UK Government Set To Pay Motorists To Go Green

Electric Cars, Hybrid Cars, And Green Cars

First Published Date : April 11, 2009

Although the United Kingdom has often been pointed out by environmentalists as a country that “could do better” in terms of green initiatives, it does have a not insignificant Green movement, including a party which has tended to poll in fourth place in recent elections behind Britain’s “Big Three” parties. It may be in recognition of the green movement’s efforts that the governing Labour party has hit on its latest initiative – a plan to subsidize motorists who buy electric cars.

Although there have been similar initiatives elsewhere in the world, this is the most eye-catching effort yet by a United Kingdom government to put green issues at the heart of the agenda. Aware that there will always be some sections of society who will continue to ask “Why should I?” even after being shown several reasons why something will help the world, the people behind the latest plan are accepting that sometimes, people need personal incentives to do something good. In addition to this, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has earmarked the initiative as something that may help economic recovery.

With much of the world still struggling to unpick the economic mess in which the credit crunch has left us, there had been some fear that in a rush for expediency the major world governments would forget their green principles and prioritize economic recovery by any means necessary. According to Mr Brown, the situation is not an either/or matter. Economic recovery and environmental protection can go hand in hand, if addressed in the right way. In Mr Brown’s own words, the idea is that this plan can be a “job creator, a quality of life improver and an environment enhancing measure.”

The finer details of the plan are still being worked out and at this stage it remains uncertain how the plan would be put in to practice – whether by offering to pay some of the price of the car at the point of sale, or by offering buyers the chance to apply to the Government for a cash back payment after the car has been bought. The Government’s contribution per motorist would, it seems, be capped at £2,000 (Ca$3,600), which amounts to a quarter of the cost of one of the cheaper electric cars available in the UK at the moment.

As things stand, even with an ambitious and hard-working green movement, the uptake of electric cars in the UK has so far been slow. Along with a general lack of environmental awareness, reasons for this are believed to be an absence of recharge points where the cars can be powered up, and comparatively higher prices when compared to conventionally fuelled vehicles. With the latter hopefully being counteracted somewhat by the government, it remains a question of keeping electric vehicles in the public mindset and making it easier to recharge them – the latter being a point under consideration from London’s Mayor Boris Johnson. The Mayor has this week pledged to deliver 25,000 charging spaces in the nation’s capital in order to get more of the vehicles on the roads.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Thegreenlivingblog.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Apr 11, 2009.

Earth Hour A Reasonable Success

Earth Hour Was A Global Success

Published Date: April 6, 2009

This year’s Earth Hour seems to have gone off pretty well, if the early figures are to be taken at face value. An increase in the energy saved as part of the global initiative has been reported, with some individual cities reporting results which represent a doubling of the decrease in energy use. Along with this, some cities which joined in for the first time have reported large savings of electricity which have exceeded expectations. The big headlines appear to be the Philippines, where 647 cities and towns (and an estimated 15 million people) joined in with the initiative to deliver results way beyond what was expected.

Although there has been controversy over the event, with many people and news outlets, among them FOX News, weighing in on the skeptical side of things, a cautious welcome has been given to the results that Earth Hour 2009 has managed to bring about. In The Philippines, while some data is still being ratified, more towns and cities joined in than anywhere else, with Greece coming in second. However, there are other results with importance too – not least in Delhi, India, a first time participant, where the power demand dropped by 1000 MW.

In Canada, Ontario as a province managed a saving of 6% on electricity with Toronto on its own displaying a decrease of 15.1% having posted 8.7% for Earth Hour 2008. Figures like these certainly seem to suggest that Earth Hour is getting a message through to people, and encouraging a more stable use of electricity. The skepticism which continues to ride high centres around the fact that savings on the financial side of the matter have been more or less symbolic, but this misses the point. By showing that it is possible to make large-scale energy savings, Earth Hour may yet be able to drive home the point that our dependency on non-renewable forms of energy is something that can be broken.

A message is getting through to people that if they want to cut their dependency on these forms of energy, such a thing is possible. If people can see that it is not too difficult to live without the constant use of electric lights and non-essential power-driven appliances, then it is something that can be harnessed to allow us to live a cleaner, greener future as a planet. For one thing that has come out of Earth Hour 2009 is the sheer spread of the message.

Canada has always been among the most prominent areas in the vanguard of the green movement, but the continuing advances made by this year’s most compliant countries are telling as well. Countries as distant geographically and as divergent culturally as Canada, Greece and the Philippines, along with the likes of Sweden, Ireland and Vietnam are showing an ability to take the message and run with it, something that gives us all hope for the future. With the positive news still being digested, it is now important that no-one thinks the work is done, as there is a lot still to do to ensure that the non-essential energy usage stays low, and that Earth Hour 2010 is one of the last ones we need.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Thegreenlivingblog.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on April 6, 2009.

In Copenhagen And Closer To Home, Carbon Is The Priority

Keep Green Issues Simple

First Published Date: Sep 9, 2009.

For those of us who have an environmentalist outlook on things, there is often a problem with the size of the issue. Yes, the environment is a matter for concern – no-one could possibly deny that and retain a modicum of credibility – but which part of it do we look at first? Taken as a whole, the environment itself covers such a broad range of topics that it is difficult to pin down. This is perhaps where the movement has failed in the past – as much goodwill as there is for green issues, it has been difficult to nail down a list of priorities which will allow the problems to be dealt with on their merits. As a result, from the outside the green movement looks like a disorganised rabble squabbling about which issue should take precedence. As time goes on, it is hoped that this will become a thing of the past.

As we await the December conference on the Environment in Copenhagen, Denmark, the environmental movement does seem to be shaking its priorities into some sort of order. Top among them seems to be the issue of carbon and its related problems. Carbon deposits in our atmosphere have all sorts of effects that we would be well advised to avoid, but we as a global population have been slow to stop them from increasing. Although most of the world’s nations have a Green party which participates in national elections, in no major country has such a party been elected to form the basis of a government. Parties of government tend to offer more vocal support than logistic solutions where the environment is concerned, and thus the will to do something is often frustrated by issues such as the economy or defence.

The hope is that the conference in December, set to be the focus of a previously unseen level of media and public interest (for an environmental issue), will galvanise governments into actually doing something cogent to improve the state of the environment. After the Kyoto protocol were decided in 1997, the plan laid out to reduce carbon emissions by a significant level over the following twenty years slowly unravelled, as the United States refused to ratify the arrangement and other nations which had ratified showed little thirst to stick to their guns. Copenhagen is seen as a chance to move on from the disappointment of the aftermath.

Already, however, we are hearing that Copenhagen may not herald the signing of any new deal on carbon emissions – or at any rate, any deal which will mean much globally. For those of us with an eye on a greener future, it could be a frustrating fortnight. In order to ensure that something is at least done, the best bet may be to do it yourself. We as individuals may not be able to deliver the kind of results the governments could, but this is no reason to back off from your own plans. A lot of small steps can make up a long journey, and it is worth remembering that.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Thegreenlivingblog.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Sep 9, 2009.

Simple Tips For A Greener Life

Live Green Simply

Published Date: March 1, 2009

Whether you have concluded yourself, whether a friend or family member has badgered you, or you have finally been guilt-tripped by the constant streams of information, it would seem likely that you have decided that greener living is a necessity for a better future, and you are not alone. As we live in a world of finite resources, the fact is that we are all going to have to make some changes, some of which may take more effort than others. If you can get ahead of the curve and make some of these changes now, so much the better, because the older a habit gets the harder it is to kick it.

Some simple tips on living a greener life can make a big difference to how energy- and resource-efficient you are – and they can start with the ridiculously simple ones. For example, re-using things that can still be useful. Have you seen a landfill recently? Not only do they take up a lot of space, but half the things that are there may well have still had some use left in them. Now, no-one is saying you need to hang out old tea bags to give them a second use, or that hygiene products can be used longer than the convention suggests, but other things can make a difference.

Just for example, re-using the bags you get at the supermarket or the shops is something that many people are doing. You can take it further, though. Think of the amount of old receptacles that you throw out. Putting them to another use – old jars to keep loose change in, old margarine tubs for leftover food – can not only save you money, but can make a difference ecologically. Recycling is not all about leaving stuff out for the garbage men, after all.

Another simple household tip is one that you can follow while cooking. Chances are that your hob features four rings of differing sizes. Are you using the correct sized pan on the correct ring? It may sound like a stupid question, but so many people put a tiny pan – for heating milk, say – on a larger ring, with the upshot being that as well as heating the pan, the ring is heating a bunch of air around it, to no good effect. Match pans to rings, and save energy.

Staying in the kitchen, you have the refrigerator. Are you making it do too much work? Yes, its job is to keep things cold, but that job is harder if the refrigerator is constantly lying open, or is being opened and closed with great regularity. If you are going to need a bunch of stuff from there over a period of time, get it all out before you start whatever you are doing. Keeping the temperature constant wastes a lot less energy.

Additionally, instead of putting warm food into the refrigerator, leave it to cool first. This is a good idea for two reasons – firstly, a sharp drop in temperature can cause bacteria to thrive in the food and secondly, the warmer the item going in there, the harder the appliance has to work to get it to the correct temperature. Wasting energy happens so easily, but these are just a few ways you can reduce your burden.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Thegreenlivingblog.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on March 1, 2009

Global Warming Worse Then First Thought

Green House Gas Emissions Rapidly Increased

First Published Date: Feb 16, 2009.

In a revelation that will come as a surprise to Northern Ireland’s minister for the environment Sammy Wilson, it has been suggested that rather than having little effect, the curse of global warming is set to turn out worse than scientists had first said. Leading climatologist Chris Field says that over the coming century, the severity of the crisis is only going to get worse, and that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has actually underestimated the rate at which the climate is set to change.

Professor Field made his remarks while speaking to an American Science conference in Chicago. In his speech he revealed that recently revealed data shows that greenhouse gas emissions in the eight-year period from 2000 to 2007 actually increased a good deal more rapidly than had been expected. The result of this is that the climate will change far more severely over the course of this century than anyone had previously forecast. The associated dangers to the global environment are set to be much more dire than anything that has previously been seriously mooted.

The IPCC report of 2007 forecast that climate change would see a rise in temperatures between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius, but according to Prof Field this seriously underestimates just how bad things will get. The higher level of emissions, says the Professor, is largely down to the increase in use of coal for electric power in the emerging superpowers, India and China. Without immediate, effective action we could be in for a very troublesome future. Field added that while the overall impact on temperatures is as yet impossible to forecast accurately, the change is likely to accelerate much faster than predicted.

As a result of the change in temperatures, forests in tropical areas will dry out and become more prone to wildfires, and the world’s permafrost is also likely to melt at a higher speed – resulting in a huge increase to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The knock-on effects of this mean that the problem, far from having been overstated, is likely to snowball in a way that no-one has foreseen.

This latest release on the extent of the problem comes in the aftermath of a controversy in Northern Ireland, where the Minister for the Environment recently blocked the transmissions of advertisements from the environmental campaign Act on CO2, saying that they were “unwelcome”.

Wilson’s previous public pronouncements on the issue have marked him out as a Climate Change skeptic, amounting to suggestions that the problem was natural rather than man made, and in his latest controversial statements he has referred to global warming as a “hysterical pseudo-religion.” The latest controversy has seen Wilson subject to a vote of no confidence from within the Northern Ireland Executive, with a view on climate change that differs from most people’s. As we write, Wilson holds on to his position, but it seems that his credibility as Environment Minister must have suffered wounds that, if not lethal, will prove deeply detrimental to his ability to discharge his future duties.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Thegreenlivingblog.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Feb 16, 2009.