On Monday afternoon we heard that the decision on whether to expand Heathrow Airport by building a third runway was imminent and that a Government decision would be made this week.

As innocuous as it may seem, "Googling" apparently has a definite environmental impact.

A story in The Sunday Times says that two Google searches are the equivalent to boiling enough water for one cup of tea.

Alex Wissner-Gross, a physicist at Harvard University who came up with the figures, estimates that a search on Google generates 7g of CO2. Boiling a kettle for just one cup of tea generates 15g of CO2.

In the weekly address from the President-Elect, Barack Obama, on Saturday 10th January, you could be forgiven for hoping he was talking just about environmental issues when he stated:

These numbers are a stark reminder that we simply cannot continue on our current path.

Rising temperatures or sea levels? Disappearing rainforests? Breakup of glaciers or endangered species? He continued:

It’s not too late to change course – but only if we take immediate and dramatic action.

It's quite incredible that the recycling industry seems to have collapsed.

A story on the UK TV news brought the matter to my attention with a company in the North East of the country having to rent vast warehouse space to store the unused and unwanted paper & cardboard they collected for recycling.

I then stumbled across another story in The Guardian saying pretty much the same thing but half a world away.

BBC2 last night broadcast the first episode in the new series of It's Not Easy Being Green.

I missed the first (and second) series but have been on an economy drive recently, so staying in and watching TV has been the order of the day.

I was watching the local news on TV late last year and was fascinated by the story of a Hampshire couple who paid for their honeymoon by recycling. They collected recyclable litter for 3 months and fed it into a machine at their local store, receiving points that they converted into 36,000 airmiles for return flights to the USA in business class seats!

Adnams, the Suffolk brewer, have a great beer in their range called East Green which, they boast, is a carbon neutral ale.

Just over a year ago Adnams came out with a lighter-weight version of their classic & uniqulely-shaped traditional beer bottle. Less glass means less materials, less weight, cheaper transport costs and a smaller environmental footprint.

After joining our local Freecycle group in June last year we finally rolled our sleeves up to start the new year and freecycled.

Rather than shedding some of the useful items we still have kicking around we took the plunge and liberated an old lawnmower. Our own mower is a modern piece of orange plastic and it isn't particularly good, so we leapt at the chance to recycle a piece of old English engineering.

On Monday 8th December protesters from the anti-aviation activists, Plane Stupid, broke through the perimeter barriers of Stansted Airport in Essex, England, to make a point against the proposed building of a second runway at London's third biggest airport. (Heathrow & Gatwick are London's two top airports)

I'll admit it - I'm a petrol head. That may sound like utter hypocrisy for a man who runs a green website, but it's the way I was brought up.

Like all boys I've always loved cars and when I had the opportunities to buy fast cars I did so. I still have them. One hasn't done a single mile in 6 years and the other does over 30 miles to the gallon. I also do below average mileage, the cars are old but well-maintained and so I probably contribute far less CO2 into the environment than your average motorist, maybe half. That's still a good score.