Monthly Archives: July 2015

Rewilding isn’t about nostalgia – exciting new worlds are possible

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The restoration of natural ecosystems – ‘rewilding’ – ought to be a chance to create inspiring new habitats.

However the movement around it risks becoming trapped by its own reverence of the past – an overly nostalgic position that makes rewilding less realistic and harder to achieve.

The recent launch of Rewilding Britain is certainly exciting and timely. However George Monbiot’s vision of bringing back 15 iconic species falls short of the rewilding visions being discussed in universities.

These are emerging from advances in functional ecology and Earth system science. The vision of rewilding is more ambitious: it is about restoring ecological processes through reassembling the species that drive them. For example rooting by wild boars has repercussions throughout a woodland ecosystem.

Such animals shouldn’t be reintroduced simply because they were once there, but because they could do something productive in future.

Don’t go native

Monbiot’s quest to restore ‘lost’ species harks back to a past age. However many conservation scientists are more relaxed concerning the question of ‘nativenes’. They are willing to consider introducing non-native species if they contribute a functional role in ecosystems, and they view the past not as a benchmark to preserve or replicate but as an inspiration for ecosystem restoration.

For instance, ‘Monbiot’s 15’ omits the auroch and tarpan which are classed as extinct. However in the 1980s progressive Dutch ecologists realised that their functional analogues survived as cattle and ponies and their ecological role could be restored through ‘de-domestication’.

They set about de-domesticating them at the famous Oostvaardersplassen reserve (see photo) located a 40 minute drive from Amsterdam. This produced a ‘Serengeti-like’ landscape: a type of nature unknown to Europe since humans settled down and started farming.

The OVP, as it is known, made nature conservation political again and has become a landmark public experiment in ecology. I first visited it with a group of students in 2003 when we travelled to the Netherlands to meet the radical ecologist Frans Vera and engage with the controversies created by rewilding.

The reserve is created on reclaimed land and opponents argued that the fences and flood control created an artifical landscape that undermined any claims to its authenticity as a restored ecosystem.

More seriously the policy of allowing the cattle and ponies to die of ‘natural’ starvation enraged animal welfare and farmer groups who believed they should be subjected to the same welfare standards applied to animals in labs, farms and zoos.

The controversies surrounding the experiment, Vera’s hypothesis that Europe’s original vegetation was wood-pasture rather than high-forest, and other radical rewilding visions are inspiring a re-examination of the fundamental premise of nature conservation.

Rewilding’s big chance

I recently published a Rewilding agenda for Europe in the journal Ecography, as my contribution to the European Council’s ‘fitness check’ of its nature legislation. The Birds and Habitats directives under review derive from the science and policy context of the 1970s. They are ageing. Both science and society have moved on.

Any revisions to European nature legislation should support the creation of experimental rewilding sites. Across the UK we could imagine the creation of wild cattle and pony steppe-lands on the Ridgeway, wild boar and deer-driven woodland ecosystems in Wales, and a Scottish arcadia of bison, moose, wolves and pine forest.

We also need many more OVP-like public rewilding experiments close to urban areas. These would be contained sites that inspire and inform the public about scientific advances, and provoke us all to ask: what sort of nature do we want for the future?

Rewilding might offer fresh solutions to intractable conservation problems. For example, conservationists want to remove pine trees introduced to the Sefton Coast dune system near Liverpool but local residents love them for their scenic grandeur and red squirrels.

The famous Formby footprints dating from 2500 BC show that humans, wild cattle, deer and wolf once inhabited these coastal areas. Suggesting the reintroducing of wild cattle and companion herbivores and seeing what happens might prompt a unified vision for the dunes.

Reinvigorating conservation

In practice rewilding is constrained by regulations on biohazards, public access and animal husbandry – and rigid and powerful 20th century conservation legislation and agencies which have no real incentive to innovate.

Conservation institutions need to modernise but no one wants to dismantle them and start over. We need designated spaces with regulatory flexibility – experimental rewilding sites – where we can plan future natures that will improve the quality of life for people and the planet.

Ordinary people are disenfranchised. Conservation policy is influenced by a coordinated lobby of a few big charities who have built their organisational models on the institutional structures of the late 20th century. George Monbiot’s vision catches the attention but advocates of rewilding need to develop realistic policy mechanisms to take their ideas forward.

Rewilding experiments would give space for wider reflection and debate and give our conservation institutions time to adapt. Crucially they would reinvigorate conservation as a cultural force in the 21st century.

 

 

Paul Jepson is Course Director, MSc Biodiversity, Conservation and Management at University of Oxford.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 






Rewilding isn’t about nostalgia – exciting new worlds are possible

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The restoration of natural ecosystems – ‘rewilding’ – ought to be a chance to create inspiring new habitats.

However the movement around it risks becoming trapped by its own reverence of the past – an overly nostalgic position that makes rewilding less realistic and harder to achieve.

The recent launch of Rewilding Britain is certainly exciting and timely. However George Monbiot’s vision of bringing back 15 iconic species falls short of the rewilding visions being discussed in universities.

These are emerging from advances in functional ecology and Earth system science. The vision of rewilding is more ambitious: it is about restoring ecological processes through reassembling the species that drive them. For example rooting by wild boars has repercussions throughout a woodland ecosystem.

Such animals shouldn’t be reintroduced simply because they were once there, but because they could do something productive in future.

Don’t go native

Monbiot’s quest to restore ‘lost’ species harks back to a past age. However many conservation scientists are more relaxed concerning the question of ‘nativenes’. They are willing to consider introducing non-native species if they contribute a functional role in ecosystems, and they view the past not as a benchmark to preserve or replicate but as an inspiration for ecosystem restoration.

For instance, ‘Monbiot’s 15’ omits the auroch and tarpan which are classed as extinct. However in the 1980s progressive Dutch ecologists realised that their functional analogues survived as cattle and ponies and their ecological role could be restored through ‘de-domestication’.

They set about de-domesticating them at the famous Oostvaardersplassen reserve (see photo) located a 40 minute drive from Amsterdam. This produced a ‘Serengeti-like’ landscape: a type of nature unknown to Europe since humans settled down and started farming.

The OVP, as it is known, made nature conservation political again and has become a landmark public experiment in ecology. I first visited it with a group of students in 2003 when we travelled to the Netherlands to meet the radical ecologist Frans Vera and engage with the controversies created by rewilding.

The reserve is created on reclaimed land and opponents argued that the fences and flood control created an artifical landscape that undermined any claims to its authenticity as a restored ecosystem.

More seriously the policy of allowing the cattle and ponies to die of ‘natural’ starvation enraged animal welfare and farmer groups who believed they should be subjected to the same welfare standards applied to animals in labs, farms and zoos.

The controversies surrounding the experiment, Vera’s hypothesis that Europe’s original vegetation was wood-pasture rather than high-forest, and other radical rewilding visions are inspiring a re-examination of the fundamental premise of nature conservation.

Rewilding’s big chance

I recently published a Rewilding agenda for Europe in the journal Ecography, as my contribution to the European Council’s ‘fitness check’ of its nature legislation. The Birds and Habitats directives under review derive from the science and policy context of the 1970s. They are ageing. Both science and society have moved on.

Any revisions to European nature legislation should support the creation of experimental rewilding sites. Across the UK we could imagine the creation of wild cattle and pony steppe-lands on the Ridgeway, wild boar and deer-driven woodland ecosystems in Wales, and a Scottish arcadia of bison, moose, wolves and pine forest.

We also need many more OVP-like public rewilding experiments close to urban areas. These would be contained sites that inspire and inform the public about scientific advances, and provoke us all to ask: what sort of nature do we want for the future?

Rewilding might offer fresh solutions to intractable conservation problems. For example, conservationists want to remove pine trees introduced to the Sefton Coast dune system near Liverpool but local residents love them for their scenic grandeur and red squirrels.

The famous Formby footprints dating from 2500 BC show that humans, wild cattle, deer and wolf once inhabited these coastal areas. Suggesting the reintroducing of wild cattle and companion herbivores and seeing what happens might prompt a unified vision for the dunes.

Reinvigorating conservation

In practice rewilding is constrained by regulations on biohazards, public access and animal husbandry – and rigid and powerful 20th century conservation legislation and agencies which have no real incentive to innovate.

Conservation institutions need to modernise but no one wants to dismantle them and start over. We need designated spaces with regulatory flexibility – experimental rewilding sites – where we can plan future natures that will improve the quality of life for people and the planet.

Ordinary people are disenfranchised. Conservation policy is influenced by a coordinated lobby of a few big charities who have built their organisational models on the institutional structures of the late 20th century. George Monbiot’s vision catches the attention but advocates of rewilding need to develop realistic policy mechanisms to take their ideas forward.

Rewilding experiments would give space for wider reflection and debate and give our conservation institutions time to adapt. Crucially they would reinvigorate conservation as a cultural force in the 21st century.

 

 

Paul Jepson is Course Director, MSc Biodiversity, Conservation and Management at University of Oxford.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 






Rewilding isn’t about nostalgia – exciting new worlds are possible

Leave a reply




The restoration of natural ecosystems – ‘rewilding’ – ought to be a chance to create inspiring new habitats.

However the movement around it risks becoming trapped by its own reverence of the past – an overly nostalgic position that makes rewilding less realistic and harder to achieve.

The recent launch of Rewilding Britain is certainly exciting and timely. However George Monbiot’s vision of bringing back 15 iconic species falls short of the rewilding visions being discussed in universities.

These are emerging from advances in functional ecology and Earth system science. The vision of rewilding is more ambitious: it is about restoring ecological processes through reassembling the species that drive them. For example rooting by wild boars has repercussions throughout a woodland ecosystem.

Such animals shouldn’t be reintroduced simply because they were once there, but because they could do something productive in future.

Don’t go native

Monbiot’s quest to restore ‘lost’ species harks back to a past age. However many conservation scientists are more relaxed concerning the question of ‘nativenes’. They are willing to consider introducing non-native species if they contribute a functional role in ecosystems, and they view the past not as a benchmark to preserve or replicate but as an inspiration for ecosystem restoration.

For instance, ‘Monbiot’s 15’ omits the auroch and tarpan which are classed as extinct. However in the 1980s progressive Dutch ecologists realised that their functional analogues survived as cattle and ponies and their ecological role could be restored through ‘de-domestication’.

They set about de-domesticating them at the famous Oostvaardersplassen reserve (see photo) located a 40 minute drive from Amsterdam. This produced a ‘Serengeti-like’ landscape: a type of nature unknown to Europe since humans settled down and started farming.

The OVP, as it is known, made nature conservation political again and has become a landmark public experiment in ecology. I first visited it with a group of students in 2003 when we travelled to the Netherlands to meet the radical ecologist Frans Vera and engage with the controversies created by rewilding.

The reserve is created on reclaimed land and opponents argued that the fences and flood control created an artifical landscape that undermined any claims to its authenticity as a restored ecosystem.

More seriously the policy of allowing the cattle and ponies to die of ‘natural’ starvation enraged animal welfare and farmer groups who believed they should be subjected to the same welfare standards applied to animals in labs, farms and zoos.

The controversies surrounding the experiment, Vera’s hypothesis that Europe’s original vegetation was wood-pasture rather than high-forest, and other radical rewilding visions are inspiring a re-examination of the fundamental premise of nature conservation.

Rewilding’s big chance

I recently published a Rewilding agenda for Europe in the journal Ecography, as my contribution to the European Council’s ‘fitness check’ of its nature legislation. The Birds and Habitats directives under review derive from the science and policy context of the 1970s. They are ageing. Both science and society have moved on.

Any revisions to European nature legislation should support the creation of experimental rewilding sites. Across the UK we could imagine the creation of wild cattle and pony steppe-lands on the Ridgeway, wild boar and deer-driven woodland ecosystems in Wales, and a Scottish arcadia of bison, moose, wolves and pine forest.

We also need many more OVP-like public rewilding experiments close to urban areas. These would be contained sites that inspire and inform the public about scientific advances, and provoke us all to ask: what sort of nature do we want for the future?

Rewilding might offer fresh solutions to intractable conservation problems. For example, conservationists want to remove pine trees introduced to the Sefton Coast dune system near Liverpool but local residents love them for their scenic grandeur and red squirrels.

The famous Formby footprints dating from 2500 BC show that humans, wild cattle, deer and wolf once inhabited these coastal areas. Suggesting the reintroducing of wild cattle and companion herbivores and seeing what happens might prompt a unified vision for the dunes.

Reinvigorating conservation

In practice rewilding is constrained by regulations on biohazards, public access and animal husbandry – and rigid and powerful 20th century conservation legislation and agencies which have no real incentive to innovate.

Conservation institutions need to modernise but no one wants to dismantle them and start over. We need designated spaces with regulatory flexibility – experimental rewilding sites – where we can plan future natures that will improve the quality of life for people and the planet.

Ordinary people are disenfranchised. Conservation policy is influenced by a coordinated lobby of a few big charities who have built their organisational models on the institutional structures of the late 20th century. George Monbiot’s vision catches the attention but advocates of rewilding need to develop realistic policy mechanisms to take their ideas forward.

Rewilding experiments would give space for wider reflection and debate and give our conservation institutions time to adapt. Crucially they would reinvigorate conservation as a cultural force in the 21st century.

 

 

Paul Jepson is Course Director, MSc Biodiversity, Conservation and Management at University of Oxford.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 






Renewable energy sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit

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The Government’s ‘war on renewables’ makes no sense. That’s what plenty of people are telling you, and on the face of they are completely right.

Take onshore wind power. Onshore wind is by far the UK’s lowest cost source of renewable power capable of delivering on a large scale.

But more than that – it’s actually lowering our electricity bills, in spite of the subsidies we pay. When the wind turbines are turning most strongly it has the effect – most people would say the desirable effect – of pushing down the wholesale electricity price.

Chris Goodall has set out the scale of this effect in this fascinating article: “On the typical day when wind is producing about 7% of the UK’s electricity, the market price of power is about £7 per MWh less than when the air is completely still.”

In the process, of course, wind is also pushing down the price fossil fuelled generators are being paid. All electricity consumers enjoy the benefit of those lower prices – and the benefit is big enough to pay the entire levy raised on our electricity bills to subsidise wind.

Wind power’s net cost to consumers? A big zero

As Goodall explains, based on his analysis of wind inputs and wholesale power prices, “when the wind is hardly blowing the typical price of power that the National Grid faces is about £58/MWh and it falls as wind power increases.

“On those relatively few occasions that wind is providing more than 20% of electricity, the price is about half this level. On the average day over the last year, the main wind farms give us about 7% of total power needs. The typical buying price at 7% wind power is £51 per megawatt hour, £7 lower than when the wind isn’t blowing at all.”

And this means that the cost of wind subsidies closely matches the price reduction in wholesale power:

“If, on average, wind power depresses the wholesale price of electricity by £7 for each megawatt hour consumed in the UK, the total impact over the year is about £2.3bn. The total subsidy for renewable electricity paid by electricity consumers this year is capped at £3.3bn. This includes solar and other technologies such as landfill gas, not just wind.

“The subsidy cost for wind – about £2-£2.5bn – may well be less than the downward impact wind has on electricity prices. The net impact on consumers may therefore be close to zero. In effect, the whole burden of wind subsidy falls on the fossil fuel generators because they obtain lower prices than they otherwise would.”

As Andrew ZP Smith writes on The Ecologist, “research in Germany and Spain has found that these cost reductions outweigh the revenue support paid to wind. Wind is not subsidised in those two countries – indeed, quite the reverse, wind lowers total costs for consumers. The thing that is called a subsidy, whether existing schemes or future ones, acts to correct a market failure.”

Which brings me to the key question: is the problem with onshore wind power not that it’s costing us too much, but the very reverse – that it’s costing too little – and reducing power company profits?

This seems all too likely. “As the number of wind turbines rises, we’ll see more and more days when this source of power rises to 20% or more of total UK generation”, writes Goodall.

“If current trends persist, this will take the price of power down to £30 or below. This is, of course, is exactly the phenomenon we see in Germany today, with prices often going close to zero or below on high wind days.”

Instead, expensive offshore wind

And, it seems, that’s the last thing our government wants happening – this would, after all, have a drastic downwards impact on power company profits.

So instead its policy is to focus on offshore wind. Not that it’s a daft technology to invest in: the size of the UK’s offshore wind resource is enormous, and it has the benefit that sea winds blow more strongly than onshore, and more evenly with fewer slack periods.

But it is expensive, with current CFD (contracts for difference) bids around £114-£120 per MWh, versus around £80-£82.50 for onshore. So while it’s a good idea to invest in the technology to bring the offshore industry down the ‘cost curve’, it’s certainly not the right place to put all your wind power subsidy.

Rationally, the bulk of the money should into the lowest cost technology where it will stimulate the generation of the greatest volume of power, keeping bills low and reducing carbon emissions.

Unless, of course, that’s precisely what you want to avoid. The great thing about offshore wind is that it’s a great way of burning up your renewables support budget in a hurry – which is exactly what is happening.

Adding to the effect, UK wind power, both onshore and offshore, is much more expensive than in Denmark and Germany, as Andrew ZP Smith writes. How so? Mainly because of the high confidence that the industry and investors have in the long term continuity of the supply chain in those countries – unlike in the UK, where

“Many years of policy uncertainty and persistent meddling with the revenue schemes presents higher risks to investors. Planning regulations in England and Wales have created further uncertainty, with unpredictable local decisions …

“Even more significantly, investors in wind farm supply chains can choose to locate instead in jurisdictions which offer far greater long-term clarity and security. This is why both Denmark and Germany have strong wind supply chains, and Britain’s is still nascent.”

Solar – too much of good thing?

Today we saw the government’s plans for really major cuts in solar power – focussed on the most efficient, lowest cost solar farms, while continuing to support much higher cost domestic scale roof-mounted solar panels (albeit at a low rate).

Commentators described these cuts as “perverse”, “short sighted” and “incoherent”. As indeed they appear to be. Solar power in the UK is currently on a steeply declining cost curve, on a trajectory to becoming fully cost-competitive with gas-fired generation by 2020. It’s already down by about 80% from its price of five years ago.

And as the UK’s solar capacity grows, so too does its contribution to the UK’s power supply. On recent sunny days it has been contributing some 15-16% of the UK’s daytime electricity. And therein lies the problem.

Just as having a load of zero marginal cost wind power on the grid forces wholesale power prices down, exactly the same happens with solar – an effect already manifest in Germany, as described by Keith Barnham.

By forcing prices down in the historically lucrative daytime power market, the effect in Germany has been catastrophic for power company profits – a fact that has surely not been missed by many of those same companies operating in the UK, nor their close friends in DECC and the government.

But of course to maintain the declining cost trajectory of solar power in the UK, we need a solar industry that’s remaining in business, gaining experience, building secure relationships with financiers, and discovering ways of reducing costs still further.

So what does the UK government do to prevent that coming about? It embarks on a quick fire policy to to hammer the UK solar industry as hard as it possibly can. With luck, it may not be able to get itself going again for a decade or more. No matter how much solar panel prices fall, it’s not much good if there’s no industry left to install them.

And just in case the solar industry bounces back, you can be sure a future Conservative government will come up with other ideas to keep it in its place. Think heavy planning restrictions, onerous connection costs, ‘grid stability’ surcharges – whatever it takes.

Suddenly it all makes sense

Every time the government says it wants to cut renewable subsidies to keep down power bills for ‘hard working families’, it’s telling the precise opposite of the truth. The policy nexus represented by:

is clear in both its effect, and its intent. It is to maintain the oligopoly of the Big Six power companies, and maintain their extraordinary profitability. It is to keep UK energy consumers stuck on high prices, fuel poverty and high carbon emissions. It is to set back the progress of decentralised renewable energy in the UK for a decade or more.

And the government can get away with all this thanks to a compliant right wing press that’s only too happy to mislead its readers into believing that renewable energy is pushing their prices up – when in truth, it represents their only hope of lower bills in years to come.

With challenges to its discriminatory support package for a new nuclear power station at Hinkley C now under way at the European Court of Justice, its entire energy policy may yet be unravelled and found wanting.

David Cameron may also struggle to keep a straight face at the COP21 Paris climate conference in December, where he will assure delegates of his desire for a tough and effective agreement, while doing all he can to keep up the UK’s carbon emissions. Just watch for the smirk creeping across his face as he speaks.

But for years to come it will be us – you, me, and planet – who will be paying the cost. While the fossil fuel juggernaut laughs all the way to the bank.

 

 

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

 






Senseless and damaging: UK’s solar cuts

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The UK’s energy department, DECC, has today published proposals to reduce support for solar on both roofs and in solar farms.

The proposals cover both the Renewables Obligation for bigger projects, and changes to rules on the Feed-in Tariff for smaller projects.

The Renewables Obligation, which supports rooftop and solar farm projects between 1MW and 5MW would be closed from 1st April 2016, alongside a planned reduction in levels of support for projects currently in the pipeline.

DECC is also proposing to end ‘grandfathering’ within the scheme from now on – the guarantee that a certain level of subsidy will be provided throughout the lifetime of a solar farm once built. This follows a similar move last year which already excluded solar farms of more than 5MW in size – about 25 acres – from receiving support from the scheme as of 1st April 2015.

With the Feed-in Tariff, which supports smaller scale rooftop and solar farms, the proposal is to remove ‘pre-accreditation’ – a lock-in to a fixed tariff level for six months, designed to give solar projects a window for financing and construction without the uncertainty of constantly reducing tariffs.

Attacking the UK’s most popular form of energy

“There is no pledge in the Conservative manifesto about cutting support for solar, so we are disappointed by this move”, said Leonie Greene of the Solar Trade Association. “Solar is the nation’s most popular form of energy, as the government’s own opinion polls have shown”

“This is damaging for big solar rooftops as well as solar farms, both very cost-effective ways of generating solar power. This contrasts with repeated commitments from Government to boost the commercial solar rooftop market.

“We also regret this move because solar farms are close to competitiveness with new gas generation and they account for a very small proportion of expenditure on the Renewables Obligation.

“Support for solar under the Renewables Obligation currently costs just £3 per year on each household bill, and solar makes up only 6% of the Renewables Obligation budget. There is a danger if Government pulls the rug on solar farms too early, the market will have nowhere to go.“

The proposed removal of the ‘pre-accredidation’ system was “a real blow to investor confidence”, she added. DECC itself says of the move: “It is likely … that funding providers will apply higher discount rates to expected project cash flows, making funding more expensive.”

But it insists: “Although we are aware that investors and lenders currently tend to require pre-accreditation before approving financial close, we do not consider that the lack of certainty over the tariff available upon completion will prevent projects being funded.”

However another interpretation is that the move is deliberately designed to do exactly that: push up financing costs and so push previously fundable solar projects into unviability.

Undermining investor confidence

Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, commented: “This proposed cut to support for solar is utterly short sighted. While the Government continues to subsidise fossil fuels and nuclear it’s undermining investor confidence in clean, renewable energy generation.”

Keith Taylor, Green MEP for South East England, added: “Amber Rudd’s incoherence in blindly supporting nuclear subsidies whilst cutting renewable funding is breathtaking.

“Nuclear has an expensive history the government seems incapable of learning lessons from, while renewables offer sustainable cleaner energy with thousands of jobs. In the face of our commitments to reduce carbon emissions and the forthcoming UN climate talks in Paris, these cuts are environmental vandalism of the first order.”

Also opposing the move is Juliet Davenport chief executive of renewable electricity company Good Energy, which already owns six solar farms in the UK and supports over 90,000 people who generate electricity at home using small-scale solar.

“Ending support for solar power makes no sense at all. On one hand the government says it wants to keep household energy bills down by removing support for clean solar power, yet on the other promises massive subsidies to nuclear.

“The energy market currently has a wide range of subsidies and tax allowances in place, across all the technologies – renewables, nuclear and gas … We’d like to see the government looking at all forms of support, not just renewables, and creating a more transparent and fair regime across the whole market.”

Just as the UK is heading for solar ‘grid parity’

Solar power met 15% of UK’s energy demand on the afternoon of Friday 3 July. With continued support from the Government over the next five years, says Davenport, “solar would soon be one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation.”

And contrary to government statements, she says it’s already saving consumers money: “Our research shows that solar reduces wholesale prices by displacing high cost gas fired power generation during the day – the government is taking a one-sided approach by not taking this into account.”

Last month the Solar Trade Association published its ‘Solar Independence Plan for Britain‘ report, a fully costed proposal which sets out how the UK can double the amount of solar and get solar as cheap as fossil fuel electricity by 2020 – all for a modest amount of extra funds.

Its ‘Higher Ambition’ scenario would allow the delivery of 25GW os solar capacity by 2020, comprising over two million solar homes, 24,000 commercial rooftop and community schemes, and around 2,000 solar farms.

In 2020 the plan would provide 56,900 jobs at an average cost on consumer bills of just £13.35 per year. And even more important it would guarantee ‘grid parity’ in that same year – making that no new subsidies would bre required for any solar projects in the UK.

 






Defend GMO labeling – say no to Monsanto’s DARK Act today!

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With no debate and only a voice vote, the US House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture last week (14th July 2015) passed H.R. 1599, the DARK Act, a bill to preempt states’ rights to label GMOs.

Within hours, it was announced that the bill would go straight to the House floor, with no vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee. A vote of the full House of Representatives is now scheduled for this Thursday, July 23.

If passed, the DARK (Denying Americans the Right to Know) Act will overturn Vermont’s GMO labeling law and prevent other states from passing GMO labeling laws.

The same will hold true for local GMO crop bans. The bill would also guarantee the FDA never conducts independent, pre-market safety testing on GMO foods.

If we don’t stop it in the House this week, the fight to stop this ‘Mother of all Monsanto Protection Acts’ will take place next in the US Senate, by early fall.

Bowling for Monsanto

In his opening statement last week, Committee Chairman Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Texas) (who shortly after today’s vote said he will co-sponsor H.R. 1599) couldn’t have sounded more like a Monsanto employee if he’d tried.

Conaway nailed the biotech industry’s favorite talking points and mistruths, beginning with this one:

“In testimony before this Committee, multiple representatives of the food and agricultural sectors commented on the cost burden that would be placed on our food system if we were to allow the 50 States, more than 3,000 counties and nearly 20,000 towns and cities in the United States to establish their own laws regulating interstate commerce.”

Time and again, independent experts have stated that the cost of labeling GMO foods and ingredients, to manufacturers, retailers and consumers, would be negligible here in the US, just as it has been in the more than 60 countries that already require labeling.

In fact GMO labels are costless, as pointed out in this Washington Post article. Companies regularly update their food packaging as they come up with new designs or marketing strategies.

GMOs have been ‘proven safe’. Wrong …

And then there was the ultimate lie about GMOs, that they have been “proven safe”:

“We all recognize that the overwhelming consensus within the science community is that these biotech products are safe. We likewise understand that each and every biotech product in the marketplace today has been reviewed thorough a voluntary food safety consultation process at the Food and Drug Administration.”

Wrong. Ever since GMOs were introduced into the food system in the 1990s, without adequate, independent, pre-market safety testing, there have been scientists and an increasing volume of of research indicating that these genetically engineered foods and the toxic chemicals that accompany them are hazardous to human health and the environment.

The American Medical Association believes GMO foods should be subjected to pre-market safety testing. And there is surely no consensus, as hundreds of scientists worldwide have confirmed, on the safety of GMOs that have already been approved. That is a flat-out lie.

Conaway spoke instead about the US Food & Drug Administration’s ‘voluntary food safety consultation process’ as if that were a valid means of proving safety.

Glaringly absent from Conaway’s statement was any mention of the toxic chemicals used to grow GMO crops, and allowed to remain as residue on GMO foods. Not one word was spoken about the World Health Organization’s recent determination that glyphosate, the chemical used on more than 80% of GMO crops, is a probably human carcinogen.

Corporate gain, public loss

None of these statements, coming from a lawmaker with ties to Big Ag, were particularly surprising.

But what should concern any consumer, voter, citizen or just plain common-sense thinking human being, is that Conaway’s statement clearly focused on how to promote the profits of corporations, rather than on how to protect people from foods that have not been proven safe, and the arsenal of toxic chemicals used to grow them.

It was all about ‘marketing’, and how we need a government program for food producers who want to voluntarily label their products as GMO-free, or containing GMOs.

“USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service has long been in the business of assisting producers to develop programs and tools to take advantage of market opportunities. The Biotechnology, Horticulture and Research Subcommittee recently examined the programs of the Agricultural Marketing Service.

“The Subcommittee concluded that the agency has the resources and expertise to develop and administer a robust marketing program for those wishing to notify consumers of the presence or absence of genetically engineered ingredients in their food products.

“What the agency doesn’t have is the law to make it work uniformly across the country like we did 25 years ago when we passed the Organic Foods Production Act.”

Not one word on the devastation to the environment. Not on word on how chemical-intensive, fossil-fuel-intensive industrial agriculture is one of the largest contributors, if not the largest contributor, to global warming – and how if we don’t fix this system, we can’t be serious about averting a climate disaster.

How do we stop this outrageous piece of legislation?

As Pope Francis said recently, on the topic of genetic engineering and its use of toxic pesticides:

It creates a vicious circle in which the intervention of the human being to solve a problem often worsens the situation further. For example, many birds and insects die out as a result of toxic pesticides created by technology, they are useful to agriculture itself, and their disappearance will be compensated with another technological intervention that probably will bring new harmful effects …

“Looking at the world we see that this level of human intervention, often in the service of finance and consumerism, actually causes the earth we live in to become less rich and beautiful, more and more limited and gray, while at the same time the development of technology and consumerism continues to advance without limits.

H.R. 1599 is an assault on consumer rights, an assault on democracy and states’ rights. And if passed, it will only escalate the assault on our health, and the health of Planet Earth.

So how do we stop it? By letting every member of Congress know that we, you, all of us, oppose it!

 

 

Action: Please help us continue to fight this disastrous and undemocratic piece of legislation. Tell your members of Congress to oppose H.R. 1599 and to protect your right to know! You can reach them by calling (877) 434-0011.

Katherine Paul is director of communications for the Organic Consumers Association.

More information on the Dark Act from OCA.

This article was originally published by the Organic Consumers Association.

 






Britain’s ‘protected’ moorlands go up in flames

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A new study led by the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science has revealed that burning has taken place in more than half of the UK’s most highly protected upland moors assessed in the study.

This includes over half of Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) designated under the EU’s Habitats and Species Directive, and almost two thirds of Special Protection Areas (SPAs), designated under the EU’s Birds Directive. According to the paper,

“Burning was detected within 55% of Special Areas of Conservation and 63% of Special Protection Areas that were assessed, and the proportion of moorland burned was significantly higher inside sites than on comparable squares outside protected areas.

“The annual numbers of burns increased from 2001 to 2011 irrespective of peat depth. The spatial overlap of burning with peat and protected areas and the increasing number of burns require urgent attention, for the development of policies for sustainable management and reversal of damage to ecosystem services in the UK uplands.”

Burning on moorlands, a mixture of bog and heath habitats valuable to many endangered birs, reptiles and other species, is widely used to increase the numbers of red grouse that are available for recreational shooting.

Burning increased by 11% a year for ten years

This study, published in Biological Conservation, is the first time upland burning has been mapped in detail across mainland Britain. Using aerial photography and satellite images, 45,000 1-km squares were mapped across Scotland, England and Wales, and revealed that burning occurred across 8,551 of these squares.

In the ten year period covered by the study from 2001 to 2011, the number of burns recorded increased rapidly by 11% each year. Other studies have found that the potential number of red grouse shooting days in some areas of Britain has risen over a similar period, and moorland management has also intensified.

“These sites are designated under EU legislation for their conservation importance, and governments are charged with protecting them from damage and ensuring that they are restored to the best condition”, says RSPB.

“However, many SACs and SPAs are in unfavourable condition, with burning identified by governments and statutory agencies as a primary reason for this poor status.”

Burning regulations and advice differs between England, Wales and Scotland, and the discrepancies account for the higher level of ‘unfavourable’ condition Scotland. In England 53% of the total area is ‘unfavourable’, but that rises to 87% of  upland bog features in Scotland.

“These sites are designated under EU legislation for their conservation importance, and governments are charged with protecting them from damage and ensuring that they are restored to the best condition”, says RSPB.

“However, many SACs and SPAs are in unfavourable condition, with burning identified by governments and statutory agencies as a primary reason for this poor status.”

Dr David Douglas, Senior Conservation Scientist at RSPB Scotland and lead author of the study added: “Upland ecosystems are highly sensitive to burning practices. Knowing how much burning takes place and where is crucial to developing sustainable land management policies for these precious environments.”

The UK’s greatest carbon store at risk

In Scotland and England, a third of burning took place on deep peat soils, an important carbon store. The UK has 10-15% of the world’s blanket bog peatlands. Locking in 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon, this deep peat in the uplands is the largest carbon store in the UK.

Upland areas are also a vital water source, supplying around 70% of our drinking water. Burning has been linked to poor water quality in these areas, requiring large sums of money to treat the water.

Martin Harper, Director of Conservation at RSPB said: “Our uplands are amongst our most precious habitats in Britain and home to important wildlife. However, many of our uplands are in poor condition due to intensive land management practices. It’s very worrying that burning is increasing, given the damage it can cause and that it occurs in many of our conservation areas.

“Governments and statutory agencies across Britain need to take action to reduce burning in our uplands rather than allowing them to be increasingly damaged year on year.

“Although their regulations already advise against burning on blanket bog it is often used on these areas with their consent. These regulations need to be strongly enforced so that uplands are properly protected against this damaging practice.”

 

 

The paper: ‘Vegetation burning for game management in the UK uplands is increasing and overlaps spatially with soil carbon and protected areas‘ by David J. T. Douglas et al is published in Biological Conservation.

 






Lancashire’s fracking victory was even greater than we knew

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As Director of the Human Rights Consortium’s Extreme Energy Initiative, earlier this year I was asked by local residents’ groups to provide expert testimony to the Lancashire County Council (LCC) Development Control Committee (DCC) on the human rights impacts of fracking – the controversial unconventional gas extraction technique.

The invitation came on the back of a co-authored report for the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation into the human rights impacts of fracking, reported on in The Ecologist.

My evidence was requested due to two controversial potential fracking sites, Preston New Road and Roseacre Wood, which were being proposed by fracking firm Caudrilla.

I have been studying the social and environmental impacts of fracking for over five years and I have accumulated a considerable amount of impact data which suggests that the technology and its associated infrastructure poses a significant threat to environmental human rights such as to clean water.

Moreover, the politics of fracking poses significant threats to civil and political rights, freedom of assembly and expression and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention.

While the ‘rejection’ outcomes of the Lancashire hearings rightly pleased many in the anti-fracking movement the process up to that point was deeply concerning on a number of levels that do not bode well for future applications.

Specifically, there were key areas where the applicant was clearly favoured at the expense of the views of, and evidence presented, by the local objectors and their expert witnesses.

And the deciding Councillors were effectively threatened with legal action if they refused the application. They were told that to refuse the application would be tantamount to breaking the law, as it would be an “unsustainable” decision lacking evidence, and would expose them to high appeal costs at a time when councils are austerity ravaged.

‘Biased and disrespectful’ – the Planning Officer report

The LCC Planning Officer’s report published by LCC on 15 June 2015, which is meant to provide an unbiased appraisal to assist the DCC reach a decision was, at best, fundamentally flawed and inadequately researched, and, at worst, biased and disrespectful.

Development Control Committee’s give considerable weight to planning officer reports, especially when much of an application concerns material which is both highly technical and hotly debated. Thus, the Planning Officer bears a huge responsibility to evaluate the application, via a reasoned summary of the best available evidence, in an impartial and responsible manner.

Unfortunately, in this case the planning officer reports fell so woefully short of such standards that they raise the obvious suspicion of undue political and/or industry pressure and influence.

When it came to discussing one of fracking’s most notorious issues – the health impacts on local populations – the Planning Officer’s report stated:

“Many representations received by the County Council refer to research conducted in North America and overseas that indicate shale gas extraction is linked to adverse health impacts. While much research exists, and is growing in volume each year, it is difficult to gain an objective view of the veracity of the research.

“Anti-fracking campaigners frequently point to studies that indicate increased health risks (e.g. elevated risks of cancer or birth defects) as a result of shale gas activity in North America. Conversely, pro-fracking campaigners point to numerous methodological flaws in the research.” (Public Reports Pack p.53)

At best, this is an unforgivably lazy summary from a supposedly impartial public official meant to be serving the public interest, at worst it is suggestive of a pro-fracking bias.

It is a relatively easy task to review the evidence and rank in terms of scientific value, academic rigour and independence. When negative public health impact studies appear it is routine tactical propaganda for industry and their supporters to dismiss the findings on the grounds of questionable ‘methodology’, as if it were they who gathered the data and possessed the requisite research training.

Such challenges, unlike their targets for attack, are not peer reviewed, but industry know that mud sticks and reports such as the LCC PO are evidence of that.

The report ignored and downplayed inconvenient evidence

Unfortunately the suggestion of bias just increases the more one delves into the PO’s report. It lauds the approach taken by Public Health England in its June 2014 report on fracking health impact data, citing its reliance on “peer reviewed literature” (is this the same evidence which the PO previously argued was hard to verify?).

I then uses this backing to attempt to dismiss in one fell swoop the findings of other peer reviewed research which concerned local citizens had been highlighting to the DCC in the hearings and written submissions:

‘Much of the research cited in representations to the County Council was reviewed by PHE… (who) highlight significant methodological flaws in the research that has been cited to the County Council.’

Why doesn’t the Planning Officer read the academic material cited in submissions at source rather than rely on another Public bodies’ reading of it? Or at least balance PHE’s spin by considering the obvious ‘methodological flaws’ of its own report by renowned environmental consultant Paul Mobbs, which fail to get a mention in the Planning Officer’s report. It continues:

“Moreover, one study frequently cited by objectors (McKenzie, 2014) has been publically criticised by the Chief Medical Officer and Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment in the USA as follows: ‘we disagree with many of the specific associations with the occurrence of birth defects noted within the study. Therefore, a reader of the study could easily be misled to become overly concerned.’ “

So the public must believe the pronouncements of such officials over peer reviewed academic research? This whole passage reads as is if the author has been trawling the internet looking for any half-baked repudiation of robust academic research or had he been spoon-fed the material to serve an alternative agenda?

This latter possibility seems more plausible the further one delves into the report. Going beyond simple selective reading, the PO report systematically downplayed, and sought to marginalise, the evidence presented by expert witnesses.

Attacking the Medact study

Seemingly in order to protect the definitive status afforded by the report to PHE’s summary, the Planning Officer’s report took aim at the far more rigorous Medact study. The methodology for this attack was twofold:

1) point out the Medact authors did not conduct their own original epidemiological research – which of course neither did PHE, but that wasn’t deemed injurious their report

2) to undermine and question the professional expertise and integrity of two clearly identifiable (although, tellingly, no names were mentioned) expert witnesses, Mike Hill and Dr Frank Rugman:

“The Medact report has not produced new epidemiological research but has reviewed published literature and has requested short papers from relevant experts in particular subject areas. It has also interviewed academics and experts.

“Unfortunately, one of the contributors (contributing to three of the report’s six chapters – chapters 2, 4 and 5) has led a high profile campaign in the Fylde related to shale gas. Another contributor to the report (chapter 3) has previously expressed firm views on shale gas and has objected to this application.

“This has led to questions from some quarters about the report’s objectivity. In light of these uncertainties it is not clear how much weight the County Council should attach to the report.”

As a statement in a report by a supposedly impartial public official this is truly astonishing in its bias and lack of respect. It is predicated on a wilful ignorance of a researcher’s usual goal: when conducting research it is hoped that the data will in fact allow one to hold “firm views” based on analysis of the data produced when concluding.

Such a result makes it possible to give advice on the best course of action, to have a policy impact and such like. A valid question would be: do the ‘firm views’ flow from the evidence considered? Having read the Medact report, and much of the source evidence it considers, I would say unequivocally yes and so would any unbiased observer in my view.

We can also reasonably ask why an alleged “high profile campaign” by the first contributing expert mentioned (Mr Hill) should “unfortunately” reduce the weight given to his evidence? If Mr Hill feels compelled to speak out in the public interest based on his knowledge and expertise then that is his right and moral duty. Or do we now live in a world where we can only hold ‘firm views’ and speak out if we are blindly following corporate agendas?

Meticulously assembled evidence dismissed as ‘anecdote’

Another expert witness, Professor David Smythe, appalled by this approach, has requested the source of the “questions from some quarters” under Freedom of Information Legislation. Whatever the outcome such statements should not appear in an objective and balanced planning report and only serve to further undermine the public’s confidence in the impartiality of public authorities.

In a section, counter-factually, entitled ‘Minimal environmental risks’ the detailed, meticulously researched and closely argued 30,000 word submission of Emeritus Professor David Smythe is reduced to the status of mere anecdotal ‘comments’ and described thus:

“Comments that the geology of Lancashire is not suitable for fracking have been provided by a professor who retired 18 years ago and is now living in France running a B&B. Evidence in the US and UK is to the contrary.“

This is no passive, benign summary but intentionally disparaging and erroneous rhetoric. To say that such commentary has no place in a supposedly impartial planning report is a huge understatement. In a subsequent submission to the LCC, objecting to this personal attack Professor Smythe rightly described the comment as “outrageous”:

“I am clearly identifiable. It is a calculated denigration of an expert witness. I took early retirement from the Chair of Geophysics at the University of Glasgow some 16 years ago, and spent around a decade from 2001 onwards consulting for a variety of oil companies.

“Projects lasted from a few weeks to a couple of years, involving studies of onshore and offshore India, Western Australia, offshore Madagascar, southern England (both onshore and offshore), and the UK-Irish margin of the NE Atlantic (during this period my wife, not I, ran a B&B for about three years).

“I have requested information from LCC under FOI legislation to discover the origin of the statement quoted above, as I have been unable to find it elsewhere in the published application documents.”

So the PO report dismissed the health impact data and analysis along with the serious concerns associated with the specific geology of the area. But what of the antecedents of the applicant on their prior sites? Surely that is worth considering in the public interest? Apparently not. The report stated that:

“Some of the objections maintain that planning permission should not be granted in view of the alleged poor track record of the applicant when carrying out operations at other sites within its control. With regard to the applicant’s previous operations and compliance with planning permissions a planning permission goes with the land rather than with the applicant and it is right to assume that the applicant would comply with conditions attached to any planning permission.”

So the public should feel safe in the knowledge that the PO simply assumes the applicant will start behaving.

More pro-fracking bias

When it came to dealing with representations from the public, on the New Road application the PO listed 11,127 letters of objection and only 200 in support. However, the report then deconstructed the objection letters into ‘individual’ (827) and ‘template’ letters, the clear implication being that only individual letters are valid. The same treatment was not given to the support letters. Why, I wonder?

A further example of pro-applicant bias can be seen in the PO report’s consideration of the ‘global warming potential’ of the Lancashire applications.

In the absence of a meaningful decarbonising national strategy we can only hope that planning authorities vet planning applications and pay particular attention to likely application greenhouse gas emissions and seek to protect the public interest.

Indeed, planning decisions must take account of the need to reduce GHG emissions but the fracking applications if they had passed would have increased emissions. The PO report, however, suggested that these emissions are “acceptable”.

Moreover, the report states that GWP figures play an important part in estimating the carbon footprint of the project, including its greenhouse gas emissions. But it then goes on to suggest that basing the GWP potential of the application on figures from out of date IPCC reports is “not unreasonable”.

This is an utterly ridiculous position to take unless of course you wish to assist the applicant in downplaying the likely impact of its proposed development.

It is wholly unreasonable to base the GWP of methane on the 2nd IPCC Report rather than the most recent 5th Assessment. To ignore the latest 5th IPCC report figures in favour of the now grossly out of date 2nd report is more than unreasonable, it is grossly inadequate.

Moreover, as climate scientists acknowledge, the IPCC reports themselves are the product of political watering down of the latest science. If we are to protect the public interest, with evidence based policy, of course using out of date reports is unreasonable. If my students did this with their coursework they would fail.

In short, the Planning Officer’s report on which councillors are meant to place much weight was not just deeply flawed but demonstrably biased in a favour of the applicant. The question is why?

We can only guess at the motivations behind writing a report in this manner but it certainly raises serious concerns about possible industry influence or political pressure or it may be that the door is about to revolve for the author? We shall see.

Legal shenanigans – blown open at the last minute

Aside from the problematic Planning Officer’s report, over the course of the two hearings the politics of fracking was plain to see, from the abundance of pro-fracking corporate rhetoric to the anti-fracking protests outside. What was more opaque, however, was the political intrigue that gave rise to the quite extraordinary scenes of disarray, confusion and contestation in the Council chamber last week.

Indeed, whilst the Roseacre Wood application was fairly straightforwardly rejected on the grounds of adverse traffic impact, the Preston New Road application was a different story.

Following a motion to reject that application proposed by Councillor Paul Hayhurst the DCC hearing was interrupted, apparently so that members could obtain ‘legal advice’ behind closed doors.

On resumption of the meeting the Committee members were clearly agitated and concerned by what they had heard. Councillor Paul Hayhurst later revealed that Council legal officers had put intense pressure on the committee to approve the application:

“We were told we must vote for the application. If we didn’t we would be breaking the law and we would be deemed irresponsible members. If it went to appeal and we lost, costs would be awarded against the authority.” Hayhurst then insisted the DCC publish the legal advice so that the public could see it.

The meeting was then adjourned until the 29th June. But it wasn’t until 10am the next day when the legal advice, written by David Manley QC, was finally published on the Council’s website, and worse still it was toned down and expressly stated that rejecting the application would not break the law.

In response, said Hayhurst, “I am absolutely appalled … This is not in the sort of vein that we were advised yesterday.” In his view, the advice that members were given verbally and in private may have dissuaded some of the committee from refusing the application.

Meanwhile another Councillor (Green) suggested additional legal advice may be needed, which gave the residents groups an incentive to procure independent legal advice before the adjourned meeting took place on the Monday.

However, in correspondence with stakeholders LCC officials suggested no new information would be allowed to be circulated at the Monday hearing. Even so, local residents groups obtained independent alternative legal advice by late Friday afternoon and then sent hard copies to all Councillors to arrive Saturday morning.

Friends of the Earth also sought independent legal advice and, following pressure from the residents groups, eventually LCC officials relented and said that such new legal advice could be circulated at the Monday hearing.

Both sets of new legal advice assured Councillors they were within their rights to reject the application if they felt there was sufficient evidence to do so – they were not bound by the advice of the Planning Officer or Council’s QC.

It was a monumental effort by concerned local citizens, the national anti-fracking movement and interested NGOs, which ultimately provided the beleaguered DCC with the confidence and evidence to reject the application in spite of the PO’s report, LCC’s legal ‘advice’ and the attempts to control the flow of information to the DCC with arbitrary submission cut-off dates and the like.

The infamous redacted DEFRA report on fracking and the rural economy

A few DCC members, at various points in the proceedings, requested to delay the decision until a now notorious DEFRA report into the rural economy impacts has been fully published. The ‘Shale Gas Rural Economy Impacts’ report was published in heavily redacted form in March 2014, generating considerable protest.

Just after the LCC decisions on July 1st 2015, the full report was finally published. Despite the report being yet another poorly constructed selective ‘literature review’ it is of course interesting, if unsurprising, to see what parts the Government didn’t want the public or local planning authorities to see.

The report’s redacted sections highlight likely negative impacts which are balanced against the perceived positive benefits. For example, it suggests that losses for businesses which rely on a ‘tranquil environment’ (read non-industrialised) of tourists avoiding the area due to fracking operations may be off-set by increased hospitality to new workers; the extent to which such tourism loss can indeed be ‘offset’ is not even estimated.

The implication in the report, however, is that increased ‘hospitality’ to ‘new’ workers will be relatively minimal while tourism loss could be considerable depending on the nature of the site location.

For example, in this particular application area, one in ten jobs are in the tourist business with approximately 17,000 jobs in tourism on the Fylde with 3.1 million visitors a year generating around £220 million per annum, with around 30,000 jobs in agriculture generating £700 million a year.

Much of this would be jeopardised if fracking were to take hold in the area. It is highly improbable to say the least that the 11 jobs promised by Cuadrilla would compensate for the losses in tourism even at the exploration stage.

When it comes to traffic, of particular concern in the Roseacre Wood application. The redacted sections of the DEFRA report conclude that congestion impacts will be “negative but localised”. But just how local? The report makes it very clear that impacts will be over a relatively wide area (at least five miles) around each site, with as many as 36,735 vehicle movements per site. Far from insignificant.

The same ‘negative but localised’ conclusion is reached regarding house price impact: “House prices in close proximity to the drilling operations are likely to fall. However, rents may increase due to additional demand from site workers and supply chain.”

Again the negative ‘off-set’ potential here is vague to say the least and potentially higher rent for workers is not going to assuage the concerns of local homeowners and their potential to fall into negative equity.

This is the time to keep fighting!

It’s obvious why this section was redacted, but contrary to government propaganda it’s also obvious that house prices would fall near fracking operations due to the inherent impacts the industry will bring.

When it came to discussing specific environmental impacts the report author reached another unremarkable, but for industry and government, unpalatable conclusion (p.15):

“there is a risk that even if contaminated surface water does not directly impact drinking water supplies, it can affect human health indirectly through consumption of contaminated wildlife, livestock, or agricultural products and that leakage of waste fluids from the drilling and fracking processes has resulted in environmental damage.”

Going forward, as a taster of a new normal if the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership goes ahead, it is deeply concerning that neoliberal austerity-ravaged Councils, such as LCC, will be under immense pressure to permit fracking operations despite the considerable risks of environmental and social harms, because under recent government guidelines if they reject an application and lose an appeal they will have to pay costs.

On the other hand, if other Councils, backed by committed and organised anti-fracking constituents, continue to object it may be that the prospects for a fledgling fracking industry in the UK are bleak.

Based on the evidence of negative social and environmental impacts I have seen over the years I certainly hope so.

 

 

Dr Damien Short is director of the Human Rights Consortium at the School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Fracking is driving UK civil and political rights violations‘ by Jess Elliot & Damien Short.

Petition to Amber Rudd, Energy Secretary: ‘Keep your promise to protect our beautiful nature and wildlife sites from fracking. Don’t allow fracking to happen in or under our National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Sites of Special Scientific Interest‘ (38 Degrees).

 






Defend GMO labeling – say no to Monsanto’s DARK Act today!

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With no debate and only a voice vote, the US House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture last week (14th July 2015) passed H.R. 1599, the DARK Act, a bill to preempt states’ rights to label GMOs.

Within hours, it was announced that the bill would go straight to the House floor, with no vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee. A vote of the full House of Representatives is now scheduled for this Thursday, July 23.

If passed, the DARK (Denying Americans the Right to Know) Act will overturn Vermont’s GMO labeling law and prevent other states from passing GMO labeling laws.

The same will hold true for local GMO crop bans. The bill would also guarantee the FDA never conducts independent, pre-market safety testing on GMO foods.

If we don’t stop it in the House this week, the fight to stop this ‘Mother of all Monsanto Protection Acts’ will take place next in the US Senate, by early fall.

Bowling for Monsanto

In his opening statement last week, Committee Chairman Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Texas) (who shortly after today’s vote said he will co-sponsor H.R. 1599) couldn’t have sounded more like a Monsanto employee if he’d tried.

Conaway nailed the biotech industry’s favorite talking points and mistruths, beginning with this one:

“In testimony before this Committee, multiple representatives of the food and agricultural sectors commented on the cost burden that would be placed on our food system if we were to allow the 50 States, more than 3,000 counties and nearly 20,000 towns and cities in the United States to establish their own laws regulating interstate commerce.”

Time and again, independent experts have stated that the cost of labeling GMO foods and ingredients, to manufacturers, retailers and consumers, would be negligible here in the US, just as it has been in the more than 60 countries that already require labeling.

In fact GMO labels are costless, as pointed out in this Washington Post article. Companies regularly update their food packaging as they come up with new designs or marketing strategies.

GMOs have been ‘proven safe’. Wrong …

And then there was the ultimate lie about GMOs, that they have been “proven safe”:

“We all recognize that the overwhelming consensus within the science community is that these biotech products are safe. We likewise understand that each and every biotech product in the marketplace today has been reviewed thorough a voluntary food safety consultation process at the Food and Drug Administration.”

Wrong. Ever since GMOs were introduced into the food system in the 1990s, without adequate, independent, pre-market safety testing, there have been scientists and an increasing volume of of research indicating that these genetically engineered foods and the toxic chemicals that accompany them are hazardous to human health and the environment.

The American Medical Association believes GMO foods should be subjected to pre-market safety testing. And there is surely no consensus, as hundreds of scientists worldwide have confirmed, on the safety of GMOs that have already been approved. That is a flat-out lie.

Conaway spoke instead about the US Food & Drug Administration’s ‘voluntary food safety consultation process’ as if that were a valid means of proving safety.

Glaringly absent from Conaway’s statement was any mention of the toxic chemicals used to grow GMO crops, and allowed to remain as residue on GMO foods. Not one word was spoken about the World Health Organization’s recent determination that glyphosate, the chemical used on more than 80% of GMO crops, is a probably human carcinogen.

Corporate gain, public loss

None of these statements, coming from a lawmaker with ties to Big Ag, were particularly surprising.

But what should concern any consumer, voter, citizen or just plain common-sense thinking human being, is that Conaway’s statement clearly focused on how to promote the profits of corporations, rather than on how to protect people from foods that have not been proven safe, and the arsenal of toxic chemicals used to grow them.

It was all about ‘marketing’, and how we need a government program for food producers who want to voluntarily label their products as GMO-free, or containing GMOs.

“USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service has long been in the business of assisting producers to develop programs and tools to take advantage of market opportunities. The Biotechnology, Horticulture and Research Subcommittee recently examined the programs of the Agricultural Marketing Service.

“The Subcommittee concluded that the agency has the resources and expertise to develop and administer a robust marketing program for those wishing to notify consumers of the presence or absence of genetically engineered ingredients in their food products.

“What the agency doesn’t have is the law to make it work uniformly across the country like we did 25 years ago when we passed the Organic Foods Production Act.”

Not one word on the devastation to the environment. Not on word on how chemical-intensive, fossil-fuel-intensive industrial agriculture is one of the largest contributors, if not the largest contributor, to global warming – and how if we don’t fix this system, we can’t be serious about averting a climate disaster.

How do we stop this outrageous piece of legislation?

As Pope Francis said recently, on the topic of genetic engineering and its use of toxic pesticides:

It creates a vicious circle in which the intervention of the human being to solve a problem often worsens the situation further. For example, many birds and insects die out as a result of toxic pesticides created by technology, they are useful to agriculture itself, and their disappearance will be compensated with another technological intervention that probably will bring new harmful effects …

“Looking at the world we see that this level of human intervention, often in the service of finance and consumerism, actually causes the earth we live in to become less rich and beautiful, more and more limited and gray, while at the same time the development of technology and consumerism continues to advance without limits.

H.R. 1599 is an assault on consumer rights, an assault on democracy and states’ rights. And if passed, it will only escalate the assault on our health, and the health of Planet Earth.

So how do we stop it? By letting every member of Congress know that we, you, all of us, oppose it!

 

 

Action: Please help us continue to fight this disastrous and undemocratic piece of legislation. Tell your members of Congress to oppose H.R. 1599 and to protect your right to know! You can reach them by calling (877) 434-0011.

Katherine Paul is director of communications for the Organic Consumers Association.

More information on the Dark Act from OCA.

This article was originally published by the Organic Consumers Association.

 






Britain’s ‘protected’ moorlands go up in flames

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A new study led by the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science has revealed that burning has taken place in more than half of the UK’s most highly protected upland moors assessed in the study.

This includes over half of Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) designated under the EU’s Habitats and Species Directive, and almost two thirds of Special Protection Areas (SPAs), designated under the EU’s Birds Directive. According to the paper,

“Burning was detected within 55% of Special Areas of Conservation and 63% of Special Protection Areas that were assessed, and the proportion of moorland burned was significantly higher inside sites than on comparable squares outside protected areas.

“The annual numbers of burns increased from 2001 to 2011 irrespective of peat depth. The spatial overlap of burning with peat and protected areas and the increasing number of burns require urgent attention, for the development of policies for sustainable management and reversal of damage to ecosystem services in the UK uplands.”

Burning on moorlands, a mixture of bog and heath habitats valuable to many endangered birs, reptiles and other species, is widely used to increase the numbers of red grouse that are available for recreational shooting.

Burning increased by 11% a year for ten years

This study, published in Biological Conservation, is the first time upland burning has been mapped in detail across mainland Britain. Using aerial photography and satellite images, 45,000 1-km squares were mapped across Scotland, England and Wales, and revealed that burning occurred across 8,551 of these squares.

In the ten year period covered by the study from 2001 to 2011, the number of burns recorded increased rapidly by 11% each year. Other studies have found that the potential number of red grouse shooting days in some areas of Britain has risen over a similar period, and moorland management has also intensified.

“These sites are designated under EU legislation for their conservation importance, and governments are charged with protecting them from damage and ensuring that they are restored to the best condition”, says RSPB.

“However, many SACs and SPAs are in unfavourable condition, with burning identified by governments and statutory agencies as a primary reason for this poor status.”

Burning regulations and advice differs between England, Wales and Scotland, and the discrepancies account for the higher level of ‘unfavourable’ condition Scotland. In England 53% of the total area is ‘unfavourable’, but that rises to 87% of  upland bog features in Scotland.

“These sites are designated under EU legislation for their conservation importance, and governments are charged with protecting them from damage and ensuring that they are restored to the best condition”, says RSPB.

“However, many SACs and SPAs are in unfavourable condition, with burning identified by governments and statutory agencies as a primary reason for this poor status.”

Dr David Douglas, Senior Conservation Scientist at RSPB Scotland and lead author of the study added: “Upland ecosystems are highly sensitive to burning practices. Knowing how much burning takes place and where is crucial to developing sustainable land management policies for these precious environments.”

The UK’s greatest carbon store at risk

In Scotland and England, a third of burning took place on deep peat soils, an important carbon store. The UK has 10-15% of the world’s blanket bog peatlands. Locking in 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon, this deep peat in the uplands is the largest carbon store in the UK.

Upland areas are also a vital water source, supplying around 70% of our drinking water. Burning has been linked to poor water quality in these areas, requiring large sums of money to treat the water.

Martin Harper, Director of Conservation at RSPB said: “Our uplands are amongst our most precious habitats in Britain and home to important wildlife. However, many of our uplands are in poor condition due to intensive land management practices. It’s very worrying that burning is increasing, given the damage it can cause and that it occurs in many of our conservation areas.

“Governments and statutory agencies across Britain need to take action to reduce burning in our uplands rather than allowing them to be increasingly damaged year on year.

“Although their regulations already advise against burning on blanket bog it is often used on these areas with their consent. These regulations need to be strongly enforced so that uplands are properly protected against this damaging practice.”

 

 

The paper: ‘Vegetation burning for game management in the UK uplands is increasing and overlaps spatially with soil carbon and protected areas‘ by David J. T. Douglas et al is published in Biological Conservation.