BY JOHN STEWART

John Stewart is the author of Why Noise Matters, published today by Earthscan.

Noise is the pollutant which disturbs more people in their daily lives than any other. The picture is consistent across the globe.  From New York to Rio de Janeiro, noise is the number one complaint to the city authorities.  It dwarfs daily concerns about street crime, air pollution or waste disposal.

And yet this worldwide concern about noise is not reflected in government action.  There are no summits on noise; no ministers being ferried in sleek black cars to high-level discussions; no hotly-contested action plans. 

Even amongst many environmentalists noise pollution is forgotten, downplayed, sometimes even dismissed.  Yet, as my new book, Why Noise Matters, to be published shortly by Earthscan, shows, noise is threatening the planet’s natural sound systems in much the same way as climate change is threatening runaway global warming.  It is estimated that over the past 40 years a third of the planet’s ecosystems have become aurally ‘extinct’ and that underwater noise has doubled for each of the past five decades.

Moreover, noise exacerbates social injustice. While noise can and does affect rich and poor alike, it is poorer communities across the globe that are most exposed to it and, as a rule, have the least opportunity to do anything about it.  When governments fail to tackle noise, the biggest impact is on low-income and vulnerable people. The worst affected of all are poor communities in the poor world: there is no double-glazing in the shanty towns.

And that’s part of the problem.  So many decision-makers can escape from the noise:  detached homes in quiet streets, offices where the whirr of the air-conditioning in the only sound, is a world away from a busy motorway, a poorly-insulated high-rise flat or the thunderous roar of industrial machinery.

What is utterly frustrating is that noise is not a problem without solutions, if the will was there to implement them.  For example, it is estimated that, with the right measures in place, annoyance caused by traffic could be cut by 70 per cent.  Governments would need to stand up to pressure from big business and, more positively, to incentivise the private sector to become part of the solution.

However, it is not all down to governments.  Fascinatingly, the book discovered that for many people, in love with the noisy gadgets of the consumer society which they feel have given them status, it is silence which disturbs, not noise.  When noise, and particularly loud noise, becomes associated with pleasure, people are more inclined to accept a noisy environment.

But noisy environments are not inevitable.  The world can quieten down.  The most startling examples, which the book cites in some detail, are the achievements of China and Hong Kong. Some years ago both countries – then independent of each other – took the decision that noise was a growing problem and put in place a national strategy to deal with it. Although both places remain very noisy, significant progress has been made. For example, in China, despite a huge increase in the number of vehicles on its streets, the average noise from traffic in Beijing has gone down.

People and the planet need a quieter world.  It is perfectly possible.  Some of the solutions are simple.  Others, such as tackling the worldwide growth in traffic, aircraft and ships, may require a change in lifestyles and a more localised economic system.  Given the willpower, it can be done.  Anyone for the first noise summit?

By Dr Nick Atkinson

Nick is the Woodland Trust's Carbon Specialist. You can contact him at nickatkinson@woodlandtrust.org.uk; www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/carbon

Over its lifetime, a tree will remove roughly its own weight in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. During that time, it will also play host to numerous other species, provide sources of food, shelter and fuel, and deliver multiple “ecosystem services” that we all take for granted. If you wanted to design the ultimate global cooling device, it would end up looking just like a tree.

Global deforestation accounts for around one fifth of greenhouse gas emissions[1]. Reversing the loss of forests, protecting remaining old growth stands and ultimately reforesting large areas of land must be priority actions in our response to climate change threats. The UK should lead by example, yet 21 ancient woodlands – in habitat terms our equivalent to rainforest – will be lost if the proposed HS2 rail link route is approved[2].

The UK has almost the lowest woodland cover in Europe – just 13% compared to the 45% average[3]. Timber prices have fallen due to cheaper imports and the last decade has seen a sharp decline in tree planting activity, with native woodland creation halving[4]. A change in direction is required: our efforts to adapt to climate impacts must have woodland expansion as a necessary part. A step change in woodland creation would, according an independent report[5], make a significant contribution towards mitigating the country's GHG footprint. It's a highly cost effective solution too, with costs per tonne of CO₂ removed far lower than Government guide prices for carbon[6].

Sounds too good to be true? Well, this is one of those vanishingly rare cases when the full benefits are in fact likely to be underestimated. As well as the tangible – production of timber and renewable fuel, provision of recreational space and so on – there's a whole host of ecosystem services that trees provide for which no one currently pays[7]. These include mitigating surface water flooding and wind damage, providing habitat for pollinating insects, improving water quality and stabilising soils and, of course, removing carbon from the atmosphere.

It is this latter ability that seems most likely to finance the required scale of UK reforestation. The Government recently announced a code of good practice for domestic carbon forestry[8] (carefully pointing out that this is not “offsetting” in the Kyoto Protocol sense). It also made changes to the guidelines, currently voluntary, for companies wishing to report their GHG emissions. With the likelihood of future mandatory GHG reporting, there is now a powerful incentive for businesses to invest in UK woodland creation[9].

A more wooded landscape is a more resilient landscape. Given that trees are the most cost effective, readily scalable way that we have of removing carbon from the air, planting more of them seems an obvious thing to do. But then there are always those that can’t see the woods for the trees.

Join the discussion and leave a comment over at the Sustainable Futures blog! The latest post is on Sajed Kamal's The Renewable Revolution, a book recently published by Earthscan, tackling nothing less than the question of how we can fight climate change, prevent energy wars, revitalize the economy and transition to a sustainable future. Highly relevant issues that already cause sleepless nights to some and are likely to produce much more headache in the future. Why? Because the age of unlimited, exploitative and imbalanced industrial growth at any cost is over.

In Sajed’s words: “The truth should invoke within us an urgent need for a transition – from an obsolete, destructive and unsustainable non-renewable energy path to a sustainable path of innovation, renewable energy and peace … We will need to think holistically to bridge the conventional gap between philosophy, academics and practicality, development and conservation, economic growth and environment, theory and practice, short-term benefits and log-term solutions, and policy and implementation. Educators, economists, environmentalists, scientists, technologists, business people, media, policymakers and activists – each with much to contribute – will have to engage in a dialogue to devise integrated solutions and actions.” Read more

Picture credit: liberalmind1012

Stephen Tindale, author of Repowering Communities: Small-scale Solutions for Large-scale Energy Problems writes:

The UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has now published, with the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments, a white paper on Electricity Market Reform.  It has also published a Renewables Roadmap, on how the UK can meet its share of the EU renewables target.  Chris Huhne has said that the proposals add up to the greatest transformation of energy since the privatisation of the energy industry.  He is right that the ambition is transformative, and includes some sensible regulatory measures which prove that DECC does not share in the deregulatory zeal that dominates several other departments (including Defra).   (Ofgem has also moved from a position of promoting free markets to promoting regulated and managed markets.)  But anyone who has followed UK energy policy over recent decades knows that political ambition does not always – or indeed often – lead to significant change.  Despite regular speeches from politicians extolling renewables, and numerous plans, the UK – windy, wet islands – is third from bottom in the European league table of energy got from renewable sources. Plans – or roadmaps to use the current policymakers’ jargon – require delivery.  The UK and Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments appear serious in intent. But the potential role of local government – which elsewhere in Europe and also in parts of North America has led energy transformation – is overlooked in this week’s publications.

In August 2010 Huhne announced that local government would be allowed to sell renewable electricity – they had previously been banned from selling electricity so that they wouldn’t ‘complicate’ the privatisation of the CEGB. And earlier this month Huhne met with new electricity suppliers, including Co-Op Energy and renewable generators such as good Energy and Ecotricity.  He said after that meeting “we need more suppliers”.  He’s certainly correct in that: the UK electricity market is totally dominated by the ‘big six’ (Centrica, EDF Energy, Eon, RWE npower, Scottish Power, Scottish and Southern).  In other parts of Europe, notably Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, and in parts of the US and Canada, local government is a major player in both energy efficiency and energy supply. Prashant Vaze and my book, Repowering communities: small scale solutions to large scale problems outlines how in other European countries and in the US and Canada local governments, community organisations and co-operatives are achieving many admirable things, helping overcome local opposition and - because they don’t have to pay shareholders - able to charge lower tariffs. Yet knowledge of these examples among UK policymakers is pretty thin on the ground.  As is too often the case, the view here is that once someone has a bright idea the Brits have to re-invent the wheel.

Chris Huhne spent six years as a member of the European Parliament, so can’t fairly be accused of this attitude. The other DECC ministers also seem conscious that the UK has much to learn from other countries. So with luck the plans to help UK local government to become energy and climate leaders, learning the lessons of their continental and North American counterparts, are under preparation by DECC officials and will be published soon.

Once upon a time there was a generation of young people, full of aspiration and hope that their lives would be better than the ones their parents and grandparents have had. Growing older, this generation then went into business, politics, sports and culture – just like all the others before. Houses grew larger, cars bigger, the regular overseas vacation became the most normal thing to do. Happy lives of plenty and peace, forever and ever. Unfortunately, for most young people today, such a life is about to become a tale of the past. Be it Los Indignados in Spain or Generation Zero in Aotearoa New Zealand: it’s the young generation that realizes how much there is to lose from bad decisions today, but also how much there is to gain from taking action to protect their future.

What has changed? Today’s young people might still dream and make plans, but – unlike previous generations – few will have it better than their parents. Not only because wages hardly rise, but also because most “secure” work places of the past are about to disappear. Formerly well established industries are slowly dying off, and new ones struggle to evolve. However, the difference goes much deeper than that. Free market capitalism itself, the system that we rely on and take for granted, has become weak and unreliable. Or is it us and our culture? On another front, where many of the “established” generation still refuse to “believe” in climate change and global warming, we, the young, know all too well that in the end it will be on us – and our children – to clean up the mess, to adapt and fight; for food and water, against floods, storms and droughts.

Read the whole article - and join the discussion at the sustainable futures blog.

Picture credit: conorwithonen

Prashant Vaze is the Chief Economist at Consumer Focus, UK. Previously he spent 15 years in the UK's Office of Climate Change, the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit and the Department of the Environment. He is author of The Economical Environmentalist (Earthscan, 2009). His new book Repowering Communities (with co-author Stephen Tindale) is available on the Earthscan website now. For a 20% discount use code AF20 when you order online here.

We shouldn’t be asking private energy companies to provide energy efficiency – sharks won’t go vegan

Prashant Vaze

Anyone living in Western Europe and interested in energy policy might be forgiven for believing there was some inalienable tendency, like the law of gravity or the second law of thermodynamics, about how energy provision evolves. Bloated publically owned energy boards must morph into competing, publicly quoted, vertically integrated, multinational energy companies.

Proponents of this transformation will point out its advantages. Customers in a competitive market can punish their energy supplier if their service is no good. Multinational companies can use global capital markets instead of the thread-bare public purse to fund their investment. Large companies can spread the fixed costs of IT and innovation over a larger customer base.

But Europe’s large integrated energy companies fall short of the hyped-up benefits of turbo-capitalism. No assessment of their performance would give them high scores. What is the point of choosing your supplier if every company’s off-shore call-centre offers the same amnesiac service, and their pushy sales teams harangue you with overly complex tariffs? And what if these firms, instead of ploughing their cheap capital into investment, use their negotiating muscle to play one country off against another and only acquiesce to invest when a country offers a fat dowry of subsidies. And what if their overly paid board rooms are indifferent to a communiy’s concern about job creation and affordable energy?

These same companies now have the responsibility for delivering energy efficiency and decarbonisation of our energy system. And they have had a measure of success. But people are quite rightly mistrustful when companies that make their profit from producing and selling energy ask them to reduce their energy use. They ask the reasonable question: “What’s in it for them?

But not every country has gone down this road. No one will be surprised that social democracies of northern Europe have invented an alternate model (or rather they have re-invented one, since many energy companies started off in municipal ownership). Copenhagen’s off-shore Middelgrunden wind farm is jointly owned by thousands of customers and the municipality itself. But who would have thought in the home of the free market, the United States,  that 70 per cent of the country’s area is served by co-operative energy companies or that vast cities like Los Angeles and modest towns like such as Santa Clara (site of the Silicon Valley) are served by municipally owned power companies. The ethos of these companies is to produce as little energy as possible, contribute to local economic growth and where possible replace fossil fuels with sustainable energy sources.

In our book Repowering Communities Stephen Tindale and I look at pioneering and inspiring examples of policies and projects from North America and Europe that are allowing communities to improve their energy efficiency and produce energy locally.

Every Government in the world understands that the challenge of meeting our energy service needs affordably and sustainably is too important to leave to the market. They intervene to correct market failures, Isn’t it about time we had a more fundamental look at whether we need to correct the institutions themselves?