What does ‘fracking’ mean?
The other day I read a Guardian article on line in which a fracking protagonist stated that fracking has been used for years in UK land-based oil wells when water is pumped into the well to force oil out. It’s true that that practice has been common in the oil industry for many years, particularly in wells which have passed their peak production. But that has never been called ‘fracking’ before, that I am aware of.
I listened to another protagonist on the Today programme, who said that fracking was an integral part of drilling for geothermal energy, although geothermal drilling is an entirely different process, which recycles the water. In all the time since I first assisted in a geothermal test drill in the Rosemanowes Quarry in Cornwall in the early ‘80s, I have never heard the word ‘fracking’ in this context.
I have a sense that the ‘fracking’ enthusiasts are subtly widening the meaning of the word, to include processes which are, or have been, in common use without controversy, thereby gaining a kind of 'borrowed respectability'. It’s a neat trick!
So when I read the Telegraph article by David Cameron, I admit to looking at it with an analytical eye, because, like Tony Blair, he is good with words!
It has to be said that although the protests at Balcombe have turned into a national event, many of those protesters are there because they perceive a potential effect on their own lives from copious heavy road transport and the likely effect on the water supply, both through over use and through pollution, both of which have been experienced in the USA. These are entirely reasonable and valid motives for the protests, but in global terms they are probably amongst the less important reasons for objecting.
There are many lessons to be learned from the American experience, but it seems that our political leaders are surrounded by people who tell them what they want to hear, rather than the facts. On the other hand it has been suggested to me that the present Government attitude is simply designed to fend off UKIP and keep the Tory Right in check, and that after the next election many obstacles to planning permission may be discovered! But they are politicians – how can we possibly know what they really think!
In his article, Mr Cameron said, ‘If we don’t back this technology, we will miss a massive opportunity to help families with their bills and make our country more competitive. Without it, we could lose ground in the tough global race.’
It is difficult to understand exactly what he means, aside from the bit about bills. How will it make us more competitive? How will it affect our position in the ‘tough global race’? As for that bit about bills, that probably won't happen, because fracking is a very expensive process, and importing gas from Norway and Qatar is actually likely to be cheaper, even with George Osborne's generous tax concessions.
As Mr Cameron says, ’Just look at the United States: they’ve got more than 10,000 fracking wells opening up each year and their gas prices are three-and-a-half times lower than here’.
10,000 wells a year! Imagine that!
Well, exactly! Mr Cameron, this is how it works:
The banks, always on the lookout for an opportunity, have smothered the industry in the US with loans, secured against the assets of the companies, who are making hay while the sun shines. But a shale gas well produces about 80% of its capacity in the first two years. So in order to maintain the flow (and it is the flow rate which is important) they have to keep drilling new wells as the old ones die (hence Mr Cameron’s 10,000). And as we have said, drilling wells is expensive. So why are gas prices in the US so low? Because they have been over producing, running fast to try to keep up with themselves! Then they have been exporting gas to countries like ours where gas prices are higher than at home, to try and recoup some of that money. In 2012, the expenditure on shale gas drilling in the United States was $42 billion. But receipts from sales of that gas were less than that by about $10 billion. As our American cousins would say, ‘Do the math!’ To me (but I am no expert) it has the smell of subprime about it!
Meanwhile, in the US the green-washers have been triumphantly extolling their reduction in CO2 emissions, forgetting that the coal which they haven’t been using has been exported to someone else, whose emissions have gone up.
Mr Cameron is undoubtedly right in claiming that a thriving shale-gas industry in this country would support plenty of jobs (although not for a while yet), but not nearly as many as would be supported by a thriving renewable and energy conservation industry.
Mr Cameron claims that a well-regulated shale-gas industry would be safe, by which I presume he means no water pollution, no loss of domestic water supplies and no leakage of methane into the atmosphere. Good luck with that! But I can afford to take an objective view because there will be no fracking where I live (unless it is for geothermal energy).
My objections to this industry are twofold. The first is that it merely prolongs our dependency on fossil fuel, with all that that implies for the decarbonisation of our energy supply. The second is that for a relatively short term benefit it is far, far too expensive (and will do nothing to reduce our energy bills).
I do have a third objection, which is more general and relates to the whole approach to Government by this coalition. In his article, Mr Cameron once more suggests that we are all in this together. He wants us all to share the benefits. He says, ‘Local people will not be cut out and ignored’.
But that is just what is happening at Balcombe.
Saturday, 17 August 2013
Thursday, 8 August 2013
An Open Letter to David Cameron
Dear Mr Cameron
I believe that some Conservative politicians simply do not understand why the old ‘We’re all in this together’ routine is regarded with a degree of scepticism by so many of us voters. Perhaps I can help with that understanding by suggesting to you that politicians should give a little more thought than they do to those they are supposed to represent.
I can’t speak for everyone of course, but I can compare my experiences now with those of a few years ago. In those days, my MP was a Liberal Democrat. I went to him with a problem, and to my surprise and delight he obtained a worthwhile solution by putting in some work and communicating. And that was before communicating became as easy as it is today.
Recently I wanted to raise some concerns with my elected representatives in both the British and the European Parliaments. For context, I should say that my concerns were aggravated by a speech made by Mr Owen Paterson, (whose record on understanding and believing science has recently lost some credibility). I have grave concerns about the use of genetic engineering in food production and I wanted my representatives to hear them, and respond constructively.
I certainly don’t expect that my views will be shared universally. I do expect them to be treated with respect, particularly because my views are widely held across national and European boundaries. I spent some time composing what I thought was a comprehensive summary of my doubts and fears in the letter I sent to my MP, asking her to pass them on to Mr Paterson.
I posted my letter to my MP, Mrs Sarah Newton, by Royal Mail on 21st June. I also emailed a copy of the letter, with covering messages, to all my MEPs. As yet, after six weeks I have not had the courtesy of an acknowledgement from Mrs Newton, let alone a comment.
The most constructive and helpful response (in relative terms) came from Mr Ashley Fox MEP. I followed up with another email to him, giving further evidence to substantiate my concerns.
I received a letter from Mr Giles Chichester. It was polite, but dismissive, stating that he had ‘seen studies and heard presentations from respectable research organisations in the UK which give a more positive interpretation’. I replied inviting him to give me the opportunity to read those positive interpretations, as I wished to keep an open mind. As yet I have had no further communication from Mr Chichester.
I received an acknowledgement from the PA to Ms Girling, promising a reply in due course, but nothing further.
I have exchanged communications with Mrs Newton on other occasions, and have found her helpful where we have common ground, but otherwise she seems to prefer not to communicate. From this and the experiences detailed above, I am forced to conclude that Conservative politicians are only prepared to engage constructively with those who clearly agree with them (whereas an opposite approach might win you more converts!). Mr Fox evidently found some points of agreement between us, responding courteously and helpfully. Mr Chichester appears uninterested in explaining his position to someone with whom he disagrees. Ms Girling is as yet an unknown quantity – I can only assume she is too busy to respond (although not to tweet!).
Most newly elected politicians (including you, Mr Cameron, I venture to suggest!) are inclined to claim that they represent all their electorate, not just those who voted for them. Would that this was true! In general, MEPs seem to have no contact or engagement with their constituents. I doubt that anyone in my community would be able to name their European representatives. And while I would never suggest that communicating at that level in such a large constituency is easy, I would certainly claim that here lies one reason for so much disillusionment with the European project.
I must tell you that with the exception of Mr Fox, I found the lack of helpful response from Conservative politicians offensive. There seems to be an arrogance not only in the lack of response from some but particularly by the dismissive attitude taken by Mr Chichester. MEPs are well enough paid (although not excessively). However the expenses they are able to claim can be very high. Those expenses should at least enable them to communicate constructively with their constituents, even if through a well qualified assistant.
And by the way, on the subject of my original concerns regarding GM crops, I would like to say this; new evidence, much of it peer reviewed and most of it credible, is emerging almost daily, which militates against the use of GM techniques in food. To hitch your party and its policies to this particular science before all the evidence is in may turn out to have been a grave mistake, not just for politicians, but for all of us. There is a widely accepted opinion that the Government’s association with the pro-GM lobby is manifested for two reasons. The first reason is that it is pivotal to trade negotiations with the USA, and the second is that big international corporations have more influence on Government policy (on this matter, via Rothamsted Research) than the population at large. Whether or not that opinion is justified, it should be a matter of concern for you. The widely held views amongst most European countries are contrary to that of your Government, and those views are not held on the basis of a whim!
As for Europe, I think we would all be more enthusiastic about the project if our elected representatives could be seen to offer a two-way channel for significant and sensible communication. On the one hand, their lack of engagement seems like a good reason for Britain to make an exit from the project. On the other, the European Union seems to be all that stands between us and your Government's negative policies on the environment (including GM crops), climate change and a somewhat overbearing relationship with the USA.
I live in hope that the General and European elections, when they arrive, will bring us representatives who are able to engage fully with their constituents, and who will help us to feel that we are, genuinely, represented. Those are the criteria which will influence my votes.
Yours sincerely
Tim Thomson
I believe that some Conservative politicians simply do not understand why the old ‘We’re all in this together’ routine is regarded with a degree of scepticism by so many of us voters. Perhaps I can help with that understanding by suggesting to you that politicians should give a little more thought than they do to those they are supposed to represent.
I can’t speak for everyone of course, but I can compare my experiences now with those of a few years ago. In those days, my MP was a Liberal Democrat. I went to him with a problem, and to my surprise and delight he obtained a worthwhile solution by putting in some work and communicating. And that was before communicating became as easy as it is today.
Recently I wanted to raise some concerns with my elected representatives in both the British and the European Parliaments. For context, I should say that my concerns were aggravated by a speech made by Mr Owen Paterson, (whose record on understanding and believing science has recently lost some credibility). I have grave concerns about the use of genetic engineering in food production and I wanted my representatives to hear them, and respond constructively.
I certainly don’t expect that my views will be shared universally. I do expect them to be treated with respect, particularly because my views are widely held across national and European boundaries. I spent some time composing what I thought was a comprehensive summary of my doubts and fears in the letter I sent to my MP, asking her to pass them on to Mr Paterson.
I posted my letter to my MP, Mrs Sarah Newton, by Royal Mail on 21st June. I also emailed a copy of the letter, with covering messages, to all my MEPs. As yet, after six weeks I have not had the courtesy of an acknowledgement from Mrs Newton, let alone a comment.
The most constructive and helpful response (in relative terms) came from Mr Ashley Fox MEP. I followed up with another email to him, giving further evidence to substantiate my concerns.
I received a letter from Mr Giles Chichester. It was polite, but dismissive, stating that he had ‘seen studies and heard presentations from respectable research organisations in the UK which give a more positive interpretation’. I replied inviting him to give me the opportunity to read those positive interpretations, as I wished to keep an open mind. As yet I have had no further communication from Mr Chichester.
I received an acknowledgement from the PA to Ms Girling, promising a reply in due course, but nothing further.
I have exchanged communications with Mrs Newton on other occasions, and have found her helpful where we have common ground, but otherwise she seems to prefer not to communicate. From this and the experiences detailed above, I am forced to conclude that Conservative politicians are only prepared to engage constructively with those who clearly agree with them (whereas an opposite approach might win you more converts!). Mr Fox evidently found some points of agreement between us, responding courteously and helpfully. Mr Chichester appears uninterested in explaining his position to someone with whom he disagrees. Ms Girling is as yet an unknown quantity – I can only assume she is too busy to respond (although not to tweet!).
Most newly elected politicians (including you, Mr Cameron, I venture to suggest!) are inclined to claim that they represent all their electorate, not just those who voted for them. Would that this was true! In general, MEPs seem to have no contact or engagement with their constituents. I doubt that anyone in my community would be able to name their European representatives. And while I would never suggest that communicating at that level in such a large constituency is easy, I would certainly claim that here lies one reason for so much disillusionment with the European project.
I must tell you that with the exception of Mr Fox, I found the lack of helpful response from Conservative politicians offensive. There seems to be an arrogance not only in the lack of response from some but particularly by the dismissive attitude taken by Mr Chichester. MEPs are well enough paid (although not excessively). However the expenses they are able to claim can be very high. Those expenses should at least enable them to communicate constructively with their constituents, even if through a well qualified assistant.
And by the way, on the subject of my original concerns regarding GM crops, I would like to say this; new evidence, much of it peer reviewed and most of it credible, is emerging almost daily, which militates against the use of GM techniques in food. To hitch your party and its policies to this particular science before all the evidence is in may turn out to have been a grave mistake, not just for politicians, but for all of us. There is a widely accepted opinion that the Government’s association with the pro-GM lobby is manifested for two reasons. The first reason is that it is pivotal to trade negotiations with the USA, and the second is that big international corporations have more influence on Government policy (on this matter, via Rothamsted Research) than the population at large. Whether or not that opinion is justified, it should be a matter of concern for you. The widely held views amongst most European countries are contrary to that of your Government, and those views are not held on the basis of a whim!
As for Europe, I think we would all be more enthusiastic about the project if our elected representatives could be seen to offer a two-way channel for significant and sensible communication. On the one hand, their lack of engagement seems like a good reason for Britain to make an exit from the project. On the other, the European Union seems to be all that stands between us and your Government's negative policies on the environment (including GM crops), climate change and a somewhat overbearing relationship with the USA.
I live in hope that the General and European elections, when they arrive, will bring us representatives who are able to engage fully with their constituents, and who will help us to feel that we are, genuinely, represented. Those are the criteria which will influence my votes.
Yours sincerely
Tim Thomson
Sunday, 4 August 2013
An Open Letter to Ed Milliband
Dear Mr Milliband
Old Labour, New Labour, One Nation Labour…What does it all mean exactly?
I am old enough to remember when the political parties put forward their principles, ideals and aims, together with the policies they believed would achieve those aims. The electorate would then have the opportunity to choose the party which most conformed to their own beliefs. And I think that the last party leader to do that was Margaret Thatcher. (She wasn’t my choice, but it worked for her!)
Since then there has been a not too subtle change in approach, so that at best, the parties try to dress up (or dilute) their policies in a way which will appeal to as many different sectors of the voting public as possible; or at worst, try to discover what policies would most appeal, and then shoe those policies in to their own manifestos regardless of principle. (The immigration debate is a case in point.)
For some reason the policy makers believe that the general public don’t sense this; and tragically, these days, they are often right, not because voters are not intelligent, but because we have become bored with the institutional cynicism thus displayed.
What happens in other countries?
It is fascinating to compare our situation with that in other Western countries. For example, take infant mortality. The highest level (per thousand live births) is USA, and the lowest is Sweden. Child poverty: highest in USA (by a long way) and lowest in Denmark. Gender inequality: worst in USA, best in Sweden. Environmental sustainability: worst in USA, best in Nordic countries (and Switzerland). Income share of the top 1%: USA over 18%, Denmark 4%. And the point of all this? Where these figures are represented on a graph, UK come up roughly in the middle of the countries represented. But there is one more graph, which, significantly, shows that in all respects, the best performing countries are those where tax is highest as a percentage of GDP.
In the UK it appears that the two main parties are competing to achieve the lowest taxes per capita, and the result is the present misery and inequality. But the labour party have a very strong advantage in their ‘battle for hearts and minds’. It would not be against party dogma to increase taxes, and it would lose almost none of their core votes. Imagine how popular it would be, for example, if all those earning, say, half a million or more were to pay 90% on anything above that threshold. And how many of those will ever vote Labour?
The current tax regime in this country is one which favours the very rich. Thus the very rich have an enhanced influence on the direction of Government, which in turn has an adverse effect on democracy. It can be shown (in addition to the statistics shown above) that the greater the gap between rich and poor, the less notice Government takes of the opinions of the general population. This is evident at the moment, for example, in the ‘fracking’ debate, the GM food debate, the HS2 debate and many other areas. MPs, and MEPs, seem increasingly reluctant to engage with their constituents (although that is only my own experience rather than a statistical fact, and particular to some Conservatives and UKIP!)
Something to recognise is that people earning a very high income are generally uninterested in their pay packet, except as a measure of their success when compared to their colleagues or competitors. The level of tax is irrelevant to them when applied across the board. After all, they certainly have adequate spending money!
History shows that a regime which taxes high earners heavily does not drive a significant number of them to move away. They are generally motivated by love of their job and a competitive spirit, not a desire for another Ferrari! And when a few footballers or pop stars or even the occasional banker do depart, there are plenty more good people waiting in the wings. But the additional tax revenue can fund improved services, and very importantly, many new council houses (not available for sale to tenants). Employment would rise. Families would afford child-care, and mothers could go back to work. Benefit budgets would reduce. A cycle of increased prosperity could begin. SMEs would begin to prosper, and they are much more important to the average man or woman than the huge transnationals, who are only trying to please international shareholders, not British customers.
An enlightened approach, along the lines adopted by the prosperous and high taxed economies in the Nordic countries, could begin a steady climb to the sort of living standards which we all crave.
Our collective minds have been deadened by the oft-repeated mantra from both main parties that low tax is good for business and the economy – but the facts indicate this to be totally false. Back in the last century, when my father, a confirmed Tory voter, was paying ‘supertax’ at a rate of 19s 6d in the pound, the country was arguably in a worse state than we are now, but the welfare state and the NHS had been put into place after the war and the gap between the rich and the poor was at a completely reasonable level. Democracy was working.
Now look across the Atlantic, at the richest economy in the world, where infant mortality is the highest in the developed world, as is obesity, and the rich/poor divide; and tax revenue as a percentage of GDP is amongst the very lowest. This is not a situation we should wish to emulate.
My point is this, Mr Milliband. Go back to first principles. Stop trying to compete with the Conservatives, whose dogma-driven agenda will undoubtedly continue to fail. Austerity didn’t work in the great depression in the USA, and it was not what saved us after the Second World War. It is doing us untold damage now. Please, let us hear something new and challenging, not just more of the same! As things stand, I wouldn’t vote for any of the three mainstream parties (and UKIP are a joke!) and I am begging you to give us all a credible alternative!
Yours sincerely
A disillusioned voter
Tim Thomson
PS Much of the information I have referred to above has been stolen from a brilliant book by the Canadian journalist Linda McQuaig, with Neil Brooks, called ‘The Trouble With Billionaires’.
Old Labour, New Labour, One Nation Labour…What does it all mean exactly?
I am old enough to remember when the political parties put forward their principles, ideals and aims, together with the policies they believed would achieve those aims. The electorate would then have the opportunity to choose the party which most conformed to their own beliefs. And I think that the last party leader to do that was Margaret Thatcher. (She wasn’t my choice, but it worked for her!)
Since then there has been a not too subtle change in approach, so that at best, the parties try to dress up (or dilute) their policies in a way which will appeal to as many different sectors of the voting public as possible; or at worst, try to discover what policies would most appeal, and then shoe those policies in to their own manifestos regardless of principle. (The immigration debate is a case in point.)
For some reason the policy makers believe that the general public don’t sense this; and tragically, these days, they are often right, not because voters are not intelligent, but because we have become bored with the institutional cynicism thus displayed.
What happens in other countries?
It is fascinating to compare our situation with that in other Western countries. For example, take infant mortality. The highest level (per thousand live births) is USA, and the lowest is Sweden. Child poverty: highest in USA (by a long way) and lowest in Denmark. Gender inequality: worst in USA, best in Sweden. Environmental sustainability: worst in USA, best in Nordic countries (and Switzerland). Income share of the top 1%: USA over 18%, Denmark 4%. And the point of all this? Where these figures are represented on a graph, UK come up roughly in the middle of the countries represented. But there is one more graph, which, significantly, shows that in all respects, the best performing countries are those where tax is highest as a percentage of GDP.
In the UK it appears that the two main parties are competing to achieve the lowest taxes per capita, and the result is the present misery and inequality. But the labour party have a very strong advantage in their ‘battle for hearts and minds’. It would not be against party dogma to increase taxes, and it would lose almost none of their core votes. Imagine how popular it would be, for example, if all those earning, say, half a million or more were to pay 90% on anything above that threshold. And how many of those will ever vote Labour?
The current tax regime in this country is one which favours the very rich. Thus the very rich have an enhanced influence on the direction of Government, which in turn has an adverse effect on democracy. It can be shown (in addition to the statistics shown above) that the greater the gap between rich and poor, the less notice Government takes of the opinions of the general population. This is evident at the moment, for example, in the ‘fracking’ debate, the GM food debate, the HS2 debate and many other areas. MPs, and MEPs, seem increasingly reluctant to engage with their constituents (although that is only my own experience rather than a statistical fact, and particular to some Conservatives and UKIP!)
Something to recognise is that people earning a very high income are generally uninterested in their pay packet, except as a measure of their success when compared to their colleagues or competitors. The level of tax is irrelevant to them when applied across the board. After all, they certainly have adequate spending money!
History shows that a regime which taxes high earners heavily does not drive a significant number of them to move away. They are generally motivated by love of their job and a competitive spirit, not a desire for another Ferrari! And when a few footballers or pop stars or even the occasional banker do depart, there are plenty more good people waiting in the wings. But the additional tax revenue can fund improved services, and very importantly, many new council houses (not available for sale to tenants). Employment would rise. Families would afford child-care, and mothers could go back to work. Benefit budgets would reduce. A cycle of increased prosperity could begin. SMEs would begin to prosper, and they are much more important to the average man or woman than the huge transnationals, who are only trying to please international shareholders, not British customers.
An enlightened approach, along the lines adopted by the prosperous and high taxed economies in the Nordic countries, could begin a steady climb to the sort of living standards which we all crave.
Our collective minds have been deadened by the oft-repeated mantra from both main parties that low tax is good for business and the economy – but the facts indicate this to be totally false. Back in the last century, when my father, a confirmed Tory voter, was paying ‘supertax’ at a rate of 19s 6d in the pound, the country was arguably in a worse state than we are now, but the welfare state and the NHS had been put into place after the war and the gap between the rich and the poor was at a completely reasonable level. Democracy was working.
Now look across the Atlantic, at the richest economy in the world, where infant mortality is the highest in the developed world, as is obesity, and the rich/poor divide; and tax revenue as a percentage of GDP is amongst the very lowest. This is not a situation we should wish to emulate.
My point is this, Mr Milliband. Go back to first principles. Stop trying to compete with the Conservatives, whose dogma-driven agenda will undoubtedly continue to fail. Austerity didn’t work in the great depression in the USA, and it was not what saved us after the Second World War. It is doing us untold damage now. Please, let us hear something new and challenging, not just more of the same! As things stand, I wouldn’t vote for any of the three mainstream parties (and UKIP are a joke!) and I am begging you to give us all a credible alternative!
Yours sincerely
A disillusioned voter
Tim Thomson
PS Much of the information I have referred to above has been stolen from a brilliant book by the Canadian journalist Linda McQuaig, with Neil Brooks, called ‘The Trouble With Billionaires’.
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Why Not Wheelie Bins in Cornwall?
Because of Cornwall Council’s dysfunctional approach to waste collection and disposal over the last ten years, which was further confused by the move to a Unitary Authority, this subject is still a source of heated debate and dissatisfaction. Residents who live in houses where it would be appropriate often say that they would like wheelie bins. On the other hand, people who live in terraced houses, for example, which front directly onto a narrow pavement, say quite rightly that wheelie bins would not work for them, because they would have to bring them through the house and have them blocking the pavement on collection day.
But from a cost aspect, it makes sense to operate a single system throughout the area, particularly in view of the Chancellors recent decisions around local government.
Some years ago, Carrick District Council wanted to start a separate food waste collection. The idea was that with a separate food waste collection, residual waste (black bag waste) would be significantly reduced, and would no longer attract vermin. This would allow a considerable saving by collecting residual waste fortnightly instead of weekly. That move in itself would encourage a better uptake of the recycling collection. There would be an overall saving, with money being made from both recycling, and composting of the food waste. Additionally, when a resident saw how much food waste he produced, he would adjust his shopping habits to waste less and save himself money on his shopping.
The research which underpinned this proposal showed that in other areas, schemes designed along these lines had been highly successful, achieving all the benefits listed above. However, the then Cornwall County Council were quick to stop the proposal, for the simple and misguided reason that it would deprive the proposed St Dennis incinerator of feedstock.
Since that time Cornwall has moved from being one of the leading recycling counties to being very near the bottom of the recycling league table.
A relatively small food waste container being collected weekly would be cheaper and easier to manage than the standard wheelie bin and would not need specialised vehicles (depending on the design). The residual waste would be cleaner and odour free, eliminating the very prevalent vermin problem. Once the system was bedded in, residual waste, significanty reduced by the removal of food waste, could be collected fortnightly, with a consequential massive saving. Recycling, collected weekly, would increase, providing additional income to offset some of the waste collection costs.
The likelihood of any of this happening in Cornwall is minimal, for political reasons rather than practical ones. The last administration have already shown that political expediency was more important than financial, and so far this administration appears to row the same boat in the same direction!
But from a cost aspect, it makes sense to operate a single system throughout the area, particularly in view of the Chancellors recent decisions around local government.
Some years ago, Carrick District Council wanted to start a separate food waste collection. The idea was that with a separate food waste collection, residual waste (black bag waste) would be significantly reduced, and would no longer attract vermin. This would allow a considerable saving by collecting residual waste fortnightly instead of weekly. That move in itself would encourage a better uptake of the recycling collection. There would be an overall saving, with money being made from both recycling, and composting of the food waste. Additionally, when a resident saw how much food waste he produced, he would adjust his shopping habits to waste less and save himself money on his shopping.
The research which underpinned this proposal showed that in other areas, schemes designed along these lines had been highly successful, achieving all the benefits listed above. However, the then Cornwall County Council were quick to stop the proposal, for the simple and misguided reason that it would deprive the proposed St Dennis incinerator of feedstock.
Since that time Cornwall has moved from being one of the leading recycling counties to being very near the bottom of the recycling league table.
A relatively small food waste container being collected weekly would be cheaper and easier to manage than the standard wheelie bin and would not need specialised vehicles (depending on the design). The residual waste would be cleaner and odour free, eliminating the very prevalent vermin problem. Once the system was bedded in, residual waste, significanty reduced by the removal of food waste, could be collected fortnightly, with a consequential massive saving. Recycling, collected weekly, would increase, providing additional income to offset some of the waste collection costs.
The likelihood of any of this happening in Cornwall is minimal, for political reasons rather than practical ones. The last administration have already shown that political expediency was more important than financial, and so far this administration appears to row the same boat in the same direction!
Friday, 21 June 2013
GM crops - I am not in favour!
A few days ago I listened to Owen Paterson, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, being interviewed on the Today programme. Subsequently I read a transcript of his speech in which he sought to both open and close the debate on GM food.
It’s safe! We just need to reassure the public that it is completely safe. Job done!
This from the man who is from the Nigel Lawson school of thought on climate change! (Last I heard, Nigel Lawson’s anti-climate change think tank was being investigated for peddling misleading information to the public!)
I have been keeping an eye on the GM debate for some time now and I must say that in this context I find Owen Paterson really scary! Some of his facts are just plain wrong, and others are based on very questionable research. And now the EU President’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Prof. Anne Glover, has declared that there is no substantiated case of adverse impact etc etc. David Cameron has also decided he is in favour of introducing us all to GM farming.
The difficulty is that no one has even attempted to substantiate any one of the numerous cases of adverse impact!
Poor old Professor Seralini got into really hot water by finding that a particular GM maize produced massive tumours in rats. Monsanto declared that the research was invalid because he used the wrong species of rat, with too few of them to provide a meaningful statistical sample. With Monsanto money behind the anti Seralini campaign, it isn’t surprising that his research was widely regarded as discredited. So most people didn’t get to hear that Prof. Seralini used the same type and number of rats that Monsanto used in their original tests on the same maize, but he did it for longer (hence the tumours). But it is the same Monsanto test results which the US Food and Drug Agency use when authorising the product for human consumption.
There is a lot of material out there on the internet which would cause the average person to think twice before welcoming GM food into his home. Some of it strongly suggests that the actual GM process itself can cause serious health problems. Some of it indicates the harmful effects of the weed killer used. A lot of it documents the contamination of normal crops by GM crops even at a considerable distance. None of it, of course, is substantiated to the satisfaction of Prof. Anne Glover!
Personally I cannot prove that GM food is bad for you. I haven’t yet heard from anyone who can prove it is not; they would need another decade of tests at least to do that. Meanwhile – watch what you eat! Most supermarkets will no longer guarantee that their poultry products (including eggs) have not been fed on GM feed. They claim that the problem is that non GM feed is too difficult to source! In Europe, something labelled as GM free may have a little bit of GM stuff in it (I can’t remember the permissible threshold). Happily most European countries are saying ‘non’, which I consider to be the first good reason I have heard recently for staying in Europe!
Here is the letter I have sent to my MP Sarah Newton, a devout Tory, Deputy Party Chair, who will toe the party line and do nothing to rock the boat:
21 June 2013
Mrs Sarah Newton MP
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA
Dear Sarah
GM Food
During the past few weeks, culminating in Mr. Owen Paterson’s speech, there has clearly been an orchestrated move towards ‘reassuring’ the public about GM food. I find this deeply worrying and I would be grateful if you could pass my concerns to Mr. Paterson, so that we can be reassured that Mr. Paterson has acquainted himself with all the scientific opinion on the subject, as well as where it is lacking, and not just that promulgated by the industry and the US Food and Drug Agency.
My concerns rest on the following facts.
First; the assumption appears to be that the GM crops being grown in the USA have been adequately tested. But the FDA bases its approval of GM products on tests carried out by the manufacturers of the product, with no independent verification. (There is evidence that these tests are sometimes inadequate and sometimes misrepresented.)
Second; while Prof. Anne Glover, Chief Scientific Adviser to the EU President, has said that there is ‘no substantiated case of adverse impact’ on health (clearly discounting all the numerous health issues which have arisen in the USA during the last ten to fifteen years or so), it is equally true that there is no evidence to show that GM food does NOT do harm. Since GM food does not require to be labelled as such in the US, evidence in either direction would be hard to substantiate.
Third; despite Mr. Paterson’s assurances, I have not been able to discover any evidence that crop yields have been significantly improved over time by the use of GM seed, indeed in some cases rather the opposite. As against that, agroecology, as suggested in 2010 by Olivier de Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, has been shown to be capable of improving yields significantly in many different contexts.
Fourth; Mr. Paterson believes that growing GM crops would be good for the environment. Up until now this has been shown to be not the case in several different situations from the US to South America to India. One purpose of GM crops is that they can be grown in large areas of monocrop cultivation. This method of agriculture requires that quantities of weed control chemicals need to be used. Experience in the US has shown that after a few years, in order to control poison-resistant weeds, on Monsanto’s recommendation, extra chemicals need to be mixed in to make a more poisonous cocktail. Thus the land, which has already been stripped of nutrients, is drenched in ever increasing amounts of chemicals. Tests already show that in 18 European countries there is significant Glyphosate in the population’s urine, and there is plenty of evidence that Glyphosate is harmful to humans. This can only have come from food which has been sprayed with the chemical, and growing poison-resistant GM crops in Europe can only aggravate that situation.
In the US it is now clear that contamination of a crop in one area from GM crops in another area can be carried hundreds of miles by wild life or wind, which makes a nonsense of buffer zones. (See farmer interviews in the video clip linked below.)
I was greatly relieved to hear that Mr. Paterson is against the patenting of seed. The possibility that we in Europe might fall into the traps set by Monsanto and their like in the US and India is frightening. I would also hope that should we be in the position of allowing GM produce into our food chain, it would be adequately and prominently labelled as such, so that unlike our American cousins we would be able to choose whether or not to buy.
I know that a significant number of farmers polled in the UK by the Farmers’ Guardian said that they would like to grow GM crops. I hope that they, as well as Mr. Paterson, will watch the video clip (link below) of Michael Hart, a Cornish farmer who went to North America specifically to get first hand advice on GMOs from American farmers. It is interesting that the poll of UK farmers also discovered that only 15% would be prepared to eat the product themselves! It is interesting also that there is a growing movement in the US for food producers, where they can, to label their food ‘Certified Non-GMO’ as a result of pressure from the general public. Unfortunately many of those producers have difficulty in sourcing non-GMO ingredients. Furthermore, it is reported that many patients are being prescribed an organic diet by their doctors, specifically to avoid GMOs.
There are a number of studies which indicate adverse effects both from the process of genetic modification and from the chemicals which go with it. Even if we believe that these publications are not conclusive, they should not be dismissed without further study.
Although I am concerned about the effects of GM food on the nation’s health I am far more concerned, given adequate labelling of food products, about the potential harm to our environment, our biodiversity, our wild life and our pollinating insects. It is already evident in this country that large areas of monocrop farming are having a serious effect. (Ironically, the bee population in conurbations such as London is flourishing away from our chemical based agriculture.) The introduction of GM farming, with its sophisticated chemical controls, would inevitably mean an increased assault on our environment.
Mr. Paterson has suggested that he wishes to reassure the public that GM crops are safe and beneficial. But stating it does not make it so, nor will it reassure us. There needs to be proper independent, substantial and robust peer reviewed research, on the crops, and the chemicals that go with them including the degree of their continued use. This research should include the effect on human health, and particularly on the beneficial gut flora which is within all of us.
You will recall the efforts made by the tobacco industry to discredit the evidence that smoking is harmful to health. Equally I am sure you have been aware of similar tactics (often using the very same 'experts'), used by the oil industry to discredit the proponents of the encroaching climate crisis. It has become clear to me in my reading that the GM industry in America has been taking a similar approach. We need to be more certain than we can be at this time that the introduction of GM crops would be beneficial and safe before allowing it or encouraging it to be grown in our fields, because this is a genie which cannot be put back in the bottle.
Yours faithfully
Tim Thomson
Cc Shadow Environment Secretary
Below are details of only a small selection of the available published material, much of it from neutral and peer reviewed sources.
Link to video by a Cornish farmer, Michael Hart, who went to America to find out farmers’ views on GM farming - ‘GM crops Farmer to Farmer’
Link to UN report on ‘Right to Food’
Influence of soy with the gene EPSPS CP4 on the physiological state and reproductive functions of rats in the first two generations
New Ermakova peer-reviewed paper (2009)
Russian Academy of Natural Sciences "Modern problems of science and education" № 5, 2009 UDC: 612.82, 57.02
The Lancet, Volume 354, Issue 9187, Pages 1353 - 1354, 16 October 1999
Effect of diets containing genetically modified potatoes expressing Galanthus nivalis lectin on rat small intestine
Dr Stanley WB Ewen FRCPath, Arpad Pusztai PhD
Eur J Histochem. 2004 Oct-Dec;48(4):448-54.
Ultrastructural analysis of testes from mice fed on genetically modified soybean.
Vecchio L, Cisterna B, Malatesta M, Martin TE, Biggiogera M.
Holes in the Biotech Safety Net by Doug Gurian-Sherman Ph.D
A month has now gone by and I have not yet had the courtesy of a reply!
Sunday, 9 June 2013
Do We Miss The Empire?
Are we still imperialistic meddlers? We (UK, our politicians, our Government) do so often come across as having tunnel vision – and furthermore the tunnel appears to have a bend in it a short distance ahead, cutting off any extended vision! We just don’t seem to be able to see the consequences of our actions.
Forget our interference in the Middle East from early in the last century, brought about by our desire for oil and our belief in our own racial superiority. But we invaded Iraq on the say-so of probably the worst President the US has ever had, and when Bush declared to the world that the mission had been accomplished, he clearly didn’t understand what he had started. And to this day Blair claims that Iraq is a better place now than it was under Saddam Hussein: there are many who disagree!
Afghanistan has been a more complex problem in many ways – certainly some reaction to the 9/11 attack was necessary. However when the US starts something it seldom knows how to finish it, and it seems likely that when we all pull out of Iraq, the nation building will go into reverse.
Syria: now that is a real mess. It seems that Assad was responsible for the start of the uprising, in conjunction with climate change. He failed to support farmers during extreme drought conditions and to survive, the farmers were forced to move to the cities, where work was scarce, accommodation limited and discontent was rife.
Meanwhile we went in to Libya with all guns blazing, to claim our bit of the Arab Spring. I don’t suggest that that particular action was not justified – many lives were saved. But in the aftermath, our rhetoric was not constructive, with the result that the Syrian ‘rebels’ assumed that we (the West) would do for them what we had done for the Libyans. We did very little to discourage that view, whittering on as we did about Assad’s time being up etc. etc. Because we made it very clear which side we were on, the rebels thought they were onto a winner, in the mistaken belief that the West had their back; and of course that drew in a few outside interests like Al Qaeda, and other wannabe jihadists – until gradually the rebels (or ‘opposition’) became an increasingly fragmented collection of groups, mostly with differing agendas.
What next? Oh, yes! We and the French vetoed the continuation of the European arms embargo on Syria! I don’t know who we think we are but a superpower we are not. All other European countries opposed this veto, but we knew bestand that veto certainly fired up the rebels. It also had a few other rather serious consequences. First, Russia indicated that it would consider it permissible to send arms to Assad’s forces. Then Lebanon became involved and Hezbollah sent in the troops to support Assad, which put the rebels in retreat. All this has increased the mass of refugees to neighbouring countries, who are scarcely equipped to cope. Another interesting consequence is that Austria has withdrawn her troops from the UN Peacekeeping force in the Golan Heights, making the border between Syria and Israel more vulnerable and sending out all the wrong signals. Israel of course is, as usual, a little paranoid as well as being well armed!
But why did we insist that the arms embargo be lifted? Oh yes, to send a signal which was supposed to make Assad come to the negotiating table! Yeah, right…As if he needs to! He has no scruples about wiping out anyone in his way – and if we do send in arms, who do we send them to? We just don’t know who is in charge or who will be in a week’s time. But by our grand gesture we have opened the floodgates, provoking an escalation in hostilities, and increasing the potential for neighbouring countries, with their sponsors, to be drawn in. Each side of the conflict is being brutal, and probably each side is using chemical weapons – why wouldn’t they? Assad is rightly confident that Obama’s ‘red line’ on that subject was meaningless.
If we had used different rhetoric after Libya, proclaimed our neutrality regarding Syria from the start, and worked to broker a deal from that neutral position instead of saying ‘Assad must go!’, thousands of lives could have been saved, thousands of refugees might still have a home, and neighbouring countries might have stayed at home.
But Assad’s approach to human rights is unacceptable! Of course it is, as was Saddam Hussein’s and Gaddafi’s, both erstwhile Western allies, loosely speaking, (remember the Blair embrace?) but so is Saudi Arabia’s, so is Bahrain’s. And consider the consequence of a rebel victory in Syria! I know what it would not be – peace!
We cannot remodel the world’s nations in the way some would like. It is presumptuous in the extreme to try, particularly in the light of a strong groundswell of opinion in England against letting anyone enter, or interfere with, the UK!
Our ‘special relationship’ with the USA has dragged us into no end of scrapes – why do we think it is so valuable? It is after all a two way street, isn’t it? Maybe we should just acknowledge the fact that the USA is on the way down and China is on the way up, and that we are a little peripheral country who ought to mind its own business! The only reason we are occasionally invited to the top table is because we are a nuclear power – and there seems to be a diminishing justification for that! It draws in the terrorists like moths round a flame, but if a terrorist went nuclear, who would we fire ours at? We would be like a blind man in a crowded room with a machine gun.
I try to live by this maxim; ‘Happiness lies in being content with what you’ve got.’ It works for me; perhaps it would work for Britain.
Forget our interference in the Middle East from early in the last century, brought about by our desire for oil and our belief in our own racial superiority. But we invaded Iraq on the say-so of probably the worst President the US has ever had, and when Bush declared to the world that the mission had been accomplished, he clearly didn’t understand what he had started. And to this day Blair claims that Iraq is a better place now than it was under Saddam Hussein: there are many who disagree!
Afghanistan has been a more complex problem in many ways – certainly some reaction to the 9/11 attack was necessary. However when the US starts something it seldom knows how to finish it, and it seems likely that when we all pull out of Iraq, the nation building will go into reverse.
Syria: now that is a real mess. It seems that Assad was responsible for the start of the uprising, in conjunction with climate change. He failed to support farmers during extreme drought conditions and to survive, the farmers were forced to move to the cities, where work was scarce, accommodation limited and discontent was rife.
Meanwhile we went in to Libya with all guns blazing, to claim our bit of the Arab Spring. I don’t suggest that that particular action was not justified – many lives were saved. But in the aftermath, our rhetoric was not constructive, with the result that the Syrian ‘rebels’ assumed that we (the West) would do for them what we had done for the Libyans. We did very little to discourage that view, whittering on as we did about Assad’s time being up etc. etc. Because we made it very clear which side we were on, the rebels thought they were onto a winner, in the mistaken belief that the West had their back; and of course that drew in a few outside interests like Al Qaeda, and other wannabe jihadists – until gradually the rebels (or ‘opposition’) became an increasingly fragmented collection of groups, mostly with differing agendas.
What next? Oh, yes! We and the French vetoed the continuation of the European arms embargo on Syria! I don’t know who we think we are but a superpower we are not. All other European countries opposed this veto, but we knew bestand that veto certainly fired up the rebels. It also had a few other rather serious consequences. First, Russia indicated that it would consider it permissible to send arms to Assad’s forces. Then Lebanon became involved and Hezbollah sent in the troops to support Assad, which put the rebels in retreat. All this has increased the mass of refugees to neighbouring countries, who are scarcely equipped to cope. Another interesting consequence is that Austria has withdrawn her troops from the UN Peacekeeping force in the Golan Heights, making the border between Syria and Israel more vulnerable and sending out all the wrong signals. Israel of course is, as usual, a little paranoid as well as being well armed!
But why did we insist that the arms embargo be lifted? Oh yes, to send a signal which was supposed to make Assad come to the negotiating table! Yeah, right…As if he needs to! He has no scruples about wiping out anyone in his way – and if we do send in arms, who do we send them to? We just don’t know who is in charge or who will be in a week’s time. But by our grand gesture we have opened the floodgates, provoking an escalation in hostilities, and increasing the potential for neighbouring countries, with their sponsors, to be drawn in. Each side of the conflict is being brutal, and probably each side is using chemical weapons – why wouldn’t they? Assad is rightly confident that Obama’s ‘red line’ on that subject was meaningless.
If we had used different rhetoric after Libya, proclaimed our neutrality regarding Syria from the start, and worked to broker a deal from that neutral position instead of saying ‘Assad must go!’, thousands of lives could have been saved, thousands of refugees might still have a home, and neighbouring countries might have stayed at home.
But Assad’s approach to human rights is unacceptable! Of course it is, as was Saddam Hussein’s and Gaddafi’s, both erstwhile Western allies, loosely speaking, (remember the Blair embrace?) but so is Saudi Arabia’s, so is Bahrain’s. And consider the consequence of a rebel victory in Syria! I know what it would not be – peace!
We cannot remodel the world’s nations in the way some would like. It is presumptuous in the extreme to try, particularly in the light of a strong groundswell of opinion in England against letting anyone enter, or interfere with, the UK!
Our ‘special relationship’ with the USA has dragged us into no end of scrapes – why do we think it is so valuable? It is after all a two way street, isn’t it? Maybe we should just acknowledge the fact that the USA is on the way down and China is on the way up, and that we are a little peripheral country who ought to mind its own business! The only reason we are occasionally invited to the top table is because we are a nuclear power – and there seems to be a diminishing justification for that! It draws in the terrorists like moths round a flame, but if a terrorist went nuclear, who would we fire ours at? We would be like a blind man in a crowded room with a machine gun.
I try to live by this maxim; ‘Happiness lies in being content with what you’ve got.’ It works for me; perhaps it would work for Britain.
Friday, 19 April 2013
Walking The Dogs
I was walking my son’s dogs today. I am not a dog lover, but I like a walk, and he is working all day. I strolled, in sunshine, along the defunct railway track outside Truro, listening to woodpeckers calling and rat-tat-tatting, and admiring the first of the bluebells, while the two dogs did what dogs do, seeking out badger droppings to roll in and so on.
The walk is about twenty minutes out and twenty-five back (on slightly weary legs). The peace is welcome and the occasional bit of wildlife lifts the spirit; and I recall the rural environment of my youth. At that time I used to cycle along a farm track to the village, and as likely as not startle a covey of partridges, a wheatear or a yellow hammer, and I would usually hear a sky lark. The estuary bank would be lively with numerous waders, shelduck and little terns (which I believe are quite rare now). I am well acquainted with the propensity of the old to reminisce and am aware how easy it is to bore the listener, so I try to give nostalgia a miss – but I got to wondering what the next generation of pensioners would look back on with fond memory.
There is a point on the walk when the track crosses a bridge over the main Truro Falmouth road, and the noise of the traffic permeates the air from some distance off. The road is busy with commerce and commuters, often with a tailback from the junction. Even twenty years ago there was not a quarter of the traffic there is now, and although I can’t resist the temptation to lean on the parapet to watch (and smell) the flow, I still feel irritation at the crude intrusion into the quiet day.
But perhaps in 30 years time, a walker like me will be thinking back to these times, with a nostalgic tug, remembering the busy roar of diesel traffic, and wondering where it all went! When the oil industry is effectively dead, when most of the traffic is electric, and when long-distance road traffic is as rare as the little tern, and people no longer commute because they work from home by phone and internet, will this walker regret the passing of all this way of life, as I do the tranquillity of my youth? And will he welcome back the butterflies and the bees which are struggling to survive? Will he curse as a newly invigorated dawn chorus wakes him, when our wild birds find habitats returning under the new environmentally appropriate farming methods?
Or will he simply curse the destruction wrought by the generations before his?
The walk is about twenty minutes out and twenty-five back (on slightly weary legs). The peace is welcome and the occasional bit of wildlife lifts the spirit; and I recall the rural environment of my youth. At that time I used to cycle along a farm track to the village, and as likely as not startle a covey of partridges, a wheatear or a yellow hammer, and I would usually hear a sky lark. The estuary bank would be lively with numerous waders, shelduck and little terns (which I believe are quite rare now). I am well acquainted with the propensity of the old to reminisce and am aware how easy it is to bore the listener, so I try to give nostalgia a miss – but I got to wondering what the next generation of pensioners would look back on with fond memory.
There is a point on the walk when the track crosses a bridge over the main Truro Falmouth road, and the noise of the traffic permeates the air from some distance off. The road is busy with commerce and commuters, often with a tailback from the junction. Even twenty years ago there was not a quarter of the traffic there is now, and although I can’t resist the temptation to lean on the parapet to watch (and smell) the flow, I still feel irritation at the crude intrusion into the quiet day.
But perhaps in 30 years time, a walker like me will be thinking back to these times, with a nostalgic tug, remembering the busy roar of diesel traffic, and wondering where it all went! When the oil industry is effectively dead, when most of the traffic is electric, and when long-distance road traffic is as rare as the little tern, and people no longer commute because they work from home by phone and internet, will this walker regret the passing of all this way of life, as I do the tranquillity of my youth? And will he welcome back the butterflies and the bees which are struggling to survive? Will he curse as a newly invigorated dawn chorus wakes him, when our wild birds find habitats returning under the new environmentally appropriate farming methods?
Or will he simply curse the destruction wrought by the generations before his?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
