Category Archives: Uncategorized
Ralph Underhill cartoon
The bluffer’s guide to fracking: Hydraulic fracturing -Wikipedia Daily Telegraph Guardian BBC
Bitterly disappointed, hugely disappointed, shameful, pitiful, appalling, lamentable…
Bitterly disappointed, hugely disappointed, shameful, pitiful, appalling, lamentable… That’s how the Wildlife Trusts, Marine Conservation Society and RSPB described Defra’s announcement that it was consulting on designating just 31 of 127 marine sites selected by a lengthy, inclusive and costly process involving hundreds of people. Further progress might be made next year. Defra described this …
Who you are, or at least, who you say you are.
The Readers’ Poll was filled in by just over 400 of you – thank you. You seem to be like me: 82% living in England, 75% male, middle-aged, Guardian reading, wildlife-magazine reading, potential Labour voting, RSPB members. Well – there’s a surprise! This blog now gets c8000 unique visitors each month. I would guess, and …
Bankrupt policies from Defra
Last week George (Gideon) Osborne had to do something different because it was clear that his economic policies weren’t working (he did the wrong thing, but he did have to do something) whereas there is no sign that Defra is going to do anything different even though their policies aren’t working either. The differences between …
Swanwick
I spent yesterday at the BTO Conference at Swanwick and left feeling slightly foolish. Foolish, because although I have attended many BTO Conferences in my time, that is the first for a good many years, and I enjoyed it so much that I felt foolish for having missed out over recent years. The conference theme …
Butterflies in the landscape, and a Christmas present too
I’m sorry I can’t attend the launch today of a marvellous report by Butterfly Conservation. Landscape-scale conservation for butterflies and moths – lessons from the UK is a superb document about how to do nature conservation. Few of our UK conservation organisations could produce something so impressive in terms of demonstrating how to conserve threatened …
Biomass – dirtier than coal?
Last week I pointed out that every form of energy production has snags – and suggested that we should give a higher priority to reducing our energy needs. Here’s another example, and it’s rather similar to the situation regarding biofuels (described in Chapter 13 of Fighting for Birds). Using biomass to fuel power stations looks …
Support the National Trust please
This blog has touched on the performance of the National Trust as a nature conservation organisation a few times (including yesterday) and hasn’t always been gushing in its praise for that immensely successful organisation – immensely successful in selling itself, nice cakes and a day out, that is. But fair’s fair and here is an …
Public says Government is failing on the natural environment
The public aren’t stupid – they have noticed that the Coalition Government is failing on its own commitments to Britain’s natural environment. Of those surveyed, less than a quarter (23%) think the Government is doing enough to protect our landscapes and wildlife – on land and at sea. These results come from a survey organised …
Turbulent turning turbines
Last week the coalition government came out with their energy policy proposals. It can be seen as a small victory for the Liberal Democrats in the government that the worst excesses of Conservative climate-scepticism were pushed aside. There will not be a new dash for climate-changing gas but a dash for renewables and nuclear. We …