Image courtesy of Crowcombe Al on flickr
One of my mountain biking friends forwarded me a link the other day to a campaign to protect the Quantock Hills. Whilst I don't recall having cycled in the Quantocks, the name was instantly familiar as it regularly crops up in the biking calendar for our MTB group's day rides.

Today the UN published its Human Development Report 2011. The report has shown, for a number of years now, how human development has raised living standards across the world. But this year's publication highlights how a reverse to this trend is affecting poorer populations.

...but see tax and red tape as barriers to environmentalism

(This press release sourced from is4profit) Small businesses believe going green can boost their bottom line – but see tax and red tape as major barriers to becoming more environmentally friendly, according to Forum of Private Business research.

{EAV_BLOG_VER:d8d8317f40d9f024}
We've had an interesting email from the Make Wood Work campaign.

In essence, the UK Government's Renewables Obligation (RO) policy encourages the use of bio-mass burners for electricity generation with financial subsidies. Whilst, from an environmentally-friendly point of view, biomass burning creates energy from waste materials, the forest products industry is concerned that using wood for bio-mass burners will damage their industry.

//
It's that time of year again - Saturday March 26th at 8:30pm is Earth Hour.

For those of you who don't know about Earth Hour it's a worldwide movement where people switch of the power for one hour. You  might ask how much energy is saved by switching everything off for one hour, but it's more than that - it's a politic statement, a social, cultural and environmental statement...

Last night I went to a climate change consultation with my local Rushmoor Borough Council.

40 local residents were invited down to Aldershot on a cold February night to discuss the borough's policy and, arranged into small groups, we brainstormed Rushmoor BC's plans for the environment and the future.

The Wave in London, on Saturday, seemed to be a great success. It started with a train ride up to Waterloo and a tube trip to Bond Street where I stepped out into the busy London streets filled with Christmas shoppers.

Less than 1% of funds spent to prop up financial system could help prevent future global food crises

Many millions of people in poor countries will go hungry when future global food crises strike unless the world’s half a billion small-scale farms receive urgent funding and support from the UK and other governments, says development agency Progressio on the first day of a crucial global food security summit in Rome (Nov 16th-18th).

A one-day climate summit in New York yesterday saw about 100 world leaders attend ahead of the crucial Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December.

China, now the world's biggest polluter, taking the shameful crown from the United States, seemed to make the biggest commitment with President Hu Jintao saying that the country would cut carbon emissions by a "notable margin" by 2020.