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My quest for the elusive Lulworth skipper: take two

July 21, 2009

I finally hit the jackpot and catch sight of the rare species – my eighth new butterfly of the year. Just 10 more to go

Almost a year since my failed search for one of Britain’s smallest, rarest – and let’s face it, one of our dullest – butterflies, I am having another go. The quest for the Lulworth skipper, take two.

I am back at its eponymous home, Lulworth Cove in Dorset. It’s the right time of year (mid-July), the right time of day (lunchtime) and the right weather (warm and sunny). For like so many of Britain’s rare butterflies, the Lulworth skipper is a fussy little thing, and only flies when the sun is actually out – which means it spends most of its time hiding in the long grass.

So here I am, trudging up the hill from the packed car park, butterfly net and binoculars in hand, to the sound of skylarks, meadow pipits and the clattering chatter of a nearby stonechat.

Last August I saw almost a dozen butterfly species here, including a trio of stunning blues – common, chalkhill and the beautiful Adonis blue. Today, gatekeepers, marbled whites and meadow browns flit around the wild flowers, along with a single larger butterfly, a dark green fritillary.

The contrast between this large, gaudy, orange creature, and the Lulworth skipper, could hardly be greater. Skippers are a huge group of butterflies – more than 3,000 in all – eight of which are found here in Britain. Their small size, dull colours and unobtrusive behaviour have more in common with day-flying moths than with their larger relatives such as the red admiral and painted lady. Indeed some lepidopterists hardly consider them butterflies at all. But they still count in my quest to see all Britain’s 58 species of butterfly – so I still need to find them.

The sun keeps going behind the clouds, the breeze is strengthening, but I remain optimistic. And then I see it: a tiny, orange insect fluttering weakly over the long grass a few yards in front of me. A quick sweep of the net, a quick check of my field guide, and I am convinced I have a Lulworth skipper – at last.

But an hour or so later, after seeing several more of these tiny butterflies, I am feeling troubled. Lulworth isn’t the only skipper here – so maybe I have confused it with a commoner relative. I check my other, more detailed field guide, and sure enough, the butterflies I have been seeing are not Lulworths at all, but small skippers.

The next day I try again, this time a few miles to the east, at Durlston Country Park just south of Swanage. And despite an approaching weather front, and cloudy skies, I finally hit the jackpot. A tiny insect, even smaller than yesterday’s small skipper, with dark, olive-brown wings tinged with gold. Lulworth skipper, at last. I take out my antique magnifying glass, and have a closer look at its fluffy body, closed wings, and huge, black eyes.

The Lulworth skipper is, according to David Newland’s excellent book Discover Butterflies in Britain, the only British butterfly whose name has never changed throughout its history. Yet what an inappropriate name it is! The species was first discovered here in Lulworth in 1832, and the Dorset coast remains its only British home, yet it can be found across a broad swath of continental Europe, north Africa and the Middle East, from the Canary Islands and Morocco to Iraq and Iran. Another example – like the Camberwell beauty (which Americans call the mourning cloak) – of a species, though rare in Britain, saddled with a highly unsuitable name.

For me, it’s my eighth new butterfly of the year, and my 48th of Britain’s resident butterflies. Just 10 species to go…

butterfly-conservation.org/

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Would you cover your tracks with roadside assistance for cyclists?

July 21, 2009

If the RAC or the AA offered a ‘breakdown’ service, would you sign up? What sort of policy details would you find attractive?

Every cyclist can probably recall a time when they’ve “caught a flat”, or slipped a chain on the way to work or an important meeting. Not all of us carry puncture repair kits at all times, or have the know-how or time to repair a bike on the spot and continue with our journey as if nothing’s happened. I suspect that many of us would like to have the reassurance that a bike mechanic, or lift to our destination, is only a phonecall away. If motorists can travel safe in the knowledge they are covered by roadside assistance, then why can’t cyclists?

Earlier this month, the American Automobile Association – better known as the AAA – started to offer roadside assistance to cyclists in Oregon and parts of Idaho. “We’re the first AAA chapter in the country to try this,” said Marie Dodds, spokeswoman for the AAA of Oregon and Idaho. “It only makes sense, since bicycling is such a popular transportation option in this part of the country.”

A survey of AAA members last year found that 37% of its members in Oregon and Idaho said they would like bicycles added to their cover. All of the AAA’s Plus, Plus RV and Premier members now receive the cover at no extra expense.

“In some ways, we are literally inventing the wheel, so we don’t know what the demand will be like,” said Dodds. “We may just get overwhelmed.”

At present, the cover doesn’t include an on-the-spot repair of the bike, just a lift to anywhere within a 25-mile radius of the breakdown. “There are a million sizes of tires and tubes,” explained Dodds. “Our people are not prepared to repair bikes.”

Still, it’s a start and this innovative move has been welcomed by biking bloggers in the US. However, it has left one AAA competitor fuming. Better World Club says that it has been offering nationwide breakdown cover to cyclists since 2003.

“Gee, I’m used to saying that Better World Club offers the nation’s only bicycle roadside assistance,” said Better World Club’s president Mitch Rofsky. “Since this service is only being offered in Oregon and southern Idaho, I guess I’ll have to change that to ‘Better World Club offers the nation’s only nationwide bicycle roadside assistance’. We look forward to AAA copying our mass transit discount as that would run counter to its decades long hostility to mass transit.”

Rofsky does make a valid point: should cyclists really welcome such a hand of friendship from long-time members of the motoring lobby? After all, the AAA and their ilk have been campaigning for years to reduce fuel taxation and increase road-building. Of course, the roadside assistance for cyclists is only being offered to car-owning AAA members, but that shouldn’t negate how useful such cover could be.

Would cyclists here in the UK welcome such a move by the companies offering nationwide breakdown assistance? I decided to call the AA, RAC and Green Flag to see if they had ever thought about it.

“We’re watching developments [in the US] with interest, but have no plans yet,” said an RAC spokesperson.

It was a similar message from the AA: “We constantly look to improve and develop the services we offer members, but we have no plans at present to offer roadside assistance to cyclists.”

Dan Robinson, head of Green Flag, said: “We have no plans at the moment to follow in the footsteps of recovery clubs in America. However, we pride ourselves on our innovation. If there was an appetite for bike recovery amongst our customers, we could include it in our personal cover product option.”

A Green Flag spokesperson did add, though, that the company would “be interested to hear if Guardian readers wanted this service and if you get any feedback we would love to know”.

I see that as a challenge, fellow cyclists. If you would be interested in being covered by a policy offering roadside assistance then please do express your opinions below. What sort of price and policy details would you find attractive? Better World Club’s “Bicycle Only” membership, for example, costs $39.95 (£24) a year ($17 for each household’s additional cyclist) and for this premium you are allowed two service calls and up to 30 miles of “coverage” a year. It also throws in a free enrolment to the League of American Bicyclists which normally costs $30 a year.

Is this the kind of package you would sign up to? Or is this something, say, a coalition of local bike shops could offer cyclists instead?

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Farmers show little appetite for anti-meat campaigns

July 20, 2009

Are campaigns such as Meat Free Monday wrongly vilifying farmers and meat eaters, or could we all do with a little less meat in our diet?

Will you be eating meat today? If so, you will be pleasing Rees Roberts, the chairman of Meat Promotion Wales, who said this weekend at the Royal Welsh Show in Powys that campaigns such as Meat Free Monday portray farmers and meat eaters as people who do not care about the environment.

Last month, Sir Paul McCartney launched his Meat Free Monday campaign to try and show “what we can do to make a meaningful contribution to a cleaner, more sustainable, healthier world”.

The former Beatle said:

Having one designated meat-free day a week is actually a meaningful change that everyone can make, that goes to the heart of several important political, environmental and ethical issues all at once.

But Roberts is having none of it. He is quoted by the BBC as saying:

We’ve had celebrities calling for meat-free Mondays and even a town in Belgium trying to ban meat one day a week. The more extreme elements go further, accusing livestock farmers and meat eaters of killing the planet and heaping all the woes of climate change onto our shoulders. We need to introduce some balance into this debate because climate change concerns everyone.

Hybu Cig Cymru [Meat Promotion Wales] is not different to any other responsible organisation in addressing the issue directly. We are working on a climate change roadmap, looking at the impact the beef and sheep supply chain has on climate change. We are investigating how to take positive steps to mitigate that impact without having an adverse effect on our businesses. This is a responsible approach. Our job is to feed the world, not destroy it.

I can certainly understand the frustration of livestock farmers when they see globe-trotting celebrities seemingly pointing their fingers at the meat industry in an accusing manner. But I also think that urging people to give up eating meat for just one day a week isn’t exactly asking for much, especially when the environmental impact of rearing meat for human consumption is obvious and well-documented.

Away from all the celebrity hype, the Meat Free Monday website offers straight-forward, sensible advice about cutting some, or even all, of the meat out of your diet. There’s a handful of Linda McCartney’s recipes, as well as some recipes from other big name chefs. (Intriguingly, over on the Meat Free Monday site hosted by the vegetarian readymeal company GoodLife, which offers a range of vegan and vegetarian restaurant reviews, there’s no review yet of Heather Mills brand new vegan restaurant in Hove. Is Mills, one wonders, a Meat Free Monday supporter, too?)

But, to be honest, I haven’t heard much about the campaign since its high-profile launch. I see that its Facebook page has more than 3,600 followers, but is anyone out there really giving up their bacon sarnies on Monday mornings? Let us know.

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Let’s help station managers see the light

July 20, 2009

Train stations should be turning their lights off during daylight

Last month I asked why train stations don’t switch off lights during daylight hours to save energy. I called on you to challenge your local station to find out – and the response was brilliant. Cyclists, mothers, therapists, local Friends of the Earth groups, university students, pensioners and architects all pitched in.

The most common answer that stations gave to readers – by a long margin – was “because they are always on!” Other justifications included “the windows are dirty”, “it is because of health and safety”, “we are testing them in case the lights melt”, “there are no separate switches”, “the sensors are not working”, and the ultimate “I don’t know why.” But my favourite has to be “because it is a Victorian building”.

Having been promised in June by mayor Boris Johnson’s office that action would be taken on the station that sparked all this off – Stratford in east London – I got back in touch to see how successful Boris had been. The answer: not very. Sadly, it seems no one from the station manager to the mayor of London can actually turn off the Stratford floodlights guzzling electricity and emitting carbon all day long.

London Underground is now commissioning a report from its electricity company on how it can save electricity. Turning the floodlights off during the day at Stratford therefore has to await this report and the report into the response to the report and the report into the consultation about the report on the report…

I was reminded again of how broken our political system is by a farcical anecdote from a reader. They wrote directly to a senior London Underground executive asking if the lights at Stratford Station could be turned off during daylight; the reply suggested they write to the Green London Assembly members about it.

Having been inspired by our readers, I thought I needed to get out there and experience the frontline again myself. I visited as many of London’s mainline stations as I could to see what is happening. It was a mixed bag. In total, I found massive amounts of lighting being wasted during daylight hours that, if left off for an average of eight hours a day, I estimate would save more than £120,000 of taxpayers’ money every year.

Victoria Station was the worst. The huge Victorian glass-covered train sheds, concourse and entrance portico were all flooded with artificial lighting as well as glorious sunshine. Train station managers are public employees just like MPs so they should not be abusing taxpayers’ money like this.

However, I discovered that there is a useful but little known Network Rail customers’ charter that states that if a customer has a problem with any environmental standard at a station, they have a right to go to the station’s reception, demand to see the duty station manager and they must see you. Alternatively, you can call Network Rail on 08457 484950 or email them.

I tested this charter out in Paddington and King’s Cross stations. Staff at Paddington were particularly helpful and said they had not realised the lights were on in the shopping concourse. They said they would fix the sensors which should have turned them off.

Now it’s up to you to keep the pressure up on your local stations. Let me know how you get on below – together we can get these unnecessary lights switched off.

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My crash course in food waste with Tristram Stuart

July 17, 2009

In the UK we chuck out a third of the food we buy. Is there a moral argument against being so wasteful?

A couple of nights ago, I cleaned out my fridge. It wasn’t an especially pleasant experience. Nor, as others have said previously, was it a good one from the perspective of my ecological self-esteem. There were things in there that were barely recognisable, let alone edible: bags of salad turned brown and mushy; half-lemons gone hard and wrinkly; and unused pots of yoghurt long past their use-by-dates. Gordon Brown, who last year urged British households to cut down on food waste, would not have been impressed.

This wasn’t, I regret to say, an especially unusual experience. But I did feel worse about it than usual, because I have just received a crash-course in the intricacies of food waste from Tristram Stuart, the author of a new book, Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal.

The book reveals how much food gets chucked away right across the food supply system, and it makes for pretty shocking reading. Consider just this one fact: from the bread and other grain-based products that British households throw away each year, Stuart estimates it would be possible to alleviate the hunger of 30 million people. That sounds at first like an improbably large number – until one considers that British households chuck away 2.6bn slices of bread each year. Overall, a 2007 government survey found that we throw away some 6.7m tonnes of food a year – a third of the food we buy.

This is a bad idea for several reasons. A high proportion of chucked-out food gets sent to landfill, where it decomposes into methane – contributing to global warming and exacerbating poverty in the developing world. Buying food simply to chuck it out is a waste of all those precious resources – land, water, energy – that were put into growing, processing and transporting it. And there seems something wrong with wasting so much food when so many people across the world are living in poverty.

Of course, some would say that the wastefulness of rich countries like ours has no bearing on poverty in other parts of the world. It’s not as if the loaves of bread we’re throwing away could actually be shipped to other countries.

But Stuart tackles this convenient get-out. Grain, like many other foods, is a globally traded product, with a limited supply. If rich countries are wasting lots of the grain they buy, it stands to reason that they are buying more of it than they would otherwise need to. That unnecessarily high demand reduces the overall supply, which pushes the price up, making grain less affordable for poor and undernourished people in other parts of the world.

Does this mean, then, that by wasting food I am in some sense morally accountable for the hunger of others? I’m not sure about that. Apportioning blame in these matters is hugely complicated and there is a risk of being too finger-wagging.

But even if you stop short of saying that wasting food makes you personally to blame for other people’s suffering, I think it is fair to say that we have a responsibility to ensure that we don’t waste food. There are sound reasons why profligacy has always been considered a sin.

As well as being a writer, Stuart is a freegan, and I recently accompanied him on one of his bin-rummaging expeditions – an experience I’ve written about for this Sunday’s Observer.

What do you think about the issue of food waste? How conscious are you of chucking food away, and do you think there is a moral aspect to not doing so?

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Real-time ‘CO2 intensity’ site makes the case for midnight dishwashing

July 17, 2009

The launch of the website Realtime Carbon could change the way we think about the environmental impact of electricity

Today sees the launch of Realtime Carbon, a neat website that could change the way we think about the environmental impact of electricity. The purpose of the site is to report the carbon footprint of a unit of power as it changes over time.

It may sound geeky but it’s hugely significant. Over the course of 24 hours, demand for electricity fluctuates widely. Demand is lowest in the small hours – hence energy tariffs such as Economy 7 – and highest in the daytime and early evening, when the largest number of appliances and lights are in use.

Demand also changes over the course of the year, as there’s greater need for electric lighting and heating during dark, cold winter evenings.

It goes without saying that the more electricity we consume, the more CO2 gets generated by power stations. Less obvious is the fact that, as demand goes up, each unit of electricity becomes more polluting – the “carbon intensity” goes up, to use the jargon.

This is because rising demand for energy forces up the wholesale price of electricity, making it viable to switch on the dirtiest, least-efficient power stations. In the middle of the night, nuclear and gas plants can cover most of our demand. In the daytime and evenings, by contrast, a much higher proportion of our energy needs to come from coal.

Anyone interested in energy and emissions has known about this for years – though only on a theoretical level. For the first time, Realtime Carbon actually gives us some numbers.

I was surprised by the difference between carbon intensity at different times of day. As the site’s graph shows, the emissions of the UK grid during the last 24 hours has ranged from 330g of CO2 per kWh all the way up to 465g – a leap of 40%. In other words, boiling a kettle at 1pm causes over a third more CO2 than boiling the same kettle at 1am.

In fairness, boiling the kettle isn’t a great example. Not many people would be willing to stay up until after midnight to make flasks of low-carbon tea and coffee for the following day. But some other appliances, such as dishwashers and washing machines, can easily be turned on late in the evening or set to come on in the middle of the night using a timer. The result, according to the new website, would be emissions savings as high as 40%.

Best of all, the site makes its data available as an XML webfeed (pdf) – the first of its kind anywhere in the world, according to the site’s creators. This feed could be used by manufactures to create appliances that can automatically limit their emissions by consuming power at times when power generation is at its greenest.

The webfeed could also be used in government policy. If large companies were required to use hour-by-hour carbon intensity figures when calculating the footprint of their energy use, they would be motivated to adapt their use, make themselves look greener, and help reduce the emissions of the grid.

For now, the figures provided by Realtime Carbon are still somewhat approximate. They’re based on the live figures for the “fuel mix” feeding into the grid at any one time: how many gigawatts of coal, for example, and how many of hydro, nuclear, gas, wind and so on. The next phase will be to take the efficiency of individual power stations into consideration, to reflect the fact that two plants can have different emissions even if they’re both burning the same fuel.

In the long-run, smart meters will allow electricity companies to vary the price of power in real time, giving individuals and companies a financial incentive to consume less when demand and emissions are high. In the meantime, Realtime Carbon helps green-minded people and businesses start reducing their electricity emissions right away.

The only question is why someone didn’t do this years ago.

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Seeing red: share your bike rage experiences

July 17, 2009

Sooner or later most cyclists encounter bike rage, but staying safe isn’t always about following the rules of the road

Sometimes I think cyclists should never be allowed on the road. Two wheels at 15mph are no match for two tonnes of steel machinery at 30mph or more – especially when driven by an enraged motorist.

I haven’t yet been threatened by a motorist wanting to chew at my ear, nor been confronted by a gorilla on rollerskates, but I have come close.

One night in late autumn, at about 9pm, I was heading home, taking my normal route. I had thrashed out my ideal route between work and home, based not only on distance but also quietness and quickness of roads. At one particularly nasty and unavoidable four-lane junction near Oval tube, where the A23 to Brighton meets the A3 to Portsmouth – two of London’s most dangerous roads for cyclists – my safety strategy is always to try to stay ahead of the traffic.

I took off on green from the lights, and managed to reach about 17mph just after the bend. For the driver behind me, this was still not fast enough, even though the lights ahead were turning red. He beeped his horn at me, expecting me to move me into a lane that was already full of traffic whizzing by into Brixton. I held my position and he beeped again. I turned to look at him. He was on his mobile phone.

At the lights I tried to explain, without a single expletive, that he might have endangered me by forcing me out of his way and into the path of another vehicle, all while driving on his mobile phone. The Highway Code after all defines cyclists as “other road users requiring extra care”.

I thought nothing of it. Until he stepped out of his car and started yelling at me. I had no idea what he was saying as I moved away from the lights. He overtook me and cut me up, trying to get me to stop. He waited for me in laybys and tailed me for several miles.

I didn’t feel like I was in immediate danger, but I didn’t think he wanted to invite me for a cup of tea and a nice chat. So I memorised his number plate, “just in case”.

After seeing his car drive past me for the sixth time, before a particularly dark stretch of road near my home, I called the police.

I was surprised and impressed by how seriously the police took my call. A car was sent to look for the driver within minutes as I waited for the police outside a bar in Clapham with a rather large, if bemused, bouncer on the door.

My main concern was that the driver might find out where I lived if I continued home on my bike. I admit, it’s not really the best use of police time in Brixton, but they slung my bike in the police van and delivered me and my bike to the door, just as my then-partner pulled up in a cab, looking slightly concerned.

Seldom now do I remonstrate with dangerous or thoughtless motorists, least of all at night. I ride aggressively, but keep my mouth shut, or smile.

Have you ever had a bike rage experience that got out of control?

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Bayer pesticide seal of approval stings Britain’s beekeepers

July 16, 2009

Why is the Bee Keepers’ Association endorsing a pesticide that its members believe is responsible for the deaths of honeybees?

Pesticides called neonicotinoids are widely implicated in the deaths of honeybees across the world. Their use has been restricted in France, Germany and Italy. The Co-op banned their use in its products and last week, the Soil Association in Britain launched a petition to get them banned.

So it is a shock to discover that the British Bee Keepers’ Association (BBKA), a charity in its 135th year, is receiving money from one of the main manufacturers of the allegedly bee-killing brew, Bayer Crop Sciences, and endorsing some of its products as “bee-friendly”. It comes as slightly less of a shock to find that many of its members are badly stung and campaigning against by the link-up.

Neonicotinoids come in a number of varieties, such as Bayer’s clothianidin, banned in France and Germany from last year. The evidence against them is not proven. But, in 2004, the US government’s Environmental Protection Agency allowed clothianidin to go on sale to farmers, noting that it could be toxic to honey bees and other pollinators through leaving residues in nectar and pollen. And its permission was conditional on Bayer supplying research data to back up its claim that the chemical was safe for bees.

But, despite a widely reported crisis in US bee colonies since, no data have ever been published and campaigners at the Natural Resources Defense Council recently went to court to get their release, assuming they exist.

A spokesperson for Bayer Crop Sciences said; “If misused, or used inappropriately, clothanidin will affect bees – that is why it is used as a seed treatment so that bees are not exposed to concentrations that will have any effect on them.”

To be fair, the BBKA does not endorse Bayer’s neonicotnoid brand. But it does provide its seal of approval to Decis, the company’s pyrethroid insecticide, which many of its members also regard as a threat to bees.

The Bayer website reproduces the BBKA logo beside the statement that “Decis is endorsed by the British Bee Keepers Association” provided it is “used in the correct manner“. The BBKA’s president Tim Lovett said the organisation does not endorse the product as such, only its “proper use as per the label”.

Many BBKA members are angry. In a post first published on the association website, Graham White, who resigned over the affair and set up a rival organisation, said: “BBKA is actively endorsing a product which is lethal to bees – it was designed to be lethal to any winged insect. Many of us believe that a secret deal done with the pesticide manufacturers – without recourse to BBKA’s membership – has effectively silenced BBKA or any issue to do with the pesticides crisis.”

His criticisms, and those of others, were subsequently taken down by the association, but have been reposted elsewhere. Lovett and Bayer Crop Sciences deny any secret deal. “We have no other contractual relationships with Bayer and in our experience we have never felt in a position whereby we cannot criticise the company or its products,” said Lovett. A spokesperson for the company said the endorsement had been approved by BBKA members and included “no gagging clause, no restriction whatsoever”.

They both said the purpose of the arrangement was to encourage the use of the pesticide that minimises the threat to bees, for example using the product when bees are not foraging and giving beekeepers sufficient notice of when spraying is planned.

The association endorses the use of four pesticides, including Decis. Each has an “endorsement agreement”, though these are not made public, and no donation exceeds £15,000 over three years. According to Lovett, the annual fee for endorsement of Decis does not exceed four figures, but he would not disclose the precise sum.

Nonetheless, the BBKA is concerned enough about the potential toxicity of neonictinoids to call for new research. In January it warned that “current risk assessment methods for assessing the potential impacts of pesticides on honeybees may not be sensitive enough to detect sublethal effects, especially influences on honeybee behaviour. Such an example might be with neonictinoid compounds, with disorientation and possible memory loss contributing to colony losses.” It asked for a reassessment of risk assessment methodologies.

The BBKA says its technical committee rules whether any endorsed products are “bee-friendly”. Critics say the committee is composed not of independent experts but largely of association insiders, including its president Tim Lovett.

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Activists: we’ll ‘rush’ parliament to pressure Copenhagen climate summit

July 16, 2009

It may not have been the ‘summer of rage’ that was feared, but environmental activists have big plans for Copenhagen

Environmental activists last night set up an alternative People’s Parliament and called for drastic action to jolt the government into action, even as some of them admitted that the green movement is – just temporarily – a little “stuck”.

Beneath a rainy sky in the Old Palace Yard opposite the Houses of Parliament, around a hundred campaigners gathered to berate the government for dragging its feet.

While speakers broadly welcomed yesterday’s plan for a low carbon Britain, Darren Johnson of the Green Party said he deeply regretted the “dismal failure we’ve seen from the government,” and Colin Challen MP revealed that direct government action since 1990 had cut carbon emissions by a dismal 15%. The Save Vestas campaign talked about the 600 jobs about to be lost in the Isle of Wight when the island’s wind turbine factory shuts, which they claimed was a result of the government’s failure to fully back the wind industry.

Privately, activists admitted that the last couple of months have been quiet ones, confounding police expectations of a “summer of rage”.

Perhaps the G20 protests let the steam out of the kettle, or perhaps the large numbers of activists under bail restrictions and awaiting charges or trial is deterring action. Perhaps they are too busy poring over the small print of yesterday’s white paper, which sets out how the government will achieve its 2020 carbon targets. The numbers joining climate change groups have not diminished, but most campaigners yesterday admitted that they’re taking a breather in preparation for the autumn build-up to climate negotations at Copenhagen.

Tamsin Omond of Climate Rush ended the night by reminding everyone to join a march on 5 December, designed to spur politicians at Copenhagen to take serious action:

Meetings like this are great for getting us together, for talking about things. But how are we going to put the fear of god into our politicians before they go to Copenhagen? I want to advocate civil disobedience and direct action.

There will be a vanguard on that march, we’re planning a Climate Rush of parliament, we’ll knock on that door, we’ll go in, we’ll occupy parliament, we’ll put wind turbines on the roof, we’ll seedbomb the gardens, every terrace, every windowbox …

She did later admit that the march was taking place on a Saturday. “So we may have to stay in there a couple of days before they notice.” But we won’t let boring reality get in the way of a grand finale …

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