Category Archives: environment

current affairs, environment, medical, science

Many Years On …

A few days ago there was an article in the Guardian under the banner Why it’s time to dispel the myths about nuclear power.
Just a couple of snippets:

Chernobyl was a perfect storm, a damning tale of ineptitude leading to needless loss of life. It was also unequivocally the world’s worst nuclear accident. To many, it is also heralded as proof-positive that nuclear energy was inherently unsafe, a narrative adopted by many anti-nuclear groups … But perception and reality do not always neatly align; in the wake of the disaster, the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) and others undertook a co-ordinated effort to follow up on health effects … Despite aggressive monitoring for three decades, there has been no significant increase in solid tumours or delayed health effects, even in the hundreds of thousands of minimally protected cleanup workers who helped purge the site after the accident. In the words of the 2008 UNSCEAR report: “There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure … The incidence of leukaemia in the general population, one of the main concerns owing to the shorter time expected between exposure and its occurrence compared with solid cancers, does not appear to be elevated”.
… … …
Unlike the accident in the Ukraine, events at Fukushima in March 2011 were not the result of ineptitude but rather a massive natural disaster in the form of a deadly 15-metre high tsunami** … While the world media fixated on the drama unfolding at the plant, it lost sight of the fact that around 16,000 had just been killed in a massive natural disaster. Despite the preponderance of breathless headlines since the reality is that five years later, radiobiological consequences of Fukushima are practically negligible — no one has died from the event, and is it extraordinarily unlikely that anyone will do so in future. The volume of radioactive leak from the site is so small as to be of no health concern; there is no detectable radiation from the accident in Fukushima grown-food, nor in fish caught off the coast.
… … …
It is important also to see these disasters in the wider context of energy production: when the Banqiao hydroelectric dam failed in China in 1975 it led to at least 171,000 deaths and displaced 11 million people … None of this is to denigrate the vital importance of such technologies, but rather to point out that every form of energy production has some inherent risk.

Do go and read the whole article.
** It is worth noting again that the containment at the Fukushima plant worked largely as designed. Excepting the natural disaster, the root cause failure appears to have been one of shortcomings in plant external safety design and process which would be just as likely with any major plant.

environment, personal, ramblings

Bathtime

1 Comment

There was an interesting article in yesterday’s Guardian which bears out something I have long thought. It begins …

I shower once a week. Here’s why you should too.
Daily showering is expensive, polluting and unnecessary. The old-school weekly bath or shower — with a brief daily sink-wash — is healthier for the environment, and for us.
When I was a kid, bathtime was a once-a-week affair. We weren’t an unhygienic family — this is just how most of us lived in the 1960s, and I do not remember any horrific body odours resulting from it. By the time I was an adult, I was showering every day. With hindsight, I should have stuck to the old ways.

Indeed so, although in my family bathtime was twice a week, at least for me. If nothing else heating water was inconvenient and expensive in the days before ubiquitous central heating.
As a student I did shower every morning, and often more than once a day as I was playing lots of cricket, squash etc. Otherwise I actually have stuck to my childhood regime. Although it’s a bit more flexible now (partly down to lifestyle and partly as there’s easy hot water) I seldom shower more than a couple of times a week. And even then one seldom needs to spend more than 5 minutes in the shower (according to the article the average shower lasts 10 minutes).
(Now I’m not working, I also seldom shave more than every few days. I can’t stand more than 5 or 6 days beard, but shaving every day gives me far more skin problems.)
Did anyone notice? No of course you didn’t. Most of us don’t lead very dirty lives. Few these days work in dirty industry, down the mines or shovelling muck on the farm — when I concede that a daily bath or shower, after work, would be essential.
Yes, I like that nice, clean, scrubbed and pampered feeling a shower gives you; especially if you can then dive under lovely crisp, fresh bed-linen. It’s pleasant. But it isn’t essential. And on its own it isn’t a good reason for a daily shower (or two).
This is one area where we could go back in time without actually feeling any inconvenience. It would save massive amounts of water; and you would save on the cost of heating that water — both of which would be good for the environment as well as your wallet. On top of which you would probably save some time; and it might actually be better for your skin. That sounds like WIN-WIN to me!
Oh and here’s another take on the question from a plumbing supplier.

current affairs, environment

Publicly Subsidised Flooding?

Yet one more time George Monbiot, writing in yesterday’s Guardian, has his knife in the government’s environmental policy. He maintains that the massive farming subsidies the government have pumped into grouse moors (mostly owned by their chums) are responsible for the widespread flooding in northern England.
While I’m not qualified to make all the connections made by Monbiot, he does seem to have a good point.
Here’s the Guardian article, and here is the fully referenced version.

books, environment, history

Book Review: Burlington

Nick Catford
Burlington; The Central Government War Headquarters at Corsham
Folly Books; 2012
book coverThis is a large, coffee table-sized book full of photographs and maps of the now decommissioned and abandoned government bunker under north Wiltshire.
Nick Catford is one of the country’s most expert and specialist historians and investigators of underground Britain, and especially wartime/military and railway infrastructure, with several books to his credit. He is also an excellent photographer and a leading light in Subterranea Britannica (SubBrit). Which means he gets access to places most people wouldn’t and he’s absolutely the right man to write this book.
The first almost 50 pages provide a blow-by-blow history of the Corsham bunker from the mid-1930s through to it’s demise some 10 or so years ago, but majoring on its Cold War incarnations since the mid-1950s. The reminder of the 215 pages are filled with glossy photographs and charts of the layout of the various areas of the bunker, showing how each area would have been allocated and the now abandoned state of the site — complete with stored hardware, furniture, etc.


The photographs give a good idea of the decay that sets in very quickly when a site like this is abandoned. As yet apparently no roof-falls (at least not in the bunker area), but lots of water seepage and thus decaying wood and metal. Hundreds of new, but abandoned, chairs, blankets, packs of copy paper, telex machines, generators, telecoms infrastructure, catering equipment — it’s all there! It just beggars belief that all this can just be abandoned; one would think that at least the metal (and there must be hundreds of tons of it) could be recovered and sold off for scrap and recycling.

It’s the sheer scale of the enterprise, the government’s inability to organise its way out of a paper bag (certainly with any speed) and the scale of waste which for me makes this book so interesting. Plus the horrendous logistics of setting up the whole outfit, keeping it secret (the code name seems to have been changed every 2-3 years!) and maintaining it in a state of readiness. It all just boggles the mind.
If you are interested in what we get up to underground, things governmental and military or the general disorganisation of the way government goes about planning and implementing projects, you’ll likely find this book fascinating. Or you might just want to have your mind blown! If none of those floats your boat then basically, don’t bother.
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

current affairs, environment

A Right Bag of Cornflakes

Oh dear, dear.
From 5 October retailers in England are required by law to charge 5p each for single use plastic carrier bag. Except when they don’t.
It’s all well and good, and very laudable, in theory. But as with all legislation the devil is in the detail.


And oh dear me! As the Independent on Sunday pointed out yesterday, the system is a mess and is bound to lead to a whole raft of arguments with supermarket cashiers who are going to be at the sharp end of implementing the scheme. I can already picture the low-life having fisticuffs round the checkouts in Asda and Tesco.
Just take two minutes to read the article. Think about some of the implications and it’ll soon become apparent that this isn’t as clear-cut and easy as it needs to be.
If you want more you can always read the Government’s guidance.
What a mess!

environment, food+drink, history, links, nudism, science

Your Interesting Links

So here we are again with another round of links to interesting items you might have missed the first time around. Again not too much heavy science but a lot of oddities …
Cats vs Dogs. Who wins? Well from an evolutionary perspective scientists have concluded that cats are better.


Since when has a Goth Chicken been a thing? Quite a while apparently as it is a recognised breed with black feathers, black meat and even a black heart. And they are highly prized.
We all know we eat too much animal protein, so it’s no surprise that the trend for replacing red meat with chicken isn’t actually helping.
George Monbiot considers evidence that obesity is an incurable disease and asks why then governments are intent on punishing sufferers.
So what is it like if you lose your sense of smell?
There are lots of medical screening tests available but which are really useful and what are the drawbacks?
Michael Ignatieff looks at the ongoing human impact of the Fukushima accident and subsequent clean-up.
So which shall be the master: the Meridian or GPS? It seems they don’t agree where the Greenwich Meridian is by a small matter of 102 metres. which is fine, apparently.
Galileo looked at a pendulum and thus begat GPS. Or how seemingly trivial observations and inventions can have long-lasting and profound effects centuries later.
And while we’re on inventions, a creative man has built a machine to feed his cat — but only when the cat hunts and finds a hidden ball and puts it in a slot machine!
Mention of Galileo makes us turn to history, but let’s start even further back in time … An English academic working in America has been looking hard at the walls of Tutankhamun’s burial chamber and thinks he’s spotted the bricked up entrance to Queen Nefertiti’s tomb.
Now here’s an equally puzzling conundrum. Was Shakespeare stoned when he wrote his plays? Well maybe, because pipe remains found in Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon garden have been analysed and found to contain not just tobacco but also cocaine and cannabis.

Struan Bates at www.EnglishCivilWar.org takes a further look at London’s York House Water Gate, this time as represented by various artists.
Has anyone got a couple of million to spare? If so, Dungeness is up for sale — yes, that large expanse of shingle on the Kent coast. And as it’s a very environmentally sensitive area it needs a suitable owner. Now if I can just win the lottery …

After which it is all downhill (or do I mean down the beach?) …
Guys … Do you want to increase your fertility? If so, take a tip from the Scots and wear a kilt!
Don’t want to wear a kilt? OK, so nudism is another option. Here are two items where young ladies look at the experience of social nudity: the first talks of the challenges of being a lifelong nudist and the second tackles nudity in the interests of research.
Meanwhile Amnesty International has found some sense and now backs the worldwide decriminalisation of prostitution. Is it too much to hope the politicians might now listen? Yes, I thought so.
And finally some words from a working, legal (albeit American) prostitute on the misconceptions people have about the job she has chosen for herself.
That’s all. More anon.

environment, history, links, science

Your Interesting Links

So soon already here’s another round of links to items you may have missed the first time — with rather less difficult science in this issue!
NASA have recently had a spacecraft whizzing past Pluto and they have some stunning pictures as a result, like this jaw-dropping colour image.

pluto

Do skin moisturisers do any good? Well maybe. Here is something on how they work.
On a slightly different chemical tack, why is it that many people think blackcurrants smell like cat wee? For me it isn’t the fruit itself that has this effect but the leaves of blackcurrants and flowering currants.
Girls, now do just be careful because it seems that semen has controlling power over your genes and behaviour (at least when it’s applied in the place Nature intended for it).
While on things sexual … just why do we kiss, when most other animals don’t?
Moving slightly away, here are some good scientific reasons why you should go naked. It’s basically what I’ve been saying for many years.
Now what about our pussies? Just why do cats purr? And for me even more interesting is how do cats purr?

Which leads us back to the age-old question: are cats domesticated or still really wild animals?
George Monbiot has been talking about rewilding for a long time, and it is something which does seem to make a lot of sense. In welcoming the new environmental organisation Rewilding Britain, Monbiot spotlights 15 species which could be brought back to rewild these islands.
The hope is that rewilding is not just good for the environment (for instance lynx would easily control our exploring deer population) but that it will enhance and enrich our lives too.
But hopefully one thing rewilding wouldn’t do is to increase is Mother Nature’s ability to rain frogs and other creatures.
From ecology to, well I suppose ethnology … What is the smallest language which would be useful? Well the constructed language Toki Pona contains just 123 words and really does allow you to say (almost) anything.
And now to a few things historical … A rare medieval gold ring depicting St George has been found in Norfolk. I’m glad the archaeologists know it shows St George, ‘cos it sure as hell beats me.
There has been much in the media recently about British slave ownership in 17th to early 19th centuries. Here the Guardian looks at the history and also the Legacies of British Slave-ownership database which is going to be very interesting for genealogists.
And coming slightly more up to date, I bet you didn’t know much of the history of that British institution the red post box. And yes, they were introduced by author Anthony Trollope, who also lived for some years in my home town.
Now we’re reaching the end of our quest and the penultimate curiosity is that a musician has recreated Leonardo da Vinci’s piano, and it is heard for the first time 500 years after Leonardo sketched it. And no, it isn’t All Fools Day — just have a listen to the video; it could easily be a string quartet.

And finally, just because they are stunningly beautiful, here’s a collection of animated GIFs of some gorgeous cactus flowers. Real natural fireworks!

amusements, environment, photography

Buggered Britain #25

Another in my occasional series documenting some of the underbelly of Britain. Britain which we wouldn’t like visitors to see and which we wish wasn’t there. The trash, abused, decaying, destitute and otherwise buggered parts of our environment. Those parts which symbolise the current economic malaise; parts which, were the country flourishing, wouldn’t be there, would be better cared for, or made less inconvenient.
This delight is near Harrow town centre and, as you’ll see, is part of the grounds of a primary school! And it has been in this state for quite some years.

Buggered Britain #25
Click the image for larger views on Flickr