Organic

Are organic mange-touts tastier than non-organic mange-touts? That’s not for us to say, but what we know for certain is that the organic ones are better for the environment. Because organic veggies, like organic fruit and crops, are grown without chemical fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides. And animals reared organically aren’t pumped full of the drugs and antibiotics fed to normal livestock. So whether it’s tastier or not, organic food is certainly a greener choice.

Peak Oil

This is an important date in the history of human-folk, but maybe not one worth celebrating with cake or silly hats. It marks the point at which we’ll have extracted half the available oil reserves in the world, and so oil production will begin to decline as the remaining reserves become more and more tricky to dig out. Some people reckon we’ve reached this point already; UK industry leaders estimate it will happen by 2013. Whenever the exact date, there’s no doubt it will have very serious effects on the global economy.

Photodegradable

There are quite a few snaps from the Green Thing team’s Xmas party which we wish would photo-degrade, but that’s not exactly what the term means. Synthetic materials like plastics and polyester are not biodegradable - instead, they photo-degrade, breaking down into smaller bits due to exposure to light over time. The chemicals that remain in these smaller bits can be damaging to the environment, ending up in groundsoil, waterways and on beaches.

See All-conserving

Permafrost

Sun-seekers tend not to flock to places like Alaska and the Arctic as much of it is permanently frozen land – aka permafrost. As temperatures increase due to global warming, some of this permafrost that has remained frozen for thousands and thousands of years has started to thaw. This is very, very, very worrying, as not only does it mean sea levels will rise, but also some permafrost has billions of tonnes of methane locked within it. And if the ice thaws, well – we don’t need to spell it out.

Precycling

Sure, recycling’s a good thing to do; but precycling is even better. It’s when you prevent waste in the first place by buying less stuff, plumping for long-life products instead of disposable versions, re-using things as much as poss, and choosing items without layers and layers of pretty but ultimately pointless packaging.

See Re-consuming

Radiative Forcing

OK, this is a bit of a tricky one to explain. It’s an effect caused by external factors like the presence of pollutants or greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and it forces the heat radiation balance to change. So, to give an example, aeroplane emissions have a radiative forcing factor of 2.7 – which means when you take into account plane emissions other than CO2, they have an additional warming effect that is actually 2.7 times bigger than their CO2 emissions alone. So, if you already suspected flying was bad for the environment, it’s 2.7 times worse than you first thought.

Rainwater Harvesting

Sure it ruins your hair and makes your trousers all wet and clingy, but rain is an incredibly useful thing if you just give it a chance. Roughly 85,000 litres of the stuff falls on our roofs every year (even more if you live in Manchester), and if you collect it up and give it a bit of a clean, you can use it in your garden or even in your home. So, to paraphrase Mr. Lennon, all we are saying, is give rain a chance.

Recycling

Recycling is saving something from the scrapheap and turning it into something new and beautiful again. Human-beings are terrible for chucking out stuff that’s still got an awful lot to give – and by recycling household waste and things you’re done with, you’ll allow new products to be made, saving raw materials, energy and landfill space. Another form of recycling is reusing an item, and this is where the creative thinkers amongst us thrive: old wellies can be turned into garden planters; old CDs into a fetching mobile; and used pistachio shells into earrings for hamsters.

See Recycled: Reborn

Renewable Energy

Unlike oil, things like wind, the sun, waves, and the ground (see geothermal energy) ain’t going to be running out any time soon. So it makes sense to get our energy from these natural and sustainable sources instead of from finite fossil fuels.

See Plug into Better Electricity

Renewables Obligation

Every UK energy provider has to get some of their electricity from renewable sources. For every 1 MWh (1 megawatt hour or 1000 units) of renewable electricity they generate, they get a Renewables Obligation Certificate (ROC) – which they can hang on their walls with pride.