By ADAM MITCHELLAugust 30, 2008;
PARIS -- French nuclear group Areva SA said its first-half net profit more than doubled, helped by one-time gains and stronger payouts from its stakes in other companies.
The state-controlled nuclear group, which is promoting its European pressurized-water reactor in the U.K. along with Électricité de France SA, said net profit rose to €760 million ($1.12 billion) in the six months to June 30, compared with €295 million the same period a year earlier.
Areva said net profit was helped by a €95 million increase in net financial income, including a gain from the sale of a stake in wind-turbine manufacturer REpower Systems AG.
The contribution to profit from Areva's stakes in other companies, meanwhile, rose to €121 million from €34 million a year earlier, helped by strong income growth at mining and metals company Eramet SA.
"As usual there are a lot of one-offs," Alex Barnett, a Paris-based analyst at Jefferies, said. There are so many items, he said, that it's "hard to read anything in the numbers."
Operating income more than doubled, to €539 million, the company said. Areva also said it had booked an additional provision on its reactor-building contract in Finland. The company didn't specify the size of the provision.
Last month, Areva reported that first-half revenue rose 15% to €6.17 billion, as sales in its reactors and services division surged.
Areva's share price has fallen more than 15% in the past three months to close at €688.36 Friday, as oil prices slipped, taking the edge off investors' enthusiasm for all things nuclear.
There has also been speculation that the French state might push for a tie-up between Areva and heavy-engineering company Alstom SA, in which French conglomerate Bouygues SA holds a 30% stake. Friday, Bouygues's chairman and chief executive, Martin Bouygues, said there has been no movement on this, and the issue doesn't seem to be a priority for the French government.
--David Pearson contributed to this report.
Write to Adam Mitchell at adam.mitchell@dowjones.com
Saturday, 30 August 2008
Coal back-up for wind power 'will cost £100bn'
Published Date: 30 August 2008
By Jenny Haworth
Environment Correspondent
A LEADING power company has claimed wind energy is so unreliable that even if 13,000 turbines are built to meet EU renewable energy targets, they could be relied on to provide only 7 per cent of the country's peak winter electricity demand.
E.On has argued that, during the coldest days of winter, so little wind blows that 92 per cent of installed wind capacity would have to be backed up by traditional power stations.It argues this would require new coal-fired power stations to be built so they could be used in an emergency when little wind blows.This, E.On suggests, will mean that, to meet renewable targets of 20 per cent of energy being provided from renewables by 2020, the UK's installed power base will need to rise from 76 gigawatts today to more than 100GW.The company estimates this could cost £100 billion.The John Muir Trust, which campaigns against wind farms in Scotland's beauty spots, said E.On's claims back its view that the country is depending too heavily on wind power.Helen McDade, the trust's policy officer, thinks instead far more should be done to improve energy efficiency."Energy conservation is by far the best use of money," she said. "The question is why we are not doing more of this."She criticised the "assumption that as long as it's got a renewable tag on it we can carrying on using energy at the level we have been".However, Friends of the Earth Scotland accused E.On, which is trying to build a new coal-fired plant at Kingsnorth in Kent, of "scaremongering"."I'm not at all surprised to find a company trying to build new coal-fired power stations using unfounded assumptions about the renewables industry," he said."Essentially, what they are doing is taking a very simplistic analysis and arguing that we need to massively back up for the worst possible scenarios."Dr Richard Dixon, director of conservation charity WWF Scotland, agreed. "It's not surprising, given their agenda is all about building massive coal-fired power stations," he said.He said by 2020 wind turbines will be more efficient, there will be more storage within the grid, and the UK could be connected to the European grid – all measures which will undermine the need for back-up from coal-fired power stations.E.On argues in its response to a House of Lords inquiry into the economics of renewable energy that if 40,000 megawatts of wind capacity – about 13,000 turbines – is needed to meet renewable targets, just 3,600MW will be able to be relied on to meet the peak demand in winter.It says this is because on the very coldest days there is very little wind, because of anti- cyclones.A spokesman said the question had to be asked how power companies would make money from plants that only run when the wind is not blowing."Under the current trading system for power, you just wouldn't build it so clearly there has to be some sort of encouragement," he said.IN NUMBERS1,382 megawatts of installed hydro power in Scotland.1,367 megawatts of installed wind power in Scotland.100 megawatts of installed energy from waste in Scotland.79 megawatts of installed biomass electricity in Scotland.29 megawatts of installed biomass heat in Scotland.2 megawatts of installed wave power in Scotland.31 per cent of Scotland's electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2011 under Scottish Government targets
By Jenny Haworth
Environment Correspondent
A LEADING power company has claimed wind energy is so unreliable that even if 13,000 turbines are built to meet EU renewable energy targets, they could be relied on to provide only 7 per cent of the country's peak winter electricity demand.
E.On has argued that, during the coldest days of winter, so little wind blows that 92 per cent of installed wind capacity would have to be backed up by traditional power stations.It argues this would require new coal-fired power stations to be built so they could be used in an emergency when little wind blows.This, E.On suggests, will mean that, to meet renewable targets of 20 per cent of energy being provided from renewables by 2020, the UK's installed power base will need to rise from 76 gigawatts today to more than 100GW.The company estimates this could cost £100 billion.The John Muir Trust, which campaigns against wind farms in Scotland's beauty spots, said E.On's claims back its view that the country is depending too heavily on wind power.Helen McDade, the trust's policy officer, thinks instead far more should be done to improve energy efficiency."Energy conservation is by far the best use of money," she said. "The question is why we are not doing more of this."She criticised the "assumption that as long as it's got a renewable tag on it we can carrying on using energy at the level we have been".However, Friends of the Earth Scotland accused E.On, which is trying to build a new coal-fired plant at Kingsnorth in Kent, of "scaremongering"."I'm not at all surprised to find a company trying to build new coal-fired power stations using unfounded assumptions about the renewables industry," he said."Essentially, what they are doing is taking a very simplistic analysis and arguing that we need to massively back up for the worst possible scenarios."Dr Richard Dixon, director of conservation charity WWF Scotland, agreed. "It's not surprising, given their agenda is all about building massive coal-fired power stations," he said.He said by 2020 wind turbines will be more efficient, there will be more storage within the grid, and the UK could be connected to the European grid – all measures which will undermine the need for back-up from coal-fired power stations.E.On argues in its response to a House of Lords inquiry into the economics of renewable energy that if 40,000 megawatts of wind capacity – about 13,000 turbines – is needed to meet renewable targets, just 3,600MW will be able to be relied on to meet the peak demand in winter.It says this is because on the very coldest days there is very little wind, because of anti- cyclones.A spokesman said the question had to be asked how power companies would make money from plants that only run when the wind is not blowing."Under the current trading system for power, you just wouldn't build it so clearly there has to be some sort of encouragement," he said.IN NUMBERS1,382 megawatts of installed hydro power in Scotland.1,367 megawatts of installed wind power in Scotland.100 megawatts of installed energy from waste in Scotland.79 megawatts of installed biomass electricity in Scotland.29 megawatts of installed biomass heat in Scotland.2 megawatts of installed wave power in Scotland.31 per cent of Scotland's electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2011 under Scottish Government targets
Too good to waste?
Reports that sludge from sewage plants is routinely used to fertilise edible crops have caused outrage. Is this simply a prudent use of so-called 'biosolids' or a grave threat to our health? Rose George investigates
Rose George
The Guardian,
Friday August 29 2008
It is my first and last day at sewage school. The premises are nothing much to look at, consisting of a Portakabin in the car park of Barston, a small sewage-treatment works near Birmingham. This classroom is one of five run by Severn Trent, one of the 10 utilities that supply clean drinking water and remove dirty water for the people of England and Wales. The education programme is fully funded by the utility in an attempt to reveal its vital job to a public that doesn't pay it mind. They think it's a good investment.
Today's class comes from a nearby primary school. After a brief trot through the water cycle and some green lessons - washing a car with a hosepipe uses nine litres of water a minute, children, so use buckets - the sewage pupils put on their wellies for the tour. First, the influent, brown water rushing in from the sewers, visible through a hole in the ground. Then the compactor that crunches up objects screened by grills. It's not moving, sir, they say, but it is, spitting out in slow-motion rags and pen caps and hundreds of the yellow sweetcorn kernels that humans can't digest, prized by picnicking birds.
Wastewater treatment is much-tinkered-with - 1,000 works will have 999 different processes, a worker tells me - but the basics are unchangeable. Solids are removed from sewage first by filtering and letting them sink. This is primary treatment. Secondary treatment involves micro-organisms, bolstered by added oxygen, that break down any organic content still in the wastewater. The bacteria-cleaned effluent goes into a nearby stream. The children lean over obediently to look at its colour. It's clear! Not brown! And then it's time to make sewage soup.
It has been a long time since sewage consisted of pure human faecal material. Into sewage, anything goes. An enterprising American sewage-treatment manager once expressed this by producing water bottles supposedly made from sewage effluent. Their labels listed the ingredients: water, faecal matter, toilet paper, hair, lint, rancid grease, stomach acid and trace amounts of Pepto Bismol, chocolate, urine, body oils, dead skin, industrial chemicals (aluminium, copper, zinc, lead, chromium, nickel, molybdenum, selenium, silver, arsenic, mercury) ammonia, soil, laundry soap, bath soap, shaving cream, sweat, saliva, salt, sugar.
So the ingredients of sewage soup are a tankful of water and whatever else the class might have put down the sink, toilet, gutter or drain that day. The children suggest shampoo, soap, toothpaste, washing powder, rice and salt, which the teacher adds into a tankful of water. "Number one" is lime cordial. "Number two" is soggy Weetabix. The rest of the lesson involves filtering the filth out of the water, in an attempt to impart the difficulty - and dubious sanity - of the paradigm of waterborne waste treatment in modern industrialised societies, whereby you take clean drinking water, throw filth into it, then spend millions to clean it again. My team gets a passable liquid from the filtering. They are pleased. But no one has considered the stuff that's been filtered. No one mentions the sludge.
When sewage is cleaned and treated, the dirt that is removed is called sewage sludge. The UK produces 1.44m tonnes of it a year, and it has to go somewhere. The most common options consist of incineration, landfill, application to farmland and dumping at sea. The EU banned ocean dumping in 1998, as the nutrients in human waste - nitrogen and phosphorous, for a start - can, in great quantities, suffocate the life from water. The public doesn't much like incineration, and landfill space is running out. So 68% of our sludge is applied to fields, a fact that translated into newspaper headlines last month as "human sewage [is] used for our cereals," beside a photograph of a woman eating cornflakes. Reader reaction was predictable. One commenter swore never to shop at supermarkets again. Another pronounced the practice "disgusting".
But on the forum of Farmers Weekly, the farmers let rip. "It's great stuff," wrote one, "and probably better than the raw cow muck that goes on." The public's horror was yet another reason that "the general public, and the media, should not be allowed out on farms ... without serious education beforehand". In fact, sludge used as fertiliser isn't news. Nor is it going away, given the rising price of artificial fertilisers. Severn Trent reports a 25% increase in demand from farmers since January. Anglian Water has a waiting list. And why not? Sludge contains nitrogen and phosphorous, which farmers and crops love. It's often given away free, and it saves farmers about £450 per hectare that they would otherwise spend on fertiliser. Water UK, an association of the water utilities, reckons 3,000 farmers - out of 146,000 in total - use sludge each year, applying it to all kinds of arable land.
Nor is it unusual. Human waste has been used to fertilise fields for thousands of years. China's willingness to use untreated sewage on its fields is probably the reason its soil is still fertile after 4,000 years of cultivation, when other civilisations such as the Maya watched their crops wither and their soil erode. A recent report by the International Water Management Institute calculated that 200 million farmers worldwide were using raw sewage to irrigate their crops.
Properly treated, sewage could have a place in the nutrient cycle. Food feeds humans whose waste feeds food. And sludge is not raw sewage, which can carry at least 50 communicable diseases. It is treated and regulated (the better stuff has to have 99.9999% of pathogens, including salmonella, removed; the lower-quality sludge has to have 99%). Heavy metals are also regulated, as are harvesting and sowing times (farmers must wait 30 months before sowing vegetables after using lower-quality sludge, for example). In principle, it makes perfect sense. The British government considers sludge as fertiliser "the best practicable environmental option". Steve Ntifo of Water UK is convinced that sludge is safe "subject to regulation".
But in the US, where 3m tonnes of sludge are applied to farmland, an increasingly vocal anti-sludge movement doesn't agree. Though sludge has been rebranded "biosolids" (after a naming competition that also produced "bioslurp" and "black gold"), the debate over its use has become controversial and bitter. It has involved lawsuits, high politics, secret settlements and scores of allegations of illness. Some of those allegations have come from a quiet corner of South Carolina, from a picture-postcard small white bungalow opposite unremarkable brown fields. The house is owned by Nancy Holt, a retired nurse, whose family have farmed in this area for 250 years. The fields, Holt thinks, are killing her.
I visited Holt on a hot August day last year. She greeted me with a hug and a cold flannel for my head, then sat me down at the kitchen table and prepared the weapons of the grassroots protester: piles of files, dossiers, reports and a scientific vocabulary that she has accumulated along with frustration and disbelief. The year before, she told me, sludge was applied for 33 days straight to the fields. "Based on the number of 6,000-gallon tankers that came to apply it, we came up with the best guess that 9.75m gallons [were] spread on 160 acres. They were doing it 12 hours a day and a truck would arrive every 10 minutes." That was when Holt went blind. She wasn't a well woman to begin with. When I'd called to make the appointment, she'd apologised for misunderstanding something by saying, "I have holes in my head." I took it as a joke, but she does have holes in her head, after surgery which left her with metal clamps in her brain. One time when the sludge was applied - it's been arriving twice a year, spring and summer, for 13 years - the arteries in her brain swelled, pressed on her optic nerve and temporarily took away her sight. The diagnosis was the blood-vessel disorder, giant cell arteritis, but no cause was proven. Holt is sure the cause was the sludge, and she now spends much of her life trying to prove it.
The trouble began in the creeks. In 2001, Holt's grandson and great-nephew were diagnosed with staphylococcus aureus ("staph"), a bacterial infection usually associated with dirty hospitals, and most famous for its antibiotic-resistant superbug strain MRSA. She noticed that they fell sick after playing in the streams running behind the house. Then a local dog fell ill to flesh-eating bacteria. Then someone organised a fundraiser for a couple who both had cancer, and people started taking a tally of incidents. The Cook family: three daughters with breast cancer. The Hoffmans: a mother with colon cancer, a father with prostate cancer and a 13-year-old son with testicular cancer. Five cases of brain cancer in a community of 38 families. Holt started to keep records.
She made a list of health problems associated with exposure to applied sludge that included "increased respiratory distress or breathing difficulties; diarrhoea (chronic during sludge applications, all ages); chronic and acute headaches (persistent after exposure to odours, relieved by leaving residence); staph infections (children covered by staph sores after playing in creeks or streams after significant rains); presumed neurotoxin sensitivity (seizures, nausea, elevated blood pressure, and rash)."
In this, she wasn't alone. Another sludge activist called Helane Shields had compiled a dossier of complaints 500 pages thick. The Waste Management Institute at Cornell University, directed by Professor Ellen Harrison, has gathered 350 sludge-related health complaints, and lists characteristic symptoms as: asthma, flu-like symptoms, eye irritations, lesions, immuno-deficiency, nosebleeds, burning eyes, throat or nose.
Nancy began to read the literature, including news stories about the work of Dr Tyrone Hayes, who found that frogs were being deformed by mixtures of pesticides, even when individual pesticides were well within legal limits. She handed me articles about the transmission of prions - infectious agents linked to BSE - from funeral-home waste, and about outbreaks of e-coli in Californian spinach. She talked at top speed about antibiotics in the sewage, and how only the strongest and fittest survive and that if we wanted to create superbugs, we couldn't do better. She didn't let up for two hours, and by the end was still running on indignation.
People who promote and supply biosolids, depending on how courteous they are, tend to dismiss opponents such as Holt as anything from over-emotive to hysterical. Cranks. Nimbyists. The problem, they say, is about smell, not science. Humans have learned to avoid what is dangerous, and faeces can be lethal. Faecal aversion, one wastewater treatment manager told me, is clouding risk perception. He showed me a bottle of vitamins which contained the heavy metal selenium. "You'd have to eat 212 pounds of our biosolids to get what your body needs."
But criticism of sludge has come from quarters that no one could call over-emotive. Robert Swank, a senior Environmental Protection Agency official, testified to the US Senate in 2000 that US regulations "don't pass scientific muster". In 2002, a senior EPA microbiologist called Dr David Lewis led a University of Georgia study that analysed 53 incidents where health issues had been reported near sludge sites, and found a puzzlingly high incidence of staph infections. Lewis thought chemical irritants in sludge may be causing lesions that allowed staph easy access to the bloodstream. He told reporters: "In my opinion, the land-spreading of sludge is a serious problem. We have mixed together pathogens with a wide variety of chemicals that are known to enhance the infection process. It makes people more susceptible to infections." Taking excrement from hundreds of thousands of people, mixing it and spreading it on land is simply "not a good idea". Not long afterwards, he was fired.
The Harper-Collins Dictionary of Environmental Science defines sludge as "a viscous, semi-solid mixture of bacteria and virus-laden organic matter, toxic metals, synthetic organic chemicals and settled solids removed from domestic industrial wastewater at a sewage-treatment plant". The Clean Water Act keeps it simple and calls it a pollutant. Critics don't just object to possible risks to human health: Ellen Harrison of Cornell University, a soil scientist by training, also worries about the health of soil. In a paper entitled "The Case for Caution", she pointed out that "lead used by Romans persists in the soil two millennia later".
Of course soil science is extremely complex, and long-term tests run by Defra looking at metals in sludge-applied land have found no cause for concern. Even so, Switzerland - which used to land-apply 40% of its sludge - has banned the practice because of fears from farmers that it was harming their soil. The Netherlands has banned agricultural use of sludge, and national farmers' associations in France, Germany, Sweden, Luxembourg and Finland are against it, partly because of concerns about organic contaminants such as PCBs and brominated flame retardants (linked to liver and neurodevelopmental toxicity and hormone disruption), which some research has shown persist in sludge.
Food retailers Del Monte, Kraft and Heinz won't accept produce grown on sludge-fertilised fields. EU organic regulations - which are followed by all UK organic certification bodies - won't allow it, even though the principle of closing the nutrient cycle is one that is dear to organic hearts.
Ntifo attributes the Swiss ban to "a powerful incineration lobby". Opposition from food retailers, meanwhile, is about "a perception of perceptions". Food retailers worry what their customers think. "They are calculating their commercial risk. It's not about the science." Water UK states that "there has never been a recorded outbreak of human ill health in the UK as a result of the practice of recycling biosolids to land."
I don't know who is right. But I see the certainty of the sludge industry, and I think of a different century when engineering and science began to have inordinate confidence, which was expressed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette during an 1870 inquiry into the pollution of the Thames. The vicar of Barking and 123 of his neighbours had objected to Bazalgette's practice of discharging all London's sewage into the river. Bazalgette, called to the inquiry, showed himself to be as sure of himself as the biosolids promoters of today. The possibility that the river was being polluted was, he asserted, "entirely imaginary and contrary to the fact". Eight years later, the Princess Alice steamboat collided with a dredger near the outfall, and more than 600 people died. Survivors reported that they could not swim in such noxious waters, and that they vomited copiously. The outfalls were closed 20 years later. It is not recorded whether Bazalgette ever admitted he had been wrong.
PCBs were considered safe for decades. So was DDT. In the US, the most authoritative document on sludge is still a 2002 report by the National Academy of Sciences, which concluded that "there is no documented scientific evidence that the Part 503 rules [which govern biosolids use] have failed to protect public health". But opponents quote the following sentence instead because it reads: "However, additional scientific work is needed to reduce persistent uncertainty about the potential for adverse human health effects from exposure to biosolids." The sentences are quoted endlessly because, in Harrison's view, "there is a dearth of investigation in this area". Those two sentences are the scraps that each side fights the other over. In between, there is space for speculation and fear.
In the US, the fate of the biosolids industry may be decided by lawyers. Though three deaths of young men allegedly from sludge-linked staph infections didn't reach court (one was settled by Synagro, a sludge-applying giant now owned by the Carlyle Group), those of cows have. In 2006, a Georgia court awarded damages to a dairy farmer when 30% of his cattle died after eating sludge-applied hay, 10 times the normal mortality rate. An Associated Press investigation found that levels of thallium - a metal that can cause nerve damage - in the herd's milk were 120 times those allowed in drinking water (and that the milk was still sold for human consumption). This year, Judge Anthony Alaimo of Georgia found that another dairy farm had been acutely contaminated by sludge. Scientific data supplied by the municipality of Augusta that claimed to prove the safety of biosolids was, the judge declared, "unreliable, incomplete and in some cases fudged".
Are biosolids safe? "I am always hesitant to answer that," says Eric Davis, the land application manager for Burlington, North Carolina, which supplies the biosolids that are spread on the fields near Holt, "because safe means something to some folks and something else to others. That doesn't mean we're trying to hide anything. If safety means compliance with the letter of the law, then our biosolids are safe. There are a finite number of constituents we can test for: outside those, you're in the realm of unknowns. We're always trying to figure out the next step. We're willing to change as technology changes."
This wouldn't comfort the lone voice of opposition on the Farmers Weekly forum. Though in the minority, he was forthright. "I won't have sludge on my land. The heavy metals just sit in the plough layer waiting until someone realises there are long-term problems for animals, crops and us. I honestly believe that all those who [use sludge] will live to regret it."
• Rose George is the author of The Big Necessity: Adventures in the World of Human Waste, published by Portobello Books on Monday priced £12.99
Rose George
The Guardian,
Friday August 29 2008
It is my first and last day at sewage school. The premises are nothing much to look at, consisting of a Portakabin in the car park of Barston, a small sewage-treatment works near Birmingham. This classroom is one of five run by Severn Trent, one of the 10 utilities that supply clean drinking water and remove dirty water for the people of England and Wales. The education programme is fully funded by the utility in an attempt to reveal its vital job to a public that doesn't pay it mind. They think it's a good investment.
Today's class comes from a nearby primary school. After a brief trot through the water cycle and some green lessons - washing a car with a hosepipe uses nine litres of water a minute, children, so use buckets - the sewage pupils put on their wellies for the tour. First, the influent, brown water rushing in from the sewers, visible through a hole in the ground. Then the compactor that crunches up objects screened by grills. It's not moving, sir, they say, but it is, spitting out in slow-motion rags and pen caps and hundreds of the yellow sweetcorn kernels that humans can't digest, prized by picnicking birds.
Wastewater treatment is much-tinkered-with - 1,000 works will have 999 different processes, a worker tells me - but the basics are unchangeable. Solids are removed from sewage first by filtering and letting them sink. This is primary treatment. Secondary treatment involves micro-organisms, bolstered by added oxygen, that break down any organic content still in the wastewater. The bacteria-cleaned effluent goes into a nearby stream. The children lean over obediently to look at its colour. It's clear! Not brown! And then it's time to make sewage soup.
It has been a long time since sewage consisted of pure human faecal material. Into sewage, anything goes. An enterprising American sewage-treatment manager once expressed this by producing water bottles supposedly made from sewage effluent. Their labels listed the ingredients: water, faecal matter, toilet paper, hair, lint, rancid grease, stomach acid and trace amounts of Pepto Bismol, chocolate, urine, body oils, dead skin, industrial chemicals (aluminium, copper, zinc, lead, chromium, nickel, molybdenum, selenium, silver, arsenic, mercury) ammonia, soil, laundry soap, bath soap, shaving cream, sweat, saliva, salt, sugar.
So the ingredients of sewage soup are a tankful of water and whatever else the class might have put down the sink, toilet, gutter or drain that day. The children suggest shampoo, soap, toothpaste, washing powder, rice and salt, which the teacher adds into a tankful of water. "Number one" is lime cordial. "Number two" is soggy Weetabix. The rest of the lesson involves filtering the filth out of the water, in an attempt to impart the difficulty - and dubious sanity - of the paradigm of waterborne waste treatment in modern industrialised societies, whereby you take clean drinking water, throw filth into it, then spend millions to clean it again. My team gets a passable liquid from the filtering. They are pleased. But no one has considered the stuff that's been filtered. No one mentions the sludge.
When sewage is cleaned and treated, the dirt that is removed is called sewage sludge. The UK produces 1.44m tonnes of it a year, and it has to go somewhere. The most common options consist of incineration, landfill, application to farmland and dumping at sea. The EU banned ocean dumping in 1998, as the nutrients in human waste - nitrogen and phosphorous, for a start - can, in great quantities, suffocate the life from water. The public doesn't much like incineration, and landfill space is running out. So 68% of our sludge is applied to fields, a fact that translated into newspaper headlines last month as "human sewage [is] used for our cereals," beside a photograph of a woman eating cornflakes. Reader reaction was predictable. One commenter swore never to shop at supermarkets again. Another pronounced the practice "disgusting".
But on the forum of Farmers Weekly, the farmers let rip. "It's great stuff," wrote one, "and probably better than the raw cow muck that goes on." The public's horror was yet another reason that "the general public, and the media, should not be allowed out on farms ... without serious education beforehand". In fact, sludge used as fertiliser isn't news. Nor is it going away, given the rising price of artificial fertilisers. Severn Trent reports a 25% increase in demand from farmers since January. Anglian Water has a waiting list. And why not? Sludge contains nitrogen and phosphorous, which farmers and crops love. It's often given away free, and it saves farmers about £450 per hectare that they would otherwise spend on fertiliser. Water UK, an association of the water utilities, reckons 3,000 farmers - out of 146,000 in total - use sludge each year, applying it to all kinds of arable land.
Nor is it unusual. Human waste has been used to fertilise fields for thousands of years. China's willingness to use untreated sewage on its fields is probably the reason its soil is still fertile after 4,000 years of cultivation, when other civilisations such as the Maya watched their crops wither and their soil erode. A recent report by the International Water Management Institute calculated that 200 million farmers worldwide were using raw sewage to irrigate their crops.
Properly treated, sewage could have a place in the nutrient cycle. Food feeds humans whose waste feeds food. And sludge is not raw sewage, which can carry at least 50 communicable diseases. It is treated and regulated (the better stuff has to have 99.9999% of pathogens, including salmonella, removed; the lower-quality sludge has to have 99%). Heavy metals are also regulated, as are harvesting and sowing times (farmers must wait 30 months before sowing vegetables after using lower-quality sludge, for example). In principle, it makes perfect sense. The British government considers sludge as fertiliser "the best practicable environmental option". Steve Ntifo of Water UK is convinced that sludge is safe "subject to regulation".
But in the US, where 3m tonnes of sludge are applied to farmland, an increasingly vocal anti-sludge movement doesn't agree. Though sludge has been rebranded "biosolids" (after a naming competition that also produced "bioslurp" and "black gold"), the debate over its use has become controversial and bitter. It has involved lawsuits, high politics, secret settlements and scores of allegations of illness. Some of those allegations have come from a quiet corner of South Carolina, from a picture-postcard small white bungalow opposite unremarkable brown fields. The house is owned by Nancy Holt, a retired nurse, whose family have farmed in this area for 250 years. The fields, Holt thinks, are killing her.
I visited Holt on a hot August day last year. She greeted me with a hug and a cold flannel for my head, then sat me down at the kitchen table and prepared the weapons of the grassroots protester: piles of files, dossiers, reports and a scientific vocabulary that she has accumulated along with frustration and disbelief. The year before, she told me, sludge was applied for 33 days straight to the fields. "Based on the number of 6,000-gallon tankers that came to apply it, we came up with the best guess that 9.75m gallons [were] spread on 160 acres. They were doing it 12 hours a day and a truck would arrive every 10 minutes." That was when Holt went blind. She wasn't a well woman to begin with. When I'd called to make the appointment, she'd apologised for misunderstanding something by saying, "I have holes in my head." I took it as a joke, but she does have holes in her head, after surgery which left her with metal clamps in her brain. One time when the sludge was applied - it's been arriving twice a year, spring and summer, for 13 years - the arteries in her brain swelled, pressed on her optic nerve and temporarily took away her sight. The diagnosis was the blood-vessel disorder, giant cell arteritis, but no cause was proven. Holt is sure the cause was the sludge, and she now spends much of her life trying to prove it.
The trouble began in the creeks. In 2001, Holt's grandson and great-nephew were diagnosed with staphylococcus aureus ("staph"), a bacterial infection usually associated with dirty hospitals, and most famous for its antibiotic-resistant superbug strain MRSA. She noticed that they fell sick after playing in the streams running behind the house. Then a local dog fell ill to flesh-eating bacteria. Then someone organised a fundraiser for a couple who both had cancer, and people started taking a tally of incidents. The Cook family: three daughters with breast cancer. The Hoffmans: a mother with colon cancer, a father with prostate cancer and a 13-year-old son with testicular cancer. Five cases of brain cancer in a community of 38 families. Holt started to keep records.
She made a list of health problems associated with exposure to applied sludge that included "increased respiratory distress or breathing difficulties; diarrhoea (chronic during sludge applications, all ages); chronic and acute headaches (persistent after exposure to odours, relieved by leaving residence); staph infections (children covered by staph sores after playing in creeks or streams after significant rains); presumed neurotoxin sensitivity (seizures, nausea, elevated blood pressure, and rash)."
In this, she wasn't alone. Another sludge activist called Helane Shields had compiled a dossier of complaints 500 pages thick. The Waste Management Institute at Cornell University, directed by Professor Ellen Harrison, has gathered 350 sludge-related health complaints, and lists characteristic symptoms as: asthma, flu-like symptoms, eye irritations, lesions, immuno-deficiency, nosebleeds, burning eyes, throat or nose.
Nancy began to read the literature, including news stories about the work of Dr Tyrone Hayes, who found that frogs were being deformed by mixtures of pesticides, even when individual pesticides were well within legal limits. She handed me articles about the transmission of prions - infectious agents linked to BSE - from funeral-home waste, and about outbreaks of e-coli in Californian spinach. She talked at top speed about antibiotics in the sewage, and how only the strongest and fittest survive and that if we wanted to create superbugs, we couldn't do better. She didn't let up for two hours, and by the end was still running on indignation.
People who promote and supply biosolids, depending on how courteous they are, tend to dismiss opponents such as Holt as anything from over-emotive to hysterical. Cranks. Nimbyists. The problem, they say, is about smell, not science. Humans have learned to avoid what is dangerous, and faeces can be lethal. Faecal aversion, one wastewater treatment manager told me, is clouding risk perception. He showed me a bottle of vitamins which contained the heavy metal selenium. "You'd have to eat 212 pounds of our biosolids to get what your body needs."
But criticism of sludge has come from quarters that no one could call over-emotive. Robert Swank, a senior Environmental Protection Agency official, testified to the US Senate in 2000 that US regulations "don't pass scientific muster". In 2002, a senior EPA microbiologist called Dr David Lewis led a University of Georgia study that analysed 53 incidents where health issues had been reported near sludge sites, and found a puzzlingly high incidence of staph infections. Lewis thought chemical irritants in sludge may be causing lesions that allowed staph easy access to the bloodstream. He told reporters: "In my opinion, the land-spreading of sludge is a serious problem. We have mixed together pathogens with a wide variety of chemicals that are known to enhance the infection process. It makes people more susceptible to infections." Taking excrement from hundreds of thousands of people, mixing it and spreading it on land is simply "not a good idea". Not long afterwards, he was fired.
The Harper-Collins Dictionary of Environmental Science defines sludge as "a viscous, semi-solid mixture of bacteria and virus-laden organic matter, toxic metals, synthetic organic chemicals and settled solids removed from domestic industrial wastewater at a sewage-treatment plant". The Clean Water Act keeps it simple and calls it a pollutant. Critics don't just object to possible risks to human health: Ellen Harrison of Cornell University, a soil scientist by training, also worries about the health of soil. In a paper entitled "The Case for Caution", she pointed out that "lead used by Romans persists in the soil two millennia later".
Of course soil science is extremely complex, and long-term tests run by Defra looking at metals in sludge-applied land have found no cause for concern. Even so, Switzerland - which used to land-apply 40% of its sludge - has banned the practice because of fears from farmers that it was harming their soil. The Netherlands has banned agricultural use of sludge, and national farmers' associations in France, Germany, Sweden, Luxembourg and Finland are against it, partly because of concerns about organic contaminants such as PCBs and brominated flame retardants (linked to liver and neurodevelopmental toxicity and hormone disruption), which some research has shown persist in sludge.
Food retailers Del Monte, Kraft and Heinz won't accept produce grown on sludge-fertilised fields. EU organic regulations - which are followed by all UK organic certification bodies - won't allow it, even though the principle of closing the nutrient cycle is one that is dear to organic hearts.
Ntifo attributes the Swiss ban to "a powerful incineration lobby". Opposition from food retailers, meanwhile, is about "a perception of perceptions". Food retailers worry what their customers think. "They are calculating their commercial risk. It's not about the science." Water UK states that "there has never been a recorded outbreak of human ill health in the UK as a result of the practice of recycling biosolids to land."
I don't know who is right. But I see the certainty of the sludge industry, and I think of a different century when engineering and science began to have inordinate confidence, which was expressed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette during an 1870 inquiry into the pollution of the Thames. The vicar of Barking and 123 of his neighbours had objected to Bazalgette's practice of discharging all London's sewage into the river. Bazalgette, called to the inquiry, showed himself to be as sure of himself as the biosolids promoters of today. The possibility that the river was being polluted was, he asserted, "entirely imaginary and contrary to the fact". Eight years later, the Princess Alice steamboat collided with a dredger near the outfall, and more than 600 people died. Survivors reported that they could not swim in such noxious waters, and that they vomited copiously. The outfalls were closed 20 years later. It is not recorded whether Bazalgette ever admitted he had been wrong.
PCBs were considered safe for decades. So was DDT. In the US, the most authoritative document on sludge is still a 2002 report by the National Academy of Sciences, which concluded that "there is no documented scientific evidence that the Part 503 rules [which govern biosolids use] have failed to protect public health". But opponents quote the following sentence instead because it reads: "However, additional scientific work is needed to reduce persistent uncertainty about the potential for adverse human health effects from exposure to biosolids." The sentences are quoted endlessly because, in Harrison's view, "there is a dearth of investigation in this area". Those two sentences are the scraps that each side fights the other over. In between, there is space for speculation and fear.
In the US, the fate of the biosolids industry may be decided by lawyers. Though three deaths of young men allegedly from sludge-linked staph infections didn't reach court (one was settled by Synagro, a sludge-applying giant now owned by the Carlyle Group), those of cows have. In 2006, a Georgia court awarded damages to a dairy farmer when 30% of his cattle died after eating sludge-applied hay, 10 times the normal mortality rate. An Associated Press investigation found that levels of thallium - a metal that can cause nerve damage - in the herd's milk were 120 times those allowed in drinking water (and that the milk was still sold for human consumption). This year, Judge Anthony Alaimo of Georgia found that another dairy farm had been acutely contaminated by sludge. Scientific data supplied by the municipality of Augusta that claimed to prove the safety of biosolids was, the judge declared, "unreliable, incomplete and in some cases fudged".
Are biosolids safe? "I am always hesitant to answer that," says Eric Davis, the land application manager for Burlington, North Carolina, which supplies the biosolids that are spread on the fields near Holt, "because safe means something to some folks and something else to others. That doesn't mean we're trying to hide anything. If safety means compliance with the letter of the law, then our biosolids are safe. There are a finite number of constituents we can test for: outside those, you're in the realm of unknowns. We're always trying to figure out the next step. We're willing to change as technology changes."
This wouldn't comfort the lone voice of opposition on the Farmers Weekly forum. Though in the minority, he was forthright. "I won't have sludge on my land. The heavy metals just sit in the plough layer waiting until someone realises there are long-term problems for animals, crops and us. I honestly believe that all those who [use sludge] will live to regret it."
• Rose George is the author of The Big Necessity: Adventures in the World of Human Waste, published by Portobello Books on Monday priced £12.99
Routemaster to take the green road
By Peter Marsh
Published: August 29 2008 19:08
Alexander Dennis, Britain’s biggest bus maker, is stepping up efforts to design a new version of the popular Routemaster bus for London, based around low-energy drive technology such as the use of novel “hybrid” engines.
Colin Robertson, chief executive of the Falkirk-based company, said 80 development engineers were devoting more time to the Routemaster project, following the call by Boris Johnson, the London mayor, to come up with a replacement for the vehicle by the time of the London Olympics in 2012.
“We’ve got a leading position in providing buses for London and we want to keep our top-dog position when it comes to the Routemaster,” Mr Robertson said.
The hybrid engines – based around a system of combining the propulsive power from diesel engines with energy stored in electric batteries – could form the basis for the designs.
Mr Robertson said its output of hybrid buses could rise from about 20 this year to “three or four hundred” by 2012, with a large proportion of these vehicles potentially for London.
The buses use of drive technology designed by BAE Systems for military vehicles.
Mr Robertson hopes to sell the hybrid engine-powered buses in overseas markets, including the US, China and Dubai. He said Alexander Dennis was considering options for building buses in the US, probably in collaboration with a US manufacturer.
It also hopes to build on a partnership in southern China where the company is this year making more than 50 buses on a site run by WZL, a Chinese bus maker, with most vehicles bound for Hong Kong.
Hybrid buses can save up to 30 per cent of the fuel used by conventional diesel-powered buses. The technology is particularly attractive for buses because their slower speeds and continual stopping and starting make the consequent cuts in energy use higher than in the case of hybrid cars.
Mr Robertson said Alexander Dennis’s sales this year should be about £315m, up from £235m last year.
About three-quarters of this year’s sales are expected to be in the UK, with a likely output of buses of about 1,600, split equally between single- and double-deckers.
Operating profits this year are expected by Mr Robertson to be about 5 per cent of sales, up from 4.3 per cent in 2007.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Published: August 29 2008 19:08
Alexander Dennis, Britain’s biggest bus maker, is stepping up efforts to design a new version of the popular Routemaster bus for London, based around low-energy drive technology such as the use of novel “hybrid” engines.
Colin Robertson, chief executive of the Falkirk-based company, said 80 development engineers were devoting more time to the Routemaster project, following the call by Boris Johnson, the London mayor, to come up with a replacement for the vehicle by the time of the London Olympics in 2012.
“We’ve got a leading position in providing buses for London and we want to keep our top-dog position when it comes to the Routemaster,” Mr Robertson said.
The hybrid engines – based around a system of combining the propulsive power from diesel engines with energy stored in electric batteries – could form the basis for the designs.
Mr Robertson said its output of hybrid buses could rise from about 20 this year to “three or four hundred” by 2012, with a large proportion of these vehicles potentially for London.
The buses use of drive technology designed by BAE Systems for military vehicles.
Mr Robertson hopes to sell the hybrid engine-powered buses in overseas markets, including the US, China and Dubai. He said Alexander Dennis was considering options for building buses in the US, probably in collaboration with a US manufacturer.
It also hopes to build on a partnership in southern China where the company is this year making more than 50 buses on a site run by WZL, a Chinese bus maker, with most vehicles bound for Hong Kong.
Hybrid buses can save up to 30 per cent of the fuel used by conventional diesel-powered buses. The technology is particularly attractive for buses because their slower speeds and continual stopping and starting make the consequent cuts in energy use higher than in the case of hybrid cars.
Mr Robertson said Alexander Dennis’s sales this year should be about £315m, up from £235m last year.
About three-quarters of this year’s sales are expected to be in the UK, with a likely output of buses of about 1,600, split equally between single- and double-deckers.
Operating profits this year are expected by Mr Robertson to be about 5 per cent of sales, up from 4.3 per cent in 2007.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
'Environmental volunteers' will be encouraged to spy on their neighbours
Councils are recruiting residents to report anyone who drops litter, fails to recycle their rubbish properly, or who allows their dog to foul the streets.
By Lucy Cockcroft Last Updated: 12:33PM BST 30 Aug 2008
Adverts are springing up around the country asking people to tell them if anyone's not sorting their rubbish out properly.
Advertisements looking for people to sign up for the unpaid "environmental volunteer" jobs have been posted across the country in recent months.
Critics said the scheme is encouraging a Big Brother society where friends and neighbours will be encouraged to "snoop" on one another.
The recruitment drive follows news that the Home Office is granting police powers to council staff and private security guards, allowing then to hand out fines for low-scale offences and ask for personal details.
Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "Snooping on your neighbours to report recycling infringements sounds like something straight out of the East German Stasi's copybook.
"With council tax so high, the last thing people want to pay for is an army of busybodies peering through their net curtains at their neighbours as they put out their rubbish."
Eastleigh council, in Hampshire, has said it wants residents to "monitor local environmental quality" to combat issues involving recycling and waste.
The local authority has already employed about a dozen people who answered an advert in a council newsletter which said: "Volunteers will be involved in reporting issues in their area such as recycling, waste, fly-tipping, graffiti, dog fouling and abandoned vehicles".
And the borough of Tower Hamlets, in east London, is advertising for similar roles within its environmental department, while other councils are expected to follow suit.
The volunteers are not asked directly to spy on neighbours, but they are encouraged not to ignore tip-offs.
A spokesman for Tower Hamlets said: "These are all people who care about the environment and they will be ambassadors for their area.
"They will be there to report graffiti, abandoned vehicles and local vandalism, but not to report on other individuals."
"And they might go to an over-60s club and talk about recycling."
The Local Government Association said: "Environment volunteers care passionately about their area and want to protect it.
"They are not snoopers. They will help councils cut crime and make places cleaner, greener and safer."
By Lucy Cockcroft Last Updated: 12:33PM BST 30 Aug 2008
Adverts are springing up around the country asking people to tell them if anyone's not sorting their rubbish out properly.
Advertisements looking for people to sign up for the unpaid "environmental volunteer" jobs have been posted across the country in recent months.
Critics said the scheme is encouraging a Big Brother society where friends and neighbours will be encouraged to "snoop" on one another.
The recruitment drive follows news that the Home Office is granting police powers to council staff and private security guards, allowing then to hand out fines for low-scale offences and ask for personal details.
Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "Snooping on your neighbours to report recycling infringements sounds like something straight out of the East German Stasi's copybook.
"With council tax so high, the last thing people want to pay for is an army of busybodies peering through their net curtains at their neighbours as they put out their rubbish."
Eastleigh council, in Hampshire, has said it wants residents to "monitor local environmental quality" to combat issues involving recycling and waste.
The local authority has already employed about a dozen people who answered an advert in a council newsletter which said: "Volunteers will be involved in reporting issues in their area such as recycling, waste, fly-tipping, graffiti, dog fouling and abandoned vehicles".
And the borough of Tower Hamlets, in east London, is advertising for similar roles within its environmental department, while other councils are expected to follow suit.
The volunteers are not asked directly to spy on neighbours, but they are encouraged not to ignore tip-offs.
A spokesman for Tower Hamlets said: "These are all people who care about the environment and they will be ambassadors for their area.
"They will be there to report graffiti, abandoned vehicles and local vandalism, but not to report on other individuals."
"And they might go to an over-60s club and talk about recycling."
The Local Government Association said: "Environment volunteers care passionately about their area and want to protect it.
"They are not snoopers. They will help councils cut crime and make places cleaner, greener and safer."
Economics is not a value-free science
Bjorn Lomborg reduces everything to numbers. But by putting a price on the priceless, we risk losing it
Oliver Tickell
guardian.co.uk,
Friday August 29 2008 13:15 BST
To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. To Bjorn Lomborg, every problem is reducible to a cost benefit analysis. At the end of it a number emerges – if it is positive, there is a benefit, if it is negative, there is a cost. Faced with a choice of policy options, all we have to do is to carry out a cost benefit analysis of the alternatives, and go with the biggest number. All other considerations are extraneous.
In Lomborg's world, the numbers he plays with take on a godlike role as representations of Platonic truths. But they are, of course, no such thing. Reality is complex and tangled – so your model has to be a highly simplified before it is even computable. Numerous assumptions must be made, and fudge factors applied. All of these inevitably reflect the values of the modeller. And so do the numbers that emerge at the end of the exercise.
For example, Lomborg's analysis of climate change impacts is entirely indifferent as to who wins and who loses. All that matters is the sum of gains and losses. This automatically places a far higher value on the interests of rich countries, where assets are valuable and incomes are high, than on those of poor countries, where assets are cheap and incomes low.
It would thus be a benefit to increase the gross product of the USA ($14tn) by 1% – a gain of $140bn – while halving the combined gross products of Nigeria ($200bn) and Bangladesh ($70bn) – a loss of $135bn. A small increment in the incomes of 300 million mainly rich people outweighs a collapse in the incomes of 300 million mainly poor people.
And then how do you put a price on Venice? On the life of a child? On the biodiversity of all those ecosystems and species at risk from climate change, from coral reefs to tropical forests, from penguins to polar bears? For the sake of simplicity many economists simply ignore the issue. And so the invaluable becomes without value.
Economic methods also systematically undervalue the future. Typically economists value a gain a year hence as worth a few percent less than the same gain right now. Applied over a longer time span, this makes a gain worth taking today if balanced by a loss 10 times greater in a century's time, or by a loss 10,000 times greater after four centuries. The Lomborgian oracle speaks: profit now, even at the risk of ruinous catastrophe a few hundred years' hence.
This may explain why Lomborg's discussion of sea-level rise stops at 2100, at which time the IPCC conservatively projects a sea-level rise of under 0.6m. Potential sea-level rises of tens of metres by 2300 simply don't matter, as the costs, however huge, can be discounted to the point of irrelevance. Just as the disastrous losses of the world's poorest billion people under the regime of drought, flood, storm and famine predicted by the IPCC is as nothing to a small increment in the wealth of the richest billion.
Not that I disagree with Lomborg about everything. He proposes a tenfold increase in expenditure on energy R&D, which he has argued elsewhere, should be financed by a global $2 carbon tax, raising some $50 billion. This is a perfectly sensible suggestion, and indeed financing for energy R&D on this scale forms part of the package of measures proposed in Kyoto2.
But this alone is an insufficient response. Clean energy sources need to be deployed as well as developed, and especially in poor countries that will otherwise commit to fossil fuel based economies. Experience shows that R&D spending will produce some wonderful new technologies, but it is only with mass production that they will become commercially competitive against fossil fuels. This deployment phase will require additional spending in poor countries many times greater than the initial R&D cost, and will need to be stimulated in the developed world by a long-term carbon cap.
The global carbon market, or a carbon tax as proposed by Lomborg, is the obvious place to look for the funds to finance our clean energy revolution. We also we need to help poor people, and poor countries, adapt to the climate change to which the Earth is already committed, to the tune of $100 billion per year. The same goes for programmes to preserve forests, maintain peatlands and sequester carbon into soils – essential measures to buffer continuing emissions from fossil fuels, increase the biosphere's resilience in the face of climate change, and conserve biodiversity.
Lomborg already supports one component of the Kyoto2 package. If he considers it with an open mind, further points of agreement may yet emerge. But first he needs recognise that economics is not a pure, value-free science. Economic models reflect the values of their creators. If an economic model tells us that it is correct to risk extinguishing much of the world's life, and perhaps the human species in the process, it is not because life is uncompetitive – the fault is in the economics.
Oliver Tickell
guardian.co.uk,
Friday August 29 2008 13:15 BST
To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. To Bjorn Lomborg, every problem is reducible to a cost benefit analysis. At the end of it a number emerges – if it is positive, there is a benefit, if it is negative, there is a cost. Faced with a choice of policy options, all we have to do is to carry out a cost benefit analysis of the alternatives, and go with the biggest number. All other considerations are extraneous.
In Lomborg's world, the numbers he plays with take on a godlike role as representations of Platonic truths. But they are, of course, no such thing. Reality is complex and tangled – so your model has to be a highly simplified before it is even computable. Numerous assumptions must be made, and fudge factors applied. All of these inevitably reflect the values of the modeller. And so do the numbers that emerge at the end of the exercise.
For example, Lomborg's analysis of climate change impacts is entirely indifferent as to who wins and who loses. All that matters is the sum of gains and losses. This automatically places a far higher value on the interests of rich countries, where assets are valuable and incomes are high, than on those of poor countries, where assets are cheap and incomes low.
It would thus be a benefit to increase the gross product of the USA ($14tn) by 1% – a gain of $140bn – while halving the combined gross products of Nigeria ($200bn) and Bangladesh ($70bn) – a loss of $135bn. A small increment in the incomes of 300 million mainly rich people outweighs a collapse in the incomes of 300 million mainly poor people.
And then how do you put a price on Venice? On the life of a child? On the biodiversity of all those ecosystems and species at risk from climate change, from coral reefs to tropical forests, from penguins to polar bears? For the sake of simplicity many economists simply ignore the issue. And so the invaluable becomes without value.
Economic methods also systematically undervalue the future. Typically economists value a gain a year hence as worth a few percent less than the same gain right now. Applied over a longer time span, this makes a gain worth taking today if balanced by a loss 10 times greater in a century's time, or by a loss 10,000 times greater after four centuries. The Lomborgian oracle speaks: profit now, even at the risk of ruinous catastrophe a few hundred years' hence.
This may explain why Lomborg's discussion of sea-level rise stops at 2100, at which time the IPCC conservatively projects a sea-level rise of under 0.6m. Potential sea-level rises of tens of metres by 2300 simply don't matter, as the costs, however huge, can be discounted to the point of irrelevance. Just as the disastrous losses of the world's poorest billion people under the regime of drought, flood, storm and famine predicted by the IPCC is as nothing to a small increment in the wealth of the richest billion.
Not that I disagree with Lomborg about everything. He proposes a tenfold increase in expenditure on energy R&D, which he has argued elsewhere, should be financed by a global $2 carbon tax, raising some $50 billion. This is a perfectly sensible suggestion, and indeed financing for energy R&D on this scale forms part of the package of measures proposed in Kyoto2.
But this alone is an insufficient response. Clean energy sources need to be deployed as well as developed, and especially in poor countries that will otherwise commit to fossil fuel based economies. Experience shows that R&D spending will produce some wonderful new technologies, but it is only with mass production that they will become commercially competitive against fossil fuels. This deployment phase will require additional spending in poor countries many times greater than the initial R&D cost, and will need to be stimulated in the developed world by a long-term carbon cap.
The global carbon market, or a carbon tax as proposed by Lomborg, is the obvious place to look for the funds to finance our clean energy revolution. We also we need to help poor people, and poor countries, adapt to the climate change to which the Earth is already committed, to the tune of $100 billion per year. The same goes for programmes to preserve forests, maintain peatlands and sequester carbon into soils – essential measures to buffer continuing emissions from fossil fuels, increase the biosphere's resilience in the face of climate change, and conserve biodiversity.
Lomborg already supports one component of the Kyoto2 package. If he considers it with an open mind, further points of agreement may yet emerge. But first he needs recognise that economics is not a pure, value-free science. Economic models reflect the values of their creators. If an economic model tells us that it is correct to risk extinguishing much of the world's life, and perhaps the human species in the process, it is not because life is uncompetitive – the fault is in the economics.
Treasury Taps PizerTo Oversee Energy
August 29, 2008;
William A. Pizer was named as the Treasury Department's deputy assistant secretary for environment and energy.
Mr. Pizer, who goes by Billy, will head a newly created office that will oversee Treasury's role in fostering the energy and environmental agenda of the U.S., both nationally and internationally.
Mr. Pizer's office will oversee such things as the newly created Clean Technology Fund, which was announced by President Bush to help encourage the development of cleaner technologies and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
Mr. Pizer spent 12 years as a researcher with Resources for the Future, a Washington-based think tank that studies global warming issues and served as an economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
The office was created by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, an avid conservationist who chaired the Nature Conservancy while also running Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
William A. Pizer was named as the Treasury Department's deputy assistant secretary for environment and energy.
Mr. Pizer, who goes by Billy, will head a newly created office that will oversee Treasury's role in fostering the energy and environmental agenda of the U.S., both nationally and internationally.
Mr. Pizer's office will oversee such things as the newly created Clean Technology Fund, which was announced by President Bush to help encourage the development of cleaner technologies and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
Mr. Pizer spent 12 years as a researcher with Resources for the Future, a Washington-based think tank that studies global warming issues and served as an economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
The office was created by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, an avid conservationist who chaired the Nature Conservancy while also running Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Despite high gas prices, Europeans find driving a hard habit to break
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
Published: August 29, 2008
ROME: High oil prices and high taxes on gasoline and diesel pushed prices at the pump to new heights in much of Europe this summer. Yet transportation experts in this laboratory of sky-high fuel prices say that many Europeans, out of necessity, habit or love, have proved surprisingly willing to bear the extra cost of driving.
That raises questions as to how effective high prices by themselves can be in achieving the ambitious targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions that European leaders have committed themselves to meeting.
Fuel prices have prompted some people to drive less, and gasoline purchases in Italy dropped 10 percent from a year earlier. Sales of gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles have plunged across the Continent, just as they have in the United States.
But there have been few signs of the wholesale shift away from driving habits that environmental economists contend is needed for European countries to meet emissions control targets. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says meeting the targets is crucial if the world is to prevent the worst effects of global warming, but car rental companies say their business is up this summer.
Many consumers appear willing to economize in other parts of their lives - eliminating vacations, movies, even birthday gifts, for example - before choosing not to drive.
"We do see reports of a significant change in the types of cars people are buying, but I've been mostly surprised at the lack of a reaction," said Peder Jensen, a transportation expert at the European Environment Agency, an arm of the European Union in Copenhagen. "One had hoped that these prices would deter driving, but people have coped better than we hoped they would."
Although sales of new cars in both Europe and the United States have slumped this year, the number of cars per person has continued to rise, partly because many people now have more than one car, according to statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Partly because of high fuel prices here, European cars are already far more efficient than those sold in the United States. The average new European car gets about 100 kilometers on just under six liters, or 40 miles to the gallon, which is double the average for new cars sold in America.
Even so, total carbon emissions from all forms of transportation in Europe are rising. They are about a quarter higher today than they were 20 years ago, while emissions from industry have declined in the same period.
The European Union has committed to reducing its overall carbon dioxide emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020 and by half by 2050. To achieve those goals, the region will have to reduce auto emissions, most likely through changes in car design, fuel types, traffic control and driving habits.
"We believe that CO2 from personal transport has to be decreased in a holistic way, with contributions from all sectors - no one thing will bring levels down," said Ivan Hodac, secretary general of the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association in Brussels. He said that if all sides cooperated, levels could come down 25 percent in the next five to seven years.
The industry is investing heavily in improving the fuel efficiency of conventional cars as well as in designing hybrids and vehicles powered by alternative energy sources like electricity and hydrogen, Hodac said. But these design changes will take at least five years to come to market, and will not solve emissions problems on their own, he added.
"Everyone puts all the pressure on the manufacturers, and we're doing our part," he said. "But others should do their part as well; nothing much has been done with driving, improving infrastructure."
For individuals, lowering transportation emissions can involve choosing more efficient vehicles, using public transportation or bicycles, driving at the most fuel-efficient speeds and avoiding trips in congested areas. Several years ago, the Netherlands instituted a program to promote such behavior, achieving a modest emissions reduction.
Recent studies have shown that rising fuel prices have to be combined with government intervention to force lasting changes in the transportation choices that people make.
Phil Goodwin, a professor of transportation policy at the University of the West of England, said research showed that a 10 percent increase in motor fuel prices produced a 6 percent to 7 percent drop in fuel consumption over five years, because people drive less and switch to cars that are more fuel efficient.
"Price appears to be a highly effective way of influencing behavior," Goodwin said. "However, price alone doesn't win popular support or acquiescence. There has to be a package of a variety of different policies, including improvements to public transport, walking and cycling."
In studies performed for the British government last year, Ben Lane, a transportation consultant based in London, found a "very wide gap" between people's attitude toward the environment and their willingness to change their driving behavior.
The costs of buying and using a car are "weak but necessary" factors in pushing people to lower their transportation emissions, he said. More effective are laws that charge people for driving based on the estimated emissions of their vehicles.
Several years ago, London instituted a hefty "congestion charge" for traditional vehicles entering the city center; hybrids and electric cars were exempt. Now, the London area has by far the greatest proportion of these alternative-fuel vehicles in the country, Lane said.
The resistance to changing driving behavior in part reflects practical problems in cities like Los Angeles and Rome with poor public transportation. At a time of low fuel prices, people bought homes and accepted jobs in locations that required a car. Malls and offices are often built where land is cheap and there are few public transportation options.
Moreover, some people seem to have the same cost-is-no-object attitude toward cars that they have toward health. Valerio Roselli, 27, who works for Warner Brothers in Rome, continues to drive his SUV to drive to work even though he could readily use public transportation. Rome's buses are hot, erratic and overcrowded, he said.
High fuel prices in Italy have forced many people to modify their habits, at least temporarily. Traffic dropped on the autostrada, a toll highway, by 2.5 percent between March and June. New car registrations are down 18.2 percent this year compared with last. Sales of Alfa Romeos, high-performance vehicles not known for the fuel economy, have dropped by 27 percent. That may reflect the flailing economy here as well as high fuel prices.
Some experts say it may take a few years to see whether Europe and the United States are nearing a tipping point for fuel prices that could affect where people live and how they get around.
"People cope for a while, and then it is not until the next time they move home or job or other such 'life events' that a new travel pattern emerges," said Goodwin, the transportation-policy professor.
"So the effect on new car sales, month by month, of changes in fuel price will be quite damped. This has led some people to think there is little or no effect, but that is probably wrong."
Published: August 29, 2008
ROME: High oil prices and high taxes on gasoline and diesel pushed prices at the pump to new heights in much of Europe this summer. Yet transportation experts in this laboratory of sky-high fuel prices say that many Europeans, out of necessity, habit or love, have proved surprisingly willing to bear the extra cost of driving.
That raises questions as to how effective high prices by themselves can be in achieving the ambitious targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions that European leaders have committed themselves to meeting.
Fuel prices have prompted some people to drive less, and gasoline purchases in Italy dropped 10 percent from a year earlier. Sales of gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles have plunged across the Continent, just as they have in the United States.
But there have been few signs of the wholesale shift away from driving habits that environmental economists contend is needed for European countries to meet emissions control targets. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says meeting the targets is crucial if the world is to prevent the worst effects of global warming, but car rental companies say their business is up this summer.
Many consumers appear willing to economize in other parts of their lives - eliminating vacations, movies, even birthday gifts, for example - before choosing not to drive.
"We do see reports of a significant change in the types of cars people are buying, but I've been mostly surprised at the lack of a reaction," said Peder Jensen, a transportation expert at the European Environment Agency, an arm of the European Union in Copenhagen. "One had hoped that these prices would deter driving, but people have coped better than we hoped they would."
Although sales of new cars in both Europe and the United States have slumped this year, the number of cars per person has continued to rise, partly because many people now have more than one car, according to statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Partly because of high fuel prices here, European cars are already far more efficient than those sold in the United States. The average new European car gets about 100 kilometers on just under six liters, or 40 miles to the gallon, which is double the average for new cars sold in America.
Even so, total carbon emissions from all forms of transportation in Europe are rising. They are about a quarter higher today than they were 20 years ago, while emissions from industry have declined in the same period.
The European Union has committed to reducing its overall carbon dioxide emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020 and by half by 2050. To achieve those goals, the region will have to reduce auto emissions, most likely through changes in car design, fuel types, traffic control and driving habits.
"We believe that CO2 from personal transport has to be decreased in a holistic way, with contributions from all sectors - no one thing will bring levels down," said Ivan Hodac, secretary general of the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association in Brussels. He said that if all sides cooperated, levels could come down 25 percent in the next five to seven years.
The industry is investing heavily in improving the fuel efficiency of conventional cars as well as in designing hybrids and vehicles powered by alternative energy sources like electricity and hydrogen, Hodac said. But these design changes will take at least five years to come to market, and will not solve emissions problems on their own, he added.
"Everyone puts all the pressure on the manufacturers, and we're doing our part," he said. "But others should do their part as well; nothing much has been done with driving, improving infrastructure."
For individuals, lowering transportation emissions can involve choosing more efficient vehicles, using public transportation or bicycles, driving at the most fuel-efficient speeds and avoiding trips in congested areas. Several years ago, the Netherlands instituted a program to promote such behavior, achieving a modest emissions reduction.
Recent studies have shown that rising fuel prices have to be combined with government intervention to force lasting changes in the transportation choices that people make.
Phil Goodwin, a professor of transportation policy at the University of the West of England, said research showed that a 10 percent increase in motor fuel prices produced a 6 percent to 7 percent drop in fuel consumption over five years, because people drive less and switch to cars that are more fuel efficient.
"Price appears to be a highly effective way of influencing behavior," Goodwin said. "However, price alone doesn't win popular support or acquiescence. There has to be a package of a variety of different policies, including improvements to public transport, walking and cycling."
In studies performed for the British government last year, Ben Lane, a transportation consultant based in London, found a "very wide gap" between people's attitude toward the environment and their willingness to change their driving behavior.
The costs of buying and using a car are "weak but necessary" factors in pushing people to lower their transportation emissions, he said. More effective are laws that charge people for driving based on the estimated emissions of their vehicles.
Several years ago, London instituted a hefty "congestion charge" for traditional vehicles entering the city center; hybrids and electric cars were exempt. Now, the London area has by far the greatest proportion of these alternative-fuel vehicles in the country, Lane said.
The resistance to changing driving behavior in part reflects practical problems in cities like Los Angeles and Rome with poor public transportation. At a time of low fuel prices, people bought homes and accepted jobs in locations that required a car. Malls and offices are often built where land is cheap and there are few public transportation options.
Moreover, some people seem to have the same cost-is-no-object attitude toward cars that they have toward health. Valerio Roselli, 27, who works for Warner Brothers in Rome, continues to drive his SUV to drive to work even though he could readily use public transportation. Rome's buses are hot, erratic and overcrowded, he said.
High fuel prices in Italy have forced many people to modify their habits, at least temporarily. Traffic dropped on the autostrada, a toll highway, by 2.5 percent between March and June. New car registrations are down 18.2 percent this year compared with last. Sales of Alfa Romeos, high-performance vehicles not known for the fuel economy, have dropped by 27 percent. That may reflect the flailing economy here as well as high fuel prices.
Some experts say it may take a few years to see whether Europe and the United States are nearing a tipping point for fuel prices that could affect where people live and how they get around.
"People cope for a while, and then it is not until the next time they move home or job or other such 'life events' that a new travel pattern emerges," said Goodwin, the transportation-policy professor.
"So the effect on new car sales, month by month, of changes in fuel price will be quite damped. This has led some people to think there is little or no effect, but that is probably wrong."
Johnson unveils secret weapon in war on climate change - the roof garden
· London mayor announces plan to soak up rainwater· Strategy outlined to deal with heatwaves and floods
David Adam, environment correspondent
The Guardian,
Saturday August 30 2008
To some they are a rural escape in the centre of the city, to others they are a chance to test their green fingers and design skills. Now London mayor Boris Johnson has found a new use for urban roof gardens - as a key weapon on the front line against global warming.
An increase in the number of rooftop gardens to soak up rainwater across the capital is among a series of measures suggested by Johnson yesterday, as part of efforts to prepare London for the effects of climate change.
The mayor's adaptation strategy, billed as a world first, aims to address the challenges of flooding, extreme temperatures and drought. It calls for compulsory water metering, greater awareness of flood risks and more tree planting, alongside stronger efforts to resist attempts by local authorities and insurance companies to fell existing urban trees.
The mayor's team said they were also looking to copy a heatwave emergency plan used in US cities, including Philadelphia, where old and vulnerable people are collected in air-conditioned buses and taken to cool public buildings, such as libraries, shopping centres, churches and offices.
Despite previously attacking the Kyoto Protocol - which regulates international carbon emissions - as "pointless" and saying that anxiety over climate change was "partly a religious phenomenon" Johnson now admits that the 2006 Stern review on the issue had convinced him of the need to act. "When the facts change, you change your mind," he said.
Launching the strategy at the Thames Barrier, in east London, he said: "We need to concentrate efforts to slash carbon emissions and become more energy efficient in order to prevent dangerous climate change. But we also need to prepare for how our climate is expected to change in the future. The strategy outlines in detail the range of weather conditions facing London, which could both seriously threaten our quality of life, particularly that of the most vulnerable people, and endanger our pre-eminence as one of the world's leading cities."
He said the strategy, which is a legal requirement under the Greater London Authority Act, put London in a strong position.
"London is not unique. All major cities, such as New York and Tokyo, are at risk from climate change," he said.
The strategy does not address so-called mitigation of climate change - measures to reduce emissions - but Johnson said he supported a target set by the previous mayor, Ken Livingstone, to slash carbon pollution 60% by 2025. He said measures to meet the target would include incentives for Londoners to better insulate their homes and switch to more efficient condensing boilers. His team is assessing whether households could be given council tax rebates for adopting such energy-saving measures.
Global warming is expected to give London and its surrounding area longer, hotter summers as well as warmer, wetter winters with the added problems of more frequent heatwaves, droughts and flash floods from rising sea levels and downpours. About 600 Londoners died as a result of the 2003 heatwave that killed about 15,000 in France, while low rainfall during 2004 and 2005 led to water shortages in the capital.
Fifteen per cent of London is at high risk from flooding due to global warming - an area including 1.25 million people, almost half a million properties, more than 400 schools, 75 underground and railway stations, 10 hospitals and London City airport. At stake is an estimated £160bn worth of assets, not just in London, but along the Thames estuary, where large housing developments are planned.
Johnson said work was under way to address stifling summertime temperatures on the underground network, with air cooling on subsurface tube lines to begin in 2010. By 2015, he said all trains on subsurface lines, around 35-40% of the network, would be air-cooled.
The draft adaptation strategy, which will be finalised next year, calls for a citywide "urban greening" programme, using green spaces and trees to absorb and retain rainwater, and pledges to map London's drainage network to reduce surface water flood risk. It also recommends greater use of rainwater harvesting and "grey water" recycling in new buildings, as well as London-specific guidance for designers and architects to reduce the risk of buildings overheating in summer.
Jenny Bates, of Friends of the Earth, said: "It is essential that the capital prepares for the impacts of climate change, which is already affecting Londoners through increased flood risk, heavier and more frequent downpours and extreme heat. But Boris Johnson is also committed to cutting London's carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 2025 in order to prevent dangerous climate change, and has so far failed to explain how he will achieve this.
"The mayor must provide a comprehensive action plan for reducing emissions that includes ways to make it cheaper and easier for Londoners to go green."
Key points
On flooding
Citywide urban greening programme based on green spaces and trees to soak up water
Campaign to raise public awareness of flood risk
Identify and protect critical infrastructure and vulnerable communities
On drought
Reduce leakage from water mains
Compulsory water metering where feasible
Rainwater harvesting and 'grey water' use
On heatwaves
Enhanced access to air-cooled buildings for London's vulnerable people
Specific guidance to architects
Requirement for new developments to help cool the city
David Adam, environment correspondent
The Guardian,
Saturday August 30 2008
To some they are a rural escape in the centre of the city, to others they are a chance to test their green fingers and design skills. Now London mayor Boris Johnson has found a new use for urban roof gardens - as a key weapon on the front line against global warming.
An increase in the number of rooftop gardens to soak up rainwater across the capital is among a series of measures suggested by Johnson yesterday, as part of efforts to prepare London for the effects of climate change.
The mayor's adaptation strategy, billed as a world first, aims to address the challenges of flooding, extreme temperatures and drought. It calls for compulsory water metering, greater awareness of flood risks and more tree planting, alongside stronger efforts to resist attempts by local authorities and insurance companies to fell existing urban trees.
The mayor's team said they were also looking to copy a heatwave emergency plan used in US cities, including Philadelphia, where old and vulnerable people are collected in air-conditioned buses and taken to cool public buildings, such as libraries, shopping centres, churches and offices.
Despite previously attacking the Kyoto Protocol - which regulates international carbon emissions - as "pointless" and saying that anxiety over climate change was "partly a religious phenomenon" Johnson now admits that the 2006 Stern review on the issue had convinced him of the need to act. "When the facts change, you change your mind," he said.
Launching the strategy at the Thames Barrier, in east London, he said: "We need to concentrate efforts to slash carbon emissions and become more energy efficient in order to prevent dangerous climate change. But we also need to prepare for how our climate is expected to change in the future. The strategy outlines in detail the range of weather conditions facing London, which could both seriously threaten our quality of life, particularly that of the most vulnerable people, and endanger our pre-eminence as one of the world's leading cities."
He said the strategy, which is a legal requirement under the Greater London Authority Act, put London in a strong position.
"London is not unique. All major cities, such as New York and Tokyo, are at risk from climate change," he said.
The strategy does not address so-called mitigation of climate change - measures to reduce emissions - but Johnson said he supported a target set by the previous mayor, Ken Livingstone, to slash carbon pollution 60% by 2025. He said measures to meet the target would include incentives for Londoners to better insulate their homes and switch to more efficient condensing boilers. His team is assessing whether households could be given council tax rebates for adopting such energy-saving measures.
Global warming is expected to give London and its surrounding area longer, hotter summers as well as warmer, wetter winters with the added problems of more frequent heatwaves, droughts and flash floods from rising sea levels and downpours. About 600 Londoners died as a result of the 2003 heatwave that killed about 15,000 in France, while low rainfall during 2004 and 2005 led to water shortages in the capital.
Fifteen per cent of London is at high risk from flooding due to global warming - an area including 1.25 million people, almost half a million properties, more than 400 schools, 75 underground and railway stations, 10 hospitals and London City airport. At stake is an estimated £160bn worth of assets, not just in London, but along the Thames estuary, where large housing developments are planned.
Johnson said work was under way to address stifling summertime temperatures on the underground network, with air cooling on subsurface tube lines to begin in 2010. By 2015, he said all trains on subsurface lines, around 35-40% of the network, would be air-cooled.
The draft adaptation strategy, which will be finalised next year, calls for a citywide "urban greening" programme, using green spaces and trees to absorb and retain rainwater, and pledges to map London's drainage network to reduce surface water flood risk. It also recommends greater use of rainwater harvesting and "grey water" recycling in new buildings, as well as London-specific guidance for designers and architects to reduce the risk of buildings overheating in summer.
Jenny Bates, of Friends of the Earth, said: "It is essential that the capital prepares for the impacts of climate change, which is already affecting Londoners through increased flood risk, heavier and more frequent downpours and extreme heat. But Boris Johnson is also committed to cutting London's carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 2025 in order to prevent dangerous climate change, and has so far failed to explain how he will achieve this.
"The mayor must provide a comprehensive action plan for reducing emissions that includes ways to make it cheaper and easier for Londoners to go green."
Key points
On flooding
Citywide urban greening programme based on green spaces and trees to soak up water
Campaign to raise public awareness of flood risk
Identify and protect critical infrastructure and vulnerable communities
On drought
Reduce leakage from water mains
Compulsory water metering where feasible
Rainwater harvesting and 'grey water' use
On heatwaves
Enhanced access to air-cooled buildings for London's vulnerable people
Specific guidance to architects
Requirement for new developments to help cool the city
The mayor must act on global warming
I welcome today's strategy on coping with climate change, but it's time Boris Johnson backed up his amusing words with action
Jenny Jones
guardian.co.uk,
Friday August 29 2008 15:30 BST
I'm asking myself when the honeymoon period for the new mayor will be over, and when Londoners can be expected to see real progress rather than lots of erudite chatter and vague promises. This administration seems to lack any sense of urgency about the terrifying issue of climate change, preferring instead to tackle the issue of drinking on the tube (when was that a problem?) and cutting as much as they can from the GLA budget without first understanding what valuable work, and where, was being done.
The mayor's adaptation strategy, launched today, is about how London will cope with the changes to its climate from carbon emissions that have already been produced and are already doing damage. I welcome its arrival and look forward to the companion piece, the mitigation strategy, later this year. Having the adaptation strategy does not mean you accept future emissions, just that you are preparing to deal with already unavoidable climate changes due to emissions produced so far. The mitigation strategy is about how to reduce our future emissions and our burden on the rest of the planet.
However, this adaptation strategy is largely the same as that prepared under the previous, much-maligned administration. All the ideas are sound, all are component parts of resisting the inevitable encroachment of climate change, with its floods and shortages, but the crucial part is understanding when and how it will be delivered.
Therefore, Greens are now calling for strong and timely action from the mayor. A litmus test would be support for speedy delivery of the East London Green Grid, a massive project that has mapped all the green areas in the Thames Gateway and seeks to protect them for food growing space, leisure space and flood defences. It will mean that the future development of that area, with its houses, shops and businesses, will be better to live in, work in and visit. It's an excellent and necessary scheme for the health of us all, delivered by Design for London, which Johnson has wound up. So in spite of all his fine words so far on the environment, will projects like the Green Grid, nurtured by the previous mayor, be thrown out because he doesn't really get the environment?
Please, enough very amusing chat, just get on with the job.
Jenny Jones
guardian.co.uk,
Friday August 29 2008 15:30 BST
I'm asking myself when the honeymoon period for the new mayor will be over, and when Londoners can be expected to see real progress rather than lots of erudite chatter and vague promises. This administration seems to lack any sense of urgency about the terrifying issue of climate change, preferring instead to tackle the issue of drinking on the tube (when was that a problem?) and cutting as much as they can from the GLA budget without first understanding what valuable work, and where, was being done.
The mayor's adaptation strategy, launched today, is about how London will cope with the changes to its climate from carbon emissions that have already been produced and are already doing damage. I welcome its arrival and look forward to the companion piece, the mitigation strategy, later this year. Having the adaptation strategy does not mean you accept future emissions, just that you are preparing to deal with already unavoidable climate changes due to emissions produced so far. The mitigation strategy is about how to reduce our future emissions and our burden on the rest of the planet.
However, this adaptation strategy is largely the same as that prepared under the previous, much-maligned administration. All the ideas are sound, all are component parts of resisting the inevitable encroachment of climate change, with its floods and shortages, but the crucial part is understanding when and how it will be delivered.
Therefore, Greens are now calling for strong and timely action from the mayor. A litmus test would be support for speedy delivery of the East London Green Grid, a massive project that has mapped all the green areas in the Thames Gateway and seeks to protect them for food growing space, leisure space and flood defences. It will mean that the future development of that area, with its houses, shops and businesses, will be better to live in, work in and visit. It's an excellent and necessary scheme for the health of us all, delivered by Design for London, which Johnson has wound up. So in spite of all his fine words so far on the environment, will projects like the Green Grid, nurtured by the previous mayor, be thrown out because he doesn't really get the environment?
Please, enough very amusing chat, just get on with the job.
London's defences against climate change to tackle heat and rain
The mayor of London has outlined his strategy to protect the city from the effects of global warming, including turning the rooftops of the city into gardens to soak up downpours
David Adam
guardian.co.uk,
Friday August 29 2008 17:06 BST
To some they are a rural escape in the centre of the city, to others they are a chance to test their green fingers and design skills. Now London mayor Boris Johnson has found a new use for urban roof gardens – as a key weapon on the frontline against global warming.
An increase in the number of rooftop gardens to soak up rainwater across the capital is among a series of measures suggested by Johnson today, as part of efforts to prepare London for the effects of climate change.
The mayor's adaptation strategy, billed as a world-first, aims to address the challenges of flooding, extreme temperatures and drought. It calls for compulsory water metering, greater awareness of flood risks, and more tree planting, alongside stronger efforts to resist attempts by local authorities and insurance companies to fell existing urban trees.
The mayor's team said they were also looking to copy a heatwave emergency plan used in US cities including Philadelphia, where old and vulnerable people are collected in air-conditioned buses and taken to cool public buildings. They said libraries, shopping centres, churches and offices across the city could be used.
Johnson, who has previously dismissed the Kyoto Protocol, which regulates international carbon emissions, as "pointless" and said anxiety over climate change was "partly a religious phenomenon" said the 2006 Stern Review which investigated the issue had convinced him of the need to act. "When the facts change, you change your mind," he said.
Launching the strategy at the Thames barrier, he said: "We need to concentrate efforts to slash carbon emissions and become more energy efficient in order to prevent dangerous climate change. But we also need to prepare for how our climate is expected to change in the future. The strategy outlines in detail the range of weather conditions facing London, which could both seriously threaten our quality of life, particularly that of the most vulnerable people, and endanger our pre-eminence as one of the world's leading cities."
He said all major cities were at risk from climate change, and that the strategy, which is a legal requirement under the Greater London Authority Act, put London in a strong position. "London is not unique. All major cities such as New York and Tokyo are at risk from climate change."
The strategy does not address so-called mitigation of climate change, measures to reduce emissions, but Johnson said he supported a target set by previous mayor Ken Livingstone to slash carbon pollution 60% by 2025. He said measures to meet the target would include incentives for Londoners to better insulate their homes and switch to more efficient condensing boilers. His team is assessing whether households could be given council tax rebates for adopting such energy-saving measures.
Global warming is expected to give London and its surrounding area longer, hotter summers as well as warmer, wetter winters with the added problems of more frequent heat waves, droughts and flash floods from rising sea levels and downpours. Some 600 Londoners died as a result of the 2003 heat wave that killed about 15,000 in France, while low rainfall during 2004 and 2005 led to water shortages in the capital.
Some 15% of London is deemed at high risk from flooding due to global warming – an area including 1.25 million people, almost half a million properties, more than 400 schools, 75 underground and railway stations, 10 hospitals and London City airport. At stake is an estimated £160bn worth of assets, not just in London, but along the banks of the Thames estuary, where large housing developments are planned.
Johnson said work was under way to address stifling summertime temperatures on the underground network, with air cooling on sub-surface tube lines to begin in 2010. By 2015, he said all trains on subsurface lines, around 35-40% of the network, will be air cooled.
The draft adaptation strategy, which will be finalised next year, calls for a citywide 'urban greening' programme, using green spaces and trees to absorb and retain rainwater, and pledges to map London's drainage network to reduce surface water flood risk. It also recommends greater use of rainwater harvesting and "grey water" recycling in new buildings, as well as London-specific guidance for designers and architects to reduce the risk of buildings overheating in summer.
Jenny Bates of Friends of the Earth said: "It is essential that the capital prepares for the impacts of climate change, which is already affecting Londoners through increased flood risk, heavier and more frequent downpours and extreme heat.
"But Boris Johnson is also committed to cutting London's carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 2025 in order to prevent dangerous climate change, and has so far failed to explain how he will achieve this. The mayor must provide a comprehensive action plan for reducing London's emissions that includes ways to make it cheaper and easier for Londoners to go green."
David Adam
guardian.co.uk,
Friday August 29 2008 17:06 BST
To some they are a rural escape in the centre of the city, to others they are a chance to test their green fingers and design skills. Now London mayor Boris Johnson has found a new use for urban roof gardens – as a key weapon on the frontline against global warming.
An increase in the number of rooftop gardens to soak up rainwater across the capital is among a series of measures suggested by Johnson today, as part of efforts to prepare London for the effects of climate change.
The mayor's adaptation strategy, billed as a world-first, aims to address the challenges of flooding, extreme temperatures and drought. It calls for compulsory water metering, greater awareness of flood risks, and more tree planting, alongside stronger efforts to resist attempts by local authorities and insurance companies to fell existing urban trees.
The mayor's team said they were also looking to copy a heatwave emergency plan used in US cities including Philadelphia, where old and vulnerable people are collected in air-conditioned buses and taken to cool public buildings. They said libraries, shopping centres, churches and offices across the city could be used.
Johnson, who has previously dismissed the Kyoto Protocol, which regulates international carbon emissions, as "pointless" and said anxiety over climate change was "partly a religious phenomenon" said the 2006 Stern Review which investigated the issue had convinced him of the need to act. "When the facts change, you change your mind," he said.
Launching the strategy at the Thames barrier, he said: "We need to concentrate efforts to slash carbon emissions and become more energy efficient in order to prevent dangerous climate change. But we also need to prepare for how our climate is expected to change in the future. The strategy outlines in detail the range of weather conditions facing London, which could both seriously threaten our quality of life, particularly that of the most vulnerable people, and endanger our pre-eminence as one of the world's leading cities."
He said all major cities were at risk from climate change, and that the strategy, which is a legal requirement under the Greater London Authority Act, put London in a strong position. "London is not unique. All major cities such as New York and Tokyo are at risk from climate change."
The strategy does not address so-called mitigation of climate change, measures to reduce emissions, but Johnson said he supported a target set by previous mayor Ken Livingstone to slash carbon pollution 60% by 2025. He said measures to meet the target would include incentives for Londoners to better insulate their homes and switch to more efficient condensing boilers. His team is assessing whether households could be given council tax rebates for adopting such energy-saving measures.
Global warming is expected to give London and its surrounding area longer, hotter summers as well as warmer, wetter winters with the added problems of more frequent heat waves, droughts and flash floods from rising sea levels and downpours. Some 600 Londoners died as a result of the 2003 heat wave that killed about 15,000 in France, while low rainfall during 2004 and 2005 led to water shortages in the capital.
Some 15% of London is deemed at high risk from flooding due to global warming – an area including 1.25 million people, almost half a million properties, more than 400 schools, 75 underground and railway stations, 10 hospitals and London City airport. At stake is an estimated £160bn worth of assets, not just in London, but along the banks of the Thames estuary, where large housing developments are planned.
Johnson said work was under way to address stifling summertime temperatures on the underground network, with air cooling on sub-surface tube lines to begin in 2010. By 2015, he said all trains on subsurface lines, around 35-40% of the network, will be air cooled.
The draft adaptation strategy, which will be finalised next year, calls for a citywide 'urban greening' programme, using green spaces and trees to absorb and retain rainwater, and pledges to map London's drainage network to reduce surface water flood risk. It also recommends greater use of rainwater harvesting and "grey water" recycling in new buildings, as well as London-specific guidance for designers and architects to reduce the risk of buildings overheating in summer.
Jenny Bates of Friends of the Earth said: "It is essential that the capital prepares for the impacts of climate change, which is already affecting Londoners through increased flood risk, heavier and more frequent downpours and extreme heat.
"But Boris Johnson is also committed to cutting London's carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 2025 in order to prevent dangerous climate change, and has so far failed to explain how he will achieve this. The mayor must provide a comprehensive action plan for reducing London's emissions that includes ways to make it cheaper and easier for Londoners to go green."
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