Britain could become a ‘carbon-free’ country in just twenty years, according to a new report published by the Wales-based Centre for Alternative Technology. This adds weight to what many Greens have been saying for years....Photo: No need for coal-fired power stations: sadly the Government looks set to approve new ones in coming weeks
The authors call for a reduction in demand for electricity in ‘energy obese Britain’ of 50 per cent by 2027. This would be incentivised through an international carbon budget passed down to consumers in the form of carbon ‘credit cards’ – tradable quotas for carbon which would decrease in quantity year-on-year. The strategy also calls for wholesale shift in transportation fuels away from hydrocarbons such as petrol and diesel, and towards electricity. A change in our diet, away from meat and dairy products and towards locally produced cereals, is also critical in reducing energy use.
Nuclear power is dismissed as politically and technologically ‘brittle’, and its place would be taken by a massive increase in off-shore wind power, tidal generation, the use of biomass crops, such as switchgrass, the inclusion of solar panels in new buildings, and a mandatory use of the ‘waste’ heat generated when producing electricity. The variable demand for electricity, which varies from hour-to-hour as well as month-to-month, would be smoothed out through a combination of electrical, and water storage solutions, as well as ‘intelligent appliances’, which shut-down when they detect that the grid is at peak load.
Zero Carbon Britain is available to download as a pdf here
5 comments:
Just seen a copy of this letter to Gordon Brown - this is just the sort of thing that Greens are trying to encourage the District Council to do - there needs to be an analysis of how new projects will impact on the environment - will they increase CO2 emissions or not? By looking more clearly at this we can reach a carbon neutral Britain...
Dear Mr Brown
I am active in the environmental movement and have been for several years. I
have campaigned over the years for acceptance of sustainable energy
technologies and the needs for all of us to recognise that change in our
lifestyles are necessary for our children's and following generations sake.
I believe that your government is more prepared to rethink its priorities
that did previous governments and so i am making the following request.
I request that a method be devised that determines the validity of
nationally important projects (such as nuclear power generation or airport
expansion etc) by the impact to our carbon Dioxide emissions level. This
should be a sufficiently high priority criteria such that it cannot be over
ridden by other criteria such as economic or other criteria. This is
necessary because we live in a currently unsustainable way because of
policies that were born from economic doctrine only and so our world economy
is increasingly being dependent on the consequences of that, namely massive
use of transport fuels which is unsustainable. This is only sensible if we
think with blinkers on! One day we will be unable to live on our planet
because of this despite how much money has been made! So we need to put
economics in its place and put its importance behind the needs of future
generations. Forward thinking is responsible thinking, living for today is
foolish and selfish and will condemn others to live in a way we would not
want for ourselves.
Please will you consider this request before any more airports are
built/expanded or nuclear power stations built.
This might help the nation recover some sense that we have a modern social
democracy and not a corporate sponsored totalitarianism as some see it now.
Gregory Dance
"A change in our diet, away from meat and dairy products and towards locally produced cereals"
Hi Philip,
Firstly, thanks for the link to my blog. Much appreciated.
Just to sound a note of caustion on the above, from an ecological and biodiversity point of view.
I agree that many Westerners probably eat excess meat and dairy. However, ploughing up all our pasture to grow cereals would be a very harmful thing to do.
Ruminants like cattle, sheep and goats play a crucial role in maintaining our plagioclimax ecosystems, like the wonderful wildlife-rich chalk downlands and pastures in the Cotswolds that we all enjoy, particularly on low fertility soils, steep slopes and other areas.
Pigs and chickens are also very useful in the kind of small artisan farming systems that we need to encourage for social and ecological health.
Manure too is crucial for nutrient cycling in organic systems. I could go on....
See my blog for 21st May this year for further comments:
http://ruscombegreen.blogspot.com/search?q=+National+Vegetarian+Week+15th
Almost a fifth of climate-changing greenhouse gases come from livestock production - however you are right to sound a note of caution - however the landscapes you are talking about are limited - and the Cotswolds you mention could be about wool as well. We should also not forget that these landscapes have been created - go back a few more years and the Cotswolds was wooded.
However the problems I imagine lie mainly in the vast tracks of rainforest burnt and replaced with cattle for burgers but this is clearly not the only area of concern....
I am very sceptical on the spin put out against animals. It looks to me like a red herring to divert attention from the real issues of overpopulation, hypermobility, greed, burning fossil fuels and habitat destruction. After all, vast areas of N. America were covered with huge herds of bison, before whites came and slaughtered them in a scorched earth policy to subjugate native people there. Africa too was covered in herds of ruminant animals.
And don't forget that ploughing to grow cereals also releases carbon into the atmosphere, as does flooding for rice paddy.
Just because a 'permacultural' landscape like a hay meadow or downland is created and maintained by humans does not mean that it need be any the less valuable for wildlife - eg many richly biodiverse landscapes in Australia and N. America were created by native people for hunting and foraging.
Indeed, such livestock landscapes are often far more environmentally valuable than vegecultural ones.
More vegetarianism in Britain would be most likely to lead to increased imports of food from abroad, as well as more areas of land here being turned into 'green deserts'; cereal monocultures that are environmentally barren and destructive.
SchNEWS today says:
www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news608.htm
SchNEWS, Issue 608, Friday 26th October, 2007
SENSE OF HUMMUS
WHY BEING VEGAN IS PART OF THE SOLUTION
Dish out the tofu and crack open yet another oversized tub of hummus. It's
time to ditch the dairy and celebrate Word Vegan Week which kicks off
this Saturday (27th). Although you'd be joining a growing movement (now
quarter of a million strong in the UK), meat consumption has increased
four fold in the past fifty years and now livestock outnumbers humans
three to one! Yet 850 million people still go hungry worldwide with an
estimated five million children dying each year due to malnutrition. The
rearing of farm animals has forced millions of small farmers off the
land and the agricultural techniques employed are having an ever more
harmful effect on our planet. OK, so maybe the vegan thing is going
through a bit of a rebrand at the mo', but as well as being about
respecting the life of all the living creatures with which we share
out planet, veganism is also one way we can tackle food poverty and
climate change.
Take the forests (Please! International logging corporations especially
welcome!). Trees are essential storers of carbon dioxide and help
to regulate our climate - but are being chopped down at the rate of
13 million hectares a year. Already almost one-third of the world's
forests have been converted to agriculture use and the World Resources
Institute reckons that 60% of current deforestation involves clearing
the way for food production. One fifth of this is being used to graze
cattle and another 10% is utilised for grain production to feed the
beasts themselves.
But of course, land in the UK is much more valuable if you build on
it - so most of the feed for our livestock is imported from abroad.
Europe as a whole imports 70% of its protein for cattle feed, leading
to one European Parliament report sating that, "Europe can feed its
people but not its farm animals." Some six million acres of land in
Brazil is being used to grow soya beans for animals in Europe alone
- at the same time as 20 million Brazilians suffer from malnutrition.
In fact it takes ten times more land to produce one kilo of protein
from meat than its does from soya. "If present trends of meat-eating
continue" says science writer, Colin Tudge, "then by 2050 the world's
livestock will be consuming as much as 4 billion people do." A plant
based diet requires just 20% of the land of that required
by an omnivore.
TAKING THE PESCATARIAN
And its not just the land that's the problem. Fish-munching 'veggies'
should beware that more than a quarter of all the world's fisheries are
fully exploited. In Canada at least 140 distinct varieties of salmon
are already extinct and many more dolphins, turtles and seals are caught
up and killed in giant fishing nets. Not that all the fish caught is
eaten - biologist Lee Alverson calculates that around 27 million tonnes
of fish are wasted every year because they are the wrong kind or size
for the fussy supermarket shopper (that's more than the total amount of
fish eaten in 1950). Shrimp boats that drag the bottom of the sea are
the most wasteful, scooping up 10 kilos of other marine life for every
one kilo of shrimp that's actually used.
Last November the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organisation reported
that livestock production accounts for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions
- more than all the world's transport combined! Head of the FAO's
Information Unit, Henning Steinfeld says that "livestock are one of the
most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental
problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation."
Animal foods account for most of the energy used in agriculture, sometimes
up to 20 times more energy per 'edible tonne' than grain production!
Housing pigs and chickens in huge windowless sheds requires loads of
energy for artificial ventilation, conveyor belts and electric lighting.
You don't need refrigeration or freezers to store yer fresh veg!
The fleshy tastes of an increasingly weaAnimal foods account for most of
the energy used in agriculture, sometimes up to 20 times more energy
per 'edible tonne' than grain production! Housing pigs and chickens
in huge windowless sheds requires loads of energy for artificial
ventilation, conveyor belts and electric lighting. You don't need
refrigeration or freezers to store yer fresh veg! If you can get a
perfectly healthy diet from a vegan diet (and you can) why kill animals
to feed ourselves? Pigs have to be given powerful antibiotics during
their short (six months) lives, in an attempt to tackle the diseases
rife in the filthy battery conditions in which over 95% of them are kept.
Poultry farmers send 800 million chickens to slaughter each year in the
UK, most of which are kept in huge sheds containing up to 40,000 birds.
Two thirds of all eggs are produced by battery chickens which have to
live in an area smaller than an A4 piece of paper, even though their
wingspan is four times bigger. The more rustic sounding 'barn egg' laying
chicken gets an A3 sized bit of paper to live on whilst to call a chicken
'free range' all the bird must have is 'access to the outdoors' during
day light hours (on the way to the slaughter house, perhaps?).
Then there's the torture-in-a-tin that is foie-gras, where ducks and
geese are force fed until their livers swell ten times its normal size.
The French polish off 30 million ducks a year in order to munch on this
'delicacy' and Viva! is running a campaign to outlaw the cruel industry
- check ww.viva.org.uk/campaigns/foiegras/index.html for more info
about the campaign.
* See www.vegansociety.com to learn more about how the animal-free diet
can save the planet.
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