Environment lawyers have warned that a new gas plant in the north of England would be responsible for as much as 75 percent of the emissions budget for the entire UK power sector, once approved and fully operational.

Environmental law organisation ClientEarth has submitted a formal assessment of the climate impact of Drax Power’s plans to build four new gas turbines at its Selby power plant in North Yorkshire.

The assessment shows that over its lifetime the project would create additional greenhouse gas emissions 400 percent greater than the baseline scenario.

Stranded asset 

This scenario tracks forecasts from the department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of overall grid emissions intensity to 2050 and represents the mix of generation technologies that could provide the same quantity of electricity generation.

Sam Hunter Jones, a ClientEarth climate accountability lawyer, said: “Drax has failed to prove why adding so much new large-scale fossil fuel power is necessary given existing and planned capacity. It has also failed to assess the project’s full climate impact, at the precise time when the UK needs to rapidly decarbonise.

“By failing to explain how this emissions-intensive gas project squares with the UK’s carbon targets and its Clean Growth Strategy, Drax is asking the public to face a carbon budget blowout, a huge stranded asset requiring propping up by the taxpayer, or a combination of the two.”

In its planning application, Drax claimed its proposal for four combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT) was warranted to replace its existing two coal-fired units ahead of the government’s proposed coal phase-out in 2025. However, ClientEarth warns that the combination of the project’s scale, high emissions intensity and long operating life make it a significant threat to the UK’s carbon targets.

ClientEarth was invited to complete the assessment, which was supported by climate think-tank Sandbag, as part of Planning Inspectorate hearings discussing objections to the project. In November, ClientEarth had submitted a written objection to project on climate grounds.

Alternative designs

The government’s latest forecasts estimate that the UK will need 6GW of new gas generation through to 2035. However, the UK has already greenlit more than 15GW worth of large-scale gas plants. Approving Drax’s project would take this to 18GW – three times the government’s estimates. 

The government’s climate body, the Committee on Climate Change, has warned there should be no more gas on the UK grid by the mid-2030s, without carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Drax’s application failed to outline how its large-scale gas project would be consistent with the UK’s decarbonisation targets for the power sector and the alternative low-carbon generation technologies available. Lawyers said this was a missed opportunity, given the obvious commercial benefits of bringing forward a future-proof scheme.

Hunter Jones added: “The only way to avoid the project’s negative climate impacts would be to make its operation conditional on the use of carbon capture and storage technology – however, Drax is not content to wait until this technology is viable.

“Drax has also failed to consider alternative project designs that would provide the best climate outcomes, as planning rules require. As Sandbag’s research shows, the UK can transition from coal to clean, without locking in more large-scale gas plants. Drax’s assertions that its plant should be built because it will be better than the worst current market performers makes a mockery of the UK’s decarbonisation ambitions.”

This Author 

Marianne Brooker is a commissioning editor for The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from ClientEarth.

We are planting seeds, fertilising ideas, growing a network. We are part of a much wider ecosystem that includes natural scientists, progressive publications and campaigning charities.

The audience for The Ecologist is blooming. We now have 200,000 readers every month, which is almost double the number from the previous year. It’s still down some from our hey day but it’s the right direction of travel.

But there is so much to be done, we want to do so much better. To achieve this, we want to build a community of readers and advocates who not only read our articles – regularly or through online searches – but also share them with friends, colleagues and fellow activists.

To further enhance these efforts we have put together a concise guide to the best social media tools currently available for sharing content, and getting the message out there. This guide is written for our authors, but we would love our readers to engage with these suggestions as well. 

1. Send it out

If you’ve written the article, send it to the people you have interviewed after it’s published. I never understood why, but often as journalists we are afraid of doing this – afraid of judgment, I assume.

But if you haven’t misquoted, or written terrible things about the people you interviewed, then there’s no need to be afraid; make the jump. They’ll love it. Their name and views in your article gives them exposure and prestige, and they’ll push it even further than you’d end up doing.(If you have misquoted them or written biased things about them, we need to talk.)

Authors – and also readers – should even consider developing their own newsletter, using MailChimp, Constant Contact or other free online platform. Even if you are sending just a few emails to a dozen people, this makes it quicker and more impactful. People can then become part of your ecosystem by signing up.

Social media

Tell people about your article, both in real life and online. If you found a story interesting, chances are that somebody else will too, especially if this is a person who thinks like you.

Each social media platform is different and what draws people to read an article will depend on many things – Instagram works very differently than, say, LinkedIn, or Reddit. So you should change how you post the article across different platforms, spending that extra minute to tailor your post description to the platform you’re using, or you could add a picture, a video, etc.

That said, don’t put your eggs in one basket – you’ll reach different people on different social media, so why not experiment with environmental news on Instagram and LinkedIn?

If you don’t know a platform very well and want to get to know what works well on it and how you should post, invest some time on it; interact with other users etc. 

But as a general rule of thumb, inject some of your personality in your posts. Say why you liked the article, or why you think it’s crucial that other people read it.

Facebook groups

On Facebook, most of us will have friends we grew up with who have since switched to the dark side, or people who don’t care about climate change. Sharing an article on your own wall will target those people too, and they won’t read it.

Try finding people who think the issue is critical instead. There are thousands of active Facebook Groups, and there almost certainly is one for the article you’d like people to read. Start with

• Climate Change: Science, Mitigation & Adaptation;
• Global Environmental Awareness Network;
• Animal Rights and the Environment;
• The Ecology of Systems Thinking

Reddit!

Yes, Reddit. The platform intermittently sends articles viral – or leaves them languishing in internet obscurity; but it’s always worth a try.

Like Facebook, Reddit teems with groups (subreddits) of people who share interests. Some say if someone is interested in something, then there’s a subreddit about it – there are thousands of them, including… a subreddit to find subreddits. So chances are that there will be one for you here, too.

Start with r/Environment, (the biggest environmental discussion group I know of) and explore from there!

Reddit is quite different from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, so read the rules (for example, you can get banned for spamming and self-promotion) and spend some time on it before you use it. This will also make you familiar with what sends a post trending.

Our newsletter

Did you know we have some? Newsletters are a big part of how we are trying to shake things up at The Ecologist, so take a look at our daily and weekly newsletters and tell people about them.

Your article will be there, and we’re sure you’ll find more interesting reads on the environment – and so will they. Forward the newsletter to contacts, and encourage them to sign up as well. 

Online networking 

Don’t use the internet just as a dumping site. Social media is a place to network, talk to people, interact – just like the real world. Nobody will casually read your posts if all you do is tweet links and sign out. 

Try and create relationships with other readers, and then move from there. You could tag people you interviewed for the article when you tweet it. It might encourage them to retweet, or to post it on their social media accounts themselves.

Another way to cheat is to follow a few people who are interested in the topic after you tweet about it. They might see your work and follow back.

But the key is to keep getting to know people and learn. Make sure you monitor trends and hashtags related to your interests, and opportunities will jump out to you.

I’ll give you one, and only one, example. Have you noticed Twitter accounts using #FBPE? It means ‘Follow Back, Pro EU’, and is used by Remain voters to network and join forces on Twitter. Maybe something similar will arise for environmentalists one day! 

​​​​​​​This Author 

Alessio Perrone is a freelance journalist and digital native. Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist.

Twelve nature charities – including Plantlife, RSPB and Friends of the Earth – yesterday welcomed new regulations to cut ammonia emissions announced in the Clean Air Strategy.

This move is vital and long overdue given the ravaging effect ammonia has on wild plants, woodlands and meadows, and the wildlife that rely on them, and the disastrous impact of ammonia on people’s health.

Cutting ammonia emissions by 50 percent could prevent the equivalent of an estimated 250,000 premature deaths globally each year.

Increasing emissions

Ammonia is the ‘poor cousin’ of air pollution – flying below the radar of regulators until now, despite its destructive impacts, and the rising levels of this toxin in the air we breathe.

Recent official data shows that ammonia emissions in England increased for the third year in a row in 2016, in stark contrast with all other major pollutants. Ammonia emissions are higher than at any time since 2005, while levels of other pollutants are largely unchanged or decreasing.

Ammonia plays a major role in creating particulate matter, one of the biggest threats to people’s health from air pollution, with emissions from farms harming the health of people hundreds of miles away.

An estimated 40,000 premature deaths in the UK each year are attributed to air pollution, with more than 40 towns and cities at, or exceeding, limits set by the World Health Organization. There is also a wealth of scientific evidence showing that nitrogen pollution is one of the greatest threats to wild plants around the world including evidence from the charities to the Clean Air Strategy consultation on the decimation of plants by ammonia.

Nitrogen-rich ‘badlands’

Jenny Hawley, Senior Policy Officer at Plantlife, said: “Air pollution from farming has been neglected by policymakers for too long – with year-on-year increases in ammonia emissions.

“Voluntary measures haven’t worked, so the commitments to new regulation are a positive step forward. But the devil will be in the detail and the Clean Air Strategy must be translated into legislation without delay if it is to protect some of our rarest plants, lichens and fungi from extinction.

“Runaway ammonia emissions are contributing to unnaturally nutrient-rich soil conditions that are having a chilling impact on plant diversity. Many rare and threatened wildflowers like harebell and bird’s-foot trefoil are being crowded out of the countryside by a marauding gang of ‘nitrogen guzzlers’ such as brambles and stinging nettles. 

“The knock-on effects of habitats becoming nitrogen-rich ‘badlands’ can be lethal, for example the marsh fritillary butterfly feeds almost exclusively on Devil’s-bit scabious, a plant that simply cannot survive in these conditions.’

Hannah Freeman, Senior Government Affairs Officer at Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, said: “Air pollution literally doesn’t exist in a bubble. Ammonia in the air over our farmlands dissolves into our wetlands and waterways and wreaks havoc on delicate aquatic ecosystems.

“The proposed measures are a step forward, but what we really want is government policy that supports farmers to be true stewards, holistically managing our air, soil and water together.”

Regulatory reforms

Thomas Lancaster, Acting Head of Land Use Policy at the RSPB said: “The Government’s proposals for reducing ammonia emissions from farming are a significant step forward, and recognise the importance of effective regulation in protecting the environment and public health.

“We now need Government to set out a much more comprehensive and ambitious package of regulatory reforms for farming, to secure the safeguards that both progressive farmers and the environment so desperately need.’

Frances Winder, conservation policy lead at the Woodland Trust said: “Nitrogen deposition and increasing concentrations of ammonia are severely damaging our ancient woodlands. It is imperative we integrate on-farm measures for air quality, water quality and greenhouse gas emissions to protect these precious, irreplaceable habitats.

“Working with nature can have significant beneficial impacts. Planting new trees downwind of a poultry house fan outlet, for example, can be very effective at capturing both gaseous and particulate pollutants as well as providing shade and water management- a win-win for farm efficiency, reducing input costs and protecting the environment.  

“Any new land management scheme must include effective enforcement as well as support for the development of solutions.’

Localising production 

Richard Young, Policy Director at the Sustainable Food Trust said: “The Sustainable Food Trust welcomes the Government’s Clean Air Strategy, but feels that greater action is needed to address the issue of ammonia, a major component of air pollution, which mostly comes from the agricultural sector. 

“In particular, the overuse of nitrogen fertiliser must be recognised as the main cause of ammonia, and this needs to be urgently addressed.

“In order to make real headway in tackling the air pollution crisis, we need a fundamental change in the way we produce food, moving away from heavy reliance on nitrogen fertiliser towards mixed farm systems which utilise forage legumes, such as clover, to rebuild the soil’s natural nitrogen levels.

“We should also focus on re-localising food production and consumption as much as possible to reduce diesel emissions associated with transport. Future ‘public goods’ funding should be used to help shift farming systems in this more sustainable direction.”

New measures

Farming is the main source of ammonia emissions, stemming from the storage and spreading on fields of manure, slurry, digestate and artificial fertilisers.

The UK Government has relied on restricting farming practices in certain areas (nitrate vulnerable zones (NVZs)) to tackle pollution of rivers and streams from fertilisers. However, the charities argue that Government should use post-Brexit agriculture policy and its proposed Environmental Land Management Scheme to reform NVZs, prevent water and air pollution more effectively and better protect our environment.

Under the new measures announced today, farmers will have to use low-emissions technology and facilities to collect, store and spread animal wastes and fertilisers on their fields. Many dairy and intensive beef farms will have to apply for an environmental permit, as is already the case for the largest poultry and pig farms.

The strategy also tackles emissions from anaerobic digesters which have risen significantly as the technology has become more popular.

Charities and campaigners support these measures but warned that their effectiveness will depend on the detail which still has to be developed. They called on the Government to bring forward detailed proposals in the coming months and to set earlier deadlines for reducing ammonia emissions from the most polluting sources.

While the new target to reduce by 17 percent the area of wildlife habitat affected by nitrogen deposition by 2030 is welcome, it does not go far enough and the Strategy does not take forward the specific measures recommended by the charities to protect and restore wildlife.

Legal limits 

There are many other welcome moves in the Clean Air Strategy from Government, however nature organisations are warning that:

·     More still needs to be done to tackle pollution from cars and other vehicles in particular, as plans on the main source of illegal air pollution in our towns and cities fall short. For example, this should include a network of clean air zones and support for people and businesses to move to cleaner forms of transport;

·     We need new clean air laws that enshrine people’s right to breathe clean air and stricter legal limits based on World Health Organisation guidelines in UK law to drive greater ambition on this issue;

·     The Clean Air Strategy is being developed in response to legally binding emission reduction targets from the EU. After Brexit, it is essential the promised new UK environment watchdog is strong, well-resourced and independent to ensure the government complies with its legal duty to protect the health of people and the environment.

This Author 

Marianne Brooker is a commissioning editor for The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from the Wildlife and Countryside Link. 

In ancient Greek mythology, the sin of hubris – excessive self-praise and over-weaning pride – was punished by Nemesis, the goddess of indignation.  It is a metaphor sometimes used to describe how the giants of the banking industry were destroyed by market forces in the great recession that began in 2008. 

Their inflated egos allowed banks to lose the run of themselves, investing in assets that were vastly over-valued and which the bankers often didn’t even understand.

It would be nice to report that it was different at The Co-operative Bank, the so-called ‘ethical bank’.  Sadly, the story was just the same.  It was managed by people who were not up to the job, overseen by a board that were sometimes kept in the dark and who were often too consumed by inflated ambitions to apply common sense.

Ethical business

It was not supposed to be like this.  The Co-operative Bank was formed in 1872, as the banking arm of the Co-operative Wholesale Society – the body that supplied the co-operative retail stores across the UK.  

Those shops emerged out of the Rochdale Pioneers’ example, who set-up a store to sell nourishing, unadulterated food at affordable prices to low income families. That is about as ethical as a business can get.

But the co-operative retail societies declined and merged, until only a few survived.  Most of their department stores closed, as shoppers moved towards Tesco and other hypermarket groceries, selling a massive variety of goods at often lower cost. 

Co-ops failed to keep track with customers’ demands – and in many cases forgot what these days is called ‘the co-operative difference’.  

A study by co-operative practitioner Peter Couchman and academic Murray Fulton examined the failure of large co-ops.  It found five consistent features in these failures: seeing the co-operative structure as a weakness, not a strength; having the wrong people in charge; lack of board oversight; over-confidence; and a ‘final roll of the dice’, to achieve a big bang merger solution to a problem built-up, and left festering, over a long period.  Those five factors were central to the problems and near collapse of The Co-operative Bank.

Merging institutions 

Readers of national newspapers could be forgiven, by contrast, for believing that the Bank’s problems were entirely the result of the strange behaviour of its chair, the Reverend Paul Flowers – Christened by the tabloid press as the crystal Methodist. His penchant for drugs and his liaisons with teenage male prostitutes certainly damaged the Bank’s brand, but it was not the cause of its crisis.

In fact, the cause of the near sinking of the Bank dates from when it took over the Britannia Building Society in 2009.  This was before Flowers became chair of the Bank.  The board were not even informed of the merger discussions by management of the Bank and its owners, the Co-operative Group (the new name of the old Co-operative Wholesale Society).  

When the negotiations were complete the board were told this was a great arrangement, which would take the merged organisation to new heights, with much greater economies of scale.  The management seem to have believed their own hype.

Regulators, however, had a different perspective.  They regarded the Britannia as a weak institution, which was being rescued by The Co-operative Bank.  Yet they did not share their view with the boards of either the Bank or the Group.  

Bizarrely, the chief executive of the failing institution was appointed chief executive of the merged body.  And although the regulator had its reservations, it did not block the arrangement.

Financial crisis

While the regulator was aware of the weakness of Britannia, The Co-operative Bank should also have been aware.  In any major business transaction, the buyer undertakes what is called ‘due diligence’.  This involves close scrutiny of the books and assets of the business to be acquired. 

In the case of The Co-operative Bank’s takeover of Britannia, there was only limited due diligence. Crucially the bits of Britannia that were later found to have been greatly over-valued and the cause of the Bank’s near collapse were the parts that were not subject to proper due diligence. 

This failure of process, some years later, led to the professional disgrace of one of the Bank’s senior executives, who had to pay substantial penalties.  

If the Britannia merger was an example of hubris, it was outdone by the later attempt to take over more than 600 branches of Lloyds Bank – the so-called Project Verde deal.  It was only when this unravelled that the scale of financial crisis at the Co-op Bank was revealed.

But the Bank’s financial crisis had more than one cause.  The frantic attempt to build ‘scale’ was certainly a factor.  It was also, though, related to a lack of strategic consistency.  A massively expensive IT system was procured to implement one business model, only to become redundant when a different strategy was adopted in the chase for scale.

Customer base

Meanwhile the branding of ‘the ethical bank’ brought its own problems. In truth, the slogan owed more to accident than design.

This often badly run bank conducted research to determine why their customers remained loyal, despite often poor service.  The research found it was the bank’s ethical principles that customers valued.  

Yet, until that point, it did not have established ethical principles – instead it had built up a customer base from being the only high street bank that did not have a direct relationship with apartheid-era South Africa.

Building on that foundation, ‘the ethical bank’ branding was born.  Yet some of its practices sat uneasily with this.  In particular, the bank later had to make substantial repayments over the mis-selling of Payment Protection Insurance.

Today The Co-operative Bank is no longer owned – either in whole or in part – by the Co-operative Group.  It was rescued by international hedge funds, which continue to proclaim it as an ethical bank.  Perhaps surprisingly, many customers continue with their loyalty.

Ultimately, what did it for The Co-operative Bank was incompetence on a massive scale.  Ethics – and the lack of it – comes into the story.  But essentially this is a story of how bad managers destroyed a bank and how bad directors allowed them to do it.

This Author 

Paul Gosling is a writer, public speaker, broadcaster and researcher. He specialises in the economy, accountancy, government and the public sector, the co-operative sector and personal finances.

Becoming Animal is a documentary by Scottish director Emma Davie and Canadian cinematographer Peter Mettler, produced in collaboration with the writer and philosopher David Abram.

Unlike traditional Nature documentaries, which tend to show us untouched landscapes devoid of human life, this film takes the viewer on a very different kind of journey: one in which we are encouraged to see ourselves through the eyes of the environment we inhabit.

The latest edition of Resurgence & Ecologist magazine is out now!

This ‘more-than-human’ world, a phrase Abram often uses in various forms to point to our human-centric viewpoint, is explored through both his voice-over and the film-making approach.

Unique experience 

Through impressive cinematography and immersive sound design, we are transported into a ‘more-than-world’ world where high-definition image, macro video, Foley sound and overlaid music manipulate our senses.

This tension between the narrative of Abram and the directors’ use of cutting-edge technology is what makes watching Becoming Animala unique experience.

When we first meet Abram he is walking through a dark forest on the hunt for the calls of male elk. In between the eerie night-time soundscape and hushed voices of the film-makers, we hear the animals’ strange bugling.

Abram muses that their evocative and plaintive sounds “seem to set the context for all of our human music-making”. In this manner he begins his thesis, where the human ear and eye are no longer central.

Later, exploring the textures of a tree, he describes his hand as part of the tactile field it explores, where the smooth surface of the tree is in fact touching him back, and “sampling the chemistry” of his skin.

Sensuous surroundings

Central to this theme, Abram discusses the earthly beginnings of human language. Set to images of rock drawings, we are told that written languages and phonetic alphabets no longer ‘image’ anything in the “sensuous surroundings”.

“The letters”, Abram says, “no longer function as windows opening onto a more-than-human language, but solely as mirrors reflecting the human face back upon itself.”

This leads to a heightened sense of awareness in which to simply look and be: trees sway majestically in the wind as we focus on the sound of their movement, moose gaze at us with knowing eyes and we can’t help but feel the sentience within, and a slow-motion river becomes silent.

However, at points, when Abram’s voice becomes too laboured and overbearing, or the images become almost too crisply defined and aesthetically fetishised, the effect is quickly lost.

This fine balance between descriptive narrative and visual imagery is part of the underlying question posed throughout the film.

Social media

Mettler, who tells us that capturing Nature on his camera has “strangely been an affirmation of the moment, of being in the present”, asks, “How can technology possibly help us connect with this vibrant life that surrounds us?” 

Becoming Animal is littered with visual links to this extremely important question, pushing us to examine and observe our own use of technology: the moose that looked at us earlier becomes a moose surrounded by people with long-lensed cameras, and a hot spring turns into a cinematic set for camera-phone narcissism.

Even the film-makers themselves occasionally appear in-shot, reflecting the film back upon itself and reminding us that what we are watching is a human construction. Through these scenes, it is hard not to feel that the task of decentring humans from their environments is largely weighed against the continual impulse we have to reaffirm our necessity in the world.

Emerging technology and the proliferation of social-media sharing is somehow about convincing ourselves that we have experienced, that we are important. Through this perpetual connectedness with others we sustain the illusion that we truly matter, at least to someone, somewhere.

These addictive behaviours are pertinent when we consider that the film we are watching is itself tangled up in this contradictory trap; simultaneously providing us with a heightened perception of our earthly bodies and their belonging to the environment, it uses technological film techniques that distort ‘normal’ visual and aural perceptions.

Environmental perceptions

Although the film provides a lot of places in which we can ponder this conundrum, the question gets slightly lost towards the end as Abram’s voice takes over more and more and the luscious images become a little repetitive.

It might be worth asking ourselves as viewers, then, how our consumption of images, where the world must be ‘filtered’ through technology for us to truly appreciate it, affects our perception of Nature, and whether this film somehow counters that, or makes us more aware of it.

Whatever conclusion you come to, and whether you find Abram’s prose wonderfully sensuous or simply a touch affected, Becoming Animal manages to open up these important questions in a way that is both self-aware and visually accomplished.

This is credit to the film-makers’ skills as image-makers and editors, thinking deeply about their roles not just as producers, but also as consumers. The film joins a healthy debate about our environmental perceptions in the age of the Anthropocene, and how we can begin to see the world through eyes not only of other animals, but of landscape too.

After all, if Abram is right, and our minds are not a “human property”, but rather a “property of the biosphere itself”, we should probably start thinking in an entirely different way about the planet on which we live: not as an object to be inhabited, but rather as a part of our very earthly being.

This Author 

Huw Wahl is an independent film-maker. He is currently working with the poet Stephen Watts on a project about landscape, language and memory. This article was first published in Resurgence & Ecologist magazine.

This year looks set to be a top year for green and social investment as the UK’s leading peer-to-peer ethical investment company Abundance starts the year closing its largest fund raise to date, raising £7 million for innovative Scottish tidal energy company Orbital Marine Power (Orkney).

Orbital Marine Power (formerly Scotrenewables Tidal Power) will use the funds raised to build its first production model Orbital O2 2MW turbine, an innovative floating tidal turbine platform that can be towed, installed and easily maintained.

The project already has secured a number of supporting grants as well as equity funding, including from the Scottish Government.

World leader

The Abundance offer of 2.5-year debentures with an annual return of 12 percent attracted 2,278 individual investors, with over half investing via an Innovative Finance ISA for a tax-free return.

The average investment was approximately £3,000, with the project attracting particularly strong interest from investors in Scotland who put in 50 percent more on average, at £4,500.

Bruce Davis, co-founder and joint Managing Director, Abundance, said: “2019 promises to be the best year yet for the environmental and social investment sector, and it feels significant that our largest investment to date reached its £7 million target on New Year’s Day.

“The UK can rightly claim to be a world leader in tidal generation technology and our customers have backed it enthusiastically.”

With this new investment, Orbital Marine Power plans to build its Orbital 02 2MW turbine over the next 12 months, for deployment at Orkney’s European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) during 2020.

Floating turbine

The Orbital O2 turbine comprises a 73m-long floating superstructure, supporting two 1MW turbines on either side. 

The new turbine will draw upon the success of Orbital’s SR2000 turbine which was launched in 2016 and produced in excess of 3GWh of electricity over its initial 12-month test programme at EMEC.

Orbital’s floating turbine simplifies installation and maintenance as risky underwater operations can be avoided, keeping costs and downtime low, while floating systems can be deployed over a wide range of tidal sites in UK and global waters.

Andrew Scott, CEO, Orbital Marine Power, said: “We are delighted with this funding result; it’s a terrific endorsement of our technology and a clear signal that the UK public is hugely supportive of seeing tidal energy brought into the domestic and global energy mixes.

“The whole team at Orbital Marine are excited to be moving forwards with this flagship project and deliver the first O2 unit for costs similar to offshore wind and so provide the basis for a new and sustainable industry. This a journey we are now honoured to be taking with thousands of new investors, thanks to Abundance.”

Wind energy

Bruce Davis added: “From those who invest the minimum of just £5 to larger investors with tens of thousands to put to work in the green and social economy, each and every one of our customers is playing a part in building a better world while helping achieve their own life goals.

“We’ve got an exciting pipeline of new investments in a wide range of projects and technologies coming up this year. Expect to see more larger offers like this one as issuers take advantage of the change in EU rules on crowdfunding prospectus limits.”

Abundance also recently closed a wind energy investment, E2 Energy, a 16-year investment in a portfolio of farm-scale wind turbines paying an annual return of five percent, which raised £2.9 million.

Currently open for investment is CoGen Limited, a debenture offer for the UK’s leading developer of waste gasification facilities, which seeks to tackle the UK’s dual problems of waste and the need for lower carbon energy.

The 4.5-year debenture paying 10 percent a year launched shortly before Christmas, and has already raised over £1.5 million, 52 percent of its minimum target.

This Article  

This article is based on a press release from Abundance Investment. To find find out more visit its website. Abundance advertises with The Ecologist. 

The Human Aquarium is a brand new exhibition, premiering on 15 February 2019 in Leeds.

The exhibition looks at the world through the eyes of sea mammals. Using Mer-folk in place of marine mammals, it delves into the world of aquariums, their inhabitants.

What it is like to spend your life in a tank? For the animals still dependant on their natural habitat – the world’s oceans – what effect are single-use plastics having on their home? And why should we care?

Public engagement 

Despite the success of documentaries such as ‘Blackfish’ and ‘Blue Planet’ that provide information about captivity, single-use plastics and recycling, do we really know what we are buying into?

Whether it’s purchasing a disposable bottle of water or a ticket to a marine park, do we consider how our choices affect the planet?

The Human Aquarium is a free, family friendly and thought provoking, interactive event developed by local Leeds artists and activists. Volunteers will engage with the public and discuss these hot topics, present sustainable alternatives and provide opportunities to learn about more ethical choices.

The Human Aquarium team will be taking over an empty shop unit to replicate an aquarium and all things aquatic in Leeds City Centre.

During the exhibition the team will be creating a sculpture from single-use plastics that the public are invited to come along and add to.

Working together 

On 22nd Feb 6-9pm they will host an evening of environment-themed talks from some inspirational organisations: The World Cetacean Alliance; Plastic-Free Me; Greenpeace Leeds; Love the Oceans; Zero Waste Leeds; The Real Junk Food Project.

There will also be a variety of free, family friendly workshops including: Mermaid Mondays; Dolphin Scramble; Ocean Plastics Fish Making; Sculpting The Future The Forever Octopus.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from Yorkshire Life Aquatic. See the event website for workshop, event details and opening times. 

The claim that I destroyed the environment is nothing to be proud of. It was 1961 and I was a horticultural trainee. Grounds maintenance was in the midst of a revolution; cheap herbicides and rotary mowers meant that we could dismiss the scythers at Shrewsbury Cemetery and tidy up the Victorian section.

It took a mere couple of years to destroy the wildflowers, together with the voles, butterflies and then the barn owl. This tidiness mantra was happening all over the UK and we have yet to recover from the impact.

My second mistake in those days was to become an advocate of cremation. I had abandoned horticulture and moved on to become a cremator operator. Cremation was hot, burial was dead and buried. 

Reducing maintenance 

I moved on to cemetery & crematorium management in various parts of the UK, where I experimented with wildflower conservation. I got this to a fine art in Carlisle in the 1980’s with 20 acres of old graves, mostly covered in pignut, black knapweed and orchids; the voles and owls returned. 

People noticed and some asked if they could be buried in the conservation areas. The answer was no, that the re-use of graves was not lawful. But the question remained, was it possible to integrate wildlife with burial?

My solution was a feasibility study in 1990 leading to the opening of the world’s first natural burial site in 1993. I was naive, slow to recognise the opposition this would attract from funeral directors and cremationists. 

The scheme at Carlisle was to create a double grave, side by side, so that the body was a maximum 4’ deep. This is as shallow and aerobic as possible within the law. Oak whips were planted on the grave with a mulch mat and native bluebell bulbs. Maintenance was limited to one cut late in the season.

This dramatically reduces costs because a typical cemetery grave can be mown 30 times each year. The graves were promoted on the basis that the environment must take precedence over human needs.

Return to nature

This meant that the bereaved had to choose an eco coffin, refuse embalming and accept the untidiness of the vegetation over the summer. Such advocates often avoid hothouse flowers flown to the UK.

Many funeral directors refused to offer the option and some still continue to do so. The concept was originally perceived as secular even though the clergy were supportive. 

The slogan ‘Return to Nature’ was used to foster an understanding of how our death can fit into the environment and a green lifestyle. The carbon in the body and coffin is locked up and will be absorbed by the tree or vegetation on the grave.

The carbon advantage is not restricted to one year because natural growth goes on sequestering carbon year on year for at least 75 years. The assumption is that graves under turf will be re-used again at that point.

Undisturbed wildflower turf is now understood to lock up carbon, and natural burials beneath a tree will do this for long periods. In my experience, many of the relatives of the deceased do not regularly return to a natural burial grave because they understand the need to reduce vehicle use. 

‘Gifting’ the body

New natural burial sites sprang up all over the UK, offering not just woodland but a variety of habitats including wildflower, orchard and even mixed farming. There are many cases where deer, hedgehogs, hares, voles, owls and many other less conspicuous creatures have returned to natural burial sites, which were hitherto devoid of life.

Professor Douglas Davies of Durham University described this kind of habitat creation as ‘gifting’ the body to future generations. He compared it to giving blood or donating organs.

There are now over 300 natural burial sites in the UK and the concept has spread to the US, Australia and worldwide.  

But the potential downsides of natural burial are not ignored. Firstly, there is a carbon cost in digging the grave. Some sites minimise this through hand digging, although a mini digger has a minimal carbon footprint.

Secondly, a decomposing body emits methane, a hazardous greenhouse gas. The fact that a natural burial is sealed in by undisturbed turf, often with tree roots, appears to mitigate this. 

Gas emissions

Natural burial highlights the problems that arise from gas cremation, which is really incineration. Cremation wastes the protein and fats in the body, converting them to pollutants. People assume that cremation abatement is comprehensive, which is untrue.

The EU demanded that mercury be removed but not the other emissions including dioxins and furans. The micro particulates are not captured. The abated sorbent, a hazardous waste, is stored forever in most countries.

In the UK it is said to be recycled but the firm doing this and their process is not transparent. Most cremators are used inefficiently, not being operated for long periods to reduce emissions. The abatement process also uses as much gas as the actual cremation. The sorbent recycling process must also have a significant fuel requirement.  

The emissions from cremation are mostly released in urban locations and the stack plume directly impacts on people living downwind. Eco coffins are not typically used, with the traditional veneered particle board coffins still favoured.

More recently, coffins of dubious environmental standards are being imported from China. The fittings and lining of these coffins are made of plastic.

Bodies are typically embalmed with two gallons of carcinogenic fluid, which is also emitted from the stack. This happens with over 400,000 cremations each year in the UK alone.  

This Author 

Ken West MBE worked for 45 years in bereavement services. He created natural burial in 1993, wrote the Charter for the Bereaved, and after retirement in 2006 published ‘A Guide to Natural Burial’ followed by ‘R.I.P. Off! or the British way of Death’. His third book My Pagan Ancestor Zuri – A Parallel Journey: Christchurch to Stonehenge will be published in July. His blog can be read here. 

In November 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act, the culmination of campaigning by groups like Stop Climate Chaos (now The Climate Coalition) and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, both of which the RSPB is a member.

What has the RSPB been doing since then to reduce the effects of climate change?

1) We helped bring about the UK and Scotland Climate Change Acts (2008) in the first place! 

And we continue to work on strengthening the UK and devolved government’s commitments to tackling climate change.

2) We’re one of the founding members of The Climate Coalition and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland

We are one of the founding members of The Climate Coalition. Together we raise awareness of how climate change is impacting the things people love; and work to influence governments in the UK. We’ve played a major role in the recent Show the Love campaigns, where people including MPs and celebrities wear handmade green hearts to show their commitment to protecting wildlife and the environment.

3) All our nature reserves are now managed with resilience to climate change in mind

We work to help wildlife thrive and adapt, including allowing for species shifting their range, and formerly occasional visitors moving in more permanently from continental Europe (e.g. spoonbills).

4) We are restoring valuable peat bogs across the UK

Our reserves in England alone save more than 90,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. In Scotland, long-term engagement with the Scottish Government has been key to securing a commitment to restore 250,000 hectares (equivalent to 250,000 international rugby pitches, or 350,000 football pitches!) of damaged peatland by 2030.

5) Creating new inland wetlands to provide new homes for wildlife such as bitterns, whose coastal habitats are threatened by sea level rise

The RSPB reserves at Ouse Fen, Ham Wall and Lakenheath Fen are prime examples of this. Ham Wall is now home to at least six species of heron. And Ouse Fen will contain the biggest reedbed in the UK.

6) We are future-proofing coastal communities to minimise flooding risks whilst creating new habitats for wildlife

Examples of this can be seen at Medmerry in West Sussex and Wallasea Island in Essex. Coastal realignment at Medmerry helps protect nearby homes but has also created a range of habitats for nature. Wallasea is another landscape-scale habitat restoration scheme, resulting in 670 hectares of coastal wetland. This ten year project was completed in 2018.

7) We have shown how the UK can deliver very high levels of renewable energy in harmony with nature

Take a look at our Energy Futures report.

8) We have put up a wind turbine at our UKHQ which produces enough energy to meet half of our total electricity needs

We’re also about to invest £1 million pounds in LED lighting and renewable energy on our own buildings, as well as adding a further eight solar panel systems to 25 existing installations.

9) We have built super-sustainable buildings

For example, the visitor centres at Saltholme, Rainham Marshes, Arne and the brand new building at Sherwood.

10) Through our work with Ecotricity, RSPB supporters have already saved over 3,500 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide

It would take 1,737,000 trees a whole year to store that much carbon! The average RSPB customer saves 704 kg of carbon dioxide every year they are supplied by Ecotricity.

This Author 

Jamie Wyver is a conservationist, gardener and RSPB Consumer PR Executive.

Wildlife trafficking is a multibillion-dollar illegal trade, with buyers and sellers openly using internet social media to do their dirty business.

Fortunately, computer learning experts are dedicated to combatting this dirty business. 

For two years, a project led by North-American conservationist Alexandra Russo and Dr. Colin McCormick, Senior Technical Advisor at Conservation X Labs, has been developing a facial recognition software. The programme will be able not only to recognize when photos published on the internet contain chimpanzees, but also identify the individual chimpanzee. 

Gathering information 

The technology – named ChimpFace – will become an essential tracking tool in combatting the illegal trafficking. It was one of the finalists in the Conservation X Labs Con X Tech Prize in November 2018,  and its preliminary prototype is being developed. 

Russo said: “I thought about this software after I started helping Dr. Dan Stiles in Pegas – Project to end Great Ape Slavery. I very quickly realized that looking for criminals online was actually incredibly tedious –  it’s like looking a needle in a haystack, among hundreds and thousands of photos on the internet.

“I started reaching out to computer learning experts asking whether developing an algorithm to recognize great apes in images was within the realms of possibility and luckily they said yes. 

In fact, the technology behind ChimpFace is very similar to the one applied in image recognition programs already used by police forces for other types of crimes. For ChimpFace to work, it was necessary to work with photos of known chimpanzees for the development of the algorithm. 

The idea of the software was then presented to nine conservation organizations: Centre de Conservation pour Chimpanzez/Project Primate International, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, Duke University, GAP Project Brazil, Jane Goodall Institute, Save the Chimps Sanctuary, Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary, Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuaryand Liberia Chimpanzee Rescue and Protection). These organisations became fundamental supporters of ChimpFace, providing images of captive chimpanzees who currently live in sanctuaries, as well as photos of wild chimpanzees.

Building an algorithm 

Russo said: “The more images we get, the more accurate we can build it up to be. It still needs to be improved a lot, but we have started. And we are really excited!”.

The original idea was that ChimpFace would work as an app, but they decided to start things simply. Russo emplaned: “Microsoft has granted us cloud computation credits, which we will use to deploy the software. 

“The first step of the development is the binary classifier, which is training an algorithm to recognize in any public available material either the image is of a chimpanzee or not”. This partial automation of the an otherwise manual search process will save a tremendous amount of time and money.

The second layer of ChimpFace, which requires much more work, is training the algorithm to recognize individual faces, so the movement of an individual can be tracked live online, so that the chimpanzee can be found in facilities in different countries.

This is what the project is currently aiming for, but there are many other useful applications for ChimpFace in the future, like monitoring the trade of live captive chimpanzees and studying wild chimpanzee populations. 

Sourcing funds

Reaching such big goals will require significant funding, time and resources.  But the Russo is optimistic: “In a dreamworld, a technology or social media company could incorporate ChimpFace into their systems, as long as they routinely monitor for crimes. Why not just add this to the level of policing already done? 

“The timing is fortuitous, as both wildlife trafficking and artificial intelligence (AI) are getting a lot of attention. AI is being advertised a lot, so we’re brining the fight against illegal wildlife poaching to the attention of big companies”.

Read more about ChimpFace here. 

This Author 

Jacqueline B. Ramos is the communication manager at GAP Project International and an environmental journalist. Read her blog here.