Dispatches: Great Green Smokescreen

Channel four had an interesting and somewhat concerning episode of Dispatches tonight. The Great Green Smokescreen was all about carbon offsetting and the different ways companies calculate the carbon foot print of you and I. It also illustrated the projects that large multi-national companies are using to offset their carbon emissions.

Like all things on TV nowadays you have to take them with a pinch of salt, but if what they presented is true then it seems that there are a lot of people out there that are being duped into handing over money to companies who claim they are going to offset their carbon emissions.

Personally I've never seen carbon offsetting as a solution to any of the problems we are facing, I think it's great that the projects that are behind carbon offsetting are being done but I don't think there is any need to sell those projects as a way of clearing some ones conscious.

The most interesting part of the program was when they pointed out the fact that the vast majority of the carbon offsetting projects would have gone ahead and can survive easily without the money being given to them by the carbon offsetting companies. The question then becomes what exactly have you paid all that money for if it's not actually going to contribute to running the carbon offsetting projects?

There also seems to be some major holes in some of the projects that are used to offset the carbon. For example one of the major offsetting projects is planting trees, trees have been proven to be possibly the most efficient way of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere which obviously makes them a good starting point for offsetting. The only problem is because trees are living things and a natural resource there is no guarantee that they will remove the amount of carbon expected in their lifetime. An entire young forest could die from disease, which would mean they never had a chance to offset the required carbon. Things like forest fires are becoming more and more common around the world, meaning that trees are being burnt and more carbon is being put into the atmosphere instead of being offset. All kinds of things could happen.

Another worrying thing was the fact that some companies were buying the right to sell carbon offsets to people from existing woodland, this would mean you were effectively paying for something that could have been there for hundreds of years naturally growing. In this case you wouldn't have actually added anything new, you would effectively be buying the carbon offsetting power of some ones tree.

None of this seems quite right to me and in some cases I would have thought it could be bordering on fraud. It wouldn't surprise me, if as green issues become more and more popular we'll see a lot of "Carbon offsetting" companies appearing trying to make a quick couple of quid selling people effectively nothing.

The worst part of it all was that none of the companies could agree on how much carbon was emitted on such things as flights. One of the examples was a flight from England to Australia, which was quoted by one company as being about 3 tonnes of CO2 where as another company decided it was going to be 7 tonnes. If these companies are going to take peoples money for this service they provide then surely the least they could do would be to get the calculations right.

All of the companies featured were admittedly funding some very worthwhile projects, most of which were concentrating on re-planting forests and creating more sustainable sources of power, but like the program pointed out most of these projects would still have gone ahead without the money from the carbon offsetting.

I'm still going to work on the principal of prevention is better than cure and recommend that instead of paying someone to offset your carbon footprint why not have a go at reducing it yourself. If you take a look around this site there are plenty of tips to try so why not give it a go.

Live Earth: Did it get the message across

I would have to say both yes and no.

Yes they mentioned at every possible point that something needed to be done and they kept pointing out that humans had done the damage and the only way to stop it would be for us to change our ways, the only problem was they didn't really suggest any ways for people to change.

I don't know what the Live Earth coverage was like in other countries but frankly I think the BBC could have done a much better job of it. Most of the interviews I saw were lackluster and at best consisted of celebrities preaching that something should be done while you could see a guilty look in their eyes indicating that they weren't doing it themselves.

For such a big event there was little to no promotion what so ever. I don't think I saw a single advert on the BBC indicating the show was coming up and I feel that there may be a lot of people who watched it on the off chance who may have come away from it still feeling they didn't really know what it was all about.

The actual physical amount of time that was dedicated to the event however was great. Anyone flicking channels on that day wouldn't have been able to miss at least a small amount of the concert, so hopefully its usefulness as a tool for getting peoples attention was significant. However there wasn't a clear message being projected throughout the event and there certainly wasn't any sign of educating people on how they could do their bit.

Most other major events that are either fundraising or raising awareness of an issue usually have a very strong message running throughout the proceedings. Take Children in need for example, even though they fill an evening with lots of entrainment the core message is always being thrown at you with moving films showing you the actual changes you could make, educating you about the issues that the event is taking on. I feel Live Earth lacked this central message and didn't push forward any educational material to really get across to people what they could do to help and how they could do it.

Even if you take a look at the official Live Earth website now, there is more information on there about their commercial partners and the fact they had a concert then there is educational material to help people be more environmentally friendly.

Everyone knows there is a climate issue it's on the news everyday. We don't need anymore big events to "raise awareness", what we really need is better education to allow people to make a difference.

I wonder how much the Live Earth event actually cost to put together, and how many free composters, power saving light bulbs, home solar and wind installations and bicycles could have been bought with the money and given to people who actually want to make a difference.

If these people have the power to shout about the problem as loud as they do then surely they also have the power to do something practical about it. Next time someone has an idea like this I hope they stop and think how much of a difference they could really make if the time, money and resources were used in a different way.

Makes me think that maybe its time to start writing some environmentally educational articles. I already have one which is rather basic on energy saving light bulbs, so I might do another revision of this with more information especially now the prices of bulbs have dropped considerably.

Tesco Tetra Pak Recycling Update

Just over a month ago I posted about Tesco setting up Tetra Pak recycling points at some of their stores around the UK.

Information about where the stores are is a little thin on the ground so I emailed Tesco and today their nice people in customer services sent me back a list of all the stores that currently have the recycling points.

The information includes the store number, name of the store and something to do with "With Clubcard", I'm not entirely sure what this is, but I assume it means that you will be given Tescos green club card points if you recycle at these places. If anyone knows for sure it would be much appreciated if you'd post in the comments.

2030 Andover - With Clubcard at present
2055 Baldock Extra - With Clubcard at present
2126 Borehamwood Extra
2131 Brent Cross Hendon Way
2329 Cheshunt Brookfield - With Clubcard at present
2296 Colney Hatch
2654 Hatfield Extra
2651 Havant - With Clubcard at present
2642 Hayes Bulls Bridge
2586 Hoover Building
2394 Lakeside Extra
2128 Osterley
3060 Pitsea Extra
3055 Portsmouth North Harbour
3086 Rainham Extra
3120 Romford Gallows
3108 Royston
3190 Southampton - With Clubcard at present
3324 Twickenham Extra
3372 Watford Extra
3406 Winchester

So if your local store is on the list then get down there and start recycling that Tetra Pak.

Tetra Pak recycling update (6/11/07)