Guyana’s rain forest

The general feeling about much effort to offset climate change seems “too little, too late” while we continue to extract and burn fossil fuels. In Guyana the leadership is making a request for help in preserving its rain forest. Elsewhere around the globe timber continues to be a huge commercial operation ignoring any consequences.
Good to see that in Australia the population has exercised its collective muscle and mafe clear the widespread dislike of continuing pollution and war supported by the Conservative government. The US has lost an ally, but what is the UK’s attitude? At the moment the fight is on to see who can be more Tory with Cameron reclaiming the Thatcherite policies for education by promising more academies. These look suspiciously like the CTCs.
I spent a short time on the Management Committee of the Solihull CTC. I liked the fact that it brought in the International Baccalaureate which includes students doing field work projects in addition to academic work. A level diets of unrelieved study is bad for the young and extremely exclusive. The problem is that many schools will continue to struggle on low funding. The primary school where I’m a governor is in a deprived area of Birmingham, Winson Green, in the shadow of the prison. It has acquired a huge deficit, largely due to long term absences. I know we are not alone. The fact that the academies are able to introduce what their funders want on the curriculum is also hugely dangerous. We have seen some academies in the North East introduce creationism. That’s the kind of thinking the Neocons behind Bush display and which Blair seemed to relish.


Meanwhile back in Guyana it seems there are already initiatives to preserve its natural resources and its “carbon sink”. It will be interesting to see the UK government’s response to the former colony.

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