Sooty’s here… where’s Sweep? (0)
Posted 24 March, 2008 in Alternative power, Biofuel technology, Carbon offsetting, Climate change
Earlier elsewhere, I posted something about a paper in Nature Geoscience that raises the sooty spectre of black carbon. There’s nothing quite so alarming as scrambling across what should be a pristine glacial environment to find it covered with a sheen of black ash. Well, those deposits, fallout from the combustion of biofuels – “environmentally friendly” wood, dung and crop waste – are a sure sign that life is not as simple as turning our backs on fossil fuels. Indeed, we should perhaps think about how we could use whatever oil and gas we have left to expedite a genuinely cleaner alternative, rather than jumping on any bandwagon that happens to be passing by.
In particular, converting from oil- to wood-based forms of power generation should be brought under closer scrutiny. The paper’s authors, Professors “Ram” Ramanathan and Greg Carmichael, note that black carbon is the second most potent source of global warming in the current cycle after carbon dioxide. The idea that burning wood is somehow simply recycling current carbon stocks – as opposed to the long-buried black stuff – clearly isn’t all that simple. But then nothing ever is, is it?
Just bag it (1)
Posted 14 March, 2008 in Alternative power, Biofuel technology, Carbon offsetting, Carbon trading, Climate change, Footprint reduction, Political issues
One of the documents released with this year’s UK budget – intriguingly entitled “An environmentally sustainable world” [they forgot to add the bit about being in a human timescale] — gives thirteen announcements on how the Government intends to tackle climate change. Number twelve is “to eliminate single-use carrier bags” and warns that the “Government will legislate and impose a charge if retailers do not take voluntary action.” (more…)
