Climate Statement by the G8

Here is the full unabridged text to the statement on Climate issued by sixteen countries at the G8

We, the leaders of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States met as the world's major economies in Tokyo, Hokkaido, Japan, on 9 July, 2008, and declare as follows:

1. Climate change is one of the great global challenges of our time. Conscious of our leadership role in meeting such challenges, we, the leaders of the world's major economies, both developed and developing, commit to combat climate change in accordance with our common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and confront the interlinked challenges of sustainable development, including energy and food security, and human health.

We have come together to contribute to efforts under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the global forum for climate negotiations. Our contribution and cooperation are rooted in the objective, provisions, and principles of the Convention.

2. We welcome decisions taken by the international community in Bali, including to launch a comprehensive process to enable the full, effective, and sustained implementation of the Convention through long-term co-operative action, now, up to, and beyond 2012, in order to reach an agreed outcome in December 2009

Recognising the scale and urgency of the challenge, we will continue working together to strengthen implementation of the Convention and to ensure that the agreed outcome maximises the efforts of all nations and contributes to achieving the ultimate objective in Article 2 of the Convention, which should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened, and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.

3. The Major Economies Meetings constructively contribute to the Bali process in several ways:

First, our dialogue at political, policy, and technical levels has built confidence among our nations and deepened mutual understanding of the many challenges confronting the world community as we consider next steps under the Convention and continue to mobilise political will to combat global climate change.

Second, without prejudging outcomes or the views of other nations, we believe that the common understandings in this Declaration will help advance the work of the international community so it is possible to reach an agreed outcome by the end of 2009

Third, recognising the need for urgent action and the Bali Action Plan's directive for enhanced implementation of the Convention between now and 2012, we commit to taking the actions in paragraph 10 without delay.

4. We support a shared vision for long-term cooperative action, including a long-term global goal for emission reductions, that assures growth, prosperity, and other aspects of sustainable development, including major efforts towards sustainable consumption and production, all aimed at achieving a low carbon society.

Taking account of the science, we recognise that deep cuts in global emissions will be necessary to achieve the Convention's ultimate objective, and that adaptation will play a correspondingly vital role. We believe that it would be desirable for the Parties to adopt in the negotiations under the Convention a long-term global goal for reducing global emissions, taking into account the principle of equity.

We urge that serious consideration be given in particular to ambitious IPCC scenarios. Significant progress toward a long-term global goal will be made by increasing financing of the broad deployment of existing technologies and best practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build climate resilience. However, our ability ultimately to achieve a long-term global goal will also depend on affordable, new, more advanced, and innovative technologies, infrastructure, and practices that transform the way we live, produce and use energy, and manage land.

5. Taking into account assessments of science, technology, and economics, we recognise the essential importance of enhanced greenhouse gas mitigation that is ambitious, realistic, and achievable. We will do more. We will continue to improve our policies and our performance while meeting other priority objectives, in keeping with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Achieving our long-term global goal requires respective mid-term goals, commitments and actions, to be reflected in the agreed outcome of the Bali Action Plan, taking into account differences in social and economic conditions, energy mix, demographics, and infrastructure among other factors, and the above IPCC scenarios.
In this regard, the developed major economies will implement, consistent with international obligations, economy-wide mid-term goals and take corresponding actions in order to achieve absolute emission reductions and, where applicable, first stop the growth of emissions as soon as possible, reflecting comparable efforts among them. At the same time, the developing major economies will pursue, in the context of sustainable development, nationally appropriate mitigation actions, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building, with a view to achieving a deviation from business as usual emissions.

6. We recognise that actions to reduce emissions, including from deforestation and forest degradation, and to increase removals by sinks in the land use, land use change, and forestry sector, including cooperation on tackling forest fires, can make a contribution to stabilising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These actions also reduce climate change impacts and can have significant co-benefits by maintaining multiple economic goods and ecological services. Our nations will continue to cooperate on capacity-building and demonstration activities; on innovative solutions, including financing, to reduce emissions and increase removals by sinks; and on methodological issues. We also stress the need to improve forest-related governance and cooperative actions at all levels.

7. We recognise that adaptation is vital to addressing the effects of inevitable climate change and that the adverse impacts of climate change are likely to affect developing countries disproportionately. We will work together in accordance with our Convention commitments to strengthen the ability of developing countries, particularly the most vulnerable ones, to adapt to climate change. This includes the development and dissemination of tools and methodologies to improve vulnerability and adaptation assessments, the integration of climate change adaptation into overall development strategies, increased implementation of adaptation strategies, increased emphasis on adaptation technologies, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability, and consideration of means to stimulate investment and increased availability of financial and technical assistance.

8. We affirm the critical role of technology and the need for technological breakthroughs in meeting the interlinked global challenges of energy security and climate change. In the near term, broader deployment of many existing technologies will be vital for both mitigation and adaptation. In particular, energy conservation, energy efficiency, disaster reduction, and water and natural resource management technologies are important.

We will promote the uptake and use of such technologies including renewables, cleaner and low-carbon technologies, and, for those of us interested, nuclear power. Technology cooperation with and transfer to developing countries are also vital in this effort, as is promoting capacity building.
For the longer term, research, development, demonstration, deployment, and transfer of innovative technologies will be crucial, and we acknowledge the need to enhance our investment and collaboration in these areas. Mindful of the important role of a range of alternative energy technologies, we recognise, in particular, the need for research, development, and large-scale demonstration of and cooperation on carbon capture and storage. We also note the value of technology roadmaps as tools to promote continuous investment and cooperation in clean energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment.

9. We recognise that tackling climate change will require greater mobilization of financial resources, both domestically and internationally. There is an urgent need to scale up financial flows, particularly financial support to developing countries; to create positive incentives for actions; to finance the incremental costs of cleaner and low-carbon technologies; to make more efficient use of funds directed toward climate change; to realise the full potential of appropriate market mechanisms that can provide pricing signals and economic incentives to the private sector; to promote public sector investment; to create enabling environments that promote private investment that is commercially viable; to develop innovative approaches; and to lower costs by creating appropriate incentives for and reducing and eliminating obstacles to technology transfer relevant to both mitigation and adaptation.

10. To enable the full, effective, and sustained implementation of the Convention between now and 2012, we will:

Work together on mitigation-related technology cooperation strategies in specific economic sectors, promote the exchange of mitigation information and analysis on sectoral efficiency, the identification of national technology needs and voluntary, action-oriented international cooperation, and consider the role of cooperative sectoral approaches and sector-specific actions, consistent with the Convention;

Direct our trade officials responsible for WTO issues to advance with a sense of urgency their discussions on issues relevant to promoting our cooperation on climate change;

Accelerate enhanced action on technology development, transfer, financing, and capacity building to support mitigation and adaptation efforts;

Support implementation of the Nairobi Work Programme on impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation to climate change;

Improve significantly energy efficiency, a low-cost way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance energy security;

Continue to promote actions under the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer for the benefit of the global climate system;

And Intensify our efforts without delay within existing fora to improve effective greenhouse gas measurement.

11. Our nations will continue to work constructively together to promote the success of the Copenhagen climate change conference in 2009.

Zimbabwe

When the Media covers a story as big as the sham election in Zimbabwe, I realise that journalists sometimes are looking for something different to say. As a blogger I am frequently faced with the same problem, especially when the Main stream media are covering the story, how can I say anything that has not already been said. Then on Sunday, in a radio report, a journalist that I normally respect said something so stupid that I was shocked by the appalling lack of understanding of the man. He said that; “As Morgan Tsvangirai had withdrawn from the race he may no longer have the opposition support”

Well as has been well reported, Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew from the election run off after around seventy supporters of the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) were murdered and countless hundreds of others were severely beaten. Additionally, Morgan Tsvangirai himself had to flee for his life to the Dutch Embassy.

What did this reporter expect? Morgan Tsvangirai at least had the interest of the people of Zimbabwe in mind, as it looked as thought the country was on the brink of a genocide. He was trying to prevent any more killings, rapes and beatings from occurring. Further, by refusing to take part in this sham of an election, he has placed a spotlight on the illegitimacy of Mugabe, one the world can no longer ignore.

While I too was disappointed that Morgan Tsvangirai was not going to contest the election, I could understand why. In the first round, even after stuffing the ballot boxes with three million extra votes for Mugabe, Zanu-PF still failed to win the presidential race. That message did apparently get through to Mugabe who was ready to stand down. However, all the other people who are part of the Zanu-PF leadership dissuaded him from doing so because they knew they could face the international criminal courts for crimes against humanity.

It is interesting to note that many of the spoilt ballot papers in the run just had the word “Murderer” written on them. Also while the official result says that there was a high turn out, the independent observers say that the turn out was minuscule. Again the independent observers were saying that there were more spoilt ballot papers than actual votes.

While I feel sorry for the many supporters of the MDC that were determined to vote against Mugabe, defying the threats of violence, by Morgan Tsvangirai withdrawing from the race he largely prevented that violence escalating. That shows a high degree of statesmanship.

The greatest difficulty is and will be need to build a fair and equitable society in Zimbabwe. Far to much of the talk from outside has been about how to force Mugabe out of office. Yet Morgan Tsvangirai has only ever spoken about how to effect peaceful change.

At least now other African leaders are calling on Mugabe to go.

The shame is that it has taken so long for this to happen. As Zimbabwe was the bread basket for southern Africa, the failing economy and the agricultural failures will have a devastating effect for the whole region. While I have sympathy for the argument that the Black (indigenous) population had regarding the fact that most of the land was owned by a minority of white farmers, just taking the land away from the white farmers was never going to solve the problems of black poverty. There had to be a willingness and ability to work the land, to produce a crop.

In effect all that Mugabe did was take the land from the white Farmers and give it to a few selected supporters of Zanu-PF, the former rebel fighters, who just wanted to own the land for its own sake. Land only has economic value because of productive value. Most of that land is not even providing a sustenance living for the people who now own that land. All the while Mugabe blames everyone else for the economic crisis. And has relied upon the fact that as the rebel leader who won independence that morally justified him having power. But like all thugs and bullies, he cant see the damage he is causing.

At least now with other African leaders calling for him to go, the end will come sooner rather than latter. What Africa needs is good governance and while I don't know if Morgan Tsvangirai will be a good leader, he has won my respect by talking peace and taking actions to avoid violence.

The Madness of Green Washing our Rubbish

A couple of weeks ago, there was a story about a man who was fined for overfilling his bin so that the lid couldn't close. While most of the press and media reported it as, “Council gone mad” I had an open mind. Further, I doubted that the media was reporting the full facts. In fact the media reports were downright bias. I was tempted to make a posting at the time, along the lines of a man gets fined for leaving the lid up, something that all women will understand.

However, I was also aware of the serious aspect, that of the vast amounts of rubbish we in the UK send to landfill. Therefore, I wanted to think that this was more about a council trying to reduce waste rather than officials over reacting to the breaking of rules.

Then, in a separate report, I heard about a small greengrocer who has been fined for recycling cardboard and composting his dead stock. By the same county council.

I have spoken before of the problem of rubbish going into landfill and that I personally am trying to reduce the volume of rubbish that I generate. Even I recognise that I could do more, but will require an investment that I can not afford at this time. But I will make this investment in the future. However, at the moment I only need to have my bin emptied every third or fourth week. Most frequently my bin is not full when emptied. Locally, I still do get weekly collections but some councils have changed to fortnightly collections. This benefits the environment as it reduces the number of miles that the trash trucks have to travel.

But this switch to fortnightly collections has caused some people problems. While for people like me who are environmentally aware, refusing the extra packaging that often makes up most of the rubbish in peoples bins is easy. For most of the population this all means that people need to change their behaviour. This includes the way they shop, not over buying food that just goes strait from basket to fridge to bin.

Therefore, my reaction to the first story was that it seemed that the local council were trying to get the reductions in the volumes of rubbish down, yet this man that was fined was probably not cooperating. However my opinion changed when I heard about the greengrocer who was fined for doing what was right for the environment.

Instead of adding to landfill, he was taking his cardboard to a recycling point and composting the waste food from his shop. But as I suspected with the first story, there is more to this than meets the eye. The recycling point where the greengrocer was taking the cardboard is not open to commercial traders or businesses and there is no recycling of commercial waste. Also as the council charges businesses for collecting rubbish, it hits their revenues if a shop or business doesn't send their rubbish to landfill.

Therefore the real story here is that the council are trying to reduce the volume of household waste as that's a cost, but as business waste generates income...

To me that shows that most of the so called recycling done by councils is nothing more than Green Washing.

A link to the first Story

A link to the Second Story

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.

Politics Summed Up

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, “What is Politics?”

Dad says, 'Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I am the head of the family, so call me The President. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so we call her the Government.
We are here to take care of your needs, so we will call you the People. The nanny, we will consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we will call him the Future. Now think about that and see if it makes sense...

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said.

Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him . He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parent's room and finds his mother asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed .

The next morning, the little boy says to his father, 'Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now. The father says, good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.

The little boy replies, 'The President is screwing the Working Class while the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit'

The Do Nothing Approach to Climate Change

On Saturday after a busy day, I realised that I needed to get some vegetables. Therefore I went to my local greengrocer. As it was late in the day, I had time for a chat. Sparked by something he said, I suggested a greener option to a minor difficulty. That of him buying a solar panel to recharge the battery for the scales he uses at the markets. Much to my surprise he rejected the idea as it would take over a year to recover the capital cost. Even though it will save him electricity costs, and add the benefit of not having to shut up shop when the battery runs down.

I said that even if it will take a while to recover the cost, with rising energy costs, in the long run he would save. I also went on to suggest that it would help to reducing the effects of Climate Change. His response was surprising and shocking, even though he is aware of the need to take action, and that we are destroying the planet for his children, he saw no point.

He said that unless countries like America, China and India did something on climate change he saw no point in doing anything. He even acknowledged that his children would suffer in the future, and that their future is bleak.

The point of telling you this, is simply that this is the attitude that I face every day. While I no longer seem to face the opposition to the idea of a changing climate, almost everyone I do encounter will not, not can not, but will not take any action that requires effort, thought or costs. Ultimately I agree with his conclusion that we are... (Here you have to play guess the expletive)

The real shame lays in the hands of everyone who refuses to take actions towards making reductions in Climate changing pollution. Even among those people who like to think of themselves as being green, people will not limit their personal freedom to pollute. If they can see it saving them money, they will, or if it adds kudos amongst peers, but real action is non existent.

Well I will continue to limit my impact upon the planet as unless you are part of the solution then you are part of the problem. All this should not have been a revelation for me, as everyone has been doing something similar in relation to consumer credit. In the UK there is one trillion pounds of personal debt. We have all been spending as though tomorrow doesn't matter, well looking at the state of the stock market, tomorrow has arrived. I said it would, long before it occurred.

I have long said that it will be the economic impacts of a changing climate that would be the first time that people really started to take notice, well that time has arrived. Increasing energy costs, increasing food costs, the collapse of (Over inflated) house prices, are all part of the overall picture of our devastating impact upon the earth.

We now need a new economic engine driving our economy, not the push for growth at all costs, but a sensible and equitable use of the earth's resource's. Only via that route will we all discover that we can share in the wealth of this planet and put an end to the conflict that harms us all.

Don’t blame the Clerk

Yesterday I wrote about the fact that the Inland Revenue has lost in the post the data on all the 25 million people that receive child benefit. The part of the story that I was most alarmed about as it was reported yesterday was that a junior clerk had sent this information. What is alarming is that, if true as reported and I heard what Alistair Darling said, verbatim, that anyone in a junior position would be able to access all the records and to be able to copy them.

I refrained from calling this clerk all the stupid names he deserved to be called if it had been his fault, simply because knowing how people always try and avoid the blame when something goes wrong, was it really just a clerk that had done this.

Well today new information emerges. While the facts as reported were true, it was the facts that emerged late tonight that shows he was only carrying out instructions from above. It turns out that the National Audit Office requested that the data was stripped of anything that sensitive, this was refused by the revenue, on the grounds of cost. Also these emails asking for the information were copied to a person at director level, that fourth down the chain of command from the top, so the poor clerk who was being blamed for this was and is innocent.

It is interesting to note that the clerk, a young man of twenty-three, has been whisked away to a hotel to keep him away from the media. Oh how damaging his account will be.

In the UK we have to provide to various government bodies and departments all sorts of private and confidential information, we don’t have a choice. Therefore the government has to ensure that this data is secure. While I don’t agree with the paranoid people that say that no governments can be trusted, I don’t feel happy supplying any further information to any government department with this extremely poor level of data protection in place at the moment.

Between Northern Rock and a Hard Place

In the News over the past two days are two stories that are linked, both are shocking revelations, but the link for me is more personal than they will be for most. Yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the UK finance minister revealed that the UK treasury has loaned Northern Rock forty billion pounds of taxpayer’s money. In the past when my Blog was on yahoo I have spoken of the over inflated housing market, and as my personal experience will show Northern Rock are all part of this hyped up and grossly inflated market.

However before going there, today I heard that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was going to be making a statement to the commons. I thought that it would be related to Northern Rock, thus I was interested but I would wait until the news latter to find out what had gone wrong now. However the announcement that the government had lost in the post important confidential personal and security details of twenty-five million of its citizens completely floored me. As my ex-wife was and for all I know is, a senior tax inspector, I knew immediately that rules had been broken for this to happen. Also, knowing something about the data protection act, I knew that the law had been broken too.

As I don’t have any children myself, this news doesn’t affect me directly, but as I do have experience of having suffered “Identity Theft”, I realised just how serious this was. Also indirectly, I wondered just how safe are my details, details the government holds about me and everyone else in this country.

When my identity was stolen the term Identity Theft had not even been coined and I was shocked at how easy it had been. In no small part my then bank, Northern Rock, were guilty of gross negligence in allowing it to happen.

I was working away from home, I had a mortgage to pay and I had taken in a lodger. I had gone back to Newcastle for the weekend partly because the lodger had not paid the rent and because something odd was happening with my bank account. I asked the lodger for the rent but he said he couldn’t pay and he wanted to leave. So I went to the bank to try and find out what was happening there. The Northern Rock treated me coldly and quite rudely. It was only latter that I discovered that I was dealing with the same person who had enabled my lodger to have a new cheque book, cheque guarantee card and while I had proof of my identity had done this without carrying out the proper checks on him. Further, had the bank actually told me what they knew immediately, I could have gone to the police and they could have made an immediate arrest, as the lodger was still there in my home.

At this time I was still thinking it was just a stolen or missing chequebook that was the problem, and the lodger was just a non-paying lodger. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I had an empty bank account and I needed to get that sorted before I travelled back to London to work, I don’t know how long it would have taken to discover what was really happening. So on the Monday I called work and explained I had a serious problem that I needed to sort out, and would be back at work the next day. Fortunately, just before I went to the bank again, the post arrived and in it was a Driving licence in my name. This was before pictures were a requirement. Keeping this with me I went to the Northern Rock and got to see the branch manager. It was then that I discovered what the bank had done, and had they told me on the Saturday that there was a suspicion of what’s now called Identity Theft the whole matter could have been resolved strait away. The bank, Northern Rock, even inadvertently admitted that they had not followed their own security procedures and accepted weak and incomplete means of identification by the man that had been my lodger. Therefore I thought the matter would be resolved quickly.

I then took the evidence to the police. A CID officer took my statement and whilst shocked at what I discovered from the police about this type of crime, I was lucky as I had good documented evidence that a crime had occurred. Even the detective acknowledged that had it not been for that evidence, particularly the Driving Licence, there would have been little or nothing they could do.

My problem with Northern Rock continued as they kept on honouring the cheques from the stolen cheque book, and eventually I had to open a new account with another bank, to avoid loosing my pay to an overdraft that was increasing weekly.

Eventually, the police caught the culprit, I even discovered his real name and that the name he had given me was another stolen identity.

Even with the real culprit, Richard Michael Cope, pleading guilty and serving prison time, the Northern Rock Bank tried to pursue me for the several thousand pounds that this guy had stolen. Additionally, I ended up with a poor credit rating because of it. It took several years to recover from that, and I lost my home as a result of gross negligence by Northern Rock and the criminal who stole my identity.

Therefore, I can really feel for all the people who are facing a worrying time because of the gross incompetence of our government.

However the issue that is really worrying, and should worry us all, is the way that the government has supported a Northern Rock, a failing bank.

As Northern Rock is a regional bank its headquarters are here in Newcastle, locally many people don’t want to see the bank fail. Apart from the jobs that would be lost, I don’t see why it should survive. That is not based upon my experience with them, but the hard economic fact that the Northern Rock has been carrying out irresponsible lending. Twice since loosing my home, I have looked at getting back on the housing ladder, and twice I have been told how to get a mortgage via the Northern Rock by committing a fraud. Two different brokers told me how to do it, and Northern Rock would give a mortgage to anyone.

While it may have been tempting to try and cash in on the over inflated housing market, I also have my principals and I will not compromise my ethics for greed.

Also as the housing market is inflated, here in the Northeast the property prices are fifty to sixty percent higher than actual values, this irresponsible lending was bound to cause misery in the end.

When the problems with the sub-prime mortgage market broke here, it was clear that banks like Northern Rock would suffer. However, the government had a really difficult call to make. They couldn’t let this irresponsible bank fail as it would bring about the collapse of the housing market and in consequence the whole economy could fall into recession. Also as all politicians are also property owners, they don’t want to see prices fall for personal reasons too. That makes for poor judgement by governments.

Further, the finance market is not that simple, as the mortgage loans are sold as a commodity amongst banks on the money markets. Therefore, other banks who have been much more responsible and prudent were also at risk. While this method of selling bundles of debt to other financial institutions helped raise more capital for the banks, it also meant that lenders like Northern Rock could and were lending money without even caring if the money would be repaid. They could sell the loans on and it was whoever bought that package of loans to worry about getting their money back. Additionally, when prices are rising even the buyers of these derivatives know that the banks like Northern Rock are making really bad lending decisions, but as long as house prices are increasing, the banks will still make money even if they have to reposes. That is why when house prices stagnated, the other banks refused to lend to Northern Rock.

Step in the Bank of England, but had they known that Northern Rock were lending irresponsibly, as regulator for the banks they would have stopped them making bad loans anyway. So we have the government supporting a failing bank to the tune of thirteen hundred pounds per person in the UK, in a desperate attempt to stop an inevitable collapse in the credit and housing markets. Sooner or later it will have to happen and while I do feel for all the people that will suffer because of it, for the last ten years this country has gorged and consumed on a credit frenzy of one trillion pounds sterling.

Well the party is over and the mess needs to be cleared away.

A call for a Badger Cull

Having been out on the last two nights watching badgers, it was very disheartening to hear that Sir David King the UK Governments chief scientist is calling for a cull of badgers.

The reason for this cull is to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis within cattle in the UK. And while it is true that badgers are part of the reason why tuberculosis is spreading this cull will not do anything to prevent it remaining in the cattle and returning at much higher levels of infection in years to come.

Following the foot and mouth outbreak, when farmers were restocking, areas that had previously been free of bovine tuberculosis became infected. This was because simply that the cattle that introduced had the disease. Further, this restocking proved a long held theory that it was the cattle that were infecting the badgers first and not the other way round.

The real problem is one of intensive farming, the larger the heard the faster that any disease will spread. With herds of two and three hundred cows, it takes no time at all before something like tuberculosis becomes a latent infection within that population. Further, because of the size of the heard, it becomes impossible to isolate any infected or suspected animals.

In the past when a stockman had only a heard of fifty cows, he (or she) knew the individual beasts well and were better able to spot any problems earlier. Now it can take days before a stockman has the time to notice any change. This is not neglect, it is just that the more mechanised and intensive a farm is, the fewer people there are to watch and spot a change.

For example in a dairy heard one of the biggest problems is mastitis, where an udder becomes infected, this raises the bacterial count in the milk. In the old days it was via good hygiene and management that this would be spotted. Now there is reliance upon laboratory tests to show what is know as the Cell Count. This is why it is technology, mechanisation and intensification that are causing problems like tuberculosis in cattle. The cure is not killing off large populations of wildlife but reducing the heard sizes and ensuring infected and suspect animals are properly isolated.

This call for a Badger cull is not a scientific solution, but an economic one based upon politics.

Click here for Further Information

The Truth is Inconvenient

As I haven’t seen the Al Gore film the inconvenient truth, I cannot say if the film is party political or not. But Climate Change is political, if only because so many people are trying to keep their heads in the sand over it. I am glad that British school children will be getting the chance to see this film, as hopefully it will help capture the hearts and minds of the coming generation.

Even today the news that the old energy inefficient incandescent light bulbs are to be phased out is bitter news as it will not be until 2012 this happens. When it could have happened by the end of this year. That will mean at least twenty-five extra tonnes of CO2 will be released into our biosphere before the ban occurs. It’s all far too little, lets hope that it’s not too late.

After all the important line in the IPCC report that everyone seems to have missed says; “If Climate Change is not reversed, we will face temperature increases that will make life on this planet unsustainable”

I shouldn’t need to translate that but that means WE BECOME EXTINCT.

Already this year there is less sea ice in the Artic, and even conservative predictions are saying it will disappear by 2030, that’s only twenty-three years away. And once we have lost a critical mass of that sea ice, we then have thermal induction and convection from the sea, accelerating the rise in air temperatures. In reality if we lose the Sea Ice we lose the fight and the domination of Homo sapiens ends.

Therefore I hope this misguided parent looses his legal challenge to the film being shown to our children so that even if we fail to act, they will.


The original story on the BBC Web Site

Welcome to The Wood Mouse’s Diary.

Previously I was using Yahoo 360 to keep a web log or a journal on line regarding my activities in and around the bit of countryside that I live. However, yesterday I discovered that Yahoo was passing on details to the Chinese government of its users and the web sites they visited. As a result of this the Chinese government has jailed dissidents or decentres in china, this includes one journalist who has been given a ten-year sentence for trying to seek out the truth.

Thus I decided not to support Yahoo in any way shape or form, and have moved my Blog from there. Now I will be posting here. I hope that other people will support Human Rights and refuse to use Yahoo. As Yahoo have only done this for financial gain, if no one uses their sites or products they will soon discover that they will be the losers here.

One thing that my readers will discover my politics are neither of the Right nor the Left, my political philosophy is Green. Not a green tint, but a deep green that flows through everything I do. I am a strong believer in Human Rights but not where some so-called rights infringe upon other peoples liberties.

I try hard to make my postings entertaining and interesting. At times they will be humorous, but at other times they will be challenging. I hope that you folks enjoy my Blog. You may disagree with what the mouse says but I moved here because of freedom of speech and I will only ever say what I truly believe

Mouse