Liverpool!

Liverpool's John Lennon Airport has founded a programme to plant hundreds of trees in order to reduce the negative effect of CO2 emissions produced by its aircraft. The project will run over the next few years and has been organised in conjunction with Liverpool City Council, who hope that other local organisations will follow this example and set up similar initiatives. Plainly, any project that aims to reduce the horrific damage air travel does to the environment is to be encouraged, however, we have to ensure that it does not become an excuse and method of justifying flying. People need to accept that every time they fly they are making a choice to do serious damage to the world's atmosphere, and that CO2 offsetting, whilst positive does not make it neutral. Offsetting Carbon Dioxide is no easy task and rarely undoes the negative effects produced. The general consensus is that tree planting is not one of the more efficient methods of doing so either. I will try and cover other CO2-offsetting projects at some stage and put some links up to those that seem useful. Anyway, as long as people don't use it as a means to justify their actions and reduce their guilt enough to not worry about their impact, it's got to be a step in the right direction, so congratulations Liverpool. Here's coverage of the story.

This report is from the EU and is about directives on Air Quality. The Environment Committee voted on Outdoor Air Quality. This will allow anti-pollution measures to be postponed more than a decade and allow particle rates to rise. There are severe health risks involved and some commentators suggest it will allow polluters to continue ignoring the consequences of their actions.

And, very briefly, another EU political story is that talks are taking place between the EU and US government in Vienna at the moment. They have agreed to try and encourage dialogue on the key issues of Climate Chance, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development, issues which proved fundamental in preventing Kyoto agreement. This is good news, though at a press conference it emerged that Bush is still a complete idiot and still thinks we can rely on improving technology rather than reducing CO2 emissions to solve our greenhouse gas problem?! The silver lining is that there is more eagerness for the countries to pool ideas on these technologies to accelerate potential environmental gains. Read a fuller report here.