[News] from [guardian.co.uk]
[Environment > Climate Camp]
Climate Camp activists launch direct action on City of London
Campaigners set up Climate Change Casino outside carbon trading exchange
Peter Walker
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 27 August 2009 10.41 BST Article history
Environmental activists from the Climate Camp protest today launched their first direct action in the City of London since setting up a temporary base in a park overlooking Docklands and Canary Warf.
Around a dozen people from the group, who yesterday took over part of Blackheath common in the south-east of London, occupied the entrance to the Climate Exchange on Bishopsgate.
Wearing evening dresses and dinner suits, the protestors unrolled a Climate Change Casino board along with fake banknotes and over-sized playing cards in the columned entrance gate to the exchange's courtyard.
Staff were not prevented from entering or leaving, and – in keeping with promises for a "community-style" approach at the Climate Camp following complaints of heavy-handed and violent policing during April's G20 – officers from the City of London force made no initial attempt to break the event up.
Activists stood on the pavement outside the exchange, yelling, "Roll up to the Climate Change Casino!" bringing the occasional toot of support from cars, but mainly looks of bafflement from passing office workers.
Leila Deen, one of the protesters, who is best known for throwing green custard over Peter Mandelson as an anti-airport expansion stunt, said this year's Climate Camp had long planned to target the exchange.
"I think a lot of people inside here believe they're doing something good for the environment, but our message is that they're not," she said. "Too many governments are using carbon trading as an excuse not to cut emissions. People are making a lot of money on this, but nothing is really being done."
Up to 2,000 people are expected to stay at the Climate Camp site at any one time from now until the end of Tuesday, when it closes. Volunteers spent much of yesterday unpacking tents, marquees, composting toilets and communal kitchens from trucks to cope with the numbers.
As well as a base for direct action, the camp is intended to be a focal point for activists to meet and exchange information and learn protest techniques. It is also intended as a place where local people and the curious can see environmental methods at work, and how a community can organise itself in a non-hierarchical way, with decisions taken by consensus.
[Environment > Ceo-engineering]
Fake trees, algae tubes and white roofs among UK engineers' climate solutions
Report from Institute of Mechanical Engineers calls for £10m to develop geo-engineering ideas that would be 'an integral part' of the solution to global warming
Alok Jha, green technology correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 27 August 2009 Article history
Artificial trees and tubes of algae on the sides of buildings could absorb most of the UK's annual carbon dioxide emissions, according to a report from engineers that will be circulated at party conferences in the autumn.
In research examining the role that geo-engineering could play in tackling climate change, a 12-month study by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IME) also found that painting city roofs white could also prove to be a simple but effective way to curb excessive global warming.
Geo-engineering is a set of technologies that could prevent or slow global warming - it includes everything from sending mirrors into space to reflect away sunlight to dumping iron into the oceans to encourage the growth of algae, thereby removing atmospheric CO2. For their study, the IME searched for ideas that were most practical and could have impacts on CO2 or global energy use levels as soon as possible.
Setting out their recommendations in a report published today, the IME called on the British government to put up £10m aimed at turning the three most promising ideas into reality. They advocate this being part of a £100m global fund for geo-engineering research.
"Geo-engineering is no silver bullet, it just buys us time," said Tim Fox of the IME, who led the study. "We're not proposing that geo-engineering should be a substitute for mitigation [but] should be implemented alongside mitigation and adaptation."
Top of their list of practical solutions that would be low-carbon to build and require only existing technologies were artificial trees. These units, invented by Columbia University scientist Klaus Lackner, would be the size of a standard shipping container and could remove CO2 directly from the atmosphere. "100,000 trees would take up an area of around 600 hectares, which is less than 10% of the surface area of the Firth of Forth, and that would be able to absorb the CO2 emissions of the UK's non-power sector annually," said Fox.
Currently the UK produces 556 megatonnes of CO2 per year and the 100,000 trees could absorb around 60% of that amount. The engineers calculated that forests of artificial trees powered by renewable energy and located near depleted oil or gas fields, where the trapped CO2 could be buried, would be thousands of times more efficient than planting trees over the same area.
Making each artificial tree would require energy and materials but this would only account for 5% of the CO2 that the device could capture in its lifetime. On a global scale, between 5-10m artificial trees could absorb the CO2 emitted from all sources other than power stations.
Another geo-engineering solution highlighted by the engineers was attaching tubes filled with algae to the sides of buildings. "Algae is a naturally-occurring eco-friendly biomass that tends to have a high level of CO2 use in photosynthesis," said Tom Bowman of IME. The algae that grows can be collected and turned into charcoal, which can be buried so that the CO2 it has captured is locked away from the atmosphere.
Painting roofs white was recommended by the engineers to counteract the urban heat island effect, where major cities can be up to 4C hotter than their suburbs. This means more use of air conditioning or other cooling methods and it also speeds up the formation of smog. The IME said that reflective roofs can reduce the energy use of a building by up to 60%.
Fox said that global carbon emissions had continued to rise despite two decades of attempts at mitigation, so geo-engineering should not be regarded by policymakers as a plan B, but an integral part of the solution to global warming. "£10m would get us significantly far forward in terms of sorting out the wheat from the chaff in this debate," he said. "The government can then look at piloting them and testing them in the field and then making decisions about their deployment."
[Environment > Climate Camp]
Climate Camp activists launch direct action on City of London
Campaigners set up Climate Change Casino outside carbon trading exchange
Peter Walker
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 27 August 2009 10.41 BST Article history
Environmental activists from the Climate Camp protest today launched their first direct action in the City of London since setting up a temporary base in a park overlooking Docklands and Canary Warf.
Around a dozen people from the group, who yesterday took over part of Blackheath common in the south-east of London, occupied the entrance to the Climate Exchange on Bishopsgate.
Wearing evening dresses and dinner suits, the protestors unrolled a Climate Change Casino board along with fake banknotes and over-sized playing cards in the columned entrance gate to the exchange's courtyard.
Staff were not prevented from entering or leaving, and – in keeping with promises for a "community-style" approach at the Climate Camp following complaints of heavy-handed and violent policing during April's G20 – officers from the City of London force made no initial attempt to break the event up.
Activists stood on the pavement outside the exchange, yelling, "Roll up to the Climate Change Casino!" bringing the occasional toot of support from cars, but mainly looks of bafflement from passing office workers.
Leila Deen, one of the protesters, who is best known for throwing green custard over Peter Mandelson as an anti-airport expansion stunt, said this year's Climate Camp had long planned to target the exchange.
"I think a lot of people inside here believe they're doing something good for the environment, but our message is that they're not," she said. "Too many governments are using carbon trading as an excuse not to cut emissions. People are making a lot of money on this, but nothing is really being done."
Up to 2,000 people are expected to stay at the Climate Camp site at any one time from now until the end of Tuesday, when it closes. Volunteers spent much of yesterday unpacking tents, marquees, composting toilets and communal kitchens from trucks to cope with the numbers.
As well as a base for direct action, the camp is intended to be a focal point for activists to meet and exchange information and learn protest techniques. It is also intended as a place where local people and the curious can see environmental methods at work, and how a community can organise itself in a non-hierarchical way, with decisions taken by consensus.
[Environment > Ceo-engineering]
Fake trees, algae tubes and white roofs among UK engineers' climate solutions
Report from Institute of Mechanical Engineers calls for £10m to develop geo-engineering ideas that would be 'an integral part' of the solution to global warming
Alok Jha, green technology correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 27 August 2009 Article history
Artificial trees and tubes of algae on the sides of buildings could absorb most of the UK's annual carbon dioxide emissions, according to a report from engineers that will be circulated at party conferences in the autumn.
In research examining the role that geo-engineering could play in tackling climate change, a 12-month study by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IME) also found that painting city roofs white could also prove to be a simple but effective way to curb excessive global warming.
Geo-engineering is a set of technologies that could prevent or slow global warming - it includes everything from sending mirrors into space to reflect away sunlight to dumping iron into the oceans to encourage the growth of algae, thereby removing atmospheric CO2. For their study, the IME searched for ideas that were most practical and could have impacts on CO2 or global energy use levels as soon as possible.
Setting out their recommendations in a report published today, the IME called on the British government to put up £10m aimed at turning the three most promising ideas into reality. They advocate this being part of a £100m global fund for geo-engineering research.
"Geo-engineering is no silver bullet, it just buys us time," said Tim Fox of the IME, who led the study. "We're not proposing that geo-engineering should be a substitute for mitigation [but] should be implemented alongside mitigation and adaptation."
Top of their list of practical solutions that would be low-carbon to build and require only existing technologies were artificial trees. These units, invented by Columbia University scientist Klaus Lackner, would be the size of a standard shipping container and could remove CO2 directly from the atmosphere. "100,000 trees would take up an area of around 600 hectares, which is less than 10% of the surface area of the Firth of Forth, and that would be able to absorb the CO2 emissions of the UK's non-power sector annually," said Fox.
Currently the UK produces 556 megatonnes of CO2 per year and the 100,000 trees could absorb around 60% of that amount. The engineers calculated that forests of artificial trees powered by renewable energy and located near depleted oil or gas fields, where the trapped CO2 could be buried, would be thousands of times more efficient than planting trees over the same area.
Making each artificial tree would require energy and materials but this would only account for 5% of the CO2 that the device could capture in its lifetime. On a global scale, between 5-10m artificial trees could absorb the CO2 emitted from all sources other than power stations.
Another geo-engineering solution highlighted by the engineers was attaching tubes filled with algae to the sides of buildings. "Algae is a naturally-occurring eco-friendly biomass that tends to have a high level of CO2 use in photosynthesis," said Tom Bowman of IME. The algae that grows can be collected and turned into charcoal, which can be buried so that the CO2 it has captured is locked away from the atmosphere.
Painting roofs white was recommended by the engineers to counteract the urban heat island effect, where major cities can be up to 4C hotter than their suburbs. This means more use of air conditioning or other cooling methods and it also speeds up the formation of smog. The IME said that reflective roofs can reduce the energy use of a building by up to 60%.
Fox said that global carbon emissions had continued to rise despite two decades of attempts at mitigation, so geo-engineering should not be regarded by policymakers as a plan B, but an integral part of the solution to global warming. "£10m would get us significantly far forward in terms of sorting out the wheat from the chaff in this debate," he said. "The government can then look at piloting them and testing them in the field and then making decisions about their deployment."
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