adonoghue

I wonder how green the datacentre running the Ebay site is..be interesting to find out if they have committed to run World of Good on more sustainable infrastructure. I might give them a mail and find out what the deal is - will post the results on greenwashIT.co.uk.

Interesting point on the whole lycra versus civvies debate. I tend to favour the lycra but then I am a mail in his early thirties and very much the demographic. Some of it is definitely about dressing up and pretending you're a superhero - behold its Cycle Man - but some of its also practical - I tend to cycle pretty fast (when it's safe to do so of course Boris) so I get sweaty and don't really want to wear the same clothes all day at work. Maybe the Danes shun the lycra because they are just more level-headed and practical and cycling is seen as a more mainstream mode of transport - or maybe they just smell? ;-)

Seriously though - just got back from a weekend in Berlin and bike culture is very ingrained over there - they even have a bike park at the airport - I kid you not - some Germans cycle to the airport it seems - not sure if that is green or not? But on the whole I was struck by the fact that German bikes - at least the ones I saw are on the whole a lot crapper than the ones you see in London. That probably has less to do with the state of the German economy of late and more to do with the observation that a bike is just a thing to get you from A to B - rather than a bit of sports kit as it's seen over here. Germans are very into their cars - the home of BMW after all - but they don't appear to have the style-conscious approach to bikes. There are a lot of the sit-up-and-beg steel-framed monstrosities which weigh about the same as a BMW 5 Series ? and very few of the mountain bikes and hybrids favoured by Londoners.

I am not sure that Lord Stern is not being a bit over optimistic about how green planning will be hit by a recession or downturn. I think that many of the energy and cost saving projects will continue as they are not altruistic or really enviromentally motivated - but rather about reducing expenditure at the end of the day.

However some a lot of truly green or carbon cutting projects require up front investments - that may or may not reap returns over time - and as capital becomes more scarce it will be interesting to see if these projects are increasingly shelved.

We have seen this week that Shell has pulled out of a big wind farm project.

I am not sure that Lord Stern is not being a bit over optimistic about how green planning will be hit by a recession or downturn. I think that many of the energy and cost saving projects will continue as they are not altruistic or really enviromentally motivated - but rather about reducing expenditure at the end of the day.

However some a lot of truly green or carbon cutting projects require up front investments - that may or may not reap returns over time - and as capital becomes more scarce it will be interesting to see if these projects are increasingly shelved.

We have seen this week that Shell has pulled out of a big wind farm project:

Shell pulls out of big wind farm
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7377164.stm

Well done. The site looks great - the editorial board is an especially good idea and The Green List.