How Green Was My Vegan?

With apologies to Richard Llewellyn

by Les May

THE last seventeen years of my working life included taking part in week long biology field courses for young adults.  We had to teach them, make sure they did not come to any harm and feed them.  One told us she only ate meat, another had strict religious dietary requirements, vegetarians were abundant, but we always managed.  The one problem we had was a young man who said he was a vegan.  We explained that as the field course was on an island off the Scottish mainland and an islander would be catering for us, we were not able to guarantee that the food would meet his requirement.  Eventually he agreed to cater for himself.

Now my attitude to people who say they are vegans is ‘whatever floats your boat’. But when I saw the food he brought I could not help noticing that it all seemed highly processed.  Now I’m fairly catholic in my diet.  Apart from ritually slaughtered meat I will eat most savoury things.  But I would have drawn the line about eating what our vegan student was happy to eat.

I had forgotten about this incident until I read an article in last Thursday’s Guardian by the food writer Joanna Blythman in which she wrote:

‘Supermarkets, global food manufacturers and biotech and chemical companies have enthusiastically embraced Veganuary.  Fast-food enterprises, formerly seen as the nemesis of public health and the environment, have recast themselves as their saviours.  McDonald’s was feted when it launched its first vegan Veggie Dippers meal: nuggets that contain around 40 ingredients, many of which can’t be found in any domestic larder, served with chips and a soft drink…..Just when ultra-processed food manufacturers were being skewered for the health damage their products cause, the plant-based push has given them a get-out-of-jail-free card.’

Blythman’s piece is perceptive, but where I don’t think it goes far enough is that she fails to point out that many of the foodstuffs which can best supply the protein in a meat free diet, lentils, soy beans, chickpeas etc, carry the burden of lots of ‘food miles’ because they are themselves imported. We could grow substitutes in our climate. Field beans, sold as Horse Beans or Tic Beans for animal food, grow well in this country and it is the introduction of these into the west European diet in the early mediaeval period which is credited with allowing the population to grow. In their present form they are an unattractive dark brown in colour. The garden form is the Broad Bean which is larger and more attractive. It was derived from the Field bean by selective breeding. Further selective breeding could be used to produce a bean with fewer ‘food miles’ which could replace our dependence on imported pulses.

If you want to tell the world that vegan food is more healthy and switching to it will ‘save the planet’, it might be useful to do a bit of homework. Blythman’s article is a good place to start. You can find it at the link below.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/22/veganuary-animal-foods-plant-vegan

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/12/quorn-revolution-rise-ultra-processed-fake-meat

We Need Solutions Not Talk

by Les May

I HAVE NOT read or listened to anything that Greta Thunberg has said since she burst onto the world stage.  So far as I am concerned talk is cheap.  We already know that burning fossil fuels, coal, natural gas and oil derived products, is the root cause of the increase in global temperature, and we know what the likely results will be, a rise in sea level flooding coastal areas and a more active atmosphere/sea system leading to more extreme weather events in parts of the world that normally do not experience them.

The problem we have to solve is how we are going to reduce the amount of fossil fuel we burn to produce energy to make, move and recycle things.  A switch to so called ‘green’ energy sounds like a great idea but there is a question about whether we can produce enough ‘green’ energy to completely replace the energy currently derived from fossil fuels.

One way of saving materials and the energy needed to process them is to make the things we buy last longer so that fewer need to be manufactured.

As part of the European Union (EU) Ecodesign Directive which aims to remove the most wasteful products from the market and replace them with ones that use less energy and fewer resources, from 2021 all televisions, monitors, fridges, freezers, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers and lighting will have to meet minimum repairability requirements.  Manufacturers will have to ensure that appliances can be dismantled with commonly available tools, and repair information and spare parts will have to be made available to repairers.  This will have the effect of extending the life of appliances so that they have to be replaced less often.

Making fewer appliances means fewer workers are needed to make them. The challenge to our social fabric of attempting to prevent further global warming may be just as great as letting it happen and not taking any steps to prevent it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49499521

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy

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The Problems of Consuming Less

by Les May

CLIMATE CHANGE is nothing new.  Where I am sitting now was covered by about a kilometre of ice at the height of the glacial maximum 18,000 years ago. Ultimately the Earth’s climate is controlled by the slight ‘wobble’ in the inclination of its orbit, the elliptical nature of its orbit and the way these interact with the seasons.  Together these allow the Earth to absorb sometimes more and sometimes less of the energy reaching us from the sun.  What is new is that human activity is bringing about changes in the climate on a time scale measured in tens of years not thousands.  We do this by burning so called ‘fossil’ fuels and releasing the carbon they contain back into the atmosphere as Carbon Dioxide. Although this gas is present in the atmosphere at concentrations of a few parts in 10,000 it is this gas which traps heat radiation leaving the Earths surface which would normally be lost to space.  The trapped heat radiation causes the temperature of the atmosphere to rise.  As the sea/atmosphere system act like a kind of ‘steam engine’ and putting more heat energy into it makes our weather systems more energetic, they become more extreme.

The above paragraph sets out the problem, but it also sets out the solution.  To halt climate change we need to stop pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and if possible reduce the amount already there.

We burn fossil fuels to move things from one place to another, e.g. planes, cars, trains, buses, and to change one thing into another e.g. iron ore into cars, oil into plastic.  Changing one thing into another also includes the reclamation of recycled materials e.g. plastic bottles, aluminium drinks cans.  If we are to pump less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere these are the things we need to do less of.

In other words WE need to CONSUME LESS.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49499521

The problem is that we live in a ‘consumer society’ and we need to keep on consuming to keep that society functioning. And it’s OUR problem which we cannot shift onto anyone else.   It’s no use blaming politicians or capitalism which is really only one way of satisfying OUR demand for material goods or new experiences.

Are you willing to consume less?  Three possible scenarios are offered below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy

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Tameside MBC Dirty Dancing with Fossil Fuels

Four Arrested At Anti-Fracking Demo in Droyslden!
by Brian Bamford (Sec. Tameside TUC)

TODAY four objectors to Tameside Council's dirty dance promotion of fossil fuel investments through the Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) were detained in a protest of about 100 activists from FOSSIL FREE GM protesting outside Guardsman Tony Downes House in Droyslden, in Tameside and were taken away to police stations in Ashton-under-Lyne and elsewhere in Greater Manchester.   The three men and a young lass were arrested after they had super-glued and locked themselves to the railings.  

Environmental activists, Green Party members including Tameside Cllr. Lee Huntbach, and trade unionists were present at the event.

 Exclusive Bosses Secret Concordat as Pensioners Banned

The occasion today was what should have been the AGM of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund, but in a remarkable piece of Orwellian linguistics has now been re-christened the 'Annual Employers yearly update'!  The protesters were supporters of 'FOSSIL FREE GM'.

This cunning change of title was created so as to justify excluding the pensioners who are members of the Pension Fund, and public from meeting. Consequently, the event today chaired by Tameside Council boss, Brenda Warrington, became a glorified Councillor's Concordat from which the membership, the pensioners and the public were locked-out.   

 As the FOSSIL FREE GM campaigners super-glued their limbs to the railings of the Pension Fund's building and set about their business-like endeavours of spray painting the windows of the Manchester Road building urging the council bosses of Greater Manchester to quit their dirty investments in oil companies like Shell and Fossil Fuels generally, nervous councillors furtively fled round to the rear entrance to gain access to their 'BOSSES ONLY' secretive Concordat.  

In the past these Greater Manchester council bosses have tried to assure the public that they are clean and responsible in their investment decisions.  Last year in their Annual Statement these Pension Fund bigwigs declared:


'Although we will listen to special interest groups that oppose some of GMPF’s investments, for example in alcohol, gambling or pharmaceuticals, we cannot let this detract from our duty.  Considerations such as these have led us to decide not to have or develop a detailed generalised ethical investment policy.  We prefer to concentrate on developing a policy that involves using voting and other contacts to positively influence company behaviour.  In our view, simply disinvesting from particular companies is a denial of responsibility.'

Perhaps the Manchester supporters of 'FOSSIL FREE GM' can be excused for seeing this as yet more hypocrisy from their local councillors.

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Stop Blaming the Politicians

by Les May

ANTROPOGENIC climate change, it’s the story with everything; aged gurus issuing warnings of an imminent ecological disaster, self righteous protesters gluing themselves to garden fences, kiddies ‘going on strike’, teenagers meeting party leaders and best of all, the blame can be dumped on the usual suspects, people like Trump ‘the climate change denier’ and the politicians who should ‘do something’, but don’t.

But if you want to know who is really responsible go to the nearest mirror and the face you see in it is the person responsible.  The uncomfortable truth is, It’s you, or to be strictly accurate, it’s us.  And if the politicians were persuaded to ‘do something’ we would not like it one little bit.

Doing something about climate change, which requires us to drastically reduce the amount of carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere, can only be brought about by reducing the amount of energy we consume.

We need to be listening not just to those who style themselves ‘greens’ or ‘ecologists’ and are very good at telling us what the problems brought on by climate change are, but to physicists who will point out the problems of doing something about it.  Not the physics of Einstein, black-holes or the Higgs boson, but the old fashioned 19^th century physics developed to explain the limits on the efficiency of the steam engine.

In all these discussions about climate change and how to do something about it there are two very large ‘elephants in the room’.  They are called the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics.  You may not like what they say and what it means for your future lifestyle, but if you think you can ignore them you are peeing in the same pot as Trump and his ilk.

The First law says in essence ‘The Universe Does Not Provide Free Lunches’. What this means in practice is that if you want to move something or change something from one form to another, there is a price which you pay in the form of energy. Whether you fly, take the car, get the bus, cycle or walk to the shop it requires the expenditure of energy to get you there. Flying, taking the car or getting the bus means burning an energy rich fuel which pumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  Walking or cycling means burning the energy stored in our food. This does not add any additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere because the plants we ate have removed this much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere already whilst they were busy making the carbohydrate which stores the energy derived from sunlight.

The Second Law says in essence ‘Heat Energy Moves From Places With A Higher Temperature To Places With A Lower Temperature’. If you want to make energy move the other way you have to pay a cost in the form of energy. (You almost certainly have something in your kitchen doing exactly this. It’s called a refrigerator.) This law shows itself as an ‘energy tax’ when we turn one substance into another.   That means that recycling of materials also carries a cost which has to be paid In the form of energy.

So if you read in the papers that the solution to global warming is to heat our houses with electricity, travel in electric cars or to move to a hydrogen economy, don’t believe it. Just ask yourself where the energy is to come from to generate the electricity and where is the energy to come from to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen so that the hydrogen can later be burned (cleanly) to produce the energy to drive the engine of the plane/bus/car.

The solution to human induced climate change is to be found in our consuming less energy, whether that be for transport, heating, making new things or recycling old things.   It will mean changing what and how much we eat, how we package things, how we transport our food and other goods, substituting natural (i.e. plant and animal derived materials) for synthetic materials based on oil, what we wear, where and how often we holiday and what our built and natural landscapes look like.   In turn this will mean a shift in the jobs we do and the nature of employment.

If after reading this you still have a massive sense of entitlement and a belief that you have a right to consume as much energy and materials as you can afford you will see why none of the political parties, be they Greens, Tiggers, Kippers, Farage-ophiles, LibDems, Tories or Labour want to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about what needs to be done to halt climate change.

But if you do, don’t blame the politicians. Blame yourself.

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BRITAIN'S BEES?

Dear Brian,

The future of Britain’s bees hangs in the balance. Over the last few decades, we’ve lost 97% of our wildflower meadows. [1] Our bees' food supply is starting to run out. And if they’ve got less food, there’ll be fewer bees to pollinate our crops - which means we’ll have less food too. [2]

But that's where you come in, Brian. If tens of thousands of us come together over the next few weeks to plant flowers to help the bees, they’ll have enough food to survive and thrive this spring. And new evidence shows that planting bee-friendly flowers in our gardens could be the key to saving our bees. [3]


Brian, will you sign up now to get your very own packet of seeds to plant this spring - and chip in for others to get a packet too if you can?

SIGN UP FOR SEEDS

Seeds will be limited to one packet per person so as many people as possible can take part.

Don’t want to plant seeds yourself? Why not chip in to pay for someone else's packet so we can send out even more seeds to help our bees?
 It doesn’t matter whether you’ve got a plant pot on a windowsill or a garden in the countryside, anyone can plant some seeds to help our bees.

Last year over 60,000 38 Degrees members, that’s people like you Brian, came together to sow seeds for our bees. And this year we can do even better, and fill our gardens with flower food to help our buzzy friends.


So Brian, will you give our bees a helping hand? The seeds will need to be planted in the next few weeks, so the more of us sign up now, the more flowers there’ll be(e).

SIGN UP FOR SEEDS

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BAVARIA's BEES?

Bavaria celebrates most successful referendum ever – to save its bees 

Nearly 18.5 percent of eligible voters in Bavaria participated in a referendum to strengthen organic farming practices - setting a record and potentially changing the course of the country's environmental protection.

For language learners: we've highlighted some useful vocabulary in this news story. You'll find the German translations at the bottom of the article.
According to the preliminary official result, 18.4 percent of the eligible voters (or 1,745,383 people) took part in a petition for the protection of species diversity in Bavaria - setting a new record for referendum participation in the southern state.
The referendum could also carry far-reaching consequences for the German farming industry and environmental protection.
The number of people who descended on city halls across the state to sign the petition far surpassed the one million required to obtain a referendum
within six months, under the state's direct democracy system.
The proposal for a vote to protect species diversity sets a target to have 20 percent of farmland meeting organic standards by 2025, before reaching 30 percent by 2030.
It also states that 10 percent of green spaces in Bavaria should also be turned into flowering meadows, while rivers and streams must be better protected from pesticides and organic fertilizers.
Already on the first day of the two-week initiative, which ran under the slogan "Save the Bees",  Bavarians braved the frosty weather to cast their vote.
SEE ALSO: Bavarians brave cold to campaign to 'save to bees'
A historically high turnout
The highest turnout to date on a referendum in Bavaria - or 17.2 percent - was recorded in 1967.
According to Bavaria's Environment Minister Thorsten Glauber, of the Free Voters party, the success of the petition increases pressure for more species protection in cities and communities.
The initiative is aimed at changes to the Bavarian Nature Conservation Act: in addition to expanding organic farming, it states that biotopes (or ecological zones) should be better connected to each other, and that riparian strips (the area between land and a stream or river) are strongly protected.
The success of the petition also came despite opposition from the powerful regional farmers' association, which has urged the population to "stop bashing farmers" and warned of the potential financial costs to the industry.
The petition also puts the Bavarian government led by the CSU -- sister  party of Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU -- under intense pressure, as it counts farming communities among its staunchest supporters.
Having ruled the wealthy state known for its Oktoberfest and lederhosen traditional dress almost uninterrupted for decades, the CSU in October lost its absolute majority as voters angry with its hardline stance against migrants turned to the Greens party.
Many also turned to the Greens in a bid to improve air quality and protect natural resources.
SEE ALSO: Why is the Green Party suddenly flying so high in Germany?
Daily Süddeutsche Zeitung noted that with Bavaria now poised to decide on  the future of bees with a popular vote, the region "could become a forerunner in Europe on environmental protection". 
Many voters and political parties, such as the Greens, hailed the success of the referendum. "18.4% of eligible voters are for a better nature protection law," tweeted the Greens.

Wir sind überwältigt! Das vorläufige amtliche Endergebnis bestätigt: Das #Volksbegehren @VArtenvielfalt ist das erfolgreichste aller Zeiten in #Bayern! 18,4% der Wahlberechtigten haben für ein besseres #Naturschutzgesetz unterschrieben. DANKE! https://t.co/yr83lwjHCH pic.twitter.com/phx5YKRCCP

— GRÜNE Bayern (@Gruene_Bayern) February 14, 2019

Next steps
The representative of the people's petition, Agnes Becker (of the Ecological Democratic Party, or ÖDP) said that she would hold a round table with Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) to discuss the demands from the bill of the people's petition.
"We are going into the discussion with all our good will," Becker told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The newspaper hailed the initiative as a "revolution" and "too progressive" for the CSU.

Volksbegehren Artenschutz #Bayern ist so fortschrittlich, wie die #CSU nie sein wollte https://t.co/ueACbR6T4V #VolksbegehrenArtenvielfalt
die Frage ist, ob die CSU und deren Personal überhaupt #Umwelt kann

— Ernst Dietrich (@gowcms) February 14, 2019

Rochdale to be 'a plastic-free borough'!

The Town Hall's plastic cutlery

by Brian Bamford

Council Leader Councillor Allen Brett

ON January 25th, this year, on the back of all the publicity about plastics in the environment the Rochdale Council leader declared his intention to make Rochdale one of the first single use plastic-free (SUP-free) boroughs in the country.

Yesterday, visitors to the Christmas Fair in Rochdale Town Hall may have been surprised to find that their meals were being served with plastic knives and folks.

And this was in the week that a dead  sperm whale*  was washed ashore in eastern Indonesia had consumed a horrifying collection of plastic trash, including 115 drinking cups, 25 plastic bags, plastic bottles, two flip-flops and a bag containing more than 1,000 pieces of string.  In total, the plastic contents of the whale’s stomach weighed some 13.2 pound (six kilograms).

The rotting carcass of the 31-foot (9.5-meter) whale was last found Monday in shallow waters just off Kapota Island in the Wakatobi National Park, according to news reports.

I'm told by people who were at the Rochdale Town Hall special 'Xmas Do' that the cups available were plastic coated as well.  Thus the sperm whale in Indonesia won't have had chance to gourge itself on the this debre.

It seems that Indonesia, with a population of 263 million people and 34,000 miles (54,716 kilometers) of coastline, ranked second, behind China, on a list of the top 20 worst polluters of plastic trash to the world’s ocean, according to a 2015 study that found 192 coastal countries contribute a combined total of 8.5 million tons of plastic waste to the oceans every year.

Rochdale is not a coastal town, but it looks like the good Councillor Brett is not managing to keep to the 5-point plan to give the town the noble plastic-free status he put forward last January.

*   Sperm whales normally feed mostly on giant squid, supplemented with octopus, fish, shrimp, crab, and small sharks. They are found throughout all the world’s oceans and are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act and considered depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

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Tetrosyl Campaign in Rochdale

Residents hand Tetrosyl petition to local councillors

www.rochdaleonline.co.uk

Residents who strongly object to Tetrosyl’s application to store and distribute hazardous chemicals in the refurbished...

ON 8th March, 2017 some residents went to view Tetrosyl’s application for hazardous substance consent. These are available for viewing in the Lodge on the Tetrosyl warehouse site, Royle Barn Road, Castleton. OL11 3DT

Hazardous substances, for which Tetrosyl are applying for consent to store on the site include:

2,000 Kg Petroleum ( Hazardous and Explosive ) least of your worries.

300 Kg LPG ( Hazardous and Explosive ) Already stored on site in greater quantity than stated ---->     (DESPITE NO LICENCE HELD !!! ) <--------- div="">

If the above exploded it would produce equivalent blast and carnage to the IRA bombing of the Manchester Arndale Centre June 1996

add to that

2,000,000 Kg of aerosols ( Hazardous and Explosive ) stored on site

6,000,000 Kg of household, car cleaning and maintenance products; ( Hazardous and possibly flammable & explosive ) stored on site

1,500,000 Kg of oils, fragrances and maintenance sprays ( Hazardous & possibly Explosive ) stored on site

150,000 Kg Peroxide hardeners ( highly explosive oxidisers , unstable and produce poisonous gases. ) stored on site

4,000,000 Kg of Hazardous substances to be moved by 50 lorries in/out each day, i.e. 28,000,000 Kg Hazardous substance moved/week

If ALL the above exploded at once it would produce a greater blast and carnage than the atomic bomb droped on Hiroshima in August 1945

By comparisson, it is estimated the largest explosion in modern times that destroyed parts of Tianjin in China and killed 173 people and injured hundreds more was caused by the explosion of only 800,000Kg of combustible material, yet had the devastation power 25% greater than the atomic bomb droped on Hiroshima in August 1945

Highly flammable and hazardous products like these should not be stored near residential housing. ( IN ANY QUANTITY )
public buildings and facilities should be AT LEAST 1 kilometre away from a site storing dangerous and hazardous, flammable and explosive substances.

The Ex-Woolworths site ( now owned by Tetrosyl ) has already been involved in 2 major catastrophic fires the second being on May 1971 where the entire complex was destroyed by fire.
Woolworths had 2,500,000 Kg of water stored on site in case of Fire, it failed to stop both fires.
Tetrosyl are proposing a 9000Kg Water Deluge tank for their sprinkler system.

Don't tempt fate again, this time any accident would be far far worse, Woolworths was NOT a warehouse of primarily Hazardous, dangerous & Explosive goods.
and Tetrosyl have already demonstrated they are prepared to break the rules, by already storing Dangerous & Hazardous goods on site WITHOUT having obtained a licence for doing so. CAN YOU TRUST TETROSYL WITH YOUR LIVES, HOMES, LIVELIHOOD, CHILDREN and FAMILIES ?

If the Answer is NO then you need to say something NOW, before it is too late !

It is important that residents write to Rochdale Borough Council to make representation against this. The deadline for letters is the 21st March,2017.

If you are worried about a warehouse full of flammable, hazardous and oxidising agents in your town then It is important that residents write to Rochdale Borough Council to make representation against the application to store the dangerous goods. The deadline for letters is the 21st March,2017. If they don't get permission then the dangerous goods will not be stored in Castleton.

The address to write to is

Rochdale Borough Council,

Number One Riverside,

Smith Street,

Rochdale,

OL16 1XU

Deadline for objections is 9th April, 2017