Eats plants
I used to write about climate change quite a bit on my blog. The first posts date from 2013. I was usually prompted to write after having an emotional reaction to something I had read or heard - usually someone denying it was happening. One of my earliest posts was prompted by claims that climate… Continue reading Another report and the message on climate change is still the same – our emissions must be zero
Climate change is like borrowing money and getting into debt. Consider this: you borrow a large sum of money and the interest rate goes up every year. You do not make any repayments on the loan and instead borrow more each year. Pretty soon the amount owing is huge and growing because a) the interest… Continue reading Climate change is like getting into debt
These graphs from the Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology show how hot and dry Australia has become. Ironically, they were reported by an American newspaper - The New York Times. The only Australian news source to report the record-breaking heat and drought was The ABC. I cannot find another Australian report of it. Please… Continue reading 2019 Australia’s hottest and driest year
I feel wretched for the millions of human and non-human animals who are suffering through the bushfire crisis in Australia right now. My social media feeds have been filled for weeks with apocalyptic images of smoke and fire, devastated landscapes, suffering wildlife, destroyed homes, and the charcoaled bodies of Australian animals. I have never seen… Continue reading A tragic end to 2019 for Australia
Ben and I watched the first episode of the TV series Chernobyl last night and it was brilliant! I'm looking forward to watching the rest. One of the protagonists is the same actor who plays the dad in Friday Night Dinner. It's a very different role for him in this series and because of this,… Continue reading Chernobyl
Global climate strikes are planned for September 20 - 27th and I'll be attending the Aberdeen strike on September 20th from 11am - 2pm. There's a map at https://globalclimatestrike.net where you can find your local event. I urge everyone to attend for the sake of your children and grandchildren or, if you're young, then for… Continue reading Global Climate Strike
Last week the BBC came to our house and filmed us for a story on a low carbon family that aired on the news last night. It also went on the web at The Aberdeen family embracing a low-carbon lifestyle. In some ways I feel like a bit of a fraud because I feel there's… Continue reading Living a low carbon life
It has felt like summer here for the past week or so and lots of temperature records have broken. A 120-year winter temperature record for Scotland was broken on February 21 when Aboyne reached 18.3C. This is unprecedented for this region in winter. 18.3C is a summer temperature for us. On the 25th February the… Continue reading It was summer here in February
Aberdeen Climate Action recently had a competition to design a mascot. Children completed entries at Climate Week North East earlier this month and the runner-up is my favourite. Meet McPiggy who eats plastic and poops paper. Designed and illustrated by the 8-year-old Ashton. I thought of McPiggy this morning when I read about a true… Continue reading McPiggy and the meaning of life
Climate Café no.5 was on in Aberdeen last night. If you live in Aberdeen I highly recommend this series. It's an initiative of Aberdeen Climate Action, a community organisation for which I'm a volunteer, and we are spreading inspirational messages to encourage our communities to tackle the problem of climate change. Inspirational is absolutely the… Continue reading Growing your own food
About 6 months ago I started volunteering for a local community organisation dedicated to inspiring real action on climate change. The organisation is called Aberdeen Climate Action and my first task has been to build them a website which promotes sustainable living. It's still a work in progress but it's looking good so far. Feedback is… Continue reading Aberdeen’s Climate Café Series
Livestock farming produces more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transport sector. That's all the planes, trains, trucks, buses, cars, and boats on the planet. Exactly how much the livestock farming sector produces varies depending on which study you look at. The most conservative estimate is from the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United… Continue reading Climate change and the elephant in the room
I saw this video last night on Grist - Old people don't care about climate change - and it was funny yet there's some truth to it. Unfortunately I can't post it to my blog so you'll have to click through to Grist and watch it there instead. I really like Grist.org. They have an interesting assortment… Continue reading Old people don’t care about climate change
Australian scientists have paid for a full page advertisement in a Queensland newspaper - The Courier Mail - because they felt the newspaper was not covering the coral bleaching of The Great Barrier Reef adequately. Coral biologist, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, is quoted in the Guardian today saying, One of the reasons we placed the ad in the Courier… Continue reading Scientists paying for advertisements to get message across
I enjoyed watching this video interview with Professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research in Manchester (Thanks to Manchester Climate Monthly). It's about the recent Paris climate talks. From what I understand, although the Paris talks resulted in a very ambitious target - 1.5°C - there's no plan to actually reduce our… Continue reading Interview with Professor Kevin Anderson – part 1
I haven't written anything about the Paris climate change agreement yet but have been wanting to put my thoughts down on my blog so here goes. On the one hand it's quite ambitious. They agreed a 1.5°C target which is very ambitious and an improvement on the 2°C which is what is usually bandied about. But on… Continue reading The Paris agreement
I found this two-minute clip on Grist which shows how much cows fart in 2 hours. Spoiler: A lot! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlpiiMM2Vdg A paper was published in Nature Climate Change in October 2015 which finds the temperature increase for parts of the Middle East is projected to exceed the level which humans can tolerate by the end… Continue reading How much do cows fart?
A little while ago I donated to the Kickstarter campaign to bring the Thin Ice climate change documentary to US television. My name is even listed on this page. WooHoo! I haven't heard anything about it for some time and so went looking to see what stage they're at. It turns out the documentary began… Continue reading Thin Ice
I've been meaning to share the Skip Showers for Beef video which is very funny but has an important message. They've also got a website at: http://www.skipshowersforbeef.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dquV4iYt4Ds A friend sent me a link to the Cowspiracy movie this morning and I've just been watching it. Most of it I am already aware of and… Continue reading Skip showers for beef
A British science journalist who posts to YouTube under the handle Potholer54 has released another video and it's just as entertaining and informative as all his others. In it he demonstrates how to pick fact from bullshit with a funny commentary. Why are people so easily duped? A couple of times recently I've received some scam calls… Continue reading Scientific consensus and arguments from authority
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