Tag: environment

Counting on … day 72

22nd March 2024

Carbon sequestration is a formal name given to the processes by which carbon is captured from the atmosphere and stored on a long-term basis. Such long-term storage might include peat bogs, forests, kelp beds etc and may be referred to as ‘carbon sinks’.

Carbon sequestration can be used as a means of  mitigating the effects of climate change. This can be biologically by, for example, planting more forests, restoring peat bogs and wetlands, and re-establishing kelp meadows. This natural sequestration can be enhanced, in the case of forests, by using felled timber to make items such as buildings, furniture etc and keeping those items for hundreds of years. However growing trees for timber needs to be carefully managed to a) maximise the carbon captured by the growing tree, and b) to maximise the flourishing of biodiversity.

Carbon can also be sequestered geologically if the CO2 can be captured  eg from a cement factory. Then the CO2 “can be compressed to ≈100 bar into a supercritical fluid. In this form, the CO2 could be transported via pipeline … and  injected deep underground, typically around 1 km, where it would be stable for hundreds to millions of years.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration)

Counting on … day 71

21st March 2024

The carbon cycle 

The earth’s systems have various ways of absorbing and using carbon dioxide in such a way as to enable life to flourish. Plants absorb carbon dioxide as part of the process of photosynthesis storing the carbon as cellular material  in their leaves, branches etc. Plants release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere as they respire – breathe. A living growing plant absorbs more carbon dioxide than it releases. When the plant dies, the carbon that has been stored as leaves and branches etc slowly decays – breaks down – and the carbon returns to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. This is as true of water and marine plants as it is true of land plants. 

 (For a short video describing how trees absorb and use  carbon – https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/climate-change/carbon-trees/)

Soil in part is made up of dead plant and animal material which decays slowly overtime. Soil is therefore a storer of carbon.

The seas and oceans also contain carbon dioxide that is dissolved in the water. This carbon dioxide cycles through the water as marine plants take in, store and release the carbon as they grow. Marine waters  and the layers of sediment at the bottom of the seas and oceans store carbon in the same way as does soil. 

This brings us back to an earlier post about how much carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere (measured in part per million) and the rate at which that concentration is increasing due to human activities – https://greentau.org/2024/02/19/counting-on-day/

Counting on … day 67

15th March 2024

The UK government runs a National Adaptation Programme which assesses the risks arising from climate change and how best we can adapt to reduce of cope with these risks – as well as building on any opportunities where we can gain from change. These plans are reviewed and every five years a new National Adaptation Programme is produced. NAP3 covers the period from 2023 to 2028. It includes items such as:

  • “protecting the natural environment
  • supporting business in adapting to climate change
  • adapting infrastructure (for example, our electricity networks and railways)
  • protecting buildings and their surroundings (for example, from hotter temperatures)
  • protecting public health and communities
  • mitigating international impacts on the UK (for example, on food supplies imported from abroad)”

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/third-national-adaptation-programme-nap3/understanding-climate-adaptation-and-the-third-national-adaptation-programme-nap3

But are the plans sufficiently stringent? 

“Julia King, chair of the adaptation subcommittee of the CCC, said: “The evidence of the damage from climate change has never been clearer, but the UK’s current approach to adaptation is not working. The national adaptation plan published last July, known as Nap3, was the third in a series of five-yearly updates in response to an assessment of climate risks, required under the 2008 Climate Change Act, from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

“But the CCC found that although it was an improvement on previous efforts, the new plan was still inadequate and required improvement before the next scheduled update in 2028.

“King said: “Defra needs to deliver an immediate strengthening of the government’s programme, with an overhaul of its integration with other government priorities such as net zero and nature restoration. We cannot wait another five years for only incremental improvement.”” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/13/uk-climate-crisis-plans-fall-far-short-of-what-is-required-ccc-says?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

For further reading – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66148239

Counting on … day 50

21st February 2024

1.5C is the level of warming within which we should be trying to stay if we are to avoid an unbearably worse deterioration of the global climate. This figure is the product of over 6,000 scientific references, and was prepared by 91 authors from 40 countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Global_Warming_of_1.5_°C

This is not to say that even with global warming at 1.5C there won’t be adverse effects. The extreme hot summer temperatures, floods, wild fires, droughts, and storms that we have experienced over the last few years will now be the norm. Glaciers, sea ice and ice caps will continue to melt and disappear, causing rivers to dry up in the summer, and elsewhere raising sea levels. The change in climate is already altering natural habitats reducing numbers of plants, birds, animals, insects etc, and having similar adverse effects on agriculture. Food and water security are already being threatened. Warming oceans is reducing marine life. All this will increase as temperatures rise.

Each fraction of a degree of further global warming  will accentuate these problems for all life forms. The charts show  how much greater would be the effects of 2C warming over 1.5C. 


Green Tau: issue 87

8th February 2024

What is the purpose of running a business?

A business is an enterprise that sells something it makes or sells a service it provides. It can be a one person operation or a multinational employing thousands. 

The business operation will incur costs and will remain viable provided it covers those costs. The business may need capital to get started or to expand it operation, and it may need loans to balance out peaks and troughs in its cash flow. Usually the business will over time earn more from what it sells than its costs and so makes a profit. Such profits are usually kept by the people owning the business. In some cases that might be some or all of the people who work in the business, in some cases it might be both employees and customers (eg a cooperative), and in some cases it might be external shareholders.

The success of a business is usually equated with its ability to make a profit. A successful business makes large profits, less successful businesses make smaller profits, and those that make no profit close down. 

But is profit the only way of measuring success? What about customer satisfaction? What about being a good employer? What about the business’s contribution to the stability and wellbeing of the local community? 

Thames Water makes high profits and has the worst for receiving complaints from customers. Might a more successful water company be one that best provides what customer need – clean, reliable drinking water?

Amazon is highly profitable company but many of its employees are both poorly paid and subject to stressful working conditions. Employees feel they are being constantly monitored and that even taking time to go to the toilet is counted against them. Might a  successful company be one that provides long term secure employment that gives job satisfaction, wages that support comfortable living standards, and credible pension? It could be us or our neighbour or our children who are looking for gainful employment.

Small rural communities – and increasingly deprived urban communities – are finding that they have no local bank, fresh food shops, dental surgery etc as the pressure to maintain profits pushes business to leave an area or to downsize. This is not good for the local community and can become a spiral where the more businesses leave, the more quickly the area becomes depressed and the more other businesses leave. With the businesses go local jobs. The heart of the community is quickly lost. Might a successful business be one that adds vitality to its community, is valued by local people and keeps jobs and money circulating with the community?

Actually in all three of these scenarios one might feel that the customer’s wishes were not be valued by the businesses. What has happened to the understanding that ‘the customer is always right’? How often have you been held on a phone call to have the oft repeated – but barely credible – ‘Your call is important to us’ automatically relayed to you? 

It does seem that the idea that the main purpose of a business is to make a profit does not benefit the consumer nor the community. Further what we are now increasingly seeing, is that the primacy of profit is also detrimental to the environment. 

In Herefordshire the large number of industrial scale chicken farms has led to high levels of effluent running into the River Wye, polluting it with phosphorus and killing its wildlife. 

In Spain strawberry growers have been abstracting so much water for their crops, that the Doñana national park – a renowned wetland area – is being depleted of water threatening the survival of many plants and creatures including flamingos, spoonbills and the glossy ibis. 

Globally the burning of fossil fuel products has triggered an escalating climate crisis threatening all forms of life, whilst the fossil fuel companies have continued to make recording breaking profits. 

One approach to this problem is to replace the traditional bottom line of ‘loss or profit’ with a ‘triple bottom line’ which measures the business’s impact over three area: economic, environmental and  social – or the 3Ps: people, planet and profit. It is however harder to find ways of measuring the loss and profit aspects of people and planet, and of doing so in a way that allows for comparison across businesses. How do we put a price on community stability or clean air?

Suffolk Libraries commissioned a research company to assess the value of their libraries. Using surveys, focus groups and modelling, the researchers found ways of measuring the social impact of the services the libraries offered that translated into monetary values. They concluded that for every £1 spent, the social value gained was £6.07.

The environmental impact of a business might be measured in terms of carbon emissions, or in terms of the cost of making good damage to the environment. If the chicken farms in Herefordshire has to pay the cost of cleaning and revitalising the River Wye, it would make a significant impact on the bottom line of their businesses. In 2021 local MPs wrote to the government asking for £15 million to clean up the river.

One  organisation that has developed a way of measuring  better business

practices is B Lab. This not-for-profit international organisation has developed a certification system that “measures a company’s entire social and environmental performance. From supply chain and input materials to charitable giving and employee benefits, B Corp Certification verifies that a business is meeting high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.” Successful businesses become certified as B Corps. (For more info – https://bcorporation.uk/)

The campaign for better business practices is ongoing and seeks to include not just those businesses with a conscience, but to extend the expectation of good practice in all the 3Ps, to all businesses. B Lab UK and a coalition of more than 2400 businesses, is campaigning to amend Section 172 of the Companies Act. At present this section directs  businesses should prioritise the success – ie the profitability – of the company for the benefit of its members – ie shareholders. The proposed amendment would direct that businesses should prioritise the purposes – ie the social, economic and environmental impacts – of the company. (For more info – https://betterbusinessact.org/   and https://thehumanbusiness.co.uk/better-business-act/)

 Change in the way businesses operate is both possible and achievable.

Counting on …. Day 28

28th January 2024

Support campaigns that mitigate the climate crisis

We know many of the causes of the climate crisis and by addressing these, we can reduce the scale and impact of the climate crisis. However such  mitigation is not always popular when they threaten vested interests. Solutions are possible but sometimes it is necessary to campaign to win over government support and to give a voice to marginalised groups.  

The biggest contribution to the climate crisis comes from the fossil fuel industry and the burning of its products. Traditionally the fossil fuel industry has produced huge profits for investors, with no obligation to make recompense for the pollution caused. They are multi national organisations which exert great pressure on governments and the public through lobbying and advertising.

Nevertheless campaign groups are able to affect change in the practices of fossil fuel companies that benefit the climate. 

Climate Action Network explains  how they “successfully stopped the Cambo oil field by making Shell pull out of the project. No one act alone stopped this project. From direct action to legal pressure, political lobbying to media scrutiny, local community outreach to online actions – every act added up to force the industry to face a ‘death knell’ for fossil fuel extraction in the North Sea. And we can do it again.” 

Now they are continuing to campaign against the government’s decision to approve the development of the Rosebank oil field – You can support the case by adding your name here.

I am part of Christian Climate Action and regularly campaign against companies, projects and practices that contribute to the climate crisis – https://christianclimateaction.org/

You can also be a campaigner by joining groups such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the RSPB.

For more information on Rosebank – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/04/uk-government-admits-rosebank-oil-will-not-be-kept-in-uk-to-boost-energy-security?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

 Counting on … day 305

10th September 2022

Refocusing our environmental lifestyle should also include our finances. We can in small ways influence the environmental protection that financial world gives through our choice of bank, mortgage lender, insurance provider and pension fund. All these financial institutions invest money (our money in fact) to gain a return that finances their product. Where they invest their money can impact the environment. For example if they invest in companies that produce fossil fuels, they are financing the continued production of green house gases. If they invest in companies that manufacture plastic packaging, they are financing the continued production of the commonest form of litter. If they invest in companies that produce tobacco, they are financing the continued production of an addictive and carcinogenic commodity. 

For more insight into the environmental issues around banks see this Ethical Consumer report. They also provide ratings for different financial institutions covering current accounts, savings accounts and mortgages etc. To access these you will need to be a subscriber. 

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/money-finance/how-your-bank-could-be-funding-global-deforestation-climate-disaster

For more information on pensions and pension funds see https://makemymoneymatter.co.uk/ which strongly advocates swopping your pension as the most effective way of tackling climate change. (However if, like me, you don’t have a portable pension this won’t be possible. Nevertheless you can still keep asking your pension provider to adopt an environmentally responsible approach to its investment strategy). 

Good with Money is another useful website  https://good-with-money.com/

Counting on …day 299 

4th September 2022

Environmentally kind resolutions can include our gardens – making space and caring for nature. You might set aside part of your garden for wildlife. Climate  change places extra pressures on wildlife so give them a helping hand by encouraging wild plants (weeds) to colonise part of your garden. Nettles are very good for ladybirds and butterflies, dandelions flowers are good for bees and dandelion seeds are tasty food for goldfinches.

For further thoughts see  https://greentau.org/2022/04/04/the-green-tau-issue-39/ and 

Eco Tips: Welcoming Garden Birds

Laudate Si: discussion notes 3

“…humanity has changed profoundly, and the accumulation of constant novelties exalts a superficiality which pulls us in one direction… Let us refuse to resign ourselves to this, and continue to wonder about the purpose and meaning of everything.” Section 113

  1. Let’s wonder. What is the purpose and meaning of creation? 

2. Is creation God’s gift to us to do with it what ever we want? 

Has it been given to us so that we can benefit from it, in return for tending it?

Has it been given to us so that we can continue to work with God as co-creators of a still evolving creation?

3. Is creation a stockpile of resources from which we can pick and choose individual bits with no regard for the rest?

If we harvest all the sand eels to make fish oils, do we have a responsibility for puffins and other creatures that rely on sand eels for food?

If we chop down the forest to create grazing land, do we have a responsibility for plants and animals that will die because the land will dry out?

If we replace jungle with palm oil plantations, do we have a responsibility to re-home the orang-utans who lived there?

4. In an ideal world, governments would collaborate and legislate to protect the environment, and to prevent such abuse and misuse of resources. As we do not live in such a world, what can we as individuals and as groups do to protect the environment?

5. Pope Francis reminds us, section 115, that not only has God given us the earth, God has also given us the gift of our fellow human beings. Do we treat them any better than the way we treat rest of creation? 

Can you think of examples of humans been treated as commodities, or as a means to an end?

6. If we fail to treat all human beings with respect and care, are we surprised that humans struggle to care for the environment?

7. Conversely can we properly care for the environment, if we do not also care for the humans who inhabit the same space? 

Can we protect African elephants unless we also pay attention to the needs of the local farmers and businesses who occupy the same land? Can we protect mangroves from clearance for shrimp fisheries unless we provide alternative employment opportunities? Can we rewild grouse moors unless we provide alternative employment for local people?

8. Pope Francis, in section 124, reminds us that God created the first humans not to do nothing, but to tend and till the earth, ie to work. Their work was to assist what grew in the garden and to benefit each other’s well being – and presumably that of the animals too. To work gainfully is a Godly calling – a vocation – for humanity. 

In what ways do you feel that your life fulfils that vocation?

9. “Work should be the setting for this rich personal growth, where many aspects of life enter into play: creativity, planning for the future, developing our talents, living out our values, relating to others, giving glory to God.” Section 127

Do all people have access to such opportunities? Do all people find in their work the means of glorifying God? What prevents people experiencing work in these ways?

Could it equally be that case that some people become so overwhelmed by work, that these benefits are lost?

10. We are learning to understand the concept of sustainable development, and of the sustainable use of resources. Should we also be thinking in terms of sustainable employment?

What might that look like? How might it give a sense of meaning and purpose to life?

11. How might we measure this? In terms of a living wage, of job satisfaction, of the degree of autonomy in making decisions, quality of the working environment, levels of team work and co working?

12. How might we as residents of a comfortable suburb, enable or promote sustainable employment for a greater number of people? 

What questions or reassurances might we seek from employers and producers? How might we use our purchasing power to good effect?

Thank you God

for giving us a vocation 

to be tillers and carers of the earth.

Remind us that it is a vocation we share with 

all that lives on this planet

so that we may be attentive to the needs and gifts of all.

Amen