Branson’s Virgin spaceships to gather climate data

OK, while the nerdy sci-fi fan in Greenbang loves the idea of a Jetson’s style future where we all get round by jetpack or hop into our personal space vehicles for a short inter-galactic holiday, it seems completely environmentally irresponsible to be encouraging more space travel by developing the concept of space tourism in these times of climate change.

The aviation industry is already one of the world’s biggest CO2 emitters and the idea of spending billions on commercial spaceships appears just bonkers.

One of the pioneers of commercial space travel is Richard Branson with his Virgin Galactic vehicles that will take passengers on sub-orbital flights 68 miles above the earth - just outside earth’s ‘boundary’ with space. Of course Virgin claims that, because of a range of innovations, Virgin Galactic will be operating an “environmentally-benign” space launch system.

But something genuinely good for the environment may now come out of all this following a deal with the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) to use Virgin Galactic vehicles to fly science instruments onboard the manned space vehicles to provide data on atmospheric composition that will help increase understanding of climate change science.

Retired Navy Vice Admiral Conrad C Lautenbacher Jr, under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator, said:

“We need data and observations to understand how our climate changes. This affords us a new and unique opportunity to gather samples and measurements at much higher altitudes that we can usually achieve.”

If you are interested in booking a flight on Virgin Galactic, btw, it’ll set you back $200,000, and a minimum deposit of $20,000.

More from Virgin Galactic here.

Pacific Kiribiti islands ’sinking’

An immigrant from the Kiribati islands in the Pacific is appealing to the Australian Government to help in evacuations, saying her homeland is sinking under rising sea levels.

A Sydney Morning Herald report quoted Wanita Limpus at a Climate Emergency Event in Brisbane as saying:

“In 1991 I was having breakfast in my sister’s home one morning when there happened to be a king tide and waves crashed over a retaining wall and swept into the house and we found ourselves up to our ankles in sea water in the kitchen. I was shocked at this, but my sisters were laughing…they were used to it.

“Salt water is mixing with the groundwater and contaminating wells. Soon vital food providing plants and trees are going to die. Our people are inevitably going to have to abandon their land.”

Kiribati - formerly known as the Gilbert Islands - is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island dispersed over 3,500,000 square kilometres off the north east coast of Australia. With few natural resources it relies on export of Copra and fish as well as aid from Japan Australia and New Zealand.

Making the right response in uncertain times

The changing climate and issues of sustainability are no longer the only issues that are informing corporate decisions around climate strategy. The economic slowdown and increasing global uncertainty are problems that influence any environmental strategist.

Green Business Events are running a conference, called Green Strategy ‘08, exploring how companies can get their houses in order so they can come out of the recession with even stronger sustainability processes.

Its all happening at The Royal Institution of Great Britain on the 27 November and, with speakers like Jan Muehlfeit and John Sauven from Microsoft and Greenpeace respectively, it looks set to be an informative day.

Since Greenbang is a media partner at the event, the nice guys at Green Business Events are offering Greenbang readers an extra £50 off the already discounted early-bird discount.  Don’t say that we don’t do anything nice for you.

You can find out more here.

UK CO2 emissions falling?

CO2 emissions have actually fallen across the UK - according to new government figures.

The figures are revealed in the newly published statistics for the 2006 CO2 emissions at local authority and government office region level.

This represents all UK emissions allocated to local authority areas on an end-user basis, incorporating all business, household and transport emissions, so that they are distributed according to the location of energy consumption (not the source).

It’s also the first time these figures allow for a year on year comparison.

Total UK CO2 emissions fell slightly from 532.4 millon tonnes to 531.7 million tonnes in 2006. Most of these were industrial, commercial and public (accounting for 46 per cent), with domestic emissions making up (29 per cent) and road transport (25 per cent). It works out at about 8.8 tonnes of CO2 per head in the UK.

Surprisingly in 38 per cent of local authorities, domestic end user emissions were greater than industrial and commercial end user emissions.

Some caveats for the figures - as they are produced as a basis for local authority climate change targets a number of emission sources included in the main UK CO2 emission inventory aren’t included here, such as aviation and shipping (OK, so they’re pretty big emissions omissions).

Says climate change minister Phil Woolas:

“Climate change is a global issue, but the only way to fight it effectively is if people make positive choices and work together to make a difference in their local community. Local Authorities are not only ideally placed to enable this positive work, but also, through their own hard work and dedication, are able to set a good example through their own actions.”

The full stats are here.

Can white roofs really save the planet?

The idea of painting roofs white to reflect the sun’s rays and help cool houses naturally without energy-intensive air conditioning isn’t exactly new and has been floating around for a while. There seem to be some solid scientific arguments behind it but some people just think it’s a bit crazy.

Now a new study claims to show that painting roofs white can help combat global warming. It claims that if the world’s 100 biggest cities installed white roofs and changed to ‘cool’ pavements with more reflective materials such as concrete it would be enough to offset 44GT (giga tonnes) of carbon dioxide emissions.

The rather complicated calculations in Berkeley National Laboratory physicist Hashem Akbari’s research, which lost us after about slide number five, say an ‘average’ 1,000 square foot roof offets 10 tonnes of CO2 if replaced with white material. In a gigantic leap Akbari then extrapolates that out, working out that roofs globally account for about a quarter of the surface of cities and pavements 35 per cent.

Work out the switch in 100 big cities to white roofs and cool pavements and you get your 44GT of offset CO2 - which would offset the growth in CO2 emissions for the next 11 years.

Have a look through the study yourself here and let us know if you think this is a planet saving idea or just plain bonkers.

Wood fuel and carbon capture are climate “salvation”

The only way to fight “catastrophic” climate change is to ditch coal, burn trees for fuel instead and use carbon capture and storage, according to a leading climate scientist.

In an interview with the Independent on Sunday newspaper, Professor James Hansen says current targets for limiting the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are a “recipe for global disaster, not salvation” and that we are already at the tipping point.

In fact, Hansen says that the current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere - around 385 parts per million - are already above the 350ppm he believes is the maximum level that would prevent the melting of the polar ice caps.

But even with a programme of carbon capture and storage, planting more trees and also burning wood for fuel instead of fossil fuels bringing levels down to 350ppm could still take another 100 years.

There’s some interesting quotes and facts in the full Indie article here

Arctic ice melting at “catastrophic” rate

As if we needed more evidence of climate change the World Wildlife Fund (WWF - that’s the environmental people and not the wrestlers) says Arctic sea ice may have reached its lowest ever levels in terms of total volume.

This is due to declining ice thickness and the second lowest ice coverage on record - last year’s record low was 1.59 million square miles.

Dr Martin Sommerkorn, senior climate change adviser for WWF’s Arctic Program, said:

“If you take reduced ice thickness into account, there is probably less ice overall in the Arctic this year than in any other year since monitoring began. This is also the first year that the Northwest Passage over the top of North America and the Northeast Passage over the top of Russia are both free of ice.”

The continuing loss of older, thicker ice means the Arctic ice cover is following a trend of becoming younger and thinner each year and the area of ice that is at least five years old has decreased by 56 per cent between 1985 and 2007, according to the WWF.

Sommerkorn says this is evidence of a “continuing catastrophic downward trend”.

The WWF expects to confirm its Arcic ice figures later this week.

Climate wars and the secret ‘Jasons’

Let’s face it, Sunday telly is pretty rubbish. Once you’re done with the Hollyoaks omnibus it’s time for obscure and fringe sports before settling down to the Antiques Roadshow and Last of the Summer Wine (surely they must all be dead by now?).

But Greenbang caught an interesting programme on the Beeb this Sunday, called Earth: The Climate Wars.

The programme looked back at the emergence of modern scientific thinking about global warming and climate change, which up until 1970 had been predicting a new ice age, and its development through to today.

One of these early climate scientists, of course, was Dave Keeling who began painstakingly measuring the levels of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere as far back as 1958 and found some pretty scary results. He leant his name to the Keeling Curve, which charts the alarming rise in CO2 and the programme looked at his early, rather crude efforts at taking these measurements.

More interesting was the uncovering of a secret cabal of US scientists - called ‘Jason’ - who reported into the US government. One of their reports all the way back in 1979 predicted CO2 levels in the atmosphere would double from pre-industrial levels in the following 50 years, that this would cause global warming of around 2-3C and that the poles would warm even faster. 30 years on and those early predictions aren’t far off the more sophisticated estimates produced by scientists today.

The report, and it’s frightening predictions, was never publicly released, of course but was seen at the highest levels of the US government and, largely, ignored. Especially by Ronald Reagan, who commissioned his own scientist to produce that said actually things aren’t that bad and everything will probably be OK - the start of the sceptic movement

The rest is history and we’re all living with the consequences today. Parts two and three of the programme follow 14 and 21 September on BBC 2.

Londoners warned on climate change

Back from his unbuttoned jacket controversy and shoddy flag waving efforts at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing, London Mayor Boris Johnson has published a climate change report warning that London isn’t prepared to cope with the predicted effects of global warming, including increased floods, droughts and heatwaves.

The key findings of the report - which are, frankly, a bit of a statement of the obvious at time - include:

As the climate changes, London will experience warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers, whilst ‘extreme’ weather events such as heat waves and tidal surges will become more frequent and intense.

Londoners will face an increased risk of floods, droughts and heatwaves that will endanger the prosperity of the city and the quality of life for all Londoners, but especially the most vulnerable in the city.

The strategy proposes ‘greening’ the city by improving and increasing London’s greenspaces to keep the city cool in summer, managing flood risk coming from the tributaries to the Thames and surface water flooding from heavy rainfall, encouraging Londoners to use less water and raising public awareness to flood risk.

London is well placed to help the world adapt to climate change: it has the skills and services to prepare for the predicted changes, and there is a clear economic opportunity to capitalise on this leading position.

Johnson said in a statement:

“We need to concentrate efforts to slash carbon emissions and become more energy efficient in order to prevent dangerous climate change. But we also need to prepare for how our climate is expected to change in the future.

“The strategy I am launching today outlines in detail the range of weather conditions facing London, which could both seriously threaten our quality of life - particularly that of the most vulnerable people - and endanger our pre-eminence as one of the world’s leading cities.”

But, speaking to the BBC, Green Party London Assembly member Jenny Jones said the measures contained “nothing new” and were “inadequate”.

The draft report on London’s Climate Change Adapation Strategy is here. The document is open for consultation, with a final version due sometime next year.

Biofuel subsidies a ‘waste of money’

Biofuels is often a controversial green subject and think tank the Policy Exchange - a favourite of Prime Minister-in-waiting David Cameron - has waded into the debate claiming that government biofuel subsidies are a waste of cash.

A new report by the Policy Exchange, The Root of the Matter, claims the money spent on biofuel subsidies would be better spent saving forests and peatlands in terms of regulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

If developed countries spent the same amount of money on preventing deforestation and the destruction of peatlands as they do on biofuel subsidies - a whopping $15bn - this would halve the total costs of tackling climate change, the report claims.

Specifically the UK government is urged to take action by doing the following:

• Abandon biofuel targets and subsidies

• Support immediate action to reduce peatland destruction in South-east Asia

• Build capacity in developing countries to prepare for avoided deforestation

• Provide financial support to kick-start pilot avoided deforestation projects

The UK government is also urged to take action on the European and international stage to bring about a change in biofuel policy. The full tome from the Policy Exchange is here.

Greenbang tracks the explosion of the environmental industry, reporting on news of green innovation and thought leadership.

We blog on this rather than the environmental problems of the world because we are interested in the answers to climate change.