Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category
Paradise Valley
Come with me into the crisp, sparkling air of the Dorset countryside. Let the salted breeze blow away your cobwebs and the sheer beauty still your soul.
This is real life. All the rest is illusion.
Go here.
The Severn Scandal Of Huhne
Artist's Impression
If there is idiocy in the coalition this is it.
Chris Huhne, the so-called progressive LibDem Energy Minister has called off the Severn barrage, the biggest tidal energy project ever in Britain. See here.
What more sustainable, reliable, self-evidently ideal source of energy is there than the tide? Until the earth spins off its axis or the moon melts into green cheese, the tides will continue to work. The Severn estuary has the second highest tidal reach in the world. The power inherent in its cycle is unimaginable. When we find a way to harness it efficiently we will have achieved something every bit as revolutionary as cold fusion.
Blind
Yet our short sighted Energy Minister has cancelled the project and says that investment in such new energy sources should come from the private sector. Then he says that private sector investment is unrealistic. There is something seriously wrong with this man’s thinking. This is not the sort of project that you judge on the basis of some nit picking consultant’s report. This is akin to the invention of flight or the microprocessor. This requires vision. This is a project that stretches across centuries and dwarfs Chris Huhne and his shameful decision.
This is exactly, precisely and properly the sort of project that government should be investing in heavily. Only government can promote this sort of essential, long term development. As for the pathetic whinging of the RSPB et al, this reveals how many small minded fools there are in the green movement. The birds will find somewhere else soon enough.
A disastrous and terrible decision that will define and should destroy Chris Huhne’s career.
Extreme Dog Walking
This is the new, ultra hip, super cool sport for happenin’ dudes, dudesses and their doggies.
Started on the Dorset coast in the autumn of 2010, it has finally brought together the noble traditions of dog walking, singing in the rain and mad, British malarkey. Contrasted with the idea that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, this is the sport where only bonkers Brits and adventurous dogs go out in a torrential storm.
You’ve never been really wet until you’ve been Extreme Dog Walking. When the rain has been blown past horizontal, round to vertical but going upwards, then you begin to get a flavour of this exciting and challenging sport. When you have to walk with your face turned away from the stinging shotgun pellets that are rain drops while the dogs whimper and scuttle about your feet, only then will you begin to understand the determination, courage and true grit necessary to survive and succeed in this competition to end all competitions. Far below the sea can just be seen as a seething mass of whitewater. As the squalls come in the whole environment darkens and the gale force winds thrash and tangle at hat and clothing. Even with the air temperature at 17 C, the rain makes your hands freeze and your face smart. All you can do is call the dogs on, put your head down, gird your loins, steel your determination and go forth into the turbulence. There is no option to stop. It is as far to go on as it is to retreat. Forwards is the only option. Onwards to the end, to glory and glorious triumph!
As in all such endurance events the best bit is when it stops. A first layer of saturated “waterproofs” is peeled off and then the dogs are towelled down. Then off come the boots, often with gushes of water as each one is removed. Finally, right down to the underwear, each soaking layer is removed and the steam begins to rise. Then we begin to yarn, to talk of how every gust seemed bigger than the last. To boast of how we just made it through when all seemed lost, how we nearly got caught by that “gnarly” one, how we feel so “stoked” and “trashed” by our experience. Then we sit around in our “baggies”, drinking beer and smokin’ weed, knowing that we know what others never can, knowing that up there in them thar hills is where we feel really alive, where our sport of Extreme Dog Walking makes life worthwhile!
Paradise Valley
Heaven On Earth
It’s that time of the month again!
No, no, no ladies. Happy times! Another walk in Paradise Valley. See here.
Pakistan. The Uncomfortable Truth
This may be a very uncomfortable truth but I think the world has made its moral judgement on Pakistan. In a sense it is wonderful that the world has a collective moral conscience but it is a tragedy for the innocent Pakistanis.
Disaster
The professional aid givers, campaigners and do gooders will do their best but the simple truth is that there is a complete inertia, an ambivalence about Pakistan because of the treason that it has committed against the human race. Sympathy for individual suffering will continue but Pakistan is reaping what it has sown.
This may lead to even bigger problems. There are thousands yet to die as a result of the floods. Extremist Islamists, as the psychopaths that they are, will seek to exploit this and they may succeed. Nevertheless, it will not alter, in fact it will probably reinforce the world’s antipathy for Pakistan.
As in all such crises what is needed is leadership. Obama emerged from nowhere to rescue America from its descent into shame. Let us pray that a real leader comes forward for Pakistan.
A Scientific Conclusion
“It’s not dishonesty. It’s a failure to display a proper degree of openness.”
The Independent Climate Change Email Review 2010
Paradise Valley
The latest instalment in the extraordinary story of the most beautiful place on the planet is available here. Don’t miss it!
Heaven On Earth
The Oil Spill. The Bottom Line. What Obama’s Forgetting.
BP hired them so it is taking responsibility but…
Catastrophe
…the oil rig was American.
…the crew was American.
…the blowout preventer and other safety equipment that failed was American.
…six of BP’s 12 main board directors are American.
…40% of BP’s shareholders are American.
So when the first black American president suddenly starts calling it “British Petroleum”, a name it moved away from 12 years ago because it simply wasn’t accurate anymore, what is it but blatant racism?
This is shockingly grubby behaviour from a man who I was trusting on his platform of integrity.
He’s blown that idea just as sky high as Deepwater Horizon. He’s also forgotten who are his and his country’s most steadfast friends in the world.
If the Yankees, who squander the world’s resources and pollute the environment more than any other nation on the planet, think they’re going to stick this one on us, they need to think again. They need to get their collective brain into gear and start doing something useful. The anti-British rhetoric that has been coming from the States, from whining journalists and politicians as well as Obama, is ludicrous, disloyal and not worthy of them.
We are entitled to expect much, much better from those with whom we stand shoulder to shoulder. When the chips are down we are the only ones you can always rely on. You are a young nation in the history of the world. Now is the time to grow up and take responsibility. Stop passing the buck.
Peter Reynolds 