Also by james

The scandals, hopes and agendas behind the policy briefing

Posted by james - 27 March 2009 at 3:57pm - 0 Comments
James writes the final spring blog relay this week - click here to catch up on entries from other Greenpeace staff.

James pulls a bank job - hanging a banner outside the Bank of England

My job is to write things that are easy to understand, and to explain stories in ways that interest people. I'm a press officer, with a healthy portion of forest campaigner on the side.

Much of the work that we do here at Greenpeace is based on climate science, and some of it is to do with government policy. Let's face it - words like science and policy are pretty boring. If I was a snooze button, I'd probably get pushed repeatedly in the face for even mentioning them.

Article tagged as: blog relay, forests, media, press

Sticky, noisy and remarkable: working in the Amazon jungle

Posted by james - 21 August 2008 at 3:09pm - 1 Comment

I've just returned from a two week trip to Greenpeace's Amazon office where we were discussing future plans to protect the rainforest. The office is based in a city called Manaus which, despite its position in the heart of the jungle, is far from a provincial backwater - with over two million people the city keeps up a frenetic pace, despite the baking equatorial sun and exhausting levels of humidity.

The job that our campaigners, logistics experts and policy thinkers are doing to protect the Amazon biome is simply inspirational. Many of them have made real sacrifices to work there, moving away from family and friends and the giant cities of Brazil in order to work at the front line of climate and forest protection.

Article tagged as: amazon, audio, brazil, climate change, forests, south america

Will there be blood?

Posted by james - 29 May 2008 at 5:16pm - 4 Comments

"You have to act quickly, because very soon these fields will be dry." This prediction, drawled by hardened oilman Daniel Plainview in this year's best film, There Will Be Blood, has become a reality. Eight years into the 21st century and we are seeing the beginnings of a new energy horizon. Oil is receding into the distance. Nature's "free gift" to humanity is running out, fast.

2008 will come to be seen as the year the world's leaders were forced to confront their demons. The global response to stratospheric oil prices will determine if we are able to escape the worst consequences of climate change, feed the world and prevent pollution from ruining living conditions in our ever expanding cities. Trillions of dollars will be spent in the next few decades on technologies to generate energy, as old infrastructure rusts and economies expand in parts of the world that have endured poverty for centuries.

Article tagged as: co2, decentralised energy, fossil fuels, nuclear, nuclear waste, oil, opec, sizewell

Planning problems leave UK suffering from 'trapped wind'

Posted by james - 5 February 2008 at 1:05pm - 4 Comments

Wind turbines under construction in Denmark

Wind turbines - not enough are being built

As the Financial Times pointed out yesterday, the UK has one of the most inefficient systems for subsidising renewable energy in the whole of Europe. Here we use a mechanism called - snappily – the renewables obligation. Like a compulsory visit to the mother-in-law on her birthday, the renewables obligation requires every power company in the land to produce a certain proportion of their energy from renewable sources like wind, wave and tidal power. Those that produce more than their allocated amount can sell credits to those that have come up short. So far, so good.

Article tagged as: climate change, feed-in-tariff, renewable energy, renewables obligation, wind power

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