Category Archives: environment

environment, natural history, science

Ancient Woodland

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Original image “Magic in the Woods” by H2O Alchemist

One of the organisations to which I belong is the Woodland Trust, a charity devoted to the protection of  Britain’s ancient woodlands and the creation of new woodland.  The latest issue of their newsletter Broadleaf has an article on the importance of biodiversity especially as related to woodland.  It contains quotes from zoologist and wildlife presenter Chris Packham, who will be familiar to many in the UK from his TV appearances.  Here are some very edited snippets:

In December 2008, Natural England, the Government’s conservation agency, issued a stark warning […] “Large parts of England remain in biodiversity freefall and we are still witnessing alarming declines in species and habitats” […]

[This is not] news to […] Chris Packham […] “It doesn’t just mean rare species, like giant pandas, red squirrels or dormice; areas of high species diversity, such as rainforests or ancient woods; iconic creatures like lions and badgers; or economically important species, like cod. Biodiversity encompasses the diversity of all living things, from human beings to micro-organisms, the diversity of all the habitats in which they live and the genetic diversity of individuals within a species”.

Packham, who is excited by everything that slithers, slimes, scratches and stings, and thus counts hornets among his favourite animals, has a particular axe to grind about what some people call ‘pest species’. “If they exist in your community they do so because there’s a role for them to play […] And if you consider yourself someone who wants to promote biodiversity that has to include everything: pigeons, wasps, rats, the lot”.

He has no time either for those who complain loudly about sparrowhawks preying on garden songbirds. “Having sparrowhawks snatching blue tits from your feeder is a good thing […] sparrowhawks are at the top of the food chain and don’t exist unless there’s enough food around” […]

Biodiversity is a fundamental part of the Earth’s life-support system. It provides many basic natural services for humans, such as fresh water, fertile soil and clean air. It helps pollinate our flowers and crops, clean up our waste and put food [and drugs] on the table […]

“We need to think more broadly about biodiversity, and the simplest way is via healthy habitats […] Ancient woodland […] has more diversity than any other terrestrial habitat, and we should never forget that a third of all species that live on our native trees live on them when the trees are dead or dying”.

This largely reflects my own thoughts and beliefs.

I especially like the comment about sparrowhawks catching songbirds. As Noreen observes: “What are they supposed to do?  It’s not as if they can go to Sainsbury’s to buy a cheese sandwich for their lunch!”

I love too the comment on hornets. I meet this horror of buzzy, stingy things all too often: “We’ve got a lot of wasps. How do we get rid of them?” Unless you are life-threateningly allergic to wasp stings (as I know some, like my late mother-in-law, are) the answer is: “You don’t. Leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone. They are wonderful predators and without them we would be knee deep in caterpillars etc.”  I’ve actually seen a wasp catch a bumblebee on the wing; bring it down; snip off it’s wings, legs and head; and carry away the body as food for its larvae. That was worth seeing just for the sheer skill and frightening ruthlessness.  Wasps (and all this applies equally to hornets) are also brilliant at destroying dead wood: we have some 12 inch-ish diameter cedar logs by our pond; in a couple of years the local wasps have totally destroyed a couple of them; they use the chewed up wood as paper for nest-building.  It’s wonderful engineering and recycling!

Nature is red in tooth and claw, and we should cherish and celebrate that.  It’s what keeps us alive!

arts, environment, history, photography, pleasures, topographical

Lowestoft Tiles

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Lowestoft Tiles, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This is a mosaic of shots I took when Noreen and I were in Lowestoft for the day in September 2008. Round the edge is a selection of tiles used as part of the paving in London Road, Lowestoft. There is a line of tiles each side of the street (which is pedestrianised) some 10 feet from the shop fronts and spaced a few yards apart. Some were extremely dull; these caught my eye. The local planners, despite all the other dire things they’ve done to an interesting Edwardian seaside resort and port, should have credit for these tiles as they certainly are an unusual and interesting touch to an otherwise boring shopping street. All the tiles appear to have local themes: Lowestoft pottery, fishing industry, holiday resort, marshland, boating, etc. These are just round the corner from the decaying railway station (shown centre). It’s original buildings are approximating to semi-derelict (although still in use) but they retain some of the old decorative arcading and the original 1950s(?) BR station sign overlooking the “town square”.

You’ll get a better idea of the tiles if you follow the links to the individual images:
1. Tile 1, 2. Tile 4, 3. Tile 7, 4. Tile 6, 5. Lowestoft Central Station, 6. Tile 8, 7. Tile 2, 8. Tile 5, 9. Tile 3

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys

amusements, arts, current affairs, environment, quotes, sexuality

You couldn’t make it up …

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More amusing snippets from recent online BBC News items. If you wrote most of these in a nvel you would be accused of being unreasonably inventive.

11 June
Gabonese have turned out to see the body of the late President Omar Bongo arrive back home from Spain, where he died on Monday (8 June).

11 June
The Rubble Club has been set up to help architects through the “trauma” of seeing one of their creations demolished in their own lifetime.

11 June
A man with a fetish for Ugg boots has admitted using the internet to harass a group of schoolgirls.

11 June
Acer chairman JT Wang strenuously denied any suggestion Acer was copying someone else’s invention. “We are not copying,” he said in an interview at … “Innovation is improving on a competitor’s product. That is still innovation for consumers’ value.”

12 June
A burned-out ice-cream van is among 100 works Banksy has installed at Bristol’s museum. “This is the first show I’ve ever done where taxpayers’ money is being used to hang my pictures up rather than scrape them off … many people will say: ‘You should have gone to Specsavers'”, Banksy added.

14 June
As I went closer, I realised with delight that while they had got the tune off pat, the words were just slightly off the mark. Standing tall and proud, the children were calling on the Almighty to “sieve the Queen and her setter, Victoria.” … A French friend of mine, preparing a few snacks to hand round at an English drinks party, implored her guests to help themselves to nipples.

18 June
“Man who catch fly with chopstick accomplish anything.”

current affairs, environment

Air Travel

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There are two items on the BBC News website today about the airline industry which caught my eye.

In the first it is being claimed that the British taxpayer will end up paying the £9bn cost of Heathrow’s third runway because of the “precarious” state of BAA (Heathrow’s owners) finances. Labour MP John McDonnell, whose Hayes and Harlington constituency includes the airport, is quoted as saying

We now believe there will be direct subsidy as a result of BAA’s precarious financial position and the precarious financial position of Grupo Ferrovial globally (BAA’s parent company) and that we will have to actually subsidise the development itself, the construction of the runway and the terminal.

And a junior Transport Minister is also quoted as saying

It [Runway 3] is absolutely vital in terms of our international gateway, vital to our economy, connecting us to growth markets of the future, that has not changed.

Wrong! The third runway is neither necessary nor affordable. It is not necessary because air transport has to contract and become more efficient, if only because of global warming even if there were no world-wide recession.

It is not affordable because the scale of national debt in this country is now absolutely staggering; so staggering in fact that almost whatever any incoming government, of whatever political persuasion, might do we (the taxpayers) are going to be paying off that debt for decades to come. According to Burning Our Money our national debt is now so high it is almost £25,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. What that means is that if every penny of Income Tax we pay were used to pay off that debt it would take at least 5 years just to pay off the principal, never mind the interest. Or expressed another way: average UK house prices are around £225,000, which means you would need roughly 1 person in 5 to sell their house and donate the whole proceeds to the government to pay off the national debt.

How can we afford to build Heathrow’s third runway under such economic conditions? We can’t.

The fact that this really isn’t affordable is further highlighted by the second item that caught my attention. British Airways (BA, not to be confused with BAA) is “asking” its 30,000 staff to work for up to one month unpaid in an attempt to save its financial skin: BA reported a loss of £401m last year. Now my understanding is that any company which cannot afford to pay its creditors is bankrupt; and an employee is essentially a creditor — they provide something (labour) to the company, under contract, in return for money. I have said for a long time that any airline which tells you it is making a profit is either doing so by non-airline business (selling off property, say) or is indulging in creative accountancy. I fail to see how air travel can be viable at the current fares. And let’s remember, BA is not a budget airline; it cannot afford to be; it has an absolutely vast organisation which it cannot afford –as the results show — even with its current inflated fare structure.

So we are going to build a third runway at Heathrow, which we cannot afford, to prop up a global airline industry which is bankrupt and is now predicted to shrink at around 2.5% this year (rather than show the previously expected 5% rise).

Now tell me again why we need Heathrow Runway 3?

amusements, current affairs, environment, science

Zen Mischievous Moments #148

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The following from New Scientist dated 07/02/2009 …

Danger: airborne turtles

BLAMING Canada geese for forcing a US Airways jet to ditch in the Hudson river seems logical. They’re big enough to cause serious damage to any plane that hits them, and thousands have settled around New York City. Sure enough, when we checked the Federal Aviation Administration’s National Wildlife Strike Database at www.planestrikes.notlong.com, Canada geese were high on the list, with 1266 reports of them hitting aircraft between 1990 and 2008, 103 of which were in New York State.

With all three New York City airports close to the ocean, gulls also seemed likely suspects and, yes, over the same period, 1208 gull strikes were reported in New York, out of a total of 9843 gulls that collided with planes across the US. Further scrutiny of the list revealed that other collision victims include 145 bald eagles and 15 black-capped chickadees. An endangered whooping crane was hit in Wisconsin. We began to think that nothing that flies is safe. Then we spotted an entry for turtles.

One can imagine circumstances in which turtles could become airborne, although not of the turtle’s volition. It would, however, seem quite hard to hit a plane with a tossed turtle. Yet 80 turtles suffered this fate, including 23 in New York State. The turtles weren’t alone. Armadillos are, if anything, even less aerodynamic than turtles, yet planes struck 14 of them in Florida, two in Louisiana and one in Oklahoma, although Texas armadillos successfully avoided aircraft. In addition, 13 American alligators hit planes in Florida.

We can report that our mental picture of airborne armadillos, alligators and turtles did not survive long. We were forced to conclude that although the FAA doesn’t specify it, these animals had their collisions with aircraft on the ground, presumably during take-off and landing. It was interesting to note, though, that some terrestrial species seem much better at dodging planes than others. No one reported hitting wolves, bears, sheep or goats, but the toll included 811 deer, 310 coyotes, 146 skunks, 146 foxes, 33 domestic dogs, 18 domestic cats, eight cattle, six moose, five horses, two river otters, and a single unfortunate pig.

current affairs, environment, personal, thoughts, topographical

Predictions for 2009

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I’ve found a number of websites which purport to predict what will happen in 2009; for instance here, here and here. All of this looks to me like fairly non-specific commonsense readings of how the prevailing circumstances may develop, which anyone can do.

On that basis, and based partly on these predictions but mainly on my own hunches, here is my reading of what might happen in 2009.

  1. There will be an assassination attempt (possibly more than one) on Barack Obama after his inauguration as US President. There is an evens chance it will succeed.
  2. The Euro will continue to weaken against the dollar; in consequence both France and Germany may threaten to leave the Euro system. Conversely, due to its weak economy, the UK may try again to join the Euro in the mistaken belief it will make things better; it won’t. If this succeeds it will spell a further major downturn in the UK as businesses attempt to use the conversion as a means of increasing their margins at the expense of the customer.
  3. If Gordon Brown makes another major miscalculation (either in terms of policy or the public’s mood) he will be forced out of office resulting in an early General Election. The result will be a hung parliament with a minority Labour government, which because it is unable to get legislation through will end up deepening the economic woes of the UK. However if Gordon Brown escapes further miscalculations the General Election will be between March and May 2010, with the Labour government being returned to office.
  4. Russia will swing back towards Communism and the corruption that goes with it. This leads to a worsening of relations between the US and Russia, with interesting knock-on effects on the US space programme (NASA could abandon manned space exploration).
  5. There will be a major pollution event which threatens thousands of lives somewhere in the world during the year, possibly in France, Spain or India.
  6. There is also likely to be a major dam rupture killing thousands. This will probably be in the Far East (China is most likely). The appropriate government will be accused of not doing enough, quickly enough, to help but in practice it doesn’t care about losing a few thousand of its people. The dam will not be repaired due to the geology and the high cost.
  7. Having had years of drought there will be heavy rains and major flooding across large areas of Australia.
  8. Britain sees a number of its top companies fail; the holiday, aviation, automotive and construction sectors are most at risk. Of the airlines Alitalia, Ryanair and bmi look vulnerable, as do BA and airport operator BAA.
  9. There will be at least two further failures (or at the least major restructurings) amongst the major High Street retailers; choose from Dixons, Morrisons, Halfords, Primark, Iceland, B&Q, Boots, Superdrug, T.K.Maxx. At least two of the top 10 UK supermarket chains will fail and/or merge.
  10. At least one UK High Street bank will also fail. It will not be rescued by the UK government, who will also not allow it to be absorbed by any of the big four banks.
  11. Work will start on the third runway at Heathrow; however it will be abandoned after little more than 2 years (and with upwards of £5bn wasted) due to a major downturn in the aviation sector worldwide.
  12. 2009 will also see the start of serious international lobbying to move the 2012 Olympics away from London in favour of an existing, cheaper, venue – all due to the worldwide economic downturn. A final decision will not be made until late in 2010 or early 2011; it could go either way.
  13. A well known celebrity (possibly Victoria Beckham) will become pregnant with a long awaited daughter, but she will have a life-threatening miscarriage.
  14. On a global note, Pakistan and Iran will continue to be a threat to world peace with both being driven further into the arms of Islamic extremists.
  15. The global economy will continue to have a very bumpy ride in 2009 with a level of stability returning sometime after mid-2010. However this stability will be at a lower level than heretofore as there is a growing global realisation amongst the people that our previous greed has generated the current cycle of gloom. Governments and business leaders will however not see this and will continue to try to ramp economies back to their pre-2008 levels; they will fail.
  16. There is no indication of any truly major earthquake or volcanic event in 2009; the catastrophically big events are still 2-3 years away. That is not to say there won’t be earthquake events, just that they will not be the cataclysmic ones we are all awaiting.

So there you have it – a mixture of my reading of the current environment and some wishful thinking dressed up as a set of predictions. See anyone can do this based on absolutely nothing and it looks authoritative. I hope I have this all wrong (there is no reason it should be right; I have no known special psychic powers) as it is so gloomy. But I shall claim a triumph if I score anything over a 30% hit rate.

beliefs, environment, natural history, topographical

Recycle Your Christmas Cards

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Those of us who still believe in giving and receiving Christmas cards generate a vast mountain of waste paper every year. This paper is valuable and important because of (a) the number of trees used to make it, (b) its ability to be recycled into more paper products and (c) its potential to occupy valuable landfill and generate greenhouse gasses.

Now I know some people recycle their cards by reusing (parts of) them to make gift tags or other cards. But most of us don’t. So this is a plea … please recycle your Christmas cards!

If you are in the UK** I would ask that you use the scheme run by The Woodland Trust in conjunction with WH Smith, Tesco, TK Maxx and Marks & Spencer. The funds generated from this scheme will be used by The Woodland Trust to plant thousands of trees at sites across the UK – trees which will enhance our enjoyment of the countryside, restore some of Britain’s lost forests and make a major contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gasses.

The scheme’s essential details are:
When: 2-31 January 2009
Where: WH Smith1, Tesco2, TK Maxx and Marks & Spencer3
Why: To create much needed new UK woodland; help to create the largest new native forest in England.
Who: The Woodland Trust
How: Take your cards to bins in participating stores and The Woodland Trust will recycle them and use the proceeds to plant thousands of trees at five UK sites

1 UK mainland WH Smith high street stores (excludes all WH Smith Travel stores, Isle of Wight, Belfast and Channel Islands)
2 Tesco supermarkets plus selected Tesco Express outlets
3 M&S stores plus selected M&S Simply Food outlets

A few more facts from The Woodland Trust’s FAQ:

1. If everyone in the UK recycles just one Christmas card this will generate enough money to plant 15,000 trees – that’s a wood the size of 30 football pitches – and save 1570 tonnes of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases.

2. In the 12 years this scheme has been running, 600 million cards have been recycled. This has enabled the Woodland Trust to plant 141,000 trees, saving 12,000 tonnes of paper from landfill and preventing 16,000 tonnes of CO2 from going into the atmosphere.

3. The UK is one of the least wooded countries in Europe with just 12% woodland cover compared to the European average of 44%. Only one-third of UK woodland is wildlife rich broadleaf woodland, something The Woodland Trust is aiming to double.

4. The Woodland Trust is the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity with 300,000 members and supporters. The Trust has four key aims: (a) No further loss of ancient woodland; (b) Restoring and improving the biodiversity of woods; (c) Increasing new native woodland; (d) Increasing people’s understanding and enjoyment of woodland. Established in 1972, the Woodland Trust now has over 1,100 sites across the UK in its care covering approximately 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres). Access to its sites is free. Further information can be found at http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/.

What about Christmas wrapping paper and Christmas trees? These are not included in the scheme but most local authorities in the UK have schemes for recycling these too. For instance my borough collects Christmas trees at about 20 key sites (mostly local open spaces) across the borough and then composts the trees. And non-plasticised gift wrap can be recycled with other paper recycling.

** If you’re not in the UK then please hunt out the equivalent scheme in your country and at least make sure your Christmas cards, wrapping paper and Christmas trees don’t end up in landfill.

current affairs, environment, photography, thoughts, topographical

London Bridge Sheep


All dressed up and …, originally uploaded by cliffpatte.

Earlier in the week around 500 Liverymen and Freemen of the City of London, many dressed in their royal blue robes and straw boaters, exercised their 11th century right to herd their sheep across London Bridge into the City without paying the bridge toll.

The procession was lead by Lord Mayor of the City of London, and part-time sheep farmer, David Lewis. He was accompanied by his official bodyguards, the Company of Pikemen and Musketeers, in their uniform which dates from the time of King Charles I.

While I was aware of this ancient right, I was not aware that it was ever exercised, and I’m delighted it is! It is these strange and ancient rights which add so much of the colour and eccentricity to English (British) life and sadly too many are being abandoned.

Further reports at, inter alia, Times Online and Daily Telegraph.
And further photos from cliffpatte at Flickr.

Hat tip Jilly at jillysheep.