Green Room

When most people look to expand their living area they seldom think of using their basement. For some reason people think of basements as dark dungeons and fail to see the real potential that they offer. Generally a basement has the same square footage as your home, so you could almost double your square footage if you have a one level home.

A local authority on the edge of Greater Manchester has noted that one group of Britons are failing to do their bit to reduce Britain's Carbon emissions. Tameside Council  have suggested that heat from the burning bodies at Dukinfield Crematorium can be used to heat the building, which needs heating when mourners went to commit their oved one.

Gordon Brown's environmental record as chancellor was far from impressive, argues Stephen Hale in this week's Green Room. As the UK's new prime minister settles into life at 10 Downing Street, Mr Hale offers some tips to help Mr Brown become a little more green.

"Sex sells" is the mantra of advertisers, but our fixation with status symbols and material wealth is undermining our efforts to tackle climate change, argues Matt Prescott. In this week's Green Room, he outlines how he thinks we can love ourselves and the planet. The Green Room is a series of opinion pieces on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website.