Bit of a miserable day today. Mainly as I feel all achey and fluey but not actually fully ill, just that annoying stage. So I’m tucked up in bed with the laptop (on a Friday night! the youth of today!) reading blogs and news pages. There’s quite a lot I’ve wanted to draw attention to, so I’ll just summarise briefly.
Firstly, the Lammas project in Pembrokeshire failed to get planning permission on Tuesday. I’m fairly surprised and disappointed as I recently watched a documentary about it, and thought it was a wonderful project. The Lammas project is hoping to be the first planned eco village in the UK, so that it can act as a model for further eco villages. However, local residents were very much against it, and unfortunately there was not enough support in the local area for Lammas. The proposal was rejected on the grounds that there did not seem to be enough detail on business plans for the members and on travel and traffic in the area. However, the planning officer agreed that Lammas would make a social, environmental and economic contribution, which is a step in the right direction. There will be an appeal against the planning decision. Paul Wimbush, one of the founders of the project presented part of the documentary ‘Eco Village Pioneers’ and appears to be a very positive chap, eager to change people’s views and come to a satisfying arrangement for all and I wish the project the best of luck.
In other news, Al Gore won the Nobel Prize for his work on climate change. I won’t bore you with the details as it is all over the news, however unfortunately there is some misleading news by the BBC regarding the verdict of the High Court case against ‘An Inconvenient Truth‘. For further info please go here. Again, I won’t go into too much detail as I expect this will be all over the news shortly. But it does annoy me that the BBC reporting misleading news articles will cause climate change sceptics to jump onto the verdict as ‘evidence’ that global warming does not exist and is not a danger. Many seem to quote ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ film as an alternative to ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ however, this is not without its own faults, and many scientists who were involved in its making, have in fact complained that their data and opinions have been misrepresented. See here : Channel 4
I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I see so many people trying to ‘debate’ whether we have a planetary emergency on our hands, and it’s just because they do not want to make the change, and face up to the very scary fact that if we don’t change the human race is going to be in for a serious cull. After all, nature always wins. If you lay down concrete, after a couple of years, plants will push through. Nature rules. We are at war with the planet and we need to retreat. NOW. In my eyes, even if we have got the science wrong and don’t fully understand how the planet works, there is still something inherently wrong with messing with the planets chemistry by burning huge amounts of fossil fuels and expecting it to stay the same. There is also something wrong with dumping toxic substances, and consuming resources we don’t need to. Think about it, if somebody came into your home and used up everything consumable, then broke and vandalised everything else you had, you would do something about it. That is what the planet is doing to us.
*breathe and calm down* Anyway, in other news, I was sent a film about nuclear waste today. Turns out it’s been leaking into the Champagne region of France. Into the water that the local people use. And possibly into Champagne. Personally, I don’t have the budget to be drinking Champagne on a regular basis, but I do like it on a special occasion but it makes me really uneasy to think that something I drink (or eat, the nuclear waste leakage is not a one off in this region only), may contain radioactive waste. See here for the video : Green TV
I could go on and on for pages and pages with all the stuff I’ve read today and how angry I am, but I’ve managed to restrict myself to the brief overview above. But it just struck me that there is so much wrong and it’s ALL humankind’s fault. And all in the name of ‘progress’.
But on the bright side, I’m trying to be part of the solution instead of the problem. I’m waiting for an allotment. And I’m exploring the possibility of getting a Portuguese Quinta so I can allay many of my food fears. I don’t/can’t/won’t drive. Don’t eat meat. Yadayadayada. But I’m only one person. I can’t do it all.
