Green news & views

Whilst Governments bicker over reducing CO2 emissions and take too long to consider giving away money to poorer countries to help them in the fight against climate change, the world is changing, and not for the better either.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has been running a consultation for the regulation of inorganic phosphates in domestic laundry and cleaning products (DLCPs) since October 2009. The closing date of the consultation is 21st January 2010.

The consultation by DEFRA's Water Quality Division seeks to gather comments on the banning of inorganic phosphates for forthcoming regulation.

I've just been reading the article Stolen e-mails embolden climate change skeptics regarding the Climategate affair where scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit had their emails hacked. Now I'm all for "leaks" of information that may be of public interest but that "thousands of e-mails and other documents made over the course of 13 years" are available is a considerable breach.

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).

Test your green credentials and discover how environmentally friendly you really are.

Life is full of little challenges. Anyone who aspires to live in a greener way will have experienced those moments when a little devil suddenly appears on your shoulder.

“Go on, buy a gas-guzzling SUV,” it says. “So what if you live in Chipping Norton, not the Australian Outback? You’ll be able to park on top of other vehicles – it’s practical.”

Who Killed Healthy Eating in Britain?

The idea behind the bottle bank arcade machine is that making things fun makes them more usable...

Any opinions on the fact that it's sponsored by VW?

When I was out in the states last month I spent most of my time in Connecticut and upstate New York. It was really good because I spent a lot of time getting down with nature and checking out the land.

Down by Naples, NY State, was a wonderful place called Grimes Glen, a typical little US creek with a couple of waterfalls.

The falls themselves were cool but I thought I'd share with you the sculpture by the bridge on the way up the glen. Someone had painstakingly positioned all these rocks, with mortar to hold them together.

When I switched my Sky box on the other day (at the wall socket, of course) I was greeted with a message screen that I had not seen before.

The vivid green screen that turns to red with the glassy Sky logo and a chameleon perched atop it is accompanied by the narrative:
We can all do our bit to be greener.
By switching your Sky box to standby, together, we can save enough energy to light all the homes in Birmingham for a whole year.
Remember. Go red. Be Greener.

We can all do our bit to be greener.