EcoWarriorMe

With fresh reports on how disconnected we are becoming from nature, we took the opportunity this fine weekend to reconnect, see what's out there and get muddy.   The changing seasons show Glasgow's parks at their best. Here is Pollok.   A riot of colour.    Down by the river.   In the bright sunlit woods   By the old stable block.   In the walled garden.   Leaves on fire.   Mushrooms.   Trees.   Ornamental Gardens.   Leaves.   Berries.   

That's a fact? According to environment secretary Owen Patterson, the time is right for GM crops and it is the duty of the British Government to convince the public that this is the case. He then said that GM crops are probably  safer than conventional crops and seven million children have gone blind or died over the past decade because attempts to grow a strain of GM rice ( Golden Rice ) commercially have been thwarted (implying, perhaps, by anti-GM campaigners and that there are no other solutions to malnutrition). The minister went on to back a scientific approach: "We need evidence-based regulation and decision-making in the EU. Consumers need accurate information in order to make informed choices. The market should then decide if a GM product is viable,"  A rigorous and transparent scientific evidence-based approach is to be welcomed,  although this goes a bit further than Mr Patterson's statement. Assuming that the evidence based regulation allows only GM...

We humans like round numbers.  We don't celebrate the 23rd annual summer fete or the 49th anniversary of an organisation but the 25th or 50th respectively. This is why the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has hit the headlines this week. The daily measurement at Mauna Loa on Hawaii has passed 400 ppm (parts per million) for the first time. Not so much a cause for celebration; more a cause for commiseration  The actual measurement was 400.03 but was subsequently revised down to 399.89 (but what is fourteen hundredths of a part per million between friends). Breaching this threshold was not particularly unexpected but it is symbolic in human terms; it is a memorable number. But what are the implications of exceeding a CO2 concentration of 400 ppm? Some climate change skeptics will be quick to highlight the scientific evidence that shows the atmospheric CO2 has been at this level and higher on the past. They are absolutely correct. Somewhere in the ...

What is the point of exams? Is it to test the candidate's knowledge of the subject or is it to test the candidate's skill in passing exams? In theory at least, it should be the former but when there is a lot riding on the result there is a tendency towards the latter with students placing more emphasis on training to pass the exam rather than gaining a deep understanding of the subject. The student may gain some knowledge of the subject, but only those parts that will gain most marks in the exam as part of a strategy to maximise the result for minimum effort. This doesn't only apply to academic exams.  Similar strategies can also be adopted for all sorts of tests.  For example, if a car maker wants their car to get a good fuel efficiency rating they can work on scoring better in the test, rather than improving the car's performance.  They can use non-standard high performance lubricants, disconnect the alternator, over inflate the tyres, remove door mirrors and ...

A book and a wind-up torch. During Earth Hour, I learned the following: The origin of apples; A little about the last few months of Leon Trotsky’s life before being exiled; That I can still read a book in the dark with a torch (like I did as a child, under the blanket after bed time); And, thanks to @glasgow_kat, that petrochemical candles have much higher emissions than an electric light. Earth Hour is a fantastic way to highlight the problem of climate change in solidarity with people across the globe but it is not enough on its own. Switching the lights off on landmarks from Sidney Opera House to the Eiffel Tower to the Empire State Building for one hour is purely symbolic. Even switching them off permanently would be insignificant. The kind of reduction in fossil fuel use that we need to achieve would be more like everyone everywhere turning off the lights, heating, air conditioning, refrigeration, computers, televisions - everything for an hour. Not just once a year...

On noticing that this would be EcoWarriorMe's 100th post, I thought it would be a good opportunity to review what we set out to do and how the blog has developed over the past two years and to highlight some of the most popular posts and personal favourites. The blog was born of a frustration at the general apathy and lack of progress towards a more sustainable society including climate change, pollution, wasteful squandering of precious resources and the relentless despoiling of our natural environment.  I aimed to highlight things that we can do to reduce our negative impact and demystify some of the competing arguments for and against particular courses of action.  I knew that I didn't have all of the answers and I still don't. I don't even know all the questions although I'm working on that. I enjoy learning and am interested in the science and engineering on which our modern society is based but I expected to probe a bit deeper rather then taking things at fa...

On the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Simple cause and effect is not enough to explain a chaotic world. A single action seldom result in a single reaction. More often, it triggers a chain of reactions, a wave of perturbations through the fabric of reality, like ripples on a pond. Some are obscure, like dropping a small pebble in a big ocean while others stand out like a large rock dropped in a mill pond with long lasting ripples reflecting back from the edge generating complex interference patterns.  It may sound philosophically abstract but here are two examples of such complex interactions in nature.  The first involves the smallest primate, Madame Berthe's Mouse Lemur and the second involves the largest land mammal, the African Elephant.

I received the following e-mail from Greenpeace on a very important topic: the UK's commitment to reducing greenhouse has emissions in electricity generation. The draft Energy Bill does not yet have such a commitment so read on to find how you can help ensure it makes it into the final bill and please spread the word:

Two headlines caught my attention this week, both about animals attacking children.  One article went into the details of the attack, how an infant was attacked in his home , had a finger bitten off which was then re-attached by surgeons and there are still doubts over whether he will regain use of his hand.  The other was a much shorter article about a toddler being attacked in the street and suffered severe facial injuries. The former made national headlines with follow up articles and politicians demanding action to prevent a similar incident happening again while the latter is confined to history, no one is interested in reporting on how she is recovering. What is the difference? The former attack was by a wild fox ( vulpine vulpine ) and the latter by a domestic dog. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has called on action to curb the number of foxes living in the city: a cull by any other name. But why not the same outcry and demands for culling pet dogs? The answer...

We are told not to buy counterfeit Louis Vuitton handbags or DVDs from down the Barras or from e-bay because they fund criminal gangs  that are often involved in other unsavoury activities such as human trafficking and drug smuggling.  What we aren't told is that is we keep on the straight and narrow using legitimate brands and widely respected retailers we could still unwittingly fund the same criminal gangs.  As the story of the horse meat sold as beef scandal  develops it is becoming clearer that that is what is happenning: Polish and Italian criminal gangs using intimidation to get the horse meat signed off as beef before exporting to traders in Cyprus and the Netherlands before reaching producers in France which then process it before finally sending it to the UK.   On reflection, it is not a surprising outcome of the way the food system works: a combination of globalisation, long supply chains and a constant pressure to reduce costs.  The big f...

We must find alternatives to fossil fuels for our energy. We must also tackle the huge amount of waste we send to landfill. Waste that is packed with energy. An obvious solution would be to extract energy from the waste but it is never that simple.  Energy can be extracted using different technologies such as anaerobic digestion used in some material recovery facilities or direct combustion (incineration) of the waste. EcoWarriorMe has previously commented  on anaerobic digestion which produces methane gas that can be burned to produce heat, generate electricity or, in the case of CHP, both. The main criticism of this technology is that it generates demand for waste, particularly organic waste such as food. Incineration is probably the most controversial of the technologies due to the toxins which can be emitted from the plant.  In the 1980s, controversy surrounded the waste incineration plant at Bonnybridge near Falkirk which was blamed for illness in livestock w...

You know how it ends. The bloody and torn carcass, ripped apart by dogs and barely recognisable as the fox it so recently was, fresh blood on the snout of the most successful hounds and riders pleased with a successful hunt. It is illegal of course, and has been since 2005 when The Hunting Act, 2004 came into effect. But that hasn't stopped it and the reaction of many associated with the hunt do not appear to accept that the law applies to them. Between 2005 and 2010 there have been only eight convictions of employees of registered hunts. Why is the number so low? Is it because the Act is effective and hunts are no longer killing foxes or is it because the authorities are turning a blind eye?