Incredible Satellite Images of Britain’s Traffic, Taxis, Internet and Phone Activity

Extraordinary satellite images reveal a different view of Britain – that of the connections between its citizens through vehicle traffic, internet activity and telephone activity. The latest technology was used to monitor Britain from the sky for a new BBC series, ‘Britain from Above’, which aired for the first time Sunday night.

From Mail Online:

Presenter Andrew Marr takes to the skies by plane, helicopter, microlight and even parachute to give viewers a bird’s eye view of landmarks across the UK.

The programme uses satellite data and the latest computer generated imagery to demonstrate how Britain keeps moving - tracking the planes that enter our airspace, the ships that cross the English Channel and the cars that travel our streets, all in the space of a single day.

Series director Cassian Harrison, said: ‘It has been amazing to work with cameras mounted on so many helicopters and planes.

‘The one disadvantage is that when we film we’re contending so much with the weather.

‘It has been a battle with the elements, but a brilliant one, working out how many different ways it is possible to get up in the sky and look down at the nation.’

Harrison went on to call it ‘Google Earth for real’. It really makes you think about much activity really goes on in the span of a single day, and how much more connected we are today than our grandparents were a half-century ago.

Link [Mail Online]

Woman’s £80,000 Home Now Worth Only £1

If you’ve been complaining lately that your home lost some value in the recent real estate downturn, quit your bitchin’ - it could be a lot worse. British homeowner Jane Archer got the shock of her life this week: her 3-bedroom bungalow with uninterrupted sea views in the small Norfolk village of Happisburg was appraised at just £1 ($2). The property had previously been worth £80,000 ($157,000). The reason? Chronic coastal erosion.

From Money.co.uk:

When the Mum of three originally purchased the property for £20,000 ($39,000) in 1987 it sat over 400 metres from the striking coastline. Now just 60 meters of land separates her bungalow from the sea. This leaves her faced with the prospect that after 20 years of mortgage payments her family home is now worth less than a loaf of bread.

Ms Archer and her partner Chris Cutting had planned to use the property as collateral for a business loan and arranged the valuation accordingly. The couple’s intention was to expand their car repair business with the funds raised. However, to add insult to injury they have now lost out on an additional £60,000 ($118,000) by backing out of the deal.

Several homes and a long stretch of road have already been lost to sea after the wooden groynes that previously protected the 80ft high cliffs began to fail. A 12th century church and listed lighthouse are soon set to follow, along with the many other houses and businesses in the village, as Happisburg is left to slip into the sea.

Apparently, the British government stopped ‘coastal defense measures’ in smaller towns to focus on protecting ‘main resorts’ from the sea. There is no kind of compensation scheme in place to reimburse families like the Archers, who stand to lose everything they’ve worked for.

Link [Money.co.uk]

Adults in Britain Should Have to Carry Carbon Ration Cards, Say MPs

MPs are pushing for a controversial new program in Great Britain: carbon ration cards. Every adult would have to carry one and would need to use it when filling up at the pump, buying airline tickets and using energy to power their homes. Britain has been trying to find a way to cut CO2 emissions without penalizing the poor, and the Environmental Audit Committee sees it as the fairest way.

From Mail Online:

Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.

Anyone who exceeds their entitlement would have to buy top-up credits from individuals who haven’t used up their allowance. The amount paid would be driven by market forces and the deal done through a specialist company.

MPs, led by Tory Tim Yeo, say the scheme could be more effective at cutting greenhouse gas emissions than green taxes.

B For the scheme to work, the Government would need to give out 45million carbon cards - each one linked to a personal carbon account. Every year, the account would be credited with a notional amount of CO2 in kilograms.

Every time someone makes a purchase of petrol, energy or airline tickets, they would use up credits. A return flight from London to Rome would, for instance, use up 900kg of CO2 credits, while 10 litres of petrol would use up 23kg.

Mr Yeo, chairman of the committee said personal carbon trading rewarded those with a low carbon footprint with cash.

I have no idea whether something like this would actually work, but I like this line of thinking. Making people personally responsible for how much energy they consume would be a great way to control CO2 emissions. Undoubtedly, though, citizens would be angry about it – it’s definitely an idea ahead of its time. The system would have to be fairly complicated in order to account for those who live in the country and depend upon their vehicles for transportation, are housebound and need to heat their homes during the day and those who work at night when little public transportation is available. I’d like to see them work on the idea further, though.

Link [Mail Online]
Photo credit: Flickr user futureatlas.com

Queen Elizabeth Outfits Her Crib with the World’s Largest Wind Turbine

Move over, Prince Charles. Yo mamma wants the world to know she’s the baddest eco bitch in town. Queen Elizabeth’s property company, the Crown Estate, has purchased the largest wind turbine in the world. This baby is 7.5 megawatts, dwarfing even the huge 1.5 megawatt monsters that can currently be seen around the world.

Ecorazzi has it:

“The Estate, which owns most of the seabed off Britain’s shores, regularly leases out its land to wind farm projects but has never invested in the turbines. With a capacity of 7.5 megawatts, the Crown has gone for the biggest yet. ‘This is not something we’ve ever done before and I think it will raise quite a few eyebrows,’ Ben Barton, the company’s offshore manager for wind farms said.”

The turbine is expected to be fully operational by 2010 — with all the power generated sold to the national grid and the Queen’s iPod. Seriously. We hear she loves David Cook but would “love to have David Archuleta over for dinner.”

The Queen’s gone green! We love it. Hopefully all you Brits will appreciate this move and encourage more of the same. The Queen may not have any political power, but she can certainly influence the masses. What’s good enough for royalty is surely good enough for the serfs, eh?

Link [Ecorazzi]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Simon I-Could-Give-A-Shit Cowell Tops List of Celebrity Polluters

Appalling and horrendous: not just the singing on American Idol (who watches that these days?) but also host Simon Cowell’s dirty habits that have made him the top celebrity polluter. Simon’s average carbon emissions are 457g/km.

Known for flying around in a private jet, he has said that he prefers to travel that way because, as the Guardian quotes him, “the champagne’s better and you can smoke, which is a rare pleasure these days at $36,000 feet”.

The rest of the list is, in descending order, Jay Kay (this guy has enough money to be a top polluter?), David Beckham (no surprise there), Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean? WTF!) and 50 Cent (again, no surprise). Bentleys, Hummers, Rolls Royce Phantoms and Ferraris are among the many vehicles they own. Apparently, one or two mega-expensive luxury cars isn’t enough for one person – they each own an average of four.

Surprisingly, 4 out of 5 of them are Brits, not Americans. I wouldn’t have pegged that! Americans are far more renowned for over-consumption of just about everything, so it seems natural that American celebrities would top the smog-peddler list. Learn something new every day! Time to step up the green education, Great Britain, you’re not looking too good.

Link [Ecorazzi] + [The Guardian]

Photo credit: FOX

Britain’s Armed Forces Could Run on Algae, Weeds & Solar Power

In a story that brilliantly illustrates the untapped potential that lies all around us, the Times Online writes about alternative energy sources currently being considered by the British Army. In an effort to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, scientists are working hard at new innovations, and some of them are truly amazing.

The Times Online has it:

Possible innovations include unmanned attack aircraft powered by the sun. They would fire missiles fuelled with hydrogen produced by feeding algae to microbes.

Tanks could be electrically powered or run on fuel produced from oil squeezed out of weeds so hardy they can grow in the desert.

Ships could run completely on electricity produced from generators powered by synthetic fuels made from grass.

The environmental requirements of the army, navy and air force will be presented this week to specially vetted defence and research companies.

These ideas aren’t likely to become a reality for a decade or two, but the fact that they’re working so hard at ideas like this is so encouraging. The need to ‘go green’ is all the more important to the British Armed Forces, as their fuel bill is currently £400m annually – double what it was four years ago. The Ministry of Defence is currently working on a range of sophisticated green technology plans that won’t be revealed to the public for a while; the plans are currently being made available for viewing only to select companies and researchers.

Link [Times Online]

Photo credit: Flickr user elroySF

Nature Deficit Disorder in the UK: 25 Percent of British 10-Year-Olds Never Play Outside by Themselves

I used to work in various national parks. One thing we hated was the tourist kids, the Prisoners of the Backseat. Whining, mewling, shrieking, occasionally vomiting–we thought they were remarkably bad-smelling little hominids. Sticky, too, should one happen to touch you. Yuck. We considered them beneath our notice, and were most pleased when they never left the backseat.

It was only quite some time later that I came to see the error in my thinking. But now, I’m not alone in that. People are beginning to notice that kids nowadays don’t get out much; in fact, I took the title of this entry from an entire book on the phenomenon (Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv). We covered the issue in EarthFirst here. It pops up all over now, as in this story from Great Britain that we found in the Daily Mail:

[A] quarter of all children between eight and 10 have never played outside without adult supervision.

Ministers are concerned that children now have fewer opportunities than ever to play outdoors thanks to over-zealous health and safety crackdowns and a “no ball games here” culture….

Research has found that the average age at which children are allowed outside without adult supervision has risen from around seven years in the 1960s and 70s to just over eight years now.

One in three parents will not even allow older children, aged eight to 17, to play outside the house or garden.

It’s not clear what effect this is all going to have on a child’s brain. One can only speculate. But I understand now that those vile kids in the backseat, the ones we used to curse, were the future of the national parks. In the coming years, if they don’t care about the parks, no one else will. I hope someone occasionally opened up the car door and let them out.

Link: [The Daily Mail]