News wrap
Paul Allen, Wed 28 May 2008
The big green stories of the week and how they were reported in the press
Fuel rage
Hundreds of truckers descended on London this week in protest over fuel duties. Against a backdrop of rising global oil prices, fuel for a typical articulated lorry now reportedly costs up to £1000 per week. The protesters want the government to reduce the fuel duty burden.
Mike Presneill, of Transaction 2007 told the BBC that British hauliers are currently paying far more in duty than their European counterparts.
"All we are asking for is that the Government introduce an essential user rebate so that we can compete on a level playing field with continental hauliers," he says.
The much publicised backlash has also put the government under “mounting pressure” to abandon plans to increase road tax on gas guzzling cars, reports BBC News.
The government’s tax plans have come under criticism from all sides. Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said that any proposed tax should only apply to new cars. Penalising people for cars which they have already bought would "give green taxes a bad name".
Meanwhile, Conservative leader David Cameron said that the tax rise would hit poorer drivers the hardest. How does the environment fit into the fuel debate?
"There are ways around the fuel price increases that are good news for the climate and good news for drivers' pockets,” says Greenpeace’s Sauven. “Keeping your speed below 55 [mph] can save more money than the recent price hikes and cut CO2 as well.”
Writing in the Guardian, prime minister Gordon Brown says that the goal of Britain becoming a low-carbon economy is now “an economic priority as well as an environmental imperative.” Reducing our reliance on oil, and global oil markets, it seems, is a priority.
“If we are to ensure a better deal for consumers, energy security and lower greenhouse gas emissions,” he writes, “Britain, Europe and the world will have to change how we use energy and the type of energy we use.”
The Guardian’s Jason Torrence has an immediate suggestion to help create this “low-carbon economy”. The income from motoring taxes, he writes, should be spent on developing sustainable alternatives. For hauliers, these would include “cleaner engines, better use of capacity and [making] rail freight a reality”.
For those in rural areas, “it's more and better buses - which would also help the 50% of people in the countryside without access to a car. In cities it means more walking, cycling, trains and trams.”
Food fears
Rising food prices threaten a surge in violent protests across the world, the Red Cross has warned.
The global situation is looking increasingly bleak. Food prices on international markets have nearly doubled in three years, threatening 100 million people with hunger, according to the World Bank.
Added to this, rising oil prices have led many countries to divert corn into the production of ethanol for fuel, while growing populations and changing diets in countries such as India and China have driven up demand for food.
Most of the debate so far on the so-called "food crisis" has focused on boosting aid to poorer countries, said Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. But "the second dimension is there is also the potential of food-related violence."
The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says all aid agencies are finding that the budgets they set for this year are not enough to help alleviate the crisis.
The World Food Programme alone wants an additional $755m (£375m), she says, and with food and fuel prices expected to stay high, donor countries can expect many more requests for extra money in the months to come.
Banana wars
A price war among fairtrade bananas seems a little illogical. But that’s exactly what’s happening on our supermarket aisles.
Asda “triggered the battle”, reports Lisa Bachelor in the Guardian, by cutting the cost of a kilo of bananas by 5 pence. Tesco and Morrison cut their prices the next day. Would Sainsbury’s, which only sells Fairtrade-certified bananas, resist the temptation to follow suit? No – it too matched the 5p reduction.
But aren’t cheap prices something to be celebrated? Not according to Action Aid, which says that it’s the labourers – not the supermarkets – that are losing out.
“Since 2002, supermarket price wars have hit workers hard,” reports the international development charity. “Banana price wars between UK supermarkets have put the squeeze on the Costa Rican plantations. Price cuts have been passed onto the workers in the form of lower wages, temporary contracts and trade union busting.”
And finally…
A young Canadian bright spark may be close to finding a way to make ordinary plastic bags to rot naturally like banana peels.
"Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have this avalanche of plastic bags falling on top of me," Daniel Burd told the Record. “I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags.”
None too impressed by what he found, 16-year old Burd began grinding plastic bags into a powder and mixing in ordinary household chemicals, yeast and tap water to encourage microbe growth.
After several months of trial and error, the student had refined his experiments and identified the most effective bacteria for plastic degradation.
“At 37 degrees and optimal bacterial concentration, with a bit of sodium acetate thrown in, Burd achieved 43 per cent degradation within six weeks,” reports Karen Kawawada. “The plastic he fished out then was visibly clearer and more brittle, and Burd guesses after six more weeks, it would be gone. He hasn't tried that yet.”
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