Category Archives: Environment

A frog on my shoulder

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I made this for a bit of fun with my granddaughters Lael and Niamh in mind. However while the princes in particular don’t see anything funny about it I didn’t notice any comments on the commercial aspects where huge swathes of rain forest are felled for profit. In the Congo local leaders were tricked into allowing vast areas to be used by furniture manufacturers, so take care when purchasing to make sure that any timber used is from sustainable sources.
http://frog.rainforestsos.org/player/?timelineGuid=bicuvc7zcn

Water equality

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That Israel can get away with murder has long been a fact as far as Palestinians are concerned. If Liebermann had his way we hear that Gaza would have “been nuked”. Already Israeli government members travel in fear of being arrested on war crimes.
Scarce water supplies are withheld from Palestinians so that Israeli settlers can water their gardens, fill their swimming pools while running water is not available to many people. Not that this is the only place on earth where water is used as a weapon. In a way it is the world in microcosm where there are winners and losers in a commodity essential for life and health.
The use of water by multi-nationals for their products is also a major issue particularly in countries like India where land is parched. The biggest of these, Coca-Cola, is also a leading figure on the “World Water Forum”! The water is laced with huge amounts of sugar quite unnecessarily and sold converting a natural resource to a huge health hazard in the process. Although CO2 emissions constantly grab headlines in sustainability issues, water is right up there with big business trying to put respectability back into their profit-driven enterprises.

Copenhagen isn’t the only climate change summit

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The Copenhagen Climate Change Summit was described by Gordon Brown as a last chance saloon, although hopes for something significant in terms of what’s necessary are admittedly low. However “the World” itself appears to mean what people in the western hemisphere what they want it to – that part of it dominated by free markets and a very peculiar form called “democracy”. This is another word defined to suit a purpose in this case the freedom to acquire wealth, however dubious the method, and to cut and run with impunity. You can them have a comfortable lifestyle while the rest do your bidding.
In Southern America the climate is also top of the agenda and not a few countries in the region are taking part. They are even negotiating a common currency divorced from the US dollar.
Fidel Castro’s Reflections on ALBA and Copenhagen.

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Vestas a symbol of what’s wrong with the system

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Vestas on the Isle of Wight is the only company in the UK to manufacture blades for wind turbines. They are closing because there is said not to be a market for them in the UK in spite of Ed Milliband’s recent declaration that the Government proposes to erect many more as a contribution to green energy.
Britain is the windiest place in Europe yet has fewer turbines than elsewhere.
One problem that has to be addressed in current planning law for land-based wind farms.
Objections to them can mean costly delays which discourage manufacturers like the Danish owned Vestas staying here when there are no such problems elsewhere. The blades presently produced are for land-based turbines and are exported round the world.
The government tends to be favouring off-shore farms – because of the present legal problems – which require larger blades of a different design. The firm had said it was going to provide the IoW plant with the £50 million to re-tool.
A worker from Vestas spoke afterwards at Birmingham Council House and described how a group of them had decided to stage a sit-in at their factory. Opposition from Management and police failed when they realised that there was so much support.
Some 600 people marched from Newport to the factory nearby and media interest was such that the building of a 7 foot fence to prevent food supplies was abandoned. The planned injunction to stop the sit-in failed in court when the company did not provide the right documents and the judge strongly disapproved of false information provided to the court.
The Guardian reported that dome workers found dismissal notices under the pizzas supplied by the management. This was meant to prevent the payment of redundancy money. Legal opinion held that this had no validity in law. The feeling of the meeting was that the Government should take control and nationalise Vestas.
Vestas like many other multinationals dislikes unions and when it took over the IoW plant the work force found that their conditions worsened considerably. This action has had support particularly from the RMT and the work force is now unionised. A considerable number of other companies in the island have followed.

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Senseless economics

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Even if you are a die-hard supporter of Capitalism the economics being advanced by this Government (and no opposition party will demur) seem to make little sense. We want, are desperate for, a turn around in carbon emissions. We have one, yes just one plant on the Isle of Wight which produces wind turbines, yet it is faced with closure. The Government says we need many more wind turbines to meet targets.
Here then is a golden opportunity to keep jobs and create more. The work force are resisting while the police are out is force to make sure they don’t succeed.

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Old King Coal looks to be merry again

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There are huge contradictions in making the planet sustainable. Dire warnings and predictions face huge inaction as unrealistic targets fail time after time. As far as energy is concerned in the UK renewable forms are in their infancy. At last the Severn looks as if it will become a source of harnessing the tidal flow.
As far as the Severn is concerned there is a debate about barrages which will stretch across the full width of the estuary and turbines more discreetly located on the river bank. The latter it is claimed will have much less effect on the environment and the rich wildlife in that area.
In Germany whole towns can be seen with solar panels, but in the UK they are a rare sight still. Why?

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Obama sets out his green credentials

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With foreign policy looking depressingly like the old in Afghanistan it has not been too easy to discern the long promised changes the world cries out for. Both Observer and Independent on Sunday agree on their leader (21/12/2008) that appointees on climate change issues make it look like a major change from Bush.
The term “green revolution” is used but as we have seen with so much said about becoming eco-friendly to make changes to our life-style is no simple matter. We are on a tread mill which can’t be turned back, and in spite of a totally discredited and dysfunctional economic system the remedies put forward for its solution are largely more of the same.

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Can London afford Boris?

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Well London has been there and done it where others are still scratching their heads and probably other parts of their anatomy. Seems he’s scrapping extensions to congestion charging after consulting with views of the scheme.
This was one response:
“Abolition of the Western Extension means that London’s fare payers will take yet another hit after the unnecessary above inflation fares increase coming this January.
Boris Johnson has now loaded on the London fare payer £50 million a year through abolition of the CO2 congestion charge on gas guzzlers, £20 million a year through abolition of the cheap oil deal with Venezuela, and now a minimum £14 million a year (too low Evening Standard estimate) to £70 million a year (TfL estimate) through abolition of the Western Extension.
The cost to London’s fare payers of Boris Johnson has therefore so far been between £84 million a year and £140 million a year – bloggers and journalists should be able to hone that down further.
And Boris Johnson used to go on about saving £3 million a year on the cost of the Londoner under Ken Livingstone!
Really Londoners cannot afford the cost of Boris Johnson.”

WillDuff’s profile picture WillDuff
Nov 27 08, 10:24am

Come back Blair? How boring can you get?

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This is a report from today’s Independent (6/9/2008). Evidently the only way New Labour could get extra support is to get Blair back. Since he’s not a M.P he can’t. The Almighty works in mysterious ways.
Put Miliband in and apart from starting World Ward III you’d get no improvement on what you’ve already got. Ditto Straw. With Johnson, Harman or Balls it would be worse. What I’m not clear about is what New Labour think they’re trying to achieve. Charles Clarke has renewed his blustering muttering darkly about the need for a “change of direction”. What I don’t see is any intention for the New Labour architects to allow anyone in. Any moves towards a socialist agenda is met with cries of “no return to the past” – well not any further than the Blair years anyway. Since it these that’s caused the crisis in the first place all you’re doing is to keep digging the hole ever deeper.

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World food crisis. Capitalism to the rescue

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Why is there a crisis in the availability of food world wide? Phil Woolas, another New Labour wonder, knows the answer that we don’t. He goes straight into bed with Monsanto and other huge industrial giants responsible for plundering the earth and exploiting labour. “GM crops” will rescue us. We’ve been here before. No, Mr Blair, going to war is not the answer for dealing with Iraq, you’ve been warned. Privatisation won’t improve the quality of our health, our education, our prisons as we learn to our cost daily.
Learn? We all suffer but members of the government don’t, won’t learn. To solve a problem you need a different approach to the one that put you there in the first place.

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