On the face of it, yes. When we burn biofuels, it is carbon that was absorbed from the atmosphere by the crops used to make the biofuel that gets released back into the atmosphere. So, carbon neutral fuel, yes? Well, no actually. You see, you also have to take into account the use of fertilisers and farm machinery when the crops are growing and the refining process needed to create the fuels. And even more importantly, to make room to grow more biofuels, rainforests have already been destroyed and peatlands drained

A report issued today by Chatham House shows that biofuels will cost us more too. Biofuel comes in two basic forms – ethanol, which can be added to petrol and biodiesel which can be an ingredient in diesel or which can be used as a standalone fuel for diesel vehicles.

Ethanol is refined from crops like corn, wheat and sugar. Biodiesel can be derived from rapeseed oil, palm oil, in fact pretty much any sort of vegetable oil, or from used cooking oil, which is the most common source of biodiesel in the UK at the moment.

The worrying thing is that if the EU directives are followed through as currently planned, then by 2020, petrol will need to contain around 14% ethanol and diesel will have to contain 10% biodiesel.

That means that biofuel production would have to increase significantly, potentially causing the creation of more biofuel plantations in areas that are currently rainforest (palm oil could become a more significant ingredient of biodiesel) and threatening food security by pushing up the price of food crops (wheat, sugar, corn etc.) used in the production of ethanol for petrol.

The study shows that while there is potential for more used cooking oil to be turned into biodiesel in the UK, the requirements will far outstrip what can be supplied, meaning that more biodiesel will have to be produced from palm or rapeseed oils.

The report also shows that greater environmental benefits are likely to be achieved through advances in engine technology.

So does an increased use of biofuel seem like a good idea? Where it’s recycling of used cooking oil, perhaps. But if it means that more of the crops that could feed hungry people around the world are being burned in engines instead and that previously unspoiled areas of rainforest are being cleared to make way for oil palms, then I think not.

But the full picture is more complicated than this.  A recent study comparing  electric and conventional cars, authored by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology looked at the total environmental impacts of cars driven for 150,000km (93,205.7 miles) has shown that in some cases, electric vehicles are actually worse for the planet.

They found that some electric vehicles have almost double the impact on climate change as conventional cars during their manufacture, mostly because of the raw materials and energy required to make lithium-ion batteries.

Of course, things improved as soon as the cars started to be driven, but how much of an improvement there was depended on how the electricity that charged the electric cars’ batteries was being produced.  The study took into account the environmental impacts of drilling for oil, refining it and transporting it to filling stations, as well as the impacts of actually burning petrol or diesel in cars.  But it also took into account what kind of fuel was being used in the power stations that provided the electricity.

In countries where the electricity was being generated from coal-fired power stations, the benefits of electric vehicles were greatly reduced.  In the UK in 2012, almost 40% of our electricity came from coal-fired power stations, as the cost of gas rose higher and coal was therefore used more, as it was cheaper.  In terms of climate change, coal is about the worst fuel we could be using.  Gas is cleaner, but more expensive.  In countries like China, where almost all of their power comes from coal fired power stations, electric vehicles were actually found to be more polluting than conventional ones!In countries where more energy is generated from renewable sources – hydroelectricity, solar, wind and tidal power, using electric vehicles does significantly reduce climate change causing emissions.

Using what the study calls ‘average European electricity’, the benefits of using an electric vehicle for 150,000km range from a 10-14% improvement in overall greenhouse gas emissions over diesel fuelled cars and a 20 to 24% improvement over petrol cars.   The study found that if the electric cars were driven further in their lifetime – say 200,000km, their overall benefits in terms of greenhouse gas emissions increased as well to 17-20% compared with diesel cars and 27-29% compared with petrol  powered cars.

Using just coal-fired power, electric vehicles were found to produce 17-27% more greenhouse gas emissions than diesel or petrol ones over 150,000km.

In the UK, the benefits of electric cars are at the low end of ‘average European electricity’ at the moment, because so much of our energy comes from coal.  However, by 2020, just 11% of our energy is planned to be generated from coal, meaning that the benefits of using electric vehicles will increase in the coming years.

You can read the full report here.

So when it comes to green matters, there is very little in the way of black and white.  We need to burn less fuel, and it would be great to find a no-carbon transport alternative, but at the moment, electric cars are not only very costly and very rare (only 0.1% of new cars sold in the UK last year were electric), but how much benefit they can deliver to the environment depends on which country they are being used in and how that country produces its energy.  And that doesn’t even touch on their sometimes limited range, lack of charging stations etc.  As new technology develops and as the UK reduces its climate changing emissions, electric vehicles may well come into their own.  But we’re not at that point yet.  And then you have to consider HOW we reduce our emissions.  If it’s through nuclear energy, well, that’s another can of worms altogether, and one I’m not about to open today.

It’s a great film, featuring some beautiful and highly evocative camerawork and a thought provoking narration from Lily herself. A big feature of the film are the people who live in the rainforest and who are learning how to make the forests worth more to them standing than they are when cut down. Living sustainably in the rainforest is now something that the Brazilian government , working with organisations like WWF is trying to promote.

In the Q & A session after the screening, Lily mentioned that whilst at school, environmental issues weren’t a big priority for her. Now, care for the environment is one of her main concerns.

In the film, she visits a school in Acre province in Brazil, where the children learn about the rainforest for a whole day each week. Luciana Berger MP asked whether the UK should consider something similar.

This would be a great idea. Today’s young people are the adults of the future, so it surely makes sense for them to be as informed on environmental issues as possible. Then they can make the right decisions as adults, parents and consumers in the future to ensure that we minimise any further damage to our planet and indeed begin to redress the balance.

I don’t think we’ll ever manage a day a week, and as our Curriculum Guides for the Total Green School Awards show, there are already plenty of ways for primary school children to study environmental issues within our current Curricula in England, Scotland and Wales.

But making environmental education a subject in its own right would show how much importance we as a society place on looking after our planet for future generations. That could only be a good thing.

The petrol they can produce is purer than the product refined from oil and it can be used in an ordinary car engine.  This means that our existing infrastructure of petrol stations could be used to deliver the fuel to people’s cars and any petrol-powered cars could use the fuel.  It means that we wouldn’t need to buy electric cars or set up a huge new network of recharging stations for electric vehicles.  It sounds like this could have some real advantages, but how could it work?

We know that burning fossil fuels puts carbon dioxide -a greenhouse gas – into the atmosphere.  But what the engineers at Air Fuel Synthesis have come up with could be a radical new solution, recycling carbon dioxide from the air into fuel.  At the moment, the project is still in its very early stages and they need power from the national grid to run their equipment.  As most of this energy comes from burning fossil fuels in power stations, what they have developed is not a solution yet, but they hope to be able to power the process of refining petrol from the air using renewable energy in the future.  This small British company is so far the only one in the world to be producing petrol this way, but the potential for really doing something about climate change if their ideas can be widely supported and adopted is immense.

Peter Harrison, Air Fuel Synthesis’ Chief Executive hopes that petrol could be produced from air at a refinery scale within the next fifteen years.  Funding will be the big issue.  If enough people think this is a good idea and invest in developing the technology, this could be really big.  Air Fuel Synthesis may have found a way to recycle the damaging by-products of burning fossil fuels into more fuel whilst really reduce the environmental impacts of fossil fuels the same time.  That’s got to be a good news story to head into the weekend with!

I remember back in 2002, YPTE’s entire staff team having been trained as inland waterways helmsmen, took a group of 30 ten year olds for a week-long trip along the Caledonian Canal.  The trip was their prize for the Barclaycard LivingLand Awards, and was a real environmental adventure of a lifetime.

Terry was a big part of that trip.  We moored up on the second night at Fort Augustus and toured the Abbey there that evening.  At the time, it was Terry’s and he was on hand to welcome the children and show them round.  Next morning, we were whitewater rafting on the nearby River Oich and Terry joined us as a guide, pointing out the wildlife to be seen on the calmer sections of the river.

A few days later, he was with us again as we went on an expedition to the wonderful white sands of Sandaig, on the west coast, of mainland Scotland, looking across the Sound of Sleat to the  Isle of Skye.  This almost untouched spot was the place where, as a boy, Terry had lived with the author Gavin Maxwell in a small cottage called Camusfearna,  helping him to look after the otters that he kept as rather wild pets.  Terry was able to show the children the fingers that were missing knuckles – bitten off by the otters at one time or another – to show just how wild and unpredictable creatures they were.

Crossing the stream via a simple rope bridge (two ropes across the stream, tied to trees on either bank), watching the children drink water from the stream  – possibly for the first time and harvesting seafood on the beach were memories that will stay with me always.  And Terry was there throughout, a big part of that fantastic adventure.

He was also there with us later that summer, this time in Surrey, as a guest at our wedding.  That caused quite a stir, with lots of my wife’s friends – more members of the Really Wild Show generation – saying “Oh my God, that’s Terry Nutkins” and getting rather overexcited.  I think he enjoyed it.

We saw him less in recent years, as most of YPTE’s activities are based in the South of England, while Terry lived in a remote part of  Scotland’s west coast.  A wonderful character, a brilliant naturalist, full of life and fun.  Terry was a great supporter of YPTE and a great guy to have dinner with.  He was only 66.  It’s such a shame.

Joining us to help present the Awards were actresses Zoe Wanamaker and Michelle Ryan, along with Shadow Environment Secretary Mary Creagh, Shadow Environment Minister Gavin Shuker, Jessica Lee MP and David Amess MP.  It was brilliant to see the enthusiasm and excitement shown not only by the children and their teachers, but also by our special guests, who were really interested to find out more about the children’s work.

The 100 or so children represented the very best of the 54,065 children who took part in almost 400 different projects for this year’s Awards.  Each of the schools above received £1,000 for their school funds, but the UK Champions for 2012, who were announced at the Ceremony received £5,000 for their school funds!  Top honours this year went to English Martyrs RC Primary.

Their project started with a question that the children were asked to find out about:  what makes the earth angry? The answers took them on a journey from their school grounds to the local park and ended in a country on the other side of the world!  When they found problems they solved them.  They created wildlife habitats, planted trees, picked up a lot of litter, and encouraged people to cycle or scoot to school.  They used their maths and science skills to record and show traffic noise data and learnt about pollution and how different molecules behave.  To help with the problems they discovered in Japan after the Tsunami and Fukishima incident they raised money for endangered animals, wrote many articles in the school’s newspaper, interviewed a Japanese lady about the changes she had seen since the tsunami.  To stop remind people not to drop litter in the local canal, they made Mizuchi, a statue of a mythical Japanese river dragon from recycled drinks cans!  Although they couldn’t solve the big problems they did the best they could by raising money for Japan’s endangered animals, by telling others about the fate of Japan, and by raising environmental awareness in both their school and in the wider community.

All of the Regional Champions produced amazing work and we’ll be telling you more about it at www.totalgreenschoolawards.org in the coming weeks.  Congratulations are due not only to all of the Regional Champions, but to the twelve Regional Winners, each of which receives £500 for their school funds and the two highly commended entries that received £250 each.  But congratulations are also owed to ALL of the schools that took part.  The standard of entries was really high and it is getting harder and harder to choose the winners!

You can see me talking about the Awards by clicking here

Below is a selection of photos from the day at the Zoo.  Look out for more on YPTE’s Facebook page, WeAreYPTE next week!

Our keynote speaker, Shadow Environment Secretary Mary Creagh

Zoe Wanamaker and Total Chairman Patrice de Vivies with children from English Martyrs' RC Primary School

Actress Michelle Ryan with children from English Martyrs, and 'Mizuchi' their Japanese river serpent made from recycled drinks cans.

The children from Longhaven Primary School, Aberdeenshire celebrating their win!

At the start of May, most of YPTE’s staff team were involved with an Environmental Discovery Course for 54 Year 5 children from St Thomas of Canterbury RC Primary School, Guildford.  I think it’s the 23rd consecutive year that the school has been coming away with us and believe it or not, I instructed on the very first one and most of the others since!  The weather could have been kinder to us, but the children had a great time (as did the adults!) and learned a great deal about the natural world and about the importance of heritage and history in the environment too.  You can see some photos of some of the action on YPTE’s Facebook page.

And since we got back from there, we have been judging the entries for the Total Green School Awards.  That has been pretty challenging too, as some 53,000 children took part in the 2012 Awards.  We have been looking at all kinds of excellent work schools across England, Scotland and Wales are doing, which though hugely diverse is all united by the theme of the environment.  It is wonderful to see how enthusiastic young people are about taking care of our planet.

I’m on the train on the way up to London as I write this.  Tomorrow, the final judging will take place in London.  By the end of tomorrow, we’ll know who the UK Champions are.  But we won’t be telling anyone about it until the Awards Ceremony on 20 June!  Seriously exciting times ahead…..

But there are now a growing number of economists and commentators who are starting to think that prosperity and growth are not infinitely linked.  Indeed, they think that soon, prosperity will be impossible WITH growth.  Tim’s argument is summed up brilliantly when he writes, “The idea of a non-growing economy may be an anathema to an economist. But the idea of a continually growing economy is an anathema to an ecologist.”

An ecologist would argue that we can’t continue economic growth indefinitely, because we live on a finite planet with finite resources and if we use up those resources through growth, eventually we reach a full stop.  An economist would argue that we can ‘decouple’ economic growth from resource use through the increasing efficiencies that capitalism brings and indeed that we can reverse the damage through growth too.

Jackson argues that decoupling is a myth.  If we continue to push growth, we can’t achieve the CO2 emissions reductions that are needed and we will continue to accelerate climate change.  What we need, he argues  is for governments to stop thinking short-term.  They need to look further into the future than the next day’s headlines – or even the date of the next elections when it comes to deciding economic and ecological policy.

He argues that the market won’t move in the direction of sustainable development without incentives.  According to the UN Conference on Trade & Development’s World Investment Report 2010, $400bn (£250bn) would be required every year between from 2010-2015 to make the shift to a low-carbon economy, and this figure could climb to £1,300bn a year by 2030.  This kind of investment can only happen through governments taking long-term decisions. It requires a sustained effort from both the public and private sectors across a number of years, to promote new, cleaner technologies, to develop renewable sources of energy, and to shift to more sustainable consumption.  And these efforts need to be applied holistically: it’s no good encouraging renewable energy if you’re simultaneously outsourcing food and energy production to palm oil plantations or soy-fed livestock farming, which drives deforestation in other parts of the world.

How do we achieve this massive shift?  Jackson argues that measures to prevent climate change should be enforced through human rights law – for example, the rights to food, water and development.  Human rights courts could treat serious ecological damage such as mining and deforestation as human rights issues, blocking developments that cause climate change.

So by making the transition to a low carbon society a human rights issue, human rights organisations can put pressure on governments to ensure that long term strategies for carbon reduction  are drawn up, adhered to and if necessary enforced by legal action.  This idea is similar to barrister Polly Higgins’ idea of drawing up the crime of ‘ecocide’, where significant damage to the environment becomes a crime against the planet.  But in Jackson’s premise, it’s the rights of humans to a decent life and environment, rather than the rights of the environment itself that would be protected.

And his suggestions for achieving ‘lasting prosperity’?  Well, for a start we all need to consume less “stuff” and to seek a type of prosperity outside the conventional trappings of affluence: within relationships, family, community and the meaning of our lives and vocations in a functional society that places value on the future.  I completely agree and indeed I wrote about some of this in this blog last October (albeit not so eloquently).  I’ve ordered my copy of Prosperity Without Growth today and am looking forward to reading it.