Worldwide Atomic Woes

Photo by Martin Burns

Torness Nuclear Power Station, 20 miles down the road from Edinburgh, was shut down on Tuesday after the discovery of jellyfish on seawater filter screens.

Jellyfish! In the water! Who'dathunk?

It's not the first time that Torness has had to be shut down because of blockages. Seaweed clogged up the cooling water intakes back in 2006, just one of the many incidents at this plant. Earlier this year we had contamination of the groundwater around the site with radiation. And who can forget the time that an RAF Tornado caught fire and crashed into the sea less than a kilometre from the plant?

In America this month, we've had a Nebraska Nuclear Power plant flooded, and as we speak Los Alamos in New Mexico has been evacuated after a wildfire came close to destroying a top-secret nuclear laboratory. And then there's the ongoing problems at Fukushima.

And yet despite the rest of the world seeing nuclear power for what it actually is - the most dangerous way to boil water ever invented - and turning it's back on the technology, the UK government has decided that nuclear is the way to go and has announced the sites of 8 new power stations.

Stupidity reigns supreme.

Use The Force

You'll have seen the Volkswagen advert where a kid is fooled into thinking he has "the force" by a keyfob. Here's what happens when you get Greenpeace to finish the ad:

VW: The Dark Side from Greenpeace in Nordic on Vimeo.

Tonight Is The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel

Photo by epSos.de

The M74 extension opens today. It's a win for the motoring lobby and politicians with mindsets stuck in the 1950s. It's a loss for everyone else.

I've been unlucky enough to have been stuck on the Kingston Bridge in Glasgow during rush hour. It's only happened to me a couple of times, but it's something that gets burned into your memory. I thought at the time, and I think every time I hear a traffic report on Radio Scotland, 'why do people put themselves through that every day?'

The solution, of course, is not an extra lane that will be rapidly filled up, or an extension to a motorway that will only allow more cars to sit stuck in a jam. The solution is more public transport giving commuters more choice in how they get to their work and back.

I've watched in the last couple of years as the community around Polmadie train depot has been flattened to make way for the concrete edifice, with the views of Glasgow from the West Coast Main Line, which used to open out before you, now obscured by a road on concrete stilts. Welcome To Scotland.

Of course, as Friends of the Earth Scotland and the Scottish Greens point out, the road should never have been built in the first place. It's a failure in the joined-up thinking of politicians who overrode the public inquiry and allowed it to go ahead, and then claim that they're trying to make this country the greenest in the world.

And one last point: just because a Scot invented tarmac, doesn't mean we have to cover every square inch of the country in it!

Support Your Local Wind Turbine

Photo by PEDAL/Greener Leith

I have been somewhat remiss in not mentioning this before, but with a bit of luck the Edinburgh foreshore will be graced with a wind turbine soon.

The communities of Leith and Portobello are hoping to get funding to construct the turbine at Seafield Sewage Works, which is almost equidistant between the two. Revenue raised by the turbine will be used by Leith and Portobello to enhance their local environments.

But they need funding, and that's where you come in. The more people they have "supporting" them on the energyshare website, the more chance they have of receiving money to take their plans forward.

Please take two minutes out of your day to visit their campaign page and click on "Support This Group".

Mind The Gap

Photo by luisvilla

I had a good chuckle this morning reading this article in the Guardian about RailSpeak.

It reminded me of the manager who came from the airline industry, and decided that all RailSpeak had to stop and our announcements had to be dumbed down. She told us that passengers (sorry, Customers!) didn't know what we were talking about about when we used technical words like 'points' and 'signals'. She then decided that we only ever needed to use two phrases to describe any problem delaying us. Either, "The train is broken" or "The track is broken".

Like many of my colleagues, I ignored the word from on-high and continued using the phrases I had been using for many years. What she had failed to understand was that people grow up hearing these words. Thomas The Tank Engine has to deal with broken points in every second episode!

People come to expect hearing RailSpeak phrases like "depart" and "terminate". The cynical commuter may become jaded by them, but for the twice-a-year traveller they're a symbol that they're actually on a journey, that they're in another world for a couple of hours and the strangeness is to be savoured. Imagine the outcry if it was decided that tennis had to use the word "zero" instead of "love" to denote no score, it would take away from the richness of the game.

In saying all that, there are some of my colleagues who I would quite happily ban from using the PA. Like the steward who takes ten minutes to list every single item they have for sale on their trolley, or the Train Manager who told the passengers "For those of you hoping to catch the connection to Aberdeen, tough. You've missed it." And another gem from the same guy: "Buses replace trains from Carlisle. You won't see me on the bus, though. I'm getting a taxi."

And I still cringe at the time I got a frog in my throat just as I was saying the name of my company, 'Cross Country'. Only one syllable was broadcast to the entire train.

Green In The Media 27th June - 3rd July

Monday 27th June

One Planet
On: BBC World Service Radio
Time: 11:32 to 11:50 (Also 1630, Fri 1930, Sat 0030, Sun 0030)
One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Dispatches
On: Channel 4
Time: 20:00 to 21:00
The Real Price of Gold.
Dispatches challenges the British gold jewellery industry to come clean about where the gold in their jewellery comes from. Businesswoman Deirdre Bounds, who ran a successful ethical travel company, reveals what's wrong with the industry and goes on the road to present her unique take on how things could be done very differently. Secretly filming at Britain's biggest high street jewellery chains, Bounds exposes shop assistants giving vastly misleading information about where the gold in their jewellery is mined. Then, unable to get a straight answer from the stores, Bounds travels to the source: to the mines. In Senegal, she meets a child miner and reveals his hazardous daily existence at an illegal mine. She also looks at allegations that a large-scale industrial mine in Honduras has caused hair loss and rashes in the local population.

Tuesday 28th June

Home Planet
On: BBC Radio 4
Time: 15:00 to 15:30
Programme answering listeners' questions about planet Earth and man's impact upon it.

Thursday 30th June

Live Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Questions
On: BBC Parliament
Time: 10:30 to 11:30 (Also 0100, 0330)
Live coverage of questions in the House of Commons to Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Caroline Spelman and her ministerial team.


Excerpts taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from
http://www.getdigiguide.tv/?p=1&r=20818
Copyright (c) GipsyMedia Limited.

The Week In Green Numbers

35%

- people who have cut down on short car journeys #

8

- new nuclear power stations announced by the UK government #

3,000km

- distance from home a lonely penguin was found #

4,000

- deaths in London per year caused by air pollution #

96%

- reduction in greenhouse gases if we grew all our meat in a lab #

Global Weirding

For the last couple of years, there's been a small-scale movement to try renaming Global Warming as Global Weirding. Warming implies we'll be lying on a beach with a Pina Colada, whereas Weirding better describes exactly what will happen to our weather. It's never caught on.

Perhaps it should. Anyone who has had to suffer - yes, suffer! - this summer in Scotland will know that there's something weird going on. The temperature has barely registered in double figures and I'm struggling to remember a day which has been completely dry.

But this video is still extraordinary. Filmed yesterday in Dundee, it starts off with what you think is heavy rain. That becomes a hailstorm, and by the end of the video there are sheets of ice flowing down the street!

As the guy who is fiming says, "This is June!"

Welcome To Poland, Haven To The Polluter

Photo by rockcohen

The European Parliament is voting today on whether to toughen up greenhouse gas emission standards throughout the continent.

With not just some of the top countries wanting a toughened limit, but also companies like Coca Cola and Unilever asking for one, you'd think it would be a slam-dunk getting a 30% target onto the statute books.

Unfortunately there's a huge block on the road - Poland. Yesterday at the EU Environmental Council they blocked a non-binding target of 25% by 2020. The chances of Poland then voting for a binding target of 30% today are practically nil.

For an entire continent to be blocked by just one country from doing something that would lessen the load on this planet is frustrating. Of course the other EU countries could just say "sod you" and strive for the target anyway. But collective action spurs people on more effectively than unilateral action.

Trammed If You Do, Trammed If You Don't

I didn't see last night's Newsnight Scotland special on the Edinburgh Trams fiasco, so intended to watch it this morning and then write a witty, erudite and damning blog post on the whole fiasco.

Unfortunately, the BBC have yet to put the programme on the iPlayer twelve hours after the event, so instead I'll point you in the direction of Jeff's much more erudite post on Better Nation which covers my feelings almost exactly.

My headline is better, though!

How The Climate Change Act Was Won

Remember Stop Climate Chaos Scotland? They were an umbrella group formed from all of Scotland's environmental organisations coming together in order to try and persuade the Scottish Government that we needed the best climate targets in the world. And they succeeded.

They've now released a short video telling how they did it, in the hope that it can help organisations in other countries to persuade their governments to do the same:

The Price Of Gas

This is from the Center For Investigative Reporting:

One Golf Course And A Portacabin

Donald Trump has announced a rather large scaling-back of his plans for an upmarket "resort" in Aberdeenshire. The two luxury golf courses, clubhouse, hotel, golf academy and luxury timeshare villas has become....one golf course and a portacabin.

I think the only person this can have come as a shock to is Aberdeenshire Council, who sold their soul in order to get their hands on Trump's money.

Or rather, other people's money. It really tickled me that Trump was making a big deal of having to spend his own money to complete the course.

So after all the angst, legal proceedings, threats, sackings and arrests, Scotland ends up with a new golf course. Much needed in this country, obviously!

In related news, the film You've Been Trumped has been going great guns, extending it's run in Aberdeen and winning awards at festivals. There are screenings scheduled for New York, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Unfortunately I can't make them (especially the New York one!) so I'm waiting patiently for my digital copy to arrive.

Across The Watter

I have a vague memory of my grandfather taking me across the Clyde on what I thought was the Govan Ferry. But as I've just discovered, the last ferry ran 5 years before I was born. So quite why I was whisked across the river in a small boat, I've no idea!

But actually, it wasn't the last ferry - just the last one for quite a while! A new Govan Ferry service begins again today, to coincide with tomorrow's opening of the new Riverside Museum housing the Transport Museum.

I definitely intend to visit the museum at some point this summer, and what better way to arrive there than from the Govan side of the river on a small boat? Hey, if you're heading out for a day of "experiences" then you may as well add another one to the list (and I don't mean surviving Govan!)

Green In The Media 20th - 26th June

Monday 20th June

One Planet
On: BBC World Service Radio
Time: 11:32 to 11:50 (Also 1630, Fri 1930, Sat 0030, Sun 1930)
One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Dispatches
On: Channel 4
Time: 20:00 to 21:00
Conservation's Dirty Secrets.
Dispatches reporter Oliver Steeds travels the globe to investigate the conservation movement and its major organisations. On his journey, Steeds finds that the movement, far from stemming the tide of extinction which is engulfing the planet, has got some of its conservation priorities wrong. The film examines the way the big conservation charities are run. It questions why some work with polluting big businesses to raise money and are alienating the very people they need in order to stem the loss of species from earth. Conservation is massively important but few dare to question the movement. Some critics argue that it is in part getting it wrong and as a consequence, some of the flora and fauna it seeks to save are staring oblivion in the face.

Tuesday 21st June

Who Killed the Honey Bee?
On: BBC 4
Time: 22:00 to 23:00 (Also 0100)
With an affliction dubbed colony collapse disorder wiping out bees worldwide, Martha Kearney explores the terrifying implications of their possible extinction and the loss of their most vital service to nature, pollination, without which global food production would collapse. The threat to keepers, farmers and our food supply is acute and growing, and yet the cause of this 'Marie Celeste syndrome' that causes bees to flee their hives remains a mystery.

Thursday 23rd June

Amazon: Unnatural Histories
On: BBC 4
Time: 21:00 to 22:00 (Also 2345, 0325)
Series looking at how three of the world's most iconic wild places have been shaped by man. The Amazon rainforest is the epitome of a last great wilderness under threat from modern man. It has become an international cause celebre for environmentalists as agricultural and industrial interests bent on felling trees encroach into virgin forest. But the latest evidence suggests that the Amazon is not what it seems. As more trees are felled, the story of a less natural Amazon is revealed - manmade structures, even cities, hidden for centuries under what was believed to be untouched forest. Archaeologists are discovering ancient, fertile soils that can only have been produced by sophisticated agriculture across the Amazon basin. This evidence sheds new light on long-dismissed accounts from the first conquistadors of an Amazon teeming with people and threatens to turn our notion of wilderness on its head. If even the Amazon turns out to be unnatural, what then for the future of wilderness?

Friday 24th June

Reversing Dr Beeching
On: BBC Radio 4
Time: 11:00 to 11:30
Douglas Fraser explores how the railways in Scotland are rolling back cuts made in the days of Dr Beeching. But who pays?


Excerpts taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from
http://www.getdigiguide.tv/?p=1&r=20818
Copyright (c) GipsyMedia Limited.

The Week In Green Numbers

1 GW

- installed capacity of Scottish Power's windfarms #

71%

- Americans who think tackling climate change should be a high priority #

1,150

- rural activists in the Amazon region who have been killed in the last 20 years #

2.5 billion acres

- size of Europe's forests #

130 km²

- algae slick off Chinese coast #

New(ish) Plans For Scottish Rail Network

Photo by Brian Forbes

Normally I despise government agencies and departments re-announcing old news, but when they package it all up into one and try to show a cohesive strategy, then I'll forgive them just the once.

On the other hand, I think I'm right in saying that this is the third time that the SNP has announced a 37 minute journey time between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Give it a couple of months and they'll be announcing ScotRail trains can now do the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.

There's a big announcement to go along with that 37 minute journey time, though - electrification of the route, as part of a project to electrify 350km of the network in Scotland.

There's also a vague promise of new trains to take advantage of that electrification. Here's hoping for longer, proper InterCity trains that can give some of Scotland's premier route the prestige it deserves.

They've also announced more morning peak trains from Croy to Glasgow, which will be welcome to take the strain off the Edinburgh to Glasgow stock. Although no mention of extra evening peak trains for the return journey.

The other main (recycled) announcement is an interchange station at Gogar, so that people can alight their train then wait five years for a tram to take them to the Airport.

Pretty pictures can be seen on Network Rail's website announcing the plans.

See What's Polluting You

The European Union obviously has some uses, other than flying Scottish Bloggers around the continent at the taxpayer's expense (I'm not jealous, honest. Truly. Not a green-eyed bone in my body. Maybe I should mention European politics more...)

They compile a lot of data from across Europe, not least from 28,000 industrial facilities covering 91 pollutants from 65 economic activites.

And then providing us with pretty maps of that pollution to play with.

The maps can be found on the European Pollutant Release And Transfer Register, where you can choose which pollutants you want to see from what economic sector. For example, the above map shows Nitrogen Oxide emissions from Transport in the Scottish Central Belt.

Playing around with it can provide some puzzles. Why are agricultural ammonia emissions so high in North West Brittany? Are the Belgians happy that North West Germany seems to top the league in every pollution category? Just what is non-industrial combustion?

Have some fun playing around with the data here.

School Science: Stuck In The 1680s

Photo by naosuke ii

If I had children in an English school right now, I'd be fizzing.

As the Guardian reported yesterday, a Government adviser has suggested that schools need to "get back to the science in science", and that means dropping "topical issues" like climate change.

In other words, English schools will become more like American ones. In California last month, Los Alamitos Unified School District decided that science courses must be "politically balanced". Note that that's not "factually balanced", but "politically balanced".

I'm not suggesting that English schools are about to be politicised to the point where teachers are forced to indoctrinate pupils into believing everything the state says. But suggesting that no science can be taught beyond Newton getting bonked on the head by a wayward apple is ludicrous. This seems to be the suggestion of a 'back to basics' approach to science that the Government is now being advised to follow.

I loved science as a kid, particularly physics. I wish I'd gone on to study it at University, but in my neck of the woods in those days the careers advisor was there simply to give you a "reality check". (I mentioned this last week to an old school friend as we reminisced. He couldn't remember what he was advised to do on leaving school, but I was told to be a librarian simply because I had listed 'reading' as a hobby!)

But even though I haven't studied physics formally I know enough to realise that most of the stuff we were taught in school has been superseded. Imagine telling kids that Rutherford's discovery of electrons circling a nucleus is as much as we know about atoms!

So why not tell them the up-to-date thinking? Why not teach them about the greatest challenge to face mankind ever, the changing climate?

Sticking our heads, and our kids' heads, in the sand and pretending it isn't happening and will all go away is the dumbest thing we could do.

Don't Think Too Much, You Might Make Connections

Via The Seitch Blog, this video is a narration of an OpEd piece that Bill McKibben wrote last month. It's meant for American eyes, but packs a punch worldwide nonetheless:

Devolve Power To The People

Photo by Gavin St Ours'

There's not quite panic on the streets yet, but looking at the fossil fuel industry there's clearly panic in the boardrooms.

Scottish Power announced whopping great price rises last week of 10% for electricity and 19% for gas. The Herald details the spiralling costs of gas and oil, linked with dwindling supplies. I'm surprised it wasn't bigger news last week that Wikileaks revealed that North Sea oil production was falling 8% annually.

Meanwhile the recently resurgent nuclear industry has taken a few body blows with country after country deciding that nuclear is quite possibly the stupidest way to boil water ever devised. Gas producers have taken to fracturing open rocks underground in order to capture the gas contained in them (and how bloody desperate does that sound?), and oil companies are licking their lips in anticipation of climate change melting the Arctic ice cap enough to let them drill for oil in the top of the world.

So how do we get off the treadmill? How do we get ourselves away from this panicked response to peak oil?

It's clear that the energy-producing big-concrete-box-on-the-coast has had it's day. As we head into a post-carbon planet, our energy will become increasingly localised. Not every house is suitable for installing solar panels or having a wind turbine in the back garden, of course, which means that we'll see a resurgence in communities.

Where Eigg and Fintry have led in producing renewable energy for the local residents, others are following. Wadebridge in Cornwall is the latest small town to realise the direction the big companies are going in isn't the one they want to be taking.

They've decided that by 2015, 30% of their energy will come from renewables, mostly solar. Hopefully they can be an inspiration to other small towns and villages around the UK who are looking aghast at the price increases of electricity and heating oil and wondering what they can do.

Here's their first YouTube video announcing their plans, and you can follow their progress on their website:

Green In The Media 13th - 19th June

Monday 13th June

One Planet
On: BBC World Service Radio
Time: 11:32 to 11:50 (Also 1630, Fri 1930, Sat 0030)
One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Tuesday 14th June

The Pipe
On: more4
Time: 22:00 to 23:55 (Also 0100)
The Pipe follows the residents of Rossport in Ireland as they fight one of the world's most powerful oil companies, Shell. In a remote corner of western Ireland sits Broadhaven Bay, a postcard-perfect location housing the tiny village of Rossport. It is a unique area of coastline that has sustained generations of farmers and fishermen, and one that has caught the eye of Shell Oil. On 29 June 2005, five men from Rossport were imprisoned for 94 days after defying a court injunction allowing Shell workers to enter the men's land to lay a high pressure, raw gas pipeline close to their homes.

Thursday 16th June

Andrew Marr's Megacities
On: BBC 1
Time: 20:00 to 21:00
Sustaining the City.
Documentary series looking at some of the world's biggest cities. Like human arteries, motorways, roads and train-lines are the lifeblood of any healthy megacity. Whether smoothly flowing or clogged, a city's transport routes affect its inhabitants' quality of life. Andrew Marr finds out how the monstrous megacities stay fed. He also finds out just how hard it is to ride a rickshaw taxi in Dhaka, and discovers how the London tube, once the most ground-breaking transport system in the world, has been usurped by modern transport like Shanghai's 400km/hour magnetic railway. Andrew joins Mexico City's traffic cops in the air, then finds out who is in charge of unblocking Mexico's most filthy canals. He looks into Dhaka's waste management problems, and sees what Britain's fast food obsession is doing to London's sewers.

Sunday 19th June

Countryfile
On: BBC 1
Time: 20:00 to 21:00
John Craven investigates solar power


Excerpts taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from
http://www.getdigiguide.tv/?p=1&r=20818
Copyright (c) GipsyMedia Limited.

The Week In Green Numbers

67%

- increase in copper cable theft on the UK rail network this year #

770,000 terabecquerels

- radiation that escaped from Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, double earlier estimates #

8%

- decline in North Sea oil and gas output every year #

45kg

- annual methane emissions of a camel. A company has proposed paying carbon credits for killing camels #

17,000

- solar panels being installed at a Toyota factory in Derbyshire #

Tunnel Of Solar Love

As a child of the 70s and 80s, I love the music on that video. It's very Glen A Larson.

So what is it? It's a flyover of 16,000 solar panels which have been installed on top of a railway tunnel, and will help power Antwerp station in Belgium.

There's something else which should catch your eye in the video - there's no obvious need for a tunnel.

That large dod of greenery on the left is actually the remnants of an ancient forest. To avoid trees falling on the railway line, and the dreaded 'leaves on the line', the railway decided to build the tunnel next to the forest.

In this country, Network Rail would simply chop down the trees.

There's something else I want to highlight in the video - the railway line is next to the motorway. I'm a firm believer that you can't just tell motorists that they'd get there quicker by train, you have to show them. If Scotland ever gets it's act together to build a high-speed line between Glasgow and Edinburgh, then I think it should follow the M8 as much as possible, so that drivers stuck in yet another 10 mile tailback can gape in awe as the frequent trains speed past them. Hell, even the 90mph BMW businessman can watch the trains passing him.

Kinda like this...

Green In The Media 6th - 12th June

Monday 6th June

One Planet

On: BBC World Service Radio

Time: 11:32 to 11:50 (Also 1630, Fri 1930, Sat 0030, Sun 1930)

One Planet looks at how we use our planet.

Thursday 9th June

The Born Free Legacy

On: BBC 4

Time: 22:45 to 23:45 (Also 0145)

Born Free caused a sensation when it was first published in 1960. The book and the film that followed made a massive impact on conservation and science and our fundamental attitudes to wild animals and the environment. This documentary tells the story of the lives and legacy of George and Joy Adamson and Elsa, the orphaned lion cub they raised and successfully returned to the wild. The seismic shift in popular attitudes towards wild animals that the book and film caused are as controversial today as they are celebrated.

Friday 10th June

Unreported World

On: Channel 4

Time: 19:25 to 19:55

Indonesia's Wildlife Warriors.

Reporter Aidan Hartley and producer Rodrigo Vazquez travel to Indonesia to highlight the work of young environmental activists battling to save endangered species such as orang-utans and sea turtles. They visit a vast market where critically endangered animals are sold as pets or for the Chinese medicine trade and uncover allegations of corruption and harassment of the campaigners. For more information visit: channel4.com/unreportedworld or follow the programme on Facebook.

Excerpts taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from

http://www.getdigiguide.tv/?p=1&r=20818

Copyright (c) GipsyMedia Limited.

The Week In Green Numbers

30.6 gigatonnes

- world carbon emissions in 2010 #

36.7%

- recycling rate in Scotland in 2009-10 #

1,100%

- increase in cattle grazing in the Masai Mara in the last 3 decades, despite it being illegal #

1.5

- magnitude of an earthquake in Blackpool after the beginning of a nearby fracking operation #

23%

- proportion of Germany's energy which comes from nuclear power #

Eye Eye

You know how it is. For the first time in ages you begin the week with loads to blog about. And then your boss gives you two days notice of an exam, so spare time is spent studying. Then you get something in your eye...

On Tuesday night I stuck my head out of the train window as we approached Dunbar, just as the train got sprayed by a sprinkler on a farm we were passing. I got it all over my face, and some in my eye.

My first thought was "I hope that's just water and not industrial chemicals and/or fertiliser". Can you see the irony in me getting contaminated by pesticides? Almost as bad as the time in Aberdeen when I almost got run over by a silent Prius coming up behind me.

My eye immediately felt like there was something in it. I did what came natural - I rubbed it. I rubbed it again. I spent all Tuesday night and Wednesday rubbing it. Come Thursday morning, it was glued shut with gunk and ultra-sensitive to light. Work on Thursday night was torture as my eye got more and more painful.

And so this morning it was off to the Doc. He chuckled at the fertiliser/pesticide story and ran a cotton bud around inside my eyelid. Then he put some dye into my eye and looked at it under ultraviolet light to see if there were any scratches or abrasions. I was crying bright yellow tears for the next hour.

The upshot is, I've got an eye infection and can't focus for any length of time with it. Looking at a bright computer screen is painful, and typically on the first sunny day in Edinburgh for weeks, I can't go outside without being in agony.

So, limited blogging will commence, although thankfully it's the weekend!

Bloody farmers!

Burned - Merthyr's Fight for Clean Air and Green Jobs

If you thought fighting the proposed biomass plant in Leith or the incinerator in Dunbar was a bit of a slog, pity the poor people of Merthyr in Wales.

As this short Friends of the Earth video shows, the Welsh Assembly doesn't even have a say over the planning of a new incinerator overlooking Merthyr. An unelected body will have the final vote, after an inept public consultation.

At least here we have some semblance of public accountability!