Hot off the presses from the English Midlands (Leicestershire, to be precise) comes the source of an awful pun that I couldn’t even leave until later in the article. Sorry.

As a regular bus user, I do wonder why my legs always seem to be melting next to the heaters, even though the weather outside may be perfectly clement. It seems as though the denizens of Arriva Bus in Leicestershire, and probably everywhere else, haven’t thought that a thermostat might come in handy.

Here’s the article from the Leicester Mercury:

Passengers are being driven to despair by buses leaving the heating on in hot weather – often because drivers’ cabs are not equipped with on-off switches.

Regular public transport users say that on sunny days it has felt like they are being driven around in mobile cookers.

When route 58 regular Bill Barson, of Netherhall, Leicester, wrote to Arriva to ask why his supermarket shopping was being cooked before he had chance to get it home, he was taken aback by their response.

The heating can only be turned off via a tap under the engine, according to a letter from the firm’s customer service department, which added that: “This is not usually done until the warm weather is more settled.”

The Mercury experienced the heating still on on a 51A Arriva bus into the city last Thursday.

Three years ago Arriva spent £9.5 million on a new fleet of buses for Leicestershire.

Disgruntled passenger Mr Barson said: “Why buy buses with such a stupid set-up?

“They are trying to get more people to leave their cars at home and use buses, but who wants to go on the bus when they are throwing out heat like a mobile Tandoori oven?

“It’s got to the point now where I do not go into town as much because I would rather not be hot and bothered.”

When contacted by the Mercury, an Arriva spokesman gave a slightly different story to the customer service department.

Spokesman Keith Myatt said: “Having spoken to engineers at Thurmaston, the buses used on the 58 service have a mechanism in the cab whereby the driver can adjust the heating.

“He would not have to wait for an engineer to make an adjustment.

“There are some older vehicles in the fleet where an engineer is needed to make the adjustment but these are generally not allocated.”

However, passengers at St Margaret’s Bus Station said that Mr Barson was not the only one feeling hot under the collar.

Pensioner Albert Hargrave uses the Arriva 27 bus to get into Leicester from his home in Ratby.

The 88-year-old said: “You can definitely feel the heating on your legs even when it is a sunny day – it does seem that they are not able to turn it off.”

Melanie Ward, 23, of Kibworth regularly uses Arriva’s X3 service to travel to work in the city. She said the problem was worse on single-decker buses.

She said: “When they send the coach instead of the bus, it’s always baking hot on that.” Bus group First admitted that its vehicles had a similar problem. Its double-decker buses are kept warm by a radiator system that sees hot water from the engine pumped through 150ft of copper piping. It can only be turned off by engineers.

Spokesman Leon Daniels said an instruction had now been sent out to switch off the heating on all of its vehicles for summer.

He said: “Unfortunately it is one of those nuisances of technology, which we look forward to technology one day being able to solve.”

Now, I’m not a genius, but I suspect I solved the problem in my introduction (Hint: Thermostat). But more bizarre is the last quote from the Arriva man: “which we look forward to technology one day being able to solve.”

This is actually a pretty serious mental condition; when you think that the only way of solving a problem is the further application of technology. Greenwashing is full of techno-fixes — so much so that there is an entire category dedicated to it on this blog — and it is not surprising, considering that the industrial system will never accept that nature has most, if not all of the answers, and our obsession with “progress” will ultimately lead to our demise.

If you can convince people that climate change, ecological devastation, food shortages, peak oil, social inequality, disease and dispair can all be solved with a quick application of technology, then you (as a corporation, usually) can keep on selling utopia to the world’s population in the form of the “miracle of technology”. Are we so dumb and brainwashed that we can’t see the lie?

Are you a budding journalist who really cares about the planet?

Do you want to make a splash, while at the same time let people know how badly we are treating the Earth?

Are you a hypocrite?

Then you need to enter the Earth Journalism Awards.

Send us your Best Climate Change Reports!

Print, radio, TV and online journalists, photojournalists, bloggers from around the world are invited to participate in the Earth Journalism Awards.

Send us your best stories on climate change before September 7 2009 (12.00 pm, Paris-time, GMT+2) and win a trip to cover the Copenhagen Climate Summit!

Internews’ Earth Journalism Awards encourage high-quality local climate change coverage leading up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, December 7-18 2009 in Copenhagen (COP15).

A total of 14 awards are now open for entry:

Seven Regional Awards on current affairs and news reporting on climate change: Eurasia, South Asia, East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East & North Africa, Latin America & the Caribbean, and North America, Europe & Australia.

Six Thematic Awards: The Negotiations Award, The Human Voices Award, The Energy Award, The Forests Award, The Climate Change and Nature Award, and The Climate Change Adaptation Award.

The 14th award – the Global Public Award – will be chosen by the public, which will be invited to vote online for the best story drawn from the winning regional and thematic awards through a social networking campaign on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Look out for the 7th thematic award – The MTV Positive Change Award. It will be open for entry from June 22 2009 to creative youth between 18 and 28.

Winners will be flown to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen this December, where they will cover these pivotal negotiations and be honoured at a high-profile awards ceremony.

People who care about more than just winning a fancy, polluting prize, need not apply.

I had a very exciting delivery yesterday: I had a new mobile phone (cellphone) through the post. It’s one of those Nokia ones that flip out so you can use the mini keyboard to type messages, which is perfect for me because I have very small fingers to go with the very small keys. Actually, I say ‘new’ but actually you can’t buy these any more, it was second hand from eBay (and I know it’s second hand because it has a small scuff mark at the top) and works fine – it makes phone calls and sends text messages; should it do anything else?

When I used to be an IT manager, I was continually offered upgrades, but turned them all down — the phone I started with was basically the phone I finished with, and the one that I ended up using for another 2 years until the screen became too scratched to see through (from rubbing on keys in my pocket) and the green “call” button stopped working, which is obviously quite an important thing for a phone. I would say it was 7 years old when it finally broke. I have replaced it with exactly the same model.

What a rubbish consumer that makes me.

Now we see Sony Ericsson touting a “green” phone.

Mobile phone company Sony Ericsson will unveil two ‘green’ handsets tomorrow with a carbon footprint 15% lower than current models. By cutting packaging, using recycled plastics and reducing the use of solvents in the paints, the electronics company claims to have made the handsets more environmentally friendly.

The new phones, the C901 GreenHeart and the Naite, part of what Sony Ericsson says will be a revised portfolio of environmentally friendly phones to be rolled out in the next two years. It is also part of the company’s wider mission to cut 20% of its total carbon emissions by 2015.

Of course, if you want a ‘green’ phone you will have to get rid of any phone you already have (Hey! You can recycle it, so that’s alright then! [sigh]) and buy this new replacement, which obviously — like everything in the consumer electronics industry — has some nifty new features, like telling you how many calories your dinner contains, or allowing you to see through brick walls, or something like that. If new goods didn’t have new features then (disaster!) people wouldn’t feel they had to replace their old* equipment; they would just be content with using it until it broke down, which is terrible for the economy.

Sadly, Greenpeace didn’t feel the need to mention this when asked about the ‘green’ phone (why does no one ever ask me?):

Iza Kruszewska, toxics campaigner at Greenpeace UK welcomed the new phones from Sony Ericsson and said that the company had a good record in reducing its use of harmful chemicals. But she said the company should increase the number of its recycling points around the world. “They do mention their ambition to increase the number of collection points and take-back schemes they have globally but they are well behind Nokia on this.”

Yay! “Increase the number of its recycling points” — not “stop making us buy more crap all the time”, but “Increase the number of…recycling points.” I think that says all we need to know about the ‘radical’ nature of Greenpeace. According to Greenpiss (the new name for “Greenpeace-Lite”), you can keep buying loads of crap, and if it’s got ‘green’ credentials then you don’t even have to feel guilty about it…

(* I say “old”, but the fashion obsolescence treadmill keeps redefining old so that you feel obliged to buy new stuff even when your existing stuff is still new!)

I came across a page on the Suncor web site today. Suncor produce oil from tar sands and oil shales in Canada.

Here is what they say about the environment:

Today, Canadians are asking the oil sands industry to do more – take decisive action on global and regional environmental issues. Suncor plans to be around for a long time and we know success over the long term depends on addressing a wide range of stakeholder concerns.

Environmental stewardship and responding to the needs of our communities is just as important to the economic well-being of our society as upgraders, pipelines or refineries. We are working hard to reduce the amount of water and natural gas we use, limit the level of greenhouse gas emissions and air contaminants, and reduce the length of time it takes to reclaim disturbed lands.

Responsible development makes good business sense. By investing a significant portion of today’s production revenues into tomorrow’s technologies, we expect to deliver a big environmental payoff. Technology will help us find ways to develop existing and new energy resources more efficiently and with far less impact on the environment.

So, we must accept that the extraction of oil from sand and shale will be around “for a long time”, must we?

I would like to write more, but I don’t really need to — it is all here for you to read…

I was taking a bus into the centre of a nearbye town a few months ago, and noticed that the development of a new “Park and Ride” scheme was nearing completion — so said the signs. It was being promoted as part of a “sustainable” transport policy, yet I was taking the bus all the way from my town to this town, but could well have caught the train instead. If I had lived a bit closer I might have considered cycling, except there are no cycle paths to speak of. This got me pondering the logic of Park and Ride with my cynical mind, and I quickly realised that it was simply a way of drawing more people from outlying areas into major towns who would otherwise shop locally, or drive to a shopping mall because there was too much congestion in the town. Park and Ride, I concluded, exists for purely economic reasons.

Go forwards to the present day, and I find this on the Save Bathampton Meadows web site:

Park and Rides are an out-moded form of traffic management, proven to have a minimal impact on reducing congestion. As Henrietta Sherwin, Vice Chair of the South West Campaign to Protect Rural England states:

“Park and Rides were conceived in the early 1970s before transport policy had moved towards demand management and trying to restrict car traffic; they are an out of date policy and no substitute for the development of an integrated public transport network particularly with an ageing population.”

“Park and Rides were initially sold as a green transport intervention until it was discovered that they can undermine existing public transport and actually create car mileage. Should limited resources be spent to encourage car access to Bath? Park and Rides are expensive and have a considerable environmental impact but a very marginal congestion benefit.”

I agree that they were originally sold as a green transport intervention, but I am willing to bet good (or bad) money that the initial motivation was economical — more people can come into a town and spend money if you let them drive most of the way rather than encourage them to go by public transport or (obviously) use their local facilities.

I wouldn’t have been so interested in an article about the further concreting over of the countryside surrounding the historic city of Bath, England, in Monday’s Guardian, had I not taken a trip there last week.

Environmental campaigners and residents are vowing to fight controversial plans to turn historic meadows close to the river Avon in Bath into a huge car park.

Bath and North East Somerset council wants to build a park and ride for 1,400 cars on land to the east of the city, though it lies within the green belt and is bordered by an area of natural beauty and a nature reserve.

More than 500 people have written objecting to the £6m plan, claiming that it will “desecrate” Bathampton Meadows. Natural England, the independent public body dedicated to protecting the urban and rural environment, has also raised concerns.

But at a heated meeting last week councillors supported the plans, which will now be sent to Hazel Blears, the communities secretary, for her approval.

Protesters say the scheme will ruin the meadows and become an eyesore visible from miles away. They are calling for the council to come up with more radical and more sustainable solutions.

It was while walking through the maze of soulless shopping streets near to the railway station, trying to dodge construction vehicles and step over temporary paving abberations, that I realised that the new Southgate Shopping Centre was utterly superfluous. Here’s a picture of what the developers think part of it might look like when it is complete:

I particularly like the ironic bicycles dominating the left hand side of the scene, while the yawning commercial edifice lurks in the background, coaxing people in to buy more pointless crap that, even had they wanted pointless crap, people could already have bought elsewhere in Bath, or anywhere else they live for that matter. It is such a marvellous coincidence that the new bus station, which will act as the terminus for the Pointless Park and Ride schemes, just happens to be right next to the new Southgate Shopping Centre. So, as the Park and Riders alight from their multi modal journey (oh, sorry, that should read “largely car-based journey, which involved a considerable diversion from the original route, and had a bit of bus tacked onto the end”) they are immediately presented with a phenomenal shopping opportunity.

I have little doubt that the loss of meadow will happen, and it will keep heppening until we lose our twin addictions to driving and shopping. Maybe if the existing Park and Rides start emptying then the scheme (and the other three to be expanded, which are also going to slice further into the countryside) will be abandoned as a loss-maker. Somehow, though, I get the feeling this will be another case of the customer is always right: even if they have been brainwashed.

Thanks to Simon for alerting me to this blatant piece of brainwashing, in the middle of the Chelsea Flower Show. Yes, it’s the Quilted Velvet Garden; loaded with such sychophantically lovely credentials that I could barely spend enough time looking at the page in order to copy and paste this nugget:

“The Quilted Velvet Garden, created by garden designer Tony Smith, brings to life Quilted Velvet’s message of a little bit of luxury every day.”

“The garden is based on a dream, taking the form of a long, arduous journey through the everyday world of work and domestic chores, eventually arriving at a place of comfort and luxury.”

So, basically, after a hard day then nothing is better than wiping your arse on soft toilet paper! What about spending some time with your family, or enjoying a bit of nature rather than supporting a company that clear fells its “own” forests, and others across Scandinavia, leaving a pitiful 5% “set aside” for nature.

Simon takes up the story:

I’ve come to expect a dizzying assault of corporate greenwashing from Chelsea but the prize this year must surely go to the Quilted Velvet garden. If manufacturers SCA had their way you’d be wetting yourself over their green credentials. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. Making toilet paper from virgin wood uses massive amounts of energy; the pulping process uses tons of chlorine and other toxic chemicals. Quilted paper is especially damaging to the environment but bizarrely this is one area of the market which is growing. Which is no doubt why SCA are sponsoring no less than three gardens at RHS shows this summer, so be prepared for even more of this crap.

So this weeks corporate slut award goes to designer Tony Smith. You’re on the list sunshine.

The garden was pretty naff too.

Cheers, Simon, couldn’t agree more.

If you own an island in the middle of an ocean then you will shortly (assuming you are a nation, ravenous for oil and gas from the sea bed) have an awful lot of ocean floor in your clutches. The Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) is not just a couple of dots in the Atlantic, it is a fairly sizeable, if treacherous and inhospitable, pair of islands with a land area of just under 5,000 square miles. Up to now, the potential claim for oil and gas resources at the ocean floor was in the region of 125,000 square nautical miles. With the introduction of the new United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, this extends to a maximum of 380,000 square miles. Argentina will do everything it can to prevent the UK from making such a claim; it wants the ocean bed as much as the British Government.

If you fought for the UK during the two month-long Falklands War and were injured, then you must understand that the only “freedom” you were really injured for, was the freedom to suck hydrocarbons from the ocean bed: the UK Government knew this; as did the Argentine Junta, whose invasion was almost certainly predicated on the same mineral claims.

If a relative or friend of yours was among the 900 people who died in that war, then you should know that they died for oil and gas. Across the world, throughout the history of Industrial Civilization, thousands of people died thinking they were fighting for freedom, when they were really fighting for oil. It is on this basis that the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is soaked in blood.

A vast tract of the south Atlantic seabed – rich in oil and minerals – was formally claimed by the United Kingdom yesterday in defiance of Argentinian opposition.

The submission to the United Nations’ Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (UNCLCS) has been issued two weeks after the government in Buenos Aires lodged its application to extend control over an almost identical area of underwater territory.

The British claim is contained in a 63 page document that will be posted on the UN’s website. It defines the precise limits of the extended continental shelf area around the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

The islands are all British overseas territories, although ownership is disputed by Argentina. This is the fourth detailed, continental claim lodged with UN. The others concern the Ascension Islands, Rockall and the Bay of Biscay.

The Foreign Office minister, Lord Malloch-Brown, said: “Successful completion of this process will confirm the boundaries of the UK’s jurisdiction over its continental shelf, thus ensuring our sovereign rights to manage the shelf for future generations.”

The UK document deals concisely with the Argentinian counter-claim, stating: “The UK has no doubt about its sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime area.”

The submission is one of an avalanche of last-minute claims for millions of square kilometres of the ocean floor pouring into the UN’s New York office in advance of an international deadline – on 13 May – for demarcating possession of extended continental shelves.

In the past two weeks Ghana, Pakistan, Norway, South Africa, Iceland, Denmark, France, Vietnam, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Kenya and others have delivered boxes of documents to the UN in the hope of securing valuable oil, gas and mineral resources around the world.

The hefty files of detailed paperwork – one Australian submission ran to 80 volumes – are the culmination of years of underwater exploration by each state, plotting submarine contours that mark the outer edges of the continental shelf.

The complex rules of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea permit states to extend their control and exploitation of the seabed beyond the traditional 200 nautical mile limit and up to 350 nautical miles offshore.

The precise extent of each claim frequently involves establishing the foot of an underwater continental slope, thousands of feet down in the chilly, dark oceans – and then measuring 60 miles outward.

Some claims, usually the legacies of unresolved international conflicts, are mutually exclusive, generating fresh diplomatic unease along the fissure lines of ancient boundary disputes. In the case of overlapping claims, the UN freezes the claims and asks the parties to reconsider.

As well as the overlapping claims for the Falklands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic, a dispute has emerged between France and Canada over claims to be presented for the seabed surrounding St Pierre and Miquelon, a small archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland. The French have also raised hackles by claiming the seabed near their Pacific island territories.

The 13 May deadline applies only to those states that were signatories of the original treaty 10 years ago. Other states, which signed at a later date, have more time left to submit their claims.

The United States has still not ratified the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, but the prospect of neighbouring countries such as Canada and Russia carving up the seabed for exploration is rapidly shifting opinion in Washington.

(reproduced from The Guardian)

_____

Update: I have not, at any point, stated who should be the rightful “owner” of the Falklands, although the British claim has only existed since 1833 so is hardly water-tight. The idea that the British government would continue paying to defend the Falklands without any commercial potential, either material or strategic, is ludicrous — the commenter (who will not appear here due to offensive remarks) who implied the British Task Force was mobilised for altruistic reasons really needs to read his history books.

Try this: http://nebuchadnezzarwoollyd.blogspot.com/2007/03/oil-dominates-25th-falklands-war.html

I have been following a brilliant campaign being orchestrated by a group of mothers (and a few fathers) concerned about the support that one of the world’s biggest parenting forums is giving to a company that organise arms fairs.

The text below is copied out verbatim from the journal entry of one of the ordinary people who found they could not leave this be. It speaks for itself…

This is a blog about how i found out that Baby centre were indirectly funding the arms trade – And perhaps importantly, What i did about it.

I was browsing BC, when i came across a thread on DC lite. I like DC lite, because it is full of all different types of thread, some funny, some challenging, generally though, it makes you think!!

BlueHouser had written a thread on Babycentres Involvement with The Baby Show – Well that’s quite normal, i thought, a baby website, involved with a baby show, for parents and expectants, sounds good! I was going! Bought my tickets already, and was looking forward to spending my hard earned dosh on lovely things for my little sproggy! Things for him, things for me, Wahey!!

The Baby show was run by Clarion Events. Hmm. No worries there.

Clarion Events ALSO run Arms fairs. If your anything like me, you thought, what the scooby doo is a bloody arms fair? Introducing Google, My good friend! I found the CAAT website ( campaign against the arms trade) and wow….

I got it – Clarion run baby shows. Clarion also run arms fairs- where weapons are sold. Weapons that maim and kill familys and children and mothers and expectants. Right. Well, surely, they are regulated and policed and are really strict?

I continued to read the DC lite thread, where i came across a link to Mark Thomas’s website: http://www.markthomasinfo.com/section_writing/default.asp?id=16

He actually *attended* the DSEI arms fair ( run by Clarion). He met THREE companies, who were prepared to sell him equipment which is banned in the UK because it is considered an implement of torture – Stun Guns, Stun Batons and Leg Irons.

I dont want to fund this! I dont want to be linked, because i bought a nursing pillow at a baby show, to someone being tortured with a stun baton.

Do Babycentre KNOW about this link? Yes, it appears they did. It was brought to their attention in November 2008. So why didnt they pull out, i thought? Did they not consider that it was wrong? You buy a coffee at the baby show, a portion of the money from your coffee inevitably ends up with Clarion, who then use that money to host an arms fair, where a weapon is bought, and used on a village in africa (for instance) – On a child? On a mother? On a father?

So… What to do. A few of us thought we could make a difference. And even if we dont make a difference, We have to TRY.

Emails were sent – To BC, to sponsors, to Myleene Klass’ PR company. We were hoping she would pull out when she became aware of the link.

Baby centres upper management gave a crappy response, Posted late at night ( i assume, so they didnt get all our outrage at once!)

We thought long and hard as to whether a partnership with the Baby Show would be a conflict of interest, and ultimately decided that it’s not. (For full response, see page 10 of dc lite thread)

Needless to say, That was a pretty corporate response, with no justification. Just, they had thought about it, and decided to go ahead anyway.

Lots of people got angry. There was a vote and thread that got posted in many birth boards, mine included. I felt it important, that people be aware of the link. I felt appalled that BC were not even prepared to pull out. They didnt even consider it a ”conflict of interest.” Bounty [Ed. See comment below about Bounty’s activities] and UNICEF did. Unicef wanted NO donations from ticket sales. As a charity, thats a pretty big thing to say, That even though money helps your charity, you’d rather not have it from what your fighting against.

I decided that, after speaking to DC Liters, i would still go to the show. I would go – But i would speak to the stall holders about the issue. I felt that i had a responsibility – Because the UK police/government/stallholders cant hit me with a stun baton, that sprays and stuns, so if you get covered in the liquid you still feel the stun.

Friday Arrived, and I was quite nervous. I was hoping that i would do DC Liters proud. I was hoping that i could make a difference.

I arrived, and was really *shocked* at the amount of companies marketing themselves as ETHICAL.

A gentleman approached me. He asked me if i recycled. I asked him if he was aware of the Clarion Link. He asked if i cared about the enviroment. I said i was slightly more concerned with child soldiers, cluster bombs going off and blowing kids legs off, implements of torture being sold in the uk. I asked him why his company felt it appropriate that they had a stall here. He walked off.

I saw Myleene give her talk at 11am on the prima baby stand. I was actually really disapointed – Firstly, she still felt it appropriate that she attended, and secondly, that her talk was so damn boring!! She was basically selling her summer range of baby K clothing. I attempted to approach Myleene at the mother care stand – It was a bit of a wrestling ring though, loads of people, and i was worried about my bump. I decided to give that one a miss, although i felt a bit wimpy!

I was approached by a persil representative – I asked them if they considered the Clarion link appropriate. She walked off too.

I got a few good responses – Pregnacare said they have been given an answer to tell people by their manangement – Which was they decided they could do more good by staying with Clarion, then they have financial backing with which to use as a bargaining chip in getting them to pull out.

I asked fisher price, was told to wait for a manager. 45 minutes later, I gave up waiting, but filled in the ‘cards’ with my opinion on it.

I found the smaller stalls were not really aware – They got a stall because they needed the money. I got 4 stalls to say they were going to investigate the link and would make donations to UNICEF to ”offset”. Wether they actually will or not, is up to them, but i felt great. I was concerned, and i was making a difference!

I tried my best. I raised the issue. I feel proud, of DC liters, of myself. I found out, was against it, and tried my hardest to recitfy the situation.

Ignorance is not bliss. Im glad i knew. I know that had i not been made aware of the link, I would have gone, spent loads of dosh, not given it a second thought – If i dont know about it, how can i change it?

Im glad i was given this opportunity to at least try and make a difference.

What would you have done…and what will you do when faced with something similar?

NOTES:
DC Lite = Debate Club Lite, a debating group on BabyCentre UK
Myleene Klass = Pop star and TV presenter, former member of band Hear’Say

It’s common knowledge that given a choice of two tasks, of varying impact, most people in the civilized world will choose to do the easiest, even if the outcome is of little or no importance. Given the choice of walking a mile to your destination, or getting in the car and driving a mile – regardless of the environmental and social impact of cars – most people will choose to drive. Or rather, “choose” to drive.

I put the word “choose” in quotes because it’s not really a choice at all; civilized society conspires to make the option that is of most benefit to the capital economy the most favourable “choice”, even if it means that the “choice” runs counter to what most people would do given a genuine freedom and an absence of persuasive factors (e.g. advertising, social engineering, lack of alternatives) that steer the individual in the direction of the best choice for the economy. Recycling is a serious offender, not because there is anything intrinsically bad about recycling most materials, but because it is presented by society as an environmental “choice”: you can choose to recycle and be “green” or you can choose not to recycle and not be green.

What other choice is there? What about choosing to do any number of things that are substantially more important than recycling; like reducing your primary consumption of goods, repairing what you already have, reusing what others have no need of, bartering or exchanging goods and services, or just giving stuff away because it means the recipients will buy less of that stuff new. And then there is not filling the skies with toxic gases; not pouring millions of gallons of effluent into seas and rivers; not garnishing the biosphere with a cocktail of persistent chemicals then leaving others to sort out the mess later.

The last three are the hallmark of one of the largest industrial sectors in the world: a sector that provides civilized humans with everything from computer screens to astroturf; plastic packaging to car interiors; printing ink to artificial sweetners; mercury to formaldehyde; titanium oxide to napalm; chlorine to glyphosate. The chemical industry provides the raw materials for the products of Industrial Civilization. It is a monster that needs a phenomenal amount of public relations to look good.

In general, the governments of the world’s industrial nations provide that PR, and for those nasty bits left behind, the private PR companies provide the nice words to smooth over the leaking cracks:

Over eleven billion dollars are spent each year by the business of chemistry to reduce emissions and protect the environment. Federal and State regulations for virtually every piece of our plant operations are in place and more rules are in the pipeline. End-of-pipe control programs have been implemented throughout the industry and the focus of environmental protection is now shifting to addressing any remaining risks that are deemed unacceptable. Continued improvement in environmental performance should focus on spending resources only on those policy decisions that will deliver the most improvement to reducing human health and environmental risks.

Allow me to translate:

“Over eleven billion dollars are spent each year by the chemical industry to ensure it does not kill too many people or destroy so much of the natural world that it becomes impossible to cover it up. Federal and State regulations, which we have fought against in the past and continue to fight against now are being implemented because we have no choice, although we have done our best to drag the process out for as long as possible. Systems that bring the amount of toxic crap being poured into the environment down to the legal maximum (and anything else we can get away with) have had to be put in place; but because our industry produces more waste than we can deal with, and the public are (literally) sick of it, we’ve had to pretend we’re doing something about all the other bad stuff we do. If we’re going to have to spend any more money, then were going to make sure it’s as visible as possible, even if it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.”

Does that sound more realistic? You can read more of this sanitised bullshit over at the American Chemistry Council’s web site. Bear in mind that the ACC represents just about every chemical company you can name, and lots more you have never heard of (and which I would strongly recommend you look into), and it is pretty obvious that they are not doing any of this out of the goodness of their hearts. Anything they can do to look good, they will: and what better thing than our old friend Recycling:

Beginning on April 21st, 2009, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) will host a blog summit to explore recycling efforts and trends in the United States – focusing on barriers to recycling and innovative programs to increase recycling, particularly of plastic. The blog summit is intended to be a dynamic online conversation; it is open to the public. Among those participating will be independent thought leaders with plastics or recycling expertise, industry executives and established bloggers all of whom will be volunteering their time and knowledge.

Why are we doing this?

Across the country and around the world, significant efforts are underway to decrease litter in all environments specifically near our oceans, rivers and streams. Many of the materials that end up on roadways and waterways are readily recyclable. Yet, recycling rates, particularly in the U.S., remain low. The American Chemistry Council and its member companies continue to work with state and city governments, non-profits and other stakeholders to improve the recycling infrastructure, increase access to recycling and create a culture of recycling for future generations.

Excellent. I hope you’re all feeling the warmth from the last 4 weeks of recycling goodness that the ACC have blessed you with.

No?

You’re a cynical bunch, aren’t you?

A little nugget of potential greenwashing came to my attention this morning. As you read it, keep in mind this quotation, from Shell’s own marketing brochure:

“Unconventional hydrocarbon resources is a significant area in which boundaries are being pushed to meet growing demands. Shell is privileged to be working on one of the most important unconventional resources: the oil sands project in Alberta, Canada. We report on how new and innovative technology, coupled with working closely with the local community, has made access to this massive resource possible.”

Now here is the article – you can make up your own mind what Shell’s motivation is for having an Eco-Marathon:

Petrolheads should look away now. Engineers and racing car enthusiasts are gathering in Germany today for a car race with a difference – one that does not reward the fastest car, but focuses instead on the most fuel-efficient. In this Shell sponsored Eco-marathon, the best cars could travel the entire length of Britain five times on a single gallon of petrol.

More than 200 teams from 29 countries will battle for the €1,000 (£895) top prize in this annual green car rally, which is the biggest of its kind in the world. Futuristic, lightweight vehicles will race around the EuroSpeedway circuit in Lausitz, Germany, with the goal of burning as little fuel as possible over a set distance and producing the lowest emissions.

“For participating teams, ‘sustainable mobility’ is more than just a buzzword: these are the engineers of the future who are helping to turn it into reality,” said Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of Shell . “Society needs a new generation of talented problem-solvers to address the world’s energy challenges.”

From the UK, teams of engineering students from the universities of Coventry, Brunel and Central Lancashire will pit their cars against more established racing teams from other countries.

John Caulderbank, motorsport course leader at the University of Central Lancashire, said sustainability was a big part of his students’ coursework. The Central Lancashire team’s car is based around a 30cc petrol engine developed in-house, coupled with a bespoke engine management system to keep fuel consumption low, and the brakes from a mountain bike. His team plans to be very careful in the style they drive, conserving fuel by only accelerating for 20 seconds out of every minute of the race, and allowing the car to coast for the remainder of the time. “The target is 3,000 miles to the gallon,” said Caulderbank.

Each prototype vehicle is judged on how much fuel it uses to complete eight laps of the EuroSpeedway circuit – a distance of around 15.5 miles (25km). The cars have to do the full course in under 51 minutes and each team gets four attempts to use as little fuel as possible.

The current records are staggering. For a hydrogen fuel cell car it stands at 3,836km per gallon, achieved by a team from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich in 2005. In the conventional petrol and diesel-powered category, a 2004 team from Lycée la Joliverie in France designed a car with a range of 3,410km. The record for best CO2 emissions profile was attained in 2006 by a prototype from Lycée la Joliverie with a car emitting just 0.5g/km – the average for a passenger car in Europe is around 160g/km.

Christoph Bastian, programme manager for automotive engineering at Coventry University, said that being economical with fuel was a key part of the work that modern engineering students had to do when designing cars, given that the motor industry was keen to head in this direction.

The Coventry team’s car is a three-wheeler made of tubular aluminium sections. Along with the 31cc engine from a garden strimmer, it weighs just 45kg. They reduced much of the weight using computer models. “We used some advanced engineering tools to predict where the forces are going to travel in the frame and, by calculating this load path, we were able to remove material.”

The team, which is entering the Eco-marathon for the first time this year, expects to get a range of around 1,000km for a gallon of fuel. That’s nowhere near the leaderboard for this race but Bastian says he hopes to get closer to the top in coming years. For next year’s entry, the team is already planning to focus on improving their car’s aerodynamics and cladding the body with lightweight carbon fibre rather than plastic.

At the start of this year’s race, José Manuel Barroso, president of the European commission said sustainable transport would be central to meeting the continent’s climate goals. “It accounts for almost a quarter of Europe’s CO2 emissions and a third of our total energy consumption. We need to concentrate minds and efforts on helping reduce emissions and improve energy efficiency in the only sector in which emissions have increased since 1990. The Shell Eco-marathon is a key educational platform that encourages students to focus their minds on the challenge of maximising fuel efficiency, whether using traditional or alternative fuel sources.”

Shell have the following to say about their Eco-Marathon and themselves: “As an energy company, Shell is committed to reducing the environmental footprint of its operations and products, and to help meet the world’s growing demand for energy in secure and sustainable ways. The Shell Eco-marathon inspires others to think about energy efficiency and offers a platform to work on solutions in a very practical manner.”

Now I’d like you to watch this interview between George Monbiot and Jeroen van der Veer, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell: