Category Archives: environment

current affairs, environment

Climate Change and Airport Expansion

In a comment piece entitled Climate change means no airport expansion — at Heathrow or anywhere in yesterday’s Guardian, George Monbiot has got his knife out again.
His thesis is that:

The inexorable logic that should rule out new sources of oil, gas and coal also applies to the expansion of airports. In a world seeking to prevent climate breakdown, there is no remaining scope for extending infrastructure that depends on fossil fuels … While most sectors can replace fossil fuels with other sources, this is not the case for aviation … Aviation means kerosene.

Essentially The UK cannot meet it’s climate change commitments now and building another airport runway (whether at Heathrow, Gatwick or anywhere else) is only going to compound the problem.
We have to fly less — for both business and leisure. Business has to wake up to the fact that it doesn’t have to fly people around the world — or even drive them around the country — to meetings. We all have to wake up to the fact that we cannot afford — environmentally, and probably soon financially — to jet off around the world on holiday several times a year.
I know I keep saying it, but it really is time to wake up and smell the coffee at home!
[And no, Monbiot doesn’t make this stuff up. There’s a fully referenced and linked version of the article at http://www.monbiot.com/2016/10/19/the-flight-of-reason/.]

current affairs, environment, science

Hinkley Point

After halting everything for a few weeks to allow time for a review, Prime Minister Theresa May has now given the go-ahead for the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.


And I have to say, about bloody time too!
While I accept that nuclear power presents us with long-term waste storage issues, we desperately need nuclear for electricity generation. Renewables, in my estimation, aren’t going to hack it even if we do cover the country in windmills and manage to constrain our thirst for ever more energy.
No, nuclear isn’t without its challenges, but it is a whole bunch cleaner, less productive of “greenhouse gases”, and indeed overall safer, than coal, oil, gas or even biomass generation.
And yes, like many, I’m not entirely happy with the major involvement of a French energy company (EDF) or the need for Chinese funding and technology — but then we go longer have the skills etc., largely due to past government neglect of science and technology. So I still believe this is, overall, the right decision for both the country and the environment.

current affairs, environment, topographical

Lumley's Folly

So, Joanna Lumley and Thomas Heatherwick’s pet vanity project, London’s so-called Garden Bridge, is coming under increasing scrutiny. And it seems to me rightly so as the whole thing appears to have been stitched up behind closed doors with a total lack of transparency, especially around the financing.
Finally London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has instigated a full review of the project. Khan had previously declined to commit further public money to what is basically a private, commercial, project. The review is to be undertaken by Margaret Hodge MP, the former chair of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee.
While we don’t know the details of the review’s terms of reference, it has to be a good thing providing Margaret Hodge is, and can remain, independent and unbiased.
Meanwhile London blogger Diamond Geezer has taken a somewhat cynical (and sarcastic) look at the project.
In my view it is high time this appalling project was kicked irredeemably into touch.
PS. I decline to (re)post images of the bridge design etc. but if you want some pictures of the location then do look at Diamond Geezer’s post.

environment, natural history, photography

Nationally Scarce

Now this is something I never expected o see here in West London! Noreen found it on the (inside of) the study windows late last evening. It’s a (female) Jersey Tiger Moth.
I’ve only ever seen one once before, in Lyme Regis some 10 or more years ago. They are apparently “nationally scarce”. Once restricted to, yes, Jersey, they are most common along the coastal areas of the South West, although they are obviously spreading and there are now reports from the London area. Instantly identifiable as a Tiger Moth, the size (that’s a 5mm grid), pattern and the distinctively striped head are diagnostic. Oh and they like Buddleia, and we have a bush not far from our back door.
Sorry not brilliant pictures as this was lively, so contained in a plastic bug-catcher, being photographed with my point-n-shoot late at night with flash. I have removed the slight colour-cast from the images, I hope without destroying the moth’s colours.

Jersey Tiger Jersey Tiger
Click the images for larger views on Flickr

[More info on the moths here and here.]
Oak Bush CricketAlso found this morning on our bathroom ceiling was this gorgeous little Oak Bush Cricket. The body is about 17 mm long and note those spectacular antennae which are three or four times the length of the body.
These are not scarce; we often get them in the house at this time of year — one of the benefits of having trees in the garden (including an oak) and being close to woodland. They’re very forgiving creatures and will happily sit still to be photographed, unlike captured moths.

environment, links, science, sexuality

Your Interesting Links

So here’s this month’s collection of pointers to articles you may have missed the first time round. And you’ll be pleased to know there is (almost) no mention of the political omnishambles in the UK.
Science & Medicine
Ooo-eerrr. Did you know you can actually see the evidence for evolution on your body? Goose-bumps. Ear muscles. And more. [Short video]
Why do we have so much trouble with our modern reinforced concrete but ancient unreinforced structure don’t?
Bigfoot — the American version of the Yeti. What if it actually was real?
Sexuality
[Not for the faint-hearted] One man tells what it is like to have 90 degree bend in his penis. Apart from painful, that is.
[NSFW] Girls, have you got a pain in c***? If so it might be vulvodynia. And like bent pricks it can be just as painful and is often curable.
[NSFW] Female Ejaculation. Myth or reality? Here’s some more investigation.
Environment
Given that we should all be concerned to conserve water, mathematicians reckon that we should always pee in the shower.


Beavers. They’re definitely beginning to make a difference to the ecology down in Devon. And it’s all for the good.
Samphire, aka Glasswort. It’s that tiny green, succulent-like plant that is sometimes served with fish. And it is a superb defender, and stabiliser, of our coastlines.

Social Sciences & Business
I promised (almost) nothing about the UK political situation. This is the one exception, and it is really sociology we already knew. There are five lessons which have been brought into sharp focus by the current mess.
I find it surprising that apparently pet ownership is in decline. This article looks at some of the possible reasons.
No apology for returning to one of my regular themes: nudity. Jess Staufenberg in the Independent argues that nudity and naturism is ‘best way to teach sex education’ to children. I agree; and it certainly seems to work for the Dutch.
History
Edward Johnston designed his iconic typeface for London Underground during WWI and, although it has been tweaked over the years, Transport for London have brought it up to date for its centenary. This is the history.
Shock, Horror, Humour
Finally, not so much something shocking or amusing but something philosophical to make you think from zen master, Brad Warner. What if we’re wrong? About everything. And there’s good (if circumstantial) evidence that we might be. And there’s a follow up on life after death.
More next month.

current affairs, environment

Alternative Garden Bridge

As reported in the Guardian a few days ago, architects Allies & Morrison have come up with a much more affordable version of London’s proposed Garden Bridge — an ill-conceived, cabalistic vanity project if ever there was one. And because it is affordable, and thus won’t be burdened with huge debts or the demands of corporate sponsors, it can be a truly open public space. Basically they are proposing to reuse some of the space on Blackfriars Bridge — a resource which already exists. This sounds eminently feasible.


The Garden Bridge project should be killed — and no I don’t believe Mayor Sadiq Khan when he says it will cost more to cancel it than complete it. This alternative deserves to gain traction.
Read the full Guardian article and Allies & Morrison’s description.

current affairs, environment, ramblings

Zombie Trains

There was a very illuminating article by Simon Jenkins in yesterday’s Guardian under the banner

HS2: the zombie train that refuses to die


In it Jenkins writes the biography of the HS2 rail project — and how over the years it has been fiddled and fudged by governments and interested parties when there is basically no business case, or any other justification, for it.
Whether you agree with Jenkins or not, it doesn’t make very edifying reading.
My view has always been that HS2 is another classic example, like London’s proposed Garden Bridge, of an unjustified vanity project which has got completely out of hand and sucked in politicians who can’t now be seen to back down. Heathrow’s Third Runway isn’t too far behind either. These mega projects are seldom more than politicians “willy waving”.
They’re all projects which need to be killed off — FAST!
If we’ve got that amount of money to waste spend then it would be better spent on more useful infrastructure projects. Let’s start with a couple of nuclear power stations to reduce our dependence on imported coal and dirty oil with a reduction in CO2 emissions.
I despair of politicians, I really do. Doomed! We’re all doomed!

environment, photography

Weekly Photograph

This week a photograph from a few weeks ago, taken on a rather hazy (read, polluted) morning on the way into central London on the A40. I was struck by the sheer amount of metalwork adorning the sky as well as the road.

Metalworks A40
Metalworks A40
Acton, London; May 2016
Click the image for a larger view

environment, ramblings

Oddity of the Week: Street Names

This week we’ll take a quick look at street names. Not just any street names but the less salubrious ones that could have been found in historic London.
John Rocque’s 1746 map of London, a brilliant resource, shows an absolute warren of little alleys, courts and slightly larger lanes. Many, of course, took their names from local inns, churches, commercial establishments or trades. Hence …
Thread Needle Street, which now houses the Bank of England.
Black Friars, named for the nearby monastery.
Of Alley (near Strand) which is one of a group of streets named for the various components of landowner George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham’s name and title.
Dunghill Mews, off Trafalgar Square, which is now the site of the Canadian High Commission.
Whore’s Nest, a self-explanatory name of a courtyard in Southwark along with the nearby Dirty Lane, Foul Lane and Little Cock Alley.
And then, of course there are the even more ribald. London was not the only place to sport a Gropecunt Lane, in fact London apparently had several so named. To which we can only add Shitteborwelane (now Sherborne Lane) off the now King William Street, which was so named to the vast amounts of ordure it once contained.
But one of my favourites, and not at all salacious, is the relatively recent Ha-Ha Road in Greenwich.


The Londonist has more!

amusements, environment, history, science

Oddity of the Week: Curly Pigs

The Mangalica (or Mangalitsa) is a Hungarian breed of domestic pig. It was developed in the mid-19th century by cross-breeding Hungarian breeds from Szalonta and Bakony with the Serbian Šumadija breed.


The Mangalica pig grows a thick, woolly coat similar to that of a sheep. It is a quick-growing, “fat-type” hog which does not require any special care, hence its popularity in Hungary.
The only other pig breed noted for having a long coat is the extinct English breed the Lincolnshire Curly Coat.
Lots more on Wikipedia.