Who Cares Enough To Act, And Why?
December 21, 2011 by Doug Kennedy
Over 50 years of environmental activism I find that I, among thousands of stronger, more dedicated people am living in a world that would have horrified me as a youth, because the situation is worse than I think I could have imagined. Had you told me that the human population of The Earth would have more than doubled, from 3 billion to 7 billion, and that each of us would be using vastly more resources than in, say, 1960 it would have seemed blindingly obvious that we were heading for trouble. Add to that an increase in atmospheric CO2 from 0.3% to 0.4%, global warming and rising and horrifyingly dramatic species depletion and I’d have been screaming the question “Well, why aren’t they doing something about it?”
Certainly, environmental activists of all hues (and there are many, unfortunately) have failed, in spite of all the many gains:
* Media coverage. We see and hear information about all the dire environmental issues that face us today on the media far more than previously.
* Protection of land and waterways. We have European Environment Directives, subsidies to help farmers do less damage (and certainly, the poisons that were brought into focus by Silent Spring have largely disappeared), protection of fish stocks, clean waterways, control over wastes and so on. In fact, industries complain that there are so many environmental regulations that it is difficult to do business.
* Protection of green countryside. We have planning rules that make it quite difficult to build on green field sites, particularly green belts and national parks so that people involved in many aspects of housing say that we are not building anywhere near enough houses: this does beg the question why we want to build on more green field when there are large numbers of empty houses and bits of land that could be brought into service, but it is a big issue now.
Yet the global problems listed above haven’t gone away, they just get worse: how can this be?
* World GDP will grow an average 3.1%/year through 2030, driving oil demand from the current 84 million barrels/day to 103 million b/d, when European governments and others have targets to reduce imissions as early as 2020, and dramatically by 2050.
* The human population is growing exponentially: it doubled between 1960 and 2002 and the rise is not slowing.
* That population is demanding ever more resources per head: energy, water, richer food, travel, consumerism.
The combination of population and resource demand means that we simply devastating the system that we depend upon for survival; the atmosphere, water, land to inhabit, wilderness, forest, mineral resources.
Even if you go against the science and believe (yes, believe) that, if global warming is happening it isn’t caused primarily by human activity, you have to admit that there is a serious threat to the stability of existence 20 or 50 years down the line. This means that there is a serious threat to our childrens’ and grand-childrens’ futures. Although we often hear that children are “the most important things in our lives”, we still we don’t take the action needed to negate the threats to their futures.
I was therefore fascinated to hear that a new political movement has got underway, focused on environmental conservation that is even causing concern in David Cameron’s true blue Witney constituency. These people (who probably include those in the movement against wind turbines in the countryside) are against changes in the English planning law designed to simplify and streamline regulation. Currently, if you want to build on a green-field site adjacent to many towns, you are likely to be confronted by a strong local opposition that can be very organised and effective, and that often prevents important housing and infra-structure projects from proceeding. This is very expensive, and politicians are concerned that the UK economy is suffering as a result and that this is the cause of the low level of house building which people, apparently, need. So the Government is proposing to cut planning law down to make it much simpler and also, and here lies the rub, to shift the balance towards the developers to overcome this log-jam.
The protest movement has worked out that there are sufficient voters in potentially affected constituencies to vote out many sitting Tory MPs if they vote tactically, and this they are threatening to do if the houses and factories start appearing on their beloved countryside. All strength to them I say! There is little enough open countryside left in this crowded isle.
But what has made me think hard, is that the environmentalist movement has rarely managed to gather such political momentum: we have remainedout of the mainstream of society, seen either as sandel-wearing nutters or at best as do-gooders who’s ideas we really should try to implement… a bit (see ‘Death To The Environmentalists’ blog below). Politicians are boasting of being “The greenest government ever!” (D.Cameron) and other such guff, but both this government and New Labour before them have seemed unwilling to really put the coordinated, funded policies into action that bring these aspirations about.
Environmental activists can and do strive to engender positive action by governments through lobbying, the media and direct action, and these days web petitions, and these do have an affect that supplements the more powerful long term economic need highlighted by Nicholas Stern and others. We local activists often feel that we are on the edges, nudging peoples’ attention and consciences, but actually achieving little in the way of changing attitudes and behaviours towards the environment. We have to content ourselves with tiny successes, be very patient, and believe that just plugging away year after year WILL make a useful difference. I have my doubts.
So why have the Tory heartlands suddenly become avid conservationists? Because they do love the countryside and, being among the better-off part of society, spend more time it than their poorer urban fellow citizens. It is naked self-interest, centred on this generation’s preferences and narrow in it’s focus. Like anything, it is a gut reaction, from the heart, emotional: “My glorious countryside where I walk the dogs and enjoy the spring flowers, my heritage..” etc.
So there is a passion there, and a willingness to act: how can it be broadened such that the mainstream of society starts to demand stronger action by government, and starts to modify it’s behaviour to deal with our big environmental problems? What is going to put a ‘fire in the belly’ of Mr & Mrs Averge Middle-Class start to threaten to change their votes if local councillors and MPs across our country do not take significant action on the environment?
It’s the old ‘Dunkirk Spirit’ we are looking for, but as in 1939, it is likely that only a dire and immediate threat to our country, and therefore to all of our best interests, is going to bring about the change that we need: and that will be far, far too late.
The Mysteries In The Forest Floor
December 19, 2011 by Doug Kennedy
Ancient woodland has been continually wooded since at least 1600AD, and some may even link back to the original wildwood that covered the UK around 10,000 years ago, after the last Ice Age. There are ancient beech woods in the Chiltern Hills which I explore at all times of the year. They are particularly lovely in the spring and autumn when the colours are vibrant with the changing season.
Beech trees are very stately, their smooth grey trunks, like cathedral columns rising from the leafy forest floor, often only spreading into a canopy dozens of feet up in the air. The foliage glows warm green in the spring against a blue sky, and in the autumn turns golden before the leaves fall and add to the deep litter on the floor.
When men go into a forest to chop it down, they see trees, and powered by burning the carbon of trees that grew 200 million years ago, smash their way through to bring down the trees and gain the timber. In an ancient wood, beneath the vast wheels and metal tracks they are also destroying an amazing complexity of life that thrives under the surface of the forest floor, and this is one of the reasons why ancient woods are so precious. It is also where the mystery dwells.
I have a favourite beech wood atop the Chiltern ridge which is reached by a small path running steeply uphill from a nice country pub. This wood is not only very lovely, with it’s open, leafy forest floor and towering columns of trees, but very rich in fungi. At first glance, the floor seems rather devoid of life as not much grows beneath mature beech, but look closer, particularly in the Autumn, and you will find all manner of colourful and exotic fungal life among the leaf litter. In parts it is carpetted with delicious black Horns of Plenty, stumps covered with little bonnets and small common puffballs, innocuous looking greyish Death Caps and occasional cepes and chanterelles (as well as many small brown jobs).
(Chanterelle, left; Common Bonnet, middle; Magpie Ink Cap)
Southern England has had a very dry, warm autumn especially during the peak mushroom season of late September to early November which worried some farmers (a bit), made it a lot easier to walk along Chiltern forest paths as the usual slushy mud was absent, and caused a near absence of fungi. On a foray I joined in October in my area we found almost nothing – a few ‘small brown jobs’ if you looked hard, but all of the normal exotic fecundity was absent: it was a disappointing day, so I went for a run instead.
The dry weather continued until the middle of November, when some heavy showers moistened the soil. Leaves were still on many of the trees, and a foxglove was flowering in my garden – a flower which would normally be long gone by October.
I kept visiting these woods and on November 16th, things began to get interesting again, but the fungi were a quite different range from last year: if 12 species, only 2 matched! These were funnel caps (some very large) and common bonnets (picture above) and two edible species, the Wood Blewett (below left) which is purplish and oyster mushrooms, below right.
Mushroom do not just grow from a seed, like green plants, but are the fruiting bodies of the main plant, which is the ‘mycellium’. This is a network of fibres, or hyphae, that can be absolutely enormous, spreading over acres of forest floor, or very localised on a single tree stump, or anything in between. Therefore, underneath the leaf litter on this beech forest floor is an amazing complexity of intertwining fungus hyphae of many different species, the overall mass of which is much, much greater than that of the mushrooms and toadstools that we see on the surface from time to time. Also, whilst the fruiting bodies are ephemeral, the underground plant, or mycelium, may be as old as the forest itself.
In fact, fungi are critical to a forest’s health as the trees grow in symbiosis with them. The roots of many trees are ‘infected’ with the fungi around them, and this seems to benefit both organisms, helping the tree gain nutriants and possible water. So a healthy ancient forest is one in which many species depend upon each other for their survival, not only in predator-prey relationships, but as symbionts.
The colourful and varied fungi shown here are manifestations of the real forest mystery that lies unseen beneath our feet and is much too complex and mysterious for us to competely understand. Thus I will keep visiting the forest during the autumn to see what is fruiting at any time, possibly finding something delicious for supper (only taking what I can eat), and always enjoying the beauty of the forest.
If you want to find out more about fungi and experience the delight of finding these ephemeral beauties, locate the nearest fungus group on the internet. In this area, we have the Bucks Fungus Group which can be found at http://www.bucksfungusgroup.org.uk/
See also http://www.doug-kennedy.com/2011/08/a-walk-in-the-countryside-natures-resurgance/
A Walk In The Countryside – Get Involved In Nature’s Resurgance
August 14, 2011 by Doug Kennedy
It is an August Sunday in Cuddington, in rural South Buckinghamshire. The air is a mild 20 degrees centigrade and an occasional breeze wafts the ripe wheat, and the sun has a pleasant intensity when it moves out from behind the broken cloud. I set off for a walk through the local countryside for exercise, enjoyment of the scenery and to try to get some good wildlife photographs.
Down Spickett’s Lane there are several wild plum trees festooned with frui
t and I stretch up, standing on the bank to gather some. They are small and crimson when ripe, and quite deliciously sweet with an intense flavour. Juice dribbles down my chin. There are damsons, small and black and too high to pick without a ladder, more small yellow fruit and one in-between. On the other side the lane, the blackberries are not ready yet, but will be black and luscious in a couple of weeks.
I turned right, past the piggery where a few Oxford black-and-tan rare pigs remain, snoozing in the gentle morning, then round the edge of the bean field down towards the river. Waddesdon Estates farm this land and, as part of their Environmental Stewardship Scheme, all of their fields have a wildlife strip around the edge where wildflowers (weeds) prosper and bees and butterflies dart and settle in their search for nectar. A month ago, when the wildflowers were at their best, there were lots of butteflies: meadow brown in particular, common blues and small whites, green-veined whites, red admirals, peacocks. Now these are fewer, but they are still to be found along with a gatekeeper (small meadow brown) or two.
[Gallery not found]There are rustlings in the high, scrubby hedgerow and I hear some squirrels having a fight, squeaking and jumping about but see nothing. I cross the stile that penetrates it and step into a cow pasture with a wooded, watery drainage channel on my left. This is where newts, grass snakes and waterfoul skulk and a source of dragonflies and damselflies, and I see a large one zoom over my head, too fast to identify.
There is a brown bull with broad shoulders and a deep chest right ahead of me, on the footpath route over the field, and I approach with a little caution; but he is quiet and docile as I skirt around him. The air is fairly quiet now where it was alive with birdsong a month or two ago, but there are birds about. A buzzard circles up on a thermal, but doesn’t come close enough for me to see his colours. There are a lot of crows in the sheep meadow, and rooks in the wood at the top of the field, and an owl box in the tree near the cattle bridge where I saw a tawny owl last march. And there are the ubiquitous pigeons, flapping away noisily as I approach, and sparrows.
The cattle bridge crosses the River Thame, and a pause to see if I can see any fish in it’s fast flowing water. The reeds are varied and luxuriant and a shy moorhen pokes it’s head out of them but doesn’t emerge this time. A couple of cows gaze vacantly at me as they chew their cud.
I cross a gate and a stile, entering the Eythrope Estate, home of Lord Rothschild, who also owns the entire Waddesdon Estate.
Again there are wide, wild field borders, and as I skirt the field through longish grass, I see more white butterflies, and a couple of brimstones that look like a leaf when they stop to feed.
Above, buzzards and red kites glided under the blue sky and seemed to be gathering over the hill to the north: perhaps there was some carrion there.
[SinglePic not found] [SinglePic not found]
As I walk, young pheasants suddenly burst up from the wheat and tall grass, flying further down the track or running into the scrub for cover. These are being bred for the shooting season that starts in October, but that is not the only doom that awaits these tasty game birds!
From only a few feet away, a fox springs up from the wheat where it had been lying in wait to catch a pheasant dinner, and runs off disconsolately through the golden crop. It is amazing what a wheat field conceals: along with the fox, and the pheasants, various small birds would suddenly appear, wings flapping at great speed in their panic to reach the nearby trees.
I come to a wider area of wildflowers
still in bloom: this area would have been planted with a rich variety of native species as part of the Waddesdon environmental work. The air hums with honey and bumble bees, many different flies and some small blue butterflies. This is a sound I hear too seldom these days where it used to be the norm on a summers day. It is the sound of nature at work in a healthy countryside and alien to blank squares of monoculture. This land is intensively farmed, but space is left for natural ecosystems to work and it’s health protected from chemicals and machines.
I stop to enjoy this buzz of life, then as I turn, a hare bursts out from the undergrowth a few yards away, and disappears into the hedge. About half a dozen kites are still circling in the air high over the hill, and a sudden birdsong bursts from nearby trees.
I leave the Waddesdon land, and climb through a meadow, then over another stile onto a neat and tidy field of rye grass: green and even and silent. The field edge has been mown, and it is empty of flowers, insects or any interest and the contrast is staggering.
We have turned much of our countryside into an aseptic monoculture which has been profoundly destructive to the diversity of nature in the British countryside. We have cut down hedgerows, ancient forests (over 80 percent have dissappeared this century), poisoned waterways and tried to turn the land into a factory floor which, for sterility, this field resembles. The terrible thing to me is that we have forgotten what the countryside should be like, and was like until very recently. The land along the Thame Valley shows that we can have both efficiently produced food and healthy natural ecosystems.
Waddesdon manages to farm profitably and efficiently, and because the people running it leave some land for nature and take care how they use modern technologies, after only a few years there is a resurgance of a diverse and healthy countryside. This creates a balance that protects crops, a balance that is destroyed by over-use of expensive chemicals and over-intensive practices. The result is that many of our species of birds and mammals are on endangered lists, and the countyside is often silent and boring.
My walk took me less than two hours, and in that time I have come across dozens of species, and been inspired and amazed by seeing the web of life at work. We do need more of it throughout our country, and it is us, all of us who have to make it happen realising that it is our health and quality of life that is at stake, and doing what we can to understand and restore our countryside.
See also: http://www.doug-kennedy.com/2011/12/the-mysteries-in-the-forest-floor/
The English Riots and The Runaway Train
August 12, 2011 by Doug Kennedy
We live in a troubled World, not helped by the decisions of democratic governments have been very short-sighted, geared more to keeping power than the long term good. One examle is the undermining of equality and sharing in society, which has resulted in the huge inequalities across the World, especially in the US and UK. These inequalities have contributed to the East African famine, over-population and environmental devastation. In my view is that this underlies the trouble this week in England (not Scotland, Wales).
The problems of alienation from society that result from inequalities are deep seated and complex, and although some very good minds have been trying to tackle them for a long time, their solutions inevitably answer only part of the problem and are ham-strung now by lack of money.
Factors contributing to the attitudes that resulted in the riots are (not in any order):
* Poor parenting, which has been deteriorating over the past 30-odd years. This stems from the way society has become more individualistic, materialistic and unequal so that people at the bottom feel increasingly hopeless, disengaged and powerless. Parents turn to drink, drugs, sex and difficult children are left to get on with it without standards, discipline or guidance.
* A materialistic society – one who’s values turn more around bling than caring. One manifestation is the ‘shop-till-you-drop’ celebrity who acts as an icon that suggests that you can have all the money and stuff without having to work and strive for it.
* The idea that greed is good: being super-rich is often a sign of achievement (though not for the offspring of the super-rich), but what is important is how that achievement is measured. If achievement is being a Madoff who doesn’t get found out (and they do exist though he was extreme), then society has lost it’s moral compass. Anger at the banking crisis and it’s outcome, where the bankers cleaned up and society paid, is deep and wide-spread and contributes to the ‘why should I care?’ attitude.
* The increasing gap between the rich and the poor, both within our countries and across the World. This has resulted in a disconnect between sectors of society, and between governments and the rump of society. The result is that people at the bottom end either despair, or grab what benefits they can and live without working or contributing, and/or they become criminal without any concept of it being wrong.
* Lack of education, or at least, success in education: T Blair put billions into UK state education, but we still have 30% of children leaving primary school below the expected basic standard, many unable to read and write proficiently or at all. This in spite of huge research and endless initiatives have been put in place to turn things around. Schools try to instill discipline and set standards, but the problem exists largely in state schools (social deprivation, large class sizes, unvalued teachers) and not in the private sector (social privilege, small class sizes, highly valued teachers). Again, the wealth divide pertains.
* Too much information: Vast amounts of information are fed at everybody, totally unfiltered, through the media and IT, so school learning is devalued. Values are influenced or even dictated by what people happen to absorb. The increased reliance on social networking where people will gravitate towards others with similar attitudes makes any trend self-perpetuating, to the extent of large groups rushing out to trash the streets to create mayhem. It is not a question of limiting the technology or freedom, but of working out how society can best cope with this to produce a favourable outcome.
* Lack of moral leadership: Politicians are not trusted, even less since various UK MPs and US Congressmen have been jailed for corruption and immorality. Of course, politicians are people like you and me, and neither all bad or all good, and no-one likes a ‘goody-goody’, but the media amplifies misdeeds, without balance and often with a political spin, whilst much good is ignored. Company directors tend to line their own pockets to the cost of everyone else. There is Enron, of course, and Madoff, and Fred-the-Shred (ex MD of RBS) but also in the UK, an analysis of the FTSE 100 company directors showed that the average pension entitlement of main board directors was £160,000 per year, whilst the average employee could expect £6,000.
* I have rights, but sod the responsibilities. It’s my right to have (or sire) any number of kids by any number of partners, and the society will pick up the bill. It’s my right to get benefits to pay for my flat, food, children, schooling, medicare and fags, so why should I work? This is a very difficult problem to tackle as any adjustment to benefits causes hardship to the most deprived and increases resentment and anger.
A positive solution will be very difficult to achieve as it is a long-term project – this has been 30 years in the making. It is not a question of left or right-wing politics as neither have all of the answers, and an unbalanced approach will end up with a worse situation. Funnily enough, democracy itself contributes to the problem as political parties work towards getting elected or re-elected, rather than longer term outcomes. I think, perhaps, that this coalition govt is trying to work long term, with the opposing factions within the parties (and they are dramatic – lefty liberals and hang-em-high reactionaries at the extremes) cancelling each other out. But leadership has to be decisive within this continuing war, and a fast-moving situation. Good luck to ‘em.
Any blanket solution to the underlying problems is utopian and unrealistic when you take into account the reality of human nature and any govt that tried to carry out such a policy would probably end up fascistic and so fail.
Our society (Western capitalist) is a bit like a run-away train, with the drivers valiantly trying to keep the thing on the tracks whilst the bad injuns throw rocks and logs. And if the train comes off the rails, as it probably will, doing 90 miles per hour, and most of the people on board are killed, well it’s happened before. Of course it’ll be bigger this time, but those left will pick themselves up and start again. And we still won’t realise that you and me have no importance at all – we are as irrelevant as an ant in a heap: just read your history.
Where the BIG waste is.
August 8, 2011 by Doug Kennedy
You may find the charts on this link interesting:
http://www.citywire.co.uk/money/chart-of-the-day-why-china-blames-us-military-for-sandp-downgrade/a514375?re=15381&ea=237978&utm_source=BulkEmail_Money_Daily&utm_medium=BulkEmail_Money_Daily&utm_campaign=BulkEmail_Money_Daily
China is criticsing the USA for it’s debt situation following the down-grading in it’s rating. They point out the disproportionate amount of money the US pours into it’s military might – per head of population, it is simple madness.
The UK is not far behind – why DID we go into Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya? Why are we proposing to spend billions on a Trident replacement?
And then why are we, that is, our Government, so keen on nuclear power and reprocessing after Fukushima and when we are shutting down the reprocessing facility at Sellafield as it has been a big financial failure – billions down the pan. This project was set up under Thatcher and strongly opposed by Greenpeace and others, but who listens?
It is all madness, and my view is that some of the anger that exploded this weekend is the first outburst of many prompted by the growing inequalities in society and the total lack of accountability by those in power for squandering our country’s wealth. This chart brings another, very powerful, perspective on the matter and shows that we simply should not be spending vast amounts in this way.
And talking of grandiose projects, don’t get me started on HS2!
http://www.doug-kennedy.com/2011/12/the-mysteries-in-the-forest-floor/
http://www.doug-kennedy.com/2011/08/a-walk-in-the-countryside-natures-resurgance/