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Take a look at today's News in Brief, our new round-up of what is going on in the world of green. We've serving up the latest on airplane taxes, alternative fuel and patio heaters in pubs.
Flight tax for heavy and long fliers
The Treasury has announced that airplanes flying long distances or carrying heavy loads will be subject to the heaviest new taxes on planes. It says it's planning on phasing out the current airline passenger duty in favour of this new tax -- we'd think it was a good thing if only the government would say what it's using the extra money for.
A380 to fly on alternative fuel
The world's hugest airplane, the Airbus A380, is going to do a three-hour test run today on a fuel made from natural gas. We wonder if it'll still get hit with that air tax for being so darn big.
Pubs desperate to keep wasteful patio heaters
Pubs are up in arms about a dreaded ban on patio heaters, which would, apparently, cost them £250 million a year in lost revenues, according to the Publican Market Report. As much as we want to sympathise with our local, we've got to agree with Friends of the Earth director Tony Jupiter, who called the things "carbon-belching monstrosities."
Universities get carbon-cutting cash
The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) is setting up a 'revolving green fund' for universities to help them cut their greenhouse gas emissions. They've got cash -- ahem, £290 million -- to put into grants for institutions setting up projects to reduce their emissions. A good thing, too, since energy costs in higher education institutions are about £250 million a year, with emissions at roughly 1.6 million tonnes.
Ocado biodegradable bags now recycled, too
Online grocery company Ocado, which makes biodegradable plastic bags, is now building an on-site processing plant to recycle them. That'll make Ocado the first retailer in the UK to collect, recycle and remake its own carrier bags. Good stuff.
04 February 2008 05:34pm
Well, you say that you sympathise with your local pub, but you don't. Local family run pubs, especially those in working class areas are part of our culture. Everything possible has been done to eradicate them from British life for 30 years. 50 pubs a week are shutting, driven out of business by taxation and regulation, the smoking ban just being the last.
Smokers are stopping going to the pub, and if patio heaters are banned, the remaining few will desert pubs for half the year.
This will not hurt the big town centre chain pubs (that people like you own shares in) who will be able to spend their way out such problems. Nor will it hurt gastro-pubs that are inhabited by the type of people with names like Fearnly-Whittingstal. Eco and health fascists are mostly tofu chewing, cocktail sipping middle class Lucindas and Jeremys who despise the working class.
Driving working people out of pubs and stopping them flying abroad for a couple of weeks a year is just one more manifestation of this.
I think its time that you people left us alone. Stick to poncy wine bars and organic famer's markets where you can smugly spend £20 quid a chicken.
05 February 2008 12:05pm
Oh dear... somebody's riled up.
Is there a more energy efficient way of heating the outside of pubs?
05 February 2008 12:16pm
Hi Anon.
I can't speak for Smartplanet, but I can say that personally I much prefer the independent, family owned pub. It's pretty hard to find a good one in cities, but where I'm from in Surrey they are all pretty much small, family owned businesses.
And I agree, it's pretty hard for ANY pub to cope with both a smoking ban and a ban on heaters but there must be some solutions. Perhaps heaters which are turned on only when people are using them, or other lower carbon emitting options.
The problem is, just because it's painful when we bring in these laws, does that mean we shouldn't? At what point do we say smoking is killing people, so we have to stop it. Or, our actions are destroying the planet so we have to do something.
Long live the family pub!
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