Environmentalism

Meanwhile, an upsurge in climate protest – Fridays for Future around the world and Extinction Rebellion in the UK – has been met by a policing crackdown. The UK was an outlier on this, with nearly a fifth of environmental protests ending in arrests, while activists’ disruption of daily life provoked public aggravation. The side of the climate movement that emphasised the need for shared sacrifice rather than the promise of prosperity has effectively been neutered.

The number willing to wear hair shirts for Flipper always was low. Not zero, obviously, for there are always some ascetics looking for a justification, but low all the same.

But there is a sharp line between the mass of trees inside the scheme, home to hundreds of elephants, giraffes, buffalo and other wildlife, and the expanse of scrub beyond it, where charcoal burners and subsistence agriculture have devoured the forest.

It’s usually not billionaire capitalists devouring the world’s forests. It’s poor people with poor people lifestyles doing so.

Which gives us an interesting plan. We here in Europe are so rich that we’re using less land each year. The wilds out there are depopulating. So, we need economic growth in all those poor places so that the same happens there.

Grow the economy to save nature….

About drilling for gas in the Wadden Sea:

“We’ve been confronted with the ‘not in my back yard’ argument – that everyone wants gas but nobody wants to be affected by it,” said Akkermann. “But I always say: this isn’t just any back yard.”

Yeah, everyone’s a hypocrite ‘cept me.

Sure.

When they thought through this:

The surge in the use of disposable face masks during the Covid pandemic has left a chemical timebomb that could harm humans, animals and the environment, research suggests.

Billions of tonnes of plastic face masks created to protect people from the spread of the virus are now breaking down, releasing microplastics and chemical additives including endocrine disruptors, the research found.

As a result, the very equipment whose use was intended to protect people during the pandemic now poses a risk to the health of people and planet, potentially for generations.

“This study has underlined the urgent need to rethink how we produce, use and dispose of face masks,” said Anna Bogush of Coventry University’s Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, the lead author of the study.

WOOT! We got one! Trivial issue of no regard that no one else has thought of yet that we can big up into a lifetime of papers and campaigning! Quick, Xers, find the vegan champagne!

Starmer cannot have armoured electric Range Rover ‘because of bomb risk’

Aha.

If a bomb goes off then the battery will too. Therefore an EV cannot be bomb proof.

Siri, tell me, what does “antinomianism” mean?

In Ynysddu, a village in the Sirhowy valley in south Wales, waste from companies was dumped in the former Ty Llwyd quarry on the mountain above the village in the 1960s and 70s.

Residents have warned for years that after heavy rainfall, foul-smelling brown and foamy liquid seeps from the quarry and downhill into the surrounding woods, council-owned land that was used by children and dogwalkers until it was recently fenced off.

In 2023, testing by Dr David Megson, an environmental chemist from Manchester Metropolitan University, found unsafe levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in Ynysddu. PCBs are forever chemicals that accumulate in the food chain and can cause liver damage and increased cancer risk in humans.

All testing commissioned by Caerphilly county borough council to date has indicated zero level of PCBs, and the site is not legally defined as contaminated land.

Megson has suggested that the council may be using tests that are not sensitive enough, or testing in the wrong places. Caerphilly council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

So, if we use these new tests which go to parts per trillion then we can prove that there are trillionths of naughties and we should abolish capitalism!

The cponcept of “clean enough” never really does register, does it?

Labour’s rewilding plans risk sparking a surge in wildfires across Britain, gamekeepers have warned.

The Government is proposing to ban winter burning – a traditional upland management technique that reduces the amount of fuel for potential fires – from more than half of all peatland in England.

It is claimed the changes will help to “re-wet” Britain’s peat bogs, reduce the risk of wildfires and cut carbon emissions.

Environmentalists want to preserve peat bogs because they soak up vasts quantities of carbon. But landowners and gamekeepers have warned that, far from protecting the environment, the burning restrictions will instead leave Britain’s moors and heaths at the mercy of wildfires that will be “too large to fight”.

As I’ve pointed out before, the number and intensity of wildfires does depend upon the management – or not – of the fireload itself. Don;t have controlled burns and there’s more to go up, obviously.

Not that I expect us to be offered a great deal of evidence – either side – on this.

‘Is that what net zero should be about?’ Farmland falls to solar gold-rush
Tenant farmers are being thrown off prime land as their landlords sell up to net zero developers

Planning permission for solar. OK. But is that a halfway stage to planning permission for housing? Is it easier to get housing permission on land that has – once – been used for that solar industrial purpose?

That would be interesting if it were, no?

A Left-leaning council is embroiled in a hypocrisy row over its plant-based menu.

Oxfordshire county council banned meat, dairy and eggs from all its catered events in 2021, citing climate change.

Now the Lib Dem authority has admitted serving imported oranges and bananas at council lunches, despite telling others to reduce their “food miles”, a concept aiming to keep produce local to benefit the environment.

Wholly vegan, eh? And this is the Lib Dems? What in hell are the real lefties doing then?

Journalists and numbers, eh?

In 2023, the UK as a whole emitted 375 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, about 0.7 per cent of global emissions. Road transport accounted for roughly 100 million tonnes. Using UK bioethanol cuts transport emissions by around 82 per cent, but switching to US imports halves those savings. The impact on global emissions? Negligible – effectively defeating the purpose of the policy.

If the ethanol is 5 or 10% (E5, E10) then it’s not going to cut emissions by 80%, is it?

Plus, didn’t we all work out that the fuel/fertiliser used in growing bioethanol was more than just burning the petrol in the first place?

Worse still, both Vivergo and Ensus run on wheat, and together consume up to 15 per cent of UK wheat production when operating at full capacity.

Just the most ghastly fuckwittery in the first place.

Recent efforts to encourage people to eat insects are doomed to fail because of widespread public disgust at the idea, making it unlikely insects will help people switch from the environmentally ruinous habit of meat consumption, a new study has found.

Humans are just such contrary beings…..

GB Energy’s promised £8.3bn budget raided to pay for small nuclear reactors
National energy company effectively loses £2.5bn to separate body tasked with spearheading nuclear renaissance

Nice to see that at least some of the money put aside for energy is being spent upon useful energy that actually works.

Plans to overhaul Britain’s energy market being studied by Ed Miliband would prompt a surge in the number of wind farms in the South of England, officials have confirmed.

Fintan Slye, the chief executive of the National Energy System Operator (Neso), said breaking the electricity market into regions under so-called zonal pricing would encourage developers to put turbines up in the South.

He backed the idea and said the current system of setting wholesale power prices nationally was giving renewable developers the wrong “price signals” over where to locate wind farms.

Vast, land hungry, industry to be located on most expensive land in the country.

Well done there that man, vry well done.

Ed Miliband must ramp up energy bills across London and southern England to hit net zero targets, a parliamentary committee has said.

The Energy Secretary is likely to miss his target of making the electricity grid 95pc carbon free by the end of the decade unless he embraces so-called zonal pricing, a new report from the Lords industry committee warned.

Wasn’t zonal pricing meant to make ‘leccie cheaper?

California gardeners plant native species in parks to prevent wildfire spread – in pictures

Volunteers, organized by landscape architecture firm Terremoto, clear invasive plants and restore native fauna: ‘It’s a years-long relationship with the land’

Native vegetation, sure, why not? But against wildfires? Hmm.

The basic climate in CA is as it here here in Portugal. Winter rains, all the growth comes in winter and very early spring. By now – mid-May – it’s all over. No more water for 5 or 6 months, all hte plants die back. And become friable fuel that can be set off just by hte Sun shining through a dew drop. Wildfires are a part of this ecology. The native plant life is adapted to this ecology. It’s all built to burn.

So, why bringing back the native plants will reduce wildfires, well, umm…..

It’s time for government to wake up and grasp what’s in front of its eyes: thousands of skilled and knowledgable workers – and a booming green energy industry just crying out for the government to tap into it. That’s why I’ve introduced the energy and employment rights bill to parliament: it would compel the government to work with unions and communities in order to secure British jobs and put the UK at the centre of the industries of the future. It would make big polluters pay for workers to learn new skills. And it would ensure that investment in the government’s new GB Energy supported jobs and industries here in the UK, rather than losing them abroad.

A Bill to set a timeline for the phasing out of UK oil and gas production and the decommissioning of related infrastructure; to require the Secretary of State to publish a plan for ensuring that oil and gas workers have access to appropriate redeployment or retraining opportunities, and to involve unions and communities in the production of this plan, which should include plans for funding; to make provision for the establishment of a training fund for workers in the oil and gas industry, to which oil and gas companies would contribute by paying a levy; to make provision for a proportion of workers’ wages to be guaranteed by the state for a defined period after they leave the oil and gas industry; to introduce sectoral collective bargaining in the energy industry; to extend legislation relating to pay and conditions for UK onshore workers to cover all offshore workers in the UK Continental Shelf and UK Exclusive Economic Area; to require GB Energy’s investments to support UK jobs; and for connected purposes.

Adding costs to an industry is a well known method of expanding that industry, no?

Chinese “kill switches” have been found hidden in American solar farms, prompting calls for Ed Miliband to halt the rollout of renewables.

On Thursday, the Energy Secretary was urged to impose an “immediate pause” on his green energy blitz to review whether UK solar plants are also at risk.

The components found in the US included cellular radios capable of switching off the equipment remotely, raising serious concerns about grid security, according to Reuters.

They were found inside power inverters manufactured by unnamed Chinese companies.

Seriously? This is not a plant by US manufacturers of competing equipment? Well, probably not, given that there are none, are there?

Anyone got more on this? What, really, is the story here?

In the wake of the Spanish crisis, experts have also highlighted the relatively low number of interconnectors between the Iberian peninsula and the rest of the Continent.

A key link with France went offline as the blackouts spread and automatic systems kicked in to protect vital infrastructure from being damaged.

A spokesman for the British Government was approached for comment.

The rumour around here is that The P grid has cut the intercdonnector to the S grid as well. It was their failure that triggered our, d’ye see?

Now, true, it’s not difficult around here to get people to agree that you cannae trust the Dagos. But it is still interesting, no? Interconnectors spread the area of damage…..

Net zero subsidies cost British households £280 a year

Rather more than that I’m sure.

What are US power prices? So, what would UK be if we had same structure as them? There we go, that’s the subsidy being charged for net zero.

Britain’s green energy subsidies have added an estimated £280 to households’ energy bills, research has found.

Levies used to encourage construction of wind farms, solar parks and other renewables have added £25.8bn a year to energy bills paid by both households and industry, according to a study from the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF).

Now, the very specific taxes that turn up on household bills, yes, it might be true the number’s that small….

At the lowest point, the power being generated fell to zero megawatts –

No ‘leccie at all on the grid in Spain.

Inertia acts as a shock absorber, slowing down changes in frequency that may result from drops in generation. However, solar and wind farms do not generate it.

Experts have therefore speculated that the high amounts of solar and wind on the system – which were generating a combined 70pc of power before the power cut – may have left the system more exposed to shocks.

Speculated seems a bit mild. Shrieked that it’s true at the top of their voices?