8 Things to consider before you install renewables
Category: Climate change and gardening
Install Your Own Green Roof
Maddy Harland describes how to convert a pitch and tar flat roof into a green roof: a beautiful and enduring paradise for birds and bees -click the title for the full article.
Old School Gardener
With the recent release of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, climate change has been a familiar topic in the news and media. More recently new publications have explicitly linked climate change to food security and they show that there is much to be done by governments, big business and the public sector, if our food and agricultural systems are to be resilient to predicted changes in the climate.
A new report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Advancing Global Food Security in the Face of Weather Volatility and Climate Change, which builds on the IPCC report, explains how climate change will undermine efforts to tackle hunger, limiting food production and putting food supplies at risk. Higher temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns and more frequent and severe natural disasters could reduce food production growth by 2% each decade for the rest of this century. But, the report…
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Vertical gardening and planting seems to be taking off. If it isn’t home-made planters for herbs and the like then its mega green walls in public places. Here are a few of the latest examples I’ve come across.
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- Edible wall at Atlanta Botanical Garden
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- Second highest green wall- Colombia
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- Steel and greenery
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- Mixed verti gardening
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- A green screen to help with temperature control
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- All walls can be green
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- You can even compost vertically- here’s a design for a wormery!
Old School Gardener
Every year on the 23rd March meteorological services around the world celebrate World Meteorological Day to mark the creation of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1950. This year’s World Meteorological Day theme is ‘Weather and climate: engaging youth’.
WMO is engaging with young people through a variety of ways, including:
- A new and revamped “Youth corner” website providing fun information like ‘how to make a tornado in a jar’ or ‘creating a portable cloud’.
- A guide to having a career in meteorology
The Met Office is continually looking at ways to get young people engaged in the fascinating world of weather and climate. Here are some of the things we’re doing:
Inspiring the next generation with EDF Energy
This Met Office and EDF Energy collaboration is part of a wider partnership programme to help…
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UEA research reveals four new man-made gases in the atmosphere
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‘Scientists at the University of East Anglia have identified four new man-made gases in the atmosphere – all of which are contributing to the destruction of the ozone layer.
New research published today in the journal Nature Geoscience reveals that more than 74,000 tonnes of three new chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and one new hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) have been released into the atmosphere.
Scientists made the discovery by comparing today’s air samples with air trapped in polar firn snow – which provides a century-old natural archive of the atmosphere. They also looked at air collected between 1978 and 2012 in unpolluted Tasmania…….’
click on the title link for the full article
Old School Gardener
Bio Solar Panels
Bio-Based Solar Panels That Could Run On Dirt And Plants
‘An inspiring design aims to get rid of the expensive and toxic materials used to make solar panels today, and replace it with something a lot more natural.
What if solar panels could be dirt, plants, and batteries rather than the expensive and often toxic chemicals and heavy metals used today?
That’s the aim of this ambitious design from architecture students at a Spanish university. It uses bacteria in soil to make mini fuel cells to power devices. Plants growing in the soil keep the bacteria alive as a product of photosynthesis, and water keeps everything running. The whole structure could be simple to build….’
Click on the title for the full article
Old School Gardener
As the unsettled UK weather continues this week, the Met Office’s National Climate Information Centre have looked at statistics for this winter so far (from 1 December to 10 February).
These add to previous facts and figures we put out earlier this week, and show a picture of continuing exceptional rainfall across many areas.
Looking at regions around the UK, these provisional figures suggest the region of SE and Central S England has already exceeded its record winter rainfall in the series back to 1910. It is currently at 439.2mm*, less than 2mm above the previous record set in 1915 with 437.1mm of rain.
For the UK as a whole, and also for Wales, both are fairly close to their respective record wettest winter levels in the national series dating back to 1910. Average rainfall for the rest of the month would likely see those records broken.
All countries across…
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Old School Garden 