Humane (adjective): Kind or considerate towards people or animals. The opposite is ‘beastly’. Introduction: The UK Government has decided to carry out a cull of badgers in an attempt to deal with bovine tuberculosis which infects some of the UK cattle herd. Over 100,000 of a protected species could be killed with little certainty about outcomes, and alternative solutions remain undeveloped. Such wildlife massacres have occurred throughout human existence, and we take full advantage of our technology to kill more efficiently where we should be using
Read more →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 fruit and I stretch up, standing on
Read more →Yesterday I walked for about a mile through grassy fields, about half of them overgrown with grasses, nettles and other vagrant species. This was not in the middle of nowhere, but in prime Buckinghamshire farmland: some of the most fertile and longest farmed in England. These fields were completely vacant – no livestock, and certainly no crops. Were these fields to be left alone, apart from mowing, for long enough, they could become meadows, rich in wildflowers, with nesting places for skylarks and other birds, and
Read more →From one Sunday newspaper today, May 2nd 2009: Item 1: 33.8% of honey bees in the USA disappeared or died since last year. The picture is much the same in the UK, though figures aren’t all in yet and is a bad year in a continuing trend. The main, but not only cause, is ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’ where whole colonies just die or disappear: what triggers it isn’t known, but taking into account chemical residues in wax, hives and honey, pesticides are a likely contributor. And
Read more →I was sent an article from which the following is an extract: from Population and Development Review, Vol. 20, no. 1 (March 1994) Action is needed now Humanity is approaching a crisis point with respect to the interlocking issues of population, environment, and development. With each year’s delay the problems become more acute. Let 1994 be remembered as the year when the people of the world decided to act together for the benefit of future generations.” Well, that was 1994 and the same lack of action
Read more →
Join the Discussion