Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category
Das Gewitter
35 degrees heat has been imposing itself on central Europeans over the past few days. It is not to my liking as a English bloke from the north used to fog in the middle of summer. I do, however, love a good electrical storm. From a safe distance.
The weatherman on the TV on Friday night promised some activity on this front. First the clouds came over, then a breeze got up. Finally the flashes and thunder. Not a classic, but I did manage to capture a lit-up sky
on my phone. It required a little patience.
Actually tonight, I got some real lightening!
Here’s the next challenge to our liberties
Filed under: Environment, International, Politics, Privatisation |
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So here is the next outrage – the inappropriately named Transatlantic Trade and Investment Policy, coming to a court not near you very soon. It is inappropriate because it is not really a trade and investment policy. Such a policy would, on the whole, be benign. This one, by my understanding, gives large corporations the opportunity to challenge nation states/governments on issues that they view as restrictions on trade. So, a nationalised health service is conceivably a restriction on trade of US healthcare providers. Under this argument, US corporations would be able to make the case that they should be able to compete for contracts in the NHS – the whole of the NHS, not just the bit that the UK Conservatives have so far transferred to their private sector firms. Equally, all environmental policy could be viewed in this way. Restricting carbon emissions, for example, imposes costs on firms, that is a restriction on trade. Surely corporations should be able to pollute as much as they like?
Magazine subscriptions
Filed under: Environment, International, Journalism and News Reportage |
Comments (1) I subscribe to two weekly magazines – the New Statesman and The Economist. The former for twelve years, the latter perhaps four years. The Economist is an essential read for my work. The New Statesman feeds my interest in political debate. I took up reading it when I ended my daily subscription to the Guardian newspaper.
When big public holidays arrive, both magazines publish bumper editions – sufficient to keep readers satiated for the two weeks that the magazines are on holiday, as it were. The New Statesman’s bumper edition is, generally, full of pap and even some of my favourite columnists let the side down. This year, for example, Will Self has taken to writing about another columnist in the same magazine! And to make matters worse, when that columnist started a few years ago, I only managed a couple of weeks before I lost the will to read any more, life being too short and all that. Holding the fort are the veterans Peter Wilby and Hunter Davies.
The Economist, however, fills out its pages with features on history, culture and science. Although it is unashamedly 
conservative, neo-liberal, it is at least well written and thoughtful. Hence I’m prompted to relay one of those features to readers (20 December 2014, pp82-84). It tells the story of the rise of pork as a symbol of affluence in China. It is a favourite food. Seemingly, Chinese citizens eat the equivalent of half a pig each per year (that is 500 million pigs annually). Such is its importance for the Chinese government seeking social stability, it is subsidised to the tune of $22bn per year. However, this leads to environmental and resource challenges.
Most are factory reared. Consequently they are routinely fed antibiotics to stave off disease that could decimate what is increasingly an in-bred, non native pig population. They are mainly fed on cash crops, particularly imported soy beans. These are grown predominantly in South America on land much of which has been cleared of rain forest. Moreover, the Chinese pork industry is responsible for 50 per cent of the total global soy market. Each kilo of pork requires 6kg of feed.
Then there is the waste. Each pig produces, apparently, 5kg of waste per day. Traditionally, pig excrement was highly valued as a fertiliser; however, mass produced pigs generate contaminated waste – antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, etc., not suitable to spreading. There is also too much of it. Pigs and pig waste have become increasing sources of water and soil pollution.
Moreover, the pigs themselves produce methane and nitrous oxide. These are potent greenhouse gases somewhat more damaging than carbon dioxide (300 times more so, it is argued).
I gave up meat 35 years ago. I may give up the New Statesman in 2015.
The oil price is a problem
Filed under: Environment, Finance and Economics, International | Tags: environment, fracking, oil price
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Whilst I am delighted to see that I can fill the tank of my ever-so reliable van for a fraction of what it cost this time last year and fly until my heart is discontent in the knowledge that the value of the airlines (share price) is increasing, they having done nothing more than survive three months since the oil price started to plummet, it is bad news. Why?
First, burning hydrocarbon fuels is bad for the environment and price is a key regulator of consumption. Second, many oil producing countries – some of them not the richest – have set their budgets at anticipated levels; for example, $100. The shortfall of $35 (reflecting today’s price-per-barrel) can make the difference between life-and-death. High oil prices, then, can be good transfer payments between rich and poorer countries.
Third, oil company shares are down sharply. With these stocks being some of the key investments made by pension funds, meeting obligations becomes more difficult. Fourth, investment in renewables will be hit. Suddenly it is only cost-effective to burn oil. Fifth, geopolitics. When demand goes down, price is often regulated by cutting supply. This is not happening for reasons which are currently unclear. However, there are some suggestions that it is a power battle between oil producing countries particularly in the middle-east rendering the region even more unstable than it already is. That is also not to mention the situation in Russia. Very much an oil economy that is suffering also from ludicrous EU sanctions. There is unrest ahead.
What about the positives? Well, I can think of one key positive. The glut in demand is, in part, caused by shale oil production in the USA and tar sands in Canada. These two practices are very damaging to the environment. $65 a barrel is not sufficient to warrant such production. Whether the firms will cease their activities remains to be seen, but what is clear is that where fracking has not yet started, it is unlikely to do so.
Picture: Flcelloguy/Wikipedia
It breaks my heart
This blog has been a shade quiet since Christmas. I really did not want to reawaken with this post, but the image on the left has been haunting me since I saw it yesterday. My earlier years were dominated by my campaigning against animal abuse. Large aquatic mammals, especially. I even bought a Praktica SLR camera rather than support the Japanese optics industry back in the 1980s when the Japanese persistently blocked a moratorium against whale hunting; particularly humpbacks that were endangered at the time.
I knew that the Japanese had an annual barbaric killing of pilot whales, but this slaughter of dolphins had escaped me. It is the dolphin on the left that haunts me. It will soon be speared by the ‘fisherman’. It will drown. At the risk of anthropomorphism, I ask myself what is going through its head. On the one hand, it knows what its fate will be. But as a higher mammal with quite developed communication, not only is it trying to communicate with its rapidly diminishing peers, it is saying to humanity, ‘why are you doing this to us?’
The process is not random, it seems. The dolphins are rounded up and herded into coves. They are left for four days and then released. In the video, men in wetsuits are seen in the water securing the animals by their tails before they are speared. And so orchestrated is this slaughter, the ‘fishermen’ have built a very large screen to keep away the cameras.
This is not to feed people who are hungry. It is not even fishing. This is a crime against nature. And it breaks my heart.
Picture: The Guardian – http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/21/japanese-fishermen-begin-annual-slaughter-of-hundreds-of-dolphins
Cutting energy use
Readers of this blog know that I fly quite a bit. My beloved lives in Munich and I live on the South Coast of England. That is about 500 miles/800 kms complicated by a stretch of water. Last week I did take the train all the way. It took 14 hours, though it was extremely civilised, particularly the first-class travel between Brussels and Cologne. In the short-term, I will continue to fly. But the effect on climate change makes it very difficult to reconcile. Energy use is unsustainable. So, here are some ideas for cutting energy use in the short-term. Low hanging fruit. Any additional suggestions welcome.
I do think about ‘unnecessary’ flying. Top of my list is sport. Tournaments are international these days and sports players – individuals and teams – fly all over the globe in pursuit of titles. Mostly unsuccessfully. One thinks about the Olympics last year. The amount of unnecessary carbon generated by moving sportspeople and their equipment really cannot be justified. Not to mention all of the building, electrical power, etc. Essentially, there needs to be less international and elite sport, not more. The Olympics should be every 5 or 10 years with intermediary events held regionally. Ditto for football’s world cup. Cricketers should play the Ashes between England and Australia less often (it pains me to say that as a cricket fan). Golf is already split into two ‘tours’ – the American and the European. This should be consolidated and playing in both tours should be frowned upon rather than celebrated. Playing in the Gulf should not be counternanced because of the energy required to maintain golf courses in deserts and the air miles needed to get the top golfers and their entourages there. The same is true of tennis.
And putting horses in aeroplanes so that they can compete in horse races across the planet is neither good for the planet nor fair for the animals concerned.
I appreciate that whole national economies are now based on exporting perishable produce to supermarkets. Particular culprits – asparagus from Peru (even when it is in season in the UK and Europe – note Tesco); sugar snaps, sweetcorn, fresh herbs, etc. Be careful as shoppers, just because it is there, does not mean that it should be bought. We need to be more creative with our cooking to render more locally-produced foods attractive and enjoyable. Some may say that Peru and Kenya, for example, enjoy comparative advantage in terms of climate and land. Be that as it may, but the transportation costs are just too high. At the very least these products can be tinned, jarred, dried, etc.
Here is another one. Turning off soft-drinks vending machines. In fact, all chilling cabinets for soft drinks and chocolate. Chocolate, indeed. We chill chocolate. The vending machine in the building I work in now serves at best 10 people. Nonsense. Soft drinks are unnecessary, chilled in December, particularly so.
Picture: (asparagus) Evan-Amos (wikipedia)
Climate change denial in school
The ongoing cold weather reminds us that something is afoot in global climate change. The list of concerns is growing. The pictures of the sea ice cracking over the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska and Canada (left) may be extraordinary, but the causes and consequences remain distant for policy makers. Compare global climate change with efforts to save the Euro.
The UK Government now seeks to take climate change off the agenda in schools for under 15 year olds. It is not totally clear why. It may just be because of pressure on the curriculum, but it may be because policy makers do not think that this age group should be taught about climate change. But let us just reflect, in the words of John Ashton (Director of E3G and a fellow of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College) writing in the Guardian newspaper (19 March 2013), “[t]here are two paths now available: one leads towards a world in which by mid-century the basic needs of 9 billion people can be met by co-ordinating a successful response to climate change. The other looks increasingly like descent into competition, fragmentation and conflict, as the interconnected stresses of food, water, and energy insecurity become unmanageable.” The children who will inherit the legacy of previoius generations at least have the right to know what has been done to them.
Picture: taken from http://econnexus.org/; but originating from the European Space Agencies CryoSat-2 satelite and mission to examine the arctic ice caps.
Processed meat and health link – a red herring?
Notwithstanding the intended pun, there is one aspect of this debate I had not thought about. So, last Thursday, we witnessed the publication of a Europe-wide survey highlighting the dangers of processed meat. In fact, we should not eat more than 20g per day, it seems. But Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University London, noted on The Today Programme on Radio Four (7 March), that processed food is a direct consequence of the production of fresh meat, or at least the over production of beef, lamb, pork and indeed, chicken. The industry is so ‘efficient’ that it processes the less prime pieces to maximise the value of any animal carcass. The consequence of this, however, is the ubiquity of processed food, and its relative cheapness.
The debate on the Today Programme can be heard here: Lang on Today
For anyone interested in the work of Tim Lang, The Guardian newspaper offers the following: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/mar/25/foodanddrink.features5; his university profile can be found here: http://www.city.ac.uk/arts-social-sciences/academic-staff-profiles/professor-tim-lang
Horsemeat
The discovery of horsemeat in ‘value’ burgers in UK supermarkets comes as no surprise. Whether the ‘mafia’ – as alleged by yesterday’s Guardian newspaper – is at the root of it, who knows? And any debate about whether the British have a problem with eating horses is a red-herring. The safety concerns are, of course, a factor. The content of manufactured food is supposed to be traceable. Clearly the inclusion of horse renders the contents far from traceable. Rather amusing really. Though the question is, what type of horse has been included. I do not mean the difference between a pony and a cart horse. I do mean the difference between one full of drugs or disease – or both – that should not be in the food chain and those that are not.
Rather, the issue is about price. Animal protein is expensive to produce. Using traceable meat particularly so, even if it is mechanically re-configured, or whatever they call it. The pressure on food producers is to cut costs in order to produce – for many people – affordable meat products. The pressure often comes from the supermarkets – and it is no surprise that it is the discounters and those offering ‘value’ level products particularly affected here. That said, there is no evidence so far that ‘premium’ products are not also contaminated.
Maybe this is just a critique of global capital. There are so many non-UK subcontractors in this story, one can see how messed up is the food industry. The eventual supply has been traced to Romania (via Cyprus and the Netherlands and France). Why Romania? Arguably, there are still many working horses there. Perhaps more importantly, the cuts in funding for trading standards departments in local authorities has reduced the detection capabilities.
I do not eat meat, but I do often cook from scratch – beans, vegetables and fruits. It takes time to prepare and cook, but I am pretty sure it is cheaper than cooking with meat.
Picture source: Wikipedia (Waugsberg)
You’ve been Trumped
I’ve just watched this documentary in amazement. The corruption story is contemptible. Trump is building a golf resort on the East Coast of Scotland south of Aberdeen. Planning permission was originally rejected by the council – not least because the plan involved the destruction of a unique habitat with SSI (site of special scientific interest) status. The decision was called in by the Scottish Government, led by Alex Salmond, and overturned.
However, there are good people in Trump’s way. Local people whose houses, for Trump, are unwelcome features in the landscape. It is the story of how they have resisted and how the forces of the state have facilitated Trump against the locals. There is an extraordinary scene where the police manhandle the amiable journalist, handcuff him, and bundle him off to the police station in Aberdeen. But that is nothing against the despicable acts being perpetrated against the locals. Their water was cut off and not restored. There is footage of the electricity supply being cut by a digger; and the locals being billed for fences that they did not ask for or need.
Please watch.
Be informed 