Shambo, the "sacred" Welsh bullock who has been condemned to slaughter for having bovine TB, could be given another chance to live, a judicial review at a High Court in Cardiff heard today. Despite wide-ranging protests from the Hindu temple in Wales where Shambo lives, the Welsh Assembly decided in June to give vets the go-ahead to slaughter the animal in order to "protect animal and human health".
[via Times Online]
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The main energy companies involved in the development of carbon capture technology want the government to give them £1 billion. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is the process of capturing the CO2 emissions from large producers like power plants and then compressing and storing the CO2 in deep geological formations or in deep oceans. The technology to capture the CO2 exists, but the actual storage of the compressed CO2 is new and untested. This is where the energy companies want the government to invest. Although this will eliminate around 90% of the CO2 from power stations, the process itself is energy intensive, costly, and will produce its own CO2 emissions.
[Via The Guardian]
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I could almost hear a collective sigh of relief as news emerged yesterday of a 'conclusive' study showing that sun activity cannot be responsible for modern day climate change.
The findings are in direct opposition to the claims made in controversial Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming swindle, which challenged the theory that humans are responsible for climate change due to C02 emissions. As many uninformed viewers were taken in by the documentary, those in the know were furious at Channel 4 for presenting the argument against man-made climate change in such a convincing way without checking its facts first; facts which have later been shown to be tenuous and unsound. Even those appearing in the programme claimed their words had been deliberately twisted and one described it as being 'as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two'
The question is, do you agree that this programme can be called 'propaganda'? Do you believe it has done any damage to the fight against climate change? Yay or nay.
We hear conflicting stories about biofuels, on the one hand they are the answer to our petrol and diesel needs, on the other they are creating third world hunger and destroying the rain forests. Which is true? They can help to reduce the reliance on dwindling oil supplies and generate much less CO2. They have caused hardship to many farmers in Colombia and have led to deforestation in the rush to profit from the biofuel boom. So the answer is yes in both cases.
The EU leaders and Brazil’s president joined forces to urge for an international market to ensure biofuels are produced in an ethical and environmentally sound way. But is this too little too late?
[Via The Independent]
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Watch out shoppers trying to get into local produce; it has been revealed that über-market chain Tesco has been being a bit liberal with the truth when it comes to labelling products as "locally sourced".
Friends of the Earth administered another ticking off to the chain, pointing out that milk marketed as 'local' had in fact been trucked in from distances of 150 miles in some supermarkets. It held up the example of the chain's 'Heart of England' variety being sold to well intentioned customers in Hereford, which originated in dairy farms in Lincolnshire and Derbyshire. The labelling, they say, is misleading customers and needs to be reviewed.
Which begs the question, how possible is it to be genuinely local-sourced produce in a supermarket? If in doubt, bookmark this useful site which tells you all you need to know about farmer's markets near you, where the food's origin is a bit more easy to trace.
It's not the sort of weather we've come to expect in late June, and while Glastonbury proved to be the mudbath that so many had feared, far more serious flooding has been taking place elsewhere in Britain.
So far, four people have lost their lives and hundreds have been evacuated from their homes in Sheffield, Nottingham, Leeds, Rotherham, Leeds, and Shropshire, where up to four inches of rain fell on Monday. While many hope to return home after a second night in temporary accommodation, fears are rising for more flooding later in the week, as the Met Office has warned that the weather will remain unsettled, with another inch of rain expected to fall across the midlands and southern England on Thursday.
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Here we go again! The mound of studies which tell us soya saves or soya kills has just got bigger with some new research from America. Yet people seem willing to believe whatever study is in the newspaper that day to decide their eating habits in our desperation to find The Answer to our health concerns. We forget that all studies require professionals knowledgeable in the field to tell us if you should eat it, bath in it or shove it where it can’t hurt you. Are we bored of studies that swing us one way or the other without telling us what to do about it?
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