INBOX - Energy and environment issues and animal and human health

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The Salter Duck can convert 90% of the wave motion it stops into electricity.

Vital, recent articles (new windows) : James Lovelock The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years Jeremy Leggett What they don't want you to know about the coming oil crisis Simon Jenkins May 28 2006 Global warming might not be so bad, if we keep our cool

___________________________ Apologies. This page is not being updated at present

November 25 2006 ~ Water Crisis - Has the government a duty to protect health? The Western Morning News reports that documents released to the newspaper show that a Government committee of experts chose to ignore findings after Britain's worst water poisoning incident - when 20 tons of aluminium sulphate was dumped into the wrong tank at water treatment works on Bodmin Moor in 1988. It was found that victims could have absorbed exceptionally high quatities of aluminium.

" The Government-appointed committee of experts took no action on the findings made and blamed people's continuing health problems on their "sustained anxiety" which had been fuelled by the media.....
Dr Chris Exley, an expert on aluminium toxicity from Keele University, said the data presented to the advisory group was "damning" and said, "..It is quite incredible it was ignored...."

The BBC reports that on Tuesday a coalition of conservation groups will present a report to the environment minister Ian Pearson. They are alarmed at the state of crisis in Britain's water systems, warning that the government has only a decade to put things right and offering a ten-point plan to make UK water systems sustainable, including fair pricing, upgrading sewerage facilities, metering and setting a maximum consumption ceiling of 125 litres per person per day. (A bath uses about 80 litres, flushing the toilet about 5-10 litres, and a hosepipe 500 litres per hour.) .
Meanwhile, in a press release, the pesticides campaigner Georgina Downs says the Government and its scientific advisors must now seriously consider the role of environmental pollution from pesticides and other toxic chemicals. "... public exposure to all pesticides groups must now be taken seriously by those whose duty it is to protect the nations health."

November 25 2006 ~Turning on a gene found in wheat could boost levels of protein, iron and zinc, scientists have discovered. The gene occurs naturally in wheat, but has largely been silenced during the evolution of domestic varieties. Researchers found evidence that turning it back on could raise levels of the nutrients in wheat grains. Writing in the journal Science, they suggest that new varieties with a fully functioning gene can be created through cross-breeding with wild wheat. .." BBC

September 2006 ~ Energy Alert A new report by Friends of the Earth outlines what the Government could do - and by when - to keep within this carbon budget and maps out how homes, business and transport in the UK could change as a result. It says that, to reduce greenhouse gases emitted by car engines, high- speed, high-capacity trains should be the standard form of transport to the Continent and around the UK by the 2030s. In the same timescale, farmers should be growing biofuels and most homes and businesses should be generating some of their own electricity through mini wind turbines or solar panels. By 2050, all vehicles should be powered by electricity, and hydrogen fuel cells - which turn hydrogen gases into electricity with only water as a by-product - should be routinely used to heat homes.

July 24 2006 ~ Global " free trade" talks, billed as a once in a generation chance to boost growth and ease poverty, collapsed today after nearly five years of haggling. Resuming them could take years. ".....major trading powers failed in a last-ditch bid to overcome differences on reforming world farm trade, which lies at the heart of the round..."Reuters

July 24 2006 ~ Pesticides "This response is an absolute disgrace as it does not actually realistically change anything. The Government have refused to acknowledge the health risks inherent in the spraying of agricultural chemicals and have decided not to introduce any legal measures toinherent in the spraying of agricultural chemicals and have decided not to introduce any legal measures to protect rural residents and communities. This shows absolute contempt for people who live, work, go to school or just spend considerable time in the countryside. Voluntary and self-regulatory measures have existed for decades, have not worked and are completely unacceptable in this situation. ..." Read the latest press release from Georgina Downs - whose campaign has been gaining ground and who is herself the recipient of a major environmental award.

July 17 2006 ~ Another Tsunami "strong undersea earthquake off the southern coast of Indonesia's Java island on Monday triggered a tsunami that swept away buildings at a popular beach resort and killed at least 11 people.." Reuters

July 16 2006 ~ "Hazardous waste" baloney. As Christopher Booker points out "... There are two reasons for the confusion over asbestos enshrined in EC legislation. The first is that it no longer makes any distinction between the wholly different minerals which are loosely described as asbestos: the "amphiboles", blue and brown asbestos, which pose a genuine threat to human health, and the infinitely commoner white asbestos fibres which, bonded in cement or textured coatings, pose no measurable risk." (Sunday Telegraph)

July 14 2006 ~ "Oil surged to record highs above $78 on Friday on fears the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas could escalate and spread to more Middle East countries." Reuters

July 10 2006 ~ MPs warn Blair over nuclear review sham Independent Mr Luff said: "The Government's Energy Review risks being seen as little more than a rubber-stamping exercise for a decision the Prime Minister took some time ago."

July 9 2006 ~ Oil Crisis ".... this 'bull' market in oil is here to stay for one or more decades, in which time the world had better have weaned itself off oil or see the world in a major fight over the remaining supplies!" Resoource Investor, quoted on warmwell's oil pages

July 8 2006 ~ "End Of Cheap Oil, The Global Energy Crisis And Climate Change" The timely article by Vandana Shiva has been reprinted at Zmag "....Oil is at the heart of industrial food production and processing, and long distance food transport. The wheat, India is importing is not just bringing weeds, pests and pesticides. It is also carrying thousands of "food miles"...."

July 7 2006 ~ Organic food and drink now account for 1.3 per cent of total sales. Although the figure is small, the UK is the third largest market for organic food in Europe after Germany and Italy. See Independent "the Soil Association, said in its annual report that sales of organic food leapt by 30 per cent to #1.6bn in 2005 - almost treble the 11 per cent growth the previous year."

July 4 2006 ~ "plan to carpet England in general, and the south in particular, with new houses in the mistaken belief that this will reduce prices enough to win votes...." Read Max Hastings in today's Guardian

"....No sane person can dispute that we need to build more houses, and that some of them will have to go on green fields. But it seems madness to concrete huge tracts of countryside to meet extravagant and entirely speculative projections of demand. At a time when centralisation is perceived an abject failure in dictating education, health, and social policies, it seems deplorable to emasculate the powers of local authorities to influence planning. "

July 4 2006 ~ Population The UK has no policy on controlling its population size BBC "...... UK's population had topped 60 million for the first time last year and was expected to rise 12% in the next generation. The rises were equivalent to having a new Oxford, a new Middlesbrough and a new Ipswich every year..."

July 4 2006 ~ " Thames Water has not been fined by Ofwat as was expected . It has been losing 894 million litres of water every day ( enough to fill 344 Olympic-sized swimming pools every day) and is trying to get a drought order that will restrict water to its customers. Thames Water is owned by RWE of Germany and made a 31 per cent increase in annual profits to #346.5 million last year. The Times says, " Ofwat again branded Thames Water failures "unacceptable" today and threatened the company with a fine next year if it did not take appropriate measures to replace leaking water mains. .." (One does rather wonder in what circumstances a water company would be fined by OFWAT.)

July 3 2006 ~ depleted uranium ".....Depleted uranium aerosols will permanently contaminate vast regions and slowly destroy the genetic future of populations living in those regions where there are resources which the US must control, in order to establish and maintain American primacy. Described as the Trojan Horse of nuclear war, depleted uranium is the weapon that keeps killing. ...." (See Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War by Leuren Moret "...... Women in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq are afraid now to have babies, and when they do give birth, instead of asking if it is a girl or a boy, they ask 'is it normal?'..." )

"Two strange phenomena have come about in Basra which I have never seen before. The first is double and triple cancers in one patient. For example, leukemia and cancer of the stomach. We had one patient with two cancers - one in his stomach and kidney. Months later, primary cancer was developing in his other kidney - he had three different cancer types. The second is the clustering of cancer in families. We have 58 families here with more than one person affected by cancer. . . . My wife has nine members of her family with cancer."

This is Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, director of the oncology center at the largest hospital in Basra, speaking in 2003 at a peace conference in Japan. .." Free Press.org

July 2 2006 ~ Climate Change- an alternate view Bjorn Lomborg writes in the Observer that With $50bn, we could make the planet a better place but money spent on global warming would be wasted

".... economists, who included four Nobel laureates... The question that they strove to answer was: 'How could you spend $50bn to achieve the most good possible?'
...With access to specially commissioned research, the team came up with a concrete, prioritised 'to do' list that outlined how policy-makers could achieve the most good possible. The economists found that spending $27bn on an HIV/Aids prevention programme would be the best possible investment for humanity. ...
.....Providing micronutrient-rich dietary supplements to the malnourished was their second-highest priority...
....Third on the list was trade liberalisation... it would be remarkably cheap and would benefit the entire world, not least the developing world. ..."

July 2 2006 ~ Level 2 Heatwave warning A notice on the DoH website reads: "The Met Office has forecast that in at least the next three days there is an 80pc chance of temperatures in the London, south-east and West Midlands regions being high enough on at least two consecutive days to give rise to significant health risks."

July 2 2006 ~ Near miss? An asteroid up to half a mile wide is due to brush past the Earth tomorrow BBC and Telegraph

July 2 2006 ~Bird migration "a study in Science suggests they have evolved in response to climate change and are returning earlier. ..The study revealed that long-distance fliers have adjusted their migration habits to arrive earlier in northern Europe in time for the start of spring. This suggests a more permanent change in migratory behaviour due to climate change than previously thought. ... ." BBC

June 30 2006 ~ Fordhall Farm has been saved by members of the public buying shares. The farm was one of the first in the country to go organic. ( See BBC.

June 30 2006 ~ "Oil is a non-renewable resource. We have always known that yet the world has been behaving as if oil is in endless supply. And we in India who have lived in a biodiversity and biomass energy economy are rushing into oil addiction precisely when the global oil supply is running low and prices are running high...." Vandana Shiva, the voice of sanity. See Zmag.org and warmwell's oil pages

June 29 2006 ~ wind turbines WMN "Campaigners against onshore windfarms say they are horrified to learn of moves to build four of the tallest turbines in the Westcountry .... at Bickham Moor, between Rackenford and Tiverton. Opponents of the scheme warned it would devastate the landscape and hit the rural economy...Two Moors campaign secretary, Caroline Harvey, said the turbines proposed for Bickham Moor could be taller than any previous proposal.

"They would soar to a height nearly 100ft taller than Big Ben," she said. "The possible development at Bickham Moor combined with the plans for Batsworthy Cross will rip apart our stunning natural environment and wage war on our rural economy and the communities in Devon."

Although I said that warmwell hasn't really got time to cover turbines, turbines will soon be covering us. Time to take arms against a sea of turbines and by opposing, end them?

June 29 2006 ~ euthanasia "....The British Medical Association voted at its conference last year to drop its stance against euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. But a motion at this year's Belfast meeting calls for a rethink. A bill to relax current rules was blocked by the House of Lords in May, but is likely to be reintroduced. .....The conference will be asked to back a motion opposing any attempt to legalise physician-assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia in the UK. Representatives will also consider whether they should hold a ballot of all BMA members on the issue. ... " BBC.

June 29 2006 ~ GMOs "Transgenic rice is a direct threat to China's environment and biodiversity and will not benefit farmers, Greenpeace said on Wednesday, calling on the government to think twice about its commercialisation. .." Reuters

June 29 2006 ~ Animal homeoopathic remedies Many thanks to kind readers who have helped with this issue. The wording of Annexe A may be read here. " .....The proposed amendment will allow homoeopathic medicines to be administered to animals in accordance with EC legislation..." read in full.
(DEFRA, we read, has a "designated consultation co-ordinator" to monitor it's (sic) "effectiveness at consultation" and that "In line with Defra's policy of openness, at the end of the consultation period copies of the responses we receive will be made publicly available through the Defra Information Resource Centre, Lower Ground Floor, Ergon House, 17 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3JR.....personal callers should give the library at least 24 hours notice of their requirements. An administrative charge will be made to cover photocopying and postage costs. ..." )

June 28 2006 ~ Animal homeoopathic remedies - Prescription only Medicines? Even though homeopathic medicines can be bought in the High Street, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, it seems, is running a consultation of only six weeks entitled Proposals for the administration of homoeopathic veterinary medicinal products (ending 7th July 2006) specifically about homoeopathic remedies. We are unable to open this pdf file at http://www.vmd.gov.uk/publications/consultations/Homoeopathic.pdf
Is any interested reader able to open it and send a view about the issue? If mainstream vets refuse to recognise homoeopathy, and remedies have to be registered as veterinary medicines then treatment for farm animals with homoeopathy will become very difficult.

June 28 2006 ~ GMOs Austria is one of the staunchest opponents of GM technology in the EU and is sticking to its own ban on modified plants within its territory but, now that Finland has taken over the EU Presidency, the subject of GMOs is unlikely to be discussed. Adrian Bebb from Friends of the Earth, says of the European Food Security Agency (EFSA) "It ignores major safety concerns raised across Europe and appears to protect the biotech industry rather then the public." FOE Europe says that member states should set the safety standards needed to protect their environment, farming industry and public from GM foods and crops - not EFSA. (See EUobserver)

June 27 2006 ~ Oil crisis "If we are not preparing ourselves toward a comprehensive plan that reduces our oil dependence we may be dooming our future to a global crisis..." Huffington Post and oil pages

June 26 2006 ~ Pesticides ".. yet another study finds pesticides associated with Parkinson's disease."

"...The study found that the risk of Parkinson's disease was 70 percent higher for people exposed to pesticides. Notably, a similar increase in risk was observed among people who were exposed because of their occupation, such as farmers, as among people not occupationally exposed, suggesting that home or garden use of pesticides, as well as other exposure groups, (ie. such as resident and bystander exposure), is also deleterious. .."

Georgina Downs' press release

June 23 2006 ~"need for more independent arms-length advice to government", particularly in regard to assessing the "relative merits" of technologies. .." It is pleasing to see that the Edinburgh Royal Society's report " Inquiries / Issues for Scotland's Energy Supply " asserts that

"Energy is an emotive subject and too important to become a party political issue."

The Renewable Energy Foundation's Chief Executive, Campbell Dunford, said,

"The Royal Society of Edinburgh's recommendations are both judicious and constructive, yet no punches have been pulled, particularly in regard to the flawed and counterproductive Renewables Obligation. This is an excellent study, and will form a benchmark by which the DTI's own Energy Review, now imminent, can be judged."

June 23 2006 ~ Antarctica" Scientists are calling for action to prevent foreign species from taking hold in Antarctica and wrecking the continent's unique ecosystems. Despite Antarctica's inhospitable environment, non-native species introduced by tourists, scientists and explorers are gaining a foothold. Species can hitch a ride on ships and planes carrying visitors and supplies.." BBC

June 20 2006 ~ 'doomsday' vault "Work began yesterday on a 'doomsday' vault buried in the Arctic permafrost that will become the guardian of 10,000 years of agriculture, protecting millions of seed samples in the event of a global catastrophe" Times

June 20 2006 ~ Arm lock The Western Morning News reported last week that the impact of the supermarkets on small suppliers such as farmers would be included as part of the Competition Commission long-awaited investigation of the major retailers.

June 19 2006 ~ North Yorkshire community spirit Yorkshire Post "It seems as though everything has been thrown at us in the last 20 years. But without the help of the community, I certainly wouldn't have been able to open up again as quickly as I did."

June 19 2006 ~ Whales "Japan seizes control of whaling group after vote " Independent
Guardian "Japan's campaign to restart commercial whale hunting received a major boost last night when the International Whaling Commission declared invalid a 20-year ban on the slaughter of the planet's largest creatures for anything other than scientific purposes"

June 18 2006 ~ Wind turbines Booker's Notebook "....somehow, in environmental terms, the loss of Scotland's unique landscape to these vast steel structures is never taken into account. Forty years ago we pointlessly sacrificed the skylines of our cities to building tower blocks of council flats, many of which have since had to be demolished. When this mad obsession with turbines comes to be seen as a similar fantasy, who will then restore the wild beauty of those Scottish hills?"

June 18 2006 ~ Whales Japan has failed to win a vote to allow some of its coastal communities to hunt minke whales for local use. BBC

June 17 2006 ~ Rapid Prion Detection Assays - easy-to-use rapid strip test for rapid BSE testing produces visual results in less than an hour. "PDL recently achieved 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity in a trial on confirmed positive and negative samples at the Veterinary Laboratory Agency in Weybridge, UK. " See biz.yahoo.com "Genesis Bioventures, Inc has announced that it has granted an exclusive licence to Bio Business Development Company (BBDC) to commercialize the Rapid Prion Detection Assays in eighteen countries of the Pacific Rim...The licensed technology has been developed by Prion Developmental Laboratories (PDL), a portfolio company of GBI."

June 17 2006 ~ NHS "the green light for the private sector to take control of a large slice of primary care in England"? Guardian

June 16 2006 ~ "The obsession of major world powers with terrorism is consuming resources that should be devoted to solving far more dangerous planetary threats, says John Sloboda of the Oxford Research Group.

a report from the Oxford Research Group (ORG), Global Responses to Global Threats: Sustainable Security for the 21st Century, published on 12 June 2006.....identifies four main threats to security in the next century and outlines a plan of action. The four threats are:
• climate change
• competition over resources
• marginalisation of the "majority world"
• global militarisation.

"If these growing threats are not halted within the next few years, the world could pass a tipping-point which would catapult it into a period of intense and unprecedented conflict."

June 16 2006 ~ ( Back on broadband. Broad-ish at any rate. What a difference!)

June 16 2006 ~ Deep sea Conservationists say urgent action is needed to protect the world's oceans from human exploitation. BBC

June 16 2006 ~ Whales Japan has warned that it will pull out of the International Whaling Commission "in a few years" if a ban is not overturned. ITN

June 16 2006 ~ Permafrost "....You have anthropogenic (human-generated) carbon that's making things a little bit warmer, and that causes the permafrost to warm up and carbon is then released from the permafrost," he said. "It goes into the atmosphere and makes things warmer yet again, so then more permafrost thaws." If all Siberian permafrost thawed and released its carbon in the form of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, it could nearly double the 730 billion metric tons of carbon now in the atmosphere, the scientists said." Reuters

June 15 2006 ~ New vaccine protects ferrets against H5N1 Chinese People's Daily reports

"An inactivated whole-virus vaccine successfully protected ferrets against the deadly H5N1 bird flu, a U.S. research team reported on Wednesday. Unlike earlier candidate vaccines that rooted in part sequences of the virus' hemagglutinin (HA) gene, this new virus is a first recombinant virus based on both the HA and the neuraminidase (NA) genes, according to the researchers at the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. These findings were published in the June 15 edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. "

June 15 2006 ~US The American charity Farm Sanctuary was founded in 1986 to combat the abuses of industrialized farming. Its "No Downers Campaign seeks to prevent the suffering of downed animals (animals too sick even to stand) through public education and by enacting laws and policies to prevent the marketing and slaughter of downed animals. . "
( In the UK, the respected and excellent Compassion in World Farming does not overtly encourage vegetarianism but its aims and campaigns demonstrate a similar awareness of farm animal suffering and a determination to educate the public and work for better legislation.)
Now that there is a growing worry about so-called "atypical BSE", the US campaign may be more successful. Common Dreams reports,

"......The Unites States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has finally admitted that the U.S. may have its own variant of mad cow disease after confirming two cases of mad cow disease reported in Texas and Alabama were atypical strains of the disease. The Agency can no longer dismiss the scientific research published in 1993 by Dr. Richard Marsh of the University of Wisconsin that warned about "the presence of an unrecognized BSE-like disease in the United States. Rather than heeding the evidence presented by scientists like Dr. Richard Marsh, the USDA chose to ignore it," said Gene Bauston, president and co-founder of Farm Sanctuary. "We are concerned that the USDA adopted a 'don't look, don't find' approach and that an undetected disease has been incubating and spreading as a result." "

June 15 2006 ~ Kentucky Fried Chicken sued for use of hydrogenated oils Independent "The Centre for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) filed the suit in Washington arguing that KFC, more than any other restaurant chain, relies on partly hydrogenated oils for its food. Those oils contain trans fat, a notoriously indigestible substance that food reformers have been campaigning to eliminate from the American diet......Research shows that it is more harmful even than saturated fat, because it both increases the level of LDL, or "bad" cholesterol and lowers the level of HDL, or "good" cholesterol... "

June 15 2006 ~ Stephen Hawking "insists the survival of the human race depends on it finding new homes on other planets. He believes global warming, nuclear war or a genetically engineered virus could wipe out the earth. Speaking at a news conference in Hong Kong the 64-year-old scientist said humans could have a permanent base on the moon in 20 years and colony on Mars in the next 40 years. " Daily Mail

June 14 2006 ~British Ports - an open gateway for smugglers? "In a BBC investigation one retired customs officer from the Plymouth area said: 'You may get the odd seizure. But it's just the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of importations fo unchallenged, simply because there's no staff here.' Daily Mail

June 13 2006 ~ Monbiot on "Behind the spin, the oil giants are more dangerous than ever The green rebranding of Shell and BP is a fraud. Far from switching to biofuels, it's drilling and devastation as usual..." Guardian

June 11 2006 ~ "Pollution From Chinese Coal Casts a Global Shadow" is a NYT headline today in an article that points out both the cooling effect of pollution and its eventual disastrous effects. The article is interesting for showing how China has now had a taste of the lifestyles that the West, particularly the US and the UK, thinks it unthinkable to give up merely in order to save the planet. The artical seems uneasily aware of this :

"One of China's lesser-known exports is a dangerous brew of soot, toxic chemicals and climate-changing gases from the smokestacks of coal-burning power plants....The sulfur pollution is so pervasive as to have an extraordinary side effect that is helping the rest of the world, but only temporarily: It actually slows global warming. The tiny, airborne particles deflect the sun's hot rays back into space. But the cooling effect from sulfur is short-lived. By contrast, the carbon dioxide emanating from Chinese coal plants will last for decades, with a cumulative warming effect that will eventually overwhelm the cooling from sulfur and deliver another large kick to global warming, climate scientists say. A warmer climate could lead to rising sea levels, the spread of tropical diseases in previously temperate climes, crop failures in some regions and the extinction of many plant and animal species, especially those in polar or alpine areas....
China depends overwhelmingly on coal. And using coal to produce electricity and run factories generates more global-warming gases and lung-damaging pollutants than relying on oil or gas....Sulfur and ash that make breathing a hazard are being carried by the wind to South Korea, Japan and beyond. ....China is also the world's largest emitter of mercury, which has been linked to fetal and child development problems.....halving sulfur emissions has its own consequences: it would make global warming noticeable sooner. ..........For all the worries about pollution from China, international climate experts are loath to criticize the country without pointing out that the average American still consumes more energy and is responsible for the release of 10 times as much carbon dioxide as the average Chinese. .....With Chinese leaders under constant pressure to create jobs for the millions of workers flooding from farms into cities each year, as well as the rapidly growing ranks of college graduates, there has been little enthusiasm for a change of strategy. Indeed, China is using subsidies to make its energy even cheaper, a strategy that is not unfamiliar to Americans, said Kenneth Lieberthal, a China specialist at the University of Michigan. "They have done in many ways," he said, "what we have done." ."

June 9 2006 ~ Bird Flu brings bad news to Smithfield. The US based pig farming conglomerate Smithfield Foods has found that its sales and profits in international operations have declined, "particularly in Poland, due to decreased demand for its poultry products due to avian influenza worries." The reality of factory farming is typified by America's largest agricultural corporations, such as ConAgra, Tyson Foods, Cargill and Smithfield Farms. To get a flavour of this read Robert Kennedy Jr's prescient article in the Ecologist in 2004

June 8 2006 ~ " Prof James Lovelock "... yesterday offered to store high level nuclear waste on his land if it would help to revive the revive the fortunes of atomic energy in Britain...... "I would be glad to have it. I would use it for home heating. It would be a waste not to use it." ........ "I am a scientist when they [environmentalists] are mostly not," he added, arguing that new reactors should be built on the old sites. The Green movement's recommendations of sustainable development and renewable energy are well intentioned but too late, said Prof Lovelock, who was discussing his ideas yesterday at the Cheltenham Science Festival..." Telegraph

June 8 2006 ~ Hansard Wave Technology

Mark Pritchard: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what discussions he has had with Scottish Ministers on the use of wave technology for energy production in Scotland. [74961]
Mr. Douglas Alexander: Ministers and officials from the Scotland Office regularly discuss a wide range of matters with colleagues in the Scottish Executive.

Not the most helpful of answers we feel. Indeed, a refusal to bother to engage with the question at all - as are the answers to an increasing number of PQs these days, it seems.

June 8 2006 ~ The government is to appoint an "international envoy" on climate change, the BBC tells us.

June 8 2006 ~ Technical problems are still continuing here - including the fact that broadband is still temporarily not available. Uploading is unwieldy, uncertain and very slow. As soon as possible, warmwell reports will resume in full.

June 7 2006 ~ 'Era of cheap fuel is over' Telegraph

June 5 2006 ~ FMD We understand that Anthony Gibson, communication co-coordinator for NFU, gave a speech on the impact of foot and mouth disease at the assembly rooms at Kingsbridge, at 3.15pm on Saturday. Any report would be very welcome.

June 4 2006 ~ one of the real scandals of our time....the devastation being wreaked along the west coast of Africa by hundreds of large foreign trawlers, which are destroying the livelihoods and often the lives of local fishermen. Booker's Notebook

"...The BBC last week excitably reported that nine EU countries have offered ships and planes to Spain, to help stem the flood of West Africans prepared to risk their lives crossing in fragile wooden boats to the Canary Islands. ..... "Third World fisheries agreements" negotiated by the EU, for which EU taxpayers have shelled out more than £2 billion (some £250 million contributed by Britain) to the governments of countries such as Mali, Senegal and Mauritania.
Most of this money, as has been well documented, goes to a small ruling class of politicians and officials. The African fishermen cannot compete. Thousands have died, simply because their tiny craft are run down by the foreign trawlers pillaging the same fishing grounds - hence their desperation to escape to Europe..."

June 2 2006 ~ Head of France's nuclear watchdog 'lied over Chernobyl fallout' Independent Professor Pierre Pellerin, who was the head of France's nuclear safety watchdog 20 years ago, has been formally accused of deliberately concealing the seriousness of contamination of parts of the French countryside from the French people......As the "cloud" of contamination passed over France between 30 April and 5 May (1986) Professor Pellerin issued a series of reassuring statements. He published low average findings of radiation across whole regions. Campaigners have long protested that this deliberately concealed the fact that there were pockets of contamination which suffered high rainfall as the Chernobyl cloud moved westwards..." ."

June 1 2006 ~ "Compassion in World Farming was appalled at an amendment to the national welfare at slaughter law that was rushed through Parliament over the May Bank Holiday, effectively authorising the culling of poultry by closing the air vents in the sheds and shutting off the ventilation system. CIWF broke this story nationally with an exclusive in theTimes newspaper. UK Cons. Party leader, David Cameron MP, has called for the overturning of these new powers - for a full update on this, see our new -look home page at www.ciwf.org"

May 30 2006 ~ No broadband for warmwell.com. My attempts to get back on line properly are stymied. I have bought a new comput er - but it will take some time to get an ADSL connection. Apologies again.

May 30 2006 ~ John Prescott spent millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on buying an area of outstanding natural beauty, with proud boasts that it would be "transformed" into a "community green space". .....the Sunday Telegraph reported.

".....In an environmental blunder that may result in criminal charges, a picturesque 360-acre home counties farm, once teeming with skylarks and other songbirds, now lies ruined. .... On its website, the ( Forestry) Commission boasts about the "transformation" of the farm and says it uses "best practice management techniques to provide the conditions for rare or important species to flourish". The reality of these techniques was that, two weeks ago, teams of tractors moved in and ploughed up the fields and with them around 60 nests full of newly-born skylarks and their eggs. Conservationists fear that all of the birds are dead, killed as they nested. A liberal spraying of super-strength pesticide has ensured that they and other forms of wildlife do not come back..."

May 28 2006 ~ Trying to make sense of all the global warming to-ing and fro-ing, we read Simon Jenkins today with gratitude.

".. One lobby demands millions for renewables, yet denies them for nuclear. Another demands the reverse. Government backs inefficient power sources, such as wind, if they are cheap but not more reliable ones such as wave, solar and subterranean. The future of the earth is apparently a matter of public expenditure. ..."

May 21 2006 ~ Nuclear power Now we have a 'first cut' See Sunday Herald.

". ...one MP, who says the debate has already been cut short by Blair:.... "A crucial debate has been sidelined by Tony Blair. Once again the party is being asked to trust his judgement alone. He says it would be a 'serious dereliction' to the future of this country if we didn't do it his way. It would be a worse dereliction of duty if we did do it his way - and that is without a meaningful debate at all."

May 21 2006 ~ Nuclear power. This letter, one of several in the Independent yesterday came from Paul Berkeley in Cirencester:

"Sir: The Prime Minister advocates a new generation of nuclear-power plants to protect the nation from the insecurity of reliance on imported fuels. Presumably he thinks that the uranium orchards of Hereford and Kent will be ready for harvesting this autumn. The only secure reliable energy that is ours for free are the natural elements of sun, wind, earth and water, which we have in abundance."

May 20 2006 ~ To those who remember Morgan A special message of support and affection to those who have lost loved animals in the past five years. I wish that all animals could receive the same loving and competent attention at the time of their death as my border collie Morgan did yesterday. There are, of course, some wonderful vets in England - but if my vet here is a typical example of french vets then it is hardly surprising that France has adopted vaccination for birds at risk. Morgan, with his two companions beside him, lying comfortably in the back of the car and looking up at me with confidence as the anaesthetic took effect, died gently. And the vet, himself holding back tears with an effort, gave me a hug before I left. Compare this with the terrors of mass culling - and weep.
A huge thank you to the emailer who sent this:

"Near this spot are deposited
the remains of one who possessed
beauty without vanity, strength
without insolence, courage without ferocity,
and all the virtues of man without his vices" (Byron)

May 14 2006 ~Veterinary Surgeons Act - we have been sent a link to a petition asking that

an independent ombudsman deal with complaints concerning veterinary negligence and misconduct ;Continuous supervision be given by qualified staff for pets hospitalised at veterinary surgeries overnight ;Veterinary fees be regulated by the Department of Trade ;The veterinary code of conduct be made statutory - any breaches of the code to be made public in the interest of the consumer

We read that, " On average, the Royal College of Veterinary Sugeons (RCVS) receives about 800 complaints against veterinary surgeons annually (about 15 per week). Most of us hope that we will never have cause to complain to the RCVS and that if we do, our complaint will be dealt with fairly. The RCVS is a self-governing body, there is increasing evidence that the present RCVS disciplinary system does not protect animals and that complaints are NOT dealt with fairly."

May 12 2006 ~ A Cultural Strategy for Rural England; Funded by the national Lottery, the Rural Cultural Summit will take place at the Clore Auditorium, Tate Britain, London, Tuesday May 23rd 2006 "This is a unique event, where for the first time the leaders of the main rural and farming cultural communities, speaking as partner members of the coalition -The Rural Cultural Forum - will come together with the lead stake holders for the urban arts and culture sector to discuss the aims and objectives, proposed funding, implementation mechanisms and outputs for a rural cultural strategy." If you wish to attend the Rural Cultural Summit, to help us with catering numbers, please register your name, address, and contact number to rcforum@btconnect.com no later than Wednesday May 18th.

May 11 2006 ~Oil "..... Only a few percent of us, in America, live on or anywhere near a farm anymore and what were once near universal agricultural skills are now possessed by very few. The true necessities of life - food, shelter, clothing, and medicine - come to us through highly complex supply chains - all of which run on oil. ..." See oil page

May 10 2006 ~ A prototype French vaccine against H5N1 bird flu has been found to be safe and effective in initial tests on several hundred volunteers See DNA India

May 9 2006 ~ Malcolm Wicks dismisses Peak Oil before 2030. See oil page

May 6 2006 ~ FMD Vietnam will start mass vaccinations for pigs and cattle against foot and mouth disease next week.

May 4 2006 ~ BBC Question Time "Joining David Dimbleby for the interactive debate will be environment secretary Margaret Beckett MP, shadow foreign secretary William Hague MP, chief secretary to the Treasury for the Liberal Democrats Julia Goldsworthy MP, and Richard Littlejohn of the Daily Mail." (Any feedback for those of us unable to watch would be much appreciated)

May 2 2006 ~ BSE " Twenty-eight people abroad have already developed vCJD by eating cattle meat from Britain infected with BSE.." assert James Meikle and Rob Evans in the Guardian today as if there were no uncertainty about the nature of TSEs at all. See warmwell BSE page

May 2 2006 ~ "the heroic minority of green shoppers" can't do it alone.
The main conclusion of Sustainable Consumption Roundtable (SCR) report, I Will If You Will, is that people are generally quite happy with measures which bring positive environmental results, even at some cost to themselves, so long as those measures are applied fairly. It urges measures such as taxing flights, rewarding water conservation and banning over-fishing. It says consultation shows that people want to adopt greener habits, but many believe individual action is futile. The BBC page is worth reading in full

May 2 2006 ~ "The polar bear, hippo and many sharks are among species newly listed as threatened with extinction..." BBC

May 2 2006 ~ Why are we importing so much of something we can grow ourselves? What has happened to the effort to reduce food miles and Defra's "buy local" policy? Food from Britain received £8 million in grants from Defra last year. Where is that money is going? ..." Read in full

May 2 2006 ~ Suffolk farmer launches a High Court battle against Margaret Beckett Today, Mark Horvath, from Suffolk, supported by a legal team acting free of charge, will argue in the High Court that Mrs Beckett is penalising English farmers by including footpaths in cross-compliance regulations imposed on farmers. The requirement does not apply to farmers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. See EADT.co.uk

May 1 2006 ~ Margaret Beckett "To cap it all, the long-serving and normally impressive environment secretary, Margaret Beckett, has a farmers' revolt on her hands due to messing up the new system of rural payments." The Guardian is one of the few papers to place Mrs Beckett's spectacular failure with the RPA alongside the other Labour embarrassments this week.

May 1 2006 ~ Climate Change Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will this week receive in Sweden the Leo prize for independent thinking. He stands out against what he describes as "climate change alarmism". See yesterday's Sunday Times

"He describes a "triangle of alarmism", in which scientists make meaningless or ambiguous statements, advocates translate them into alarmist declarations and politicians respond to the alarm by feeding more money to the scientists............... Lindzen is not the only sceptic. The excellent House of Lords economic affairs committee, including former chancellors Lawson and Lamont, examined climate-change economics. "The scientific context was one of uncertainty," it said, urging the government to encourage "a dispassionate evidence-based approach". While acknowledging most scientists had signed up, it said "majorities do not necessarily embody the truth". It was particularly critical of the IPCC's lack of rigour...."

An article well worth reading for bemused laymen such as ourselves.

May 1 2006 ~ The "CASE" anti-casino website aims to raise national awareness and opposition to Super-Casinos, inform campaigners from across the country, provide arguments and campaign tips and enable local objectors to share information and co-ordinate their activity.
Run by Councillor Steven Bate, from Blackpool. The site also has a national petition for those of us who find the idea of super casinos in the UK repugnant. Emailing the supercasino advisory panel is just as important and can be done very simply from the website via direct email - it is on the "register your support"link in the LHS.

May 1 2006 ~ EU emissions trading scheme has resulted in £1bn windfall for carbon trade firms See BBC " firms have been given, free-of-charge, the carbon emissions permits on which the scheme is based. This, he explained, is like the government giving energy firms free money..." The Conservative environment spokesman Peter Ainsworth said: "The problem will not be sorted out until the market is made to work properly by forcing firms to bid for their permits instead of being allowed to lobby government for them free of charge. The DTI aren't competent to decide on this."

May 1 2006 ~ "Food and farming in the UK faces a stark choice," Friends of the Earth reminds us." Do we continue to put profit first? Or adopt practices that safeguard the future of what we eat - and those who provide it. If we let them - the Government, biotech industry and supermarkets will decide for us."

30 April 2006 ~ The warmwell oil page is now over two years old. Yesterday's article in the Guardian looked closely at who exactly is making all the money.

April 29 2006 ~ The real cost of a bag of salad: You pay 99p. Africa pays 50 litres of fresh water By Jeremy Laurance in the Independent

April 28 2006 ~ Quick Fixes Won't Solve Looming Oil Crisis, Scientists Say - www.livescience.com or see Oil Page for a summary

April 27 2006 ~ Eaglesham Moor News that ScottishPower was today granted final planning consent for Europe's largest on-shore windfarm (South of Glasgow, East Kilbride) provoked this comment from a campaigner

"Appalling. Eaglesham Moor is a great and necessary lung in a beautiful, open area. The fact that it is near Glasgow makes it an even greater loss. But never mind, the visitor centre with lots of TV screens and interactive displays will make up for the destruction of the open space and all that nasty un-air-conditioned air."

April 26 2006 ~ Tallow is a renewable, carbon-neutral fuel. Its banning in the UK will cause the burning of £70,000 worth of fossil fuels per rendering plant and increase Britain's rising carbon dioxide emissions by 750,000 tons a year. What is more, livestock farmers face extra costs of between £30 million and £50 million. Defra's interpretation of the EU Waste Incineration Directive does not apply in Ireland, France and Holland where tallow continues to be burned. See Sunday Telegraph

April 25 2006 ~ "a contrast to the deadly apathy of most Western governments in the face of global warming, this call for local action strikes me as the healthier approach. " Magnus Linklater in last week's Times on the bleaching of the coral in Tobago. Tobago is "taking local steps to control its own pollution and to limit the land-based developments that threaten its coastal waters with erosion and sedimentation."

"Like a skeleton in the desert, the whitened coral remains only as a stark warning of its own mortality. The death of the reef would signal the end of the marine life it supports, as well as the fish and the birds that feed on them. .."

April 25 2006 ~ UK condemned as 'animal experiment capital' of Europe says One World UK And just in case anyone was still under any illusions about what happens to the primates, dogs, pigs and others at the centres in Cambridge, Durham, Oxford, Newcastle, Southampton, Manchester , London and Edinburgh:

"....Laboratory animals suffer terribly at every stage of their lives; the law allows the infliction of pain and suffering that would, in other circumstances, be illegal. ..."

The article also describes the recent TGN1412 drug disaster which made healthy volunteers critically ill. The drug had previously been tested in monkeys without serious side effects, using doses 500 times stronger than those given to the people in the clinical trial. The drug had also been tested in rabbits.

April 24 2006 ~ Oil prices continue upward spiral as markets feels jitters over Iran Independent and warmwell's oil page

April 24 2006 ~ "woeful" level of research into energy Independent ".....the engineering lobby group, the EEF, also called on the Government to commit to a new nuclear programme. But it also urged ministers to tackle the "woeful" level of research into energy...It claimed that the UK spent just 0.02 per cent of national output on energy R&D - the lowest amount of any EU member apart from Portugal and a tenth of what was spent in the US. Martin Temple, the EEF's director general, said that these figures suggested the Government's actions were at odds with the Chancellor Gordon Brown's claims that Britain was taking the lead in tackling climate change. The CBI also lambasted the UK's "laborious" planning system, blaming it for blocking the building of crucial new gas-storage facilities. Mr Jones, who last autumn warned that the UK had only 11 days of energy supply set aside

"We got away with it this winter but may not be so lucky next time. An energy policy based on crossing fingers and the use of a prayer mat is not acceptable for the fifth-biggest economy on Earth,"

April 24 2006 ~ "Why is the heavy-handed intervention of the public sector reducing our recycling efforts to chaos?" is one of the questions asked by Christopher Booker this week. "Do we really need a nationwide network of giant incinerators, which are proving so unpopular wherever they are proposed? Are we wise to be ramming through plans for thousands of wind turbines, which will make such an insignificant contribution to our energy needs at such ludicrous financial and environmental cost?" He is less than impressed by the Tories attitude to the "environment" He also points out Defra's discomforture at having the ludicrously wrong map reference for the finding of the dead swan pointed out (Bryn Wayt's eagle eyes noticed that the reference was to somewhere near Stoke on Trent)

April 22 2006 ~ On the Today Programme, (Listen Again) Gordon Brown warned that rising oil prices could threaten global economic stability - the first time we have heard this publicly stated by a British politician since we began the oil page in April 2004
John Humphrys asked, "Given that voluntarism (?) is not enough and that you accept this is a moral issue, how do you justify the fact that CO₂ emissions have increased since this government has been in power?"
Gordon Brown said, "Because of the rise in oil prices and the cost of gas prices as well there has been a greater use of coal because of that and that of course is the reason why the carbon target has been more difficult to meet.."
John Humphrys pointed out the under the stewardship of the Chancellor the proportion of green taxes has gone down. Yet in the past it had been agreed that "polluters would have to pay more" What is more, the cost of driving has been allowed to fall relative to the cost of public transport. Poor Gordon Brown was left ( "but hold on, John") only with the reply that pensioners now had a free local bus pass. The interview is well worth listening to. The BBC report of the interview has none of the challenging punch of John Humphrys' questions.

April 22 2006 ~ No consensus on global warming An article in the Washington Times "Global warming may not be as dramatic as some scientists have predicted" reports "Using temperature readings from the past 100 years, 1,000 computer simulations and the evidence left in ancient tree rings, Duke University scientists announced yesterday that "the magnitude of future global warming will likely fall well short of current highest predictions."

April 22 2006 ~ US class action. Three big meatpackers - Tyson, Swift & Co and Cargill have been held responsible for deceiving cattlemen in the spring of 2001

"a victory for struggling cattle producers nationwide against the unlawful practices of the big packing companies.....The packers for years have acted to crush competition and squeeze the small cattle producer to maximize packer profits. We are pleased that a jury of everyday citizens has held the packers accountable for their unlawful activities in this case."

April 20 2006 ~Mrs Beckett and minister Lord Bach are facing calls to resign over the delays in subsidy payments. BBC

April 20 2006 ~ The £2.99 spray, No-Germs, was tested against a strain of H5N1 at a lab at Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry in the University of London. It was found that the handwash was more than 99.8 per cent efficient in killing H5N1. See Glasgow Daily Record

April 20 2006 ~Crude oil rose to a record after a car bomb exploded in the capital of Nigeria's oil-producing region, renewing concern of militant attacks on rigs and pipelines that will disrupt supplies from Africa's largest producer. Oil page

April 19 2006 ~ Margaret Beckett has admitted in an answer to Parliament that 400 litres of diesel has had to be pumped from a borehole next to the Buncefield oil depot. It leads directly to an underground reservoir used to supply local tap water.

April 19 2006 ~ With a faith that would move mountains, a Canadian newspaper answers its own question "How does a six-year-old cow come down with mad-cow disease when it was born three years after the feed ban was put into place?" with

"The likely answer is the cow in question ate feed leftover from before the ban."

The possibility that there could be other reasons than specified risk material in feed for spongiform encephalopathies can't seem to get through - and in spite of Dr Jeffrey's research current dogmas continue unchallenged. See also BSE page

April 19 2006 ~ Oil prices remain close to $71 a barrel, amid ongoing concerns about tensions between the US and Iran. (See oil page)

April 19 2006 ~Chernobyl Greenpeace says a UN report grossly under-estimated the health effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. See BBC

April 18 2006 ~ " McDonald's Corp is having its suppliers in Europe bring normally free-range chickens indoors to try to contain the spread of bird flu and to make sure the food it serves is not tainted with the disease, the company said on Monday." Reuters

April 15 2006 ~ DEFRA and the Cunning Plan.... Mike at www.sunflowerhealth.com, firmly tongue-in-cheek, admits that this conspiracy theory is a little off the wall. It made us smile- and yet, and yet....

April 15 2006 ~ UK now "eating the planet" The UK's food self-sufficiency has been falling steadily for more than a decade, and indigenous food production is now said to be at its lowest level for half a century. So says the New Economics Foundation (Nef) and the Open University report. See BBC Some of the idiocies noted by the report :

In 2004, the UK exported 1,500 tonnes of fresh potatoes to Germany, and imported 1,500 tonnes of the same product from the same country
Imported 465 tonnes of gingerbread, but exported 460 tonnes of the same produce
Sent 10,200 tonnes of milk and cream to France, yet imported 9,900 tonnes of the dairy goods from France

April 14 2006 ~ Saying 'no' to NAIS On the new US National Animal Identification System, Vermont County Courier puts the other side of the story. ".....the idea that non-commercial operations would become part of a required national system is a disturbing one. Seeing parallels to the Patriot Act and beyond, opponents say the plan is far too broad, is ineffective in disease control and would put small farmers and producers out of business. "Here's another heavy-handed, backdoor government intrusion into our personal freedom and our farm activity. This is a top-down system. Top-down systems are famous for being a problem. Who makes a decision about what's necessary? Highly fallible non-farmers, basically." (see also below)

April 14 2006 ~ From Britain's Chief Scientific Adviser on Everything: "The world is likely to suffer a temperature rise of more than 3C. That would cause drought and famine and threaten millions of lives." See BBC

April 13 2006 ~ "By betraying the public's trust in their positions of influence...the great and good become the small and silly." So says the climatologist, Bob Carter, in this thought-provoking article on climate ".... official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia for the years 1998-2005 - global average temperatures did not increase..
.... most government scientists are gagged from making public comment on contentious issues, their employing organisations instead making use of public relations experts to craft carefully-tailored Frisbee-science press releases. "

April 13 2006 ~ Storm overflows used by South West Water in the Torbay Clean Sweep project do not comply with EU sewage rules. "A final warning has been received by the UK before possible court action over four urban centres, including Torbay, which result in sewage being discharged into the sea or rivers, causing pollution and health hazards..." WMN
An email

April 13 2006 ~ 1,000-home eco-estate Ken Livingstone "set out plans today to build Britain's biggest eco-development in east London, modelled on a sustainable city being planned in China. The London scheme will involve at least 1,000 homes, which will be powered entirely by renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic panels, wind turbines and the burning of waste." Guardian

April 13 2006 ~ "Paul Bateman, of Westhay Farm in Banwell, plans to put Margaret Beckett, the secretary of state for environment, before a judge ..." See RPA page

April 12 2006 ~The price of bird flu. Nine poultry farmers commit suicide in flu-hit India Reuters There are "123,000 poultry farmers in India and about 70 percent of them were in a "dire situation."

April 12 2006 ~ "Restoring wetlands and clearing poultry farms from migratory flyways could help curb the spread of bird flu by stopping wild birds from mixing with domestic fowl, a U.N.-commissioned report said on Tuesday" Reuters

April 12 2006 ~ for security reasons "Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and ministerial colleagues were last night accused of using private jets in the Queen's Flight like a private taxi service. .... Downing Street defended his readiness to use jets, even though CO2 emissions from their engines are recognised as one of the greatest contributors to global warming. No 10 said the Prime Minister needed to use the jets for security reasons..." Independent

April 11 2006 ~ Airmiles Margaret Mrs Beckett is in trouble. Not only has it been revealed that she clocked up 106 RAF flights between 2002 and 2004 including many to East Midlands airport near her home but now the NFU are threatening to insist on her resignation if farmers are not paid by June 30 and they want to see a full independent inquiry into the SFP debacle (see RPA page)

April 11 2006 ~ Protecting the Food Supply? In America, the NAIS (National Animal Identification System) will require every farm animal to be electronically tagged and all movements, births, deaths and sales must now be reported. The given reason of "food safety and adequate surveillance" may be sincerely believed - but the recent pronouncements of David King make us wonder if it is not the intensive sector that feels "unsafe" . It is in the interests of the Smithfields and Tysons and their ilk to make small farming unviable - and they are a powerful lobby globally.

April 11 2006 ~ The Environment Agency faces a large fine after a fly fisherman in Devon successfully prosecuted it for polluting the Barle, a tributary of the Exe. Cement waste containing hazardous chemicals should have been pumped away from the river but was instead allowed to flow into it. See Telegraph

April 10 2006 ~ Smithfield again

"An undercover investigation by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) has revealed that hundreds of animals, some injured or sick, are crammed into barns without daylight. Dead animals are left to rot on the ground. The investigation into Polish pig farms owned by Smithfields Food, one of the world's largest pork suppliers, also found that powerful cocktails of drugs are administered to pigs reared in intensive factory-style conditions. Many of these chemicals include controversial antibiotics banned as growth promoters in other countries." Guardian (link mended)

Smithfield supplies Asda, Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, the Co-op, Iceland and Makro. Its brands include Morliny, Animex and PEK chopped pork. The company also supplies a range of Polish Wiejska pork sausages sold in Waitrose and Harrods. Waitrose has withdrawn the delicatessen products made by Smithfield.

April 2 - 9 2006 ~ Chikungunya seems to be on the march. It is a mosquito-transmitted viral disease which, although not usually fatal, affects joints and brings muscular pain, red eyes and high fever. It is rife in the Indian Ocean, Malaysia, India and has affected literally thousands of people. ProMed has details

April 2 - 9 2006 ~ Risk to pets? "Non-avian species do not act as reservoirs for H5N1. ... Pet owners should be made aware that the risk to their mammals of H5N1 infection is very low..." Medical News today

April 2 - 9 2006 ~"DEFRA and the Scottish Executive have been swamped with calls from members of the public who've spotted dead birds, which will make it very difficult to prioritise those that do need to be picked up and tested straight away..." Snowmail (Difficult indeed. But pretty easy with a portable RT-PCR machine that delivers the analysis within hours.)

April 2 - 9 2006 ~ "World Migratory Bird Day " To promote awareness on the importance of bird migrations for ecosystem functioning, as well as to inform on the threats and the conservation challenges birds face, UNEP, AEWA and CMS have launched the "World Migratory Bird Day", to be celebrated every year on a date in early spring (this year the celebration will be held on 8 April). More

April 2 - 9 2006 ~ Andrea Doyle is a small holder and part of the Breakfast bird flu panel Andrea travelled to Holland with Breakfast reporter Tim Muffett where the government has implemented a mass vaccination programme. She thinks the UK government should do the same. And Professor John Oxford agreed that vaccination - in conjunction with careful monitoring - would be a useful way to help to control the disease. http://212.58.226.53/1/hi/programmes/breakfast/4881962.stm

April 2 - 9 2006 ~ The journey linking Amazon destruction and fast food Farmers illegally seize virgin land for soya crops 7 Export chain ends in big fast food outlets in UK Guardian

April 2 - 9 2006 ~ BBC "Cat bird flu risks 'overlooked' "However, animal health experts said there was a "limited risk" to humans from infected mammals with H5N1 flu. .."

April 2 - 9 2006 ~ RPA page Weston-super - Mare MP John Penrose is backing a local farmer's court action against Margaret Beckett for non-payment of the Single Farm Payment (SFP) to his North Somerset farm.

April 2 - 9 2006 ~ Oliver Pritchett - less than solemn about climate change - and what we can do about it - in the Sunday Telegraph"....as part of my "green" lifestyle, I have been starting the day with paler toast..."

April 2 - 9 2006 ~ "No Silver Bullet" Stephen Lister MRCVS, a partner in Crowshall Veterinary Services, is quoted on the BBC : "It is a tool to help us control the situation, but is not a 'silver bullet' to wipe the disease out" - and this is used to give the story its headline. Yet Mr Lister himself says on a Dupont Animal Health Solutions (commercial) webpage: "Control measures should include vaccination, quarantine and surveillance."

March 29 2006 ~ What has world hunger to do with us? Around 350,000 hectares of agricultural land, above all in Latin America, are dedicated to the cultivation of soybeans to feed Austria's livestock while one quarter of the local population starves. Every European eats ten kilograms a year of artificially irrigated greenhouse vegetables from southern Spain, with water shortages the result. In WE FEED THE WORLD, (new window) Austrian filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer traces the origins of the food we eat.

March 29 2006 ~ RPA ( IT system costs went from £18.1m to £37.4million) "During the debate, Simpson (Keith Simpson, Conservative MP for mid-Norfolk) asked the government why it had not listened to select committee warnings on the RPA IT system years ago. He said:

"[I]f she looks at the report of the debate in committee on the statutory instrument that set up the Rural Payments Agency she will find that I, along with many others including some of her honourable friends, questioned whether the agency's computer system would be able to handle what was being proposed then, let alone now." (More)

March 29 2006 ~ the film looks without commenting "Welcome to the world of industrial food production and high-tech farming! To the rhythm of conveyor belts and immense machines, the film looks without commenting into the places where food is produced in Europe: monumental spaces, surreal landscapes and bizarre sounds ...." if you have broadband, it is worth a look "Our Daily Bread" new window. (Thanks Sabine.)

March 29 2006 ~ Margaret Beckett came under attack from all sides yesterday over the Government's new Climate Change Review. See Independent. In her own article in the same paper, Mrs Beckett counters that

"Our opponents argue that "more should be done" But the UK has done more than any other country. .."

Opponents? Perhaps, on this issue, Mrs Beckett might consider that we are all on the same side? The, the Telegraph pulls no punches. "... campaigners said her proposals to tackle it showed the Government was more worried about the effect drastic measures would have on the opinion polls. "

March 28 2006 ~Great Orton " I have held a lone vigil here, each year since FMD, quietly and alone. This year was different..." a brief comment and photo from Nick Green

March 28 2006 ~ Independent butchers now hold only 13.8% of the £5.4 billion retail market, according to the Meat and Livestock Commission. BBC

March 27 2006 ~ Fwi "details of how the government intends to sort out the SFP mess are expected to emerge in the next couple of days. Anne McIntosh, MP for the Vale of York, has secured an adjournment debate on the subject on Wednesday (29 March)."

March 27 2006 ~ Targeting Tesco and Asda and "careful to exclude Waitrose, M&S and Budgens from our criticisms" the British Pig Industry Support Group will plaster warning stickers over imported pork products See their webpage

March 27 2006 ~ Wicks' microgeneration strategy Today's Times " The scheme would see householders, schools and businesses offered grants to install wind turbines, solar panels, "ground source heat pumps" and other systems to generate their own electricity and export it to the National Grid.

March 26 2006 ~ Booker's Notebook here

March 23 2006 ~ live calf exports are due to resume later this spring.
Please visit CIWF's website (new window) to send an e-card to Margaret Beckett and to see other ways to engage with this.
(Kent Action against Live Exports (KALE) hold regular monthly demonstrations at Dover on the first Saturday of every month from 12pm - 3pm at the Eastern Dock roundabout.)

March 23 2006 ~ Smokies and the billion pound dirty meat scandal. You can now watch the Watchdog programme on the warmwell's Dirty Meat pages (new window) , thanks to the BBC via ICC .

March 23 2006 ~ Congratulations to Georgina Downs who last night was judged joint winner of the Andrew Lees Memorial Award at the 2006 British Environment and Media Awards, sponsored by WWF-UK, in recognition of her campaigning efforts.(see pesticides page in new window) She says,

"I shall continue to fight on until the Government stop exposing people to these poisonous chemicals and start making the protection of public health and the environment the number one priority, instead of simply protecting industry interests.."

March 22 2006 ~ Cepheid GeneXpert RT-PCR GeneXpert is now listed among products approved by the US Department of Homeland Security. See press release

March 22 2006 ~ Rallies to protest against genetic modification in crops are planned for Saturday April 8th to take place all over the UK (and internationally), headed up by local organisations. Warmwell would welcome further information about this from any source.
Our GM page has the pdf file about the international day of protest and recent news includes the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and this week's United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity Also, deep concern remains about the 'terminator technology' designed to make seeds infertile after their first harvest to prevent sharing and re-use by farmers .

March 22 2006 ~ Two Minute Silence We have received an email from Nick Green, who was so courageously active and so appalled at what happened in Cumbria - and at Great Orton in particular - during the Foot and Mouth crisis. He will be publicly observing the silence at Great Orton and invites others to stand with him. (If anyone still does not understand why people like us cannot "move on" they should read Nick's account here from the time of the senseless Great Orton massacre.)

March 20 2006 ~ organochlorines " Parents were yesterday warned by researchers that levels of pesticides previously thought to be harmless could cause cancers in babies and young children. Liverpool University scientists argue that low levels of chemicals from pesticides and plastics could affect the development of babies before they are born and increase their likelihood of developing cancer later in life. " Guardian

March 20 2006 ~ Whales are still being slaughtered in international waters. The International Fund for Animal Welfare, IFAW, has an online link for sending a message requesting that Ben Bradshaw should speak out against such killing. (Opens in new window)

March 20 2006 ~ Decline in Biodiversity Virtually all indicators of biodiversity are heading in the wrong direction, says a major new report . by the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO) It is published as national delegates gather in Brazil under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. The Convention commits governments to slow the decline in the richness of living systems by 2010 - but the GBO says "unprecedented efforts" will be needed to achieve this aim. BBC

March 19 2006 ~ The world's 2nd largest oilfield has peaked. A leaked internal memo from inside Mexico's state-owned oil company, Pemex, says that water and gas are seeping into the massive offshore oil field. Peak Oil News (new window)
As James Lovelock says, "remember we won't have a constant supply of food coming in from abroad"

March 19 2006 ~ Georgina Downs We are very pleased to see that Georgina Downs has been nominated for the Observer Ethical Award's Campaigner of the Year. The list of 10 will soon be shortlisted to 3 The link to vote is at http://observer.guardian.co.uk/competitions/page/0,,-724,00.html and it is category 2, Campaigner of the Year. We wish her luck. She deserves to be shortlisted. It would give an even higher profile to her courageous work on pesticides. (pesticides page)

March 19 2006 ~ Remember the mad cow scare? asks Christopher Booker today. " The Government's top BSE scientist thought that deaths could reach half a million and that it would be a catastrophe "worse than Aids"........ the total of vCJD cases is still only 150. The incidence curve has declined virtually to zero. It was the epidemic that never was."

March 19 2006 ~ ten million pounds of UK lottery money given to a Danish wind giant £10m of lottery money intended for good causes has been given by the government to subsidise the construction of a wind farm. See windfarms

March 17 2006 ~ Commenting on the announcement from The Natural Environment Research Council that four research laboratories operated by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) are to close, Shadow Environment Secretary Peter Ainsworth said:

"Whilst the NERC Council has adapted its plans to offer a small increase in its funding allocation to CEH, it is a matter of great regret that they have rubber stamped the decision to close these important laboratories. Spending £43 million to stem annual losses of around £2 million seems a strange decision, setting aside the damage to our science base which experts have warned will result from the closures. At a time when climate change is top of the agenda, shutting down laboratories which help us to understand its impacts is perverse. NERC receives over £300 million from the taxpayer every year; this decision will lead some people to question their accountability."

March 15 2006 ~ Vaccination in Holland BBC's Countryfile will focus on Holland this coming Sunday 19th March.

March 15 2006 ~ US Army: Peak Oil and the Army's future

"The days of inexpensive, convenient, abundant energy sources are quickly drawing to a close," according to a recently released US Army strategic report. The report posits that a peak in global oil production looks likely to be imminent, with wide reaching implications for the US Army and society in general..." See peak oil pages on warmwell

March 15 2006 ~ Global Trade "In the UK, imports of food and animal feed require over 83 billion tonne-kms of transport, use 1.6 billion litres of fuel, and emit more than 4 million tonnes of CO2. Much of this transport is utterly needless, since the 'logic' of global trade leads countries to simultaneously import and export the same commodity...
...a large portion of what we pay for global food comes out of our taxes - to fund research into pesticides and biotech, to subsidise the transport, communications and energy infrastructures the system requires, and to pay for the foreign aid that pulls Third World economies into the destructive global system. " http://www.isec.org.uk/articles/bringing.html

March 14 2006 ~nuclear "No one would now build a reactor as unsafe as those at Chernobyl, which were jerry built. Even so, I think a lot of people will be shocked to know that, as we approach the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl, hundreds of farming families are still living with the fallout." Independent

March 14 2006 ~ supermarkets The OFT will "consult" for four weeks before making a final decision on whether to refer the supermarkets to the Competition Commission. The WMN quotes Michael Hart

"Most people, including the Prime Minister, recognise that farmers are in an armlock, but no-one seems to have the guts to do anything. But I think we are also entering really dangerous territory for the consumer now. There are several towns now where you buy your groceries at Tesco or you don't buy them at all - that is not healthy. Milk Marque was deemed to be a monopoly with a market share of more than 25 per cent and broken up. On its own figures Tesco has 31 per cent and I do not understand why it is not being forced to sell off some stores."

March 14 2006 ~ Cost cutting "The decision to close three leading wildlife research centres as a cost-cutting exercise has been confirmed... The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) said it was going ahead with the decision to scrap the centres in Monk's Wood, Cambridgeshire, Winfrith in Dorset and Banchory near Aberdeen. ..criticism from the Royal Society.

"While, on the one hand, we are told the work on predicting the impacts of climate change on biodiversity is to be preserved, on the other, work on the prediction of climate change impacts is identified as an area where CEH is planning to do less,"

said the Royal Society's vice-president Professor David Read..." Independent

March 13 2006 ~ scrapie "One might as well refer to BSE as "scrapie of cattle". .." thoughtful email which is also wryly funny.

March 13 2006 ~Tesco now controls 30% of the grocery market in the UK www.tescopoly.org is a campaign directed against Tesco by an alliance of organisations "concerned about the market-distorting power of the major supermarkets". (See also "Truly, Tesco is the other son of God")

March 12 2006 ~a hundred years too late "Dear Zac, The crux of our climate problem is an imminent heat age that could last as long as 100,000 years and nothing that we now do will stop it. The Green Movement's recommendations of sustainable development and renewable energy are well intentioned but a hundred years too late."

"....To me, the urgent task before our government is to plan and spend now to lessen the catastrophe when storms and rising sea levels flood London and other coastal cities. We will need also to protect by embankments the low lying productive farmland of East Anglia that is our best source of food. Food and fuel imports may no longer be available at prices that we can afford. " correspondence between Goldsmith and Lovelock in the Sunday Telegraph

March 12 2006 ~ An oil spill at Prudhoe Bay field has been confirmed by US officials as the largest ever on Alaska's North Slope region. BBC

March 12 2006 ~the "Hands Off Badgers" campaign - which is thought to have cost several thousand pounds - has angered critics who say that it is not the role of a charity to lobby in this way. RSPCA investigated over 'political' badgers campaign Sunday Telegraph

March 10 2006 ~ Doomed... Simon Hoggart in the Guardian: "....We later learned that the great battle against illegally imported meat - which could start foot and mouth again - is in the paws of just 10 sniffer dogs distributed among 110 ports of entry. "That is 10 more than there were under the Conservative government," sniffed the minister, Ben Bradshaw, as if that were an answer..." (See also Hansard)

March 10 2006 ~ bovine TB Guardian letter from Prof Aubrey Manning, David Attenborough and Prof David Macdonald "....the evidence is that a badger cull on a scale or level of efficiency that seems feasible will not solve cattle farmers' problem - that problem is truly serious. Understandably, the feeling is that something must be done, but the evidence is that it should not be a badger cull."

March 10 2006 ~ Manchester Conference Pighealth.com, like warmwell, (see below), is publicising the Manchester Conference, Manchester UK from 14-16 March 2006

"Like all major epidemics throughout history, the EU 2001 FMD epidemic has had a "tail" of cultural change - a natural desire to respond to suffering and loss by learning lessons and evolving our skill to prevent and control disease epidemics in the future. The 5th Anniversary of this awful FMD epidemic is being marked by a FREE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE " Latest Programme

March 9 2006 ~ the Big Four supermarkets - Sainsburys, ASDA, Tesco and Morrisons- are to be investigated by the Competition Commission

March 8 2006 ~ Depression caused by foot and mouth drove farmer Ian Bouch to hang himself years after the disease wiped out his cattle, an inquest heard.... He hanged himself in a barn at the farm in November last year...In 2004, the farm was once again isolated when cases of BSE and tuberculosis were discovered in the new herd. There were also problems with mastitis in the Holstein Friesian cattle ..." News and Star

March 8 2006 ~"I speak for the entire mollusc community when I ask: what is Defra doing? Margaret Beckett ought to be out there wading off Broadstairs with her skirt tucked into her knickers and a knotted Union Jack on her head, lashing out with a baseball bat. A bit unladylike, admittedly, but her husband doesn't have to know." Alan Coren in the Times on the arrival of the rapacious superwhelk (and much else)

March 6 2006 ~ GRAIN is an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) which "promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local knowledge" Their latest press release says that small-scale poultry farming and wild birds are being unfairly blamed for H5N1 when " the transnational poultry industry is the root of the problem and must be the focus of efforts to control the virus"

March 5 2006 ~ "Following Orders" On page 389 of James Drew's novel, the veterinary officer Steve Turner, says:

".... I believe that the use of vaccine against Foot and Mouth Disease should be sanctioned immediately. It should be used on farms contiguous to IPs instead of the contiguous cull of susceptible stock. Vaccination should then be used on other farms in the infected areas until new cases of the disease cease."

This is now is the conclusion of the latest research from Warwick (...and hope that such sanity would prevail was our reason for setting up this website five years ago)

March 3 2006 ~ "The Antarctic Ice Sheet Shrinking" says Washington Post It is is losing as much as 36 cubic miles of ice a year. The Telegraph says "Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking, but only by a fraction". Interesting how the same facts can have such different headlines.

March 2 2006 ~ We learn today that Sheilagh Kremer's Dexter calf, Fern, has been granted a second test by Defra

. If the test is carried out competently and is positive she will accept the result

March 2 2006 ~ Whinash "Plans to create England's largest wind farm in Cumbria have been rejected by the government. The £55m development would have seen 27 turbines, each 377ft tall, erected at Whinash, near Kendal." Windfarms

March 2 2006 ~ Nuclear Power. Boris Johnson in the Telegraph "If the Government decided to build a nuclear reactor today, there are only half a dozen people who have the experience to do it in this country, and they have all retired." That's it, my friends: the birthplace of Newton, and Boyle, and J J Thomson - and we can't even build our own nukes any more! "

March 2 2006 ~ "Already vets are having birds brought in by people saying please put them down in case they get avian flu. There is potentially a welfare problem of enormous proportions looming." Freda Scott-Park, president of the BVA is quoted on the front page of the Guardian

March 2 2006 ~ US stockpiling anti virals for 14 million people. NYT reports that Terence Hurley, a Roche spokesman said, "We have to fill orders from around the world as they come in," Mr. Hurley said. "Delays in ordering can affect delivery schedules. We do require firm orders to get into the queue. We can't produce or hold or allocate product off 'letters of intent.' We have to start with a contract."

March 2 2006 ~ Easyjet's comments on the environment " drew a frosty response from the green lobby, which argues that aviation accounts for between 7% and 11% of Britain's harmful carbon dioxide emissions - a proportion which is rising. Jeff Gazzard, director of the GreenSkies Alliance, said easyJet's planes were "not benign by any measure". "We know airline executives are paid to have their heads in the skies. Andy Harrison's facile statements show his head is further into the clouds than most." Guardian

March 2 2006 ~ water shortage DEFRA granted special powers to Folkestone and Dover Water because of the worsening shortage in southern England. It will be the first water company in Britain to force customers to have meters to reduce consumption

March 2 2006 ~ "Stilton "The Food Standards Agency should be tackling salt in mass-produced food. It's nothing to do with Stilton. Salt is essential to Stilton to make sure it does not deteriorate too quickly."Independent

February 2006 ~ It may not be possible to update warmwell for a few days. Apologies.

9th February 2006 ~ Compulsory Purchase to put up giant turbines? CRE Energy Ltd, a subsidiary of Scottish Power is aiming to extend its network of windfarms across the UK. It says it would be "helpful to have the power to acquire land compulsorily". Windfarms page

9th February 2006 ~Wind Turbines A study, by officers of Conwy Council, says not enough has been done to assess the risks of siting 200 turbines 15km off Llandudno. See windfarm page

9th February 2006 ~Tesco is plans to open convenience stores in the US next year BBC

9th February 2006 ~ Foot and Mouth "How the disease arrived there can only be speculated upon at this point..." Just having been declared FMD free, Argentina has now discovered two outbreaks of FMD 200 kilometres apart. See ProMed: "a terrible blow...Obviously, there are questions about how it got there from Brazil..."

9th February 2006 ~ "The obsessive one-solution-fits-all pretension of privatisation is not working in any of our public services." Michael Meacher in the Independent

8th February 2006 ~ Peak Oil and Climate Change The two issues have crept ever closer together in the public eye. Robert Newman's It's capitalism or a habitable planet - you can't have both in last week's Guardian, opens in new window

".... The very model of the supermarket is unsustainable, what with the packaging, food miles and destruction of British farming. Small, independent suppliers, processors and retailers or community-owned shops selling locally produced food provide a social glue and reduce carbon emissions.."

8th February 2006 ~ Bird Flu in Nigeria. See H5N1 pages

8th February 2006 ~ The earliest recorded tyrannosaur has been discovered in China, scientists report BBC

8th February 2006 ~ Sweden says it aims to completely wean itself off oil within 15 years, without building new nuclear plants. BBC

7th February 2006 ~ Bovine TB The National Farmers Union said today it is to mount a legal challenge to government plans to introduce pre-movement testing of cattle later this month in a bid to tackle bovine tuberculosis. See Bovine TB latest

7th February 2006 ~ Negative Peers? "Farming Minister Lord Bach chided peers for their negativity, arguing that the Government had a good record on rural issues...." WMN and see Hansard for the debate

7th February 2006 ~ Pesticides WMN ".....Mrs Bray was one of a number of pesticides victims who gave evidence to the Royal Commission during its study of the issue. She said she was now convinced that exposure to pesticides caused real health problems for many people.
"What this report is saying is dreadful," she said. "Professor Coggon is saying it is all in our heads, which is just not true. I don't know how he sleeps at night. Airborne chemicals do cause problems for many." See also below

7th February 2006 ~ Farming Today "Anyone who keeps sheep may soon be expected to gain a certificate of competence - a reassuring sign to the consumer that the industry is well run, or an unnecessary extra layer of bureaucracy? With one farmer telling Farming Today that he believes excessive paperwork harms animal welfare, we ask whether things have just gone too far.
And with the arguments against a badger cull to be put to the Environment and Rural Affairs select committee today, we hear why some believe we managed bovine TB more effectively forty years ago." Click on Listen Again

6th February 2006 ~ Pesticides - Key government advisors (the ACP) were criticised over pesticides by last September's Royal Commission ...but it emerges today that the ACP remain defiant. See press release from Georgina Downs

6th February 2006 ~ bovine TB. See the bovine TB pages for the latest in Mrs Sheilagh Kremers' situation. She is certainly a fighter. See also Bill Wiggin's response to the new cattle compensation table. He says, ""Unless Defra remember that it is only by working with farmers instead of against them, will they have any chance of defeating these diseases."

6th February 2006 ~When the crude runs out: Life after oil Geoffrey Lean in yesterday's Independent "... energy crop - oilseed rape - enables the production of biodiesel........now the end of oil is in sight. The world has been burning more oil than it has discovered, every year for the past quarter of a century. Some analysts predict that production will peak in a couple of years; even industry optimists expect it to do so by the 2030s....."

5th February 2006 ~ James Lovelock is so quotable that snippets are now on nearly all the main subsidiary warmwell pages - especially peak oil and windfarms. The Sunday Times interview is well worth reading in full. "Europe criticises America, but its policy on sustainable development is lots of greedy snouts in the subsidy trough. It's a scam." As for Tony Blair: "He hints he wants to go nuclear but is he just making noises? I fear he will decide opposition within his cabinet is too strong. It's full of old CND marchers like Margaret Beckett." (read in full)

4th February 2006 ~ live export "It's likely that the export ban will be lifted later this year and preparations are being made to restart the trade in live calves. Ten years on will it still be seen as controversial?" asks BBC's Countryfile.

"New European legislation means the welfare of calves in European farms has improved since the ban in 1996. However, Joyce D'Silva, of Compassion in World Farming, argues that many European farms still fall short of British standards and that transportation to Europe has serious animal welfare issues..."

Countryfile tomorrow on BBC at 11.00.

4th February 2006 ~ Birmingham area schools closed because of sickness. An outbreak of sickness and diarrhoea, which has seen children and staff sent home and schools closed. 40 schools have been affected, with 17 expected to be closed on Friday and some already announcing they will stay shut into next week. See BBC

4th February 2006 ~ EU Dioxin alarm 650 farms, mostly pig farms, but including some poultry farms have been quarantined this week in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Dutch and Belgian food officials have said that meat from contaminated farms was sold in shops in the last two months . More information and background on this situation is available at www.pighealth.com

3rd February 2006 ~ 15% of English farming households have incomes that are below the DWP low-incomes threshold. Jim Paice commented in a recent press release:

"......farmers are leaving the industry in droves. Urgent action is necessary to enable farmers to compete with cheap imports. Better labeling, fewer regulations, and action to ensure imported food meets UK standards would at least show that the Government cares."

But caring about what? In the light of James Lovelock's article about the Earth's damaged ability to self-regulate and
Jeremy Leggett's extraordinary article about the end of cheap oil , that family farming is being delibertely phased out in the UK may soon seem a suicidal and catastrophic mistake.

3rd February 2006 ~ SFP "...Delays in paying farmers the £1.6 billion they are owed is estimated to have cost the farming industry at least £25 million in interest charges but the Government has refused to pay compensation, insisting payments are still being made before the EU summer deadline..." WMN

2nd/3rd February 2006 ~ Climate Change " A case can be made that the consequences of global warming do seem to have some bearing on peak oil both before and after the peak arrives." More

2nd February 2006 ~ US firms must go green, says Gore BBC "Corporate America must face up to green and ethical challenges to avoid disaster, former US Vice President Al Gore...he firmly believed the impact a company has on the environment and on society affects both its underlying health and the price of its shares, and he believed ever more US business leaders are waking up to this new reality..."

2nd February 2006 ~ flu vaccine "a feasible vaccine strategy against existing and newly emerging viruses of highly pathogenic avian influenza to prepare against a pandemic.." Alertnet on the new H5N1 vaccine from Texas

1st February 2006 ~ "the most important book for decades"Andrew Marr on James Lovelock

"He is winning his argument, and his final testament about the catastrophe of global warming is probably the most important book for decades. It is scary, but offers ways out many greens will recoil from - no to windfarms, yes to nuclear power; forget sustainable development, but hurray for mobile phones and the internet.
Lovelock deserves to stir up a Galileo-sized political storm .."

1st February 2006 ~ UK Bird deathsAt least 22 swans have died in less than 3 weeks in Southport's Marine Lake. ProMed comments: "Exclusion of infectious diseases -- particularly Newcastle disease and avian influenza -- is essential. Any additional information, when available, will be appreciated."

1st February 2006 ~ Wind Turbines "...Each turbine would have been 394ft high to the tip of the blade. Their size meant that they would have been double the height of St Paul's Cathedral in London and three times the height of Exeter Cathedral. Committee chairman Coun Roger Mathew said the sheer scale of the turbines was what swayed him against the plan from energy firm Renewable Energy Systems (RES)."
The tenacity of the Den Brook Valley Action Group has been vindicated - for now. See windfarm page

31st January 2006 ~The EU budget deal that slashes funding for so-called "green" farming schemes has been described by the RSPB as "one of the greatest cock-ups of our time". Older member states like the UK will have only 65% of what was available for rural development in the previous seven years .See WMN Many farmers have heeded Government advice to take part in farm diversification, environmental stewardship and rural communities in recent years but Anthony Gibson says the schemes will either be scrapped or crippled by a lack of funds. See WMN in new window

31st January 2006 ~ Live Export " We believe it is ethically unacceptable to export calves for rearing abroad in systems that have been prohibited in the UK on welfare grounds..." Advocates for Animals news release

30th January 2006 ~ "remember we won't have a constant supply of food coming in from abroad" James Lovelock on "Start the Week" A delight to Listen Again.
"...mankind a plague reprieved by civilisation... windfarms worse than useless...you still have to have three quarters as much fossil fuels to back them up... I am not a wild enthusiast for things nuclear but they can at least provide a safe way to provide electricity in the next difficult years.... You can't have civilisation now without electricity...The most important job for us in Britain is to preserve our civilisation and remember we won't have a constant supply of food coming in from abroad..." Lovelock sees the whole picture.

30th January 2006 ~ Debt ".... subjects very close to home: mortgages, building societies and banks, food and farming, transport, worldwide poverty, and what's on the supermarket shelf." Few of us know much about our "debt-based money system that befuddle bankers, economists, and politicians"
But we are learning. (new window)

30th January 2006 ~a government-approved orderly flow of information - or the freedom to keep the public informed "....government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings, but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen." Read this NYT article Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him . It encapsulates the problem that exists in the UK too whether the real facts about GM, BSE/CJD, climate change, Iraq and all the rest can be allowed to reach the ordinary people whose lives they will affect. We remember that even Sir David King has his "script"

29th January 2006 ~ Wind turbines "several wind-power companies, asked to put millions of pounds on the table before their turbines are even built, are having second thoughts as to whether to proceed at all..." Sunday Telegraph -see windfarm page latest

29th January 2006 ~ A small symbol of the loss of that Englishness we mourn with its common sense, humour and refusal to be hoodwinked is the loss of the BBC early morning wake up medley with its heart in the British Isles. As Christopher Booker says today

" increasingly the charm, subtle humour and clever professionalism of Fritz's interwoven medley of traditional British tunes has seemed so jarringly at odds with everything today's smug, amateurish, self-regarding, politically correct, tiny-minded BBC has come to represent..."

28th January 2006 ~ Manchester FMD Conference March Cultural Documents of Foot and Mouth (FMD) Manchester Town Hall, 14 - 16 March 2006 International Conference and exhibition Details have been updated

28th January 2006 ~ Oil "The earth's official oil reserve just fell by about five percent...." See peak oil news

28th January 2006 ~blots on the landscape "I am not opposed to renewables as such, only to those like wind that are blots on the landscape, grossly expensive and virtually useless for powering Britain or in combating global warming."Bernard Ingham in the North Devon Journal. See windfarms page (new window)

28th January 2006 ~ New Orleans "Nearly five months after Hurricane Katrina swamped New Orleans, President Bush's lofty promises to rebuild the Gulf Coast have been frustrated by bureaucratic failures and competing priorities.." Washington Post

28th January 2006 ~ emails to warmwell are apparently being rejected for no reason that we are able to see. Please keep trying.

27th January 2006 ~ The Telegraph reports on the case of a woman- an expert - who has been picking mushrooms in the New Forest for 30 years and has now been told by DEFRA to stop.

27th January 2006 ~ GM "suicide" seeds What happens when the gene that renders all subsequent generations of seed unable to germinate, escapes the original product.... all farmers would eventually be forced to purchase GM seeds because their natural food crops would die out. See News.yahoo and GM page

27th January 2006 ~self-serving rhetoric The New Economics Foundationshows that globalisation is failing the world's poorest

"World's poorest see 73 per cent drop in share of benefits from growth in last decade according to new research from nef released as World Economic Forum gathers in Davos... the notion that global economic growth is the only way of reducing poverty for the world's poorest people is the self-serving rhetoric of those who already enjoy the greatest share of world income."

26th January 2006 ~ The Government could face a referral to the European Court of Justice after failing to stop the "carnage" of dead dolphins off the Westcountry coastline, an MEP has warned. WMN

26th January 2006 ~ giant turbines "According to the Two Moors campaign group, tourists will join birds and bats on the endangered species list if a nine-turbine development on land at Batsworthy Cross goes ahead. Campaigners dressed in black carried an 8ft scale-model wind turbine into the market to draw attention to their campaign..."WMN

26th January 2006 ~ Iraq Oil Guerrillas blew up pipelines again on Wednesday, halting Iraqi petroleum exports through Turkey. peak oil news

26th January 2006 ~ Wave and tide power could provide up to 20% of the UK's current electricity, a report claims. Guardian

26th January 2006 ~ Interest in peak oil has been growing steadily in the two years since warmwell began its Peak Oil news (new window) ".. we would be ill-advised to passively wait to see what happens. Strategies for responding to peak oil merge with many community goals such as conservation, supporting the local economy and smart land use. "

25th January 2006 ~ Nuclear energy A correspondent involved in the issue writes,

" the Govt is woefully ignorant and has no comprehension of the complexity of what is involved in dealing with the waste and the many differing types of it. The Netherlands and Canada have opted for deep disposal - but both have put these plans in abeyance for 100 years while they carry out further research and evaluation. I understand France has made some sort of decision - in principle - but still researching. It seems that the leading independent UK nuclear experts have been sidelined - and much weight given to those from the industry and government advisers."

So once again, the UK government is listening to those interested parties it wants to hear from and sidelining the real experts.

25th January 2006 ~ Oil workers' unions in Nigeria have threatened to withdraw members from the main oil-producing region unless the government moves to improve security. The instability has led to a 10% fall in Nigeria's oil production. The country is Africa's leading oil exporter and the fifth-biggest source of US oil imports, but despite its wealth, many Nigerians live in abject poverty. Peak Oil pages

24th January 2006 ~ BSE A cow from Alberta, Canada, has tested positive for BSE Yakima Herald

24th January 2006 ~ Bird Flu "Governments across Europe are being too hasty in blaming the spread of avian flu on wild birds, says the RSPB." BBC

24th January 2006 ~'FMD burial site has damaged my family's health' WMN "The landfill site at Kingsteignton.... 8,500 tonnes of cattle carcasses were dumped at the height of the foot and mouth crisis in 2001 ..."

23rd January 2006 ~ Giant Wind turbines " They contribute nothing to the power needs of the nation and they scare the living daylights out of birds. They attract huge European subsidies and, as a direct result, they attract huge numbers of Johnny-come-lately companies who want a slice of the action..."Conservative Bridgwater MP Ian Liddell-Grainger. windfarm page

23rd January 2006 ~ Debt Trap The Belfast Telegraphreports that almost 90 per cent of credit card companies failed to check the incomes of applicants, a survey shows, raising concerns that banks have a "lend now, ask questions later" culture. Some people on low incomes were allowed credit limits of 10,000.

23rd January 2006 ~ Energy Malcolm Wicks believes there are no practical obstacles to a new generation of nuclear power stations. Guardian

23rd January 2006 ~ Bird Flu A French woman tested for bird flu after returning from Turkey does not have the disease, hea