Science Succumbs to Murdoch

On 18th September this blog featured an article entitled 'Write Your Own News'. The case for not trusting the media has just got a lot stronger.

I missed this news first time round, but I have discovered that The National Geographic Society has been bought by Rupert Murdoch's Fox media. See the Washington Post Article.

The National Geographic Society does incredibly important work on climate change -- from publishing groundbreaking stories to giving grants to scientists. But 73% of it is now owned by climate change denier, Rupert Murdoch. Fox Media has paid 725 million dollars for a deal which includes National Geographics' magazines, maps, books, TV channels and digital media platforms,

For 127 years The National Geographic was a respected nonprofit science magazine. Now, however, the new Fox-controlled company, National Geographic Partners, will be run for-profit, and it will answer to Murdoch’s shareholders -- via its board. Fox's CEO is Murdoch's son, James. Rupert Murdoch is well known for meddling with media content.

I have signed a petition to ask that a Public Editor is appointed to enforce editorial independence and represent the public, investigating complaints of editorial interference. Please sign this too.

TTIP - the nightmare being secretly negogiated

There have already been a few blogs on this site about TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership).  The Establishment Media, however, remain relatively quiet on the issue as do the politicians, officials and business people negotiating on the issue.

The War On Want definition is a good one:

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a comprehensive free trade and investment treaty currently being negotiated – in secret – between the European Union and the USA. As officials from both sides acknowledge, the main goal of TTIP is to remove regulatory ‘barriers’ which restrict the potential profits to be made by transnational corporations on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Yet these ‘barriers’ are in reality some of our most prized social standards and environmental regulations, such as labour rights, food safety rules (including restrictions on GMOs), regulations on the use of toxic chemicals, digital privacy laws and even new banking safeguards introduced to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.
 

Trade agreements are hard to get your head around and see how they could impact on you.  It is therefore good to have a few concrete examples.

According to sumofus.org the agreement would mean 'Europe would increase US fossil fuel imports - resulting in more fracking in the US, an increased reliance on fossil fuels in the EU and more climate emissions across the board.'

TTIP would allow fossil fuel companies to sue governments for trying to tackle climate change. Similar rules in other trade deals have allowed Swedish energy company Vattenfall to sue Germany for phasing out nuclear power and replacing it with renewables. In a secret court, the company is demanding a whopping 4.7 billion Euros in compensation.

I have just signed a 38 Degrees petition against TTIP with a view to helping bees. TTIP is great news for Syngenta and the big pesticide companies. But awful news for our bees and the vegetables, flowers and hedgerows they pollinate. At the moment the EU has banned bee-killing pesticides, but under TTIP the pesticide companies could sue Europe for banning their environmentally deadly products.

The EU has already made worrying concessions to the US to facilitate the TTIP deal by dropping plans to regulate hormone-damaging chemicals linked to cancer and male infertility.

Our Green MEP, Molly Scott Cato and other Green MEP's are fighting hard against TTIP.  Molly supported the Day of Action against TTIP on 22nd August.

If the above does not get you angry see this article in the Independent suitably entitled-

'If you're not already terrified about the potential human cost of TTIP, these examples will do it.'

Hinkley C and the BBC

Powerful letter from Dr Ian Fairlie, independent nuclear consultant (http://www.ianfairlie.org/about-ian-fairlie/) to the BBC - shared by Angela Paine, a leading campaigner to stop a new nuclear power station being built on the Somerset coast (http://stophinkley.org/) and local green activist:

Sirs

Your programme on Hinkley C (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n67xn) was perhaps one of the worst-informed, biased and misleading I've heard in a long time.

Have you no independent researchers who could dig a little deeper on this contentious matter?

Why no discussion of the truly extraordinary construction costs - £24.5 billion - and rising? This is more than double the cost of the 2012 UK Olympic Games...for one power station. And the mindboggling price support subsidies, estimated at another £35 billion over the life of the station assuming it is ever built? These have been severely criticised - even by Conservative politicians and bankers.

And the fact that the EPRs [nuclear reactors] under construction in Finland and France are in serious legal, technical, and financial difficulties? Both projects being years behind schedule and £billions over budget?

And the fact that the EPR is an experimental design and may not even work in practice, given its over-reliance on myriads of untested computer programs?

You and your colleagues may say that nuclear is low carbon, but this is naive: of all the methods of generating  low carbon electricity, nuclear is the least economic, by some margin.

For heaven's sake, where was the balance in your programme?

Yours in anger

Sadly, another thing to be cross with the BBC about! If you heard this R4 'You & Yours' programme last week, please consider joining Ian in contacting them with your thoughts / complaints...

Keep an eye on your river

c. Russ

With rainfall heavy, Stroud has already seen a few flash floods causing traffic hazards and getting into buildings this autumn. There could well be more to come, and as climate change increases climate chaos, our weather systems will get ever less predictable.

That makes it important to be able to get up to date information on what is actually happening.

The Shoothill GaugeMap is the first interactive map with live river level data from over 2,400 Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales river level gauges in England and Wales.

it gives details of all 11 gauges in Stroud District.


The extensive network of river level gauges across England and Wales covers all the major rivers as well as many smaller rivers, streams and brooks. The data displayed on each of the river level gauges on GaugeMap is recorded at 15 minute intervals by the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales.



www.gaugemap.co.uk

Stroud against climate change

This time a week ago, Stroud marched, alongside hundreds of thousands of people around the world, raising awareness of climate change and calling for sustainability.

Stroud District Green Party were of course there to support the event.


You can see footage from the day from Stroud Community TV.

Gloucestershire Climate Action network sent us this array of links and images from the day. GlosCAN are wholly independent of the Green Party, but we wholeheartedly support their campaigning.

GlosCAN on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/pages/GlosCAN-Gloucestershire-Climate-Action-Network/463742420421949?sk=photos_stream&ref=page_internal

Article, Stroud Life

http://www.stroudlife.co.uk/Hundreds-march-Stroud-combat-climate-change/story-22962934-detail/story.html

 

67 photos, Stroud Life

http://www.stroudlife.co.uk/pictures/Picture-Special-Gloucestershire-Climate-Change/pictures-22963400-detail/pictures.html#1

Article, Stroud News and Journal

http://www.stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk/news/11487062.Stroud_residents_joint_in_solidarity_as_global_day_of_climate_action_made_history/?ref=twtrec#comments

People's Climate - worldwide photos, including 5 from Gloucestershire Climate March 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/peoplesclimate/sets/72157647744096426/page2/

London, People’s Climate March

http://www.campaigncc.org/climatemarchlondon

London, People’s Climate March roundup video 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpXt2cPevK8

New York

Watch the archived live video stream, and see photos

http://peoplesclimate.org/

Links via Facebook to video and pictures from the world’s major events on Sunday – London, Berlin, Bogota, Istanbul, Paris, Rio, Delhi, Melbourne, Johannesburg, Lagos, Amsterdam.

http://peoplesclimate.org/major-events/

Transition re-skilling

From Transition Stroud 

The Great

Re-skilling

Learning for a

Positive Future

Many traditional skills have been lost at a time of increasing dependency on food and goods from around the world.

Yet in an era of decreasing oil supply and the need to reduce energy use to prevent dangerous climate change, the need for thrift and the revival of traditional skills is becoming increasingly important.

Transition Stroud promotes actions that reduce Stroud district’s contribution to climate change.

www.transitionstroud.org

SkillsGain

SkillsGain focuses on those self-reliance skills we will need tomorrow and offers taster workshops in these skills today.

Workshops usually last 2 hours are delivered by skilled volunteers and are open to all residents of Stroud District.

We usually ask for a contribution (£5 or 4 Stroud pounds) to cover venue hire. There may be additional costs for any materials used in workshops.

Through the SkillsGain taster programme it is hoped many people will go on to gain new skills. The skills we need are not just related to practical skills of growing or making things – but also the personal skills we need to maintain our own resilience.  SkillsGain workshops will offer both. So come along to a SkillsGain Workshop – aimed at re-skilling the community for our changing world.

         

Programme of Workshops

for

September to November

2014

SkillsGain focuses on those self-reliance skills we will need tomorrow and offers taster courses in these skills today

Transition Stroud is a volunteer led organisation addressing climate change issues. We work for a future based on local food, sustainable energy, local economies and an enlivened sense of community well-being

SkillsGain

How (and why) to build your own Wind Turbine

Wednesday 1^st October

Time: 7.30 to 9. 30 pm; Venue: Nailsworth

Tutor: Pete Nelson

Cost: £5

We will be carving wooden wind turbine blades based on Hugh Piggott's intermediate technology wind turbine designs.  These can be built anywhere in the world, as they use tools and materials that are readily available.

The workshop will also involve a discussion about 'participatory renewables', or 'what role can you play in the renewable energy revolution?' Pete believes that a renewable energy revolution can only progress if there is greater participation.  Do come and participate

If you'd like to read the designs before the workshop, they're available at Hugh Piggott's website: www.scoraigwind.co.uk . 

If there is enough interest after this short workshop we could organise a longer course building a complete wind turbine from scratch

Pete is a philosophy graduate who segued into engineering, working for a number of years with Hugh Piggott's wind turbine designs and more recently installing mainstream renewables on domestic and industrial sites.
To book:  e mail:

erik.w@virgin.net  or ring 07725 900666

Active Hope Day

 Sunday 19^th October

 Time: 11 am to 4 pm; Venue: Stroud

Tutor:  Fiona Ellis

Cost: Sliding scale: £20 to £10;   

Faced with challenges of climate change, an unstable political world and the tension of living within an increasingly stressed world, it's good to have space to reflect and explore feelings about all this. Joanna Macy’s work over many years has shown this workshop process strengthens people in their choices and resolve about how they live their life or do their work.

Active hope is about the kind of hope you need to carry on, when you do not have certainty about how things will be in the future for you and the next generation.

An opportunity will be made available to discuss the interest in the group meeting regularly

Fiona trained with Joanna Macey in the 1990s and recently again with Chris Johnstone , co authors of “Active hope” and “Great turning time”, and in her professional work is a facilitator and training consultant working with groups for over 30 years. She has lived in Stroud for 20 years.

To book:  e mail:

erik.w@virgin.net  or ring 07725 900666

Seed Saving Workshop

 Wednesday 12^th November

Time: 7.00 to 9. 00 pm ; Venue: Stroud

Tutor: Jane Brown

Cost: £5

 Save Seeds, Save costs and Save some favourite flowers and vegetables for the years ahead!  Learn simple seed saving methods and rules from garden and allotment which can be done in your own kitchen with no special equipment.  Plants growing in your soil will adapt to your conditions and their seeds will become more and more suited to your land over the years.

Jane Brown trained in horticulture and has grown flowers, fruit and vegetables all her life, converting to Organic methods over 20 years ago. 

To Book: email:

johnbrown@cooptel.net  or phone 01453 764853

GlosCAN press release

Climate Change: “we can climb it!”

Gloucestershire Climate March, linked to People’s Climate March in New York, Sunday 21^st September in Stroud.

On Sunday 21 September, people of Gloucestershire are invited to come together in a public statement on the issue of man-made climate change. The aim is to place pressure on governments to develop binding policies to curb CO₂ emissions and to encourage humanity to adopt low carbon initiatives. Since 2007, scientists have developed better tools, and drawing from the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Reports we can be certain about how humans are changing the climate.

The starting point at 12.00 noon is to be Stroud Subscription Rooms forecourt from where the march will progress up to Rodborough Sports Field. Here the plan is to make a large heart-shape to symbolize the things that are cherished: people, habitats and planet, which are under threat from the destabilising build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere. Participants will join in singing, music and picnics!

It takes place on a global day of action, spearheaded by climate campaigning groups 350.org and Avaaz. In New York United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is hosting a Climate Summit to engage leaders and advance climate action and ambition. The Kirklees campaign against climate change argue that globally this will be ‘A weekend to “bend the course of history”’

Participants will sign a declaration and petition, which will be the start of many actions by GlosCAN.

Two planning meetings include one on Tues 9^th Sept, 7 – 9 pm at The Exchange, Brick Row, Stroud, and a preparation day on Sunday the 14^th Sept, 10am to 4 pm, at the same venue, where flags and banners will be made.  Volunteers with an artistic leaning are needed to help make inspiring cloth flags and banners, in green and blue that depict the connections between all forms of life.

GlosCAN committee member, Arun Cappi said, "The event is an opportunity to share information with the wider public, to help the evidence become clear; and to show that it is a fair and scientific assessment of the impact that we are having on the atmosphere."

Event planner, Fred Miller said, "The mountainous challenge that is climate change reminded me of the Bear Hunt story: ‘You can't go round it, you can't go under it, you have to … climb it’ … and ‘Climb it’ sounds like Climate, so that is what we called it."

Fellow GlosCAN committee member, Nick James, said, "It will also be a call to local government to 'up its game’, and commit to 100 percent clean energy for all its operations, and to urgently develop a sustainable zero carbon, local economy."

“It is also a call for leadership from our national government at the United Nations talks that are being held in Paris in December 2015. These talks are a last chance, very late in the day, to put in place global limits on more carbon emissions”, said Vaughan Webber, one of the GlosCAN organisers.

GlosCAN is an independent campaigning group not affiliated to the Green Party. We support them because we share their sense of urgency that climate change is a serious issue that must be faced responsibly. We are glad to host news, press releases, events and announcements from any group, organisation, charity, or business that share our aims and beliefs. 

Coastal Stroud

Regular Ruscombe Green cartoonist, Russ, created this image for us, along with the accompanying words. It's a sobering view, but if efforts are made now, it may not come to this. We can cut CO2 emissions if we put our minds to it, but we have to resist fracking, and be willing to change our lifestyles. We can have a good quality of life without trashing the planet, we just need to stop imagining that 'quality' is the same as 'money'.

Image by Russ

Look at these sea level maps for if all the ice melted:

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/what-if-the-world-s-icecaps-melted-overnight--120351663.html#BoUHyB9

It says 5000 years.......wonder how Stroud fairs. I think where I am is about 50meters above sea level..."Melting all of it would cause the sea level to rise by a minimum of 216 feet (66m)"........just had an idea.....article says sea level rise of at least 66meters....when all ice gone.....just checked on this elevation map, and the Penny Farthing Cafe on the highstreet is about at that elevation....I think it would be good to have some sort of plaque..

http://www.freemaptools.com/elevation-finder.htm

The troubling view from Fairford

Guest post by Kevin Lister

Fairford is darkening the skies of  Gloucestershire again as it hosts B52 and B2 bombers as part of the Saber Strike exercise as they practise for destroying targets in Russia, which happens to be the main gas supplier to the military industrial complexes across Europe.

We would not stand by and do nothing if someone did this to us, and neither does Russia.  They have started reciprocal exercises in the Baltic and their nuclear bombers are patrolling off the US West Coast. It has done nothing other that ratchet up the threat of war.

Does this have any military utility? The answer is an emphatic, "no". We do it to  ostensibly dissuade Russia from seizing the Baltic states.  If they were to do so, would we really set about bombing Russian forces from Fairford? This would almost certainly escalate into a nuclear exchange, one of the first targets of which would be the Fairford Air Base. It would be a suicidal response.

These exercises create too high a risk of error. With the stealth technology of the B2 bombers a tiny blip on a radar screen, that might actually come from migrating ducks, could be interpreted as hostile intent triggering the worst possible nightmare response when thousands of nuclear weapons still remain on hair trigger alert.

Instead, we should be challenging the legitimacy of Russia's new military posture of "de-escalation", which is an Orwellian distortion of language meaning they will fire a first nuclear strike in event of conflict. But we don't do this because to do so would be to undermine our refusal to sign a clear and unambiguous no first use policy for Trident. This is the essence of Trident, so having Trident means we cannot challenge Russia in the international courts and fight to make nuclear weapons illegal.

And the final question for the enthusiasts of the B52 and B2 bombers in the press and who are camping at the end of the Fairford runway is what system are they protecting? A system that see millions of people impoverished by a capitalist banking system while enriching the richest and which has comprehensively failed to address climate change so consigning much of the planet to become a baked wasted land by the end of the century.

We need to speak out against the presence of these bombers in our backyard and all that they represent.

You can read Kevin's blog here - http://kevsclimatecolumn.blogspot.co.uk/

Molly Scott Cato: Carbon and Cornwall

She might not officially start until the 1^st July, but Molly Scott Cato is a bit of a force of nature, and is out there already, using the visibility MEP status gives her to draw attention to important regional issues, and to talk about climate change.

In the last week, Molly has accused energy bosses of undermining pro-climate energy policies introduced by the European Union. Working through lobby group Energy UK, leaders in the industry are attempting to water down agreed policies on climate change Greens say are needed to protect the future of the planet.

Molly said, “It is deeply depressing to discover that the economic elites are still prioritising short-term financial gain over the health of the people of the world and our ecosystems. Dealing with climate change has quite literally reached the stage of an end-game and we simply cannot allow fossil fuel energy bosses to direct climate policy. While scientists are arguing the need to expand our renewable energy generation, the self interests of fossil fuel elites and dinosaur politicians are holding us back. This is all the more tragic for the South West which has considerable expertise and enormous potential in renewable energy technologies. We could be looking at thousands of new jobs producing clean, safe electricity while helping to solve the urgent problem of climate change. Energy for the common good, not profits for the few – that’s the Green approach.”

Molly has also spoken out against the suggestion that the Coalition government will prevent Cornwall from making decisions about how to invest the money it receives from Europe. The EU Structural & Investment Funds will provide more than £450 million of European funding for the region during the 2014-2020 period. Dr Scott Cato is also concerned that the Local Enterprise Partnerships, which have limited accountability, now appear to be being given control over this investment of significant public funds. She said:

“During the European Election campaign I noticed that this government deliberately attempts to take the credit for the benefits Europe brings while being critical of the European project. David Cameron argues that EU reform means bringing powers back to London but as Greens we would also like to see powers devolved further, to the nations and regions of the UK.”

South West Green Party are also calling for a 'Greening of the Convergence' so that investment is shifted towards improved local transport infrastructure and strengthened local economies and away from investment in roads and airports.

Solar money

Apparently, Barclays don’t fancy dirty power as a long term proposition. Have a look at Jessica Shankleman’s piece here http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2347374/barclays-downgrades-us-power-sector-over-solar-threat to find out more details.

It’s one of those issues about the money industry - which might as well be an arcane form of magic for all the sense it makes it most of us. However, the way in which banks and investors imagine money and think the future will go tends to have massive impact on the rest of us, which makes it important to try and get a grip on this stuff. As far as I can make out its about how banks assess risk of bankruptcy in the future, and Barclays isn’t finding dirty energy so appealing or certain. Solar, they think, will change the market.

At present, a frightening number of decisions about the future of our planet, from local planning through fracking, exploiting the arctic and not facing up to climate change.. are all about short term profit. However, even the most profit driven people ought to be able to figure out that running out of finite resources in not a long term business plan. Renewable energy has to be the way forward, and if the people who lead financially are wising up to this, then there is something to be hopeful about.

Resist Fracking!

I have no idea why fracking wasn’t the central issue in the most recent elections. I could have understood if it had taken second place to talking about alternatives to austerity, but that wasn’t the size of it. Those are the critical issues right now, and we ought to be outraged about both.

Fracking is a method for extracting the last dregs of fossil fuels so we can burn them. The process itself takes water and fills it with unpleasant chemicals, and runs the risk of releasing who knows what into the water table. We ought to be really concerned about that. Even if it were the only reason not to frack, it is a good enough reason that we should at the very least slow down and look at it properly.

We have a problem with the amount of CO2 we’ve already put into the atmosphere. The climate is changing and the science is clear. The more fossil fuels we extract and use, the bigger the problem and the less scope we have of averting disaster. In this context, to be squeezing out every last drop looks like madness. We urgently need to move away from fossil fuels and towards cleaner and more sustainable power sources.

If fracking damages your property, your insurance won’t cover it. The government are trying to change the rules so that companies can exploit the resources under your home without your permission. That could be the thin end of a nasty looking wedge. Currently possession is, give or take, about nine tenths of the law. If we cease to have rights over the things we own – where is that going? We ought to be very nervous indeed not just about being fracked from beneath, but about what this undermining of our rights does to us.

The Greens are the only party to be fighting against fracking. There is no evidence to say that fracking will cut energy bills, in fact those who support it have had to admit that it won’t solve much on that score. The damage to our countryside hardly bears thinking about – and that’s damage to homes, farmland, quality of life. It might well be damage to our urban areas too – who knows where this will stop if we don’t make it stop? Fracking will not solve our long term energy problems, and it will add to climate change. It is one of the most irrational, suicidal projects our species has come up with. It is the final word in putting short term financial gain ahead of absolutely every other consideration.

If you want to protest against fracking, visit https://www.writetothem.com/ and contact your MP, and anyone else you can think of. If you want to support the only party fighting fracking, join the Green Party. You can also write to your MP via this Greenpeace page

Biofuels are not Green

Biofuel suggests something natural and sustainable, which is misleading. The majority of biofuel is bad news for the environment and not an appropriate solution to fuel demands.

 

In July 2013, MEPs agreed to cap biofuels, with legislation aimed at curbing the negative impact on the climate caused by land use change due to biofuel production. Displacement of food production and its consequences will also be considered. Biofuel is not carbon neutral, but until this year we’ve not been doing enough to recognise the actual impact of biofuel.

Climate change already puts pressure on the global food supply and food prices. Using agricultural land for fuel will only add to these problems. Putting crops into cars leads to rising food prices and rainforest destruction. Greens think that we should not be using food crops for fuel at all, or using arable land to grow fuel crops instead of food.  

Overwhelming evidence shows that Europe's demand for biofuel accelerates the destruction of tropical rainforests. Green policy is very clear that we should not be exploiting the planet to the detriment of other species. We do not have the right to make other creatures extinct and destroy unique habitats just to put fuel in our cars. We need to recognise that we are part of fragile ecosystems and damage them at our peril. If compassion does not guide us to protect our environment, self-interest really should take us towards the same conclusions anyway.

Some biofuels can contribute to meeting part of our energy needs. Where biofuels are sourced as a waste material, or a bi-product of food production, their use may well make sense. This is mostly likely only relevant at a local scale – for example it makes sense to use waste cooking oil. Local innovations are going to be an important part of our long term fuel solutions, but with an expanding population to feed, we cannot afford to use farmland for fuel and we cannot afford the CO2 impact of replacing rainforests with biofuel crops either.

Ape Alliance campaign in the streets of Stroud most Saturdays, to draw attention to the impact biofuels are having on our ape cousins and raise awareness of other threats to apes and wildlife. http://www.4apes.com/ They are asking members of the public to write to their MP and MEP to request support for a moratorium on the EU Biofuel Directive and its targets and obligations guaranteed. Visit http://www.4apes.com/get-involved/campaigns for more information if you want to raise any of these issues.