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Scottish oil refinery could be turned into hub for green chemicals
Scotland’s first minister says Grangemouth could become world leader in green fuels
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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » This site
Dealing with Climate Change & Justice
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Posted 3 months ago #
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Greenpeace must pay hundreds of millions over Dakota pipeline protests, says jury
Non-profit said in statement lawsuits like this aimed at ‘destroying the right to peaceful protest’
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/greenpeace-lawsuit-energy-transfer-dakota-pipeline
Posted 3 months ago # -
Good piece by Lesley Riddoch on the Cowal Community Energy wind farm bid.
THE Cowal Community Energy group – recently rejected by Forestry Land Scotland (FLS) from taking on the lease to run a large-scale wind farm – aims to take over the land it sits on instead. Bravo.
It’s a shame neither the Scottish Government nor FLS encouraged this community wind farm bid in the first place. But the ball is now in the Scottish Government’s court. Will they let the asset transfer go ahead so the trust representing 80% of the Cowal peninsula population can earn some big bucks – perhaps £1 million per annum – as a landowner?
It would be the right thing to do now – but let’s be clear, it’s the second-best option.
Winning the lease to run Cruach Mhor would have earned Cowal locals £3 million per year. But if the asset transfer doesn’t go ahead, they’ll get nowt but community benefit from the winning company – about £56,000 per year. That’s a very big difference.
And the Scottish Government could reframe this situation in favour of communities right now. But will they?
There are a lot of warm words about the importance of community but if wind farm tenders aren’t “community-shaped” as they come up for “repowering” in the next few years, rural communities will miss out on millions as commercial companies make megabucks.
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25022447.lesley-riddoch-welcoming-community-wind-farm-bid/
Posted 3 months ago # -
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Graeme Murray, a Cowal community energy director, said: “If our bid can be rejected, the idea Scottish communities will benefit properly from renewables is for the birds.”
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Posted 3 months ago # -
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Download our latest Resilience report: Building a resilient food system to understand:key risks impacting the food system
why climate change and geopolitics pose the gravest threats
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https://www.igd.com/Social-Impact/Reports/Building-a-resilient-food-system/55967
Via
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Are We Prepared? Could the UK Feed Itself in a Crisis?
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Posted 3 months ago # -
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Scotland’s forestry industry is facing a funding black hole of £24 million and national planting targets will not be met now for at least two years.
A massive budget cut has knocked the forestry industry’s confidence, potentially stalling planting projects and leading to trees being destroyed.
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Posted 3 months ago # -
The International Air Transport Association said it was “yet another case of Heathrow letting down both travellers and airlines”. Willie Walsh, Iata’s director general, added: “How is it that critical infrastructure is totally dependent on a single power source without an alternative? If that is the case then it is a clear planning failure by the airport.”
© The GuardianDavid Omand, the former head of the Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ), told the BBC’s World at One: “Given the importance of Heathrow I am surprised that the whole airport had to be shut for a day.
“I mean, you could understand disruption whilst you change over to alternate systems and so on, but such a complete failure over the period of a day – and who knows the disruption may last longer – is a national embarrassment. It shouldn’t have happened. "
We live in surreal times. Apparently the PM threatened Russia with nuclear weaponry today too.
The poor have to pay for more weapons but the better off are in meltdown about a day's flight delay. (!) People in Southern England heard birdsong with 1300 flights grounded.. This weekend they'll get no sleep as airlines catch up.Posted 3 months ago # -
New figures show Scottish brewing giant BrewDog is to receive a total grant of £2.7 million as it prepares to replace lost saplings and extend planting at its Lost Forest.
There was a story from The Ferret in The National that suggested that there was an element of neglect in a planting beside existing Scots Pines. Not sure if this is related. Did they not get a grant before?
Posted 3 months ago # -
Far better to let rewilding take place naturally - that way you get the right tree species in the right places and aren't left with millions of plastic waste and failed saplings all over the landscape.
To do that you have to remove deer from the area (fencing) and initially encourage things like gorse and bracken which keep the animals away from the young trees.
Bring back apex predator species like lynx to keep deer and other overpopulated species in check. And beavers as their own eco-system engineers
Obviously a more complex subject than I can write here, but rewilding is best left to nature once the man-made influences like sheep farming, game hunting, and deer are in check.
Posted 3 months ago # -
Brewdog "have" to replant to keep the delicious grant moneys flowing. They could quite easily just shoot a whole bunch of deer instead.
It's a big mess and not limited to Kinrara alone. Blogpost contains link to the above Herald article and much else besides for those interested.
Posted 3 months ago # -
Have you noticed far fewer pick-up trucks on our roads recently? That’s because, from April, people who buy or lease one weighing at least one tonne will pay more tax, in line with cars, rather than vans. It managed to pass most people by. But we don’t always need to create new regulation, we already have powers at our disposal.
For example, vehicle idling has been illegal since 1988. Councils have the power to charge idlers a £20 fixed penalty. But they don’t, at least in the capital, because the current fine apparently isn’t enough to justify the increased cost of the contract with NSL, the company which supplies our traffic wardens in Edinburgh.
It’s a wonderful example of how we’re more focused on “balancing the books” than realising that not protecting our health and environment will cost so much more down the line.
What other options could we investigate? Stop subsidising electric vehicle manufacturers by building their infrastructure for them. Do not provide free parking, invest in public transport and park and rides instead. Raise the minimum driving age. Lower speed limits.
It’s time to grab the bull by the horns. A person’s desire to drive does not trump anybody’s right to clean air. The NHS says 2700 people in Scotland die each year due to outdoor air pollution; hundreds die in our capital city every year alone.
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25030595.pay-road-scrapping-targets-reduce-car-use/
Pick-ups in rural Perthshire are ubiquitous. On school bus drop offs you'll see them hovering to cover the last mile to ferry kids up a steep farm track. Most are working vehicles so not for show particularly. Many children walk though - bikes and scooters in village too.
Posted 3 months ago # -
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Record is chair of Net Zero Watch, a lobby group that argues policies to deal with the climate emergency are too expensive. He is known to have funded the Global Warming Policy Foundation, another climate sceptic group.
He has written frequently for the Telegraph about his scepticism about action on net zero. Record has been approached for comment through the Net Zero Watch campaign.
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Posted 3 months ago # -
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“Three years after bursting on the scene in a blaze of orange, at the end of April the Just Stop Oil campaign will be hanging up the hi-vis,” she said.
“Just Stop Oil’s demand to end new oil and gas is now government policy, making us one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history. We’ve made fossil-fuel licensing front page news and kept over 4.4bn barrels of oil in the ground, while courts have ruled new oil and gas unlawful.
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Posted 3 months ago # -
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How to Clean Up the Shipping Industry
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00297dc
Apparently 1/3 of shipping is carrying fossil fuels.
Don’t know if that is tonnage or number of vessels (or both).
Posted 3 months ago # -
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The greenness, or otherwise, of the systems depends very much on the inputs, she explains. If you’re using gas then they’re not that green. But if, as in Stockholm’s district heating network (which also claims to be the world’s largest district cooling system), the inputs include heat from residents’ wastewater, excess heat from the electricity used to cool datacentres and supermarket refrigerators, and steam from incinerated non-recyclable waste at combined heat and power plants, the carbon footprint will be far lower.
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Posted 3 months ago # -
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Climate breakdown is causing extreme rainfall to become more common and more intense across most of the world, and flooding has most probably become more frequent and severe in these locations as a result.
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Posted 3 months ago # -
@MediumDave and others.
Brewdog fed local deer population it seems. Deer are basically domesticated now and hang about in fields grazing like sheep. Up in Aviemore a local charity has set up providing venison for foodbanks from culled deer. Need to find link.
Posted 3 months ago # -
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Emissions from burning coal from the proposed Whitehaven mine were not included in the developer’s climate assessment. New fossil fuel projects are thought to be on shakier legal ground after the precedent set by a landmark supreme court decision that quashed planning permission granted for an oil drilling well at Horse Hill on the Weald in Surrey. That judgment found the impact on the climate of burning coal, oil and gas must be taken into account when deciding whether to approve projects.
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Posted 3 months ago # -
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He added: “The original plans for the Silvertown tunnel were developed in 2012. We made a series of significant improvements to make the scheme greener and to include a package of measures to support Londoners, local residents and businesses.“This includes ensuring there are discounts and concessions in place, and reserving, for the first time ever, a lane for zero-emission doubledecker buses and an innovative free cycle-shuttle service, which will encourage more people to switch to greener modes of transport.”
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Posted 3 months ago # -
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The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) has warned it needs “long-term and sustained investment” to cope with the climate crisis and “increased demand” on its services, after firefighters battled wildfires across the UK this week.
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Posted 2 months ago # -
Helicopter rescue
Marbrow told the Scotsman: “By midnight, the fire was really raging down the side of the hill where we were. At about 1am, we thought ‘what do we do? Do we try and walk off the hill?’. We decided to stay up until daybreak.
“The fire was about 20 metres away from where we were camped. It was a proper inferno on the side of the hill.
“Never in a million years did we think the smoke we had seen in the distance would be a wildfire like this.”
At about 3am, the four campers heard a helicopter overhead, however it departed without spotting them, the Scotsman reported.
It returned around 4am and rescued the stricken campers.
Emergency services began the search after spotting Marbrow’s car parked on Friday evening.
Police made contact with Marbrow’s wife, Fernanda, in East Yorkshire, and she advised them of an area “pin” which her husband had sent before they left.
A Coastguard spokesperson said: “At around 2.30am on Saturday, the HM Coastguard search and rescue helicopter and fixed wing aircraft were sent to search the area for potential campers.
“Six people were located by the helicopter and rescued from the area of the fire. They were transferred into the care of Police Scotland.”
'Harry Potter' train fire risk
THE seasonal debut of the iconic Jacobite steam train was cancelled due to fire risk, following the outbreak of wildfires across Scotland.
Aerial pictures have shown a 1950s diesel locomotive pull the Jacobite carriages in place of the Jacobite due to it being unable to run because of the high risk of wildfires. Pictures also show tourists sitting on the hill above the landmark, watching the train go by.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) previously warned there was a “very high” to “extreme” risk of wildfire across Scotland from Wednesday April 2 until Monday April 7 as the country enjoyed dry and sunny weather.
Extracts from wildfire reports ©The National
Posted 2 months ago # -
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Revealed: Big tech’s new datacentres will take water from the world’s driest areas
Amazon, Google and Microsoft are building datacentres in water-scarce parts of five continents
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/09/big-tech-datacentres-water
Posted 2 months ago # -
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A leaked document shows that vested interests may have been behind a “mud-slinging” PR campaign to discredit a landmark environment study, according to an investigation.
New plant-focused diet would ‘transform’ planet’s future, say scientists.
The Eat-Lancet Commission study, published in 2019, set out to answer the question: how can we feed the world’s growing population without causing catastrophic climate breakdown?
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“Everyone was shocked by the volume and tone of the tweets: the aggressiveness and degree of lying, to put it very bluntly,” he said. “Climate change science has faced this kind of backlash for a while. But in this domain – diets and meat – that was new to people.
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Posted 2 months ago # -
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Will global climate action be a casualty of Trump’s tariffs?Clean energy investors likely to pull back from US, but other countries may seize opportunity to speed transition
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/11/global-climate-action-casualty-trump-tariffsPosted 2 months ago # -
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I had written about the British glaciologist John Mercer, author of a 1978 Nature paper in which he warned that continuing increases in fossil fuel consumption would cause amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide to soar. Global temperatures could rise by 2C by the mid-21st century, causing major ice loss at the poles and threatening a 5-metre rise in sea levels, he warned.
Today temperatures are 1.5C warmer than they were in preindustrial times and sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate. And, as Mercer also predicted, global warming is having its greatest impact at the poles. Ice is disappearing, threatening to inundate Earth’s populated coastal zones with meltwater and compromising the planet’s ability to reflect solar radiation back into space. Further temperature rises are likely to ensue.
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I have been at pains to record these in the Observer – often to orchestrated choruses of hostile responses from climate-change deniers – and to make it clear that our addiction to fossil fuels is going to have dangerous consequences for our planet.
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Our scientific creativity and ingenuity could surely help us face down the coming devastation, it might be expected. We certainly have the intellectual capacity to halt the changes that lie ahead. Sadly, my experiences as science editor suggest otherwise – for just as I have watched breathtaking advances in science unfold, I have witnessed large parts of society turn their heads and deliberately reject the truths that have been presented to them. The rise of unreason has been the unwelcome partner to our growing scientific sophistication.
Posted 2 months ago # -
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Agustina Olivieri, head of campaigns for the Good Law Project, said the revolving doors between Holyrood and corporate interests were “spinning as smoothly as ever” and “glaring loopholes” should be closed. Politicians should listen to those with “real policy expertise based on a social justice agenda” rather than “the dizzying spin of corporate lobbyists pushing for tax cuts or shilling for oil and gas barons,” she argued.“
https://theferret.scot/influence-game-revolving-door-politics-media-and-pr/
Posted 2 months ago #
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