Locals oppose wind farm on Bodmin Moor

150 people has attended a public meeting at Davidstowe on Bodmin Moor opposing a proposed wind farm. 20 125m turbines are planned making it the biggest windfarm in Cornwall.

Opponents say it will affect wildlife.

The problem is that climate change will affect wildlife too....

Each Briton uses 4,645 litres a day when hidden factors are included

The new report from WWF states that each UK citizen consumes over 4500 litres of water if hidden factors are taken into account. Conventional wisdom suggests that we (in the UK) use 150 litres a day - but this figures is 30 times too small if we take 'virtual' water into account.

Virtual water includes the amount of water used to produce the amount of water needed to produce imported goods we utilise. See the Guardian for further details.

Fred Pearce in his excellent book When the Rivers Run Dry covers this topics in some detail.

Our use of virtual / imported water mirrors our 'use' of of CO2 - we are an importing nation so we need to take account of our impact on water consumption and CO2 emissions in other nation nations around the world. The water used in producing oranges in Israel which we then consume in Britain are our problem. Likewise the CO2 emissions emitted manufacturing cars overseas and producing consumers goods, in say, China, are also our problem.

See the following WWF link for details of the report. The full report can also be download ed from here.

UK emissions have risen not fallen

The assumptions in the Kyoto Protocol used to calculate carbon emissions do not include emissions from air travel, shipping or goods imported into the UK for our consumption (so called embedded carbon) . Under the Kyoto agreement, according to the Government we have seen a 5% decrease in UK emissions since 1990.

However a new report from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) has recalculated UK emissions taking air, shipping and embedded carbon into account. When this is done emissions have risen by 18%.

This makes much more sense! The 5% cut was largely attributable to the switch from coal to gas in electricity generation. The 18% rise as measured by the SEI ties in neatly with our love of consumerism and cheap air travel.

Depressing OK, but at least now we can measures what the 80% cut in emissions required needs to be measured against.