Off to a bad start

Due to other commitments I missed a few stories through the last couple of months.

One interesting article according to edie.net

Brown downgrades climate committee
Source: www.edie.net

Not a promising start from our new leader.

More in the Guardian on the problems with biofuels.

Biofuels switch a mistake, say researchers

And finally some local news which has already been doing the rounds.

£18m waste plant plan for Polmont

Better news than an incinerator although a reduction in waste would be preferable to a technical fix that makes it seem that waste is a solution to another problem. It would be interesting to find our how much of the embodied energy in the waste is actually recovered by this process.

E-Petitions - Council Tax could be a Green Tax

On and off in the media there have been reports about the methods used for revalueing properties for council tax. It seems likely that any improvement will result in an increased valuating and increased council tax bills. At the moment this will probably include improvements intended to reduce carbon emissions such as solar panels, wind turbines, improvements in insulation, heat recovery systems. The nice people at CAT have set up a petition on the governments petition website.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Greenhousetax/

Please read it, sign it if you feel strongly and pass this information on to anyone else you feel may be interested.

There is also a petition requesting more land to be set aside for allotments around the country, I guess this is devolved but there doesn't seem to be any harm in signing it. I know this issue is something that some members feel strongly about.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/allotments/

[edit]

Probably a little more controversial but here's another petition of interest on planning issues for renewables.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/windsolar/

Contract and Convergence Petition

There is a .gov.uk site allowing the creation of petitions, these are reviewed listed publicly and can be signed online. There are issues over the validity of any petition and probably greater issues over whether these are ever really taken into account. However for those interested there are a number of environmental issues which have already been listed.

One of which is related to our discussion on the practicalities of contraction and convergence.

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Adopt Carbon Rationing and Contraction and Convergence...."

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Carbon-Rationing/