www.everythingsgonegreen.co.uk

Oxfordshire County Council began trials in January to use the power of the sun to illuminate bus stops at night.

The bus stops, on the Dorchester bypass between Wallingford and Oxford, absorb sunlilght during the day and use the stored solar energy to power the lights in the bus shelters at night.

With the potential savings in energy costs, this could be a case of councils spending people’s money wisely… only another 38 county councils to go then…

Oh no, we ran out of Ecover washing up liquid, and just after a massive curry too. There is a shop just around the corner but it only sells those household brands, you know, the sorts of washing-up liquid that “cuts greasy grime in half the time”… sounds dodgy!

So, our support of the environment and the Belgian company Ecover continues with a trip to grab some of their Camomile & Marigold washing-up liquid.

Quite frankly, once you’ve used something as effective as this, and all by the power of mother nature, you don’t want to go back to those mainstream brands, some of which are assumed “to contain harmful chemical pollutants”.

You can read a little more about washing-up liquid at the chemical home, you might be surprised at what you have in your house, unless of course you’ve gone green

Right - time to do those dishes…

Gordon Brown’s budget speech today included the smallest tip of the hat towards environmental issues - hardly the “green budget” that many have called it.

The most-polluting cars, those that have the highest CO₂ emmissions, are to have their road tax, or Vehicle Excise Duty, increased to £210 annually - that’s an increase of just £45 and less than the cost of a tank of petrol. The UK has around 23 million cars in total and the tax increase will only affect some 250,000 or about 1% of the cars on UK roads and is seen as a mere gesture against the least economical cars, mainly the fashionable off-road 4×4s.

At the other end of the spectrum the most economical/ least-polluting vehicles will pay £40 a year, down from £75 which includes that most famous of green cars the hybrid-engined Toyota Prius. Cars with virtually no emissions will be exempted from road tax altogether.

Duty on petrol will be frozen until September 2006.

The climate change levy, a tax on energy use in industry, remains unchanged with Brown believing that 3,000 businesses have cut their energy use and thus emissions through the levy.

This is going in the right direction but is it going far enough?

We are what we eat.

And tonight, Matthew, I’m scrumpy cider, cheese & biscuits

But we are what we do too, and that’s the message behind the great new website wearewhatwedo.org a sort of online karmic barometer promoting & monitoring how we can all do our little bit to change the world.

Basically, in their own words they have…

“created 50 simple, everyday actions that can improve our environment, our health, and our communities, making our planet and the people on it much happier. We started by putting these actions in a book, but the whole movement is getting bigger. And bigger.”

Now that sounds good. At their website you can tick the actions you do everyday on their do something page, see how many others are on the same path and sign up to your own personal action tracker to see how you’re doing.

The 50 actions are so simple that anyone and everyone can do them from simply smiling a bit more, fitting at least one energy-saving bulb to watching less TV and even planting a tree (a native broadleaf is highly recommended).

So go on, give it a look in, do your bit and make the world a better place because we are what we do, right?

Anita Roddick’s world-famous ethical The Body Shop chain is in the hands of the French cosmetics giant L’Oréal after a deal was agreed worth £652m.

L’Oréal, the world’s biggest cosmetics company, who are part-owned (25%) by Nestlé, the world’s biggest food company, agreed to pay 300p a share for stock worth 268p a share.

After 30 years of selling ethically-sourced cosmetics with 2000 stores in 53 countries, Dame Roddick and her husband, who still hold an 18% share in The Body Shop, are expected to make around £140m out of the sell-out.

Apparently The Body Shop brand will remain “intact” and allegedly continue to run independently, though what the ethical consumer will think of this takeover remains to be seen.

When a bill comes through the post we all have a groan. However, the latest bills from BT have a nice little box-out to make things a little sweeter.

“Help the environment - sign up to paper-free billing.“

Now that’s a good idea - no more 3x sheets of A4 paper stuffed in an envelope every month. And what’s more, our national provider of telecomms has teamed up with The Woodland Trust to offer the planting of a sapling if you sign up for BT online billing.

There is one catch though - you do still get a bill.

Apparently we’ve lost something like 50% of our ancient woodland over the last century, so by signing up for paper-free billing BT will purchase a native broadleaf sapling and The Woodland Trust will plant your little gift in one of their woodland creation sites. What will it be? A Beech tree, a Chestnut tree or how about a mighty Oak?

So yeah, if you’re a BT customer why not go paper-free and do just one more little thing for this country’s future woodland heritage. From little acorns…

Reporting to the UK Government, the Sustainable Development Commission has concluded that nuclear power is not the answer to Britain’s future energy needs.

The SDC, the Government’s independent watchdog on sustainable development, based it’s findings on eight research papers and the report has delivered the SDC’s result on the pros & cons of nuclear power, examining the options in a balanced and impartial manner.

The positive outcomes of their research on nuclear energy are:

1. Low carbon emissions - Nuclear energy is a low carbon emission energy source. This would contribute to stablilising our CO2 emissions and help diversify the UK’s energy generation supplies.
2. Industrial Safety - Nuclear energy does have a good safety record in the UK.

However, that is as far as the positives for nuclear energy go.

By contrast the five major disadvantages the SDC has identified are:

1. Nuclear Waste – There are no definitive long-term solutions for the safe disposal of nuclear waste. With public concerns over hazardous waste safety in disposal can not be guaranteed.
2. Cost – There is much uncertainty regarding the economics of new nuclear power facilities. The nuclear industry is in private ownership so there is absolutely no justification for any public subsidy let alone the risk to the taxpayer to pay for overbudget projects.
3. Inflexibility – Currently the opportunities for local generation & distribution of power are strong. Generating nuclear energy would supposedly centralise distribution for the next 50 years!
4. Undermining energy efficiency – Energy efficiency is currently a key topic and to allow energy use to continue at the current inefficient levels by using technology as a quick fix would send out completely the wrong message.
5. International security – By pursuing a new nuclear power programme in the 21st century, the UK would not be able to deny the same technology to other countries, though with unproven safety standards there is concern at high risk of nuclear proliferation, potential terrorism, accidents and possible nuclear disasters.

Being fair the SDC considers the disadvantages outweigh the advantages though it does not rule out further research into nuclear technology to vastly improve safety, disposal and other shortfalls.

The Chairman of the SDC, Jonathon Porritt, concluded:

“There’s little point in denying that nuclear power has benefits, but in our view, these are outweighed by serious disadvantages.”

The issue could be raised again in the future, but for now it looks like we’re safe.

Read the SDC Report “The Role of Nuclear Power in a Low Carbon Economy” (158k pdf)