Decision before evidence?

Bristol City Council rejected the chance to build a tram system despite figures showing it would be cheaper than the proposed new Bus Rapid Transit link, it has been claimed....Sustraco claimed that Mr Kent [Bristol City Council Cabinet Member for Transport, pictured left] announced at the end of the meeting that the council had already decided "before the meeting" that the bus option would be chosen. On returning from the meeting, Sustraco officials said they found they had been sent e-mails with a 34-page report attached. The report, which Sustraco said was written before the meeting, detailed the decision without considering evidence submitted in the meeting...(full story here)

Only one conclusion can be drawn from this, if what Sustraco say is true. Tim Kent and the Lib Dem Cabinet running Bristol made a decision involving many millions of pounds without considering the all the evidence. Kent met with Sustraco knowing that holding the meeting was pointless given that decisions had already been made! Unless Sustraco's description is shown to be wayward, this is irrational, unreasonable and deceptive behaviour whatever the merits or not of light rail vs BRT.

Nuclear no no

No-one would disagree (would they?) that burying waste from today's nuclear power stations leaves a very big set of social, economic and environmental problems for many generations to come. Since sustainability is about dealing with risks and costs now and not passing problems to future generations it therefore follows that burying nuclear waste is inherently unsustainable. The following question alone demonstrates this: with waste that can be active for thousands of yrs how can it be possible to guarantee that the institutions needed would be stable beyond periods which have so far proved to be whole lifetimes of civilisations?

Despite the logic above the UK plans to build more nuclear power stations (if the huge economic cost obstacles can be overcome) and the '...search for an underground storage site for high-level nuclear waste is likely to go ahead in Cumbria after a poll showed residents are in favour.

In Copeland, the local authority area encapsulating Sellafield [pictured], 68% of people backed entering formal talks with government on hosting the repository.

Across Cumbria as a whole, 53% are in favour and 33% opposed...'
(full report here).

Technology tale

I'm an advocate of scientific and technological thinking. Many currently define technology far too narrowly though - and most often in terms of applied science, business and commerce. For more effective problem solving and opportunity taking we should be thinking more broadly and making connections - its more creative and more likely to anticipate consequences or potential consequences of actions.

Technology is not just about rational problem solving either, there are political, organisational and psychological dimensions. Technology is the sum total of our practical knowledge and it predates science, industrialisation, capitalism...Its something we need to learn to be more selective and controlled about adopting, through proper, thorough technological assessment processes.

Environmental efforts

Plenty more talk on sustainability and environmental issues coming this year - at the end of this month UK's Royal Society hosts Planet Under Pressure; in June the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, takes place 20 yrs on from the Rio Earth Summit; the IUCN World Conservation Congress, begins 6 September...Conferences have value of course but what we've needed for over three decades now is action from Governments, businesses - anyone and anything unsustainable - that produces significant change and outcomes. 

Ecology efforts

Included in some materials on ecology I've been reviewing are Commoner's four laws of ecology. Professor Barry Commoner first stated these in his 1971 book The Closing Circle. They are a great legacy. We still have a lot to learn with respect to them. Sadly we have yet to make them part the core of our decision making in practical terms, though they continue to have a great impact. Here's a screencast summarising Commoner's four laws of ecology, along with a few additional comments on the science and its implications.
* * *

Join the dots

Copy of a screencast I put together introducing some of the key elements of systems thinking::

Safe systems?

The Evening Post headline 'Oldbury deemed safe' is misleading as it makes no sense to declare something 'safe' ie free from risk. This is not what the assessments of UK nuclear power stations have tried to do. What does make sense is to talk about degrees of risk ie the probability occurrence of various hazards. 'No major weaknesses' in UK nuclear stations is not the same as safe - better to say that certain risks have been found to be low probability. The development of life on Earth is thought to be an extremely low probability event - but here we are!

Bristol: Carbon City

Really Cllr Kent is deluded - he blows his trumpet very loudly indeed when he says Bristol will get the transport system it deserves. Cllrs love it when they can announce they've got money for something almost no matter what it is. For a start building a new road will ultimately add to the congestion and pollution existing now at high levels - its already very costly to business in pounds and costly to people in health and the environment in lost quality and quantity. Bus Rapid Transit is often not the best technology - and persistently asking just a few questions at public meetings on BRT reveals environmental decision making 'systems' that are simply not joined up thinking. Whatever happened to building a low carbon city with a high quality of life for all, the aim of Bristol Green Capital?

See http://www.bristol247.com/2011/12/15/bristol-to-finally-get-transport-system-it-deserves-15367/

BRT = Build Ring-road Tomorrow

Millions of pounds on what is supposed to be an integrated, 'seamless' approach to public transport - and the bendy buses wont even stop at Temple Meads! No joined up thinking there then.

BRISTOL City Council's flagship Ashton Vale to Temple Meads bendy bus route will not actually stop at the station, it has emerged.

The £50 million scheme is one of three rapid transit routes the council is finalising, ahead of submitting funding bids to government in September.

The idea is that the three routes will make life much easier for people who want to get from one end of the city to another.

It is also supposed to be part of an integrated approach to transport, so buses, rail and rapid transit all work seamlessly together.

The problem is that the latest version of the Ashton Vale to Temple Meads route doesn't stop at Temple Meads because there isn't enough money to pay for a stop there.

That means people arriving into Bristol by train won't just be able to just jump on the bendy bus or vice versa.

Instead the stop for the Temple Meads area is actually outside the KPMG building in Temple Street, the other side of the Temple Circus roundabout.

So anyone who wants to get from the bendy bus to catch a train has at least a five-minute walk across one of the busiest roundabouts in Bristol and several sets of traffic lights...

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/New-bendy-buses-stop-Bristol-Temple-Meads-station/story-13003610-detail/story.html

I'm not a fan of bus rapid transit Bristol-style - especially as it involves new road building. The Lib Dem Cabinet member in charge, Cllr Kent, says "They will cut congestion, reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere" There is no evidence for this. I persistently asked questions at public meetings about modelling and projections that had been done and the 'answers' given to me were totally inadequate. Where was the early, timely, high quality information when it was being asked for?? Increasing the capacity of the road network has on all past occasions increased total carbon emissions as the space fills with traffic and becomes congested and this 'link' - as their spin is now calling it - will do likewise.

Cllr Kent has also referred to 'massive public transport improvements'. Massive? No - and certainly not matching the scale of Bristol's transport problems. Improvements? Evidence of this is seriously lacking. Developments like a transport hub at Temple Meads and an integrated transport authority would begin to bring significant improvements - but these dont appear to be on the table at all due to political failures over decades.

Cllr Kent and Libe Dem colleagues seem to have forgotten that its hardly green to build over green space that is finite in supply, with its consequent loss of biodiversity, aesthetic and health benefits - and of course the greenery is no longer there to soak up carbon dioxide emissions.

Talk, talk, talk on local rail and integrated transport

This is spot on: ...GREATER Bristol is more interested in carrying out rail studies than actually reopening stations, according to a rail expert.

Former London Rail boss Ian Brown has published a study for the Railway Development Society, which looks at investment in local rail services.

The study shows that while 356 stations have re-opened across the country since 1960, in Bristol there has been just two in half a century.

Mr Brown concludes that "the Bristol region has not as yet shown any evidence of fulfilling the role of an effective 'client' for rail, although there has been considerable expenditure on seemingly endless 'studies' ".

Local rail campaigners point out that areas with one body to sort out transport – Integrated Transport Areas – have fared much better, and Mr Brown agrees.

That includes West Yorkshire with 22 re-opened stations, Merseyside with 16, and Greater Manchester with 15...

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/City-interested-studies-stations/story-12963382-detail/story.html

Optimism on sorting Bristol's transport problems

The Bristol Evening Post says 'Bristol's metro is not as far off track as you might think'. I hope they are right and can help build up momentum for change on this issue. As many of my blog posts show I'm in favour of a Greater Bristol Integrated Transport Authority that implements a sustainable transport plan. History points to lack of agreement and cooperation between the local authorities though. If agreement and cooperation is reached they still need to get the process of decision making right: exploring the situation; formulating problems, opportunities and systems of interest; identifying feasible and desirable changes; taking actions; and re-exploring etc as appropriate. They need to fully involve as wide a range of people as possible right from the start, ensure good quality, comprehensive information is widely disseminated, get genuine cross-party and cross-organisational cooperation, agree the right goals, get finances sorted, assess technologies fairly and broadly, find a combination of technical, behavioural and socio-economic change that will consistently take us in a firmly sustainable direction... Its nothing like as straightforward and obvious as this Post report - which has a strong technocratic, techno-optimist slant - suggests.

'Safely' closing Oldbury nuclear power station costs £954m

Nearly a billion quid to close the damn thing. Taking decades, during which it produces no power whatsoever. Leaving a legacy of nuclear waste for many, many future generations. It always has been a joke to refer to nuclear as cheap, clean and green - the figures speak for themselves. It would be irrational to build more.

THE cost of decommissioning Oldbury Nuclear Power Station has been set at £954 million, latest figures have shown.

A revised document just published by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) gives the estimated sum for taking the plant out of action and clearing the site once it stops generating electricity.

But it will take about 90 years to achieve the "final end" status.

Oldbury is the oldest operating nuclear power reactor in the world, having started producing power in 1967. It has already exceeded its expected generating life by a couple of years and one of its two reactors will close down for good this summer...

Money spent up, recycling down: another Lib Dem failure

So much for the Lib Dem 'plan' to increase Bristol's recycling rate to 50%. They banged on about this so much (see policy six in their 'six to fix') but have not delivered - and it looks like there are lessons to learn for all who want higher recycling rates about how to get larger numbers of the public onside.

BRISTOL City Council spent £45,000 hiring "waste doctors" to encourage more people to recycle but they appear to have had the opposite effect.

The "Recycling For All" pilot scheme was launched last September with two officers monitoring the rubbish produced by 3,275 homes in the city.

But rather than improve recycling rates the statistics show fewer people recycled their food, bottles and papers after the pilot than before.

Recycling For All was one of four projects the waste doctors were involved in.

If they found people were not recycling, the officers would send letters advising them how they could.

They also had the power to issue a £75 fixed penalty fine or begin court proceedings that could result in fines of up to £1,000 if people continued to refuse to recycle.

The idea was to drive Bristol's already impressive recycling rate of 39 per cent up – one of the highest in the country – even further.

The council had hoped a successful pilot could be expanded across the city, pushing the recycling rate up to 50 per cent.

But far from improving performance, results from the pilot show recycling rates dropped by an average of 10 per cent – and in some parts of the city by as much as 30 per cent...

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/WASTE-TIME/article-3330115-detail/article.html

Green spaces sell-off? Bristol City Council has no Plan B

What sort of environmental decision making is it that does not properly consider - and in fact reconsider - all the options available, planning for a range of situations? Very poor quality, irrational, unsystematic and unsystemic - in short rubbish! Even on its own money raising terms the green spaces flog off favoured by Lib Dem, Labour and Tory Councillors alike is failing as income expected is now only a quarter of that originally envisaged. Cllr Gary Hopkins high handed, dismissive tone is again clear in the Post report on this though. Pity this man is not at the end of his 4 yr term yet - resign and put yourself up for re-election this May Gary and see how you get on!

BRISTOL City Council has never looked at ways of paying for the £87 million parks improvement plan that didn't involve selling off green spaces, it has been revealed.

The authority has always maintained that disposing of up to 64 sites across the city was the only way that enough money could be raised to pay for improvements in up to 200 others.

But it turns out that in the last five years of the Parks Green Spaces Strategy (PGSS), the council has never costed or even considered a plan that doesn't involve land sales.

The original funding for the improvement plan was £41 million from land sales; £21 million of grant funding; £15 million of money from developers and £10 million from the council parks budget. Since these 2006 estimates, the council has dropped the amount it expects to raise from selling land from £41 million to £11 million...

Bristol Green spaces Bristol City Council Liberal Democrats

Hugh's Fish Fight

Around half of the fish caught by fishermen in the North Sea are unnecessarily thrown back into the ocean dead.

Join the fish fight here

http://www.fishfight.net/

The problem is that in a mixed fishery where many different fish live together, fishermen cannot control the species that they catch. Fishing for one species often means catching another, and if people don’t want them or fishermen are not allowed to land them, the only option is to throw them overboard. The vast majority of these discarded fish will die.

Because discards are not monitored, it is difficult to know exactly how many fish are being thrown away. The EU estimates that in the North Sea, discards are between 40% and 60% of the total catch. Many of these fish are species that have fallen out of fashion: we can help to prevent their discard just by rediscovering our taste for them.

Others are prime cod, haddock, plaice and other popular food species that are “over-quota”. The quota system is intended to protect fish stocks by setting limits on how many fish of a certain species should be caught. Fishermen are not allowed to land any over-quota fish; if they accidentally catch them – which they can’t help but do - there is no choice but to throw them overboard before they reach the docks.

THE SOLUTIONs
We need to diversify our fish eating habits, and we need to change policy so that it works for fish, fishermen and consumers.

The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which is the political framework for the quota system, is currently being reformed for 2012. Scientists and environmental groups have suggested a number of ways that that the policy can work to protect fish stocks. Some details of these can be found on our solutions page.
Re-writing the Common Fisheries Policy is going to be an enormously complicated business, and unfortunately there is no one easy solution to ending discards. Many people agree that the answer will lie in a combination of different ideas and policies.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?
• Sign up to the campaign on the sign up page. You will be writing directly to policy makers in Europe to let them know that the unnecessary and unethical discarding of perfectly good fish must stop. We can make a difference. If enough people sign up to the campaign, they have to listen to us. We aim to get 250,000 signatures by summer 2011.
• Write to your MP to ask them to support the Fish Fight Early Day Motion.
• Expand the selection of fish that you eat by trying some of the lesser-known species of local fish currently being discarded as trash. In the UK, cod, salmon and tuna account for more than 50% of the fish that we consume, and tasty, exciting and nutritious fish such as flounder, dab, coley and pouting are overlooked and thrown away.
• Spread the word, tell all of your friends and family about Hugh's Fish Fight and get them to sign the campaign too.Together we can stop this ridiculous carnage. Join Hugh’s Fish Fight now!

Thanks very much,

Hugh's Fish Fight - Half of all fish caught in the North Sea is thrown back overboard dead

Environment Agency - Viridor Waste Management Ltd

Comments on the application for a permit for waste incineration due in soon...

Environment Agency - Viridor Waste Management Ltd

Name of applicant: Viridor Waste Management Ltd. Application number: EA/EPR/GP3834HY/A001 Type of regulated facility: Disposal of waste by Incineration. Address of regulated facility: Severn Road Resource Recovery Centre, Severn Road, Bristol, Avon BS11 0YU

The Environment Agency has received an application for an environmental permit under the Regulations from Viridor Waste Management Ltd.

The Environment Agency must decide whether to grant or refuse the application. If it grants the application, it must decide what conditions should be included in the permit.

Your chance to comment - Any comments should be made in writing by 09 February 2010

Council's shaky evidence for green sell-off revealed | News

Copy of Bristol Green Party press release on green spaces issues. Well done to all Greens, Stockwood's Pete Goodwin and Southville's Cllr Tess Green [pictured] in particular, for their ongoing campaigning against green spaces flogging and exposing poor decision making on it.

Council's shaky evidence for green sell-off revealed News

Key Green Space documents have been released - months after consultation ended!

10 weeks after Bristol City Council closed its consultation on controversial plans to sell off so-called 'low-value' green spaces, documents showing how they were chosen have been revealed. The decision to sell was confirmed last week in the face of opposition from many individuals and groups and from Green, Labour and Conservative councillors.

The documents come in a delayed response to a Freedom of Information request from Stockwood resident Pete Goodwin, and have been placed on line on the "What Do They Know?" website .

Southville's Green Party councillor Tess Green commented:
"A quick look at some of the sites shows just how weak some of the recommendations were; there are too many assumptions made, evidence is disregarded, and public opinion seems to be something to be overcome, not to be weighed up as part of the decision."

"What we're left with is an over-hasty decision bulldozed through on the flimsiest of evidence, that will lose much valued green space without any great benefit to the remaining parks. If only the other parties had listened to the Greens before they agreed this disastrous strategy to pay for park improvements. People who value these spaces will now have to defend them using the planning process, or other legal moves."

Her fellow Green Mr Goodwin, who had put up a case against selling the Stockwood sites, added
"With no way of knowing why particular sites were judged as low value, it was very difficult to challenge the plans. That's why I lodged the Freedom of Information request. The information should have been made public much earlier, certainly in time for the decisions in council. The legal deadline was November 19, and the documents themselves date from summer of 2009, but it's only been released now. There can't be any excuse for that delay"

"It appears that a few Parks officers were set impossible targets, then had to cope with the massive public reaction to their proposals while still following a political mandate. The whole exercise has been a travesty."

ENDS

Contact:
Pete Goodwin, 01275 543280
Cllr Tess Green, 0117 377 2070

The potential environmental costs of space tourism

Caught part of the Radio 4 program Material World last Thurs on the potential impact of space tourism, with soot pollution of the stratosphere being a key culprit. Given that the development of space tourism looks set to accelerate, this research and debate is very important.




The American Geophysical Union is warning that the environmental cost of space tourism will be greater than the $200,000 price tag passengers will be paying to travel on the Virgin Galactic spaceship when voyages begin in 2012. Marty Ross of non-profit research organisation The Aerospace Corporation in California and key author of the AGU's paper, explains why.

More here:

http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2010/2010-34.shtml

http://www.aero.org/

http://www.virgingalactic.com/

Environmental Law Foundation: air and noise pollution meeting in Bristol 6 Oct

The Environmental Law Foundation invites you to a free public meeting with local experts.

Air Pollution, Noise Pollution
· How does it affect you?
· Does it matter?
· What needs to be done?

Speakers:
Simon Tilling, Solicitor at Burges Salmon, expert in noise pollution

Neil Morgan, Associate Director of Innovative Acoustics

Steve Crawshaw, Air Quality Officer at Bristol City Council

There will also be Q & A sessions after each presentation, your chance to ask questions of the speakers

THIS IS A FREE NON-POLITICAL EVENT !!!

Date: Wednesday 6 October
Time: 6.15pm to 7.30pm
Venue: Trinity Centre, Trinity Road, Bristol, BS2 0NW
Contact: Peter Wiggins on 020 7404 1136 or scp@elflaw.org

This event is part of E.L.F.’s ‘Know your Rights’ project to raise awareness of environmental rights.

* If you are interested in attending, please do get in touch

If you have an environmental concern and would like an event or workshop to help your group, please let us know.

This event is brought to you by the Equality & Human Rights Commission and the Sustainable Communities Project funded by the Communities & Local Government through the Empowerment Fund

Participatory Processes and Techniques for an Ecosystems Approach

- Participatory Processes and Techniques for an Ecosystems Approach

Passing on details of this consultation on decision making:

Consultation Status: Open. Open date: 30 August 2010. Close date: 17 September 2010

Views are invited on a draft introductory guide explaining how participatory processes and techniques can be used as part of an ecosystems approach to decision making.

The work has been funded by Defra as part of its Natural Environment Strategic Research Programme on embedding an Ecosystems Approach in to decision making.

We welcome constructive feedback on the quality and usefulness of any aspect of this document, as well as any suggestions for potential additions. The draft materials are at an advanced stage but they are not finalised.

We will consider all responses carefully and thank you for your time

This document is not endorsed by Defra.

Best wishes
Robert Fish
Project LeaderUniversity of Exeter.