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Bagging a panda

Nov 8

Posted by Guest Blog in Environment, Holyrood | 15 Comments

Another lovely wee guest post today, from John Nichol, aka @cowrin, who blogs at Suitably Despairing.

A panda at Holyrood yesterday

In a few weeks time, Edinburgh Zoo will take delivery of a couple of Giant Pandas, a gift from China. Actually, they’re not a gift, they’re a loan, bestowed by the country on any other nation which tickles it’s fancy. And to get them, Britain has done an awful lot of fancy-tickling.

There’s something faintly queasy about China’s use of this sad creature as a diplomatic tool. Not only do they demand that the country receiving the “gift” bends over backwards to please the Chinese, but they then have to pay China $1 million a year for the privilege of keeping the pandas for a maximum of ten years.

No animal should be used as a commodity in this way, bestowing favours on countries that please you, and I’m ashamed that Scotland and the UK is a party to this. It feels even worse when the poor creature being transported halfway around the planet is so endangered.

It was Chris Packham of Springwatch fame (and, to those of us of a certain age, Really Wild Show fame) who suggested a couple of years ago that we should let Giant Pandas die out. They’re an evolutionary dead-end, a picky eater which barely moves and barely mates. I have some sympathy with the idea that we’re only throwing money at the Panda because they look damn cute. After all, other species have come and gone without us giving much of a damn. But I also feel that if we have the means to save a species then we should.

What we shouldn’t be doing is saving a species just to use it as a diplomatic tool. Pandas are not trophies, to be paraded around to the citizens while the First Minister gushes about how much China really, really likes us. Animals that aren’t part of our food system should not be trade-able commodities between countries, to be exploited by politicians as some sort of coup that the creatures are in the country in the first place, or to be used to curry favour with previous enemies. If you really want to bestow gifts on a foreign country, then give them a statue.

Whether zoos themselves should exist or not is a whole other topic, but needless to say Edinburgh Zoo will not be shy about commercially exploiting their new residents, just another way that the pandas will be used for the benefit of others and not themselves.

It’s too late to stop the pandas from coming to this country, but I would urge the Scottish Government to have nothing to do with this shameful modern-day trophy-hunting.

EXCLUSIVE: Greens urge Italians to vote Si on Sunday against nuclear energy

Jun 8

Posted by The Burd in Environment, Europe | 5 Comments

Green MEPs, Daniel Cohn-Bendit (France) and Rebecca Harms (Germany), today urged the Italian population to vote ‘si’ in Sunday’s referendum on nuclear energy, claiming that a yes vote rejecting nuclear power as an energy option for Italy, would start a “snowball effect” across the rest of Europe.

Cohn-Bendit pointed out that the referendum was the first in Europe on this issue and urged the Italian people to vote in order to give all European citizens a better future.

Harms outlined how a majority of European citizens now opposed nuclear energy – a view that had grown since the Fukishima tragedy in Japan earlier this year.  And she listed all the countries rejecting nuclear power.  It was not only Germany who had recently moved to phase out nuclear power but a whole host of countries had never chosen the nuclear route, including Ireland, Denmark, Austria, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Switzerland and Belgium.

Poland is also due to hold a referendum and France is debating the issue afresh.  With elections due in France, Germany and Italy in the next three years, the Green MEPs argued that we could shortly reach a position where there are three governments “at the heart of Europe” adopting an anti-nuclear stance and that this would send a “strong message” to nations around the world.

The MEPs suggested there were sound fiscal reasons to reject nuclear power.  It would cost Italy at least 700 million Euros to earthquake “proof” any nuclear installations.  Fundamentally, the country’s topological and geological make up made it inherently unsuitable for nuclear power plants.

Moreover, Cohn-Bendit highlighted the “inherent contradiction” at the heart of UK policy on nuclear energy.  Its position of including nuclear power in the mix for future energy provision was predicated on such development being privately funded and not involving public funding.  The Green MEP claimed this was impossible to do.  Experience in Japan showed that even with private investors, public funding was still required and frankly, the UK Government did not have the money to do this in the current financial climate.

While the fiscal issue is a key one, it is also clear that the UK is travelling in the wrong direction on this important issue from its fellow EU members.  The future is bright, it would appear, and it does not include nuclear.

So long as the Italians do indeed vote si on Sunday.

– blogged from the European Parliament in Strasbourg –

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Is it just me or are bank holidays getting warmer?

May 30

Posted by Jeff in Environment | 8 Comments

I can’t recall a more depressing read of a newspaper than this morning’s Guardian. I applaud the paper’s devotion of many prime pages to the latest news on global climate change but learning that greenhouse gas emissions have increased significantly and the chief economist at the International Energy Agency has labelled it “the worst news” is galling stuff.

The failures of Copenhagen and Cancun are laid bare in the reports but no blame is apportioned because if global warming is everybody’s problem then it is also nobody’s problem. Governments can sit back individually and say ‘we’ve done our bit’ but if the planet as a whole continues to warm then someone has to take the rap or, better still, stand up and take a lead. It’s all very well branding yourself ‘the greenest Government ever’ but if the overriding objective is not met then it doesn’t count for very much.

I do often wonder if many in this world, with a seemingly burgeoning collective self destructive mindset, are not wilfully willing climate change onwards just to see what’ll happen. We go to see these ‘fin del mundo’ films in the cinema so just think how entertaining the real live show will be, assuming Sky News offices aren’t by a coastline. Except there’ll be no chisel-jawed Jake Gyllenhal ready to save the day with moments to spare as was the case in The Day After Tomorrow. That may be sooner than the decade after next but mass flooding and melted ice caps in the 2030s doesn’t sound like fun to me.

I even despaired at Chris Huhne’s short comment on the matter, an Environment Secretary that I am sure ‘gets it’ and one that Cameron will find very difficult to replace if Chris does have to finally resign over alleged speeding-related transgressions. He said “this is clearly an incremental process but the steps forward at Cancun show that the UN framework convention on climate change is capable of progress”. The urgency of the matter seems to be frustratingly downplayed while the timid, turgid progress at Cancun is cynically talked up.

There is action that the UK as a whole can take now and like so much radical change it is down to individuals to take responsibility. We are releasing too much CO2 into the environment with potentially devastating consequences and yet there is no urgent drive to reduce power consumption from what I can see. Every tv/shop window’s dispay/office computer network left on overnight, every light bulb switched on in an empty house to deter burglars(!) and every unnecessary drive to the shops just down the road comes with a little bubble of coal/oil burning above it and we need to reassess our actions 24/7 if we’re going to beat this threat.

Even a simple calculation from the Government based on how much power our 60m number ‘should’ be using compared to what we ‘are’ using would be welcome in order to concentrate minds. That calculation may be easier with a 5m population so perhaps that’s something for Richard Lochhead to consider perhaps.

Scotland may well have a greater claim to sitting back satisfied with its contribution given the ongoing development of a clean renewable power mix and the welcomely ambitious pledges of reducing carbon emissions by 42% and boasting 100% renewables by 2020. However, placing increased drilling for oil in the North Sea and road expansion in the context of today’s disturbing climate change news is something that the Government should be pressed on, and should be seen to be happy to be pressed on. More progress on reduced car use and increased insulation are also important in order to reduce power use now.

It won’t be enough though, and we all know it. Scotland and the UK can continue down the green path better than most but how does Salmond or Cameron go about reeling China, US, Brazil and India in? It can’t, not without the significant rebalancing of the world economy called for in this excellent article (in The Guardian, of course)

So are we at the stage where really drastic action has to be taken? Power quotas? A global two child limit? A truly eye-watering, behaviour changing carbon tax? For me that is the only way to reverse the seemingly irreversible, the business as usual, Capitalism-fuelled increase in carbon emissions that won’t slow let alone halt without the most radical of action.

We’ve got to try, it’s only the single biggest threat to humanity after all and it’s surely better than waiting for Jake Gyllenhal to turn up to save the world from burning with his smouldering good looks. Even if the latter is admittedly a little more appealing, epecially in 3D.

Scotland’s Seas – Scotland’s Lifeblood

Apr 27

Posted by Guest Blog in Environment | 4 Comments

Today’s guest post comes from Lindsay Roberts, Marine Policy and Advocacy Officer at Scottish Environment LINK.  She’s a total mad surfer type and practically lives in the sea, so it’s not like she’s not talking from experience here.

This year Easter Sunday was spent the same way it is every year – a big BBQ on the beach with friends and family. It’s an event steeped in tradition, but this year marked a turning point. For the first time ever, the Easter egg hunt was cancelled.

Apparently we are too old. To be fair, a group of 20 – 30 somethings racing around the rocks, cheered on by overly competitive parents was beginning to look a little ridiculous! As I looked at us, all grown up, I realised almost half of ‘the kids’ now earned a living working with the sea, including me.

I work as marine policy and advocacy officer for Scottish Environment LINK. For those of you who haven’t heard of LINK before, we are the umbrella body representing over 30 environmental NGOs in Scotland. Together we represent almost 500,000 people.

Now my friends’ choices of profession are perhaps not surprising for a group of kids brought up on the beaches of East Lothian, but it made me think about how life in Scotland is inextricably linked with the sea.

Simply put, Scotland’s seas are Scotland’s lifeblood. They provide us with a huge variety of goods and services. They are at the forefront of the renewable energy revolution holding a quarter of Europe’s tidal and wind resource; aquaculture is Scotland’s most valuable food export; we have world class conditions for sailing (one of our Easter BBQers is a former Olympic squad member); and following his victory at the Cold Water Classic at Thurso East, Australian Brent Dorrington said the week provided the best waves he had surfed in a competition – ever.

Underpinning all of this is the fact that Scotland’s seas are one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. Our waters support over 40,000 species of plant and animals from single cell species to sharks, whales and dolphins. The oceans represent the largest carbon sink on the planet, and recent reports suggest marine and coastal habitats such as salt marsh, sea grass and kelp forests, all plentiful in Scotland, could be more efficient at storing carbon than peat.

We should all be seriously concerned, therefore, by the contents of Scotland’s Marine Atlas. Published around a month ago, it passed without much fanfare, yet its findings are pretty shocking. There is serious concern over the vast majority of Scotland’s seabed, and the health of virtually every single broad scale habitat type is in decline. Important seabird populations continue to struggle, common seal numbers appear to be in freefall, while all around our coast sharks and rays remain in a perilous condition. These species and habitats face a huge number of pressures from fishing, offshore development and now climate change.

That is why we are asking candidates to sign our ‘2011 Marine Declaration’. The Declaration asks candidates to commit to reversing the declining health and biological diversity of our seas throughout the next session of Parliament, by protecting and enhancing the marine environment through the Marine (Scotland) Act, and an ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas.

Last year the Marine Act was unanimously passed by the Scottish Parliament, giving us new tools to help manage human activity in the marine environment.

The way the next session of Parliament chooses to implement the Act will be crucial to stopping and reversing the declining health of our amazing marine environment. MSPs can choose a business as usual scenario, which I fear may damage our seas to a point from which there is no return. Alternatively, they can grasp the opportunity provided by the Act to protect and regenerate our seas, respecting the environmental limits of the resource upon which we are so reliant.

So next time you bump into your candidates, why not ask them if they have signed LINK’s ‘2011 Marine Declaration’? We will be posting the names of all those who have signed up on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

Low Carbon Investment An Inconvenient Loot

Dec 15

Posted by Jeff in Economy, Environment | 2 Comments

From The Guardian, Chris Huhne on news that the Conservative manifesto promise of a Green Investment Bank may end up being a mere fund:
“Fiscal credibility is key. But we also have to decarbonise the economy. Governments by definition do not have one objective. We are able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Therefore we are able to have low carbon investment and fiscal credibility. That is what we have to combine and that is what we’re going to do.”

I would much rather that our Environment Minister, fresh from another disappointing round of talks in Cancun, would say that decarbonising the economy is key but fiscal credibility is also necessary.

I like that phrase ‘low carbon investment’ and its double meaning though. Is Chris saying that the Government is investing non-specific amounts in low carbon solutions or is he saying that the carbon fighting investment itself is “low”? Both could be true and both appear to be applicable. Is Chris Huhne backpedalling because he needs to find an inconvenient loot?

It is the procrastination from really addressing Climate Change and coming up with radical, overdue solutions that concerns and baffles me. Public habits remain the same save for some token recycling when we can be bothered, many windows remain single-glazed and community-based heating solutions remain a distant prospect. I do hope that the trappings of Government office haven’t resulted in the Environment Minister taking his eye off his objectives but when Chris says that it is fiscal credibility that is key rather than the urgent need to act on emissions and then goes on to compare the greatest threat to humanity as ‘chewing gum’, well, I wonder.

A Green Investment Bank is absolutely the correct way to go about funding the huge investment required for environmental and sustainable solutions as it will allow a focussed objective that commercial and corporate institutions do not hold beyond maximising a return for their shareholders.

Money doesn’t grow on trees of course but with electricity charges (and taxable profits) moving sky high again, petrol prices (and taxes) reaching new peaks and popular domestic air travel overripe for a levy, then there is scope for direct taxation being used to fund the solutions that will save us money in the long term, including a Green Investment Bank. This is not to mention that most Green projects represent a good return on private investment anyway.

The message for the supposed ‘Greenest Government Ever’ is – don’t write green cheques that you can’t cash. It remains to be seen whether a Green fund will result in real low carbon investment or just low ‘low carbon investment’. So far it doesn’t look good.