May 2004 Newsletter
|
The following articles are reproduced from the May 2004 newsletter, and so any information within this page is correct only as of May 2004. For the latest up-to-date information, please visit the relevant campaign pages using the menu on the left, or by clicking on the image alongside the title of each article. |
Vegetables Take to the Streets!
On Saturday 13th March, shoppers at the Manchester Farmers' Market got more than they bargained for. Members of Manchester Friends of the Earth had taken to the streets, dressed as fruit and vegetables, to promote the Manchester Real Food Guide (www.realfoodguide.org.uk), their brand new online guide to "real food".
More and more people are starting to think about the food that they eat and where it comes from. The recent outbreak of chicken flu, reports of the rise in childhood obesity, and the government's controversial decision to allow the commercial planting of genetically modified (GM) crops (see below), have led people to search for healthier and more environmentally sound alternatives.
Ali Abbas, Manchester FoE's Real Food Campaigner, is hoping that the new guide will help people to make a more informed choice. Local shops have welcomed the site, as Beth Knowles from Unicorn Grocery explains:
"Allowing the web-surfing public, in and out of Greater Manchester, the opportunity to find a varied selection of good 'real food' outlets in this area is a great resource worth congratulating. Share the knowledge. Well done FoE!"
Thanks to House of Haynes (www.houseofhaynes.co.uk) for the costume hire. For more information on real food, please visit the Manchester Real Food Guide website at www.realfoodguide.org.uk.
Ali Abbas
GM Victory
March has been a rollercoaster month on the GM front. First came the bad news: on 9 March, the Government granted its approval to the commercial planting of genetically modified maize, flying in the face of public opinion and ignoring the considerable risks and uncertainty surrounding GM technology.
Unviable
But all was not lost: three weeks later, Bayer CropScience suddenly announced that it was abandoning plans to grow its GM maize because it felt that regulations put in place to protect the environment made the crop "economically unviable". This news, greeted with great jubilation by campaigners, means that no GM crops are likely to be grown commercially in the UK until at least 2008.
Legal challenge
Although this was a welcome victory, the threat from GM is still all too real. The United States has filed a legal challenge against the European Union (EU) at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), arguing that the EU moratorium on the commercial development of GM foods is an "illegal" trade barrier. And even though it will no longer be grown here, GM ingredients and cattle feed are still being imported into the UK.
Take Action!
The good news is that there's still plenty we can do. Visit our Real Food campaign pages at www.manchesterfoe.org.uk/food to find out how to sign up to the Global Citizens' Objection against the US legal challenge at the WTO, and challenge your supermarket to adopt a zero-tolerance approach to GM food.
Ali Abbas
Noisy Nuisance
Friends of the Earth has joined other airport campaigning groups across Europe in supporting a Written Declaration (a petition that only MEPs can sign). The Declaration calls on the European Parliament to introduce legislation for a ban on night flights at all airports in the European Union between 11pm and 7am.
Night flights are regarded as one of the biggest problems facing communities across Europe. Manchester Airport, for instance, allows up to 7% of total daily flights to fly at night. Night flights are generally relatively few in number, compared to day flights, and are simply not necessary. Many airports have spare capacity during the day and much air freight traffic could be carried by other transport modes.
Aircraft noise is the most significant environmental impact to affect the lives of millions of people, who live or work near to an airport. Aircraft noise can also affect people far away from airports if they live or work under aircraft approach and departure routes. Night noise from aircraft has been proved to be responsible for sleep disturbance, increased heart rates and day-after effects such as depressed moods.
Take Action!
Tell your MP and MEPs that you are concerned about night flights and the effects they have on people's lives! You can find further information and MEP contact details on www.manchesterfoe.org.uk/planetruth.
Kerstin Moritz
Aviation Policy Impacts Global Warming
"If aviation emissions increase on the scale predicted by the Department for Transport, the UK's 60% carbon emission reduction target, which the Government set last year, will become meaningless and unachievable", according to the UK Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee.
Carbon Dioxide is the main gas blamed for global warming. Only four years ago the Government published its ambitious 10-year-plan for transport and promised to invest £180bn over the decade to tackle the twin problems congestion and pollution. Ministers expected CO2 emissions to be 1.6m tonnes lower than they would have been without the £180bn plan. Yet the 1.6m tonnes saved will be wiped out by CO2 generated by the aviation industry, following the green light for massive air travel expansion in the Aviation White Paper. This is estimated to be approximately 10m tonnes per decade.
In the future, many industries will have to work hard to cut carbon emissions as a result of international greenhouse gas emissions trading schemes. If they don't cut emissions, they have to buy credits from companies that have cut emissions, or pay a fine. Yet aviation is excluded from these schemes, as well as from international agreements to cut carbon emissions. It is time to stop these unfair competition advantages and to incentivise the aviation industry to cut its CO2 emissions too. Much can be done to stop catastrophic climate change, but decisive action is needed from governments and industry now.
Kerstin Moritz
School Bus Success
One of the successes of Manchester FoE's recent Longsight transport project was the formation of a group of local people to work on transport issues in the area, using as a basis the research we had done. In this issue, we hear of its recent progress from member Kirsty Ogle.
The Longsight Transport Group (LTG) has managed to convince the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (GMPTE) to put on a school bus from Longsight to Manchester Academy. Two secondary school students attended the third meeting of the LTG. They told us about their long and frustrating wait for the No.53 on weekday mornings and how the delayed bus service meant that they were getting to school late and having this marked against them. Late attendance is clearly not acceptable, so representatives of LTG took these concerns to a meeting with the GMPTE the next day arguing that students' education should not be suffering due to a poor cross-city bus service.
GMPTE got back to us, agreeing to pay for a school bus service from the shopping centre on Stockport Road, following the 53 bus route to Manchester Academy beginning after Easter. Students will pay the usual fare. They also responded to suggestions from the LTG to make the 196 a more regular service in Longsight. Improvements will be seen from April 25th.
If you would like to get involved come along to our next meeting at
Longsight Library on Wednesday 26th May from 6-7.30pm. Contact: Kirsty
on 248 4248 or 07855 698737.
Kirsty Ogle
MFoE Climate Challenge 2004
Currently Climate Change campaigning is at an interesting point. Successful campaigning for ambitious UK CO2 emissions targets, and anticipation of the US presidential election to see if a more enlightened administration will sign up to the Kyoto treaty, means that we are waiting for action on climate change at an international level.
In line with our motto of "Think Global Act Local", Manchester FoE is focusing on what we can do locally to have a direct affect on climate change. We are therefore launching Climate Challenge 2004; a set of local activities and actions we can all take to reduce our impact on global warming and positively address Climate Change.
We are focussing on four areas:
- Encouraging our friends and neighbours to switch to renewable electricity suppliers in our homes;
- Reducing our demand for electricity so that less electricity needs to be generated from nonsustainable sources;
- Promoting and supporting the development of renewable energy generation (such as windfarms, solar, and small hydro plants) in our region, and;
- Addressing the poor availability of renewable motor fuels such as Biodiesel and Bioethanol in the region.
In future issues of Act!on you will be able to read more about what you personally can do to help, but in the meantime, if you would like to make a difference in any of these areas, or get involved, please get in touch using the details on the "Take Act!on" page.
Dave Coleman
Comment: Doorstep Recycling
Thanks to years of pressure from Friends of the Earth supporters, the Household Waste Recycling Act was passed late last year. The Act requires local authorities to provide every household in England with a separate collection of at least two types of recyclable material by 2010. Friends of the Earth have recently conducted a survey on doorstep recycling in England, for which they sought data from every local authority in the country between September 2003 and February 2004.
Photo: EMERGE Recycling
The data obtained for Manchester City Council shows that while 39% of households receive collections for 3 materials; paper, glass and cans, the other 61% of households receive no collections for recyclable waste. The household waste recycling rate for Manchester City Council stands at 4.28%.
Only 4 out of 43 local authorities (9%) in the North West currently meet the minimum targets of the Recycling Act, compared with 26% of local authorities nationwide. North West councils meeting the targets include neighbouring Salford, which offers collections of 5 or more recyclable materials to 100% of its households.
Manchester FoE are currently developing a waste campaign with the aim of increasing the recycling rates within the Manchester area. Contact us at Manchester FoE to help increase Manchester's recycling rate and see our suggestions on the back of this newsletter.
Colette Humphrey
Editorial
Since our last newsletter, we have launched our Real Food guide and Bayer has pulled out of planting Genetically Modified crops in the UK. Whilst we don't think the two events are directly related (!) what the GM debate in the UK does highlight is that your views count and you have the power to make a difference.
Whilst officially approving GM Maize for planting, would the UK government have placed such a series of hurdles in Bayer's way (to the point where Bayer feel it is pointless to continue) without the groundswell of individuals contacting MPs, attending GM debates (such as ours in Manchester), and telling their shops to stay GM free?
As Friends of the Earth has proven time after time, groups of individuals making small changes locally add up to a big change on a local, national and international scale. This holds true when you choose to buy Real Food and oppose GM. It also holds true in all our other campaign areas. Good Luck in making another small but significant difference this month.
Dave Coleman
Feature: Wave Energy
The sun heats the earth's atmosphere unevenly, which causes pressure variations that cause wind. Wind blowing over the world's oceans creates waves. As anyone who has ever been pummelled in the surf or bounced around in a small boat will know, waves contain a lot of energy. This energy is renewable, clean and available most of the time.
With its long coastline and large waves, the UK is one of the best places in the world for wave energy. It has been estimated that the amount of wave energy arriving at our shores every day is more than three times our daily use. So why aren't we using wave energy to boil our kettles and light our homes?
Well, the sea is a hostile environment. When storms aren't converting a carefully engineered wave energy device to twisted metal, salt water is corroding it or sea creatures are fouling it up.
Despite the many and varied designs for wave energy devices there is only one device which is connected to the grid and generating usable power. This is called LIMPET and is on the island of Islay in Scotland (see below). LIMPET was developed by Queen's University, Belfast (QUB), and uses incoming waves to oscillate a water column. This drives air back and forward through a turbine.
Historically, wave energy devices were designed using a combination of small scale physical models in wave tanks.These were coupled with some simplified mathematics to predict and tune performance. With the increasing speed of computers it has been possible to improve the mathematical representation of waves and more accurately simulate the performance of wave energy devices. This is useful because it is much easier to change a few numbers in a computer to alter sizes, water depths, types of waves etc. than to physically rebuild models and repeat wave tank experiments.
The Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Flow Analysis (CMMFA) at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) are joining forces with the QUB experimental team, and are undertaking a joint experimental and mathematical project to analyse a new type of wave energy device. This new device is essentially a pendular paddle that rocks back and forth, in response to incoming waves, and drives a generator. The two and a half year government funded project aims to analyse various configurations of the device in order to maximise the energy produced (see http://www.owsc.ac.uk for more details).
As a first step, and to test the in-house software (called AMAZON-SC that can simulate water, air, breaking waves and moving bodies), we started by simulating LIMPET. This was well received at the recent European wave energy conference and has led to enquiries from other wave energy groups, and a European bid to simulate another devices.
It is a long way from an idea to a working device but we hope to make a useful contribution to wave energy in the future. It's got to be easier than splitting the atom.
Clive Mingham
Reader in Hydroinformatics
Manchester Metropolitan University
E-mail: c.mingham@mmu.ac.uk
Take Action!
If you have...
...5 minutes
Call the recycling team at Manchester City Council and find out about public recycling facilities and community recycling schemes in your area on 0161 953 2421.
...15 minutes
Making your own lunch instead of buying from a sandwich shop saves on packaging, and could also save you more than £4 a day or about £1,000 a year.
...a while longer
Our new Doorstep Recycling Survey has shown that Manchester City Council is not compliant with the new Household Waste Recycling Act - take a few minutes to write a letter (addressed to the Waste Department) and urge them to comply now rather than delay. For more information go to http://www.manchesterfoe.org.uk/waste