Wooden garden storage sheds are the way that most people store items in their gardens but of course this needs wood – some is from sustainable sources but others are not.

Additionally, you’ll need to put wood stain protector on it many times to ensure it doesn’t rot – and what is that doing to your environment?

There are other sheds around that may help. (OK the picture is of a typical wooden garden shed because that’s what everyone can identify with…)

You can get plastic sheds as well as metal sheds. These should last for many years if looked after well so might be better for the environment.

We found a website that is useful – certainly for alternative plastic and metal garden sheds as well as other garden storage options – it’s good to find a site that doesn’t want to sell you something as well.

As one retailer mentions “every little helps” – we need to think twice about our environment and that includes everything from growing your own organic vegetables to simple things like your gardening storage solutions. Will it never end ?

The solar plane named Zephyr-6 made the record flight by having its batteries charged during the day’s sunlight. It’s likely such a plane will be used by the military to be used for reconnaissance missions as they are also whisper quiet.

The latest flight was conducted at the US Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. The Zephyr plane flew non-stop for 82 hours, 37 minutes. This beats the previous world record by 50 hours which was held by a US robot plane named “Global Hawk” which flew for “just” 30 hours.

The 30kg Zephyr was guided by remote control to an operating altitude in excess of 18km (60,000ft), and then flown on autopilot and via satellite communication.

It tested a communications payload weighing approximately 2kg

So maybe not so long before we have a manned solar panel plane in the skys to cut out all the airplane polution ?

Do you work for an organisation or own a company that needs to install an environmental management system? Well let’s start on what such a system might be. It follows on from your own environment policy from your organsation. This will be a statement of intent of how your company links to the world environment and the goals and aims to limit damage and recycling activities etc so you’ll need to develop a system of development and monitoring to ensure you meet those goals as well as communicate progress to your staff, customers and suppliers.

So where do you begin? An approved company called environmental policy have devised such a system and we recommend you view their take on an environmental management system. The guide takes you through what each function and department can contribute to your overall policy as well as organisations that can help you in the longer term and keep your system in check. There is also a donation to the Carbon Trust so they can continue their work.

Environmentalist David Bellamy has described the approval of the construction of a wind farm as “baffling”. A total of 152 wind turbines are to built in clusters near the village of Abington on a South Lanarkshire Hill and Bellamy believes he is now in the minority as a critic of building these huge wind farms.

It appears that research undertaken in Holland shows they only produce a small amount of energy and can be responsible for black outs due to their fluctuating power output – obviously during the summer on calm days nothing is going to be produced from the wind farms.

The £600million investment is to create 200 construction jobs to build the 300foot turbines which have a blade spam the same as a 747 wing.  An interesting comment on the Times online site suggests that Germany already have 22,000 turbines but are now investing in 26 new coal fire power stations.

I guess we need alternative fuel sources and a wind farm is a small part of a very large picture.

A coal-fired station produces about twice as much carbon dioxide as a gas-burning facility of equal power.

The company E.On recently won approval from Medway Council for plans to build new coal-fired plant at Kingsnorth power station in Kent, though a government decision on the project was recently postponed.

As gas prices rise, generators are increasingly looking to coal as a cheaper and more reliable alternative.

The UK government believes – as do others – that the answer is “clean coal”, particularly technologies which capture carbon from the flue gases and store it away in natural underground voids, perhaps under the sea bed.

But the technology is expensive and makes a power station less efficient, increasing the amount of fuel burned by 10-40%.

The committee says the government must set a date by which companies must have adopted CCS, or face closure of their installations – though it does not suggest which date should be adopted.

The Royal Society, the UK’s principal scientific academy, endorsed the committee’s call for bold leadership, but said the government “appears paralysed”.

“The solution is straightforward; consent must only be given for new coal-fired power stations on condition that operating permits are withdrawn if the plant fails to capture 90% of its CO2 emissions by 2020,” said the society’s president Martin Rees.

Environment groups which are campaigning against the new Kingsnorth units were more outspoken.

“The government should not be relying on CCS – an unproven technology – to justify new coal power stations,” said Tim Jones, climate policy officer with the World Development Movement.

“If the government goes ahead with new coal power without CCS, it would be setting the UK firmly on the path of high carbon emissions without a clear end in sight.”

In a tough speach Gore said it was like the challenge in the 60s to put a man on the moon – but weaning Americans off their beloved fossil fuels aint going to be easy. In fact Gore said it did not make sense that the US was borrowing money from China to burn oil from the Middle East which then contributed to climate change.

And the man has a point.

Oil is only going to last so long. In a way it’s good that the costs are so high and increasing because it makes us think twice about motor car journeys and the like. It will force institutions to look for alternatives and the car manufacturers to develop vehicles that don’t run on petrol but have a similar performance.

Electricity generated from non-fossil sources amounted to almost 28% of the total in 2007, according to US government figures, with most of that coming from nuclear power. Hydro-electric stations generated nearly 6% of US electricity needs and other renewable sources such as wind, solar and wood accounted for 2.5%. Burning coal provided almost half of US electricity last year.

Mr Gore’s ambitious plan would still rely on nuclear energy for a fifth of America’s energy needs. Many see the goal as unachievable.

Mr Gore’s speech elicited huge cheers from a packed conference hall near the White House, but whether his message is taken up in the presidential election campaign depends on how much the electorate warms to his vision.

Mr Gore said US presidential contenders Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain were way ahead of most politicians in the fight against global climate change.

President George W Bush has often been criticised for not doing enough to tackle climate change.

At the recent G8 summit of developed nations in Japan, he did move the US closer to a consensus on climate change, by agreeing to language which makes achieving 50% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 a G8 “vision”.

Evidence has suggested that people are thinking twice about using cars because the cost of petrol and diesel is so high so the environment targets would be helped. Although there are rarely decent alternatives in public transport the high cost of fuel has probbably reduced the number of journeys being taken by car.

The price of unleaded petrol has risen 25% over the past year and pressure has been mounting for duty to be cut.

The chancellor’s announcement came ahead of a Conservative-called debate on fuel duty set to take place in the House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon.

The proposed increase was only 2p per litre so this really is headline grabbing stuff to indicate the government is looking after us poor subjects !

Rising demand for food, biofuels and wood for paper, building and industry means that 515 million hectares of extra land will be needed for growing crops and trees by 2030, RRI calculates. But only 200 million hectares will be available without dipping into tropical forests.

According to UN figures, the world currently has about 1.4 billion hectares of arable land and about 3.4 billion hectares of pasture.

Some academics place their hopes in agricultural technologies including genetic engineering to boost crop yields.

DfID runs programmes in West Africa aimed at helping forest dwellers acquire the legal right to manage their land -

“It is clear that the dual crises of fuel and food are attracting significant new investments and great land speculation,” said Andy White.

“Only by protecting the rights of the people who live in and around the world’s most vulnerable forests can we prevent the devastation these forces will wreak on the poor.”

George Osborne the shaddow chancellor argues that the current labour government policies are unpopular and suggests that “instead of using sticks, we can use carrots” to boost recycling.

Firms in the US have shown how to “make it pay to go green” – In a speech to pressure group the Green Alliance, he will also say landfill tax rates would not fall under the Tories.

“This will send a powerful signal to businesses and councils that innovative approaches… are possible,” he will say.

‘USA solution’

Environmental campaigners say British recycling rates are low compared with other European countries.

Mr Osborne will tell the Green Alliance that he has found his solution in the US, where, as in the UK, councils pay a tax on every tonne of rubbish they send to landfill.

He is expected to highlight some US companies which offer to cut the landfill tax bill by increasing recycling rates.

He will say the Conservatives are working with the Local Government Association, the Mayor of London’s office and Tory local authorities, such as Windsor and Maidenhead, in Berkshire, to explore how such schemes might be implemented.

Earlier this year, the government asked councils whether they were interested in running pilot projects which would reward recycling.

In 2004/5, the most recent year for which comparable figures are available across the EU, the UK dumped more household waste into landfill than any other country in the European Union – 22.6m tonnes.

In the same period, France sent around 12m tonnes to landfill, Poland about 8.6m and Germany about 7.3m.

Wind farms received most investments whilst solar power through solar panels had the highest year on year growth.

The majority of investment in 2007 went to Europe, the report said, followed by the US – though about $26bn was put into projects in China, India and Brazil.

Investment was “subdued” during the first few months of 2008, it added, with several developers of wind power technology selling up after “realising that with the tightening of credit markets, they could not finance themselves”, UNEP said.

But most areas had picked up during the second three month quarter of the year, the report added.

Solar power is an area of investment that continues to grow

“Just as thousands were drawn to California and the Klondike in the late 1800s, the green energy gold rush is attracting legions of modern day prospectors in all parts of the globe,” said UNEP head Achim Steiner, who is also a UN Under-Secretary General.

Last month, Britain’s energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, said Britain would undergo a £100bn “green revolution”, with plans to fit a quarter of British homes with solar heating panels and erect thousands of new wind turbines.

The UK needs to meet tough targets set by the EU and only gets about 5% of its energy from renewable sources – mainly wind turbines. The spending in Green alternative energy sources is only set to increase, and like the original gold rush, it will be the sellers of this equipment who make most money, but the planet will win longer term.