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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Winter '05 News |
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Typical Christmas Dinner Travels 30,000 Miles! |
Your Country's Badgers Need You! |
Typical Christmas Dinner Travels 30,000 Miles!
Ingredients for a typical Christmas dinner may have travelled 30,000 miles from producers and growers to the UK dinner table – damaging the environment and undermining local economies, Euro-MP Caroline Lucas warned this week.
The Green Party MEP for South-East England said that our European turkeys, African vegetables, Australian wine and American cranberry sauce will have notched up enough ‘food miles’ between them to circumnavigate the globe.
Dr Lucas, who is a member of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee and author of the influential 2002 report ‘Stopping the Great Food Swap’, said the international trade in locally available produce was damaging the environment – contributing significantly to the aviation industry’s greenhouse gas emissions and monoculture farming, local economies – and the enjoyment of fresh, tasty, seasonal food.
"Ingredients for a traditional Christmas Dinner are in season in the UK right now – that’s why they’re traditionally eaten at Christmas! There’s simply no need to eat mange tout from Zimbabwe, runner beans from Zambia or carrots from South Africa," she said.
"African farmers are paying a high socials and environmental price for switching traditional production to inappropriate cash crops geared for western markets, but seeing few of the financial benefits."
"By eating locally grown produce we can enjoy fresher, tastier food, support our local economies – and cut out some of the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the aviation industry as it flies all these vegetables around the world."
Some Christmas facts and figures:
• 200,000 trees are felled each year to supply the 1.7 billion Christmas cards sent annually in the UK.
• 40,000 trees are felled to make the 8,000 tonnes of wrapping paper we use – enough to wrap Guernsey!
• The UK throws out three million tonnes of extra waste over Christmas
• Ten million turkeys are bred each year for UK Christmas consumption – most in dark cramped conditions
• Almost six million Christmas trees end up in UK landfill sites every January.
Fullabrook
decision - fiddling while Rome burns
By Cllr Ricky Knight
The decision by the NDDC planning committee, by massive majority, to
refuse the application for the Fullabrook Wind Farm scheme, is lamentable,
short-sighted, calculated and a complete abrogation of civic responsibility.
The NDDC Planning Officer took over an hour to recap on his recommendation
to refuse the application, one of the main threads being that since wind
farm projects had been refused before in North Devon, they shall be refused
again, regardless of the extent to which planning law and circumstances
have changed. The Planning Officer opposed and the councillors fell into
line behind him.
After the officer's report came a dozen spirited speeches of support for the Wind Farm from local businesspeople, environmentalists and concerned citizens, each one condensed into three minutes. They talked of the urgency of tackling the dual threats of Climate Change and Peak Oil, of the additional benefits of a wind farm to business and tourism and of how the perceived negative impact of the wind farm had been exaggerated out of all proportion.
The theme repeatedly presented by a dozen opponents was that of Beauty
and Tranquillity, with complete disregard to the potential effects on
the former from Climate Change and the fact that the latter was an idyll
experienced by only a tiny percentage of our populace, even in the countryside.
Astonishingly, Devon Wind Power were only given five minutes to respond
to over an hour's worth of negative input from the Planning Officer.
Such a meagre allocation was anyway a complete waste of time, as any
representation that did not fit in with the councillors' point of view
was simply ignored. Their minds were made up already, as illustrated
by the fact that the Proposer and Seconder of the motion to refuse had
their reasons already typed out. The Proposer, Cllr Rodney Cann, maintained
ironically that he had come to this meeting with an open mind, despite
the fact that several weeks earlier, he had already voted against the
scheme at County level.
Councillor after councillor made a cursory reference to Climate Change before trotting out variations on the mantra: "Wrong Scheme in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time." The councillors' task was essentially to weigh any negative impact of the wind farm against the benefits: a 66MW contribution to Devon's target of 151MW of onshore renewable energy by 2010, which they were told should be given significant weight. Georgeham and Mortehoe councillor Derrick Spear said that targets were quite often misconstrued, and that we should look to planning law instead. Marwood councillor Joe Tucker said it was sad we had to have targets instead of just using our common sense. Presumably, they will be saying this as the waters rise and flood the estuary, the tourists stop visiting our non-existent beaches, the crops wither in the fields, the gas, oil and coal have run out and the only sign of life is our own local nuclear power station at Yelland. Councillor Mike Edmunds of Ilfracombe was the only dissenting voice, giving a rousing speech about how our children would have to live with the consequences of our actions, if the application were to fail.
In throwing out this application in the safe knowledge that the NDDC were only consultees and could blame the government if the project were to get the go-ahead from the Department of Trade and Industry, the process now moves on to a full Public Enquiry in the New Year. With the level of support for wind energy nationally and regionally running at over 75%, it is absolutely vital that ordinary members of the public in favour of this application make their voices heard. It seems that, unfortunately, we cannot rely upon our local district councillors or their officers, to show the necessary vision to address even our own modest County renewable energy targets, let alone be part of the groundswell response to the Kyoto Protocol and this in the week of the Montreal Climate Conference.
Home-grown
policies go far
By Jon hooper
For the Green Party’s Autumn conference in Lancaster, the North Devon Green Party submitted three policy motions and one organisational motion. They were pleasingly voted to the top of the agenda, and all but one of them were passed.
Our motions were titled “An Annual Target for Tackling Climate Change”, “More Effective Support for Renewable Energy”, “Local Communities & Planning” and “Campaign for Electoral Reform”. The last motion was narrowly voted down because it called for the Green Party to prioritise the Campaign for Electoral Reform, and although most people agreed with the principle it was argued that “prioritising” this campaign would be detrimental to other important campaigns.
The conference also saw the complete revision of the agriculture policy section, calling in particular for more local small-scale organic production, for an end to inhumane treatment of animals, and for communities to be reconnected with the land that supports them
Winkleigh Biomass Cold-shouldered by Council
By Jon Hooper
While it’s Torridge District Council who will make the final planning decision on Peninsula Power’s proposed Biomass gasification plant, Devon County Council are important consultees, and in January this year they raised objections to the project.
However, in the light of fresh information, research and discussion with Peninsula Power, the County Environment Director has asked the Council to look again at the project and consider supporting it.
The new information indicates that the energy crop Miscanthus would have little effect on the landscape character, and that Miscanthus farming issues are outside the scope of the planning application anyway. The County Environment Director recommends a section 106 agreement be drawn up which would place various constrains on the sourcing of the fuel, such as limiting the radius to 25 miles and requiring nature conservation and archaeological surveys of potential growing sites.
Peninsula power have repeated that their 23Mw gasification plant would produce more electricity using less fuel than a 15Mw incineration plant, of which there are two proposed in the region, one in North Somerset and one in Cornwall. They also repeat that the Government capital grant is only available for electricity projects larger than 20Mw, but that their project could easily become a combined heat and power (CHP) project if a suitable use for the heat was found nearby. CHP is preferred by the Green Party, who criticise the Government for not incentivising renewable heat production in the same way they incentivise renewable electricity production.
The North Devon Green Party confirmed its support for the Winkleigh Biomass plant last year, acknowledging that it was a good step in the right direction, and that until Government legislation and grants change significantly our preferred option of small-scale CHP for every community is unlikely to become financially viable.
The Biomass plant, if built, will provide enough electricity for 23,000 of the 27,000 homes in Torridge, more than could be saved by any combination of energy efficiency measures in the District. This will in turn save 140,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere every year compared to fossil fuel power-generation methods. The transportation of fuel is predicted to emit at most 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, less than 3% of that being saved.
To our great disappointment, the Councillors of the Development Control Committee went against their officer’s recommendations and decided to object to the project yet again at their November meeting.
A spokesperson for Peninsula Power said “We know the County Council's planning officials diligently sought advice from experts in the various fields, as well as carefully researching and confirming the facts associated with the project over a period of many months and finally recommended acceptance of the proposal.”
"Devon County Council development control committee members disregarded that advice and instead choose to listen to and act on unsubstantiated assertions, misinformation and innuendo."
We have to hope that Torridge District Council will make a better decision.
Your
Country's Badgers Need You!
By Fiona Cresswell
In October this year, the controversial Badger Culling (Krebs') trials ended. Across the country, weary badgers lovers and activists breathed a sigh of relief. We are all hoping that the annual tragedy of orphaned badger cubs will soon become a bad memory. Cubs, whose mothers are shot in May, have faced a lingering death of starvation unless they are found by rescuers in time.
Although we are still awaiting the results of the Krebs' trial, all the evidence is pointing away from a cull of badgers providing a solution to the problem of the disease bovine Tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle herds. The paper written by researchers on the findings of the Irish badger cull earlier this year concluded: "... we acknowledge that widespread badger removal is not a viable strategy for the long-term control of tuberculosis in the Irish cattle population".
For many years, an argument has raged between compassionate country
folk and a vocal contingent of blinkered cattle farmers, as to who is
responsible for the spread of bTB. Many farmers, unable to accept the
damage conditions on their farms cause to the animals under their care,
look to a convenient scapegoat - badgers.
Despite being gassed, snared, trapped and shot since the 1970's, there
is still no hard facts behind farmers' claims that badgers give bTB to
their cattle. In fact, top scientists are now admitting: "it would
be prudent to introduce precautionary measures to reduce cattle-to-cattle
transmission, as a matter of urgency." (November 2005)
Wildlife campaigners have been saying all along that the £7million a year of taxpayers money, until now squandered on the pointless and cruel badger cull, could be far better spent on:
1) improvement of animal welfare conditions on farms,
2) more efficient and accurate testing of cattle, before and after they are moved around the country,
3) research into the ultimate goal - a cattle vaccine.
However, there are now fears that the Government will bow to pressure from the National Farmers Union to introduce badger culling across the country. This would fly in the face of both UK and European law and, moreover, would run contrary to all the evidence. Preliminary results from the Krebs' trial revealed that killing badgers around bTB infected farms (reactive culling) had actually increased the incidence of bTB outbreaks by 27%.
I find it sadly ironic that the Government still believes that those that shout the loudest are an accurate representation of public opinion. After badgers, what next? Deer and wild birds are both TB carriers. One farmer told me that he would like to see the land around his farm become a wildlife free zone.
Despite
the rantings of the NFU, It would be untrue to to say that all farmers
are rampantly anti - badger. A couple who keep dairy cattle in one of
the Devon culling areas spoke to me with pride of the three badger setts
on their land. They had coexisted happily with badgers for many years
and had never had a problem with bTB. Although they had clearly forbidden
DEFRA from setting traps on their farm, they were too afraid of reprisals
from neighbouring farmers to publicly come out against the cull. Surprisingly,
this couple are not alone. By the end of the Krebs Trial, the level of
local cooperation had fallen dramatically. In West Cornwall, for example,
over 50% of landowners had banned DEFRA from killing badgers on their
land. Perhaps they are starting to become aware of the fact that trapping
badgers is having no affect on outbreaks of bTB - In fact the situation
is becoming worse every year.
It is now time for us to move away from the 'blame something else' attitude of some farmers and accept our own responsibility for the spread of bTB. When cattle are kept in dank, filthy and overcrowded sheds, pumped with hormones and drugs - is it any wonder there is a disease problem?!
Our politicians need to realise that the b in bTB stands for bovine (IE. cow) and not badger. Please write to your MP, Tony Blair and DEFRA Minister Ben Bradshaw to demand an end to the unjustified, immoral and unscientific persecution of badgers and real action to tackle the cattle disease bTB.
For more information see www.nfbg.org.uk
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Climate change march "terrific success"
During the Climate Change March that took place on Saturday, 3 December, a coachload of concerned people from North Devon - including the "humdrum conundrum" drummers - joined tens of thousands of marchers from all over the country.
Chant: "What do we want? Climate Justice? When do we want it? Now!"
Scheduled to coincide with the first post-Kyoto meeting in Montreal, more than 100,000 protesters marched worldwide to make visible their concerns regarding climate change.
Chant: "The ice caps are melting, Bush needs a belting. The temperature’s a-rising, Blair needs a hiding."
Keith Taylor, Green Party Principal Speaker, comments; "The march on Saturday was a tremendous success. Ten thousand protesters from a variety of organisations came together in a tangible affirmation that climate change demands attention and action by world leaders.
"It was invigorating to see so many people united in shared concern for our global environment, and to indicate to our Government that their inaction in unacceptable.
"The Green Party advocates the 'Contraction and Convergence principle,' as the only serious scientific framework in which to tackle climate change. Emissions would be contracted to an acceptable level and these levels would gradually converge on every nation equally. The logical corollary to this is that richer, more polluting nations who have contributed more to the problem must reduce emissions faster than developing nations; this also allows for the possibility of trading surplus emissions allowances.
Chant: "The biggest threat we’ve ever faced will not be fixed by nuclear waste."
(from Indymedia) Speech by Michael Meacher, former Labour environment minister. (MP3, 6 minutes 47 seconds, 796 KB)
(from Indymedia) Speech by Caroline Lucas, MEP and principal speaker for the Green Party. (MP3, 8 minutes 8 seconds, 954KB)
International Day of Climate Protest
Local people from North Devon will be travelling to London on Saturday December 3rd to mark the International Day of Climate Protest. They will join tens of thousands of ordinary people from across Britain in a march through the capital city, calling for world leaders to take action to avert devastating Climate Change.
“We are campaigning on both global and national levels by lobbying Governments to drastically cut Greenhouse Gas emissions,” said Councillor Ricky Knight from the North Devon Green Party. “Locally, we actively support the development of renewable energy projects, including wind farms, as an important part of the solution.”
The demonstration is being organised by the “Campaign Against Climate Change” (www.campaigncc.org) and is supported by leading environmental groups including; Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, The Green Party, Christian Ecology Link and Globalise Resistance. It has been planned to coincide with the UN Climate Talks taking place in Montreal.
“We will be demanding that Tony Blair puts pressure on America to sign up to the Kyoto Treaty, “ said North Devon Friends of the Earth Coordinator Fiona Cresswell. “Hurricane Katrina could just be one of the first in a series of escalating disasters caused by Climate Change.”
A coach to London has been booked, travelling from Barnstaple. Anyone who is concerned by the threat of Global Warming is invited to join the marchers. Bring banners and placards, whistles and drums; bring your family and friends, neighbours and work colleagues – or just yourself!
For more information or to book your seat, please contact Yvan Maurel (07770 782 979, ) or Lynton Paton-Garner (01271 860594, )
Website designed by Jon Hooper
Published and promoted by Jon Hooper, 3 Elizabeth Court, Well Street, Torrington EX38 8EP on behalf of the North Devon Green Party, 1 Taw View Terrace, Bishops Tawton, EX32 0AW
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