China Goes Green

Well, cough cough, in a few days time, cough cough, the Olympics start in Beijing, cough cough splutter. I sincerely hope that the pollution and poor air quality does not harm any of the participants. While personally, if I were an athlete I would not be prepared to attend the games in a repressive country. However, it has the be a matter of personal concious.

Though the image of me as an athlete though is the most absurd image anyone could conjour as when I had Athletes Foot, I asked for a second opinion!

However, being serious, while china is very heavily pouted as a result of the rapid industrialisation in the country, China is however taking the issue of climate change seriously. While China has the right to develop economical, they have done so thus far by copying the mistakes of the west.

When electricity for lighting first appeared, it was in fact the loss of power through resistance that meant that we have power in our homes of 240 volts. I know there are variations around the world, but the principal is the same. It was the problem of getting power from the power station to the home or end user that lead to a standard of 240 volts in Britain and Europe.

However, had we gone for power for lighting and small appliances of just 12 volts then the system could have incorporated a storage system. Yes even at the beginning of the previous century that would have been possible, using lead acid batteries just as are still used in many cars. When I had my allotment I used a solar panel to charge a battery that lit the shed and chicken house. I know that two people followed my lead and did the same. It only cost me seventy five pounds to do it. It was cheaper for others as they were able to get old batteries, I had bought new. I even thought about doing this at my home, as while lighting is not my largest electricity cost, I could see that recouping the cost would take only a couple of years. Additionally, when I looked further into the issue, I discovered that there were many appliances that are manufactured that run on 12 volts for boats and caravans. For about two thousand pounds I could run a TV a DVD player, Fridge and Freezer even a computer all from solar power. That would have included the cost of the appliances.

This is something that is happening in many developing countries. As solar lighting reaches places that are far away from the “National Grid” (as we in the UK call our electricity infrastructure), it is even cheaper than a 240 volt system as it costs millions to install the infrastructure, the power lines and power stations. However, these systems are mainly installed in the homes of the poor. For example in India where kerosene is still the main source of lighting, these solar systems are installed as part of health programs as the kerosene causes breathing difficulties. The fact that is also environmentally friendly is an added bonus. Incidentally, in India alone fifty thousand tones of CO2 are released annually just from kerosene lamps.

Now I know that my reader is wondering what this has to do with China? As China develops its electricity infrastructure, they are making the same mistakes that we in the west made, large centralised power stations and cables carrying the power from the source of generation to the user. By following this model they are tying themselves into the addiction of power usage. If they went for small scale solar then the lighting and small appliance needs of the entire population could be met at the same cost of five coal fired power stations. Further, it would have the effect of closing down fifteen 1000 mega what stations. That is using current technology.

China is developing green technologies and last year invested twelve billion dollars (US equivalent) in renewables only just behind the world leader, Germany who invested fourteen billion dollars. While the US government hides its inaction on climate change behind the myth that China is doing nothing to combat climate change, the reality is that China spends more as a percentage of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) on renewables than the US and Canada does combined.

Now don't think that I am saying that China is wonderfully environmentally friendly, but they have recognised the problem and are trying to tackle the problem. And they are doing it in ways that are not damaging their economy, in fact they have recognised the economic advantages. The countries that do the most now to develop renewables will have a grater economical advantages in the years to come. While I know that the price of oil has dropped and the price of petrol is now falling, the cost of fossil fuels is going to rise.

Therefore any country that has true renewable energy generation will not have their economies damaged by the wild fluctuations that will continue to happen.

While I do find the Chinese government a distasteful one, I do have the hope that with the eyes on China during the Olympics they (the Chinese Government) can learn from the spirit of freedom that is supposed to be at the heart of the games. Equally, I hope that we can learn that China is trying to be green.

More on the Chinese renewables

Oil Prices, Climate Change and Food

Yesterday saw lorry drivers in Britain lobbying Parliament over the price of fuel. While from an economic prospective, I can understand that people are feeling the pain of the increase in the price of oil, but there is actually nothing that government can do.

I have watched the situation carefully, trying to understand what is really going on. What was perplexing was simply that when the price of oil started reaching new and record highs, it was the forward price that was rising. That meant oil for delivery in six weeks was at $120 to 130 per barrel, this price for immediate delivery stayed at $75-80 per barrel. While this has now changed upwards, the oil companies profited from this for over eight weeks selling petrol at the price it would be in six weeks time, while they were only paying for it at the $75-80 per barrel mark.

While this profiteering by the oil companies was a factor driving this it could not explain the whole of what was driving the market. The other aspect that doesn't make sense is that while the current global use is close to the current output, there is still more production than use. On the classic supply and demand principals of economics there is no logic to this.

There is a new factor that has come into play, that of the speculators. While there has always been some speculation in the commodity markets, with the rich and the super rich no longer making money from property vast sums are being ploughed into commodities like oil and wheat. However, while this is an important aspect that is driving the price, it is not the only factor. If it were then they will get their finger burnt when this bubble bursts. As it will.

The real difficulty is that of politics and the lack of political will to tackle climate change. Part of the political factors is the Iran question. While I personally don't like the idea of Iran having nuclear weapons, the rhetoric that the US government is using, is making the oil producing states and the emerging economy of China very nervous as they fear that Bush could suddenly rack this up to war.

While I personally doubt that even Bush could be that stupid, I can understand the rest of the globe becoming wary about this and the effect upon oil supplies. Thus some nations are increasing their stocks of petroleum.

The other political aspect is the lack of action regarding Climate change. This is the part that really makes my head hurt trying to understand the logic here.

There is a lack of investment in refining capacity, and the oil companies don't want to make that investment because they are worried about immanent sea level rise. They don't want to build on or at the coast where refineries have traditionally been constructed, as they would be lost when the seas rise. Nor do they want to build inland at a greater elevation, as that would mean the oil industry is acknowledging the reality of dangerous Climate Change.

Even looking at all these factors together still only provides an incomplete picture. But before we look at the other factors, I want to deal with three issues, not least the price of Diesel. The truck drivers protest and lobbying of parliament has provided a useful hook to examine the problem of rising oil costs. But the price of diesel is actually a symptom and not the problem. The reality is that there are to many trucks on the road. That's not a political or environmental statement but an economic one. There are twenty five percent more trucks than there are loads to carry. Even if the fuel costs were stable or even falling, there still would be businesses failing. The difficulty is that the price diesel is accelerating the failure of businesses that are failing anyway. It is painful, that I understand, but nothing can or should be done to keep lorries on the road.

The other area where the price of diesel is hastening the end of a moribund industry, is fishing.

For the last twenty years in Europe, we have continued taking fish from the breeding populations of the fish we use for food. It has also been happening all around the world, but here in Europe we actually have good data that shows what needs to be done. As during the Second world war when fishing was not possible particularly in the North Sea, fish stocks recovered and when fishing resumed fish was abundant. The only way of ensuring a fishing industry in the future is to stop fishing now. Not reduce the catch but a complete cessation to fishing and that has to be for ten years.

Fishermen will wail in protest at that, but if not there will be no fish to catch in ten to fifteen years as we are currently harvesting the breeding stock. The increase in diesel costs means that the boats can no longer afford to travel the great distances searching for the fish. They are having to search for fish that are not there. When they do catch fish, they are smaller, often not even having reached sexual maturity. Again this increase in the price of diesel is not the problem it is and has been the industrial scale harvesting of the seas that has eliminated the fish stocks. There are also additional factors such as warming seas driving the remnants of the fish populations further north, but the longer that fishing continues the faster the fishermen will kill their industry.

The last point regarding oil prices is that of speculation. The immorality of the rich gambling on the price of oil and foods, beggars belief. They are making money off poor and vulnerable people. Here in the UK the price of heating oil will be around £1200 ($2000) per delivery this winter at current prices. In many rural areas where there is no gas, that will mean the poor, the elderly will suffer, as in cold weather that delivery would only last four to six weeks. I fear that people will end up dyeing from cold this winter. I am saying this now as I will rage when it happens.
However, the speculation on the oil price is only part of the picture as it is the speculation on foods that is really what is driving the up the coast of oil. I can see the puzzled looks from here, but as the value of crops like wheat and maize go up, more farmers are planting them. That means there is and will be, a greater demand for diesel to power the tractors.

It doesn't end there, as our chemical based farming is reliant upon fertilizers that are made from oil. It is in fact this factor that is what is really driving up the price of oil.

We obviously do need to feed the world, but we have become so fixated upon the chemical inputs to grow crops that we are failing to utilise the traditional methods of feeding the soil.

This is why we are all having to pay more for oil and food.

It is a complex picture, and it has taken a while to unravel what is really happening, but this is all the result of our addiction to oil.

Chickens and the power of Big Business

This week saw the AGM of Tesco's the largest retailer in the UK. What is worth remarking on is that they receive eight out of every ten pounds of the retail spend in Britain. That is not just of the food spend, but of all of the retail spend.

Therefore it was not that surprising that the TV chef, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall attempt to get Tesco to raise the welfare standards for the chickens they sell, failed.

By becoming a shareholder in Tesco, he was able to get a motion tabled that called upon Tesco to raise the welfare standards for the chickens sold as food. Tesco made this as difficult for him as possible, forcing him to pay eighty thousand pounds on the literature to contact all the shareholders regarding the motion. As anyone who has heard the news he got support from ten percent of the shareholders, but the motion was ultimately defeated.

While other supermarkets need to shoulder their share of responsibility in the way that animal welfare is abused to bring cheap food to the supermarket shelf, as the largest retail in the UK, Tesco should have provided a moral lead here. But they have shown it is profits at any costs that is their motivation not quality or welfare.

In tests in a food laboratories it has been shown that the so called Standard Chicken has more than one hundred grams of fat per kilo than does a free range bird. Further, free range birds have a higher proportion of Omega 3 fatty acids, the good fats that we need, than do barn reared birds.

With a epidemic of health problems related to obesity, the standard chickens that the supermarkets are offering are far from the healthy food that we are being deliberately misled, to believe them to be.

Tesco make as profit about seventy pence ($1.30) per standard chicken sold, the farmer makes only three pence (5c), from a retail price of £2.50 ($4.75). The difficulty that most people overlook at the checkout is that for anything to be so cheap someone must be loosing out somewhere. Here it is the farmer, and ultimately the chicken. This callous disregard for the welfare of the animals we choose to eat, lessens us as people.

Additionally the intensive keeping of animals for food has a serious environmental impact, as the volume of manure produced becomes a problem. In the past with the less intensive production of meat animals, the manure was a benefit that fed the land. Now it harms it.

However, the real threat from intensive animal production is that any disease problems quickly become an epidemic. In history it was only when there was a realisation that overcrowding, sewage, clean water and hygiene that were key to solving the problems of public health, that many of the diseases of the past were finally overcome. Yet we seem to have forgotten that lesson when it comes to animal health and welfare.

With an increase in the prevalence of campylobacter in chickens, we could be paying for our cheap food with the costs of treating food poisoning. Just as we made some dumb decisions that lead to BSE, who knows what problems will emerge from this.

While I do appreciate that food prices are increasing and that this effects poor people much more than it does the more affluent, but there is a hidden cost to cheap food and with Tesco's posting record profits, it clear that they are profiting from the backs of the poor.

Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder

I went on to the BBC news website, as I do regularly, because I needed to check some information about another posting that I am writing. This article caught my attention.

In previous postings, I have been critical of the US over the way they (the US Government) promote abstinence as a means of providing HIV prevention and promoting sexual health. It goes beyond that promotion, as the US government has been refusing funds for any health programme that does not follow this ridiculous policy.

While I respect that Americans have the right to follow their own path, this imposing of their pie in the sky ideals upon the rest of the world is criminal. There are people in Africa who are infected by HIV as a direct result of this policy. Further, most of the conflicts in Africa have at there root over population, something that would have been reduced had the NGOs not had their funding cut by the US. Also the US cut development aid to all countries that did not follow this ridiculous abstinence policy.

Well as this article shows the US has been following this policy themselves and it has not been working. With one in four American teenagers with an STD, Sexually Transmitted Disease, for the health of America this ridiculous abstinence policy has to change.

The simple fact is that the US, under Bush has been imposing an ultra religious policy upon the rest of the world.

It does not take a major leap of imagination to see the actions of these ultra religious people, imposing their will upon the rest of the world mirrors the way that ultra orthodox Muslims are trying to impose their prospective upon the rest of the world. Further, what is also true of both is that they have subverted the messages of peace and tolerance of both religions.

At least the world knows that Bush will be going soon. However who ever takes over will have the mess that Bush and Co have left behind, not just in America but in the rest of the world.

UK Government buys Fifty Billion Pounds of Bad Debt

Last week in the Guardian was a quote from the banking industry that said:

“The banks will now only lend to people who can repay the loan”

That's like saying that the banks will only employ people that know the difference their Elbow from there... well you know the rest of the phrase!

No other business, industry could, or would, expect the government to bail it out when it made a loss. Further while the banks keep all of their profits when they make them, it will be the tax payer that picks up the tab for all these losses. The UK government has just knowingly bought fifty billion pounds worth of bad debts from the banks. So it is the tax payer that will have to pay for this stupid and reckless lending.

There will be some people that disagree with me, but providing a mortgage of 125% of the value of a property is reckless. While for people struggling to afford to buy a home a loan that allowed the buyer to obtain the property and furnish it may have seemed like a blessing. But that thinking is based upon the assumption that house prices would only go up. While looking at the historical data many people could be forgiven for thinking that was the case, however looking at all the other data should have alerted people to the fact that house prices were artificially high.

There has been direct and deliberate manipulation of the housing market. Builders who have been providing false price and sales data to the Land Registry. Estate Agents who have been manipulating prices by not passing on details of lower offers. Charted Surveyors, the valuers that are not given work unless they provide valuations that match the asking price. All reported in the media over the past five years, but no one wanted to take notice. Thus the value of property has been kept artificially high by direct and deliberate price manipulation add to that the irresponsible gambling by the banks all added to the artificially inflated value of properties.

Then there is the role of the government, for the last ten years and more, the economy has only been growing by promoting consumer spending via borrowing. This has lead to the average person owing more than twenty thousand pounds in personal debt. Yet like any borrowing it now has to be paid back.

While this situation is far from ideal, it is far from a crisis. While it will be difficult for some people, and people don't need to panic. While the paper value of your home has fallen and it will continue to fall, as long as you keep up repayments you will not loose your home. Again while it will be hard, pay off those credit cards and only spend the spare income you have. Look at not replacing all the toys and gadgets that litter your home. Unless a vehicle is vital for work, if you can use public transport or cycle to work, sell the car or cars.

Eventually, once those debts are cleared you will be better off not only financially, but you will have developed a real sense of value of the chattels you own.

This is all part of a change that I have been foreseeing for years. The endless growth of the economy, in the way that it has been occurring, had to end. Where growth will happen now will be in rebuilding of the infrastructure that really matters.

These events are the start of the real green revolution the planet has been waiting for. With the increases in the cost of living that is happening and will continue, the need for people to tighten their belts, will reduce the spending on environmentally damaging activities, such as the rampant consumerism and flippant global travel. With less money to spend on luxury goods like TVs or iPods or any number of manufactured items, we will see less damage to the environment occurring. It will not happen over night, but these events are the start of us humans being re-educated about what really matters.

While events yet to happen will still show us that we need to work with the environment and not against it, the people that start to adapt now will have a head start. This includes using your spare time to grow at least some of your own food. Be this some salad crops in pots on the window seal or two or three neighbours sharing an allotment, you will need to grow at least some of your own food. Food prices are going up and quite soon, this year or next, growing some of your own food will become vital.

The cost of energy will continue to rise, especially petrol (Gas). So learning to do away with the car will become essential. Not having a car will save you at least two thousand five hundred pounds per year, and that excludes the cost of using it. While this is not going to be realistic for everyone, it will be the people that can give up their cars that will cope with the changes that are coming.

There will be people who read this and think this is mostly a lot of nonsense, but weather events will seriously impact food and energy over the next ten to twenty years. This will seriously and adversely effect the conventional economy. Further, the sudden influx of seawater from rising sea levels will disrupt our ability to travel.

The choices we all make now will effect how well we as individuals, our families cope with the changes that have already started.

Food and Population Follow up - Plan A? Or Plan B?

Following my posting about Food shortages and Population growth, a rather interesting comment was made. Sometimes when I am writing about something I feel so passionately about, I can occasionally say something that is not as clear as intended. Often as I am writing a stream of conciousness, although many of my readers may say that is more a stream of unconsciousness, I don't always provide the clarity that I aim for.

Additionally, I do try to hard to be diplomatic at times. This posting and the comment are a classic example. Personally, I think that as a result of Climate Change, there will not be the projected increase in the global population. In fact I we will soon start to see population decline. That will be as a direct result of food shortages giving rise to famine and to put it bluntly, people starving to death. This is not alarmist as it is already happening. This occurs not from lack of food, but from poverty. As I stated in my previous posting, eight hundred and fifty million people will not get enough food today. That is nearly three times the population of the USA, or over fourteen time the population of the UK. The reason for choosing these two countries as examples is that in both enough food per day is thrown away that would feed the underfed the under nourished and the starving. I thank my contact in the UN for clarify the situation in the US.

Now if we cant feed the world now, how can we hope to feed the a growing population? Add in to that the difficulties of a changing climate and the whole concept of a population reaching nine billion looks impossible.

Put quite simply without the political will to distribute food fairly now, the population will not grow as fast as projections estimate. In the natural world food and water is the limiting factor regarding population size. Therefore without the food or the capacity to grow the food the human population will never reach the projected twelve billion humans on the planet. Personally, the way that we in the west are dealing with the problem will result in the global population falling. In nature, no population like ours can be sustained. Further in biology, any cell or group of cells that grows out of control is called a cancer. Is that the way humanity wants to be remembered, as a cancer on the planet?

That brings me on to the main are that I need to provide clarification on. Currently in the developing world there is a crisis brought about by HIV/AIDS. So many of the solutions that the western developed world has proposed or has been prepared to fund, involve preaching abstinence. I use the word preaching quite deliberately, as while intellectually I can see that if we got the whole world to stop having sex would stop HIV/AIDS, it is just not going to happen. Via this naïve and frankly ridiculous policy, inspired by religious morality, it has condemned millions in Africa alone to grow up with out parents. In some parts of Africa the HIV+ rate is as high as forty percent of the adult population. Had the religious busy bodies kept their noses out, we would have seen twenty years of good family planing, far lower rates of infection not just of HIV+ but of other STD and lower birth rates.

While I am not saying that family planning is the only solution here, for the last twenty years the interference from religious groups has done more harm than good in providing development to the countries of Africa. Yet where non judgemental healthcare and education has occurred, in Africa and Asia, it has not only helped stem the spread of HIV infections it has helped reduce the birth rate.

The one aspect that all of the NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations) agree on though is that educating women really helps. Even organisations like Oxfam, the UN Food and Health programmes and many others don't fully understand why, but it seems that by even teaching women something as basic as the ability to read and write, helps empower women to access information regarding women's health issues and in particular information regarding family planning. That helps reduce the size of the families. Put simply the fewer children the families have the lower the financial cost. Further, there is also lower child mortality rates in the families where the woman has been educated.

We in the Western developed world just don't realise just how easy we have it, and just how difficult it is in other parts of our planet. However the real point is, that had we not tried to impose our morality upon other people and cultures, it is possible that we would not now be facing the projected growth of planets population to such unsustainable levels.

While I am not advocating any form of forced population control, if people in the developing world were provided with the education and choice, most would use family planning as they see it as the most sustainable way out of poverty there is.

The trouble is so far we have not even tried plan A so no one has thought of a Plan B.

Global Food System Must Change Population and Food

Here is a mind boggling fact;

There are more human beings alive on the planet today then have ever lived in the whole of human existence.

Human population is the elephant in the room when it comes to climate change and the environment. Not least in the moral abhorrent image of genocide sparked by raising the issue. Thus, very few governments, will actually even discuss the issue. Or when they do they only talk about it in economic terms, such as the so called demographic time bomb. That's where with an ageing population, there are fears that we will not have enough new workers entering the job market to pay the taxes that will enable a government to pay for the health and social services. Even then it is only in terms of increasing the population further.


This prospective of only seeing people as economic units, consumers and or as producers is very short sighted. As quite simply a constantly growing population requires more resources: Food, Water, Shelter and Warmth. These are the basics of life, no matter if you live in the developed world or in the developing world. The problem is that at a global population of six and a half billion we cant get this right, so how are we going to cope with nine billion? Or even the twelve billion that is the expected peek?

I have constantly tried to write a posting on this topic of population growth, but I kept on getting sidetracked. I now understand why, it is simply that I can not see it happening. It is not that I can envisage that many people on the planet, but that I can not see how the this can happen without the already stressed natural systems breaking down.

Even if you take out of the equation the likely effects of a changing climate, the two key elements are food and water. Water and food poverty are already serious issues around the planet. People are already starving, 850 million people will not have enough food to eat today. With another two or three billion mouths to feed, how will we grow that food?

Already the over use of non organic chemical fertilisers has created a run off into the oceans creating dead zones. Therefore, if we expand yields by this method, it will only work in the short term. Add to that the very real problem of expanding deserts, water scarcity and degraded soils, then that too will prevent the planet from expanding its food production to meet this growing population. Further, the way we are polluting the seas, as well as over fishing them, we will lose that resource as a means of feeding people too.

Now if you then add in the effects of global warming, an already mind numbing situation starts to look like a disaster. Even if we only add in the most conservative effects of Climate Change, drought from the loss of the mountain glaciers, coastal flooding causing salinity of the farming land around the worlds coasts, and hotter dryer summers combined with sudden flood events, the problem of water becomes obvious.

Already, there are problems with food shortages. The effects of Climate Change are reducing yields of important food crops already. Wheat, Corn and Rice. This is provoking food riots among the poor around the world. This is happening now, so how much worse will it be if we have a population of nine billion?

Quite simply we will face refugees fleeing famine.

This is why I can not see that level of population ever occurring. We are just to selfish and wasteful to provide an equitable distribution food around the world today, so how can we feed another three billion people?

Here is another fact that should shock people. Here in the UK every day eight million pounds worth of food is thrown out. Exclude the environmental cost of shipping in and then throwing out all that food, and you still have enough food discarded to feed all of the under nourished around the world.

The one key fact that I have learnt about providing good development is that education is vital. Further, educating women is the cornerstone of good development policy. As well as the simple fact that women in most of the world are the food growers and providers, but educating women empowers them to have greater control of their bodies. Put quite simply educated women have fewer children. Additionally, providing an education to women has been proven by the Non Government Agencies, charities providers of aid and education, is the most effective route out of poverty for most families. However, there is another factor in this equation that of religious and social taboos regarding sex. This became most apparent in the fight to stop the spread of AIDS/HIV.

Rather than enable the use of Condoms, religious leaders would advocate abstinence. While that may sound a reasonable way forward to many people, it actually ignores the reality of cultural differences and the way that women are still treated as property.

I have spoken before of my repugnance of the policy of people like Bush who will not fund any development project that enables the use of Condoms or provides education regarding family planning. However it is not just George W, there are almost all the religious leaders; Christian, Muslim etc., who are promoting this form of keeping women oppressed and keeping people in poverty

If we are to even start tackling this crisis of over population then we really need to start tackling poverty head on.

I don't see the future as a desperate one. We can make the future better for all, what is needed is the political will.

Global Food System Must Change

The Credit Crunch

As my regular reader may remember, when I had to move home several months ago, I railed about the obscenely inflated prices that people were asking for as rent. Back then long before the “Credit Crunch” occurred, I was forewarning of that impending situation.

Here in the UK our whole economy has been driven by a perceived, paper, rise in the value of property. When in fact house and property prices were at their peek more than five years ago. This has meant that in the UK millions of people have borrowed money against the perceived value of their home to live the high life. Now the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost.

Now I don't blame the individuals for this, the fault lays with the banks who have been fuelling the perceived rise in house prices by giving 125% mortgages. The estate agents who earn more money by keeping the markets artificially high. But the biggest villain here is the government who has fuelled the housing market by constantly saying that there is a shortage of houses.

As all this talk of a shortage boosted house prices, and created the illusion that here in the UK we had more money in the British economy, this enabled the government and politicians to create the illusion of an ever expanding economy.

Firstly we need to nail the myth that there is a shortage of housing, there is NOT! Even in London and the South East where the pressures are greatest, twenty five percent of the homes are unoccupied. In other parts of the country its as much as forty percent. The difficulty is one of price, one of value. With the perception of property values rising, as well as a perceived shortage, landlords and letting agents would hold out for much higher rents. Sometimes they got them, but more often than not the landlords who jumped into the Buy to Let market only made any money when they sold the property. However the important aspect here is that because of the difficulty of finding affordable accommodation it energised the myth of a shortage of homes.

Even some banks could see the reality of the situation and nearly three years ago the Santana Group who owns Abbey National stopped lending on some types of property citing market manipulation. Meaning that properties were be sold at inflated prices.

Therefore this whole situation was foreseeable and predictable. Further the majority of the banks were involved in this nonsensical lending. If any bank or financial institution lends at more than one hundred percent of the value of an asset, it risks getting burnt. And while much of this has been blamed on the American Sub Prime market, here in the UK we need to take our share of the blame for what we have done.

In the UK personal debt stands at over one trillion pounds. That is one trillion pounds of future earnings or income that has been spent on a consumer driven spending spree. While some people will have borrowed money to invest on assets, the majority has been been wasted on; Clothes, Holidays, Electronic gadgets, Drinking, the list could go on. While this consumer binge may have kept the money circulating in the economy, like any over indulgence, the price now needs to be paid.

The majority of house prices will halve, and the sooner this happens the better as then we can start to house all the people who need accommodation and we can start to get the economy rebuilt.

While it will be difficult for many people, this situation could enable so many people to learn to be less wasteful and to value what they have, not to keep on dreaming of the latest fashionable must have.

The Embryology Bill

As my personal ethics are firmly based within what is right for the environment, I find myself in the strange position of agreeing with the catholic church. However The Embryology Bill that is going through parliament at the moment will not allow human-animal hybrids to be created so the facts need to be outlined first.

What the bill would allow if passed, is the use of egg cases of animal ova to be used. Filled with human cells, these cell lines will then be used to develop stem cells. Therefore it is not as has been said human and animal hybrids that are being created.

Further my moral objection to this work is much more based upon the fact that we are playing about with human genes when we don't fully understand what most of the genes do. For example there is a gene in the human genome that helps protect against malaria. Great you could say; except this same gene is also the cause of sickle cell anaemia.

While it would be a great benefit to mankind if a way could be developed to reduce the risk, or even cure malaria, would it be justified if the cure caused other conditions? Unlike conventional drug therapies or treatments, introducing new genes or new cells to treat a patient could alter the genetic make up of subsequent generations.

Therefore, some new wonder treatment, could be discovered and used long before we discovered, generations latter, that it was the cause of something previously unknown and possibly more serious than the original condition.

Medical science is littered with wonder drugs that it was latter discovered had serious side effects. Here in the UK we recently had a report on Seroxat an anti depressant that caused an increased risk of suicide in some users. Further, the company manufacturing the drug knew of this at least two years before being forced to notify the authorities. They only did this when the media discovered the truth.

Now I can envisage some new wonder gene therapy being developed, making some business billions of dollars and them fighting tooth and nail to protect that income even if it started to look as though that therapy was causing a problem.

Equally, with the process of developing these cell lines in animal ova, there is a small chance that some of the animal genes could combine with the human DNA. If that were to happen it would take years before that was even noticed. This could lead to disease that are at the moment exclusively animal becoming infectious to humans.

Inadvertently we could be on course to creating genetically modified humans. I realise that for the people with conditions like Parkinsons disease or altzimers, this form of stem cell research could be seen as some great new hope, but every technology has a down side, an unforeseen consequences that a lack of research fails to see.

It is the blinkered rush into these new technologies that could cause problems worse than climate change that are the basis of my moral objections to this Embryology Bill. We are already seeing that GM crops are killing off bees, I foresee that if allowed this research could kill off the human race.

Not A Green Budget

While there were a couple of measures in the Budget that could be seen as “Green”, these measures are more about raising revenue than attempting to benefit the environment. The greatest obstacle is this obsession with growth.

The growth of an economy by measuring the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a seriously blunt instrument. Further, even most economists don't understand how or what elements of the economy go towards making up this measure. Put simply, it measures the total earnings of all individuals, the businesses and the government in the country. Now if we were just talking about people, businesses and government departments just buying goods and services then as a measure it would be useful. However as it also measures many negative aspects of life that money get spent on, it fails to show the real state of any economy.

The problem is that if there is a spate of arson, the cost of rebuilding the properties gets measured as does the increase in insurance premiums. This all makes it look as though the economy is growing, as if you lose everything in a house fire say you then have to spend more on refurnishing your new abode. However the GDP fails to measure the losses of the original property.

Looking at an environmental prospective; even shutting down an industry that was heavily polluting adds a paper benefit to the economy as the costs of clearing up the pollution gets seen as a benefit to the economy.

The economists have the same mindset as the people I challenge for dropping litter. The people who toss rubbish in the street, will often say that they are keeping the road cleaners employed.

Therefore the economists and politicians see growth as useful measure but fail to see that a shrinking economy can be equally as good if not better. If the shrinking was due to high unemployment then that would be bad. But if there was a downturn that was caused by the majority of office workers working from home, utilising the internet and telecommunications to do the same work and no longer having to travel to a place of work, the losses would occur in the daily cost of travel for those individuals. While there would be less money spent on petrol that would impact the oil companies and allied businesses, the benefits will also be less congestion delaying the essential journeys, less pollution to cause breathing problems and expenditure on health care.

All this could happen using existing technology, and that shrinking of the GDP would benefit all but a few vested interests.

This is just one example of where a shrinking could be a real benefit to the overall economy. If everyone who can grew their own vegetables, that would mean that there was less money spent in the supermarkets as well as the reduction in the cost of health care from improved diet and better exercise. The trouble is that activities like this, in the eyes of the economists, are not seen to benefit the economy in ways that can be measured.

Staying with the environment, growth in personal transport is seen as good for the economy. As well as greater volume in car sales benefiting manufacturing and the suppliers of the fuel, the conventional economists prospective fails to take account of the costs that go with this. Like congestion extending the time required to travel anywhere, or the effects of pollution on health. In fact these extra costs are seen as benefiting the GDP as more money is spent on these.

It is this drive for growth that is damaging the environment and stopping any real growth in the quality of life.

This method of only looking at the world purely in terms of its monetary value is at the core of most of the problems we have today. Environmentally where the worlds forests are only valued in terms of the economic earnings from the timber, and not in the way that these forests hold back rainwater, preventing flooding and providing drinking water.

Additionally this fixation on growth of GDP means that important tasks in our societies become undervalued. Here in the UK while the cost of childcare is expensive the wages for the people who work in childcare is very low. This leads to people who would be the best people to care for children, will move on to better paid jobs. Yet caring for the next generation should be one of the most valued tasks in life. Yet people who trade in financial derivatives get paid small fortunes even for doing their job badly.

Equally there needs to be a change to fair trade. While the concept of free trade may sound the right way to carry out commerce, free trade is in fact exploitation. It is based upon paying the least you can for any resource and selling it for the maximum price you can get. While that may earn businesses or individuals good profits, it also creates volatility in the market. That is why crude oil has hit record highs yet again. At the time of writing oil is 110 US dollars per barrel while it only costs 20 US dollars to produce. Yet the free market also means that livestock farmers in the UK and the US are struggling to make any profits as it is cheaper to ship in meat from halfway around the world. Even excluding the environmental cost, this free trading creates the situation where the UK and the US are placing themselves at risk of being held hostage over food supplies. If we loose the ability to feed ourselves we are venerable to any number of situations that could disrupt international transport.

Fair trade has the effect of ensuring a stable price, for the farmer and prevents inflation. While it does prevent spectacular profits, it stops the exploitation. Further, by stabilising supply there is less risk of starvation occurring.

Fair trade not only applies to food, when applied to all areas of commerce the consumer gets a better standard of product that's safer and lasts longer. The manufactures also get a better price, leading to better wages and less environmental impacts. Less resources wasted, Less energy used, fewer good transported around the world.

We need to start looking for alternative economic solutions. For example if everyone who is unemployed were provided with an allotment to grow some of their own food, we would reduce the cost of unemployment. However, I am a realist and know that most of the unemployed would not make the effort.

Just as I know that no government will really start to tackle climate change until we have the levels of the seas rising.

Censorship Of Video Games

Sometimes life can throw you some strange serendipity. In that last couple of days I have been talking about censorship on television with a friend. Then today on the BBC News website was this article.

Personally I have never been that interested in video games. I am disturbed by the titles that are advertised, like Grand Theft Auto. But having not used them, I couldn't really comment on the content. However, from what I have seen I am disturbed by the casual violence and the glorification of crime that these games portray.

Now while I am in general a liberal and I do think that adults should have the freedom to choose what films they watch, the problem is that children are being allowed access to much of this material. I have experienced two examples of this; while helping out at a local school in their garden one of the children who was only about ten years old asked me if I had seen a horror film. I cant remember the title, but I knew even as I was asked it was a film that was supposed to be an adult film. I don't know if this child had parental consent to see this film, but I suspect he did from what he said, but the point is that with access so easy for children, the companies that publish films and video game need to be much more responsible.

The second example I was told about by an Education Welfare Officer, she had visited the parents of a child who was not attending school. While trying to talk to the parents, and competing for attention with the television, she realised that what the parents were watching was a Hard Core sex video. Obviously, that is an example of bad parenting.

However, even on mainstream television there are far to many examples of graphic violence. While an exposed breast at the Super bowl a few years ago, the incident that sparked my private discussions, caused such an outcry. Personally, I would rather have to explain to a child who accidentally stumbles upon nudity, or even sex on television than to try and explain acts of violence.

However there is a much wider problem with this material. It is clear that we do have a problem with violent children. While it would be far too over simplified to just blame it on videos, DVDs and Video Games, they must be having an impact. For example police officers who have to deal with the vile crime of child pornography, and have to view these images, receive psychological support as it has long been recognised that these images do disturb the viewer. Therefore an endless diet of violent images, especially on young people, must be having some effect too.

While there is no direct causal link between playing video games and the violence and crime we see on our streets, I am sure the link is there.

The piece that prompted this posting.

Tesco Lies to the BBC

While I am sometimes up early enough to catch Farming Today on BBC Radio Four, it starts at 5:45 in the morning, I was really glad that I did today. As I have written about previously, here in the UK what's called a standard chicken some supermarkets have been selling for three pounds each or two for five pounds.

Following a series of programmes on television that highlighted the low standard of welfare inflicted upon these birds to achieve this price, initially Tesco's said that it had seen no impact on its sales. On farming today they even reported that Tesco reported an increase in sales of standard chicken. My sources tell me that this was a lie. In fact as I posted just last week Tesco have notices up in store saying that they are trying to expand production of the high welfare chickens.

Today, Farming today were reporting that Tesco will be selling standard chickens at one pound and ninety-nine pence as a special offer.

After checking with my sources, I discover that far from the television campaign not impacting sales, Tesco have lost sales. People are rejecting the low welfare standard chicken and as they have done little to source high welfare chickens, they are loosing market share.

It just goes to prove that the supermarkets don't follow the customers lead as they claim but will inflict on us whatever rubbish will make them a profit.

Processed Food Is Causing Tropical Deforestation

While the link to quality food, supermarkets processed foods, deforestation and climate change is not in the forefront of many peoples minds, the link is a direct one.

The food industry will always use the cheapest ingredients it can source. While there is the obvious link regarding the miles that food travels, however the more damaging problem is in fact regarding the use of palm oil in almost all processed foods. The economics are simple, palm oil, freshly processed from Indonesia sells for less than .09 pence (20 cents US) per kilo. Thus as would any business, the food industry uses palm oil by the tonne (many million tonnes), as a way of maximising profits. Something that all businesses are legally required to do for the benefit of shareholders.

While all the talk in the media has been about palm oil as a bio-fuel, an alternative to petrol and diesel. What people are failing to recognise is that there already is a very high demand for palm oil from the food industry. Also it has to be said, most soap is made with palm oil. The brand Palmolive takes his name quite simply from the fact that it is made from 90per cent Palm Oil and ten percent Olive Oil. I am not singling out that particular brand as almost all soap is made using Palm Oil.

Therefore, in relation to climate change, the bio-fuel industry will have a tough time sourcing enough palm oil. While this commodity pressure should be good prices, the reverse is actually the reality. This is because vast areas of rain forest is being felled and replanted with palm oil. In Borneo half of the rain forest has been lost in the last fifteen years. While some NGOs are saying that this has happened in the last ten years, but I am quoting and relying on official figures here.
While the governments of Borneo and Papa New Guinea, are trying to stop this happening the planters are getting in the illegal loggers and clearing the land. It has also happened by burning down the forest, but as the timber can be sold even as illegally felled timber, the companies that create the plantations are creating clear land. The governments then agree to this now cleared land being planted with palm oil.

This is creating an oversupply, that is depressing the price of the palm oil. Additionally because of the loss of government revenues from managed and sustainable logging that the illegal logging, it is no wonder that the governments agree to these new plantations being established. These are developing countries who do not have the resources to replant the forests.

There are other financial and social impacts from the use of palm oil by the western food industry. As many of the peoples that live on and around the land where the plantations are established are predominantly creating and deriving their livelihoods from the forests, they loose their means of existence. Often these indigenous peoples are not earning money or generating monies by this hunting and gathering, their needs are ignored. However, without their traditional lives, they then become a burden on the state as they become jobless even homeless.

This is the reality of our so called cheap food in the UK and the west. Furthermore we already have many other fats and oils that could be used in manufacturing these processed foods are available. Olive oil, Grape seed oil are but two and they are considered beneficial for health. They are not used not because they are drastically more expensive but because they can not be manipulated to greatly extend shelf life. That also raises a question about how fresh our food really is, but I may tackle that at a later date. However, with all the problems of obesity that we face in the western world, in my mind at least it makes me wonder if the prolific use of palm oil in our foods is part of the problem? That said what is clear is that precessed food is a significant contributing factor in deforestation.

While this posting has focused upon the unknown or ignored aspects of why our food industry and our eating habits are significantly adding to deforestation, and our changing climate, as in Borneo deforestation is placing the Orang-utan at serious risk of extinction. All this as a direct result of our demand for palm oil. Climate change affects us all, in ways that most people don't understand or realise, from the poor displaced peoples in Indonesia to the rise in obesity in the west. That is why conservation is really important for all our futures.

As climate change is a reality we all need to send signals to the food industry and stop them supporting, indirectly, illegal logging and directly other unethical business practises.

Education Is De-skilling our Children

Earlier on today I was drafting out a posting on a completely different topic, but as today is Shrove Tuesday, the topic I was writing about reminded me that in the village store I had seen an instant pancake mix. My initial reaction was that surely people know how to make pancakes?
However, I realised that actually it is quite likely that people don't. Further, I realised why this was and it is in fact at the root of many of the social problems that exist today. Back when I was at school even us boys were expected to do one term of cooking. It had the fancy title of Home Economics, but basically it was simply cookery. I enjoyed it and predominantly by teaching myself, I learned how to cook. I am not perfect, even now I can get my timing wrong and I have served starters after the main course!

However I went to school just as the industrial age was ending. No matter what your real talent was the schools then were churning out factory workers. Or so they thought, during my last two years at school on the bus I would pass the factories where I was expected to work. Yet in those two years I saw factory after factory close. I was fortunate as I got a job in a Horticultural Nursery, very poor wages, but a job.

The certainties of the whole basis of the education system just fell away. The education system then emphasised, even more than it had previously, that exams were the way to go. When I left school O-levels were what was required. Then the emphasis was pushed onto A levels, (the equivalent of a high school diploma). Now all the emphasis is on getting a degree.

What has been lost in this overly academic thrust in the education system is the chance to experience different subjects, especially the practical ones.

That's the base of this triangle, another aspect is the number of women that are now working. This is not an anti-feminist rant, the fact that a woman is just as good as a man in any job has been proved time and again. However, this change has not come as a choice that women are free to make as most of the time women have to work just to make ends meet. When I was a child on the news you would hear about “A Family Wage”, now even two young working professionals together struggle to afford to live on a joint salary. Therefore, parents are so busy working that they don't have the time to pass on the skills of cooking. Additionally, the food industry and the supermarkets are tricking us into buying all these highly processed convenience foods. Further undermining the confidence of people in their abilities to cook.

Finally is the hype that is marketed to us about what we should be consuming and the lifestyle we should be leading. In the developed western world, while we are all richer, anxiety and depression rates are at an all time high.

I don't know first hand what the situation is like in the US, as an example, but here in Britain very few families sit down at the table for a meal. More often than not, its a plate on the lap in front of the television. Further, sometimes because of shift patterns or other commitments different members of the family are eating at different times.

While I am not advocating that it should be the woman that does the cooking, when I was married I did most of the cooking. But the loss of household skills and the reliance on “Fast Junk Food” is de-skilling a whole generation. This all impacts upon the loss of social cohesion, as a family sitting around a table eating and talking builds bonds, while eating microwave mush in front of the television just deadens the mind.

It would have been all to easy to have dismissed the appearance of an instant pancake mix on the shelves of the local store as people being lazy, but its really the loss of skills and the confidence to try that enables the food industry to make and market products like this successfully. When I first started to cook, I made my own recipe book. Pancakes was the first recipe I wrote in the book.

Personally I would encourage everyone to make their own. Apart from it being way cheaper than this manufactured junk, it can also be fun.

Here's the Recipe:

3oz (75g) of flour
¼ pint (150ml) of milk
One Egg (Medium or Large)

Mix the milk with the flour until you have a smooth paste. Season to taste with salt and pepper, beat in the egg, you should have a pouring paste but you can add extra milk to make a pouring paste.

It really is that simple, but if you have never been shown or had the opportunity to learn, well now is your chance.

What is particularly crazy about all this processed food is that it all contributes to climate change. The factories that create this stuff use far more energy per portion that you would do in your own home manufacturing it, then with child and frozen food its all kept in open chillers in the supermarkets. Add in the energy used to transport it around and the economics of processed foods start to look crazy.

It is worth noting that the supermarkets don't sell convenience foods for our benefit, while they may say they are offering choice, really they do it because they make more profit on these foods.

Therefore save money and save the planet by learning how to cook.

Closing Down Four Coal Fired Power Stations

Yesterday, because of the poor weather forecast, I decided I would do my shopping early. Following my previous comments about wanting to avoid the chemical contamination of my foods by the “Food Industry” I have been using up more of the ingredient, stock and store cupboard items that I always keep, so I knew that this would be a big shop. At times like this I keep on saying I should hire myself out as a pack horse.

Sticking to my resolve of avoiding anything that would be better suited to a chemical factory, I loaded up my trolley. I knew it was not going to be a cheap trip, but even I was surprised when the bill came in at under forty pounds. Normally when I have to restock its over fifty.

So while its not yet proof, it does look as though avoiding processed foods is cheaper. Nor had I stinted on quality or quantity. But I had looked for any bargains. One of those bargains that I got was a Brisket of Beef, that was reduced because of a short sell by date. While I prefer to use the butchers, a joint of properly matured, 21 day, British beef was not one I was going to miss out on. And as I write, I am happily digesting the first meal this produced.

The other item that I bought was a Chicken from the high welfare standard range. Normally I would only buy free range, but I wanted to make a statement to the supermarket, that I will only buy chickens, or any meat for that matter, that comes from a high welfare standard. I also noted that the “Standard” low welfare birds have actually gone up in price. Further, the supermarket has signs up saying that following the television programmes, that they were striving to meet the increased demand for the higher welfare standard chickens, but there was now a shortage. Coincidently when I got home I made some enquires and discovered that the price rise on the “Standard” low welfare birds was forced upon them partly by farmers who are now earning triple from each bird, up from three pence to nine pence, but more importantly from customers who were appalled by the fact that the supermarkets were only paying the farmers third world prices.

Back at the supermarket, as Consett is situated at the top of a hill, it gets quite battered by the weather, and the high winds were battering us yesterday. However, while waiting for the bus to get back home, I spotted a bird that I surprised to see a Great Bustard. I wished I had had my camera with me, but with all this shopping to carry...

That was not the only pleasant surprise I had either as when I got back home I took my recycling to the recycling point and discovered that the council has installed a new bin for plastics. It has long been frustrating that plastics the biggest polluter and the greatest volume in most peoples bins, is not recycled. Finally it is happening.

Then to top all this, I got a phone call. As I mentioned in a previous posting, I helped one woman in the village reduce her electricity bills. Suddenly with the substantial rise in gas and electricity prices people are starting to see the wisdom of reducing energy consumption. I was being asked to help a small group of five women who were trying to reduce their bills. So today I went and had a chat with them.

The first comment I had to make was just how hot it was, in this woman's home. Granted it was blowing a blizzard outside, it was boiling in the house and everyone was wearing tee shirts. So the first thing I suggested was that everyone put on a jumper. The woman who was hosting this symposium said; “Oh no need I will just turn the heating up”

By explaining that it a lot cheaper to put on a jumper (American translation: Sweater) than racking up the heating they could all save up to forty percent off their heating bills, suddenly they could see the point. For example one woman last year had a winter quarter gas bill of over four hundred pounds. She is still paying this off. So reducing her bill by one third or more would make a real difference to her and her family.

The real shock was that all of these women had each got two low energy light bulbs but had not fitted them. One of the tabloid papers here, I will not name one of Rupert Murdock's trashy papers here, on 19th January gave away four and half million low energy light bulbs. All of them had these twin packs, but none had bin fitted. So I did a trail around fitting light bulbs. I gave some other advice but I am amazed at how people don't seem to be able to do the obvious things. I know that this is all small scale but little by little people are realising the value of saving energy even if only to save money.

However, the real story here is that in this consumer give away, if all those bulbs were fitted, in one year alone it would stop three thousand five hundred tonnes of CO2 going up into the atmosphere. Even more staggering is if we all changed to low energy bulbs we would reduce energy consumption by the equivalent of closing four coal fired power stations.

So why not change your bulbs today?

Harry Potters Cloak of Invisibility

Poisoning windows (see comment on previous posting, woops a Freudian slip, it by my psychopathic thoughts on computer software showing) is not the only wildlife watching I have been doing. Previously I spoke about the fact that in the UK we now have Eagle Owls breeding here. When I did, I was informed that here on Tyneside there was one that had settled in. However, no matter how hard I pleaded I could not discover exactly where.

Eventually via my contacts, I discovered where the bird was. So this morning I went off in search for this fine bird. I scoured the streets, back lanes and asked strangers if they had seen the bird. While I did get some strange looks from some, I did find others who had seen the Owl. But no matter how hard I scoured the area not a sign did I find. Sometimes that is the way with wildlife watching, even if you are in the right location unless you have contacted the animals’ agent, they just don’t turn up.

While I never saw the owl I thought at least I would have another day to try. Sitting down with a cup of tea, I watch the local news, and on there is a story about the very bird that I had been looking for. It turned out that the Eagle Owl was an escaped bird and not a wild one, and this weekend just gone. The animal handler that supplied the owls for the first Harry Potter film had recaptured the Owl, no wonder I couldn’t find it someone had thrown a cloak of invisibility over the owl.

So while I had missed out on seeing and photographing this bird, I was heartened to discover that a local woman had been feeding the owl and that it had been well looked after.

One of the things I discovered when I got back home was the adaptor that I had bought over the Internet for a battery charger. I had to buy it from the US and the postmark was from Acadia in Maine the location of one of the National Parks over the pond. Somewhere I would love to visit…

The reason why this charger was so important is that I need it to recharge the batteries for a digital audio recorder. While I had a mains adaptor and could use it in the house, or I could use alkaline batteries, I have long refused to use disposable batteries. So I needed to have the ability to charge the unique batteries for the recorder.

I have often thought that what most people don’t always realise is just how vocal wildlife can be. While we all know that birds sing, but badgers are quite noisy too, sometimes it’s just huffing and puffing, but also there are snickering and calls that most people are just not aware of. Therefore I some months ago sought out some advice. In my past I specialised in taking pictures for theatre groups and performers, it explains why I am poor now! So making contact I tried to discover what I would need and if I could afford to do this.

Not only was I assured that I could do this without having to sell my grandmother, good job as I don’t have any left to sell, but my initial idea was expanded upon. Everyone I was talking to was saying I should do a podcast. I think that what they are saying is that I have a good face for radio. Anyway, this is what I am planning and getting the digital recorder is all part of this. Further, I am looking to build a web site, so that I can help direct people to the information they need to live a greener life. But also I would like to expand on some of the conservation and wildlife issues, as while many people that are interested in wildlife they can actually do a lot in their own garden or back yard.

However this is all apparitional at the moment as I have discovered something that I had already suspected, that my computer is to old and not powerful enough to run the software I need to run to do this. So I am now looking to buy a second hand computer before I can progress much further. As I always envisaged this not happening until spring or early summer, that delay is not beyond the scope of my plans.

All I can say is I hope that when I do start doing my pods, I don’t have to many days like today when I find the wildlife hidden by that cloak of invisibility.

The Nuclear Option An Open Letter to Sir David King

While I do have praise for the former Chief Scientific Officer Sir David King for actually getting the former Prime Minister Tony Blair, to understand the real danger we all face from climate change, he is still part of the problem with regard to finding solutions. The British government has decided that the way to resolve climate change is to rely upon Nuclear Power. It was in fact Sir David King that persuaded the UK this was the route to take, and while it has just been announced (re-announced) this week, it was decided behind closed doors years ago.

The problem with Nuclear energy is simply that we have nowhere to safely store the waste. In the UK we have been generating electricity for over fifty years, yet we still have not found any way of dealing with the first kilo of highly radioactive waste that was produced. We now have over fifty tonnes of this material. This is where the equation for the carbon footprint for nuclear energy is obfuscated. While it looks as though Nuclear Fusion does eliminate greenhouse gases, even taking account of the carbon inputs into the manufacturing and building of the station(s). Concrete and cement have the fifth largest carbon footprint of any manufactured material.

It is when the energy inputs are added for the ways that we will likely to have to deal with the waste that it starts to look less of a reasonable option. Because much of the waste will have to be vitrified, locked away in glass, energy will be needed to manufacture the glass. Further, whatever form of depository is used, most likely something underground, vast amounts of concrete will be needed to build and maintain the depositories. When I say vast the nuclear industry has said that each tonne of waste will be encased in fifty tonnes of concrete. That means it will take 250,000,000 tonnes of concrete just to deal with the waste we have already produced.

Incidentally that will lead to over three trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere. That is just to deal with the waste we already have.

Then there is the difficulty of where to locate these new power stations. Historically nuclear power stations have been located on coastal sites. This is because fusion electricity generation needs vast volumes of water. Predominantly this is to ensure safety so that water is available to cool the uranium or plutonium. As well water is needed nuclear power is actually a very simple technology as water is superheated to steam to drive turbines. At Sizewell B each turbine needs two tonnes of stream per second to generate electricity. That requires vast volumes of water; hence locating plants at the coast seems the logical choice. However, global warming is raising the sea level. While we have only seen a rise of 30cm (One Foot) in the previous century, even the most conservative estimates say that we need to be planning for a further meter rise. That places all of the new build nuclear plants at risk of flooding.

As our experience last year shows, flooding from seaward ingress is not the only risk. Flooding could occur from heavy rains and flash flooding. If this water were to enter a nuclear power station then it would contaminate the water supply with low-level radiation. While walls and barriers could be built to prevent this happening, it will add billions to the costs and further increase the carbon footprint of building the stations. Thus making any reduction in the climate gases these stations hope to create marginal at best. It may well be that the carbon footprint from building the stations is higher than the reductions in CO2 using them produce.

Then there is the question of safety, while Nuclear does raise causes for concerns; the safety record in the UK is actually very good. My only real concern on this is if economic pressures lead to short cuts being taken or maintenance being delayed. Then there is the problem from terrorism. While I have no doubt that every effort will be made to prevent an attack, unfortunately it only takes one person to succeed to cause serious damage and disruption.

Therefore to have Sir David King say that we the environmentalists are putting the climate at risk by opposing or even voicing doubts about the Nuclear Option is simply wrong. The difficulty is that people like Sir David King and much of the government still fail to realise that its not just about finding an alternative way of doing more of the same. In the UK thirty percent of the electricity generated is wasted. By educating and forcing people and businesses to conserve energy we could overnight meet and exceed our Kyoto targets as well as being half way to meeting any targets that emerge from the Bali road map.

What Sir David King, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, George W Bush, et all don’t understand is the only way we can survive the effects of our polluting the planet is to change attitudes on and about the way we all uses resources.

Sustainable energy production is possible using existing technologies; any concerted effort in developing this further could provide our whole planet with clean renewable energy for the next century or more. The barrier that we need to break through is the idea that we have to buy and burn any fuel at all. Solar is using the Suns energy, as wind is created by solar energy on the atmosphere… you get the picture. All we lack is the change in the mindset that says oil, gas or coal or an alternative is what we need to power the planet and the economies of the world.

Additionally none of us greens want to go back to a time when we lacked the advances that have provided us all with better health, sanitation and education. What we recognise is that much of the junk that we are sold as essential are a complete waste of the earths resources. Equally many of these items require us to buy more and more energy. While I am sure that a new television for example, will be able to do all sorts of clever things, but it does not provide any increase in the quality of the programmes. Further, new televisions frequently use more electricity, as do all the other junk we are told we need.

Also we “Greens” recognise that all of these gadgets and so called must have devices do very little to increasing the quality of life, in fact as we replace last months must have, we add to the waste we leave behind. Then there is the fact that we are all having to work harder to buy more and more of what we are being told we need, well us “Greens” have the intelligence to say no and reject an ever increasing spiral of consumerism.

What we do want to see is a rejection of polluting industries and an embracing of ethical and respectful ways of living that doesn’t require us to steal the resources from the deprived and following generations.

The Article that prompted this reply

The News story on Britain going Nuclear

Photo courtesy of Imperial College London

Chickens and Welfare Standards in Farming

Here in Britain on one of the TV channels there has been a season of programmes looking at the production of cheap chickens. For my overseas readers, it has been possible to buy two “standard” chickens for five pounds. Even buying them individually they are still only three pounds each.

Now having once been a vegetarian simply because when I adopted that diet in the late 1970s it was simply that I could not trust the quality and the ethics of the meat being proffered to me. Over the years farming practices did improve amongst a few enlightened people, and it became possible to buy meat from ethical sources. I even kept my own chickens for meat and eggs so I know from experience how well chickens can be kept.

That experience also highlighted for me just how detached people have become from their food supply. Even when offered a fresh, humanely killed plucked and dressed bird they would rather eat a cheap chicken from the supermarket, as they didn’t like the idea of knowing where their meat came from.

It is this fact that allows the supermarkets to control the way that farming and welfare standards are administered. The supermarkets and the food industry in general are forcing farmers to reduce the costs of production by constantly sourcing some of its product from cheep low standard overseas producers. Effectively forcing farmers to produce low welfare standard meat at the costs of third world farming within a developed world economy.

Here in the UK every attempt to raise welfare standards by farmers, NGOs and even the government are being undermined by the supermarkets. The only ethics that these businesses have (Supermarkets and the Food industry) is that of making a profit, no matter what the cost.

Listening to the discussions and debates on the news it struck me that all the excuses that were being proffered by the industry could so easily have been interchanged for a debate on slavery. Apart from the ethics of low welfare standard production, it is these intensive methods of food production that have lead to the food scares. In the UK there was a problem with salmonella in eggs, now happily eliminated, but it would never have occurred had the welfare standards been higher.

All the supermarkets could eliminate this problem if they were to pay farmers more than three pence per bird, and only selling chickens from the higher welfare standard methods of production. While I would love to see only free-range production I am realistic and realise that far to many people don’t care about the food they eat. That is reflected in the rubbish that most people eat instead of real food.

Equally the food industry needs to respect when the government imposes higher welfare standards. Here in the UK a pig production company, DRS, has gone into administration leaving around ninety farmers unpaid. While the reason for this company going bust is related to Foot and Mouth, an important aspect is that the supermarkets refused to pay more for the higher welfare standards of UK pig farmers and switched to buying imported pork where welfare standards are lower.

All this means that we the consumer are being conned into thinking that food must be cheep. Yet while we can add to the carbon footprint by importing foods, we will eventually loose our means of producing food. That makes us in the UK vulnerable to any sudden hike in energy costs, or even any terrorist action that disrupts food imports.

In the UK there is a major problem with obesity, if the government actually started to impose higher standards on food and food production then this would improve health and go a long way towards the UK reducing its green house gas emissions.

This is all a pipe dream I know, as the trouble is that profits are more important than ethics.

Confusing Caucuses

Probably like any Brit, I find the caucus process of choosing a presidential candidate baffling. Personally I think it was the complexity of the process that got Bush nominated eight years ago, everyone thought they were voting against him but were so confused by the system that whoops he got to be the candidate. Either that or the Republican Party did it as a joke. Lets see if we can get bush in, as at least he will generate employment for satirists.

However, at the very least this year will see an end to the Bush presidency, so no matter who ultimately gains the nominations democracy will win.

Back when Bush was being nominated, I was criticised for saying anything about American politics. Had I been someone of real influence then I could understand that prospective, however as the rest of the world is effected by whom ever becomes the next president of the US, I am entitled to my opinion. This time round though I don’t have any preference. Hillary Clinton, from what I have seen and heard looks to be the most environmentally aware, but is America ready to elect a woman? Then there is Barack Obama, the first black American who stands a realistic chance of being elected. When we think back to the 1960s and see just how black people were treated then and compare that to the progress that has been made in forty years shows hope for us all, particularly if we think about the environment.

I have been and still will be critical of the Bush Government here, as while the individual states and cities are trying to tackle the challenges of Climate change, the federal government had done their level best to block any action on tackling climate change.

Not only to ensure balance, but its worth noting something I heard the Republican candidate, Mike Huckabee say; he was critical of the way that big business has a hold on the political system and the current incumbent of the White House. Something that no government should ever allow to happen as the government, any government, then becomes beholden to donors. Just look at the difficulties here with the suspicions that peerages were being sold here in the UK. While no charges were brought following the long police investigation, it looked and smelled bad. In America the vested interests of the oil and car companies has blocked the federal government from even considering climate change as a problem.

Yet if America looked at the problems from a different perspective they could see the real advantage of going green. With oil now at over $100 per barrel the federal government could force car manufactures to make more efficient cars. The manufactures already can do it, it’s just that over the last twenty years they have gone for more powerful engines, rather than more economy. The average could be forty miles per gallon in eighteen months. That would save the average American five hundred dollars per year. That’s an Economic policy! Or to put it another way, America would no longer need any oil from the Gulf States. How many billions of American tax payers dollars would that have saved? That’s without thinking of the lives lost, both American and Iraqi.

Also think of the costs of medical conditions like asthma, less petroleum burnt the lower the pollution that causes this asthma. Further, conditions like that damage the economy by lost workdays and loss of productivity to use an economist’s language.

Further, by tackling climate change by genuinely saving energy, America could make its own businesses and industries more competitive, thus improving the bottom line for everyone. If the US invested in developing sustainable energy generation, the whole nation could benefit as the US could become technology leaders, selling the know how and plant around the world. That’s a Policy for energy security!

Also if the US started instigating a programme of fitting solar panels, photo voltaic and solar thermal to all homes, they could deal with problems like unemployment and poverty by training unemployed people to carry out the work. That’s an Employment Policy!

The advantages of being more environmentally aware are quite simple, if Americans can understand their electoral system then going green must be a No Brainier.