Environment coverage leading to action
Posted by DavidM in Climate change | 29 January 2007
You can't open a paper, turn on the TV or radio or read a news website these days without noticing some mention of global warming, climate change or CO2 emissions. Compared to even a year ago the difference is tremendous.
But I had two fears.
First, that the notoriously fickle media would lose interest in the story after a few months. I half expected the wave of stories surrounding the release of An Inconvenient Truth to be the peak and then watch mournfully as coverage of environmental issues died away, to be replaced by Celebrity Big Brother, Paris Hilton's latest boozy binge or the shock revelation that a politician is corrupt/unfaithful/gay.
So I have been very pleasantly surprised that there continues to be a good level of coverage of global warming and it's impacts.
My second fear was that all that coverage would lead to little or no action. But again, I'm heartened by what I've been reading and seeing happen. At a corporate level, an increasing number of serious organisations are taking the environment seriously.
BSkyB, Royal & Sun Alliance and HSBC have gone carbon neutral and many others - most prominently Marks & Spencer - have stated their intention to follow suit. BT is, I believe, already one of the largest buyers of renewable electriciy in Europe and has now committed to reducing emissions further.
Of course there are questions over how neutral some of these corporatons are but in general they are reducing consumption, increasing usage of renewable energy and offsetting the remainder. I'm not a fan of off-setting as a solution in itself but am in favoour of it as a means to balance the emissions that cannot be removed.
At the other end of the scale more of the people I come into contact with are looking at their lifestyles and seeing how they can make a change. Everyone seems aware of the need to turn appliances off standby, friends are enquiring about the potential to use biodiesel and one of my neighbours is installing solar power to provide 60-70% of the electricity in their new holiday home. Most people aren't yet making big changes but the awareness is there and a growing wilingness to change.
I still get the occasional argument that it's all irrelevent because China is building new coal-fired power stations daily, but these are increasingly desperate arguments. And anyhow, China are investing huge amounts in alternative energy and clean technology for those coal stations. Their own recent report suggests they have a long way to go but it all helps.
There is still an enormous amount that needs to happen. The danger now is that we all make small changes then feel we've done our bit. The problem is too big for that and needs continual focus.
