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July 2007 Archives

July 12, 2007 - The Great Global Warming Swindle

So that’s it: any residual idea that Channel 4’s notorious documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle” has the remotest vestige of good science about it is now permanently scotched. A new analysis of data on the energy radiated from the sun over the last 25 years shows that solar activity has been decreasing, not increasing, during that time – which is exactly the same time as the Earth has been getting hotter, with ten of the last twelve years the hottest on record.

The idea that rising emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are being caused by rising temperatures from increased solar radiation – rather than the other way round – is now as dead in the water as Alistair Campbell’s literary pretensions. Professor Lockwood’s data (published on Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society) must also be the final blow to the professional reputation of the lying, bullying, over-rated little git that is Martin Durkin – the producer of “The Great Global Warming Swindle”.

If I sound a touch bitter, it’s because I am. It’s down to dorks like Durkin (including, I’m sorry to say, my old friend David Bellamy, who has turned into another of those flat-earth denial merchants) that an almost unbelievable 56% of people in the UK still believe that there’s a major scientific controversy about what’s causing climate change – according to the latest Ipsos MORI opinion poll. These people have a lot to answer for.

Posted on July 12, 2007 11:05 AM | | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

July 13, 2007 - Planning White Paper

Let battle be joined! Earlier this week, a coalition of some of the UK’s most influential environmental NGOs decided to go to war with Gordon Brown and his government on the new Planning White Paper.

This White Paper is all about accelerating planning decisions on major infrastructure projects – based on the theory (which, it has to be said, is mostly unsubstantiated) that current planning processes get bogged down in wholly unnecessary delay. So there will be a new, independent Commission to decide on key infrastructure issues – such as airports, power stations, waste disposal facilities, ports, roads, etc. And the work of the Commission will be guided by a sequence of new National Policy Statements in all of these different areas.

So here’s the issue: if these National Policy Statements have sustainable development absolutely at their heart; and if the new Commission has sustainable development as its overarching statutory remit; and if government meant what it said about consultation, community empowerment, localism and so on, then the Planning White Paper could be seen as a positive development for delivering more sustainable outcomes through the planning process.

However, the NGOs have come to the conclusion that all those big IFs just won’t be delivered on by government – hence the new coalition firing off a tactical warning barrage putting Gordon Brown “on notice” that this could become the first big test of his own application of the principles and practice of sustainable development.

The Sustainable Development Commission is currently advising government on all this, and we suspect that NGO-angst may be just a little premature. But the Government is not helping itself by letting it be known that the current Air Transport White Paper provides a useful “template” for all future National Policy Statements. Excuse me!! As the Commission made clear at the time, the Air Transport White Paper falls so far short of anything even vaguely resembling a proper sd-proofed process as to leave one gob-smacked at the nerve/bravado/ foolhardiness/insanity of anyone in government proposing that this is what the future holds in terms of embedding sustainable development at the heart of future National Policy Statements.

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Posted on July 13, 2007 4:53 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

July 18, 2007 - Manchester to London by Air?

One thing both Caroline and I will be taking heart from is the news that the Manchester-London air route has seen a 10% reduction in passengers over the last year. The Manchester Airport Group attributes this to the increasingly lively debate about the impact of flying on climate change (see above!) and other environment issues, thanks to some rather smart marketing by Virgin - not only how much better it is travelling on the upgraded west coast mainline, but how much more environment-friendly. Interestingly, the Manchester Airport Group thinks things can only get worse (from their point of view), despite their recent decision to become a completely carbon-neutral airport by 2015.

This decision clearly had little impact on Macclesfield Borough Council, which has persuaded a high-level Planning Enquiry that Manchester Airport should not be allowed to expand onto surrounding (Green Belt) land – despite every effort on the part of Manchester City Council itself (which is the biggest shareholder in Manchester Airport Group) to secure planning permission to enable a massive increase in flights. The big guys don’t always win!

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Posted on July 18, 2007 9:36 AM | | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

July 27, 2007 - The Floods

I live in Cheltenham, just down the road from Tewkesbury and Gloucester, both of which have been affected much more seriously than Cheltenham itself. It’s still bloody miserable for tens of thousands of people in the region, exacerbated by the fact that water supplies are likely to be off for another week or so.

It’s amazing how quickly the “lots of energy” of “all being in it together”, solidarity in adversity and all that, wears off, as does the novelty factor of having no water. It’s just a pain in the neck, especially as our water butt is about to run empty. But the question that’s preoccupying me is how long-lived will the impact of this trauma be? Will it sway the waverers, bring them out of their bunkers of denial on climate change (no, it’s not going to be fun, and who cares if we are able to grow wine in Wigan), and stop them heading off to B&Q to buy their wretched patio heaters?

It’s been encouraging to hear Ministers (including the Prime Minister) linking the floods directly to climate change, which will help, but amongst my many nightmarish visual memories of the much-missed John Prescott is one of him in his green wellies in flood waters in Chichester (or somewhere in Sussex) at least five years ago, categorically asserting that those particular floods were the direct, indisputable, cast-iron consequence of climate change. So why didn’t everybody believe him then? (I don’t really need an answer to that one, by the way!)

BBC - Floods at a glance
Guardian Flood Pictures

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Posted on July 27, 2007 9:34 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

July 30, 2007 - NFU and vegans

I’m in trouble with the NFU. Not my fault, it has to be said, but a no doubt wonderful organisation called the Redditch Vegetarians and Vegans has issued an ‘eco-poster’ directly attributing these words me: “You make a bigger contribution to stopping global warming by becoming vegan than by switching to an eco-friendly car”.

Tut-tut, you Redditch Veggies! As you well know, what I actually said, back in January 2006, was as follows:

"Researchers at the University of Chicago have calculated the relative carbon intensity of a standard vegan diet in comparison to a US-style carnivorous diet, all the way through from production to processing to distribution to cooking and consumption. An average burger man (that is, not the outsize variety) emits the equivalent of 1.5 tonnes more CO2 every year than the standard vegan. By comparison, were you to trade in your conventional gas-guzzler for a state of the art Prius hybrid, your CO2 savings would amount to little more than one tonne per year."

I think everyone would probably agree:

(a) I am not a researcher at the University of Chicago;
(b) It’s very bad form sticking words into a person’s mouth from which they never emerged;
(c) That this is a very important issue which should indeed be discussed -intelligently and tolerantly – as I’m sure the NFU would agree.

So here’s a warning to the Redditch Veggies: do not, on pain of a torrent of incandescently angry emails ever mis-quote me again, let alone mis-quote what I am about to say now:

“Researchers at the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan have carried out a life-cycle analysis of beef production which shows that 'a kilogram of beef leads to the emission of greenhouse gases with a warming potential equivalent of 36.4 kilograms of CO2' (New Scientist, 21.7.07). To help you get your head around this, that’s equivalent to the amount of CO2 emitted by the average car over a distance of 250 kilometres."

As the (very) occasional consumer of (organic) beef, and preferably reared by people I know personally, I still feel a bad headache coming on at the concept of ‘beef offsets’ looming in my mind. No aspirin being to hand, a large malt whisky is clearly needed, were it not for the fact ……..

“Researchers at Strathclyde University have just carried out a life-cycle analysis of a ten-year old Macallan single malt whisky, which shows … “

They haven’t, actually! And even if they had, and shown that the production of a bottle of the same caused the emission of CO2 equivalent to flying from Birmingham to Speyside (which of course I wouldn’t dream of doing anyway - so relax Caroline), I wouldn’t give a damn.

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Posted on July 30, 2007 5:17 PM | | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

July 31, 2007 - The unintended consequences of the smoking ban

On what must have been just about the only sunny day in July, I found myself last week enjoying the evening sunshine sitting outside a London pub with a group of equally sun-loving escapees from an exceptionally tedious conference. Eight tables outside, rapidly filling up, with people who, to a man and woman, were smokers. Serious smokers.

Sod’s law, we were of course downwind of all of them, and within a few minutes, we were driven inside by fear of instantaneous secondary cancer. A smoke-free haven awaited us, but apart from that it was a pretty grotty, entirely unappealing pub. So we moved rapidly on.

I hardly ever used to go into pubs, because of the smoke, but would enjoy sitting outside when weather permitted. No more, it would seem.

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Posted on July 31, 2007 11:22 AM | | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

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