As the economy gradually recovers from the past year’s big slump, changes are expected in consumer behavior: according to a recent survey, in 2010 UK and American shoppers are to pay much more attention to transparency and ethical responsibility in their food and beverage purchases.

A survey by market research organization Mintel reveals that, despite a widespread growing confidence and adaptation to overcome the previous restraints, consumers will be adapting to the new economy, moving away from excessive spending toward moderation and higher attention to ethical sourcing and sustainability. (more…)

What do people from Mexico City, Norway, Central Slovakia, Northern China, and South Australia all now have in common with the British? It is talking about the weather. One time the weather was a subject that I only really heard the British and Irish talk about. We would be famous for going on about it, sometimes in minute detail, perhaps that was how we partly overcame our reserve. Nowadays everyone is talking about the weather. (more…)

Having been in Copenhagen for some of the COP15 process over the last two weeks and watching like everyone else the – will they, won’t they – charade played out by the world’s leaders one is forced to ask the question – did the Conference end in abject failure or was it in fact a success?

It is hard to see the Conference as being any kind of success, but then that depends on how we define success and what eyes we use to look at the gathering with.

Yes, of course we all hoped that the world’s politicians would all see the greater reality and notice that not only was there an elephant in the room, but there was a stampeding herd of them forcing us all to realise that we are in fact standing on the edge of a cliff with nowhere to go as the herd approaches.

However…..

Success is defined as being able to see the reality of one’s situation clearer than one saw it before.  For if one sees the truth more clearly then one is better equipped to take meaningful and positive action in order to improve things for the better.

So ……

What we now know is that if we wait for the world’s politicians to take meaningful, equitable, sustainable and bigger picture action in order to secure a better future, the elephants will be upon us long before the politicians will be.

This is in fact a good thing.
Whilst we wait for “others” to act first we all miss our own window of opportunity to be the change we want to see happen in the world.
For in truth what can a few hundred politicians really do in the real world that 6,500,000,000 can’t do by all making one small change each day towards seeing the world becoming a fairer and safer place for all?

The Genie is in fact out of the bottle and to the surprise of some if not many, the name of the Genie on the bottle is not in fact that of Barrack Obama.

However, if you look closely again at the name on the bottle it might just be yours!

The charade of Copenhagen is over and the truth has been revealed.
The power moves back to the people and there is something so right about that fact.
Remember how the Governments of the world were shamed by their people’s overwhelming response to the needs of the Asian Tsunami?

We therefore have a precedent for what is needed and for what works.

You might not be the President but you can for sure be the Precedent!

Here in GreenMe, we love to treat ourselves.   But not if it’s at the cost of the environment.
In this age of fast consumerism we are constantly fighting the urge not to indulge in the latest must have for the home or ourselves.

For that reason we are bringing you exciting news of how you can relieve your eco-concience and still partake in some shopping therapy!!  Next week the well known Mullingar Auction House are hosting another of their famous events; (more…)

What if you knew where your cotton socks came from?

Or knew about the person who picked your coffee beans?

What if you knew how fresh green beans come to sit on the supermarket shelf all year round…? Would you stop buying them? Or would you in fact start buying them?
(more…)

There is a kind of simplistic approach that some journalists use when it comes to climate change. Some treat climate change as a religion claiming that a single very hot summer is evidence of climate change. Some are climate change deniers who can be even more fervently religious in their approach.

In a leading national newspaper in the United Kingdom recently a whole list of “evidence” to support the claim that climate change is bunkum, was published. Among the points made (such as Alaska experienced its coldest winter for ten years recently) was a claim about polar bear numbers actually increasing over the past few years as though this was evidence that the climate is not changing at all.

Of course it is not surprising that newspapers write this kind of nonsense – they have to sell papers to get advertisers – and that is how they make profits for their owners and stay in business. They generally cannot make money with complicated articles that this most complex of sciences – climatology and thermo dynamics – entails.

I thought that I would look at the polar bear statement in detail. You can read it at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1194589/Turkey-Twizzlers-GOOD-polar-bears-ARENT-dying-out.html . The statement was “Polar bear numbers are now doing very nicely thank you. Despite the (limited) melting seen in the Arctic ice cap over the past fifty years polar bear numbers have more than doubled since 1950”.

It is very difficult to know the connection of that statement to climate change – do they mean that because polar bear numbers are increasing (so they claim) there cannot be global warming?

There has never been an adequate census of polar bears. They are listed as potentially endangered because the “limited” loss of Arctic ice referred to in the Daily Mail constitutes as area (since 1950) the size of Alaska, Texas and Washington State combined.

As for the claim that polar bears numbers are increasing, this is not what the science shows us.

There are a number of pockets of polar bear populations – thought to be 19 all told. Of these five populations are declining, five are stable, two are increasing and there is insufficient data for the rest. If polar bear populations are not declining as rapidly as they had been, it is due to the efforts of conservation and international treaties. The polar bear argument is not conclusive proof of climate change one way or another but the naturalists assure us that loss of ice habitat will make the polar bears an endangered species and this loss of habitat will occur if there is rapid climate change.

You can get the view of the organisation that seeks to protect polar bears at http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/bear-facts/ . What reason they have to blame climate change if the pressure on polar bear populations is nonexistent is beyond my imagination. Of course they could be plain wrong, and so could the newspaper.

There are around 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears in the world, but because they live remote from humans and because they are rather dangerous animals we do not know exactly how many there are or what precisely is happening to all their populations.

We do know, however, that reindeer and caribou populations are greatly reducing around the world. We also know that warmer weather, even marginally warmer weather makes it hard for reindeer and caribou to survive.

Across Finland, Russia, Canada, Greenland and Scandinavia the herds are declining, which is what a study by Liv Vors and Mark Boyce at the University of Alberta has found. They compiled data on 58 reindeer and caribou herds. 38 were declining rapidly, no data existed on 16 herds and only 8 herds were increasing in size.

The scientists were shocked to discover that 34 of the herds were declining, while no data existed for 16 more. Only eight herds were increasing in number. Many herds had been declining for a decade or more.

It seems that the climate, for the caribou at least, is getting warmer. There are more insects which trouble them and cause them not to put on as much weight as they need. The spring plants are coming out too early to enable their calves to feed on them, due to their migratory patterns. Warmer winters provide freezing ice, rather than snow on the land. They cannot dig through ice to feed, and sometimes starve.

Now this is not evidence of climate change. It is simply one part of the evidence in the climate change debate, and like the vast majority of such evidence points to the probability (perhaps now to 85%) that man made climate change is real and is happening and is causing the climate to change rapidly.

It would be nice to read a newspaper article that did not either treat climate change as a politically correct kind of religion or seek to mock the science with sophistry. If I do run across one, I’ll let you know.

As the world’s nations prepare to negotiate at Copenhagen in December the specific negotiators will be concentrating on targets. Each major nation will have a different idea about which target is right for it, and each small nation will have more ambitious targets than each large nation.I expect that at the end of the negotiations various leaders will attend and as a result of their attendance claim credit for a deal that has saved the world because the nations of the world will have signed up to a series of targets. Hooray! Unfortunately most of targets will be flexible and capable of various interpretations. Never mind flexible and ambiguous targets are better than no targets at all, the world’s leaders will say, and they will explain their confidence in having saved the planet because the world has signed up to targets.

Now everyone agreeing to reach a specific target (or as I prefer to think of these things, agreeing to pass a specific milestone) is very different from actually reaching a target.

In the United Kingdom there have been “legally binding” targets to abolish fuel poverty for the past ten years. Today more people are in fuel poverty than ever, because the legally binding target has been defined but the measures that are required to reach that target has not been legally set out.

So it will be with climate change. Setting a target (or milestone) without the means of getting to it, makes no sense to me. It is as though the world’s leaders are telling the population of the world to go on a long, difficult journey without telling them which road to use and which means of travel to adopt.

Already the world’s nations have given up on what is the sensible target which is to reduce the greenhouse gas emission to the amount which the planet can recycle. This target is far greater than any target that may be agreed at Copenhagen, because of the time scales. The most common green house gas, carbon dioxide, lasts over a hundred years in the atmosphere before it is broken down, and if we can only recycle (as we can now) about half of the carbon dioxide emissions, we are already committed to some global warming. In order to keep emissions at the level of what the planet can recycle we need to reduce emissions by 80% now. That would save the planet.

Obviously no such agreement will be reached at Copenhagen, which is why the politicians are talking about limiting emissions so that there is not more than a two degree rise in average global temperatures by 2020. Again, the talk does not really fit in with my understanding of the science. The relationship between emissions and average temperature is not fully understood; we have Arctic ice melting, most glaciers retreating rapidly but at the same time average temperatures are for the time being stable. The danger to the planet from average temperatures is difficult to understand in terms of climate change processes and all the modelling in the world may not make our understanding sharper.

The relationship that worries me more than that between emissions and average temperatures is the relationship between emissions and local weather patterns, because it is changes in local weather – intensity and frequency of storms, hurricanes, typhoons, flooding and drought – that will be more dangerous to humanity than an increase in average temperature without a change in weather events.

Probably accords like that which is likely to be struck at Copenhagen, will be meaningless in terms of saving the planet from climate change. It is only when we have a combination of specific measures and specific things that create greenhouse gas emissions outlawed will the planet have a meaningful agreement which not only shows the danger but also shows us the way out if it.

Fancy meeting some like-minded souls, or networking with other green thinkers and green businesses?

If you’re in Dublin next Tuesday evening (November 3rd) then why not come along to the Science Gallery for this month’s Green Drink (6-8pm).

Green Drinks is an international movement, providing an informal space where people interested in the environment can meet to exchange ideas and information.

The Dublin event has been meeting for a year or so, on the 1st Tuesday of each month. It’s a very friendly gathering, organised by Jarrod from LeafLiving.com, and all are welcome.  Don’t worry about not knowing anyone — just take a seat and you’ll soon strike up a conversation with people around you.

But here I should declare an interest, as I’m the guest speaker at the November event. Given the location in TCD’s science faculty, I’ll be looking at how knowing a little science can help us to live a little more sustainably. In the 20 minutes or so that are allowed, I hope to give people some practical techniques for saving time and money, based on the 101 tips in my book, Drive like a Woman, Shop like a Man: greener is cheaper.

Admission is free, and there’s a special 10% discount on the price of the book.  And if you do come along, don’t forget to come up and say Hello!

(c) MaryMulvihill.net 2009

Recently, I have been reading various inspirational books on how a low-carbon, energy efficient planet can be achieved.  The important thing to realise is that change is already happening at a much faster rate than previously thought possible.

‘Plan B 4.0’ from Lester R. Brown’s ‘Plan B’ series of books quotes environmentalist Paul Hawken in a 2009 college commencement address.  In recognising the enormity of the challenge facing us, he said: “First we need to decide what needs to be done.  Then we do it.  And then we ask if it is possible.”  Download the book as a free e-book or click here to buy it

Globally, the Transition Towns network (which began in Ireland by the way) is growing rapidly.  It is not a ‘we are doomed’ movement but a brilliant concept of how groups and communities can get together to create change and work towards a greener, healthier future. The name is perhaps misleading because ‘towns’ is not what it is all about – communities in areas ranging from small rural areas to large cities are all involved. To read more on this exciting movement check out the followling links; http://transitionculture.org and http://www.transitionstowns.org.

If you ar more of a book worm Rob Hopkin’s book ‘The Transition Handbook’  takes an in-depth look at the concepts behind the network, or Richard Heinberg’s book ‘Peak Everything’ offers more insight in to the background of the initiative. You should be able to borrow them both from your library.

Finally, and probably most importantly you can get involved in your local network by checking out http://transitiontownsireland.ning.com

More will be found on this and similar subjects later in my GreenMe blogs and at www.landmarkdesigns.org.uk

Failure to tackle climate change will lead to a “global health catastrophe”, leading doctors have warned.

But taking steps to cut the world’s carbon emissions, such as eating less meat and switching to cleaner energy, will have benefits for people’s health, an editorial published in both the Lancet and British Medical Journal (BMJ) said.

And in a letter accompanying the editorial, medical chiefs in the UK, Ireland and around the world called on doctors to put pressure on politicians meeting in Copenhagen in December in a bid to secure a new global deal on cutting emissions.

The heads of the Royal Colleges said doctors should demand world leaders listen to the scientific evidence of climate change and implement strategies to tackle emissions that will benefit the health of people around the globe.

A failure to negotiate a strong deal could have “catastrophic” results, with those in poorest countries hit hardest by the impacts on health of drought and pressure on water resources, storms, floods and conflict.

But, “what’s good for the climate is good for health”, the editorial by Lord Michael Jay of medical charity Merlin and Professor Michael Marmot, director of the International Institute for Society and Health, said.

“The measures needed to combat climate change coincide with those needed to ensure a healthier population and reduce the burden on health services,” they wrote. “A low carbon economy will mean less pollution. A low carbon diet – especially eating less meat – and more exercise will mean less cancer, obesity, diabetes and heart disease.”

A successful outcome at Copenhagen “is vital for our future as a species and for our civilisation”, while failure to agree radical reductions in emissions would spell “a global health catastrophe”, they warned.

Dr Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of the BMJ, said: “Politicians may be scared to push for radical reductions in emissions because some of the necessary changes to the way we live won’t please voters.

“Doctors are under no such constraint. On the contrary we have a responsibility as health professionals to warn people how bad things are likely to get if we don’t act now. The good news is that we have a positive message – that what is good for the climate is good for health.”

Source: Yahoo