Blablacar gets into gear

A new travel website has been launched in the UK for people looking to share road trips – and its called BlablaCar. It saves drivers and passengers money, reduces CO2 emissions and is generally a sociable way of travelling so a real winner!  As thousands of people head off to festivals in the UK with space for more people left in their car or van, the amount of wasted energy and money which could be saved is “phenomenal” says Blablacar.

Blablacar has already had big success in Europe (over a million people have shared more than five million trips and saved up to 200,000 tonnes of CO2) and you can check out the website  www.blablacar.com (it’s free to sign up!).  Its easy to understand why – and it extends beyond just festivals. With petrol prices continuing to soar to all time highs, drivers can now share their travel costs by inviting passengers to join them, saving significant costs on each journey. The new site is provided by a French company, Comuto, and the service is known as Covoiturage.fr in France. It  has been a real success amongst drivers and passengers alike who are often frustrated at disruptions to air and rail transport and hard hit by increasing petrol prices and rising public transport costs – or who fancy doing something a bit more green.  The site, founded in 2006, is growing by over 50,000 users per month, not only saving €100m since 2009 but also over 200,000 tons of CO2 – hooray and hooray again!

To use the service, drivers post details of their trip and a suggested price, typically a proportionate contribution. Potential passengers searching for a specific trip then choose whether or not this fits with what they want to pay. There is lots of sensible advice on the site to make sure things go smoothly.

Blablacar say that they have demonstrated the significant cost savings for both drivers and passengers who headed to this years already legendary Glastonbury Festival.

• When travelling from London, drivers could save 64 percent of the overall cost (equivalent to 31.5 pints of beer/cider, 25 burgers or 264 toilet rolls)
• Passengers travelling from London could save 29 percent on the cost of a train ticket (equivalent to 4.25 pints of beer/cider, 3.4 burgers or 36 toilet rolls)
• When travelling from Manchester, drivers could save 74 percent of the overall cost (equivalent to 46.5 pints of beer/cider, 37.2 burgers or 391.5 toilet rolls)
• Passengers travelling from Manchester could save 45 percent on the cost of a train ticket (equivalent to 12.7 pints of beer/cider, 10.2 burgers or 107.5 toilet rolls

Sources:

Festival ticket pricing see  http://www.festivalbusiness.co.uk/2011/06/ticket-prices-rise-dramatically-since.html

Petrol price increases see  http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/fuel/index.html

Car occupancy:  from Department For Transport statistics 2009 / Rail fare increases see  : http://www.atoc.org

Beer/cider prices – avg. £4 per pint, burger – avg. £5 each, toilet roll £1.90 for 4 (from Tesco prices)

Car running costs from  http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/running_costs/petrol2011.pdf

Cheapest rail fares from  www.nationalrail.co.uk 14 June 2011.

So check out Blablacar! www.blablacar.com

ANOTHER PLANET

Some of the UK’s biggest industrial companies have warned the government that plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions and impose a carbon tax will drive them to other countries. Tata Steel, chemicals giant Ineos and Syngenta, the seeds and pesticides group, have told ministers and officials that plans to impose a ‘carbon floor’ will make them uncompetitive. From 2013 all major polluters will join power companies in paying to produce CO2 which will start at £16 a tonne and rise to £30 a tonne by 2030. Industries including chemicals, paper and steel companies say that this, along with other green legislation,  will make the UK an uncompetitive business environment.   Alcan, which smelts aluminium, says it may close its plant in Lynemouth in Northumberland in the face of rising energy costs pushed higher by carbon costs and other legislation,

Engineers in the USA are preparing to open floodgates to prevent New Orleans suffering its worst flooding since 1927.  The flood controls will divert waters away from the Mississippi and protect New Orleans and Baton Rouge – although the waters will flood the Atchafalaya Basin and will almost certainly flood numerous small towns in what is known as Louisiana’s Cajun country where many residents have been served with evacuation orders – and the waters  may reach the oli town of Morgan City. The river is expected to reach its peak on the 23rd May.  Without the action the Mayor of New Orleans said the flooding would be worse than the havoc wreaked by Hurrican Katrina in 2005.

Restaurants in the UK will now be able to apply for their own green badge,  awarded by the Sustainable Restaurants Association and based on a minimum of three “ticks” in areas such as sourcing at least 20% of food locally, using FairTrade, conserving energy and recycling waste properly.

Bad new from Brazil – deforestation of the Amazon is on the rise again which is quite a surpise after years of successful action to reduce the loss of this valuable habitat. By 2010 the rate of deforestation was the lowest for 22 years but satellite images show that between March and April 2011, 595 sq km of forest was lost – six times the loss in the same period in the previous year. Much of the destruction took place in the Mato Grasso, the country’s leading area for soya bean farming. Izabela Teixeira, the environment ministers, promised 500 personell who ’suffocate’ environmental crime in the Mato Grosso but environmental campaigners say that changes to the strict Forest Code, pushed through after lobbying  by the agricultural industry as well as price rises for soya and beef, are to blame for the increase in environmental destruction.  

Britain is set to sizzle in a two week-long heatwave predicted to start this Saturday – which will make this May the hottest for 350 years, sparking fears of a major drought across the country, a summer hosepipe ban, food price rises and devastating forest fires sweeping the country. Weathermen said the average temperature in central England so far this month was 13C (55F) – five degrees warmer than average and ranking it in the top 6% of hottest Mays since records began in 1659. April had just 24% of the average rainfall for the month, making it the driest April for 80 years, while several areas of the country experienced the driest March for almost half a century. Jonathan Powell, senior forecaster at Positive Weather Solutions, told the Daily Express  ”‘This is an astonishing year so far and may well continue to turn up more surprises. May is outperforming expectations, as did March and April.”

Puma, the international sports clothing comany based in Germany, has announced plans to begin recycling sports clothing, in particular those manufactured from man-made fibres such as football jerseys.  For more on Puma including the art installation of a F1 racing car made out of recycled Puma shoe boxes see http://www.puma.com/football and  see  http://greenopolis.com/goblog/green-groove/puma-shoe-boxes-recycled-f1-race-car

Chris Huhne, the UK’s energy minister has outlined far reaching emissions reduction measures.  Mr Huhne had managed to win a behind the scenes battle with business secretary Vince Cable and treasury chief George Osborne to get the proposals before parliament and the energy minister backed the views of the Committee on Climate Changeas he spoke in Parliament on May 17.  A limit on the total amount of greenhouse gases to be emitted by the UK between 2023-to-2027 has been proposed to cut Britain’s emissions by 50% from 1990 levels. The proposal puts the UK on course to cut emissions by at least 80% by 2050, but will a review of progress was also added in for 2014 linked to progress or, the lack of by in other European Union countries.  According to edie.net, the Government will continue to argue for an EU-wide move to a 30% target for 2020, and ambitious action in the 2020s and, before the end of this year will announce a package of measures to reduce the impact of government policy on the cost of electricity for energy intensive industries and to help them adjust to the low-carbon industrial transformation with Hune saying  “by cutting emissions we’re  getting ourselves off the oil hook, making our energy supplies more secure and opening up opportunities for jobs in the new green industries of the future.”

Chima has admitted that its Three Gorges Dam has created ‘urgent’ problems including drought and an increased risk of earthquakes. The Chinese government had been warned that the planned 660 sq km reservoir would have severe geological challenges.

new plane heralds greener air travel

Boeing have launched a new flagship 330 seat aircraft which is said to be ‘leaner and greener’ than traditional aircraft. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner was launched in the UK at the Farnborough air show last weekend and it is markedly different from conventional aircraft, having been built largely out of light-weight composite material. The airplane is powered by more fuel efficient Rolls-Royce engines – but primarily because of its lower weight the 787  is substantially more fuel efficient than older craft. When it was first conceived, the Dreamliner was a revolutionary concept, but rivals have since done much to catch up – not least as the price of oil has risen and risen – Airbus is building a similar series of planes dubbed A350 and rivals are being planned by manufacturers in Brazil, China and Canada. With air travel contributing substantailly to global greenhouse gas emissions, its not a no carbon solution – its not even a low carbon solution – BUT it is step in the right direction.

BA have also announced some environmentally friendly news – using up to sixty lorry loads of organic waste every day to fuel a new plant that will produce 16.4 million gallons of jet fuel every year. Whilst it is great that BA will be able to turn banana skins, cardboard, coffee grouts and tomato skins into biofuel, and that the plant will be self sustaining and ‘self powered’, it will only produce 2% of BA’s overall fuel needs.

From planes to bikes – and hats off to London Mayor Boris Johnson who is championing a bold new scheme to get more people cycling in the UK’s capital city. He has already closed 11 miles of roads in Ealing for a day to get more people out and about on bikes, and now Boris is launching the first two of a possible twelve cycling ‘superhighways’ which are bike only trackways linking the outskirts of the vast metropolis with the centre. On to[p of this, Boris is going to promote a scheme allowing people to hire out one of 6,000 bikes from 4,000 docking stations across the centre of London. Liverpool is set to follow in London’s footsteps (or tyre tracks) and a number of cities including Cambridge, Blackpool, Bristol and York and already well on the way to getting more and more people out of cars and onto bikes. Montreal has a working bike scheme with its ‘Bixis’ and Mexico City has just introduced 1200 Ecobici cycles – but its Paris that is the real leader with the ‘Velib’ scheme with 24,000 bikes for hire – based on a £24 annual subscription – and each bike gets used about 20 times a day – reducing car use by 2%. Vandalism and theft remain a problem as does the fact that some docking stations empty fast and others of course fill up (especially those downhill!) but the scheme is generally considered a big success.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787

London leads on green initiatives

Big Ben

London has taken a lead on promoting city based green initiatives with a range of new projects:

- first off, there is a new art installation in Trafalgar Square – the remains of trees which once stood as high as Nelson’s column are at the heart of ‘Ghost Forest’ put in place to highlight global deforestation and climate change (see www.ghostforest.org )  

- next up, Mayor Boros Johnson has announced that he aims to have 25000 recharge points for electric cars in place by 2015 – go Boris go!

- There are plans for a new London Cycle Hire scheme and Cycle Superhighways to encourage pedal power in the capital 

- Five hydrogen buses will join TfL’s bus fleet in 2010 – running on hydrogen hybrid fuel, reducing CO2 emissions and helping in the fight against climate change

- London Underground are stepping up efforts to recycle the millions of free newspapers (The Metro, City AM and The Evening Standard) given out to Londoners each week. Current rates are now up to 40% plus.

- The Mayor has plans in hand for cleaner air in London by making sure all minicabs and taxis meet stricter emission regulations by 2012; by bringing in phase three of the Low Emission Zone;  and by supporting campaigns to cut pollution. See www.london.gov.uk

Bikes and pedestrians left out of Olympic plans

Olympics minister Tessa Jowell has admitted the Government has no targets for the amount of people who will walk or use cycles to get to 2012 Olympic venues in London.  Speaking at the Foreign Policy Centre’s ‘Access and Inclusion… Delivering the Green Games’  Mrs Jowell admitted no targets were in place, making it impossible to commit to other infrastructure such as cycle racks – which seems rather a missed opportunity – especially as the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is hopefully committed to plans originally announced by his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, to place 6,000 free rental bikes across London’s nine inner boroughs.