This is lovely.

Solar power offers some hope.

Thanks B!

"A tiny rectangle superimposed on the vast expanse of the Sahara captures the seductive appeal of the audacious plan to cut Europe's carbon emissions by harnessing the fierce power of the desert sun.
Dwarfed by any of the north African nations, it represents an area slightly smaller than Wales but scientists claimed yesterday it could one day generate enough solar energy to supply all of Europe with clean electricity." LINK

Gah! England under slug attack!

"Gardeners have been warned to expect an epidemic of slugs over the next few months.
The wet and mild weather throughout spring has made perfect conditions to create 'the stuff of nightmares' for gardeners.

Experts claim there could be up to 200 slugs per cubic metre of soil, four times the usual amount, with each capable of eating double their weight in plants each day. " LINK

No gas for you. Tanker driver's strike already messing up the UK.

"Petrol pumps began running dry within hours of the start of the tanker drivers' strike yesterday.
'Sold out' signs appeared at garages as motorists ignored the Government's plea not to panic buy.

People attempting to fill up in more remote areas suffered the worst shortages yesterday but even in London there were garages that sold out.
Experts said up to 1,000 petrol stations could be left without fuel by next week, pushing the price of diesel past the £6-a-gallon mark. " LINK

Surfing in Cornwall, headed out?

"It is Britain's answer to the Hawaiian North Shore: an expansive golden beach with strong hollow waves that has been the British surfer's paradise since the 1970s. But now Newquay's famous Fistral Beach faces a crisis: it is losing its sand.
A season of vicious storms has left the usually well-covered seabed sparse and dotted with dangerously exposed rocks.
The main theory as to why so much of the sand has been swept off the beach is a change in the winter wind. "The prevailing wind in Cornwall is normally a south-westerly", said Mr Benney, "but this winter we've had a lot of north-westerlies, and environmentalists think that is having an effect on the sand."" LINK

Coal train ambushed by environmental protestors...

I'm not sure if this is the most effective thing to do, but it does sound energetic, and kind of sweetly idealistic, what with the hiding in cow parsley and all...
"Climate change campaigners halted a coal train yesterday outside Drax, Britain's biggest power station, and shovelled its contents on to the only line into the plant.
More than 20 tonnes of coal blocked the tracks as protesters strung ropes between the train and the girders of a river bridge as police watched from a distance. More than 30 protesters swarmed aboard the 21-wagon freight service. Hidden in banks of cow parsley beside the line to Drax, North Yorkshire they struck at 8am after watching two empty trains arrive to collect ash in the previous two hours." LINK

Christ.

Dolphin tragedy in Cornwall. Dolphin tragedy in Madagascar. So long and thanks for all the fish...

"For this was the day the dolphins came to die. From the moment they headed up a tidal estuary from the deep waters of the south Cornish coast, they were virtually doomed.
Yet for several hours they kept coming. Wave after wave of them made the fateful journey along the receding waters of the Percuil River and surrounding creeks near Falmouth on Sunday night - either in pursuit of food, it is thought, or in response to the call of the dying.
The result was one of the most horrific scenes to confront coastguards and animal rescue groups for years - the worst mass stranding in nearly three decades. At least 21 dolphins died and several were in such poor condition they had to be put down. " LINK

"Some 55 dolphins have died, after coming ashore on a beach in the northwest of Madagascar, conservationists said on Monday." LINK

Spring in England- headed out?

For some reason, as a child, I was obsessed-ish with the books of Noel Streatfield. One of them, Traveling Shoes, made repeated references to the poem Home Thoughts, from Abroad by Robert Browning, that I (obsessively) memorized. I can't imagine why I did this, but it left a deep imprint on my psyche.

Home Thoughts, from Abroad by Robert Browning

O, TO be in England

Now that April 's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—

That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower—

Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Now, I had some reason to feel a connect with this, but I don't want to make this personal. All I want to emphasize is that Spring, in England, is magnificent. And it's heading out- or at least moving fast away from April. Robert Browning wouldn't know what to think.

"According to documented observations throughout 2007 and 2008, events in the natural world that used to be key spring indicators, from the blooming of flowers to the appearance of insects, are now increasingly happening in what used to be thought of as mid-winter, as Britain's temperatures steadily rise.

Although many people may see the changes as quaint or charming – butterflies certainly brighten up a January day – they are actually among the first concrete signs that the world is indeed set on a global warming course which is likely to prove disastrous if not checked...

It is happening so quickly, and without people realising its true significance, because, in Britain, the major effects of climate change are initially being felt as less cold winters, rather than as hotter summers.

Those are substantial rises. Although there is always natural variation in temperatures, recent winters taken together show a remarkable warming trend.
It has meant that many of what used to be thought of as the traditional signs of spring are happening very much earlier, causing primroses, for example, spring flowers par excellence, to bloom in some parts of the country as early as November. Other traditional spring plants, such as dog's mercury and the lesser celandine (a favourite of Wordsworth's) can be seen in January rather than March.
And in what is perhaps an even more vivid change, dandelions and daisies, which used to come into flower in spring on lawns (where they were permitted), now flower in many places all winter long. " LINK

English climate out of whack- but it's not all just flowers and barbecues. Rats and discombobulated amateur photographers abound too!

"Barbecues and sunbathing were the order of the day when Britain enjoyed some of its hottest-ever February weather at the weekend.

The English hawthorn is expected to flower by the end of the month, more than eight weeks before it normally would. Crocuses opened 11 days in advance of the past decade’s average.

...Britain is facing a plague of rats because of changing weather. Online inquiries to Rentokil have risen by 300 per cent, with reports of more and larger rodents." LINK

All this early blooming is throwing off photographers too.

"Photographers could miss out on capturing pictures of spring flowers because they have appeared much earlier this year than in 2007, warns Kew Gardens in Surrey. " LINK

2008 bringing flowers- in January. In England. Yup. Start of a great year.

"Britain may still be in the grip of grey mid-winter, but that hasn't stopped dozens of sunny wild daffodils springing up months earlier than usual in time for the dawn of New Year.

Yesterday this was the glorious blaze of colour in Cornwall, where row upon row of bright yellow flowers burst forth on a dark winter's day.

At the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, which monitors 100 plant species, at least two thirds of plants have shifted their flowering patterns.

There, lilacs which are supposed to flower in May have come into life already this winter and another traditional spring flower, camelias have also blossomed.

And months ahead of schedule, primroses have been seen flourishing in Sussex, crab apples in Nottingham and wild strawberries in Cardiff. "

LINK

Rule Brittania.

Jesus.

Sky News
Hundreds of people are fleeing their homes ahead of a tidal surge that could trigger disastrous flooding along the east coast.
An expert told Sky News that unless swift action was taken "we could have a significant number of deaths".

The Guardian
"Exceptional tidal surge puts east coast on emergency alert· Cobra meets to prepare for breach in flood defences · 'Extreme danger to life and property' warning

BBC
"A storm in the North Sea has left Britain and the Netherlands, facing the worst flood threat in decades with tidal surges predicted early on Friday.
Flood defences have been put on alert on the entire Dutch coast and flood warnings are in place for the eastern and northern coasts of Britain"

Daily Mail
Norfolk and Suffolk have six severe flood warnings between Winterton, Norfolk and Aldeburgh, Suffolk. The warnings carry an Environment Agency alert stating: "Severe flooding is expected. There is extreme danger to life and property. Act now."

When Britain first,
at heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,
Arose, arose, arose from out the a-azure main,
This was the charter, the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:

Rule Britania!
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must in their turn, to tyrants fall,
Must in ,must in, must in their turn, to tyrants fall,
While thou shalt flourish, shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
(Chorus)
Rule Britannia!

scary stuff, for sure.

This sounds like a scene out of Bonnie and Clyde.

"Anxious customers jammed the phone lines and website of Countrywide Bank and crowded its branch offices to pull out their savings because of concerns about the financial problems of the mortgage lender that owns the bank.

Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest home-loan company in the nation, sought Thursday to assure depositors and the financial industry that both it and its bank were fiscally stable. And federal regulators said they weren't alarmed by the volume of withdrawals from the bank.

The mortgage lender said it would further tighten its loan standards and make fewer large mortgages. Those moves could make it harder to get a home loan and further depress the housing market in California and other states.

The rush to withdraw money -- by depositors that included a former Los Angeles Kings star hockey player and an executive of a rival home-loan company -- came a day after fears arose that Countrywide Financial could file for bankruptcy protection because of a worsening credit crunch stemming from the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.

At Countrywide Bank offices, in a scene rare since the U.S. savings-and-loan crisis ended in the early '90s, so many people showed up to take out some or all of their money that in some cases they had to leave their names.

In West Los Angeles, a Countrywide supervisor brought in from another office served coffee to more than 25 people waiting calmly for their turn with the one clerk who could help them." LINK

Whistling in the dark

No power in Barcelona (2nd day of major outages - 350,000 were without electricity) LINK
No power in San Francisco (51,000 affected) LINK
No power in Albania (yes, the entire country) as well as "at least 27 heat-related deaths in Romania, four in Italy, and dozens of houses destroyed by forest fires in Macedonia." LINK

On the other hand, in China, "The flood-battered banks of the Huaihe River are at risk of washing away, posing a grave threat to the homes of millions of people, Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.

Torrential rains have wrought havoc across large parts of China this summer, most recently in the southwest and the east, killing more than 500 people and causing billions of dollars in damage.

More rain has been forecast. " LINK

The UK flooding: "Britain's flood victims are facing further misery with Government officials warning water levels are still to peak in many areas, while forecasters predict another deluge of heavy rain.

As a massive humanitarian operation to supply fresh water to hundreds of thousands of people gets underway in central and western England, it has also emerged that the worst floods in modern history had claimed their first lives.

Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, warned last night that the crisis along parts of the river Thames was still expected to worsen.

More rain will stretch the emergency operation even further. The Met Office has predicted rain today, heavier downpours on Thursday and then the threat of persistent heavy rain stretching through the weekend. " LINK

So much doom!

God, long time, no posting... Technical difficulties. Over. On with the doom. ( I loathe Vista.)

UK flooding! Holy mackerel, this is rotten.

LINK

Flooding in China! LINK

Flooding in Texas. LINK

Dead zone growing in the Gulf of Mexico.

"NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Researchers predict that the recurring oxygen-depleted "dead zone" off the Louisiana coast will grow this summer to 8,543 square miles -- its largest in at least 22 years."

LINK

Oil and Gas out by 2015.

"The warning – which is being hailed as a "tipping point" on both sides of the Atlantic – marks the first time that the industry has accepted that it may soon no longer be able to meet demand for its products.

And the crunch could come sooner, with oil production becoming "a significant challenge as early as 2015". This chimes with the International Energy Agency's prediction that oil supplies could become "extremely tight" in five years.
The predictions should send a shiver down humanity's collective spine as a shortage of oil and gas has been predicted to cause industrial collapse, market crashes, resource wars and a rise in poverty. Some forecast that fascist regimes will rise out of the chaos." LINK

All is going just as one might expect. To hell in a handbasket, baby, and fast.

Crikey, mate.

From BBC "The agency's flood expert, Phil Rothwell, said: "We've had a sixth of the annual rainfall in 12 hours.
"Climate change experts tell us that this is the sort of thing we need to expect for the future..."

From The Times Online "Torrential rain swept across Britain yesterday bringing flooding, tornados and death on the wettest June day on record.
A 28-year-old man died trying to unblock a drain in Hull despite the efforts of emergency services. In Sheffield, a 13-year-old boy who was swept into a swollen river near a playground was feared dead and a 68-year-old man died while attempting to cross a flooded road..."

Climate change + flower shows = "unprecedented challenges"

"Last month's record temperatures mean that spring is up to a month in advance of its normal period over much of the country - and as a result, the flowers being carefully nurtured for Chelsea, which opens a week on Monday, have been blooming far too early.

A panoply of gardening tricks is having to be employed by growers to hold back the march of nature and keep prize specimens from "going over" before the Royal Horticultural Society's flagship annual event, one of the world's premier gardening festivals. Those tricks range from cold stores and dark tunnels, to constant movement of plants in and out of light and warmth, repeated deadheading - and even individual "straitjackets" for flower buds.

Another problem has been a plague of pests. Jekka McVicar, who is growing organic herbs at Alveston, near Bristol for her Chelsea exhibit, has found so many greenfly on plants such as lettuce and mint that she has had to brush them off with a dry paint brush (not being able to use pesticides as an organic grower). "It's very time-consuming," she said.

Chris Beardshaw, who is recreating an Edwardian country house garden, said that columbines, for example, which had already flowered, were having to be replaced with achilleas. "Normally you would not expect achilleas to flower until late June or even early July," he said." LINK

Rule Britannia

"LONDON (Reuters) - The British capital set out on Tuesday to become the greenest city in the world with a radical climate action plan to cut carbon emissions by 60 percent within 20 years in the battle against global warming.
The plan aims to slash carbon output by reducing demand and wastage across the whole spectrum from individuals to households, businesses and local governments.
"This will make London the first city in the world to have a really comprehensive plan to cut its carbon emissions," Mark Watts, climate change adviser to London Mayor Ken Livingstone, told Reuters in an interview."LINK

Wordsworth's lakes are dying.

"Be thankful, thou; for, if unholy deeds
Ravage the world, tranquillity is here!"*

Well, not so much. Unholy deeds indeed ravage the world, and tranquility has fled the Lake District. The lakes "are being devastated, mainly by sewage and farming. Some are so badly affected that they are virtually dead.

Mostly they are being fed to death by sewage and - especially - wastes and fertilisers from agriculture. These cause weeds and algae to flourish, soaking up oxygen from the water and suffocating other life. And, partly as a result, they are often plagued by alien, invasive species."
LINK

*LINK to Composed by the side of Grasmere Lake, 1806 by William Wordsworth

UK's 3rd largest grocery to reduce packaging.

This has been fantastic. The always interesting Independent began a publicity campaign to draw attention to wasteful, unecessary, and sometimes even humourously excessive packaging. Readers were encouraged to write in to the paper with examples of the most ridiculous packages, and reporters were dispatched to the largest groceries to ask top management why produce should be wrapped in plastic.
These are a few of my favorite reader stories from the campaign:

"At a supermarket in Edinburgh I saw a turnip that was branded as "grown in Scotland". It was shrink wrapped, and the label said: "packaged in Kent".
Mark Sydenham

Despite many swede fields near by, the Co-op in Aberfoyle offers shrink-wrapped swede, from Tasmania.
Prof Stephen Baron

In Asda, I have seen coconuts shrink-wrapped.
Melissa Gooch" LINK

Well, the campaign is working! The UK's 3rd largest grocery is going to strip produce of packaging in a test store, and based on the results, is considering doing the same at all of it's stores.
"The stores involved in the trial will not be named to protect the experiment. Packaging will be removed from 60 lines of fresh produce, including carrots, broad beans and courgettes. Only produce deemed "fragile", such as raspberries, will remain packed to prevent damage.

A company spokesman said: "The move heralds a return to old-fashioned retailing methods - the first step taken towards the past by any retailer for almost 60 years."" LINK

More about the China garbage importing industry

This is all much more interesting than I would have thought. The other day, I linked to an article about China cracking down on illegal importing of trash from the UK, and thought "Oh, how horrible, blah blah blah." Well, I think I thought too fast and not enough about it. There's a lot going on with this issue.

The world's largest container ship brought consumer goods from China to Britain at Christmas, it got a lot of press at the time, as a symbol of the decline in Western manufacturing, and the absolutely mad size (a quarter of a mile long) of the boat made it a good, catching story. Not many papers or sites wrote about how when it left the UK, the boat was full again- of UK garbage.

"A combination of the global economy and the boom in recycling in Britain, which last year generated nearly 7 million tonnes of recyclable waste, has created an inter-continental trade worth £460m. Last year, Britain sent more than 200,000 tonnes of plastic to China for recycling, along with 2 million tonnes of used paper or cardboard and large quantities of steel and redundant electrical goods.

It is a market generated by Britain's lack of capacity to cope with its own recycled waste and, more importantly, the thirst of China for "raw" materials, such as used plastic, to feed its booming economy."

This is big business, too- not only are the materials not going into UK landfills, but the Chinese are re-using many of the materials. The issue here is one of regulation- the exported garbage is supposed to be all recycleable, but that is where illegal imports become an issue for China, with unethical people sneaking in unrecyclable trash along with the sorted material ready for re-use.

"Such is the demand from the Far East, a trawl of plastic exchange websites yesterday revealed dozens of China-based companies willing to pay £300 for every tonne of bottles made from PET, the plastic used for water or soft drinks. In Britain, plastic recyclers can barely pay £100 per tonne." LINK

So that sounds good, right? But no, still there's more to think about here.

"According to figures from China's environmental watchdog, the village (Lianjiao) handles more than 200,000 tonnes of plastic a year, a big chunk of it imported illegally. "China strictly bans any imports of waste that cannot be recycled as raw materials or be treated harmlessly in the country," according to the State Environmental Protection Administration (Sepa). " Driven by profits, some dealers collaborate with overseas law breakers and illegally smuggle or import rubbish into China, causing damage to people's health and to the environment.

In Lianjiao, plastic sandwich wrappers from British high-street shops are sprayed with chemicals to remove the food debris and then hosed down, the effluent running into the Pearl river, one of the world's most polluted waterways. A large proportion of the plastic waste - that which is not fit for recycling - is burnt in incinerators or kilns, or melted down in acid baths. The air is filled with heady toxic smoke." LINK

Definitely more than meets the eye going on here.

Illegal garbage imports in China- The government is cracking down.

" BEIJING, Jan. 25 -- Officials at China's top environmental watchdog said they would coordinate with their counterparts in the European Union and customs officials to crack down on waste smuggling into China.
"China strictly bans any imports of waste that cannot be recycled as raw materials or be treated harmlessly in the country," a source at the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) said yesterday in Beijing. " LINK