England

Heathrow owners win climate-camp injunction

Last week in Daily Grist, we reported that BAA, the company that owns Heathrow Airport, had requested an injunction against protesters planning a weeklong Camp for Climate Action in mid-August. The original request was so badly worded that it sounded like 5 million people would be kept away from the airport, but a judge granted […]

Can a bag of potato chips point the way to saving the planet?

Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

Can a bag of potato chips point the way to saving the planet?

In the U.K., we have started down the path of putting "carbon labels" on products. Tesco, our biggest supermarket chain, has said they will label every product they sell. The Carbon Trust, a government agency, has already produced a prototype label and is trying it out on shampoo, a fruit juice, and a bag of potato chips.

Clearly we do need to measure and manage carbon. A lot has been done to calculate and reduce the direct climate impacts of companies. Now attention is shifting to the wider climate-change footprint; businesses are looking up and down the supply chain.

Labeling is a great idea in principle. We have seen labels like fair-trade, organic, energy-rating, and marine stewardship engage consumers, change production, and move markets. And on climate change, consumers tell us they want simple, straightforward choices that are guaranteed to make a difference.

Man wants to put wind turbines on his ailing farm

Opposition from neighbors drives man to suicide. And you thought the rich whingers at Cape Wind were irksome!

Way to channel that consumerism!

Jane Austen. Monty Python. Ricky Gervais. My Anglophilia runs amok, people.

And it just spiked again.

According to easier.com, 25 percent of British motorists are planning on buying a car in the coming year -- and a full one-fifth of them have made buying a "green" car their priority. That's three times more green-thusiasm than a year ago.

'Course the number of drivers looking to buy cars in the first place could use a little help -- one-quarter seems a tad steep. Still, a big pip-pip to the British isles for at least channeling their rampant consumerism in the proper direction.