Category Archives: environment

environment

Treeconomy

How much is that tree in your street worth? Or the one in the park where you walk the dog? Probably a lot more than you think: it could be a five figure sum.

An article in last week’s New Scientist looks at the ways in which a value is beginning to be put on trees, especially urban trees. As the article is behind a paywall, here are some extracts to give you the flavour.

What the Victorians didn’t know [about London’s giant Plane trees] was how bloody big they get … Nor could they have appreciated the true value of the trees, beyond their hardiness and handsomeness
. . .
[Now] “treeconomists” have begun to put a fair price tag on trees, accounting for the services they provide, from keeping our buildings cool to preventing skin cancer.
. . .
[But] trees come at a cost … they must be constantly looked after … particularly … in cities, where ageing or diseased branches can fall on people and property, and roots can break up pavements … [which is why] Sheffield has generated protests … with its chainsaw massacre of 5500 trees, with another 12000 at risk .
. . .
What is important is the trees’ economic benefits … an existing method … which focused on a tree’s aesthetic contribution to a landscape. This typically generated value … in the hundreds of pounds.
. . .
[A] new method, which attempted to capture trees’ worth as an amenity, taking into account their attractiveness and how they accentuate or diminish a sense of place … called Capital Asset Value for Amenity Trees (CAVAT), it starts by multiplying the cross-sectional area of the tree’s trunk by a unit price … that relates closely to what the tree costs to buy, and which goes up with inflation … augmented … to take into account the tree’s species, visibility to the public, local population levels, the size and condition of the leaf canopy, the suitability of the species for its site and the tree’s life expectancy.
. . .
iTree attempts to price up the environmental services trees provide. It combines local weather and pollution data with tree metrics – including trunk girth, species type, canopy size and sunlight exposure – to calculate the value of the services the trees provide. These range from the pollution they remove from the air to the carbon they store, and the run-off into the sewage system they prevent by soaking up rain.
. . .
[There are] four core benefits trees provide: soaking up air pollution, storing carbon, saving money on energy by shading buildings in summer and cooling them in winter, and avoiding the emissions associated with the production of that energy.
. . .
Treeconomics has used iTree and CAVAT to calculate the worth of urban trees across the UK … [in] Hyde Park [they audited] the park’s 3174 trees, including 1188 planes … iTree estimates, their environmental services are worth £208,916 per year. The bulk of this … is the “social damage” cost of the pollution the trees prevent.
. . .
Because the park is in such a densely populated area, and because the trees are large, visible and highly suited to their setting, the amenity value of all the trees there is huge: £52,378 on average for each London plane.
. . .
The next step [is] a tool to help plan tomorrow’s forests … iTree Species, allows an urban forester to rank the environmental services desired in a new planting scheme, including reducing air pollution, wind and ultraviolet light. After plugging in these characteristics, alongside the hardiness required to cope with local geography and weather, and the predicted mature size of the tree, the software produces a ranked list of recommended species.
. . .
If a lamp post falls down or is damaged, people expect it to be replaced – it should be the same for a tree … trees get larger and provide more value as they get older, meaning they need to be preserved, not replaced.

And that makes almost no mention of the importance of the biodiversity supported by many trees – everything from aphids and pollinating moths to crows, all feeding, and feeding off, each other.

No, trees are not valueless. And they can’t be instantly replaced. Planning authorities and developers please note – removing trees for your convenience, even if they are replaced with saplings, is just not OK.

environment

Something’s Rotten

I am appalled at this story from yesterday’s Guardian:

Rotten results: Sainsbury’s drops project to halve food waste

I’m especially appalled at the stupidity of people that they just cannot be arsed to do better than this.

And here’s another “cost of food” story we (yes, including me) quietly ignore:

What is the true cost of eating meat?

These are such good demonstrations of how, as a species, we’re so self-centred that it’s going to destroy everything.

On a slightly different tack, here’s another example, this time from Scientific American:

Global Tourism Has a Bigger Share of Carbon Emissions Than Thought

Like three times bigger! FFS.

Someone please explain to me how anyone can genuinely justify any of this.

Gah! People!

environment

Urban Tree Festival

Anyone who follows along here will know the importance I attach to trees: they create shade, help clean up urban pollution, support a whole raft of important species from aphids to squirrels and owls, provide us with fruit and nuts, as well as giving many of us a great deal of pleasure. Urban trees are especially important as there are many studies showing that a green environment is important for life enhancement.

So I’m pleased to see the announcement of the first ever Urban Tree Festival in London.

The event, which runs over the weekend of 18-20 May, is promising a series of urban tree-related events across London including tree identification, street tree walks, and a close look at London’s Mulberry heritage.

Most of the events are ticketed (via Eventbrite); links are on the Urban Tree Festival events page.

H/T IanVisits

environment, links, medical, natural history, science

Your Monthly Links

Here’s the usual selection of links to articles which interested me and which you may have missed. We’ve a packed house, so on with the show …

Science, Technology & Natural World

Some interesting speculation on whether a pre-human industrial civilisation could have existed on Earth, and whether we would be able to tell.

Apparently European women are twice as likely to be naturally blond as men.

Ravens. The Tower of London has them. So who better to ask about the intelligence of Ravens.

Wasps. There are countless species of them, they’re mostly tiny, and most are parasitic – indeed there’s thought to be at least one parasitic wasp species for every other insect species.

Ants perform triage and launch rescue missions on the battlefield, but only if it’s worth the effort.

Scientists are suggesting that trees may have a form of “heartbeat”, but it is so slow we wouldn’t normally notice.

Why does soil, especially newly wet soil, Springtime soil and forest soil, smell so identifiably?

It seems many trillions of viruses fall to Earth each day – millions per square metre – and it’s not all bad.

A meteorite found in Sudan contains some tiny diamonds, which means it is thought to be the remnants of a lost planet.

Health & Medicine

Do you suffer from chronic pain? Medics are suggesting that a change of mindset could help reduce the pain as much as analgesics.

Who, apart from me, had flu this last winter? If you did you shouldn’t be surprised as apparently we don’t take flu seriously enough. It really is worth getting the flu jab (especially if you’re in an “at risk” category). Although I was vaccinated and still got flu which floored me it wasn’t anything like as bad as if I’d not been vaccinated.

The NHS is being urged to include boys & young men in the HPV vaccination scheme (currently only adolescent girls are eligible). Not only would it help contain the general spread of the virus, but more and more men are getting head/neck cancers from the human papilloma virus, thought to be due to the young having more oral sex.

A test is being developed that will allow a foetus’s sex to be determined from just a finger-prick drop of blood during the first trimester of pregnancy.

There needs to be much greater awareness of the state of our post-birth vaginas. As usual the UK lags behind our old enemy, France, in post-partum rehabilitation.

And while we’re at it, we still have an appallingly poor knowledge of the anatomy for the clitoris. Yes, that’s all of us, it seems!

Environment

Unlike my neighbour, most of us understand that plants are important. Here’s why.

Bees are important too. And you can help the bees by doing less. Just mow your lawn only every two to three weeks.

Scientists are developing an enzyme to eat plastic bottles.

Art & Literature

It’s reported that Neil Gaiman is to make a film of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy.

Stockholm residents are up in arms over a five storey high blue penis mural.

London

IanVisits has created a useful map of all London’s miniature steam train rides.

Meanwhile another London blogger, Diamond Geezer, has produced a London Random Tourist Inspiration Generator for when you want to go somewhere but don’t know where.

Lifestyle & Personal Development

We’re moving towards a cashless society, or so we’re told. But being cashless puts us at risk, so the Swedes are turning against the idea.

Why are some societies strict and others lax? New Scientist investigates.

Do you want to be more assertive in life? If so there’s a dominatrix in New York who will teach you.

Chiltern Railways, whose trains run north-west out of London’s Marylebone Station, are suggesting eight seated yoga poses you can do on your commute. I struggling to decide how serous they are.

Crazy cat lady is a frequent image in pop culture. But why?

Food & Drink

A recent column in the Guardian is suggesting that eating goat is as tasty as lamb and a sustainable, ethical choice of meat.

Shock, Horror, Humour

And finally, one for the engineers and kids out there. John Collins, aka. “The Paper Airplane Guy“, holds the distance record for flight by a paper airplane. And he shares a few of his secrets with us.

environment, food+drink

How to Use Less Plastic

We all know that plastic is not very biodegradable, and thus an environmental nightmare, as well as being over-used in many instances. Equally we all know how convenient it can be.

The other day I can across Less Plastic, and their poster of 9 Tips for Living with Less Plastic. Although it’s a couple of years old, I share them here with comments on how well I think we do.

  1. Bring your own shopping bag. Already do this and have done for some years.
  2. Carry a reusable water bottle. As we don’t carry water, we can’t do this. Although we could stop buying mineral water in plastic bottles for use at home.
  3. Bring your own cup. We almost never have take-out coffee etc., so not much point in this.
  4. Pack your lunch in reusable containers. Again we don’t carry packed lunch, so this isn’t appropriate.
  5. Say no to disposable straws and cutlery. Yep, always do if we can.
  6. Skip the plastic produce bags. Difficult if the supermarket offers no alternative to having 29 onions floating loose in your trolley – they can provide paper bags for bread so why not for other produce? Would they like us taking our own paper bags? And then there’s the question of what to use in the freezer.
  7. Slow down and dine in. We seldom eat out; maybe once or twice a month, on average.
  8. Store leftovers in glass jars. Yes, could do this although I’m ot sure about finding a good variety of different sized jars with out buying then specially. And anyway we have lots of plastic boxes and wouldn’t it be greener to use them to destruction first?
  9. Share these tips with your friends. That’s just what I’m doing!

So how well do you do?

environment, history, links, medical, science, sexuality

Monthly Interesting Links

As regular readers will realise, I read a lot of articles in consumer science, consumer history and the more general media over the course of a month – articles which look as if they will interest me. (I don’t generally read politics, business etc.). What I post here are only those items which I think may be of more general interest to you, my readers, being mindful that the humanities people amongst you might want a bit of “soft” science; and the scientists a bit of humanities. So I do try to mostly avoid difficult science and academically dense Eng.Lit. or history – ‘cos you don’t all want to struggle with/be interested in that, though some may. And I obviously don’t expect everyone to read everything, but just to pick the items which interest you most; if you find one or two each month then that’s good.

So, having restated my aims for this series, let’s get down to business – because there is a lot to cover this month.

Science, Technology & Natural World

We start off with something which surprised me: the engineers building Crossrail had to take the curvature of the Earth into account, because of the length of the line and the precision with which some of the tunnels had to be threaded through between existing structures.

Staying on an engineering theme, scientists have developed a method of making wood as strong as steel, and thus potentially useable as a high strength building material.

Changing themes, what really is biodiversity and why is it so important?

The curious history of horses’ hooves, and how five digits became just one.

Following the attack on a pair of Russians in Salisbury, several of the scientific media have been asking what nerve agents are and how they work. This is Scientific American‘s view.

Health & Medicine

A strange, six inch long, “mummy” was found in Chile some years ago, and many people decided it was an alien – hardly surprising given its appearance. However, following DNA testing it has finally been confirmed that it was a very deformed, female, human infant.

Musician Taylor Muhl has a large birthmark on her torso, but it turns out that it isn’t a birthmark but that she’s a chimera, having absorbed a twin sister in utero in the very early days of gestation.

Influenza is relatively common, and benign, in may non-primate species which provide a natural reservoir for the virus. And there are many other such viruses out in the wild which are a concern as (like Ebola, Zika, SARS) they could mutate and jump to humans.

On a similar theme, researchers are coming to realise that there is a genetic component to our susceptibility to many diseases and that disease prevalence partly depends on the genetic mutations we carry.

Sexuality

From consent advice to sex toys and masturbation hacks, YouTube has taken over sex education.

Language

While on sex, the Whores of Yore website has a history of Cunt, the word.

History, Archaeology & Anthropology

Researchers have analysed a huge number of DNA samples to discover that Homo sapiens interbred with Denisovans on multiple occasions, as we did with the Neanderthals.

Why did Oxford and Cambridge have a monopoly on UK university education for several hundred years, when universities proliferated across the rest of Europe?

Long before the height of the slave trade and the British Empire, black Africans lived freely in Tudor England.

In 1600 Giordano Bruno burned at the stake as a heretic and it looks likely that this was for believing in the existence of planets outside our solar system.

The oldest message in a bottle has been found on a beach in Western Australia.

London

Mudlarking: the pursuit of archaeological treasures hiding in the mud of the River Thames foreshore. Warning: you need a licence!

John Joseph Merlin, a wizard in Georgian London.

Lifestyle & Personal Development

Brad Warner, one of our two favourite Zen Masters, on waking up happy.

So just how many beak-ups does one have to have before one finds “the one”? Search me!

The exorcists are coming, and it doesn’t look good.

We’re living through a crisis of touch where lots of basic human contact like hugging is no longer acceptable – and it is having a serious effect on our mental health.

OK guys, this is for you: 100 easy ways to make women’s lives better. Basically: be considerate!

Finally, following on from the above two items, an article I found rather nauseating about the supposed crisis in modern masculinity. Gawdelpus all!

More next month! Meanwhile, be good!

beliefs, environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

Again there is a lot in this month’s edition of “Monthly Links”, so straight in …
Science, Technology & Natural World
If anyone thought that human evolution was straightforward and going to be easy to unravel, they need to think again! Hannah Devlin in the Guardian looks at the tangled web.
Sorry, guys, but the jury is still out whether human pheromones exist.
An interesting account of one journalist’s experience of putting everything in their house on the internet of things, and just how much information ends up in places you maybe wouldn’t want it.
Health & Medicine
A very useful article from Quanta showing how herd immunity from vaccination actually works and why immunisation rates are important (oh, and the – not too hard – maths behind it).
Giardia is a nasty little protozoan parasite which is prevalent in developing countries, but even in the developed world it can affect both us and our pets. Now, at last, scientists are beginning to understand how it works.
Sexuality
Our favourite OB/GYN, Dr Jen Gunther, discusses why some women find sex painful, and what they might do about it.


A banned Georgian sex manual reveals strange beliefs. And it’s up for auction next month.
Scientific American‘s Mind spin-off looks at how to be a better spouse.
Environment
French astronaut Thomas Pesquet says Earth is just a big spaceship with a crew and, like any craft, it needs to be maintained and looked after.
Giving up plastic, and really getting it out of our lives, is a surprisingly big challenge. Here’s how a few brave souls fared when trying.
But on another front there is some hope: that the UK might adopt the Norwegian bottle recycling system.
In the first of two articles this month from George Monbiot he looks at some of the ancient philosophy which is holding back our ability to embrace environmental change.
Our second Monbiot article he is mobilising us against a US trade deal, and especially US farming practices.
The answer it seems is wildflowers: strips of wildflowers through fields enable farmers to reduce pesticide spraying and help beneficial native species to flourish.
History, Archaeology & Anthropology
Some researchers are suggesting that our ancestor, Homo erectus, may have been able to sail and to speak.
Rather later on the journey to modern man, it seems the first Britons probably had dark skin, curly hair and blue eyes – at least the one buried in the Cheddar Caves did.
When do architects set up camp? When they’re building Stonehenge, of course.
Meanwhile on the other side of the world, some clever aerial imaging has discovered a huge Mayan city in the Guatemalan jungle.
Something special happened in 1504: a blood moon eclipse. nd without it the world might have been rather different.
Not long after Columbus and his blood moon eclipse, Henry VIII established the Royal College of Physicians to regulate the practice of medicine in and around London. And they’re still at it, and no longer just in London! And incidentally their museum is free and well worth visiting; and the interior (if not for everyone the exterior) of their Denis Lasdun building is a delight.
London
Which brings us nicely on to London …
An academic report says that the noise on parts of the London Underground is so loud that it could damage passengers and staff hearing.
However London Underground health & safety seem more keen on telling us how to use an escalator. But then most people are in need of this knowledge.
Lifestyle & Personal Development
The Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, or Candlemas, is celebrated on 2nd February. It looks like another of those pagan winter light festivals reinvented by the church.
So what really is the secret of having a truly healthy city? Better go ask Copenhagen.

And now for something completely different: felines with official positions and cats with careers.
Food & Drink
Noreen and I have been taking about false food for years, now it seems that researchers have cottoned on to its pervasiveness.
Finally some real food: an ancient Greek recipe for a honey cheesecake. I must say, it’s not my taste though.

More at the end of March – which is Easter weekend.

current affairs, environment, topographical

The Garden is Dead

Yes! Some common sense has prevailed. The London Garden Bridge project is being abandoned.


It was a nice idea, but in the wrong place and wrongly conceived as a commercial project which would feed off the public purse. How much better to use the concept and the funding to green London’s abandoned railways tracks and other such to increase London’s green space as the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has pledged to do. That would make the money go a lot further, but then it’s not “willy waving” is it!
Let’s hope this is the first of many vanity projects to bite the dust – yes I’m looking at you Brexit, HS2, Heathrow Runway 3 …