Another Dry Spring, Another Drought in Britain

So everyone knows there is a drought in the South-East of Britain. It gets more and more common, although this year they are expecting the worst one since 1976. A hose pipe ban will be coming in soon in most areas, and there is no sign of rain for a long time, which is very obvious if you study the surface pressure forecast maps. The low-pressure, wet weather systems that normally pass through Britain and the Netherlands at this time of year are whizzing over Iceland instead. This means the Arctic gets more warmth and rain, and the Arctic warming and melting is speeding up.

What gets me are the increasing frequency of dry spring seasons. The saying, April showers bring May flowers has so quickly become meaningless. Last year, March AND April were so horribly dry, that farms and people planting seeds in spring had to worry, worry, worry. Then May was full of rain. Seeing that the seasons are different, it still bothers me even though I understand what is happening. Memories of more normal seasons sit there, feeling uneasy when they are not reassured by what they see. In spring this matters the most, because spring is the season that we look forward to while surviving through the dull, dark, depressing, grey winters.

Nobody bangs on about climate change any more. Five years ago, they were shouting about climate disasters. Of course, you assume that when a disaster happens, it appears suddenly, say within a year or two. What we forget is that a disaster can take 30 years to gradually happen. Is it a disaster when it takes so long to unfold? For human beings, whom already have all the knowledge and power they need to control their environment and seize ever more land and sea to bring under their control, 30 years is not a disaster. We are in a disaster now, but the disaster is for other living things, not for human beings.  Human beings are adapting, by stealing ever more of the planet from other living things.   So the selfish humanists do not worry too much about climate change, if they have enough time to adapt things for human beings. This is sad, but true. When something is true, and all you can do is be sad, then you might as well write about it, for the benefit of posterity?  Or you can have a funeral, in your mind, for all the living things that will lose out to human beings during their climate disaster.

All Copped Out

I sidemindedly found on Google an article that so wowed me that I have been inspired to return here. All Copped Out's posting The Worst is Yet to Come so Bring it ON so amazed me over a week ago, that I have had to return to blogging. Look at this ....

No jobs are being created (beyond churning) and the old attitudes pervade – we talk of education and training – but seriously go to your local job centre and look what turns up on their machines – take a serious look at how limited many jobs are, requiring few skills and a decent attitude to hygiene and punctuality. There is no structural analysis and yet there is scary talk about making sackings easier – scary not because some shirkers might get the push but because it reeks of indenture to ‘work correctness’. Most of us know to say we are hard workers, relish challenge and so on – but the reality is something else entirely – we’re waiting to win the lottery and escape.

Is that utterly superb, or not? I have never seen anybody express this point of view so well that I am humbled. When you've spent the last decade learning the usefulness of humility, being humbled is not an unpleasant shock - it is a joyous surprise.

We have created non-job after non-job whilst degrading the rewards of real hard graft, instead of organising worthwhile work around vast improvements in technology and productivity. And we are about to ‘discover’ this as surely as any of the ‘economic bubbles’ that have been pricked from dotcon to ghost city building. This is being left out of ‘analysis’ and is what will eventually spill onto our streets. Our problem is efficiency in production and waste in neurosis all around it. My students are always visibly shocked by real work seen and heard in factory and mine visits – and look at what happens when the BBC takes our callow youth to do work in the far east. I feel I teach little more than how to idle in bureaucracies in my classrooms..

Breathtaking. Why have so few people spoken out on this truth, you wonder? They are busy going along with the system, to keep collecting their salary, to protect their pension, to wait in hope that there is still a dream worth living for when they retire.

We are close now to the shock promised in the last days of my youth – that of computerised expert knowledge catching up with other embodied knowledge in production that has robots doing what was once skilled work. My lectures have long been obsolete, but ‘death by Powerpoint’ continues for now. Accountants continue even though software does a better job – the ‘reason’ in both cases is fraud and being able to sign off (pass) what our VCs or CEOs want. This is OK as long as ‘good times’ eventually roll but they look to have stopped. There is no real market for university graduates and the times in which the off-balance-sheet could be lost in a good year are catching up on us as the ‘holes’ brim over.

Here is somebody whom also has seen the Global Human Economic Machine, but never gave it this name. Here is somebody whom independently has seen with their own eyes the world around them. The real world, not a world made up by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky, or The Guardian, or The Mail, or even The Sun. Never again do I expect to see such a brilliant blog post, for the likelihood is I will live in disappointment. It is better to live in hope, and the best way to do that is to expect very little.

Going Viral

These young people today all have attention spans of 5 seconds and have eGadgets that make them send and read lots of messages that mean very little.

With all this twitter and facebook nonsense, going viral means that a particular info blob has spread through the web like a virus. This phrase annoys me now. Firstly, because it is getting old. Secondly, because it refers to viruses, and not any other type of life. Finally, because it disturbs me that in this world of buzzing nonsense communication, there are meaningless snippets that undeservedly get instant global distribution.

Going viral is never an accident. What goes viral is entirely determined by those whom know how to spread these things, like the gossipy old women that used to do the job before electronic communications.

To think, perhaps to resolve

A blog is a blackboard
the world is your classroom
You are the teacher
And you are the main pupil.

There may be other pupils in the classroom.
And unless they put up their hand to ask a question,
Your teacher will never know what they don't know.

Luddites to the Rescue Against the Global Human Economic Machine

The BBC has a new documentary series, written and directed by Adam Curtis, called All watched over By Machines of Loving Grace/

This series is so brilliant, I feel sorry for people in the USA or anywhere else, whom haven't got to see it yet.

I was so amazed by the first film. The second film has made me realize that I am not the only person in the world protesting against the Global Human Economic Machine, and I am not the only Luddite.

Indeed, David Mitchell, the comedian, is making positive light of Luddite values, which considering that only 5 years ago, Luddites were scorned and laughed out of any discussion, is sensational.

I detect that the world is catching up with reality at last.I suspect that the Global Human Economic Machine will be broken up and sold for scrap metal. What will take its place? It is tempting to think that it would be just Local Human Economic Systems, but this cannot be the absolute case. More likely, various competing Local systems of various sizes will overlap and unpredictably grow and shrink depending on all sorts of factors. In the sense that they will overlap and depend on each other for some of their needs, there will still be a Global Human Economy, but it will be not one machine as it has become - it will be multi-cellular.

What a horrible year

It seems like it's been such a horrible year, but on reflection, other years have been more truly horrible. Perhaps it seems so horrible because it was intended to be a good year, a much needed good year after so many not-so-good years. Instead of being good, it has been disappointing, with no pleasant surprises.

The weather. I am quite sick of people who think they have to tell you that the weather is not the climate. Whatever. After the coldest winter in over 30 years, (and believe me it was one of the earliest as well), the seasons skipped spring, so that March and April were the hottest and driest in Southern Britain on records. In Eastern England, the hot and dry weather continued all May, so that today they have finally officially announced a drought.

What is the point of living in a northern climate, one that is wet and dark and grey at the least all winter, to arrive into a year without SPRING? There have been a very precious few hours on the few occasional days where it felt like Spring in Britain. The birds and the bees and the bugs all seem to be struggling on, but have not displayed their usual order of appearance or abundance. Nor the weeds or the plant diseases.

Never mind that. It is nearly Mid-Summer, and I feel like I have been cheated of a whole year, because I have been denied a proper Spring. So my own cycle means nothing any more, and not surprisingly, the stinking cold I caught almost two weeks ago confirmed my misery.

All I would like is to have some happy time. The country has been so depressing - if anything, the so-called lefties and socialists have made things worse because of their inability to survive without the ghastly Labour governments that this country has. They seem to forget that the values of life that make them socialist depend on making joy, not misery, and sending jolts of love throughout all the life that they encounter. Because values do not need political parties, there are today Conservatives whom are better socialists than the Labour supporters whom moan and protest their lot.

See the irony in this? Here I am moaning and protesting at my lot, but I am not blaming the Government - I am blaming the people whom are blaming the government. That's too complicated for most people. I could be blaming the current Government, but they still haven't yet earned stern judgement... the last Government still hasn't paid for all the pain that they caused, in the name of staying in power. I still want to vomit at the thought of that horrible ex Prime Minister in the last Government. Not that the Labour Party has yet got a leader that will excuse all its previous sins.

Just think, if you were playing nations like puppets on strings, how important it would have been to have someone as stupid as Gordon Brown running the finances of Britain all those years, and what could have been better to cap it off than to have him as Prime Minister when it was time to change the rules of the game?

It's pointless being clever unless you can gain from it. The majority of people are stupid, and sadly I have placed my bets on them, so my misery is theirs. I only wish moral peace were sufficient consolation for a miserable year.

My heart

My heart seeks the solace
of an oak wood.
Essex with its lands of history
Life held in the hands of her trees,
Calls to me from my deepest veins.

Why is here not good enough?
It is empty, cold and grey
The trees have little to say,
And I will not be of it.
Stubbornly as an ancient oak,
I will not be uprooted, or cut down
And so I would not be moved,
One way or another.
Leave me to love in my oak wood,
And take away if you must only my acorns.
I long for you, oh forests of Epping.

To be inspired by those about me

I wish for inspiration
From those about me
Not by seeking others electronically.

For what is localism, if not this?

Yet it is so much easier to look about me
and find weirdoes
and not those whom are inspirational.
As clouds block the sun, so this seems true.

People who Fear Greens and Environmentalists

You are about to get one of my cutting analyses.

In the last few years, all we've heard about is the clash between, for example, climate change believers and climate change deniers. I've always thought that this clash was a complete waste of time.

So why am I turning my brain onto analysing this today? I have noticed in the general street population over the last few years something that has gone unmentioned. There are a lot of people who have developed a fear and even hatred of all people who express green and environmental sensibilities. Unbelievable? How can a bunch of hippies, day-dreamers, and sad little scientists be feared and hated? Why have the George Monbiot's been drawn into quarrelling endlessly with the Green-Haters?

Well whom does a drug addict fear and hate the most? Priests, imams, rabbis etc. Drug addicts fear them even more than they fear the police and judges.

So the drug we are talking about is resource (be it oil, habitat, coal, nuclear fuel, mining extraction) extravagance. Yes, RESOURCE EXTRAVAGANCE is the DRUG. The priests and the apostles have been the environmentalists and scientists and nature-lovers.

There has been inculcated down into the bottom levels of Western and Westernized (including Japan,China and India) economies THIS. RESOURCE EXTRAVAGANCE IS YOUR RIGHT. RESOURCE EXTRAVAGANCE IS YOUR PLEASURE. RESOURCE EXTRAVAGANCE DEFINES YOUR STATUS. RESOURCE EXTRAVAGANCE IS MORE IMPORTANT TO YOU THAN LOVE, WATER, AND FOOD.

The only group of people who challenge the addiction to Resource Extravagance have been environmentalists, nature-lovers and ecological scientists. Indeed, even many of these people have been guilty of using THE DRUG.

What amazes me is that this drug addiction has pervaded into society so deeply, that even twelve year old CHILDREN are expressing the fear of having their drug withdrawn. I suppose if you have children, you are not amazed at all, but as I don't have children, this horrible fact has only just hit home to me.

Drug addiction by one third of the planet's population, being fought by a only few of those more enlightened drug addicts.

This is the challenge of 2011. It is not dispelling ignorance of climate change or ecosystem issues. It is dealing with addiction.

What is a Chav, Part 2

Gosh, after the last post I can't stop. There is a volcano inside me ready to spew about the United Chavdom of Britain.

- a Chav is somebody whom gave up on religion one or more generations ago, yet has not replaced it with anything other than going shopping, seeing gigs and sports games, watching TV etc.
- a Chav is somebody whom doesn't understand atheism or religion in the evolution of Mankind, yet abides by the first and spurns the second.
- a Chav is somebody whom eats his or her way through the glut of food that is delivered to the Western Economies.
- a Chav is somebody whom starts doing things because of peer pressure, and will not stop doing these things until peer pressure stops them.
- a Chav is somebody whom cannot eat food that has not been wrapped in plastic and put on a supermarket shelf.
- a Chav is somebody whom will buy a can or plastic bottle of Coke or Someother Shit instead of drinking tap water or eating a cucumber or watermelon.
- a Chav is somebody whom thinks they are classy because they get their hair dressed, yet their brain is gungy and grimy with mud and rags.
- a Chav will happily pay £3.00 for a pint of crap tasteless lager, but refuse to pay £0.80 for a pint of fresh organic milk.
- a Chav will cover his front garden with concrete just so that he can park his or her car as close to his testicles or her vagina.
- a Chav will go to a fitness centre and work out to have big muscles and firm tits, but refuse to be seen using a spade for anything other than weaponry.
- a Chav will buy a newspaper and look at the pictures and read the words slowly, and then think that there is nothing else that he or she has to learn.
-

The Soup of British Chav

Look at them. Driving their cars in their bathrobes. Yes, those towelling robes that are also called dressing gowns. They wear them all day long, then venture out in the garden and then into their cars to run down to the shops to buy milk or fags.

Unbelievable? No, this is Britain today. I wonder what people in what used to be the British empire would think of this.

You see, the British Chav only really became widely described from 2003. Now in 2011, Chav culture is endemic and mainstream. What is a Chav? It was and still is, a person who has perverse notions of what is social aspiration. A Chav is somebody who would say "fuck" a lot, but seldom has good sex, let alone aspires to divine love-making. A Chav can come from any class, whereas the socialists think it is only used to label people of working-class descent.

A Chav believes that you are nobody unless you own lots of cars, and drive them as much as you can. A Chav does not know where his bread comes from - he or she drives to the Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Iceland or Co-Op supermarket and buys bread, but does not understand or care how the bread got there. A Chav admires sports celebrities, and dreams of being just like one. Chavs watch games and get excited and distraught about their successes and failures, but have not actually played any of those games for years. Indeed, the Chav has not walked more than 200 yards at any time in the last ten years, simply because the Chav has a CAR.

You see the Chavs driving in 4x4s, parking in the disabled bays at supermarkets, talking on their mobile phones while driving with one hand (this is ILLEGAL in Britain). Chavs throw away good, still-useable things as if they believe that more new things will arrive on a container ship from China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and India. Chavs moan about the price of petrol for their cars, and claim that they NEED their cars to go to work, but they NEVER think about (let alone try) moving closer to their job. Chavs throw their rubbish (sometimes toxic) on the roads, out of their cars, into their gardens, into the public parks and wilderness areas.

Why do I go on? I can't. They dominate in a democracy, and that is that. Chavdom has had its momentary attraction (which is sexual, because it pretends to be exclusive of love or care) to all walks of life, but its persistence in British culture is a pervasive vulgarity that cannot be disguised by a royal family's pomp and splendour, currently being hyped to North America and everywhere else because of the queen's grandson's dreary wedding.

Watching the Disillusionment of Loved Ones

There is something profoundly sad about watching the disillusionment of one that we love. The sadness is perhaps proof that we still love them. Disillusionment is nowadays called "Reality check", thanks to the Seventies hippie generation.

That we may have been partly responsible for sustaining their deluded state;
that we may have loved them because we wished to share their deluded state;
that we were unable to find for them a gentler let-down when the disillusionment finally came;
that we have to SHARE the let-down itself.

These are facts known to any intelligent mother, whom has had to grapple with the "Is there really a Santa Claus, Mum?" So Child would never have enjoyed the illusion that Santa Claus existed, but for Mum. Mum would never have loved the Child so much if they never believed what did not exist. Mum later tries to tell Child that Santa Claus does not exist, but cannot find an easy way. Mum feels pain when Child eventually discovers that Santa Claus does not exist, and both their whole frames of being are knocked down.


So it is sad. That's life. An endless string of illusions clutched, each followed by grasping at the harsh brutal truth. As I believe I have always tried to seek the truth, I feel particularly qualified to say that the truth is like the multiverse of universes. When you have uncovered one, so you find you are buried deep within another one that you yet do not understand. So too do I feel qualified to say that there is no pride to be gained, from understanding more universes than the next man.

Yet I want to be sad.
For spring here, faltering,
does not smell the same
As where I left.
I am homesick for a place that I lived in and loved for so long, but whose ruin I could no longer bear to watch.

Funny that, as if I hadn't seen most of it ruined, that I should have been so bothered. Perhaps disillusionment sometimes is the wrong diagnosis.
Perhaps realities change, and we are belittled by our powerlessness to halt the change.

So here in Britain, we wait for spring. There are daffodils out now, and crocuses, but none of the trees are springing into leaf. Nights are still cold, and nothing much is growing fast, even when we have a sunny warmish day.

Today is Budget Day. As if I care. All the farting economists in the world could be piled into a gas oven and it set alight, and I would not be any happier.

I call the world the Planet.
The Planet is too big for me to hold.
Its billions of people are too many for me to scold.
Its development is too much a horror for me to behold.

Thank God we die when we grow old.

Questioning the Philosophy of Self-Doubt

A few days ago I questioned the Philosophy of Self-Belief. With the following conclusion ..

I therefore suggest that it is a lie that we must believe in ourselves, or that we are helped by others whom believe in us. This lie is purely to sustain lies upon which our lives are built

Well, to be fair, and to be rational, I must treat its opposite : the Philosophy of Self-Doubt.

{Why do we need to doubt ourselves?}
or {Why do we need to be doubted by others?}
=> Why do we Need to be Doubted?

(The symbol => is the mathematical one for "implies")

Why indeed. We all know people who only rise up to a task when everybody doubts that they can. It's the challenge of proving people wrong that gives them extra impetus.

For ourselves, when we doubt ourselves, and then we master our doubts and rise up to the challenge, we feel even better for ourselves, don't we?

But is this just playing games? If you have a task, why should it be necessary to play the following game...
I doubt myself.
I refuse to accept that I can't do it.
I shall prove myself right that I can do it, while proving myself wrong that I can't do it.
What a waste of energy all this game playing is. Like playing football instead of farming.

And there, in the last line, there is a big hint of more...
"I shall prove myself."

Self-Belief, Self-Doubt, Self-Proof.

Are these good games to play as motivations to do a task? There should be enough motivation from the need or desire to do a task, without having to throw in motivational games of Self-Belief, Self-Doubt, and Self-Proof. I am probably mistaken, but this is what I think the Methodists did. Get rid of the game-playing, and get on with the work, either because you need to do it, or because you WANT to do it.

Pushing Away the Zeitgeist

There are Sheep and there are Wolves. There is Black and White but also every shade of gray.
So human beings can be found whom belong on every spot of the Sheep to Wolf spectrum.

I know I shift between the polarities of sheep and wolf depending on the world, my life, and me.

But what is this Zeitgeist? I have always been very sensitive to it and even gone out looking for it, but if you think about IT, what is IT?

Is the Zeitgeist a single miasma? I think not. Different levels of Zeitgeist exist for Sheep and Wolves and all in between.

Yet without a doubt the Zeitgeist I pick up through my antennae is the Official Cultural Zeitgeist of Britain, as sanctioned by the artists, the newspapers, the businesses, and the citizens. (Hmmm, interesting what I haven't included in that list...)

Is the Zeitgeist a set of activities, or feelings? Is it a set of attitudes? Is it a mood? Yes, I definitely think it is a mood.

The Zeitgeist of Britain is more oppressive than usual. The mood is not recessive, but a kind of prozacked depressive. As mentioned before, the nation is hot happy with what it has become or achieved. You can have the shiniest cars, the shiniest jewels, and the shiniest furs, but what good are they when you have just learned that you have to sell them because you can't pay for them? At the same time you have also been diagnosed with a malignant, slow-acting cancer and you are looking through all the quack remedies that promise you a cure.

I can't stand it any more. The Zeitgeist mood weighs me down so much that there is only one thing to do.

Push away the Zeitgeist. What use is the Zeitgeist when it does more harm than good?

I shouldn't even bother trying to re-shape the Zeitgeist - I haven't the strength at this stage.

Push it away. Sometimes, a man has got to be an island.

Yeo Valley Rap

When I saw this, I just thought Wow!

Aren't they all beautiful?



If you live in a city or a town, you've probably noticed that none of the young men and women look this good - and even if they did, they wouldn't last long before they were sucked into lives of cocaine, heroin, alcohol or just plain sex addiction.

Well Done Yeo Valley and BBH. It's marketing, but hey, when it's like this, sock it to 'em

Question the Philosophy of Belief in Your Self

Google "Believe in Yourself" and you will be told that you have to, and why you need to. Look at the reasons from a philosophical standpoint.

(Why do we need to believe in ourselves?) OR (Why do we need others to believe in us?) =

Why do we need to be believed?

Isn't it strange that we are told that we need to be believed?

Are our lives built on such tenuous lies that without that belief we would DIE?

Isn't it appallingly feeble if this is true?

A) Assume that our lives are built on real foundations. Would we need to be believed? What purpose would it serve ourselves to be believed? I can see that it would be useful to others if THEY believed US, so that they may choose to copy how we build our lives on real foundations.

B) Assume that our lives are built on a fragile pyramid of lies. Can we sustain ourselves without being believed? Are we held up only by belief, whether that is coming from others or ourselves?

I therefore suggest that it is a lie that we must believe in ourselves, or that we are helped by others whom believe in us. This lie is purely to sustain lies upon which our lives are built.

I feel much happier knowing this truth! Is this philosophy?

2011 in Britain

It is 2011. Look at that frightening number.

Welcome back to Britain. I never left it, but I left you, dear Reader, this long.

My God, I thought Britain was bad in the Noughties. Now three years after we've had the 2007/8 Global Financial Crisis, things seem to be sufficiently worse that I really wish I weren't here.

This country has been floundering in a cultural depression for 3 years now. People are coping, but not happy, and not hopeful, and not even interesting. They drive to the supermarket, they shop, they eat, they watch TV. They live through life's struggles, and they go to work if they still have a job, but they all know that the country hasn't done well, and can't afford to go on living beyond its means. Yet imports still keep rising, and exports barely are holding.

It feels as if one cannot dare to dream any more in Britain, yet in theory, that is all the British can now afford to do. I say in theory, because in practice, they still drive around in cars that are too big, and they still use them constantly while they themselves get fat and useless. Cars are empty, trains are running empty, planes still fly everywhere. The cutbacks on waste have yet to become ubiquitous, yet cutbacks in the public sector are all you hear about on the news, or when chatting.

THIS COUNTRY HAS BECOME BORING AND USELESS? Yes, it really feels that way.

It was of course the fault of the three Labour Governments, that presided over the shift to Banking and the wholesale submission to Global Economics, which finally created a credit and property and finance boom that collapsed in 2008. Yet only in 2010 did that government finally get thrown out.

Since then, the new Government has barely made a mark, yet every move they make is loudly protested and entirely opposed.

How can things improve, and how can things get better, when we have a people who have been spoilt by wasteful Labour Governments, and a new government who can no longer afford to spoil them?

I despair, and it's no fun being here. And we've had another cold winter (so much for global warming) so I wish I were on a beach far away from here.

I want to dream. Love is like a shrunken dried up apple in my soul, because there never was much love in Britain, and now there is nowhere to dream.

What can I do?

Emerging from Radio Shadow

As though a satellite gone behind a planet
all these months with days unseen
while atomic clocks kept time.
Now emergent from the radio shadow
I attempt contact.

UK Government Programme for Energy and Climate Change

The Government believes that climate change is one of the gravest threats we face, and that urgent action at home and abroad is required. We need to use a wide range of levers to cut carbon emissions, decarbonise the economy and support the creation of new green jobs and technologies. We will implement a full programme of measures to fulfil our joint ambitions for a low carbon and eco-friendly economy.

* We will push for the EU to demonstrate leadership in tackling international climate change, including by supporting an increase in the EU emission reduction target to 30% by 2020.
* We will seek to increase the target for energy from renewable sources, subject to the advice of the Climate Change Committee.
* We will continue public sector investment in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology for four coal-fired power stations.
* We will establish a smart grid and roll out smart meters.
* We will establish a full system of feed-in tariffs in electricity – as well as the maintenance of banded Renewables Obligation Certificates.
* We will introduce measures to promote a huge increase in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion.
* We will create a green investment bank.
* We will retain energy performance certificates while scrapping HIPs.
* We will introduce measures to encourage marine energy.
* We will establish an emissions performance standard that will prevent coal-fired power stations being built unless they are equipped with sufficient carbon capture and storage to meet the emissions performance standard.
* We will cancel the third runway at Heathrow.
* We will refuse permission for additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted.
* We will replace Air Passenger Duty with a per-flight duty.
* We will introduce a floor price for carbon, and make efforts to persuade the EU to move towards full auctioning of ETS permits.
* Through our ‘Green Deal’, we will encourage home energy efficiency improvements paid for by savings from energy bills. We will also take measures to improve energy efficiency in businesses and public sector buildings. We will reduce central government carbon emissions by 10% within 12 months.
* We will reform energy markets to deliver security of supply and investment in low carbon energy, and ensure fair competition including a review of the role of Ofgem.
* We will instruct Ofgem to establish a security guarantee of energy supplies.
* We will give an Annual Energy Statement to Parliament to set strategic energy policy and guide investment.
* We will deliver an offshore electricity grid in order to support the development of a new generation of offshore wind power.
* We will encourage community-owned renewable energy schemes where local people benefit from the power produced. We will also allow communities that host renewable energy projects to keep the additional business rates they generate.
* As part of the creation of a green investment bank, we will create green financial products to provide individuals with opportunities to invest in the infrastructure needed to support the new green economy.
* We will work towards an ambitious global climate deal that will limit emissions and explore the creation of new international sources of funding for the purpose of climate change adaptation and mitigation.
* Liberal Democrats have long opposed any new nuclear construction. Conservatives, by contrast, are committed to allowing the replacement of existing nuclear power stations provided that they are subject to the normal planning process for major projects (under a new National Planning Statement), and also provided that they receive no public subsidy.
* We will implement a process allowing the Liberal Democrats to maintain their opposition to nuclear power while permitting the Government to bring forward the National Planning Statement for ratification by Parliament so that new nuclear construction becomes possible. This process will involve: – the Government completing the drafting of a national planning statement and putting it before Parliament; – specific agreement that a Liberal Democrat spokesperson will speak against the Planning Statement, but that Liberal Democrat MPs will abstain; and – clarity that this will not be regarded as an issue of confidence.

Not a lot there on Cutting Energy Waste and Encouraging Reduced Energy Consumption. It does say Through our ‘Green Deal’, we will encourage home energy efficiency improvements paid for by savings from energy bills. We will also take measures to improve energy efficiency in businesses and public sector buildings. Home Energy Efficiency Improvements? You mean Mercury-containing Fluorescent light bulbs and rock fibre loft insulation and double-glazing for people who have houses that are too big for them? Energy Efficiency, Efficiency, Efficiency?

Have you not noticed that the problem left untackled here is that the Enviromental Movement has been trapped into a cul-de-sac for years by having to request Efficiency improvements, instead of Energy Consumption Reductions, because nobody has yet challenged the prerogative of Economic Consumerism (if the public gets what the public wants, that isn't usually what the planet wants, so you have to change what the public wants)?

How do you measure Efficiency? The efficient use of Energy is where it is used to create the most vital forms of wealth. What are the most vital forms of wealth? FOOD, not diamonds/gold, or throw away consumer purchases, or huge office towers that run on airconditioning in the summer, or empty houses and buildings entirely heated to 22 degrees centigrade just because their occupants think it is THEIR RIGHT TO KEEP WARM BY BURNING FOSSIL FUELS OR BY WASTING GREEN TECHNOLOGY RARE EARTH METALS ON OVERSIZED HOMES.

Consumption of Energy, if it is outright wasteful, cannot be made efficient unless the waste is ruthlessly eliminated.

The UK Coalition Government's Programme for the Environment - Human Population

Nick Clegg's and David Cameron's detailed programme has been released today. Below is the page from their Environment, Food and Rural Affairs page. Other areas of their programme will be discussed in other posts.

The Government believes that we need to protect the environment for future generations, make our economy more environmentally sustainable, and improve our quality of life and well-being. We also believe that much more needs to be done to support the farming industry, protect biodiversity and encourage sustainable food production.

* We will introduce measures to make the import or possession of illegal timber a criminal offence.
* We will introduce measures to protect wildlife and promote green spaces and wildlife corridors in order to halt the loss of habitats and restore biodiversity.
* We will launch a national tree planting campaign.
* We will review the governance arrangements of National Parks in order to increase local accountability.
* We will work towards full compliance with European Air Quality standards.
* We will take forward the findings of the Pitt Review to improve our flood defences, and prevent unnecessary building in areas of high flood risk.
* We will examine the conclusions of the Cave and Walker Reviews, and reform the water industry to ensure more efficient use of water and the protection of poorer households.
* We will work towards a ‘zero waste’ economy, encourage councils to pay people to recycle, and work to reduce littering.
* We will reduce the regulatory burden on farmers by moving to a risk-based system of regulation, and will develop a system of extra support for hill farmers.
* We will investigate ways to share with livestock keepers the responsibility for preparing for and dealing with outbreaks of disease.
* We will take forward the Marine and Coastal Access Act and ensure that its conservation measures are implemented effectively.
* As part of a package of measures, we will introduce a carefully managed and science-led policy of badger control in areas with high and persistent levels of bovine tuberculosis.
* We will promote high standards of farm animal welfare. We will end the testing of household products on animals and work to reduce the use of animals in scientific research. We will promote responsible pet ownership by introducing effective codes of practice under the Animal Welfare Act, and will ensure that enforcement agencies target irresponsible owners of dangerous dogs.
* We will ensure that food procured by government departments, and eventually the whole public sector, meets British standards of production wherever this can be achieved without increasing overall cost.
* We will investigate measures to help with fuel costs in remote rural areas, starting with pilot schemes.
* We will create a presumption in favour of sustainable development in the planning system.
* We oppose the resumption of commercial whaling, will press for a ban on ivory sales, and will tackle the smuggling and illegal trade on wildlife through our new Border Police Force.
* We will bring forward a motion on a free vote enabling the House of Commons to express its view on the repeal of the Hunting Act.

It all sounds good, but what is missing?

Man. The number of people. The one thing that is most obvious on this planet Earth, is being completely ignored by this government. The government has not indicated any policy towards population levels in its own country, so why would it be able to lead politically on this issue on a global level? It won't.

For the Green Party and Caroline Lucas, here's your key. It is no longer adequate to be green and mean and mind your own reproductive practices, because even with equitable politics (complete fairness) it is the total human population in the world that will cause stress on the environment.

China and its Communist Party are far more thinking and honest about this issue.