would not only save greenbelt land - but also place workers closer to their places of work, thereby reducing car dependence.

5. After the ecotowns will come more out-of-town supermarkets and in turn more car journeys.

How else would an ecotown population (of between 5,000 and 20,000 people) get supplies? We cannot be foolish enough to think they will all be served by a local baker and butcher (the farmland has been destroyed to build the town remember). In a large ecotown we are looking at 20,000 extra car journeys per week - just for the weekly shop.

6. The architecture of the proposed ecotowns is quite frankly very uninspiring, if not plain drab.

Parkridge Holdings (involved in the Oxforshire proposals) is a fairly typical example. Visit www.parkridge.co.uk and click ‘residential’ to see for yourself.

7. In a recent excellent Guardian article Jonathan Glancey estimated that by converting current Brownfield capacity for housing the 200,000 new homes figure, which is the target of the ecotown initiative, could be not only met but exceeded.

The numbers speak for themselves - in essence we could achieve the goals of increasing housing capacity - and in a zero-carbon manner, without sacrificing any precious greenbelt or farming land. The only obstacle is cost (it is more expensive to convert land than to build on virgin land) - but surely short-term concerns such as this should not trump the long-term considerations on this issue (sustainability is sort of the point isn’t it?).

8. Ministers involved in the issue seem a little uncertain of exactly what they are doing.

Lady Andrews, Undersecretary for Housing, recently responded to a question on the matter saying ‘the five or ten ecotowns which will be built’ - suggesting somewhat of a confused reduction of scope for the plans. Similarly Caroline Flint, Minister for Housing and Development, has on occasion ignored the question of how much of the required land would be on greenbelt sites (http://tinyurl.com/5jxxqg).

9. Opposition to the plans is growing.

The Weston-on-the-Green site for example is being vehemently opposed by the Weston Front - a group led by Anthony Henman (father of tennis player Tim), while numerous other protests have also occurred in Warwickshire over the proposed Long Marston site.

10. Labour has pledged to build 3m new homes in England over the next 12 years. The current crop of ecotowns would contribute only 7% of this figure (200,000).

In terms of meeting our requirements (and Labour fulfilling their pledge), the current ecotown proposals involve sacrificing a lot, to meet only a very small fraction of our needs. We must question if this is an adequate return for what will be lost.

This is not to say that the proposals do not have any merits at all. They would of course increase housing capacity in the UK, and would increase the number of zero-carbon homes on the market (though it is hard to see how, once inhabited, these would then become zero-carbon households with the more than likely car dependence).

At the moment the only group genuinely happy with the plans are the developers set to reap large profits from the project, by being presented with the dream scenario of building on undeveloped countryside land (with no expensive clearing costs).

It is a shame that it is environmentalists who are most opposed to these ecotowns - and developers who are most keen, and also surely a clear indication that the current proposals are inadequate and misguided by quite a considerable measure.

Credit to the government for trying - but now it is time to listen to the very serious concerns of both experts and the public, and come up with another plan.

Dejan Levi

It is time to distinguish fact from fiction once and for all over the climate change issue. A recent Observer poll has shown that many Britons still doubt the causes of climate change, and question the extent of the problem. Roughly 60% of those surveyed believe that there is still disagreement among scientists over whether climate change is happening, while 40% think the extent of the climate change problem has been exaggerated. Despite this nearly two-thirds want the government to do more to tackle the issue.

How has such a degree of doubt arisen? Where is the confusion coming from?

It is certainly not due to legitimate scientific studies or reports. In the last 10 years there has not been a single scientific paper published that denies climate change is happening, man-made, and massively dangerous - excluding of course the ‘work’ of the numerous psuedo-scientists and documentary makers, and other seemingly independent media voices which have all received payments from oil companies or lobby groups.

So if science is so totally and truly clear in its findings (that climate change is an impending man-made disaster in development); how come so much doubt still pervades among the general public?

Well, in the UK there are some 14,000 people working in the PR industry. In essence people harnessing the power of the media to make private companies look better. The influence of big business in politics has never been greater, and the EU for example is recognising that certain lobby group activities need to be scrutinised. To this end the EU Commission has this week announced a forthcoming new register to monitor the activities of various lobby groups, and the involvement of big business in politics.

Such an effort is vital if we are ever to expel the doubt that still exists relating to climate change and its causes. George Monbiot has recently compared the current situation to that of the efforts of Big Tobacco in decades gone by to create doubt and confusion in the public consciousness over what is, scientifically speaking, a relatively black-and-white issue (http://tinyurl.com/42j9es). The profits that can be made from a misinformed public are colossal, and oil lobbyists (as well as motor industry lobbyists, non-renewable energy lobbysists etc etc) exist for this reason alone.

This week James Hanson, one of the world’s leading climate change scientists will call for executives of oil companies to be placed on trial for crimes against humanity and the planet, on account of the misinformation (and its serious consequences) that they have been responsible for deliberately spreading (http://tinyurl.com/4juqq3). He too has highlighted the similarities with Big Tobacco campaigns, emphasising before congress that ‘democracy is not working in the way it should’ as a result of the fact that ‘money talks in Washington’.

The thousands of PR workers, and billions of dollars that comprise their budgets represent a mighty Goliath indeed. Luckily certain mainstream media channels also wield considerable influence, and it is in this time that they have a crucial role to play in providing accurate and trustworthy information to the general public.

Here’s a little indicator of what is going on; the CEO of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson, (annual salary: £8.54bn) has publicly said: ‘a lot of climate change policy is still up for debate’. However, his company has recently cut funds to groups which ‘divert attention’ from the need to develop renewable energies due to the negative press (and subsequent financial implications) that these activities have been causing. This very action represents an open admission that such groups are used, and the cynical nature of the whole operation is plainly evident in the doublespeak of its wording.

What is needed now more than ever is a commitment from trusted media sources, and across all relevant information outlets as a whole, to a stalwart defence of facts and clarity. The doubt-casters must be thwarted and only black-and white, precise, and clear reporting can achieve this. It is not easy to remove the obstructions of the deluge of PR material that floods the internet and many public information outlets. However only a thorough and accurate practice can redress the imbalance between scientifically established fact and public misconception that currently is a testament to the success of lobby groups and big businesses campaigning on this issue.

Dejan Levi