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The FactCheck Green season

Last Modified: 11 Sep 2007
By: Channel 4 News

The FactCheck Green series examines the received wisdom on climate change - from disposable nappies to green motoring to food miles.

FactCheck: all new homes be zero-carbon by 2016?

It's generally accepted - and not just by the front pages of the Daily Mail - that decent housing is in short supply.

The number of households in the country is, according to government projections, set to increase by more than 223,000 each year until 2026 - partly because people are living longer, and in smaller units.

Just over a quarter of the country's carbon emissions - scourge of climate-change campaigners everywhere and something the UK is committed to reducing in accordance with the Kyoto protocol - come from our households.

At the moment around 160,000 new homes are being built a year - a number the government plans to increase to 240,000 a year by 2016.

Government policy now states that all new homes will be zero-carbon by 2016. But can so many new houses really be as cosy as they sound for the environment?
FactCheck: zero-carbon homes

FactCheck: rash verdict on nappies

It was always presented as a clear-cut choice: cotton nappies are good, disposables are bad.

Disposables may be more convenient, but putting all that cotton, plastic and other unmentionable matter into landfill must be a bad thing. So mothers have been told to return to the old ways of using cotton nappies and washing them.

But is that based on sound evidence? Environment minister Ben Bradshaw told the Commons at the end of last month that there was "no significant difference between any of the environmental impacts of the disposable, home use reusable and commercial laundry systems".
FactCheck: rash verdict on nappies

FactCheck: is local food good food?

There's no doubt that transporting food produces greenhouse gasses. So bringing food from distant countries to British supermarkets must be a 'bad thing'.

The argument runs that sourcing local food must be good, and food from distant countries must be bad. But is it as easy as that?

But, when it comes to the impact of food, transport is not the whole story.
FactCheck: is local food good food?

FactCheck: is the train still greenest?

Conventional wisdom says that travelling by plane is always worst, followed by car and then train. So in many cases, environmental damage is usually proportional to convenience.

But is this really true? Calculating the carbon impact of different travel modes depends on so many different factors that it can sometimes produce surprising results. And in a few cases, planes or cars can be greener than trains.
FactCheck: is the train still greenest?

FactCheck: how green is my Prius?

The Prius has become the ride of choice for the environmentally conscious Hollywood star.

With its combination of electric and petrol engines, Toyota's flagship hybrid car is meant to be a much more efficient way to drive, particularly within urban areas - producing less pollution and making less of a contribution to global warming.

But is it actually greener? The Prius's status as a green motoring icon depends very much on whether it really is less environmentally damaging than other cars. And some reports suggest it isn't.
FactCheck: how green is my Prius?

FactCheck: How green is EasyJet?

With low taxes on air travel making it possible to whiz across Europe for a weekend for less than an intercity train ticket, a low-cost airline seems an unlikely poster-child for environmental friendliness.

EasyJet says that flying with them will do less damage than taking a similar flight on an 'all-frills, free refills' airline.

But can we really hop aboard a cheap flight with a clear carbon conscience?
FactCheck: How green is EasyJet?