Going Green

We live in a throwaway society, a place where businesses products have Planned Obsolescence built into them. this all started in 1924, representatives of the world's leading lightbulb manufacturers formed Phoebus, a cartel that fixed the average life of an incandescent bulb at 1,000 hours, ensuring that people would have to regularly buy bulbs and keep the manufacturers in business. With the advancement of technology in our society creates the desire for convenience in our consumption is another waste and pollution contributor. A large part of this problem stems from products being overly packaged. Produced by Philip M Russell Ltd Web: http://www.hemelprivatetuition.co.uk

The Winter Olympics of 2022 are nearly over, in this weeks podcast, Paul and Philip look at the sustainability at Winter Olympics 2022.

With the Beijing Winter Olympics using 100% artificial snow, a thing that could become the new norm as the planet heats up due to climate change. 

It is estimated that 49 million gallons of water have been used to make the artificial snow for the 2022 Games, despite Beijing being one of the most water-scarce cities in the world.

Beijing wrote a  sustainability report for the Games last year, it said it would use renewable energy for the venues and recycle water resources.

It said: “We shall give priority to ecological and resource conservation, environmental friendliness, and contribute to a beautiful environment.”

The Question  "why are cars bad for the environment" is very simple, they burn fossil fuels and making them creates emissions! however, just because old cars have a poor reputation for being “gas guzzlers” which makes them bad for the environment. However, a surprising new study reveals trading in your old car for a brand new electric vehicle may actually be doing more harm than good.

Researchers in Japan say choosing to keep and drive your older cars longer leads to fewer emissions entering the environment.

And whereas shopping for new cars to be a process of comparing different brands and models, now you also have to choose whether you want one you can fill up at the gas station – or plug into the wall.

On the one hand, purchasing second hand cars, avoids all of the carbon emissions and raw materials needed to make a new one, although the fuel-economy might not be on par with today’s standards – not to mention the extra servicing and maintenance.

in this episode of Going green, Paul and Philip discuss what has happened in Paris, France, and why and how the congestion charge helps get cars off the road.

In April 2022 (till 2026), The UK government will give out grants of £5,000 for people who will install heat pumps instead of new gas boilers. the reason for this that heat pumps are a zero carbon heating solution that will help homeowners make the transition to low carbon heating solutions to heat up their homes and contribute to reduced emissions. However there are a few things to keep in mind which we are talking about in this podcast episode.

In todays podcast we look at the idea of Environmental, social and corporate governance Scoring or ESG score. it grew out of a investment practice called Socially Responsible Investing (SRI). ESG investing and analysis, on the other hand, looks at finding value in companies—not just at supporting a set of values. Why is this important, the reason is that Aviva Investors, has put the directors of 1,500 companies on notice and that it is willing to seek their removal (from their investing group) if they fail to show enough urgency in tackling issues including the climate crisis and human rights! But how does a company show what its doing to Investors, by generating a Environmental, social and corporate governance score! Additionally with Investors wanting Green companies to invest in, they need to know how green a company is. At COP21, The Paris Agreement Capital Transition Assessment (PACTA)was created to be a free, open-source methodology and tool, which measures financial portfolios' alignment with various climate scenarios consistent with the Paris Agreement, which is developed into Environmental, social and corporate governance Score. If a company want to improve there Environmental, social and corporate governance Score they might want to introduce Science-based targets. these provide a clearly-defined pathway for companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, helping prevent impacts of climate change and future-proof business growth. Targets are considered ‘science-based’ if they are in line with what the latest climate science deems necessary to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement – limiting global warming to well-below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.

In this episode we look at the mayor's of London plan to ease traffic congestion to improve air quality and reduce air pollution About 40,000 deaths in Britain each year are linked to air pollution with most of the pollution coming from traffic congestion. therefore the mayor of London has proposed some changes to the congestion charge to help pay for air pollution reducing measures. We explore that getting rid of cars would prevent traffic, but would not help the people living in metropolitan areas. perhaps reducing traffic, by introducing cycle lanes and bus routes will help but who would pay for this. 

Seen companies marketing their goods with Eco Buzz words? this marketing ploy is called greenwashing, it trying to convince customers that the company is making positive environmental choices. 

The Statement "this podcast is CFC free" is a easy example of greenwashing. a claim that is true, wholesome and environmentally friendly. but if you think twice about it, Most/all podcast are CFC free because they dont use any CFC to make them, its an easy claim to make but doesn't make actually make any difference to climate change, this is the problem with greenwashing.

The term greenwashing was first coined in the 1980s in an essay by environmentalist Jay Westerveld. In this essay, he criticized the hotel industry’s “save your towel” movement for preying on guests’ environmental sensibilities. While this movement was disguised as a way for guests to help hotels conserve water and save the planet, it essentially only cut down on laundry labour expenses for the hotel and made a minimal difference in water usage.

Why is greenwashing so prevalent today? In short — because it works. A 2015 Nielson poll found that two-thirds of shoppers are willing to pay more for eco-friendly goods and that half consider a product’s sustainability before deciding whether to purchase.

We look at if a climate change prevention strategy of planting a tree to offset carbon emission. Recently in wales an investment company is set to offer tree planting as a way for companies to offset their carbon emission. Locals welsh farmers are unhappy with this due to the idea that having a forest would be ruining the landscape.... Surely this should be the other way around. In other news, we look at rewilding project that are happening in the UK, like a herd (4) of European bison is being re introduced to the UK (Kent) as well as the oyster seeding of rivers in the UK.

With the huge tornadoes that brought disaster to 6 States happened last week we were shocked to find out that these tornadoes didn't occur in tornado alley, wondering if climate change had anything to do with it

it turns out that there are more tornadoes outside tornado alley than in! we discuss how does climate change impact tornadoes, as well as other things which such as the distinct line that separates the arid from the humid zones of America.
This was described John Wesley Powell the famous geologist and explorer. this sharp climatic Boundary is slowly shifting east and we have seen this this week with the devastating tornadoes in Kentucky and other states. 

The famous tornado alley now has moved a couple of hundred miles east. This change is solely due to climate change and it is also seen in the Sahara desert as that has grown by 10% over the last 30 years. The US boundary which was on the 100th Meridian now sits well and truly on the 98th meridian and it will continue to move east as the global warming temperatures increase the evaporation from the soil and the precipitation patterns across United States continue. So states like Kentucky can expect more tornadoes in the near future.

How do we grow More food with Less space. With the an estimated 9 billion people to be living on this planet by 2050, 100% more food will be required to feed them, but we limited on space or arable land so what can we do. 

currently Food production make up 26% of our CO2 equivalent emissions already and we really do not want to increase it, so we -as a species- got get more efficient. whether that is with more organic farming techniques such as crop rotation or just better policies such as wild areas amongst the crops to prevent as much pesticide and herbicide being used. 

Another way to help feed more people is to change our diets, introduce more efficient calories such as pulses rather than beef...

A cheap way of growing more food of course is to use space that plants could never habitat, this is the idea of vertical farming, by using space above the plants more plants can be grown and therefore more food!