Locog, the organizing committee for the Olympics, originally claimed that the 2012 event would be the “greenest games ever.” Promises were made that were contingent on the support and participation of Locog’s 55 sponsors, but not everyone was willing to comply.

One of Locog’s sustainability pledges is that 70 percent of all waste will be recycled or composted. Coca-Cola has now partnered up with Sita UK to make Locog’s vision feasible. The beverage giant has promised to recycle all clear plastic PET bottles and intends on recycling the materials into 80,000 new Coke bottles. To do this, Coca-Cola will be joining forces with Eco Plastics and will open a new recycling plant in north Lincolnshire. Coca-Cola manager Jon Woods commented on Coke’s environmental initiatives, stating that they are the company’s “most sustainable sponsorship activation” thus far.

Meanwhile, London’s Tower Bridge will be undergoing some major changes. They’ve received final approval to renovate the lighting system into a greener, LED setup. The changes will be far more energy efficient, as energy consumption is expected to be reduced by up to 40 percent.

London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, says, “The spectacular view of Tower Bridge from my office in City Hall is one of my favourites in London, and it’s fantastic to now be able to crack on with this work to make it even better, brighter and greener and at no cost to the taxpayer.” Johnson continued, saying, “This city is going to be watched by the world next summer and this grand old lady of London, one of our best loved landmarks, is now set to play a sparkling role in the celebrations. But what’s more, this is another lasting legacy stemming from the Games which will benefit the city for decades.”

The Tower Bridge renovations will be made possible through Olympic sponsors EDF Energy and GE. Hopefully, more sponsors will step up to the plate by chipping in and making the necessary changes to ensure that the 2012 Olympics will be as green and eco-friendly as possible, so that the games can run as smoothly as a brand new garage door.

Join in the discussion in the comments below and/or share the piece.

During the conference the Geological Society in London warned in a statement that in the absence of mitigation measures it could take Earth 100,000 years or more to recover:

“The geological evidence from the 55 million year event and from earlier warming episodes suggests that such an addition [a massive increase in greenhouse gases caused by the activities of mankind] is likely to raise average global temperatures by at least 5 to 6C, and possibly more, and that recovery of the Earth’s climate in the absence of mitigation measures could take 100,000 years or more. Numerical models of the climate system support such an interpretation. In the light of the evidence presented here it is reasonable to conclude that emitting further large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over time is likely to be unwise, uncomfortable though that fact may be.”

Professor Jim Zachos, from the University of California, said that if we humans continue to pump out greenhouse gases into the atmosphere we could cause “mass extinction of species”:

“Prof Zachos said that if the world continues to pump out greenhouse gases at the current rate, around 5,000 gigatons of greenhouse gases will be released into the atmosphere over a few hundred years.

He said this will cause a more rapid temperature rise that at any other time in history and could cause “mass extinction of species”.

“The impacts will be pretty severe compared to 55 million years ago in terms of evolution of this planet,” he said.”

Read more about this story over at the Telegraph. Also check out this Green Blog post: NOAA study shows climate change “largely irreversible for 1000 years”

Photo credit: lammersch

The car industry is currently undergoing a green revolution, with a number of exciting new technologies vying to challenge the predominance of petrol and diesel and put an end to the internal combustion engine’s negative effects on the environment.

For many years now, private cars have been a favourite target of environmental campaigners, mainly due to the harmful emissions that all internal-combustion engines release into the atmosphere. Their effect was illustrated starkly several times in the 1970s when ‘car-mad’ cities like Los Angeles and London were frequently shrouded in a thick, polluting smog. Car manufacturers have been working on improving their products’ environmental credentials for quite some time now. The most significant developments of the last quarter of a century include the rollout of unleaded fuel, as well as the mandatory fitment of catalytic converters, which remove many of the most harmful elements of vehicle exhaust fumes, to all new cars. But as the 21st century dawned, talk of diminishing oil supplies and the ongoing threat of global warming has incentivised both carmakers and governments to accelerate development of the technologies that will one day take over completely from those in the cars for sale today, which remain dependent on fossil fuels.

Hybrid cars, as the name suggests, represent a half-way house between traditional petrol- and diesel-engined models and the next generation of electrically propelled vehicles. Essentially, a hybrid car is one that combines an internal-combustion engine with an electric motor, powered by large batteries, to provide propulsion. There are two distinct forms of hybrid drivetrain: parallel and series. In a parallel hybrid, both the combustion engine and electric motor are connected to the transmission. Both engines are capable of powering the car, either at the same time or separately. In a series hybrid, only the electric motor is connected to the transmission, and it is solely responsible for propulsion. The combustion engine is connected to a generator to recharge the electric motor’s batteries; it is not responsible for any motion. There are already a number of hybrid cars for sale right now from various manufacturers, with the most popular and recognisable being Toyota’s Prius, now in its third generation. Japanese rival Honda has recently launched its second-generation Insight hybrid, and Toyota’s upmarket brand Lexus offers hybrid versions of its luxury SUVs and executive saloons. These are all parallel hybrids, but General Motors in the US is currently developing the Chevrolet Volt, which should be among the first series hybrid cars to go on sale to the general public.

In the longer term, however, it is likely that hybrids, which still require some fossil fuel, will be superseded by exclusively electric-powered cars. Many governments worldwide are undertaking initiatives to get electric cars for sale to the public as soon as possible. Indeed, a Norwegian minister has proposed banning the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars from 2015! The main obstacle to the growth of electric cars is the fact that their batteries need to be recharged with mains electricity, but seeing as they cannot yet store enough energy for long-distance travel, extensive recharging infrastructure will have to be put in place before the use of electric cars becomes widespread. This is something governments will have to make happen, while the manufacturers concentrate on prolonging the life of batteries and improving their recharging speed. Governments will also have to ensure that their national power grids produce electricity using environmentally friendly resources such as water, wind or the sun.

But electric cars won’t have the roads of the future all to themselves. A rival technology has emerged in the shape of hydrogen fuel cells, arguably the most groundbreaking method of alternative propulsion currently being developed. A hydrogen-powered car has a fuel tank that is filled with hydrogen in the same way a petrol-engined car’s tank is filled with petrol. The hydrogen reacts with oxygen inside the engine to produce electricity and water, which in turn power the car’s electric motor. The Honda FCX Clarity is probably the most widely known hydrogen fuel-cell-powered car, as it has been on limited trial sale in the United States and Japan since late last year. It’s powered by a 134hp, 57-litre hydrogen fuel-cell stack, and also uses a 288-volt lithium-ion battery. On a full tank of hydrogen, the Clarity can travel up to 280 miles, and, most importantly, the only waste product it produces is water. As with electric vehicles, the growth of hydrogen-fuelled cars is dependent on a network of suitable refuelling points being rolled out.

With development of all these innovative technologies currently proceeding at breakneck pace, it looks likely that it won’t be too long before none of the cars for sale on dealers’ forecourts have internal-combustion engines under the bonnet, something which will make a massive difference to the impact humans currently have on the planet’s environment.

The Times Online is reporting that a polar bear was found stranded on a block of ice travelling down the Thames in London yesterday.

Although the polar bear only was a giant sculpture designed to help promote a new natural history channel in the UK it highlighted the effects of man-made climate change, in this case melting ice caps.

“A total of 15 artists spent two months constructing the 20ft by 20ft square structure, which was launched at 6:30am before travelling up the Thames, stopping besideTower Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. The structure weighing, 1.5 tonnes, was winched into place.

The event coincides with the Eden Channel’s Fragile Earth series, presented by Sir David Attenborough.”

Sir David said in an interview with the Times Online that “the melting of the polar bears’ sea ice habitat is one of the most pressing environmental concerns of our time. I commend Eden for highlighting the issue; we need to do what we can to protect the world’s largest land carnivores from extinction.”

Adrian Wills, head of the Eden channel, claimed it would address issues like climate change in an informative and entertaining way: “The Earth is a fragile place and we were keen to launch with a message that would draw attention to the uncertain state of our finely balanced environment.”

According to the Eden channel the polar bear will also be visiting other major cities in the UK, such as Glasgow and Birmingham.

The lion named Christian was bought from an exotic animals department in Harrods in 1969 by the two Australians John Rendall and Anthony Bourke for 250 guineas. They took him home and raised him in their flat.

SkyNews reports:

“The urban lion became a popular local figure in their London antiques shop, until he went from a manageable 35 pounds to 185 pounds, a year later.

Christian was moved to the Kenyan wildlife sanctuary featured in the movie Born Free, and after a year living in the wild, was found by his former owners with a pride of his own.

The 38-year-old video captures the emotional moment which shows the lion stalking towards the two men, until they call out his name.”

Watch the video:

Christian left the Kora Reserve in 1973. He made his new territory along the Tana river, but when the Wakamba herdsmen kept bringing their livestock to his hunting ground, he moved on. George Adamson said in his autobiography:

“I used to count the days on which we hadn’t seen Christian, but when they reached 97, I gave up recording them in my diary.”

Because a lion can live from 12 to 15 years in the wild, Adamson believed that Christian ended his days in the Meru National Reserve only a few miles up river.

The older generation is partly to be blamed for this climate change mess we have gotten our self into. They sit on the power and the money. They decide yours, mine and your children’s future. And from the looks of their inaction it seems they have decided to make the future a real mess for everyone.

No wonder the kids, and their moms, are angry.

They are so angry that they have started a UK network called WE CAN (WE Climate Action Now).

“we CAN was started by a group of mothers and young people who are gravely concerned about the government’s failure to take decisive action on climate change. Many of us have not taken political action before. The CAN in our name stands for Climate Action Now – which is what we’re calling for. The government needs to know that it has a mandate to tackle the problem – we want to show that it has.”

Their first action will be a demonstration against the plans on a third runway at Heathrow Airport.

“How can a responsible government that claims it cares about the environment be giving serious consideration to a third runway which would double air traffic (not reduce congestion) and emit as much yearly CO2 as the whole of Kenya? The government’s stance on this issue sums up the whole problem: profits and popularity are put before the planet.”

They have even made a video:

http://wecan.uk.com

On a news conference Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, said that he believes that “this ground-breaking initiative will have an impact throughout the world with other cities following suit as they step up their efforts to halt the slide towards catastrophic climate change.”

Ken Livingstone admits that the new tax will only have a minor impact on greenhouse gas emissions in London. But, he says the new congestion charging scheme for gas-guzzling cars will send signals that its time to change lifestyle.

“I have every sympathy for a Scottish hill farmer who needs his 4×4 to get around,” Livingstone said. “But there is absolutely no justification for cars producing high amounts of pollution being driven in central London.”

The new scheme is expected to bring in around £30-£50 million ($60-$100), every year. The money will go to fund the cost for a major cycling initiative in London.

While environmental organisations and a majority of the citizens in London welcome the new scheme the motor industry is not happy. Automobile Association president Edmund King welcomes incentives for greener cars, but says that “larger families who do low mileage will be clobbered by this new tax.”

Tony Juniper, from Friends of the Earth Director, welcomes the new scheme but says more is needed.

“Road traffic is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Measures that get people to choose greener cars, as well as to drive less, are urgently needed. Charging gas-guzzling vehicles more to drive in central London is extremely welcome and supported by most Londoners. We are delighted that Mr Livingstone is taking a lead on this issue.”

Below is a video from SkyNews where Tony Juniper and Porsche go head to head on congestion charging in London:

Image credit: Joshua Kaufman. Image licensed under a
Creative-Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.