www.everythingsgonegreen.co.uk

I was munching on some organic blueberries this morning and noted that my driveway was littered with fallen fruit from a day of very heavy winds (the tail-end of what was originally hurricane Bob, or so I’m told). There were plums, pears and another small orange fruit that I do not recognise.

However, when I turned to water my mint, basil and lavender I noticed that the strawberries I planted from seed have born their first fruit! OK, it’s only one nearly-ripe little strawberry and another one on its way, but that’s such a good feeling to have home-grown fruit without the carbon emissions of delivery mileage.

We’ve already got a wild strawberry patch in the garden but that fruited earlier in the year and the slugs got there first. I’ve never had the chance to eat fruit from my own garden so here’s to the strawberries…!

Now to find a way to repel the slugs (and no, not with a slug catapult)

I feel like I’ve had my head in the sand for a week having been busy on a major website rollout for a client. What I missed in that time was the sad news of the death of Edward “Teddy” Goldsmith, a true pioneer of the green movement in this country.

Teddy Goldsmith died quietly in his sleep at the age of 81 on Friday August 21st and left behind a great legacy for the future.

For those of you who might not know Teddy Goldsmith he was the man behind the book A Blueprint for Survival, which was the manifesto for the Ecology Party (later to become the Green Party), and The Ecologist, the green former print publication that moved entirely online a couple of months ago.

So goodbye Teddy Goldsmith and, most of all, thank you – your spirit will live on and prevail in this age of big business and corporate lobbying.

A report today from Britain’s Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has tipped “Cleantech and renewables… to become two of the most important sectors of the economy.”

The encouraging news comes from a survey of British business leaders who have also tipped technology and media to be growth sectors in the UK over the next decade.

43% of the business leaders questioned considered that cleantech will grow at the fastest pace by 2020, followed by science & technology (20%) then media & entertainment (15%).

Whilst the UK government is mainly interested in the economic aspect that new growth areas will have on the country, in order to pull us out of recession and keep us competitive in the world marketplace, it’s very encouraging for the population at large; if Britain is to see growth in cleantech & renewables then there will be investment in green research and green jobs will be created. Although why the Vestas wind turbine plant in the Isle of Wight was allowed to close with a loss of around 700 jobs still remains a mystery (and a crying shame) when Number 10 are touting the benefits of a green future for this country.

The government have also recently launched their iawards competition for British companies to compete in, demonstrating their skills and innovations. Aswell as combating aspects such as terrorism and an ageing population, the green aspects of the iawards include

Preserving finite natural resources in the face of population growth and climate change

So let’s hope that the government puts its money where its mouth is and pushes the green agenda so that we can go to Cop 15, the United Nations Climate Change Conference (7-18 December 2009) with a genuinely green direction that can contribute to cutting carbon emissions. 80% by 2030? Let’s hope so!

I nearly forgot to tell you, The Great Eden Ale Festival 2009 is on now at the Eden Project in Cornwall (22nd August – 31st August)

Being back at the Eden Project last weekend (for the second time this year) I spent two days in this wonderful place and it was rather handy to have the Ale Festival going on at the same time.

Unlike the local Farnham Beer Exhibition and the  Woking Beer Festival the Great Eden Ale Festival, by comparison, is a fairly low-key affair in terms of hordes of real ale lovers swamping the place. Being an educational charity the Eden Project is about teaching and the audience is very broad. The Eden Ale Festival therefore educates those not of drinking age into how we get our country’s brilliant real ales, the hops, wheat, malt & barley and the brewing process.

I missed the daily lectures, having wife & kid in tow, but did see the excellent efforts to teach the delights of real ale appreciation.

The “beer tent” was a very modest affair but there were a nice selection of what looked like very local ales (I don’t have my tasting notes to hand so I cannot tell you for certain).

I recognised the Heligan Honey ale from Skinners’ Brewery (Truro, Cornwall) at the Axminster Beer Festival a few years ago so that was a local brew for sure. Looking through the other ales I remember there was also Magik form the Keltek Brewery (Redruth, Cornwall), Buccaneer and the excellent Black Pearl from the Wooden Hand Brewery, also near Truro, Cornwall.

So if you can get yourself to St. Blazey, home of the Eden Project, for the last week of the kids’ summer holidays or be there for the bank holiday weekend then I’m sure you’ll enjoy the Great Eden Ale Festival, 2009.

Lobbying firm sends ant-climate change bill letters from “old peole’s homes”.

After last week’s news that big oil are against a better environment it seems that the lobbyists who oppose any moves to limit climate change (incase it dents the profits of big business) have stooped to a new low point.

The Guardian reports that a U.S. Congressional hearing has uncovered over a dozen forged letters to members of congress opposing the climate change bill. The house select committee on energy independence and global warming has confirmed 13 forged letters and is still investigating a further 45 written correspondences.

Bonner & Associates, a lobbying firm, was hired to fight against the climate bill proposed by President Barack Obama. The bill, if passed, aims to reduce America’s carbon emissions by 17% by 2020 and by as much as 83% by 2050. That’s an aggressive and staggeringly brilliant cut in CO2 if it can be accomplished but Bonner & Associates and their paymasters, PR firm Hawthorn Group in turn bankrolled by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, are against cuts in emissions.

The forged letters so far have supposedly been sent from ethnic groups and even old people’s homes.

If America put all its heart & soul into renewal energy and green technology then it would be able to create new job opportunities in these environmental industries. But as long as the corporations are short-sighted enough to fail to see beyond the current status quo then they will attempt to derail any attempts forAmerica to go green.

Chicken Out! is an interesting campaign that aims to raise the awareness of the plight of battery chickens.

The whole industry of breeding chickens for food is quite despicable at the lower end of the market, and all because consumers want a 99p chicken sandwich from the big fast food chains such as McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The supermarkets too are implicated in this crime of breeding chickens in awful conditions. They can offer a whole bird for just £3 and still make profits of billions whilst British farmers struggle.

The big corporates use their collective buying power to drive down prices, creating a market place where the value of a life is worth only half an hour’s work at the minimum wage. In order to supply these cheap birds, battery farmers keep the birds indoors for all their life, and the birds end up with a very sad existence. The chickens have little room to roam freely and gain weight rapidly in an intense life that sees them live for just 39 days!

The Chicken Out! campaign aims to see birds bred in much better conditions, to give farmers a better deal for the animals they rear and to raise food standards. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, of River Cottage fame, and Compassion in World Farming are behind the campaign saying that the conditions in which these chickens are raised is unacceptable and that the industry should be “de-intensified”.

We quite agree. If we allow our animals to be treated this way, if we think that factory farming is OK, if we believe that supermarkets should continue to grow and make huge profit at the expense of our vanishing small shops then we still have a lot to learn.

If you believe in higher welfare standards, if you think the industry should be reformed, if you think before you eat then visit Chicken Out! and sign up to their campaign after all a big part of going green means you should know what you’re eating and care where it came from.

The car “scrappage scheme” (vehicle discount scheme) was introduced in the UK some months back to encourage people to trade in old cars for new.  Anyone owning a car aged 10 years or older can get a good discount, around £2000 or so, off a new vehicle.

Whilst the environmental credentials of such a scheme are a little thin when compared to the economic impetus that was intended (remember, the scrappage scheme was dreamt-up in the midst of a recession when the new car  industry in this country took a major downturn) the green benefits are indeed there to some degree.

Modern household appliances could be next to benefit from the “scrappage scheme” if the idea is applied to white goods, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC). They say that by scrapping VAT on the most efficient appliances households would be encouraged to buy greener goods. This, say the BRC, would cut household carbon emissions by 1% by 2020, removing 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year by that time. It’s not a lot but every little counts.

The cost of such a scheme is estimated to cost around £500 million, but the BRC point out that that is a similar amount to how much VAT was lost in just 2 months since December 2008 when the Chancellor dropped VAT from 17.5% to 15%.

The benefits to households cutting their energy costs is certainly appealing. A 1% cut in carbon emissions is not much but 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere is good. The production and transportation of these new efficient appliances would need to be considered especially seeing as the UK probably doesn’t have much left in the way of refridgerator, washing machine and cooking appliance manufacturing these days (considering so many consumer goods are produced in China!)

With new appliance being twice as efficient as models from 10 years ago, environmentally-conscious customers would certainly see the benefit in a scheme of this nature, and smaller retailers, like local high street stores, certainly need a boost when competing with the larger superstores, but how this will pan out we have yet to see…

As if you didn’t already know it, big oil are against safeguarding the environment.

Is that alarmist? Propagandist? Or is it just another big lie because all of us environmentalists “hate cars” and are suckered by “peak oil” which is all a big scam to give governments more control over our lives?

Actually, big oil railing against the environment is totally true, and here’s the proof:

In a communication to lobbyists, Jack Gerard, the President of the American Petroleum Institute, wants to “move aggressively” to counter any efforts at climate change legislation.

The oil industry aims to turn public opinion against limitations on environmental destruction by exaggerating the figures that environmental reforms will cost. Big oil and the industries that continue to consume oil and damage the environment are quite happy to disseminate lies in order to derail important environmental protection legislation.

This is all quite disconcerting when the big oil companies are already greenwashing public opinion in to believing that they are the way forward in the future of renewable energy whilst actually stifling investment and innovation in such areas.

The main point is that legislation in the United States will pave the way for positive action s to protect the environment and combat climate change at the Copenhagen climate change summit in December 2009.

Back in March, Gerard said:

I have no doubt that as the new administration and new Congress take office, energy policy will be a topic of renewed and even more intense debate. It is up to us to lead the way in forging a new path forward.

Reading between the lines, the oil industry is concerned that it will lose power as oil reserves decline, even though oil prices would rise for an ever-more scarce natural resource. The “new path forward” is that it wishes to control energy in the future too.

Our challenges will be great, but I strongly believe that this is the time for us to create an effective partnership involving industry, government and consumers to nurture and sustain sound energy policies for our country’s future.

The challenges are the loss of revenue and loss of control with the “partnership” being a cynical attempt to hoodwink consumers into believing the oil companies are the future, even if they currently oppose anything that will threaten or damage their present near-monopoly.

Watch out for the rallies, apparently planned to “exert maximum pressure on Democrats in conservative areas”.

In 2001 the Clinton administration issued the “roadless rule” that protects 40 million acres of American forests from new road builds and logging timber.

According to the LA Times this rule has been contested and now the Obama administration has waded into the fray, backing the roadless rule and giving hope to environmentalists who wish to protect the forests.

One can only surmise that loggers & road-builders have had their eyes on America’s ancient woodland and have been hoping to overturn the arboreal protection in order to profit from the destruction of the forests.

This defence of America’s natural beauty is an encouraging sign that the environment is more important to the USA than has been considered over the years of the Bush administration where environmental concerns have been way down the list of priorities.

The rule *could* still be overturned but the signs right now are good.

For more information on protecting America’s natural beauty take a look at The Wilderness Society.