Litter

Llyn Bochlwyd
Originally uploaded by markhsal.

This lake, Llyn Bochlwyd, is three-quarters up a mountain in Snowdonia, and to reach it requires a reasonable amount of stamina and resolve. The path is steep, and at times, can become a bit of a scramble.

Generally, the only people who would see this lake, I assumed, were people who enjoy being out and about in the countryside, and would respect it. After a pretty strenuous climb, the chance to sit and rest awhile in such a peaceful and lonely spot was very welcome, before continuing onwards and upwards.

Sitting by the side of the lake, and soaking up the atmosphere was a truly wonderful experience, but all that was shattered when I looked down into the water and saw a beer can lying at the bottom.

Litter!

It is the sort of thing I would expect to see in the more accessible areas of Snowdonia, but not here! I was so saddened by this, that even (almost) pristine wilderness can be polluted by such thoughtless action.

If you've carried it up a mountain, then bring it back down - don't drop litter!

Global Warming - A New Dawn!

It would seem that President Bush has decided that the world is not doing enough to fight global warming. He has urged countries to set long-term goals and has set a target of 2050 for cutting global emissions.

Is he having a laugh!

What he appears to be advocating is very similar to a something that was agreed back at the turn of the century ripped apart by the then American administration headed by someone, funnily enough, also called Bush. That was the Kyoto agreement, and, for many countries, it remains a fundamental cornerstone of their environmental policies. Mind you, that agreement set more urgent targets than Bush. Unfortunately, the good work of the majority of the world has been shafted by the dirt and pollution pumped indiscriminately into the air by the US over the past 6 years, - a similar amount of time that a certain President has been significantly playing down global warming and its effects.

Mind you, I was almost deafened yesterday by the non-us world falling off their chairs in hysterics, when Bush said "The US takes this issue seriously."

How Organic Is Organic

Organic produce and lifestyle has been one of the big successes of the past ten years and has become a multi-billion pound industry. Even the major supermarkets are providing more and more food that claims to be organic and consumers are, increasingly, buying more and more.

Most people understand the basic concepts of organic food - raised on land free from chemicals and fertilisers, cattle and other livestock raised with a minimum, if not zero medicines and fodder raised organically.

It is said by those who are real advocates of this type of produce, that the food tastes better, is better for you as one's intake of chemicals is reduced and that by farming in an organic manner is environmentally friendly.

But hang on! Organic strawberries from Egypt, organic blueberries from Chile, Argentinian blackberries - all of this produce is air-freighted and is in the shops generally within 48 hours! How environmentally friendly is that!

Sure, I believe that organic is probably best, but I like to give equal weight to the distance it has had to travel. Our local market generally supplies food from the locality - most from a 30 mile radius. The carrots (shock, horror) still have the soil on them, moreover, they are not single straight tubers, but often knobbly and a combination of 2 or more tubers. But the taste! Wow.

Most of the food has been out of the ground, by the time I get to the market, no more than 6 or 7 hours, and for me, the taste is out of this world. Some of it is organic, most isn't, but the level of chemicals used in the locality is much reduced on other parts of the country where soils are less fertile. Moreover, food is seasonal again. If it is the wrong season, then it is unavailable in the market and that is good, as far as I'm concerned. The seasonality takes me right back to when I was a child and the local greengrocer only stocked local apart from some fruit such as citrus fruit. I believe that, more important than 100% organic is that food should be, as far as is reasonably practical, local. Let's cut food miles and support the local farmer and we might just get food worth eating.

Congestion Charges

My local city and place where I work, Manchester, is one of the first cities, outside London, to consider a full congestion charge for drivers. Effectively, charges will be levelled on drivers coming into the city, bounded by the M60, during 'rush' hour in a bid to cut congestion and pollution in the city centre.

Obviously, this is controversial and everyone I've spoken to, so far, is against the idea. Of course, these self same people drive into work on the routes selected and would probably be adversely effected.

Personally, however, I think it would be a good thing to do!

I get the train into Manchester and walk - in all weathers, - the mile to work from the station. As I walk in, I pass lines of cars - some of them big cars - sitting in queues, engines pumping out all kinds of pollutants as if there is no tomorrow, - most of them with only the driver in the car. Four-seater cars with just one person in them driving to work, where the car will sit all day in a car park (which itself is taking up valuable real estate) before, again, sitting in queues, with a lone driver in the car for the journey home. Is this not a totally irresponsible waste of natural resources?

Obviously, public transport infrastructure needs to be improved, and hopefully, revenue from the congestion charge will be used for exactly that purpose. I am a driver, and will undertake journeys that are necessary in the car, but I do feel that the free lunch has to come to an end soon, and a more socially responsible method of moving around has to be developed.

Biofuels - Saviour or Danger

George Bush is about anounce that to combat global warming - something he has denied existed for the past 6 years, is to announce an "Opec for ethanol" and has committed the White House to substitute 20% of its petroleum use with ethanol.

Ethanol is derived from plant extracts, specifically; corn, barley, wheat, sugar cane or beet and burns a lot greener in specially adjusted vehicles. Dr Plinio Mario Nastari, one of Brazil's leading economists and an expert in biofuels, sees a bright future for an energy sector in which his country is the acknowledged world leader: "We are on the brink of a new era, ethanol is changing a lot of things but in a positive sense." Ethanol is the panacea for all the world's oil ills. Wars will stop, the planet will cease to warm up and everyone will love everyone else!

First off, the amount of corn grown to fill one full tank of the average 4X4 would feed a man for a year! Just one tank full.

Once we get our heads around that and multiply the amount of land required to fill that car for a year, and multiply that again by the number of cars on the road and the scale of the enterprise starts to become apparant. I haven't even started to think about trucks, planes, ships or heating, or any other oil use. Clearly there is going to have to be some serious mono-cultural farming just to feed our vehicles, - what price those raw materials if you also want them as food!

However, it gets worse. Clearly the ideal place to farm these crops are where you can get more than 2 harvests a year. They need to be grown in places, or countries, where there is round the year sunshine. Somewhere like the equator. Brazil already has a major ethanol producing industry based on sugar cane. This came about after the oil crisis in 1973 when the dictators decided they no longer wanted to be reliant on foreign oil. In Brazil, some of the plantations are as large as European states, and of course, when the sugar is harvested, it needs to be burnt - how's that for a carbon footprint? Fabio Feldman, a leading Brazilian environmentalist and former member of Congress said; "If you see the size of the plantations in the state of Sao Paolo they are oceans of sugar cane. In order to harvest you must burn the plantations which creates a serious air pollution problem in the city."

In America, the crop of choice would appear to be grain. The American economist Lester R Brown, from the Earth Policy Institute, has said; "The competition for grain between the world's 800 million motorists who want to maintain their mobility and its two billion poorest people who are simply trying to stay alive is emerging as an epic issue."

Finally, however, many biofuel crops, such as corn, are grown with the help of fossil fuels in the form of fertilisers, pesticides and the petrol for farm equipment. One estimate is that corn needs 30 per cent more energy than the finished fuel it produces.

I can see wars ahead, this time fighting over land to grow these crops. Why don't we start to consider how we can change4 our lives, culture and society so that the need for oil and oil substitutes are radically reduced. For me, that is the only long-term solution worth considering.