It is very disappointing that the expansion of Heathrow airport was approved last night at the House of Commons.

Under the plan, Heathrow will double the number of flights (by over 350 a day) and singlehandedly boost the UK's aviation emissions by 40%, contrary to the Climate Change Bill. So, how can Britain pretend to set an example and tell the rest of the world to reduce emissions?  

Given that under the Climate Change Bill overall emissions in all sectors must drop 80% (with respect to 1990 levels) by 2050, other aviation sectors will have to reduce their emissions by nearly 90% to offset Heathrow's growth. This obviously won't happen, in fact the contrary: we expect other airports will also grow and build additional runways. Therefore other transport sectors will have to compensate for this enormous increase, and it is not clear which. It is already very ambitious to aim for a 80% emissions cut. It is not realistic to achieve it allowing aviation to grow from the current levels unless we expect to have nearly full decarbonisation in our road and rail transport. But where are the plans for this?

The government's plans imply that the aircraft using the new runway will be greener within 10 years. This is almost comical. These aircraft do not exist and they are not even at the inception stage. No single large manufacturer of commercial aircraft has plans to carry out significant alterations of engine design to cut emissions dramatically. So where are these fabulous aircraft?

I am sure that they will come about in due course, but not as quickly as Heathrow's third runway, and the government should be transparent about this. It is not acceptable to approve the expansion of the airport with the condition that it is for use by greener aircraft, and then once the project is completed tell the public that regrettably it cannot be used by greener aircraft because they don't exist. We know this now, so the additional runway should not go ahead under this false pretence because we all know that it will be used by today's polluting and noisy 747's and the like.

Today we have selected an interesting item of news regarding electric airplanes ("Will Electric Planes Take Off?", 29 Jan 09). This is going to be a growth sector that is attracting some very clever investors, who in my opinion, can see where our future is. But you can see from the article that the state of the art with truly green aircraft is still at its infancy. These aircraft are very small and light and we might still be generations away from achieving the technological feat of flying commercial aircraft with electricity. Perhaps this will never be possible, unless nuclear energy is used, in which case it would be extremely expensive and not viable for commercial use.

Realistically we might be able to achieve light small commercial aircraft for short-haul routes. Perhaps hybrid models will come about for long-haul. Watch this space, as I feel this is the little corner for the truly visionary. Electric aircraft are an amazing challenge and it could be this century's big achievement.

Back to the present. The present of Rolls Royce engines, jet propulsion and air travel with dirty old fossil fuels. And that's where we are and that's where we will be in 10 years' time when Heathrow's third runway opens. And that means that the House of Commons has OK-ed Heathrow's carbon footprint to become positively astronomical.

Apart from the natural objection that this is going to cost the UK taxpayer £9bn for the benefit of a private company such as BAA, of course. I am a bit in the dark about distribution of stakeholding. Is the £9bn a grant to Spanish Ferrovial to increase their assets and recover a near monopoly position after the MCC has ordered them to sell two of the London airports to break their [badly-managed] monopoly?

Brunella Bell

press@carbonica.org

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From today, you can find Carbonica's blog listed on Technorati, the directory of the blogosphere.

You can mark us as a favourite with these handy buttons!

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Perpetua Sachs

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Carbonica has sponsored the Greenagers project at the Channing School for Girls in Highgate, North London. The project is part of the Young Enterprise scheme and the girls have produced a fabulous and very well made cotton bag that they've designed themselves, with the slogan "Have you cottoned on yet?"

For more information please contact greenagers@hotmail.co.uk

We wish the girls all the best with their entrepreneurial efforts and we'll keep you posted! 

The Carbonica Team

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Carbonica's website has been showcased as one of the top inspiring designs on Smashing Magazine and Web Designer Magazine (issue 151) and many other websites around the world.

Smashing Magazine chooses Carbonica's site as an example of design and branding that combines well with the content of the site, the environmental message and the reforestation activity of Carbonica.

Web Designer Magazine cites Carbonica as a top 50 site in the use of CSS techniques.

We are thrilled about all the other sites from all over the world where we have been featured, in many other languages. Many thanks to all. We are very pleased that the looks of the site and its content have inspired your imagination. We believe web design is a great art and it is wonderful that our site has been noticed by many.

Carbonica's site is innovative and in constant change. It fulfils the double purpose of being a useful port of call to reduce your carbon footprint as well as an educational resource for climate change articles, a selection of news items and an informal discussion on topical subjects on our blog. Do sign up for our newsletter. It is free (and zero footprint!) and it is designed to keep you up-to-date with our selection of "green" news.

Mikel Susperregi

mikel@carbonica.org

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Obama's presidency is expected to mark a U-turn in Climate Change policy in the US administration. The choice of Prof Steven Chu as US energy secretary is great news. Known to despise coal as his "worst nightmare", the new Obama team of scientists has the potential of being the environmentalist's dream team.

Coal is certainly deserving of being phased out as a source of energy as soon as possible. It is historically the one fossil fuel that has brought us where we are. It has been used for much longer and more extensively than oil, and even today it is the main contributor to the carbon footprint of emerging economies.

There is no such thing as "clean coal". The fiction that "carbon capture and storage" (CSS) technologies will be imminently available is a dream. These are supposed to capture and trap CO₂ produced in the combustion of coal, and store it safely underground. Each stage of the process comes with a big "if" and a big "untested". It promises to be a much more expensive alternative than anything else conceivable, including nuclear energy.

From Russia With Gas

The disruption of gas supplies from Russia has not been exactly surprising. Especially since the tap was turned off once before in 2004 and Mr Putin's Russia is rapidly decaying into a rogue state. As Mr Kasparov rightly puts it in his columns in The Wall Street Journal, it is impossible to maintain the status quo with people who have such contempt for the rule of law, so no one can expect that state-owned gas giant Gazprom will be a reliable supplier of gas for Europe.

We need more people like Mr Kasparov in Russia to speak up and save that great nation from this gangster culture.

I wonder if Obama will Google "how to deal with Al Capone" in preparation for a meeting with Russia's premier.

In a way, the shortage of gas in Europe can be seen as a piece of good news. If gas was cheap and abundantly available then it would be much trickier for Western Europe to think about switching to alternatives. It is handy to have the main supplier playing uncool customer so that European countries can begin to think of phasing out gas and look for alternatives.

We must create "power hubs" of wind turbine farms throughout the continent to power the central heating and hot water of domestic households. This will be expensive, but the switch from domestic gas use to electricity can not happen too soon. 

Heathrow airport

The decision to expand Heathrow airport in London has come as a great disappointment to many. Especially since it was known that the UK government was split over the issue, with the energy secretary Ed Miliband opposed to the project, so the least that was expected from a mature democracy was a Commons debate with a free vote. Alas, no such thing.

The project was given a "behind-closed-doors" OK, on the grounds of being the pro-business thing to do. Obviously the Prime Minister Gordon Brown is not there to take anti-business decisions. Nor has anyone asked him to.

The only business that this will favour is the airport operator BAA and its airport retail operations, and the construction companies that are already salivating at the thought of a mega-project of olympic proportions up for grabs.

Those are the winners and the losers will be the millions of Londoners who will have to withstand an escalation of noise and pollution nuisance, an increase in night flights. The expansion will bring nothing to London's economy and will not increase or decrease the importance of London as a financial centre. By the time the new runway comes into operation Heathrow will be congested again, and more runways will be needed to catch up with competitors.

At some point the growth will have to stop, unless we want to transform London into a vast airport with a bit of a city attached to it.

The future is in rail transport. The pro-business choice is in rapid city centre to city centre high-speed rail transport.

Brunella Bell

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British environmentalist George Monbiot writes in The Guardian that the expansion of London's Heathrow airport is about class war.

His ludicrous articles are embarrassing and a disservice to the green movement.

Everyone with minimal common sense agrees that the planned third terminal for Heathrow is simply crazy. Opposing the expansion of the airport has nothing to do with being pro or against business, and still less to do with socio-economic status. It has a lot to do with being consistent with a commitment to tackle climate change and of course with the additional issue that the airport is already as it is a great noise and pollution nuisance to millions in the capital. The UK government must live up to its obligations to reduce emissions, in the spirit of the Climate Change Bill that was passed in 2008, and ensure that the airport and its immediate environment meet environmental standards.

Even at its present size, Heathrow will fail to meet all those targets.

I find Monbiot comical but given that he has so much impact I think the whole thing is really tragic. He begins his article moaning about all the middle-class Brits who have Agas and this somehow builds up the argument that it is really the rich and their second homes in France that is the cause of the increase in air traffic and ultimately the expansion of Heathrow airport.

He presents some statistics to show that 54% of people using budget airlines are in fact rather affluent. From this it follows (apparently) that we should dispel the myth of the "anorak tourist" who flies to Sicily for the weekend on a flight that's cost him less than a cab fare, stays at a cheap hotel and eats out at fast-food joints. No, it turns out they are a well-heeled lot jetting off to their home at la Dordogne - and it's just one of those funny things that they pay less for their flight than for their organic camembert.

The angle of the analysis misses the point completely. If Ryanair had to rely only on Brits with second homes in France and Spain, they would fold up tomorrow. Naturally there are passengers from all income brackets, and most are simply spending a few days abroad, whether they earn £30,000 a year or £90,000. This does not discount the fact that it all amounts to excessively frequent, unnecessary and frivolous travel.  And that's the key of the problem. It's not a class issue, it's an issue of bad habits. 

Naturally it is no miracle that the more affluent will be able to indulge in budget travel more frequently, just like they have a greater share of most goods and services. After all, consumption is correlated to income.

It is quite clear that the second home owning travellers are a very small minority. In the routes to France that Ryanair decided to wind up because of a drop in passenger numbers (and high fuel costs), the Brits who'd purchased second homes there were left to hang and dry. Not only they couldn't get there for the weekend cheaply as before, but also the value of their properties plummeted. Clearly they were not the driving force of the demand.

If then we look at the really rich, then we are talking about tycoons jetting off in their private planes. Their carbon footprint is astronomical, and thankfully the a still smaller minority. All I can say is that they should offset their footprint if they can't reduce it. But they remain outside of the argument because this is such a tiny contribution to the bulk of total aviation emissions.

Brunella Bell

brunella@carbonica.org

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A storm has erupted over the carbon footprint of a cup of tea, literally. A Sunday Times story cited a Harvard scientist who claims that the carbon footprint of a Google search is comparable to that of making a cup of tea.

The story, full of wild guesses, prompted a quick response from Google.

Google claims that one search has a footprint of 0.2 grams of CO₂. Which is very little.

The funny side of the Sunday Times story was that it was little more than a plug for the company of the scientist in question, who owns a carbon offset provider dedicated to offsetting websites. So, hey presto, the article came complete with URLs and all, so that you can end up there feeling all guilty about your Google searches and get offsetting. What I find hilarious is that the company in question doesn't even once mention that it is about offsetting the carbon footprint of websites. It talks of making them "green". Oh goody. Such is the bad reputation of the offsetting industry that some providers go about their business concealing the dirty word like sex shop owners putting the goods in brown paper bags.

My guess is that Google's estimate of 0.2 grams of CO₂ is closer to the truth than the 35-times higher figure of 7 grams cited in the press. After all they are secretive about their data centers and the extent of the green energy initiatives that they have taken, so I'd rather believe the version that we're getting from the horse's mouth, because everyone else's is simply a wild guess.

Google should however come clean about its own footprint and put an end to all guesswork. No one knows exactly the number of searches that are carried out, so we can't compute Google's footprint. The 2008 Year-End Zeitgeist has a very complete compilation of trends and favourite searches from "billions of search queries", but the key is how many billions are we exactly talking about.

Some sources claim that in 2008 there were about 350-700 billion search queries, which means that if we take the figure of 0.2 grams per search to be accurate, Google's total footprint is in the region of 70,000 to 140,000 tons of CO₂.

This is not an awful lot: it is comparable to that of a small town with a population of about 10,000. It is a hell of a lot for one single company, but then I would guess that other global firms have a much larger footprint, especially if they produce physical goods.

My invitation to Google is: come clean with the figures, and get offsetting -- with Carbonica of course. Why not. At least we are not plugging this in a British rag.

Brunella Bell

brunella@carbonica.org

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There are lots of articles sprouting about lowering your carbon footprint through your food choices. A lot of it is very sensible stuff. I was very inspired by the article by Mary McVean in the LA Times about the emergence of the "Victory gardens" fashion, as she calls it, for people to grow their own vegetables in their back garden.

This might work for Americans or many suburban Brits but it is not practical in big cities. My garden in London could barely provide a supply of a basket of vegetables a year, hardly enough for anyone on a healthy 5-veg a day diet. Also there is no harm in having other plants in the garden (after all it is a place to plant hydrangeas, not an allotment), and letting a good fraction of it let go (having an excessively manicured garden is a sign of a sick mind), because the bird population for London is eternally grateful for a bit of messy shrubbery in the garden to hide and nest during the winter, and shelter from the London wildlife of foxes and domestic cats.

However there are many other ways to go down the low-carbon footprint path in our diet. The rule of thumb is to buy local. You have heard this many times before. It is true: transport emissions are key, and buying local is the only way to minimise these. Local and organic is still a better combination. Organic and from overseas is the most kafkanian combination. I was appalled by a recent article on The Times by the hugely opinionated restaurant critic A.A. Gill who tossed aside the organic movement as a scam. N'importe quoi. From a vantage point of high wisdom and lucidity conveyed by a third bottle of claret in the Wolseley he might feel very entitled to display a sublime degree of ignorance in expressing that view, but as it happens the organic movement is one of the best things that has happened since recycling. It eliminates our toxic footprint that are constantly leaving on our planet by spraying tons of pesticides on industrially produced vegetables. Also our own health suffers as a result and it is no wonder that our generation registers the lowest sperm count and feeblest sperm mobility and female fertility ever recorded. This we have to thank to the E-numbers and all forms of artificial chemicals in our food, including pesticides.

We have to be thankful for a very strong organic movement, and in particular in the UK, I find a newfound fondness for the monarchy given that the Prince of Wales leads by example providing a large variety of organic produce through his Duchy Originals range. Other producers please take note. The future of our diets is in a zero carbon footprint and zero ecological footprint target.

I am toying with the idea of writing a book about the ideal low-carbon diet, and I think that one can come up with very delicious choices which are positively zero-footprint, almost of pre-industrial levels. After all, when we are talking pre-industrial we are not talking stone age. We can adapt our technology and our food production processes to have the best of both worlds and at the same time slash our carbon footprint dramatically. I have asked around with my colleagues for inspiration. Having three vegetarian colleagues the advice is biased towards "grow your own" and "don't buy organic avocados flown in from Spain"; our chief executive is on Jana Klauer's Park Avenue high-protein diet, so he advises sustainable sources of wild fish and organic low-fat cottage cheese as a central element to the diet. I am not so keen on cottage cheese myself, but I agree that we all need a daily source of calcium, and whatever takes your fancy whether it is organic low-fat mature cheddar (less than 1.5% fat) or a few pints of skimmed milk (my personal favourite, after all milk has everything you need!) or a portion of Total 0% will do. The wonderful thing about dairy is that it is the one thing that can be sourced locally almost everywhere (and more and more frequently organic and low fat).

 I think I will come up with a combination of recipes to suit all..

A lot of our so-called high carbon footprint habits are simply force of habit. The same applies to our high ecological footprint. The huge fuss that has been caused on account of plastic bags has all to do with our bad habits. We have grown into the habit of rushing to the supermarket after work and grabbing our groceries in plastic bags. In all fairness it's neater than carrying a crumpled re-usable bag. But it just takes a minute of planning to put a nice jute or cotton bag inside our gym bag (or handbag) and use it for our shopping after work. This eliminates the need for so many plastic bags.  

The same applies to our shopping habits. Read the label. Don't buy anything that has been flown in or driven long distance. There is no excuse for it. Consumer power is an important thing. We can change the way manufacturers source their produce through our own choices. We don't have to accept it as a given.

Soon you will discover that changing habits can be a journey of discovery, of exploring new things, that you didn't know could be interesting and exciting and make you healthier. We are walking less and less. Often parents shuttle their kids to school in their SUVs, congesting the streets of our cities and not realising that their kids would be much better off walking/cycling that 1/2 mile to school (or hopping on the bus for a couple of stops). We don't stop to think about it because everyone is doing the same. The inertia of habit stops us from taking simple steps. It's like driving to the supermarket when we suddenly realise that a short walk is a pleasure we had almost forgotten about.

Brunella Bell

 brunella@carbonica.org

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Wed 07 Jan 09 

In the race to build a low-carbon economy by reducing greenhouse emissions, our final goal is to bring our carbon footprint down to the limit. Full decarbonisation is the moment when our society functions with no net carbon footprint.

Is this realistic or a myth?

This means goodbye to all forms of fossil fuels. Our societies must reshape beyond recognition. Can we do this fast enough? It would mean no more gas boilers in our homes. So I couldn't care less if Russia cuts off its gas supply. We would not know what to do with gas anyway. Or petrol. The Gulf states would need to switch day jobs.

Goodbye dirty energy, hello clean electricity. Essentially all our power would come from electricity, supplied to our homes by a combination of clean sources. The socket would be nothing less than an object of worship because we'd plug everything to it, all our gadgets, including our cars, motorbikes, everything. Even airplanes would turn to electricity (has anyone thought of electric aircraft? they should).

We will use over ten times the amount of electricity that we use now, so the logistics challenges for future energy generation are gargantuan.

There would be local sources (such as wind turbines on private homes) as well as "energy hubs" like large wind farms, ocean power generators and solar energy hubs. We can imagine a future where swathes of land in third world countries are dedicated to "energy hubs" or energy production centres to distribute clean electricity to the world.

I have been digesting the report "Building a low-economy" published in December by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), an advisory group to the British government. It is very meaty, and it has plenty of mileage to comment, so we'll come back to it, I'm sure. It sets a timetable of "carbon budgets" recommending emission cuts in several phases, as the UK's contribution to tackle climate change. This is the inspiration for the UK government's targets. The main target is to cut emissions by 80% (with respect to 1990 levels) by 2050. The global target that this group says the UK should endorse is less ambitious: a 50% emissions cut by 2050, a somewhat arbitrary figure.

The implication seems to be that we would aim for full decarbonisation sometime during the second half of the century. Is this real? And if it is, we better get cracking because the extent of the fundamental changes we'd need to achieve this makes me think that 50 years might be a bit on the short side to adapt the infrastructure, let alone absorb the costs.

Ed Milliband, the Secretary of State for Energy, said at the time that as from 2009 carbon budgets will take their place alongside financial budgets and become pivotal to policy decisions. This is quite an extraordinary statement. We hope there is more to it than just talk. Given that of course climate change  is a global issue, these carbon budgets need to be in sync with what is being done around the world and the UK must engage with the main emitters to encourage a convergence to the same targets.

Brunella Bell

brunella@carbonica.org

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A whole new year begins and it is time for our New Year's resolutions. Slimming, exercising, recycling and reducing our carbon footprint.

Some of our customers email us asking whether it is realistic to expect people to offset their footprint in times of financial crisis. Our answer is yes. Now it's more important than ever. The carbon footprint of the average person in the UK or Europe is about 10 tons of carbon a year, and this costs £6 per month to offset. It is a very small price to make a person zero footprint (or carbon neutral).

It is well known that offsetting our petrol emissions would only add about two pence to the price of the litre of petrol. This is an insignificant amount compared to the huge fluctuations in the price of petrol in recent months. Some supermarkets even offer 5p discounts per litre of petrol - it is ridiculous that they don't take the more consistent approach with the environmental policies that they claim to endorse and instead offer a 3p discount and pay 2p to offset the emissions so that the customer knows they are buying "carbon neutral" petrol. This would be an innovation and it wouldn't impact an awful lot on price.

We also get emails from people telling us that what one should do is cut emissions. Obviously reducing emissions is fundamental. But not the only goal. The principle of "offset the rest" is important. We will always have a carbon footprint, however much we reduce emissions, and the best thing to do for the enviroment is to offset the rest.

So, here is my suggestion to you: have a peek at our CO2 calculator, and in the section "QUICK", enter 10 tons. If you offset ten tons this will make you zero footprint for the entire 2009 if your carbon footprint is around average.

Brunella Bell  

brunella@carbonica.org

CARBONICA - PROTECTING THE WORLD'S RAINFORESTS 

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