Carbon Accounting and Emisssions Factors. Whats that?

Carbon Accounting: As I understand it this is the umbrella term for embodied carbon and operational carbon. It depends on what project you are building as to which is the most important consideration. For a pumping station you may which to consider lavishing you budget on some efficient pumps, as you operational carbon use will be high otherwise, in comparison spending an unnecessary amount on low carbon building materials will only save small amounts, so it is more efficient use of money, in terms of carbon (and in the case money) to put you budget in to efficient pumps. A store shed on the other hand will have low operational carbon, so green building materials may be a viable option here.

Emissions Factors: These are the basis of all carbon accounting; they tell you how damaging a process is in term of emissions per unit volume. It is important to use a standardized Emissions factors set, and a presume this is why, DEFRA have released a booklet (downloadable) with lots of emissions factors in it. However, so emissions factors are still on the drawing board, SWW get some of theirs from research groups.

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Evolution = Less Efficiency

What do we really need? (Based on Maslow Hierarchy)

-Water (3 liters a day)
-Food (1500 calories a day)
-Shelter (A tent and some animal firs)

What do we think we need?

-Water (100 liters a day) – (19/01/10: Not counting embodied water in products)
-Food (Three Meals, Hot Drinks, Snacks – 2500 calories a day and more)
-Shelter (Three bedroom semi detached)

. . . . . .and

2 Cars
Annual Holiday
Education
An over lavish Christmas etc etc etc

So the bottom line is that most people their lives about as far away from being sustainable, as you could possibly imagine, and I suppose (to get back on track) people’s needs drive industry to provide what it does.

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Carbon payback scheme areOK?

Although carbon pay back schemes it brought about a decrease in growth for developing countries, that LDCs (Lesser Developed Countries) really still benefited from all of the technology of MDCs and and such there should not be complaints, we polluted our environment and the globe, and that's a shame but it lead to development, and LDCs get the benefits of this development, some might say that people in LDCs for example Botswana want to live a simple life and not to ruin the country by westernising it, but they probably drives a 4x4.

I have met a number of communists in my time, all who say "I'm a communist at heart". . . . they all live in big houses. Stick them in a tiny flat eating lard a cabbage, in Moscow in 1960, and then see if they want to be a communist, its the red wine moment as some call it. . . . .wouldn't it be nice if the world was cadbury.

The fact is people want. They want cars fridges, a nice house with a blender and something to put in that blender, these wants will never stop, so lets get less people on the planet. I think the one child policy in china is a bit harsh as be an only child may have negative psychological affects, a two child policy would stabilise the population and possibly reduce it slowly as some couples would choose to have one, the Chinese guys found it very strange that we get paid for having kids in this country. We have just had our fist child and we get £160 a month from the government and and tax breaks, now that's not a lot to my wife and I but, for a mother who is on social benefit or a low income family it is an incentive to have more kids, fact, this needs to stop. Also these lower social economic groups are generally less well educated, and large families put strain on parenting time which can only lead to social decline.

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Which is the greenest car?

Water Companies with Wrinkly Toes

During the last big recession Margaret Thatcher, had run down all if the utilities and now made to sell them off, however, it potential investors had to deduce the value of the utilities and as such thorough financial investigation was undertaken, of assets and such forth it was found that many of the sewage works were in breach of discharge limits set in 1951, Maggie invested in the companies to a point where they were saleable, and then sold them off, the initial reaction was asset stripping, selling of high value land near to PLVIs made some companies early profits. In more recent years it the high ground owned by many of the water companies has been rented to mobile phone companies for massive amounts.

I don't think this was foreseeable. It seems bad now that the Tories sold off all of the utilities but they were on the way out of a recession, I wonder what Prime minister Brown has in store round
the corner, in order to stump up funds, his borrowing will cost us more in the long run, If he had some utilities to sell perhaps he would be doing it now!This model of privatisation has not been extended to such levels in other countries, where in most cases mearly the running of such companies has been sold off to management companies. This is the case in France and the environmental management company also manages water in other countries, such a Israel.

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Green Economics - A fair way to go.

A green economy represents the way to mingle a capitalist economy with an environmental strategy which may irk out human existence on the planet.

The concept of the supply chain , which is a vital concept for consumers to grasp if they wish to prevent the collapse of the global ecosystem. If people knew about the palm oil in their digestive biscuit than perhaps, they would think twice about eating it. Palm oil plantations in Malaysia are responsible for a vast amount of native forest clearance, palm oil is in 30% of all products in the super market and people just keep on buying it ignorance is the main hurdle to overcome as people are just unaware of the destruction that they cause on a global scale, when loading their trolley at a local supermarket.

The concept of local thinking; people are detached from the pollution they cause and that is why they don’t think about it, we do a bit of recycling, screw in a few energy saving light bulbs and that’s that, we are doing our bit. WRONG WRONG WRONG. We have to have a major shift in the economy to green business, its possible and its already started in the states.

Although the concept of the supply chain is a simple on the tracing of say all of the components in a microwave can take months, as components may be manufactured in different factories in different provinces / countries. How can this information be passed over to a consumer so that they will understand the impact there consumer-ing has on the global environment, its already started to a certain extent with food, local food consumption is on the increase, supermarkets are
owing to consumer pressure but it needs to spread in to other sectors.

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China and India. Do we have a right to judge?

Although it is dubious as to whether we in the west we have the right to question India and China's rapid growth and the associated industrialisation and pollution, it is clear that the price of progress falls dear on the environment.

Firstly we watched a documentary on China where the presenter visited two cities and there associated provinces, from the outset it was clear that the glittering jewel of shanghai is just centre piece in a rather large dysfunctional crown, one town, Xidtious had a cancer rate of 30 times than national average towns folk were regularly covered in outfall from the polluting factory. From what we saw on the documentary the town's chief was very much in business with the plants owner and despite the plants flagrant breeches in environmental, it obvious negative affects in the local populace and the appalling waste management practices, stood firmly by the plant saying "the cancer figures were not in the slightest bit odd".

It is obvious that corruption is a very big problem to be dealt with in developing countries, this is something that could be stamped over night in a what is effectively a dictator ship, just one word could stop all this, or could it? Some of the Chinese students voiced concern that there is no trust worthy enforcement body, (An equivalent of the UKs EA)

What benefits china gains from being under utilitarian rule, India lacks and so we see the full scale flounderings of the emerging global super power instead of the flounderings of a "fully developed country" the UK :-)

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Tesco. Pulling its weight?

With Tesco constantly anouncing record profits every year we can asume that it has a little "room" in the budget to work on its environmental impact.

We have seen some very comendable stuff going on at Tesco, there has been zero carbon stores we have seen them spear heading quantified carbon labelling schemes, all be it very limited.

But where they are not making an effort is fish. We have all watched hugh fernly wishingstool on the TV, and we know that cod is bad, and mackeral is better, but do Tesco offer sustainable choices to there customers? Not of the whole.

Read more on sustainable fish.

Read more on green food.

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