Going Green Podcast, Video blog and Daily News

  Climate change is definitely affecting the UK climate. Farmers are now struggling to achieve double cropping on the same field, growing two crops in the same year effectively. The low rainfall this spring and summer has seen to that. So, we can expect the crop yields to be down. And with the lack of water there has been a significant amount of pressure on the potato yield which is expected to be down on last year making the cost rise. However, in all this gloom there have been benefits to this climate change as now the UK is a great place to grow grapes and of course manufacture wine from them, so we should see an increase in the wine production this year. As the climate changes farmers are going to need to adapt to the crops grown.

  Pakistan is the eighth-most vulnerable country in the world to extreme weather. So far this year  Sindh in the southeast has had 784% of its normal rainfall levels while Balochistan in the southwest has had 522%  of its normal rainfall levels   this year. The monsoon season came early and at present shows no signs of abating.  The rising global temperatures, which reached almost 50C in the city of Nawabshah earlier this year, are causing the glaciers to melt and form glacial lakes.  Around 3,000 new lakes have formed, with officials warning 33 of them are currently at risk of bursting. This is all to do with climate change and this situation will not go away. Climate change here is measured in the number of lives lost. The world need climate zero now and needs to go carbon negative soon.

  Researchers from Osaka Metropolitan University have managed to create fumarate using artificial photosynthesis on pyruvate and CO 2 .  In plants, natural photosynthesis binds carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) to organic compounds, which can then be converted into glucose or starch. These useful molecules can be sequestered, storing the carbon in a solid form. Artificial photosynthesis mimics this process by reducing the greenhouse gas CO 2  -- the main cause of climate change -- which is converted into other useful substances.  This fumarate can be used to make biodegradable plastic like polybutylene succinate, storing the carbon in a compact, durable, solid form. Currently, most fumarate used to make this plastic is produced from petroleum, so creating fumarate from CO 2  and biomass-derived pyruvate is highly desirable.  With this success, the team has already begun researching new methods of artificial photosynthesis with the goal of producing fumarate using ligh...

  The Seagreen Offshore Wind Farm is under construction around 27km from the coast of Angus in the North Sea. The first turbine has just joined the grid producing electricity.  This is a  joint venture between TotalEnergies (51%) and SSE Renewables (49%). Seagreen will be Scotland’s largest and the world's deepest fixed foundation offshore wind farm once complete.  114 turbines are currently being installed with a total installed generating capacity of 1,075MW and will be fully operational in Q2 2023.  The power generated will be exported to the grid via a new substation at Tealing near Dundee.    The 114 turbines will provide enough green energy to power more than 1.6 million homes, equivalent to two-thirds of all Scottish homes.  They will also displace over 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from electricity generated by fossil fuels every year – similar to removing more than a third of all of Scotland’s annual car emissions and making a signif...

The first of many Liquid Natural Gas ships have arrived in the UK from Australia in an effort to help Europe and the UK with the Russian Gas Crisis. The UK will take and store some of this gas to replace the gas that is normally purchased from Norway, with at present is being diverted to Europe. The UK has little in the way of gas storage so much of this gas will be shipped to Europe via the pipelines as well. Europe has large Gas storage and during the winter months the UK could see this gas piped back to the UK. Due to the vast distances it is not economically viable to send ships half way around the world, but with the cost of Gas sky rocketing and Russia invading Ukraine there is little choice.

A carbon offset broadly refers to a reduction in Greenhouse Gas emissions – or an increase in carbon storage (e.g., through land restoration or the planting of trees) – that is used to compensate for emissions that occur elsewhere. For a Carbon offset to work, we first need to measure and establish how much greenhouse gas emissions that you emit personally or on a organisational level. Once steps have been taken to reduce these, you are then allowed to pay money to offset any emissions that you cannot reduce. for doing this you receive a Credit/coin/certificate that you have offset those emotions and are now Carbon neutral or Net Zero. HOWEVER, if you haven't reduced before you've offset - which quite a lot of companies have done - then all that's happening is your greenwashing everything!

   I looked at my Carbon footprint the other day and found that the biggest problem was that of eating meat a couple of days a week.  Arable crops, some of which are fed to farm animals, occupy 12% of the planet’s land surface. Land for grazing occupies  26%  for the production of pasture-fed meat and milk. This area, that farm animals feed upon  produces just 1% of the world’s protein . This is not economically viable. The two worst culprits worldwide are sheep and cattle.    A review of evidence from over 100 studies  found that when livestock are removed from the land, the abundance and diversity of almost all groups of wild animals increases. So these animals are also bad for the environment.  The  Knepp rewilding project  in Sussex  shows just how far production has to fall  to permit the return of trees and other wildlife. This project generates just 54kg of meat a hectare which makes farming uneconomical. ...