Applied Planetary Engineering

Sir David King: Climate Change and Terrorism

2008-01-14T11:34:00.000Z

Well the ex-chief scientific advisor to the UK Government has been getting a great deal of media coverage over his new book the Hot Topic.

Sir David King made his global reputation with the risk assessment that "climate change was a greater threat than terrorism". Every interview with him and newspaper article covers this point.

Unfortunately Sir David was not the original author, I was. the original was a submission in 2002 to United Nations Environment and Development UK report commissioned by the UK government on the future of sustainable development. The UNED-UK being part of the United nations Environmental Programme which I believe Sir David is a member of.

This is the original assessment on climate change and terrorism, placed on a sister site. It also relates climate change and Africa, the agenda of the 2005 G8 in Scotland.

It is usual scientific etiquette and methodology to cite the original source. Something Sir David has never done. Though it did make him a global climate change superstar.

Site Organisation

2008-01-04T12:33:00.000Z

We have a new Site at Celtic Lion.

This site will be kept up now with more technical aspects of planetary management

Applied Planetary Engineering is pleased......

2007-07-30T22:16:00.000Z

Applied Planetary Engineering is very pleased to announce that it has been invited to take part in the UK Government's Sustainable Development Research Network conference in London in September.

Sponsored by DEFRA and run by the PSI, the Policy Studies Institute, it will bring together around a 100 of the top advisors to the UK Government on sustainable development, climate change and other aspects to resolve the global environmental challenge.

Applied Planetary Engineering thanks the PSI, DEFRA and the UK Government for it's invitation to the event.

Hello Berry Pickers

2007-07-30T11:42:00.000Z

When I was at the farm sometimes I would ask what degrees and things you were doing. Sometimes I would get asked what I had done. This is a brief biog.

All the time I was told what to do by Eddie, Ann and Gregor, it would have been nice, for just one day to have been able to have managed the field my way. Having to "dumb down" to work on the farm made life difficult. In my career no matter how difficult a job I am asked to do. I am just asked to do it, never told how to do it, that is up to me. The job gets done in the most effective and effiicient, hopefully happiest and fun way. Everything tends to get run in the same way as running rock concert.

An instruction like, "please help everyone pick the largest amount of high quality berries and maintain the highest productivity of the fields over the season", would have been suitable. The we could have just rock'n'rolled.

Roger Thomas. Born in rural Cheshire of Welsh and Scottish (Jardine) descent he now lives near Blairgowrie, Perthshire, Scotland. His first interest has always been in the environment as long as he can remember. Childhood influences include Jacques Cousteau, Galileo and James Lovell commander of Apollos 8 and 13.

In his first job as a trainee metallurgist, he was fortunate to experience one of the world’s top engineering training systems while working within and implementing a quality control system for a factory of 2500 people. Also attending college for his qualifications he was awarded the year prize at Stoke-on-Trent Technical College. Finishing his metallurgical studies at Manchester Polytechnic he achieved the highest marks ever awarded in the subject.

His contribution to R&D work on Ministry of Defence contracts is still saving lives around the world and reducing CO2 emissions.

Returning to ecology he sought to improve on the predictive system techniques of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology behind "The Limits to Growth".

After showing young or unemployed musicians how to stage national quality events he was first choice as tour and technical manager for a Manchester band. As he had other commitments he had to decline, though they still sold more than 50 million albums without him. 25% of those who attended his workshops did go on to get full time employment as TV producers, stage managers or professional musicians.

Working as a countryside ranger his leading edge techniques in management, integration, education and appreciation soon spread to become standard practice.

Roger was once asked to give a 1 hour introductory lecture for a college course on Business and the Rural Economy at a residential in the English Peak District. Arriving the night before believing it would snow, they all awoke the next morning to find they were cut off by the blizzard. As no other lecturers could attend, he taught the entire 3 day course without preparation or notes. The snow thawed in time for the external assessors to pass all his students.

His proposal to run the Millennium Dome as a centre for global environmental management was so strong it immediately attracted the finance to be implemented had an open competition been permitted. Though some of the ideas anticipated those of the Government since, many still await their beneficial contribution to the environmental challenge.

Extensive work on climate change and sustainable development has continued since. From the first meetings to produce the new generation of climate and Earth system models (Quest), to correctly advising the PM on the outcome of FMD, being a contributor to Government reports, submitting evidence to House of Commons select committees and advisory work for the Cabinet Office.

Recently he was brought in to set up the site of one of Europe's most intensive civil engineering projects. After completing that ahead of time and within budget he was given front line logistical control. HM Chief Inspector of Railways singled him out as setting up and managing a site which was "a model for the future of the rail industry". Network Rail liked it so much they ran another project from it, halving it's set up costs at a stroke.

Occasionally he still does metallurgical design on race winning rally and oval cars.

Amongst others HRH The Prince of Wales has read his work on prediction of socio-economic and ecological trends and effective strategy implementation. He has also given him permission to use quotes to explain the methodology.

He writing a book on the next generation of global environmental management technologies. His work on both the scientific and political aspects of climate change, including United Nations reports and the agenda for G8 summits has made him one of the least know but most influential strategists of the 21st century providing the solutions to the global environmental challenges we face.

To My Polish, Slovak, Czech and Lithunian Friends

2007-07-24T21:13:00.000Z

To every one nd my friend Rafa. It has been a pleasure and honour to work with you all. I read that Polish girls are the most beautiful in the world. That Poles work the hardest and all are very intelligent. These things I have found to be true.

I could write something in Polish, but don't know how to. We spoke a common language we made between us. So I don't know how it is written.

In phonetics I know Eddie "Potzr-we miny-air vadupa"

Love everyone else

Here I Go Again

2007-07-24T20:58:00.000Z

Just listening to a Whitesnake album there.

Well I've been away from the blog for a few months. My ISP who I used for connection (not email hosting) suddenly closed down. I was ill as I had an told one of the other Scottish political sites, I had a lot of work to do in other areas. Blogs generate work and more connections, more work was the last thing I wanted.Well let's start again with the floods. Those who were reading the blog at the start of the year know flooding was cover when it hit Perthshire in Dec 2006.

When the floods hit Yorkshire I contacted the Yorkshire Evening Post and spoke to their reporter Richard Edwards. I suppose I gave him the scoop of the year when I told him the flood cost would rise. I assume he didn't use the exclusive as he never got back in contact. When the floods hit the South West I spoke to Emily Cleland at the Gloucester Echo and gave her a few leads.

The BBC 'faking it' news really got me wound up. In a telephone conversation with BBC News 24 in 2004, they admitted to me they were going ahead with a weeks programming on terrorism and climate change based on an article by the Govs Chief Scientist even though they admitted I was the original author. So last week I made a complaint to OFCOM on 18th July (other blogs have covered my feelings earlier this year eg Devils Kitchen) I even cited that this diverted attention from the technologies to predict and prevent flooding. Fortunately the day before the big one hit so I cannot be accused of band waggoning.

Don't think I haven't tried, nearly every media and press newsdesk will admit they were contacted by me, but weren't interested in the story before it happened. Strange how they are now interested in the disaster but not the prevention.

Thanks to Peter Black Member of the Welsh Assembly for putting some of my comments on his blog. My father was Welsh and didn't speak English until he was 16, I had got fed up with England, my mothers family were Scottish. I had to move, so I went to Scotland for my Celtic roots, probably because Scotland was further along the path of devolution, I don't know. Anyway as Richard Edwards said there is plenty to blog about.

Creating the Future

2007-03-15T15:58:00.000Z

Well the Trident debate was past by a majority of people in the House of Commons. Nearly said won by the Government, but that would be inaccurate reporting. An underlying message that many MPs who were in favour of a new missile system gave, was they felt it necessary as they couldn't predict the future and we live in an uncertain world. So what do are political leaders actually do?

There are 3 simple stages. We live in the here and now and react to the future as it rushes on to us. We try and predict the future. We try and make a better future, we create the future we want.

So what are our Members of Parliament doing. Surely it is part of their job to lead us us to a better future. If they are admitting they can't do the job, why are they there?

Nigel Griffiths MP Plays Environmental Card in Trident Debate

2007-03-14T14:39:00.000Z

No sooner than posted the The Trident and Environmental Paradox has to be amended. Nigel Griffiths Edinburgh MP and Shadow Leader of the House of Commons has just made a personal statement in the Trident debate.

In summing up his opposition he strongly played the environmental assessment. Resources being used in the creation of the Trident replacement could be better used in being deployed in the challenge of climate change.

He did not go into such a deep analysis as has been outlined here over the last few months, but the environmental assessment has now been brought out in an important personal statement.

The Trident and Environmental Paradox

2007-03-14T12:02:00.000Z

Over the last few days the political parties have been trying to get their environmental policies to the top of the political agenda. Today they vote on the replacement for Trident.

This site has spent so much time on the Trident debate presenting a political and ecological analysis that the political parties or the media are not presenting.

Yesterday we were told that the environment is the biggest challenge we face. So we have to turn TVs off standby and recycle our cans. How many people for how many years will have to do everything we are told to do in order to offset the emissions produced and resources used in building such a s system. It just puts dissonance into to minds of the population.

All our efforts are futile when we see the resources that want to be allocated. The cold war was a world run on the balance of fear. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). The environmental challenge is a world of Mutually Assured Survival.

There needs to be a coherent and cooperative global approach to planetary management. The superpowers of the present and future are the ones that the world can depend on and look to for survival. The survival of everyone, everything and this Earth.

Scotland: The World's First Ecological Superpower. Sent to all MSPs April 2006
The UK Nuclear Deterrent.
Scotland, Trident and the Legacy of JFK

Scottish Ship Building Job Losses: You can Take a Horse to......

Thanks to Perth

2007-03-14T11:16:00.000Z

Yesterday I had an afternoon in Perth Scotland. I realised it is important to put the country when working with the www. I remember when I started searching for Blairgowrie and thinking to myself, what surf beach?

So it's a big thanks to everyone I spoke to and has helped with the promotion of the Blairgowrie Town Hall Event on the 28th March. The Perthshire Advertiser and The Courier are both going to do a piece. Both are covering stories of environmental interest and there letter pages are constantly full of debate on the environmental challenge and dilemma. The Blairgowrie event will give a chance for their readers who attend where the agenda for the G8 in Perthshire came from, and how we can take the results into the future for the benefit of Perthshire, Scotland and the planet.

Remember it doesn't matter whether climate change is due to man made or natural causes, we still have to do something about it.

Mountain Supplies and Craigdon Mountain Sports have both posters up in their shops. I have bought some of my recent kit, waterproofs, sleeping bag and rucksack from them, plus all the other odds and ends. It is in the mountains of Perthshire where I get the natural perspectives on the environmental situation. Whether it is just seeing where the snow is or checking grazing pressure of deer populations etc.

Thanks to everyone in Perth who has helped.

Flaws in Nobel Prize Winning Work

2007-03-13T22:37:00.000Z

In my post of 11th March I reviewed The Trap, what happened to our dreams of freedom. (Some national news reviewers commented on why such a long title. Clue? Try searching for that title, but add Bob Marley). Done a bit of it for you.

I have to say I knew very little of Nash's work. I had seen the film Beautiful Mind, late one night (probably while doing something else). What I hadn't realised was Nash's influence on western politics from his Game Theory. I was aware of John Von Neumanns work, and was happy to accept this as valid. What I hadn't realised was Nash had built on and changed some of Von Neumans work.

There are various phrases that hit popular culture and become well known. 'Blue sky' was a phrase I knew from the 70's as a term for free design thinking. This suddenly around 2002 it started being used in political chat shows re Government and associated thinking. The phrase 'tipping point' is one I really detest because it is so close to 'self-organised criticality'. Tipping point is a term I feel people use because it is safe, they will not be asked to explain it. Self organised criticality is a phrase which might prompt the question, what does it mean? The phrase that is going about at the moment is "the elephant in the room". As in something so obvious it is forgotten about or ignored. Is that what it means?

Having seen a brief overview of Nash's work. If what I knew when I was about 22 and I had been in a room and Nash was explaining his to be future Nobel Prize winning theory, I would have leaned over his shoulder and pointed something out. The current phrase being "the elephant in the room". Would that have been considered sick. This was a Nobel prize winning paranoid schizophrenic.

I really don't think so. I think Nash would have wanted someone to enter his world and give him some direction, The flaws in his work could have been pointed out from associated work known at the time.

Let's leave the work of Nash for now. In passing when I do a presentation on 28th March at Blairgowrie Town Hall if it crops up in passing I will show the flaw Nash made in his work, something I think he would have been grateful of at the time. The Conservative Government of Thatcher could have been so hated if they tried to incorporate Nash's work, because no one pointed out to him the fundamental flawed premise in his work.

Blairgowrie Town Hall 28th March. Let us disprove a Nobel Prize winning theory. In so doing create a better future. I am sure John Nash would want us to do this, take the paranoia out of schizophrenia. Or we could just listen to Marley's Exodus.

Did Gordon Brown Visit My Blog?

2007-03-13T21:35:00.000Z

In my post of 10th March Professor Lindzen I Presume I took a swipe at the suggestion to turn off TVs. As can be seen from the permanent writing down the right hand side of this site I have have been at this environmental game for a good many years ( all my life). In the post I made a reference to TV on/off switches and a very brief environmental impact assessment on them. I have to hold my hand up and admit once I worked as a TV installation engineer. Previously I had been trained to and worked on MOD research, and been approached by some of the biggest bands in the world to be tour and technical manager. When I worked with TVs I had a bit of an 'approach'. Some of the OAPs thought I was ......

So on the 10th March I took a swipe at turning off TVs. Al Gore, don't try and teach your Granma to suck eggs, as they say.

On the 13th March Gordon Brown, the UK Chancellor, makes a statement he wants manufactures to put on off switches on TVs. This is even more bizarre as coincidentally I had an email to sign a Gov petition re on/off switches (after I wrote my post).

At this point I am not going to go into the links and connections. Thank you though Gordon, you knew I was right. Probably the best way is to investigate the power requirements of the stand by system. I am pretty sure you can get the stand by system to work at such a low wattage you would not need a physical on/off. Explore that route as well. I think you might find I was right.

Tory Tax Policy

2007-03-12T13:01:00.000Z

Heard the Tories talking about environmental tax policy today. Something about covering the social and environmental costs of air travel. Hardly revolutionary. Virtually the same words as the Cabinet Offices draft Guide on Regulatory Impact Assessment covered here in work I did for them in 2002.

Remember these are another political party talking about "shifting tax burdens". This means the environmental damage is not being repaired etc. Again it is just talking about the sound bite "climate change". The problem is global ecological life support system collapse.

Brian from Devon and Cornwall View left a comment in Professor Lindzen I Presume which drew attention to the correct challenge, the response of the earths ecology to changing factors. Again smoke and mirrors, define the problem first. Climate change is just a symptom.

The Trap: Dreams of Freedom, Reviews

2007-03-12T12:55:00.000Z

For anyone who missed the BBC 2 documentary this is a collection of reviews from the Guardian

The Trap: What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom

2007-03-11T22:33:00.000Z

Having just watched The Trap: What happened to our Freedom of Dreams, BBC2 Sunday 11 March, this must be the recommended must see programme of the week. If it is shown again as a repeat or on BBC 3/4 or on You Tube then try and catch it if you haven't seen it.

It starts with Game Theory developed by John Nash as part of the strategies used by the US in the cold war nuclear stand off with Russia. These were incorporated, but unknown to the Rand Corporation and Pentagon, Nash was a schizophrenic and paranoid.

The theory is simply that individual freedom is based on mistrusting everybody else. The ideas were then applied as the basis of Thatchers Conservative Government. The programme personally hit so many resonances with me from an assessment of my work in planetary ecological systems and reading such posts as Doctor Vee's review of YouScotland and MacNumpy's Independence 1, together with many other blogs.

In the cold war stand off it was assumed there would be a climate of mistrust and no co-operation. This was only a theory of the game. This was then allowed to become a political doctrine and for society to believe in this. This was the basis of mutually assured destruction(MAD) and the 'balance of fear' of the cold war.

In my post Scotland, Trident and the Legacy of JFK, I presented a case that was the opposite of MAD, that would try to ensure a better for Scotland. That the programme was exposing the myth of Game Theory, which in a way is what I was trying to do, or at least present an opposite workable implementation of it, has given me a little outside influence that I was going in a positive direction.

The programme covered the work of Scot's psychiatrist R D Laing and many other areas. This weeks work will now be trying to tie this critique of Game Theory, which myself was rejecting, into the things and influences I have gained this week fro all the high quality blogs I have been reading and much of current affairs seen in the media which I disagree with.

Thanks to everyone whose blogs I have been reading! The second part of The Trap will be shown next week, unmissable for bloggers questioning the political and social climate we live in.

Profesor Lindzen I Presume: Tax lies and Videotape, The Great Global Warming Swindle

2007-03-10T10:03:00.000Z

The Great Global Warming Swindle has generated some debate around the blogsphere. Here I have to say I do believe in climate change, to me it doesn't matter the driver, whether it is human or natural, it still has to be dealt with. I don't even believe in the Cartesian reductionism that separates human and natural factors. The next level of organisational hierarchy is as a whole and integrated planetary system, applied planetary engineering.

Right for Scotland and Devil's Kitchen both welcomed the programme and it's findings. Prior to the programme I did make make my views know about one of the contributors Prof Richard Lindzen, purely on what he had written in the Daily Mail Global Warming a bogus religion of our age.

Entering his name into Google produced a strange result, and many of the articles relate to him and other associates working as consultants for the oil and gas industry.

If you are taken to hospital and when lying in a bed the doctor comes up and says I've got some good news and bad news. First the bad, you're going to die, and the good, it's from natural causes. Now I don't agree with the Stern Report and neither do I agree with Lindzen.

Lindzen does make an appropriate quote on this though."Picking holes in the IPCC is crucial. The notion that if you’re ignorant of something and somebody comes up with a wrong answer, and you have to accept that because you don’t have another wrong answer to offer is like faith healing, it’s like quackery in medicine – if somebody says you should take jelly beans for cancer and you say that’s stupid, and he says, well can you suggest something else and you say, no, does that mean you have to go with jelly beans?

Personally I don't go with either but do have an alternative.

My take on the situation is that this whole body of knowledge and understanding of what makes a planet tick has been hi-jacked by politicians, the media and big business. Unfortunately the debate and presentation by them is only on a very small fraction of the knowledge available. The soundbite culture. Climate change=global warming=man made CO2 emissions. That is what the public are believing through the narrow slot of understanding presented to them.

Let's go to a tropical rain forest in South America. Lush and thick vegetation, hot and high levels of rainfall. This is a waste of space, it is far better to use this area as farmland to feed people, so chop down all the trees. We can make lush farm land like Cheshire or lowland Perthshire. The first thing after chopping down all the trees is the rain stops. About 85% of all the rain that falls on a TRF is made by the forest, transpiration, water passing through the tree and out through the leaves, and also evaporation. It is continually being recycled.

Next there is no soil for the crops. A TRF does not need high quality soils. Nutrient recycling is so rapid and efficient, partly due to the large number and diversity of living organisms supported by the high productivity of the forest. (The primary productivity is the amount of biomass created by the plants and trees per square metre per year).

Having cut down all the trees in a high rainfall region. You are left with arid conditions and poor soils which will grow very little. Climate change. No flights for foreign holidays, car journeys or light bulbs have been involved. Still it is climate change.

The programme also drew attention on the inverse relationship between CO2 and temperature as outlined in Al Gores "An Inconvenient Truth". Which I cannot be bothered to watch. If climate change to you Al is so important, why are you criss crossing the world in aircraft to tell us about it. It is a pointless exercise me turning my TV off and not leaving it in standby as it will take a million lifetimes to save the amount of energy you squander flying about telling me to save it. I don't need you to tell me, please stop. Anyway if you had anything that was really important to say about saving the planet, when you spoke in Scotland recently why did you not permit the media to report it. It wasn't because tables were £3000 a go, and if the press had reported anything important and useful to the public that could save lives, you wouldn't be able to fly in again and tell another group.

Anyway most TVs at present aren't really designed to be turned on and off physically all the time the switches are very frail. Please tell me when someones TV switch breaks and a man in a van has to come round and fix it. Have much emissions have been saved in the switching off and how much have been used in the man coming round to fix it?

For every 10c rise in temperature the rate of reaction doubles. Decay and conversion of biomass to CO2 of leaf fall and other dead material in a forest could be in equilibrium with that produced. Raise the temperature slightly decays speeds up at a rate greater than new material is produced. Hence CO2 levels in the atmosphere of a closed system increase.

Even Lindzen admits CO2 may cause some (but not all temperature rise). If temperature rises say due to increased solar activity, then CO2 levels will increase. These may then feed back into the system and contribute to the increasing temperature. This is positive feedback mechanism. An increase in temperature from another factor my initiate the rise, then afterwards CO2 can still contribute. The increasing CO2 curve may be after the rising temp curve doesn't mean it still can't be contributing.

Co2 in oceans. Fully agree warming water can have less dissolved gas in it, as long as the concentration of the atmosphere remain constant. The shift in the equilibrium of CO2 concentrations in the oceans depends on the temperature of the water and the concentration in the atmosphere. We are not just talking about CO2 in terms of climate change damage. What is the effect of CO2 on increasing acidification of the water, changes in nutrients cycling and a potential reduction of productivity. This linked with increasing pollution, decreased light penetration in estuaries and coastal waters due to siltation and suspension caused by deforestation. You then have marine ecosystem collapse and no fish with your chips.

The biggest lie in the programme was environmentalism was caused by 'reds under the bed' as a result of the collapse of the communist block, Marxists have to look for targets elsewhere. The study and understanding of mans relationship with the environment is as old as man. The rise and fall of the flood waters of the Nile for the ancient Egyptians as one example. Ecology was given it's name by Haeckel in 1869, evolving with the work of Mobius in 1887, greatly influenced by the Russians Dokuchaev and Morozov through to Tansley's concept of the ecosystem in 1935.

Modern environmentalism has a major influence in the decline of the hippy flower power movement at the end of the 60's and a desire for a more practical application of sustainable ideas. The 60's also had the highly influential Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. The development of the wildlife and ecological documentary in television, David Attenborough and Jacques Cousteau. Psychologically but highly influential was the Apollo space missions to the moon. Not necessarily the moonlanding itself from Apollo 11 in 1969 but Apollo 8's orbit around the moon which gave those first pictures of the beautiful jewelled Earth alone in the infinite and eternal void of space. This produced the collective, cohesive, interconnected and even fragile nature of life on Earth. From this was a defining work Only One Earth by Barbara Ward and Rene Dubos. Then we have Gaia by James Lovelock from 1979.

These are just mainstream well known history of environmentalism. At this point the cold war was still on and no one was even considering the Berlin Wall to come down. How the a documentary maker could even consider such complete lies and fantasy being considered for supposedly informative viewing is beyond me. That contributors could even take part when they knew what was going out was completely and 100% false has to call into question the validity of their scientific contribution.

Ask 100 environmentalists what was the most influential and galvanising book of the 1970s on environmentalism and at no 1 or at least in the top five would have to be Limits to Growth. Not having it in the list would be the equivalent of asking what were the decent albums of the 70's and omitting Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. Don't think Richard Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is unaware of the work. Limits to Growth was written and published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The most globally influential and important book on modern environmentalism was produced 'just down the corridor' from Prof Lindzens office in 1972 and he seems to have forgotten the fact, preferring to take part in a programme which attributes environmentalism to some Marxist plot after the fall of the Berlin Wall some years 17 later.

How Channel 4 got away with such a complete and easily checkable misrepresentation is a serious question? This wasn't some informed debate presenting evidence for and against a particular view, it was quite simply lies, a deception on the viewing public. What did the makers assume, that no one watching the programme would have any knowledge of the material being presented?

There even seemed to be some confusion over the financing of the global warming swindle. There was a view presented that research into global warming attracts mega bucks funding an unlimited pot of money to further some lie to be foisted on the public. I was part of the original group involved in setting up Quest, the UK's latest generation of climatic and other models. The total funding for the entire project was £25 million. You can't buy a Premier league footballer for that. It is less than one Harrier jump jet.

Were the money is, is in the climate change industry. Instead of global capitalism we have global carbonism. The point of the exercise should be to save the planet. All we have created is some totally irrelevant global trading scheme. If you can't make big fat cat bonuses in the financial sector why not pop over to the carbon sector.

This life, this planet is the result of 14 billion years of evolution. Why do politicians and the finance industry believe that the entire knowledge of that process and it's sustainable continuation can be condensed into simple "shifting tax burdens" and other centres and forms of global trading.

I don't agree with Stern, the media know that, and I don't agree with any political party. This programme had the option of challenging the drivel politics and the media foist on us as truth and 'the way forward'. Instead the programme presented another package of lies and misinformation. Trying to disprove one set of lies with another set of lies does not produce the truth.

Professor Lindzen any of the contributors and the programme maker are quite welcome to turn up at Blairgowrie Town hall on 28th March. Famine, fire, war, terror, extinctions, drought, pollution, disease, cruelty, flood, death, injustice and all the other furies fill the news and haunt the planet. Do something about it instead of wasting time presenting one set of misinformation to attack another set!

It was a slick and excellent programme. It told me things I didn't know. Then presented sections that I knew were complete and total lies. So how can I trust what it told me about what I didn't know. A programme which lost all credibility, a wasted opportunity to present something that could have constructively addressed the cuurent world situation in a positive way. Lies to disprove lies do not make truth.

Global Warming Swindle, Guilty, But A Butterfly Made Me Do It

2007-03-09T11:19:00.000Z

Having watched the Great Global Warming Swindle on Channel 4 last night I have to admit my guilt in the crime, but it was a butterfly that made me do it. I produced the assessment that climate change was a greater threat than terrorism for a UNED-UK report commissioned by the UK Gov in 2002. The UNED-UK is part of the UNEP IPCC.

In 2004 the UK Gov's Chief Scientist Prof Sir David King produced an article in Science magazine that "climate change is a greater threat than terrorism". This got him and the assessment global publicity. Sir David is a member of the UNEP IPCC. Those of you who have having seen him interviewed may have noticed that he is always rather vague about where he got the idea from. As a scientist he really should be able to cite and reference his source.

This then gave the whole climate change movement some simple tabloid banner headline. In 2004 the BBC did a whole week of programmes on 'climate change is a greater threat than terrorism" by the UKs Chief Scientist. I contacted them, told them I was the original author, the BBC read the original work, agreed that I was the original author not Sir David. As I was not a media personality or celebrity they did not feel it was appropriate for me to take part. The BBC did a weeks programming on the work but did not have the original author.

What was not done was to read the other 200 articles I had produced. I did not think climate change was entirely man made neither do I think it is a problem, it is a symptom. Neither do I think it is the greatest environmental challenge. I just wanted to deflect some of the lunacy of the war against Iraq and try and get some focus on the environment.

It the Butterfly Principle of Chaos theory, some one in the UN read my work (I have the draft summary and it is there), decided it was catchy and it became a major part of the whole global band wagon. Yes climate change is dangerous, yes it can kill billions, but it has become a simple political soundbite. Politicians don't have to know anything about the wide and total environmental agenda, all they have to say is climate change.

I found the programme excellent, it told me things I didn't know and importantly for me other people were there expressing the same concerns that had been niggling me. Concerns that I had thought I had been on my own with.

Remember it doesn't matter what causes it, it can still kill you. One little bit of the challenge seems to have been hi jacked by the media and politicians, probably because they haven't spent a life time studying and trying to understand what makes a planet function. It only takes 5 minutes for them to learn the phrase climate change, rising CO2 emissions and they suddenly appear knowledgeable on life the universe and everything.

I checked and no where on the permanent parts of this page do I mention climate change. Neither in the one page summary of the use for the Millennium Dome did I mention climate change. Many other environmental organisations such as WWF and Stop Climate Chaos use my work, "climate change is a greater threat than terrorism" on their sites to raise awareness and raise, I don't even use it on my own and I wrote it.

It's Getting Hotter, Does it Matter What is To Blame?

2007-03-08T20:08:00.000Z

Let's have a quick blog before 9.00 pm and The Great Global Warming Swindle. "You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows". sung Bob Dylan more than 45 years ago. You don't need 10,000 scientists with 100 squillion terra flops of super computers to tell you it's getting hotter.

Oh it's to do with the increasing man made CO2 emissions says one side. No it is not man made says the other. Climate is dependent on many, 1000s of factors. All interrelating with each other. Fact, increasing CO2 emissions do increase global warming. It's to do with very simple physics of wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum and absorption spectrums.

It is and may not be the only factor in global warming. I accept there may be another 1000 reasons as well. Some of these reasons such as solar activity we have not control over.

You have a child and it gets hit by a car, a man made incident. It is going to die. Do you try and stop the death by taking them to hospital for treatment. Yes you do most people would answer. You have a child it is going to die of a cancer, a natural occurrence. It is going to die. Do you try and stop the death by taking them to hospital for treatment. Yes you do most people would answer.

Climate change will very soon kill 5 billion people. It is a very complex subject. Now the voice is being raised that it may not all be due to man made factors. Do you breathe a sigh of relief and say thank goodness for that I don't mind being killed by none man made factors.

It doesn't matter. When you are juggling all that matters is the ball in your hand. If in theory there are 8 factors causing global warming. If you can only affect one of them, then it is more important that you achieve that 100% to reduce the overall 8 factor implication.

It doesn't matter if 80% of global warming is caused by solar activity or what ever. Some of it is due to man made CO2 emissions. That means the bit you can control you have to work harder and more intensely to control to offset the rise in temperature you cannot control.

Climate change is not even a problem, it is a symptom. If a child has a fever and it is caused by cholera. You do not focus on the symptom you treat the disease. How did they stop cholera, they provided clean water and sanitation. They did not stop cholera by apply damp towels.

If any politician says climate change is a problem, they do not know what they are talking about. I have lived a bit of a Forrest Gump life which has resulted in me being taught by and having worked with the most eminent and world respected ecologists and engineers. I have written things that world leaders discuss and most people with access to the media have heard of. I admit they don't know it was me.

Our lives and the future of existence of this planet are being compromised by politicians and people in the media that go climate change, that's a nice two word soundbite, if I say it often enough people will believe I know what I am talking about, and I can make a nice career. Climate change is smoke and mirrors. Get a grip of the situation and stop the spin.

The Great Global Warming Swindle?

2007-03-08T11:39:00.000Z

Yesterday in Trusting My Life and this Planet to Politicians I expressed my dissatisfaction with Sir Nicholas Stern's report on climate change as "get a red pen mark it and send it back to them with see me on it". Today in the Daily Mail there is an article by Professor Lindzen of the MIT, Global Warming: the bogus religion of our age. He too is critical of Stern and expresses it as:

"I agree with the economist critic who noted: 'If a student of mine were to hand in this report as a masters thesis, perhaps if I were in a good mood, I would give him D for diligence, but more likely I would give him an F for fail".

The one good thing about blogging is you can write things and get them 'out there' even before Professors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have got them into print.

Just because I am critical of Stern and Professor Lindzen is critical of Stern doesn't mean I agree with him either. They are both wrong in their own way. The article is a leader to tonight's Channel 4 will broadcast The Great Global Warming Swindle.

Even though my mothers family is Scottish, even though I live and work in Scotland, even though I write about Scotland etc etc. If I ran naked, on fire, through Edinburgh, juggling custard, burst into Holyrood, straight into the chamber and peed in Jack McConnell's ear I would not get any coverage from the Scottish media. One person who does take my comments is Benedict Brogan, Political Editor of the Daily Mail, due to the small number he publishes he seems to be very selective, reciprocating I always try to give him something accurate and analytical. At his blog my concerns over Stern have been running for a while. Brogan's blog is always good as a teaser, very often a snippet of a story will appear there before becoming front page mainstream days or weeks later.

The one thing I do agree with Professor Lindzen is "Politicians love the green agenda, of course, because it means more control, more regulation, more taxes, more summits, and more opportunities for displays of self-important zeal. " The whole environmental issue is one big ******* mess.

7.30pm 28th March Blairgowrie Town Hall

Trusting My Life and This Planet to Politicians

2007-03-07T11:20:00.000Z

I don't know whether I was being a bit hard on Blairgowrie Liberal Democrats in my post Just when did you write this? My complaint of their election campaign consisting of 'a' leaflet being probably 5 months out of date. Should I apologise, should I have expected better or more from a political party that wants to be taken seriously. If the Lib Dems think they deserve an apology then have one.

I had read Tartan Hero's Campbell Tests Brown for Coalition Job, basically the "vote Ming get Gordon" ticket, (why is it nearly every time I type Gordon I have to go back and correct Gorgon). Then I had this Lib Dem Focus leaflet. The Lib Dems have set out their climate change policy, to be fair the only ones yet with something I can really assess.

They want to tax heavy polluters then give the money to (via shifting tax burdens) to "hard working and particularly low paid Scots". So who are these heavy polluters, the energy industry, the transport industry etc? We live in a market economy, if you increase these costs, they still get passed on to "hard working......". There is no net gain financially. Even if there was a financial benefit to them what are they going to spend the money on, increased consumerism and foreign holidays? Adding to the problem they tried to resolve.

In my post Carbon Offsetting I did the rough overall calculation for politicians to start basing their environmental policies on. We are damaging the environment, this is a cost, this damage if not repaired and stopped will lead to the demise of us all. These (all) polluters cause damage. What the Lib Dems are not doing is using the tax revenues to repair and improve the environmental situation, they have not recycled the money back to solve the problem of the damage caused. Ergo, they do not have an environmental policy. So why have a "wee pretendy go" that they have.

When I had the discussions with the Government's consultants to run the Millennium Dome as a global environmental management centre these were penetrating and incisive. There again they must have realised I knew my subject, because it was them who wanted to support my proposal. Until that is it may have been undermined, Isn't it iconic. Even 10 Downing Street won't deny the facts. As such I feel I have a right to feel annoyed and frustrated at politicians pretending they have solutions to the environmental challenge. We won't let Roger do it, it is much better for our ego and kudos if we can get the public to believe we know what we are doing. This is putting my life, my families, my friends, every bodies life and the future of this planet in danger for the sake of political posturing.

Sometime I want to get the Stern report and everything a politician presents on the environment, get a red pen mark it and send it back to them with see me on it. There again perhaps that was why the Cabinet Office did want me to proof and comment on their Regulatory Impact Assessment guide. (And produce the outline agenda for the G8 Summit in Perthshire, Climate Change and Africa). Why should I or anyone else with more than 40 years study of how this planet works have any confidence what so ever in someone who wanted to be a lawyer and in the last few months thinks they are an expert in planetary ecology just because it became fashionable to do so. Solicitors and politicians don't fix my central heating boiler or MOT my car so why should I trust them with a planet.

There I was feeling alone in my frustration when I read Doctor Vee's tribute to Chris Lightfoot. "read each manifesto until you encounter something really offensive or stupid, then stop and reject that party." Bye Bye Lib Dems.

I do agree with MacNumpty about negative comments. My view is critique as much as you want, but be prepared to outline the better alternative as well. So Ming, Gordon, Jack, Alex, Annabel, Dave, Nicol, Tony, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all are you going to turn up at Blairgowrie Town Hall at 7.30 Weds 28th March.

Scottish Ship Building Everything is Possible

2007-03-07T11:05:00.000Z

This is a post from January on how Scotland can have a ship building future, what it's potential is and where the money comes from. The UK Nuclear Deterrent.

It was followed up here, somehow JFK, Apollo 13 and Glen Lyon all got mixed together with Scottish shipbuilding.

Scottish Ship Building Job Losses: You Can Take a Horse To......

2007-03-06T16:03:00.000Z

All the Scottish media, such as the Herald, have today covered the story of the potential job losses at the Ferguson yard. Yesterday J Arthur MacNumpty covered the ability of an independent Scotland to respond to change, with a follow up here, an ecology of independence.

In April last year every single MSP was sent the consultancy document Scotland: The World's First Ecological Superpower. That is every single MSP, even the ones the media are quoting and are making statements. I have many replies or receipts. The document specifically outlined the strategy to ensure a secure future, and need, for the Scottish ship building industry.

It just seems every MSP is involved in a blame game against the other parties and not having the courage and vision to make a better future for Scotland, which includes the once great ship building industry. I am pretty certain I heard that there are at present 20,000 ships world wide under construction (will have to check that) and we cannot keep 100 men in a job.

Scotland has the opportunity to respond to the needs of the global ecological revolution and lead the world. Why are our politicians involved in some pointless do nothing round of name calling and not getting on with the programme of making Scotland the world leader in maritime and oceanographic industries? Scotland was once. Why are we not doing it again? The world needs Scotland and the political establishment is not rising to the challenge.

Do you know what the saddest thing was? There was a Jim Moohan from the 'Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions' who was in all the TV and press coverage of the situation. So I thought I would contact him and tell him what every member of the Executive knew and what every MSP knew nearly 12 months ago. So I Googled his union for his contact details, well you try it as well. It's 2007 and the union doesn't have a website, well at least not in the top 100 hits in Google.

I sit here crying, tears flowing from my eyes in numbness and bewilderment. When I left school I did an engineering apprenticeship. Foundries, boiler shops, machine shops, drawing office, fabrication. 2500 of us could make anything you wanted. All gone, and when you see a 100 men making a last stand to protect something so pure and vital, the ability to do, the ability to make, the ability to create something tangible and real. Something that lives, something you have a pride and a connection with, something that when you see it, you can say, "I did that". When you want to help in some small way, you cannot even use the first choice of communication of the modern world.

How can you build a nation if you can't build a ship? How can you build a future if you can't build a ship? How can you put a planet back together and ensure a future for the continuance of all life if you can't build a ship? How can you build hope in a troubled world if you can't build a ship?

Well I suppose you could always build one as a weapon of war and destruction. £25 billion, a bargain, thank you very much. Somehow I think we have our priorities slightly wrong.

Blairgowrie Town Hall 7.30pm Wednesday 28th March Scotland:Ecological Superpower?

2007-03-05T17:20:00.000Z

SCOTLAND: THE MAKING OF AN ECOLOGICAL SUPERPOWER

Wednesday 28th March 2007
7.30pm Blairgowrie Town Hall

£3.00 inc resources and refreshments

A talk and discussion with Roger Thomas, the Godfather of modern environmental culture. "Climate change is a greater threat than terrorism" is a phrase many people have heard and most environmental organisations use. Though the media attribute it to the Government's Chief Scientist, Sir David King, the original author was Roger Thomas.

The leaders of the G8 met in Perthshire at the Gleneagles Summit to discuss an agenda of climate change and Africa. An agenda prioritised by Roger Thomas 3 years before in a contribution to a UN report commissioned by the UK Government.

These world changing ideas derived from the 2001 proposal to use the Millennium Dome London as a £50 billion per year centre of global environmental management. This is the proposal the Governments own consultants wanted to support for the Dome.

Al Gore, politicians and many other 'celebrity campaigners' appear in the global media talking about climate change and the environmental challenges the planet faces. This is the opportunity to find out the source of some of their work and most importantly discuss the solutions they cannot give.

Changes in the Common Agricultural Policy, the solutions to Foot and Mouth used by the Government, Greenpeace's involvement in the Glastonbury festival, reversal of Government policy on older cars, flood prevention in Perthshire and why did Gordon Brown and David Cameron come up with similar environmental policies at the same time. All connected.

The future is the most important commodity we all share. Without the future you would not be able to read this sentence after the last one. Roger Thomas is the most influential and least known global authority on creating that better safer future for this planet. Join him, take part in a master class and make tomorrow better than today.

An Ecology of Independence

2007-03-05T14:17:00.000Z

The development of human civilisation is going to be more dependent on ecological and environmental factors influencing it's political, social and economic components. Will Patterson writes a very concise but to me very accurate assessment of a benefit of independence for Scotland at J Arthur MacNumpty.

His conclusion or summation almost halfway through the post. Answer: when trouble does come, an independent government will be better equipped to respond to it than under the present system.

Ecological and environmental factors will now start to affect human civilisation at an increasing exponential rate. Whoever can best respond to these will 1) have the best chance for survival, and 2) be in the best position to take advantage of them. My reasoning is accurate predictions of human systems can best be done using the ecological tools, used to assess the ecological systems which we must now increasingly have to respond to.

One of these assessments is r and k selection. This covers a wide spectrum of applications, here let us just concentrate on the ability to respond to change. Imagine a bare area of ground is suddenly made available. One of the first species to colonise or make use of it will be something like an ant colony. They are straight in, they can multiply quickly, are small and can take advantage or respond to the new situation rapidly. They are an example of a r selected species.

A cow, oak tree, or lion cannot immediately respond, they are k selected. They are slow to reproduce, large have more long terms needs. It is the dinosaur concept. Conditions change. The dinosaurs cannot adapt quickly to the new conditions, they become extinct. The small pre mammals did. They responded quickly and took advantage of the changing conditions. It applies to many things. A small sporty car can respond quicker to the fast bends of a minor country road than an HGV.

The world is now going to change very rapidly, this is the opening of the global ecological revolution. Perhaps the world may not respond effectively or quick enough. There may well be upwards of 5 billion deaths and those that remain live in the 'Mad Max' scenario of the collapse of civilisation and society run by marauding war lords. Or society could respond and sort out the mess the planet is in and there could be some continuation of life as we know it on Earth.

An independent Scotland not slowed down by the clinging inertia of a great clunking UK, could respond quicker and take advantage of the essential global ecological revolution. Both for the advantage of Scotland and of the planet of which it is part.

The question is do the SNP have the policies to implement after independence. Or will they be the political party equivalent of Tony Blair. Great at getting elected, but in retrospect should have handed the running of the party to someone else with at the simplest, thought out long term workable policies.

At present the SNP seem to want to gain independence but then just do the same that has been tried before and also compete with all the other countries of the world. They seem to lack the vision and practical implementation to put Scotland at the front centre and leading edge of the global ecological revolution.

Will The SNP squander the one over riding benefit of independence. The ability of Scotland to respond quickly and effectively to whatever the future throws at it. Squandering that asset like Governments before squandered North Sea oil. A resource that could have been the foundation for the future frittered away on champagne, Porsches and rows of cheap consumer electrical shops in our towns. A billion year old legacy, here today gone tomorrow.

Scotland: The World's First Ecological Superpower?

Rangers Fans Threaten Sir Tom Farmer's Kwik-Fit

2007-03-05T11:38:00.000Z

I have to admit to a childish minority past time, it started when watching the TV in the kitchen. The sound of kettles boiling, fan ovens etc always occurring when the news was on, that vital name or phrase often missed, so I took to having the subtitles on at times.

This has now resulted in the game of what did that say? The subtitles don't often read as to what was said, the results seem to skew towards the funny. Weakest Link occasionally has some classics, but it is the news and live programmes which offer the best in entertainment.

Last night Reporting Scotland had a story about David Murray from Rangers wanting clarification about how independence will affect Scottish business. The library pictures described 50,000 Rangers fans turning up with saltaires. The subtitles referred to an incident where 50,000 Rangers fans turned up and sold tyres.

If you haven't tried the subtitle game yet have a go, if nothing else it can occasionally add interest to the news. Though I suppose if you were really deaf it could be confusing.

Blairgowrie Liberal Democrats: Just When Did You Write This?

2007-03-04T18:03:00.000Z

If you haven't been watching the TV, listening to the radio, reading blogs or newspapers, you might still know elections are approaching. Mysterious strangers knock on your door trying to introduce themselves, piles of papers and pamphlets appear through you letter box.

While I was reading this weeks Scottish Blogging Roundup, (thanks for another mention), the letter box clunked. Not with a big fist, but another pile of papers. The Scottish Liberal Democrats Focus for Blairgowrie and the Glens. I do read everything every political party sends, so don't think they are wasted. If you have gone to the trouble to write it, I will read it. That's as fair as I can be.

"With the dark nights now settling in the residents of Blairgowrie are having to walk around their town in the dark". Opens the reading. "With the dark nights now settling in.....". It is the 4th March, red squirrels play in the early morning sun just down the road, birds are calling and courting in the hedges and trees. New growth of grass and clover is appearing through the dark soil of footpaths through the fields. Just have to stop the description of Perthshire spring there, but you know where I am going.

So if dark night are settling in, we definitely know you wrote this before the Winter Solstice, as the nights haven't began to shorten. Settling in, that's like they've started and are noticeable but are not fully at home yet. Any guesses. Mid October OK with everyone. That is an election leaflet posted through the door an hour ago, that was written 5 months ago (probably).

Nice to know the Lib Dems have got their finger on the pulse.

Pole Position Articles and Blogs

2007-03-04T12:09:00.000Z

I've always been into ecology, life and planets since I was a toddler, that was my main interest. Due as was it Bob Dylan said a simple twist of fate, I ended up getting qualified and working as a metallurgist. Once I took a car for a service, the owner of the business which specialised in performance engines and rally cars, finding out I was metallurgist removed me from my vehicle and I was presented with a set of drive shafts for my comments on. One thing lead to another and at one point the works factory vehicles were being shown the view of an exhaust. As a metallurgist the owner thought I should go down south and sit outside the office of Frank Williams or Ron Dennis until they gave me a job. Me, I was more interested in saving planets.

So this week has come as a bit of a surprise. First Honda announce their new 'Earth' livery and second the quality of some of the blogs that have appeared on the subject. One of the things I have found important about blogging is to read other blogs, you end up finding work better than you could have wrote on the subject and saves you time trying to write things. Firstly Shaun's Bicester blog got in touch for comments on the Honda livery, then Doctor Vee pulled out the biggest surprise, having only read him in context of Scottish politics, with his view of the Honda colour scheme and image. All I can add, trying to reconcile cars, politics and planets is the article I did for Dundee based website British Classic Cars. An update last year on an article I originally did in 2000.

My focus, probably influenced by such websites as Scottish blog roundup, is now going to move more into setting up the Scotland:World's First Ecological Superpower project, developed at the suggestion of Perth Business Gateway from the 2001 proposal to use the Millennium Dome as a global environmental management centre. Scottish Blog roundup and links has shown me the quality of political and social commentary writing, as Clint Eastwood said a man has got to know his limitations. This might mean we may have more chance of successfully sorting out the problems of the planet from a Scottish base and for Shaun and Brian I will get the metallurgical analysis of the MSC Napoli done. Though it seems a waste of what I have been taught and done, if anyone does want work doing in metallurgy especially on race cars, I am always open to suggestions.

What can't be ignored though is when politicians and political parties are trying to formulate policy on the environment. If your central heating boiler broke down and you called a plumber and Tony Blair turned up to mend it, "on your bike", might the first thing to say. Tony Blair wants to be a global leader on the environment. You wouldn't want a corporate lawyer fixing your plumbing, so why should we trust them with the planetary environment. It's not just New Labour all political parties are coming up with environmental policy. Unfortunately most is wrong, unworkable, useless or dangerous. Do they know what they are doing is pointless or is the media and public just not well enough informed to know our political masters haven't got a clue on the environment.

Probably the top engine builder outside of Formula 1 Dave Brooks Engines

YouScotland:Let Me Try Again

2007-03-02T11:21:00.000Z

After the reviews here on the YouScotland website and Doctor Vee's blog and the Scottish blog round up I have been returning every day to see if they have implemented changes. Well this morning they have.

It seems they have left the old forum but added a new one. It seemed random which one you got. I tried to post, this meant I had to login, so did so in the left hand side. This took me via my options page to the old forum. As this was not the one I wanted, I clicked debates on the top which took me to the new forum.

This I then found I was not logged in for it. So did it again in the embedded part of the new forum. I tried 3 times but it kept on rejecting my pass word. I took the option of having my password sent to me under the forgotten password option, (even though I knew I was entering the correct one). The site then told me my email address was not recognised and had to contact the site administrator. There were other pages that said that an error had occurred or page not available and also had to contact the site admin.

Decided to leave it alone and come and write this. Perhaps someone else will test it and it might get sorted out. Anyway that was 20 minutes wasted. If anyone has worked out how to use it please could they leave the instructions in the comments here please.

Contaminated Petrol, Mass Hysteria or Trying It On

2007-03-01T14:57:00.000Z

The lunch time news has been contaminated fuel, contaminated fuel etc etc. Is it or just mass hysteria? There are 10's millions cars on the road, so how many break down each day. The reports are saying hundreds or thousands of cars affected. One petrol station will serve hundreds of cars if not 1000s for a large one. So the figures don't seem to make sense.

The news seem to be reporting any old rubbish. ITV did a 5 minute interview with a Porsche owner who had broken down, the last question was, what was wrong? He replied the air mass meter. Dong. This is on the air inlet side, nothing to do with fuel or the exhaust and has nothing at all to do with the fuel side of the engine management system.

The BBC took one report from someone in Belfast who went to a nature reserve, crashed into a rock and his brakes seized, he put this down to the oxygen sensor. No you drove into a rock.

At the moment nothing from the media is giving me any indication that the breakdowns are anything more than the statistical average number that have then been whipped up into some mass delusion by the media.

One thing it has exposed is the complete inaccuracy of news reporting, absolutely no checks or any attempt to check the accuracy or validity of reports. If the media are doing it with something as simple as engine management systems of cars, what other bullshit are they passing off as truth. Apart from most of what they say on the environment that is.

Got to go the spare tyre needs repairing and I did buy some diesel last week, there must be a connection. I'll do the interview for Panorama or Dispatches first then contact trading standards to see what my rights are to getting 4 new ones in compensation.

Going to be really interesting to see how this one turns out. One thing is for certain there are going to be loads of people caught out for trying it on. Every scrap and knacked car in the south east is probably now being pushed into the road in an attempt to get some compensation.

Flooding in Perthshire 'Retrospective' Update

2007-02-28T12:25:00.000Z

The Courier has reported that the WWF has recommended that alternative methods be used to ease flood problems in Perthshire other than the building of concrete flood defenses. These include restoring flood plains and wetlands, going for a more sustainable approach to flood management.

It is unclear why the WWF has gone public on this or why the Courier has reported it as news. This method was known about 25 years ago to my knowledge and experience. In consultations for DEFRA in 2002, in the post FMD epidemic shake up of farming and land use, and in work I did for the Cabinet Office, these were changes I strongly argued for. This contributed to changes in the Common Agricultural Policy, which were pushed through with strong support by PM Tony Blair.

Really the Courier and the WWF should be looking at the reason for the unsustainable 'concrete solution' always having pre-eminence when flooding is mentioned. Is it anything to do that when a report is commissioned, it is very often done by concrete loving civil engineers?

The situation also raises the problem solving approach to environmental challenges. Far too often a technocentric approach is taken over the more appropriate ecocentric solution. The situation of flood prevention is a good example of where the media and headline makers should report on the most advanced perspectives on a subject area and not rely on reporting as news things which were current 25 years ago.

All Perth and Kinross Councillors had access to the Perthshire Flood Damage article of 17th January 2007 so for many yesterday's report told them nothing new. One benefit of the internet is that the most accurate and up to date information can be supplied to those who require it. A Benefit for all of society and the planet.

Perthshire SNP MP Pete Wishart has since written to me and informed me that his is waiting for a reply from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Though I have no doubt that any reply may fall short of the truth at least it is another point from which we can start asking questions from as to why when the Government had the solutions to flood problems in Perthshire in 2001 they chose to ignore them.

Michael Meacher Labour Leadership: 10 Nil

2007-02-23T13:10:00.000Z

Having given an early assessment on David Miliband, Miliband v Brown: Just What is it? and his potential bid for the Labour leadership up pops Michael Meacher for a crack at the title.

The only time I have seen Meacher speak in person was at the Royal Institute of International Affairs Chatham House a few years back when he was still Minister for the Environment, he was part of a panel discussing the UKs follow up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa. Due to a defeat in the Lords over a Foot and Mouth connected matter, Meacher was delayed in Downing Street and the meeting had to start without him.

About 25 minutes late Meacher arrived took his place on the panel and jumped straight in. Without notes or any briefing he was a man at the top of his game and with the command of his subject. Without any notes he was able to comment on the debate he had missed when asked and was completely fluent in any question or topic presented. To say he was impressive would be an understatement.

It was noticeable that when he was later sacked from his Ministerial post there was a current of disenchantment with the decision from within the environmental movement.

Just hearing the news that Meacher was to stand against Gordon Brown was interesting. In any leadership contest with a general move of the agenda putting environment at the centre Meacher would have to be strong influence.

So what of Meacher’s bid. Well his knowledge of the environment is impressive, certainly it would be an environmentally and ecologically better world with Meacher having more control in that area. Nationalisation of the railways? Well personally having been brought in from the ‘outside’ and given a team to set up the site of one of the biggest civil engineering projects in Europe for Network Rail, I suffered from severe culture shock.

There are many things not right with the set-up. These seem to stem from it’s genotype at the birth of Railtrack. The way it’s legal and commercial frame work was constructed has very little to do with efficient delivery of projects and more to do with other agendas. Working within the organisation is a conflict between common sense and institutionalised stupidity. Throwing in a word like nationalisation does not address the situation and more likely to distance people away from the idea of creating a better rail system.

£7.00 minimum wage, well were is this going to come from? OK I can see a situation if somebody is being paid the £5.00 plus while working for a firm paying the massive bonuses in the city or for a supermarket making £ billions in profits. The money is there it is just not being distributed equitably. What about the small corner shop existing on tight margins that has to open 16 hours a day just to survive. They might need to have someone there all the time. Pushing up a wage bill by £2.00 an hour with the extra NI is an extra £225 a week on top of the existing overheads. That is a lot of money. They close, instead of walking to the local shop people drive to the supermarket. A local job lost , you are feeding your climate change inferno and removing a community resource.

So what is all this left of centre politics, just moving side to side on the old political spectrum. If you were making a bid couldn’t you have produced something more imaginative and relevant to the present and future political landscape. I admit you know more than Miliband on the environment, but at least he’s got ‘bold labour not old Labour’.

Don’t try and hide it, I read your 911 conspiracy theory. I have lots of questions about it, at the moment I am on the hypothesis (not yet a theory) that the terrorists (if we are allowed to call them that) got lucky, very lucky. So lucky there may well be some other explanation for it. Having said that I still don’t buy your theories yet. That takes more organisation and opportunities for things going wrong or the plot to be uncovered than the simple, terrorist hijack planes and fly them into buildings.
Michael Meacher has fantastic, awesome and impressive knowledge and insights into the global ecological and environmental challenges. He just seems to keep his intellect in separate little boxes and does allow the connections between them to be made to present a workable whole challenge. Michael Meacher’s political brain is it's own political football match, Environment 10 The Rest 0.

Meacher’s involvement in the leadership adds interest and could be of benefit as he could stir up the environment agenda, but his overall presentation is so disconnected you could drive a bus from a public transport policy through it.

Besides when I wrote to him, despite his PA (Monica) saying he would reply, he didn’t.

YouScotland The Morning After

2007-02-19T16:27:00.000Z

After yesterdays review of the launch of YouScotland, this morning had a visit to see how they were progressing. With about 20 more general posts on their welcome forum there had been some activity.

Nicely they have apologised for the technical problems they had encountered. Launching a web based democracy movement with a dodgy site may well have resulted in late night arse kicking competition. Other forums have been added for discussion. If you enter the one on Xenophobia it appears compulsory to have a line about warrior princesses, a bit like discussing the MSC Napoli without mentioning it's academic qualifications.

Anyway there are bits on Trident 2, Cash for Peerages etc. I started with a post on the Trident forum and replied to one on environmental concerns for Scotland in the any other ideas part.

The technical problems probably won't affect the site in the long term as they might have not got all that many visitors to notice them. It stuck me this morning that if you are trying to attract people disenchanted with the political establishment, then perhaps the Politics Show, The Herald, Scotsman and Guardian weren't the ideal places to market the site. These are part of the established political set up.

Anyway good fortune may be their way. Not many people visited a technically flawed site. Which is far better than million going there. Now they will have the chance to improve the site in balance with hopefully more visitors. All in all worked out OK for them.

YouScotland

2007-02-18T20:23:00.000Z

Saw The Politics Show piece about participatory democracy and YouScotland, revolution in cyberspace and thought that was interesting. Somehow was the first to their blog site to post, though didn't know what I was posting to. The subject was only added later, Dragons Den, which is why no ones post made any sense to the subject for those going there now.

Then I found the forum, which took an age to register for. Thought that I would never get a post with the expected rush straight after the TV programme. Then found out when posted I was only about the 20th post having already been in the blog as well. In my post to add support to the cause I had added a hyperlink, unfortunately when it published it turned everything into a hyperlink, so was useless. Tried to edit my post 3 times without success. So posted a brief comment without hyperlink, having to point out the software was dodgy.

There are many deserving projects and initiatives that could and would create a better future that are starved of the publicity they deserve to help them evolve because they do not have friends or contacts in the media. YouScotland got the publicity, but didn't back it up with the heart of a site to match. Only bloggers would have the patience and knowledge to work through it, but they don't need such a site, they have the whole 'blogsphere' to roam, post and discuss in. The non bloggers disenchanted by the present political establishment should have been the target for YouScotland, unfortunately such a user unfriendly site would loose them straight away.

The site was supposed to be accessible for those with the minimum of computer experience. Not so, it was very unintuitive, links did not work, the site was unfinished for a launch and very difficult to navigate. Some posts noted the lack of response re the number of posts. It would be interesting to know how many hits it had, and how many tried to or wanted to make a comment and were put off or failed.

The idea was laudable, but if you are going to try to create a revolution in cyberspace, the first priority should be your site and software is at least basically up to the job. This Google blogger set up was better, as in easier to use for a visitor, than their revolutionary cyberspace offering.

The sad thing is they got so much media coverage, probably due to their connections, on TV and in the papers, then let the whole project down with the most important aspect, a sloppy site set up. It's not even though they can say well you try it. I haven't done it with websites, but with concerts. when you are doing large open air concerts you cannot have a rehearsal. Everything comes together on the day, it is the preplanning that ensures when you have a sea of thousands watching, when it starts, it is perfect and is perfect in every way through the event. You owe that to your audience who have made the effort to turn up.

Part of the proposal to use the Millennium Dome as a global environmental management centre relied very heavily on internet and advanced interactive communications so the YouScotland initiative was very interesting to me as an example of how some of those ideas could be implemented. The difference with the Millennium Dome proposal was though it contained most of the solutions to climate change and many other environmental challenges as well as being able to save many lives and stop the extinctions of lots of animals and plants, and create £billions of revenue per year, the media had no interest in it.

Probably it would have been better for YouScotland to have run the site for a while before having the big media launch, iron out the bugs and got some feedback on how to get it ready for a big hype launch. It will be interesting to see how many do return to the site in spite of the first day let down. I have volunteered to moderate or run their ecology or environment forums, it remains to be seen if they will contact me over that. If they have only a low level of participation though my time is better spent on this site and other projects which will have a bigger impact for a better future than YouScotland will have in it's present form and if it doesn't evolve. At present it is no threat to the political establishment. Even taking the whole of Scotland, it still lost it's deposit. In political terms it is yet not even a Kilroy-Silk.

Devon and Cornwall Viewpoint: Good and bad news on MSC Napoli

2007-02-18T17:04:00.000Z

Devon and Cornwall Viewpoint: Good and bad news on MSC Napoli

Climate Change Technology

2007-02-17T12:20:00.000Z

Richard Branson has offered a prize of $25 million for someone to develop technology to combat climate change.

Over at NASA they are looking at different ideas as well, 5 Ways to Save the World will be shown on 19 February at 9pm, I really don't know why I even wasted cyberspace mentioning it, I won't be watching. Why? Three words, they won't work.

The technology already exists. It was developed in 1982 as a solution to climate change. Even 10 Downing Street accepts it exists, but nothing can be done as that would amount to a commercial endorsement, better to let 5 billion people die.

911 Conspiracy

2007-02-16T15:54:00.000Z

I saw the planes hit the twin towers and I watched the news reports since of the biggest emergency to hit the United States. Now there is one question I have wanted to ask, that I have never seen or heard the answer to.

911 is also the American emergency telephone number.

Is there such a thing as an ironic terrorist?

Lord Tebbit and David Miliband in Bizarre Connection

2007-02-16T15:17:00.000Z

On Question Time BBC 1 15th February 2007, Lord Tebbit in an answer to a question about high bonuses paid to some who work in the City, referred to the large amounts of money also paid to people like David Beckham for just kicking a leather ball about.

Defra head man David Miliband has put forward the idea for personal carbon credits. Here is a contribution to a Defra consultation from 2004. Probably written in a cynical 'can we get serious' mood on climate change the concept of personal carbon credits was replaced by climate change death equivalents. (Metal Bands looking for a name please apply for permission).

The nice lads from Defra had it posted for a few days before losing their bottle and contacted me to ask if it was all right to change a 'few things'. Of course I didn't mind, Defra had let me get away with so much prior to that, I was surprised they still let me on the site anyway.

Here is Lord Tebbit and David Miliband connected in spirit. You might think I meant !*$"/ *!£%*/, I couldn't possibly comment.

Sustainable Development: The UK Government's Approach

Date posted: 06/10/04 19:32:00

Author: Roger Thomas

Message: The unsustainable media and popular unsustainable culture seems to consider the (Some Sportspeople) as role models.

Now (Some Sportspeople) contribution to society seems to be kicking a bag of air up a field. He works in Spain but as his wife wants the kids to be educated in the UK he commutes by jet between the two countries.

Tens of 1000's of miles many by private jet. He just contributes above the norm to climate change. Those islands that are going to be flooded, those starving through drought, making penguins homeless.

What we need is some sort of lifestyle indicator, such as CCDE, climate change death equivalents. Similar is employed in the nuclear industry to measure the affects of a radio active escape.

As well as having a high CCDE due to a selfish and uncaring attitude to the rest of the planet, (Some Sportspeople) also thinks its good to show off and persuade others to indulge in his lifestyle of shallow materialism, 10 cars etc.

His attitude is insulting to many people who care about the planet and others by recycling, saving energy etc.

(Some Sportspeople) is a bad influence on society especially young people and should be banned. If your choice in life is just to kick a bag of wind, then live near the football ground with your family so you can walk to work and not undo the good work others are trying to do to make the world a better place.

Roger Thomas

MP2 Applied Planetary Engineering

Happy Valentine Snow Girl!

2007-02-13T23:22:00.000Z

Miliband v Brown: Just What is It?

2007-02-13T23:02:00.000Z

Benedict Brogan, Political Editor Daily Mail, asks the question "Just what is Miliband up to?", in his blog of 12th February. As someone caught in the connections of Miliband, Stern, Brown, sustainable development and a few other things as well, the question intrigued me. Brogan seems to be implying that Miliband "harbours persistent doubts about the pm-to-be".

So it was straight off to Environment Minister David Miliband’s DEFRA blog. After a few seconds pondering where to go, familiarity struck. There on the left of his blog was a little section headed "Worth a visit". Only six links and the top one was "What is a sustainable community?" For those that don’t know the number of people who have written more in DEFRAs consultations and reports than myself this century is probably less than the number of fingers of a couple of leaves of Dave’s favourite botanical specimen.

I turned up at a conference a couple of years ago and after the formalities the lads from DEFRA asked my why I hadn’t responded to a consultation paper on sustainable development. Well I had to go on one, my little rant how everything I had done on economic growth had been virtually ignored the last time. I have this thing about DEFRA wanting ‘blue sky thinking’ but prefixing nearly every question or inserting somewhere high and stable levels of economic growth and the need for etc, in some form or another. Now the Treasury was well represented as well. If anyone wants to know who was there, just Google, Roger Thomas Sustainable Development.

Well Miliband tempted me, I clicked his in your face, worth a look top link, What is a sustainable community? I was ready for the usual flawed Defra presentation. The page opened and I read and read. Yes economic was hardly mentioned, even when it was it had words like viable, support, prosperity, integrating or development around or near it. It wasn’t shouting like some lunatic as the basic meaning for the totality of existence, high and stable levels of economic growth every other line. I’d given up with DEFRA and sustainable development. Every time they wrote "high and stable levels of economic growth" I’d write "why", to which the reply would always be "because we need high and stable levels of economic growth".

I could write a book on ‘why’, but in fact I am and that’s going to be part of it. If we have a theoretical economy of £1000 billion per annum, and environmental degradation costs £200 billion of it. If by a change in attitude and action we reduce that to £100 billion. Then the theoretical economy is only £900 billion. The economy has deceased, quality of life could go up, the environment is improved, so why always always always say we need high and stable levels of economic growth.

Miliband had directed me to a vision without the bloody stupid meaningless phrase "high and stable levels of economic growth".

Well Benedict wants the answer to what doubts Miliband has of Brown. To judge like for like, and on a level playing field Gordon Brown should be assessed on his most famous speech on the environment. At the World Bank 20th April 2006.

I gave up counting, Gordon Brown has a type of Tourettes Syndrome, it doesn’t matter what he says, he has an obsession with adding economic growth. At one point after outlining the threat of climate change, he gleefully sees that preventing it could contribute to economic growth

OK we could be looking at 5 billion people dying, 40% of the world’s species of animals and plants becoming extinct and Gordon Brown sees it as an opportunity of increasing economic growth. Horse, cart; chicken, egg; armpits, crocodiles, drain swamp: whatever.

Perhaps there is a difference in views, a cleavage in policy. There were mutterings around Davos of a ‘new development model’. Is Gordon Brown going to try and fix today's and tomorrow's challenges with yesterday’s model, which never really worked properly then.

Half a dozen of us stood talking. Someone from the Treasury asked me how I got into ecology and what influenced me. I said I was always into the natural world, I was completely hooked on Jacques Cousteau as a child, so much I got myself to read so I could read his books. All six of us had read the same book at the same age.

Milibands doubts, as a start this v that. An obsession with economic growth and not the whole integrated planetary system. What’s that phrase, one trick pony.

Cameron Smokes Dope

2007-02-11T13:45:00.000Z

Not a potential future post election tabloid headline should "call me Dave" oust the next Labour leader, but a reference to this mornings reports that Conservative leader smoked cannabis while at Eton.

Dave Cameron later gave a brief statement outside his house not denying the news merely saying politicians have a right to a life before they entered politics. Quite rightly he also made a lot of sense. Bizarrely he then said as a politician the media could stick a camera up his nose, carrying on to say they could even film him cooking the Sunday dinner, then almost did a waffle about why there might be a number of reasons why that might not be a good idea, but somehow lost what he was going to say in an attack of vagueness, seemingly experiencing 'short term memory loss'. Was Dave just having a bit of fun at the expense of the not full awake Sunday morning media?

What is the betting that some of those reporters who wrote the Sunday morning splash of 'Dave's had a spliff', haven't had one themselves at sometime even if not the night before. So what if he has partaken of the wacky baccy, is he going to be held up as an example of failure, only ever so far in his life been elected leader of the Conservative Party. Probably the Tory election machine is now calculating have more people smoked cannabis than voted Labour at the last election.

So why should he have to admit he 'done it' but now 'regretted it'. Do we as a society refuse to listen to records by the Beetles, Pink Floyd, U2 etc because they might have smoked a joint? Do we make sure any author has not taken any form of drug before we read their book? Are films banned because directors or actors may have indulged in the 'erb of the field'? (Song of Solomon, the Bible?). Should Bob Marley's Exodus be removed from the list of 100 all time best albums? Bugger me I've just dropped myself in it realising the Exodus CD is right now in my player. Does society remove from it's memory any great scientific discovery because the researcher might have had a little help from a five leafed friend?

No the spliff is an acceptable part of our culture. So why is politics singled out as the one area where it is unacceptable? Look at the mess the world is in war, terror, ecological destruction, disease and chaos. All the product from the 'mind of man', politicians who have never or refuse to admit they've smoked a joint. One definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Perhaps we should try out only politicians who admit they've sampled the Ganja. Seems to work in the other cultural fields.

Drugs may not be a drug problem, but societies. Why has evolution put receptors in the brain which only respond to cannabis? Evolution tends to be efficient and doesn't do things if they haven't a use or have been in the past, remember Darwin that process of natural selection thing. I looked up the research in Scientific American but you either need a subscription or it's outside of the digital online database. Unfortunately the New Scientist data base has crashed, probably due to all those Sunday morning journos researching. Here are some references from the Cannabis Campaign.

While we're there some confessions from other politicians. The Dave 'roll me another one just like the other one' Cameron story isn't going to go away, so we'll just have to keeping coming back for an update.

Bird Flu 3: Are You Sure

2007-02-10T12:31:00.000Z

"Well it's been spread by wild birds."

"We think it has been infected by partly processed turkey from Hungary."

"There is no problem with the food chain being contaminated."

"We might have to recall and remove turkey products from the supermarket shelves."

Government aren't really sure what they are doing.

Just to make sure, let's get all the turkey products that might be contaminated. Throw them in the bin. These can be disposed of at the tip. The seagulls can eat the refuse, and then we'll be really certain that the wild bird populations are infected. Problem solved no more Government uncertainty.

Help I'm Having a Homer TV Moment

2007-02-10T12:21:00.000Z

or let's get there before Harry Hill

BBC News 24's Fiona Trott reporting from Leeds 10 February

"Well it's absolutely freezing here as you can see by some of the ice in the lake, but the snow isn't going to last because it's all melting".

You Might Think the Government is Rubbish.

2007-02-09T15:36:00.000Z

I couldn't possibly comment.

RIP

Ian Richardson

Seen Out Lunching Together: Friday 9th February

2007-02-09T15:25:00.000Z

Bernard Matthews and Jade Goody.

Believed to be discussing a joint venture surplus stock storage scheme.

TV Review and Predictions: Hannah Peckham Pop the Q

2007-02-08T20:59:00.000Z

Well when it's late at night and browsing the free view sometimes you end up with TMF after midnight. Well I knew on The Mint one of the top ten associated with Elvis had to be toilet, but I couldn't get through. So I never went back or entered another quiz again.

But sometimes I end up at POP the Q at TMF, and this young lady appeared. Hannah Peckham.

The first thing that struck me was that if Steve Tyler from Aerosmith had another daugther other than Liv ( Armageddon, Pearl Harbour) then this could be her. I don't have to say she's pretty, this camera hasn't lied. On top of that she is flirty, chatty, flowing and occasionally shows flashes of a deeper intelligence than she is using here. Probably a girl to watch out for, for bigger things in the future. A true late night, minority channel star. I suppose if anyone wants to book her, they can get in touch with her agent Sue Terry Voices. Which is where the photo came from.

Probably someone worth looking out for in the future.

Perthshire View: Snow

2007-02-08T20:44:00.000Z

It snowed today in England. Roads closed, no schools, chaos, stay at home, warning, dangerous conditions.

It snowed today in Perthshire.

Bird Flu 2

2007-02-08T20:33:00.000Z

This ended up being discussed over at The Slant and very interesting it turned out.
http://www.theslant.co.uk/2007/02/06/bird-flu-outbreak-on-suffolk-turkey-farm/

Also for QED

http://broganblog.dailymail.co.uk/2007/02/bad_news_for_be.html

From Scotland to Greenwich via Westminster: Flood, Domes and Jeers

2007-02-07T16:38:00.000Z

While over in Millennium Dome land Greenwich Watch, Cllr Nigel Fletcher and Iain Dale expose the secret congestion charge, the Daily Mail report on the big secret facing Greenwich and the rest of London. Thames to Flood in 8 Years, a little warning from Sir Nicholas Stern.

Has somebody been asking questions? Letter to Greenwich MPs and Councillors, let the political representatives of Greenwich know the Government were told about the flood threat to London and had the solutions in April 2001. Behind all this SNP MP Pete Wishart has written to Jim Fitzpatrick MP, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, regarding the criteria of assessment in the Millennium Dome competition. That’s SNP, the same political party that started the ‘cash for peerages’ investigation.

Back to the Daily Mail and political editor Benedict Brogan reveals more of the tit for tat, between Chancellor Gordon Brown and Sir Nicholas, in Stern’s Revenge. You can tell that ecology has become the political mainstream when ‘in-jokes’ are made about it.

Perthshire View

2007-02-07T15:56:00.000Z

The frost was hard in the shadows, sun chased it away in the open. A wasp buzzed around me while out walking with Ruskin the Dog. Landing on my chest hitched a ride for a while, before flying down to the wall. Frost and wasps.

Millennium Dome/Global Environmental Management Latest: Perthshire MP Writes to Minister

2007-02-06T11:48:00.000Z

Having obtained the competition criteria for the 2001 Millennium Dome competition from Jim Fitzpatrick MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Perthshire SNP MP Pete Wishart has now written back on behalf of Millennium Project Two.

The competition criteria would seem to indicate that the competition should have been won by Millennium Project Two, as a global environmental management centre, and not AEG with it's venue, and now failed casino complex.

The call by President Chirac of France for the setting up of a global environmental management body, nearly the same proposal that was submitted for the Millennium Dome, 6 years before, has only reinforced the view that there may have been "oversights" in the running of the competition.

See
Millennium Dome: Isn't it iconic
Millennium Dome: The 2001 Proposal the Government's Consultants Wanted to Support
Millennium Dome Loss in Climate Change Chaos
Perthshire Flood Damage: A Case Against the Government?

The Bird Flu Analysis Part 1: From Prime Minister Tony Blair and Government Approved Source for FMD

2007-02-06T10:44:00.000Z

MRSA is a hospital Superbug. When you go to the Post Office to tax your car, do you catch MRSA? When you go to the pub or the night club, do you catch MRSA? When you are sitting at home watching Dancing on Ice or whatever floats your boat, do you catch MRSA? The answer is no. How do you know? The answer is because the government does not send out teams of ‘Bio-Security’ personnel to isolate and disinfect all these areas of your life to stop MRSA and all the other life threatening superbugs in our hospitals. Bio-security is ‘highlighted’ in irony because it is one of the buzzwords of the week.

A hospital is a relatively sealed structure, with a high density of living organisms contained within it ie people and a high use of antibiotics and other drugs used there .Unfortunately in a hospital is where you have a potentially higher chance of dying from MRSA or other superbug. This is the reason why you are not warned about the dangers of catching MRSA by the government in a post office, in a pub, or while walking on a Sunday in the countryside is because it doesn’t happen. Outside of a hospital you are in the ‘wild’.

So Bird Flu has occurred in the UK again. Where has it occurred? In a sealed ‘bio-secure’, turkey farm. A intensive poultry unit has high concentrations of living organisms, in a sealed unit and high usage of antibiotics and other drugs. Exactly the same conditions as a hospital.

Yet the ‘scientists’ and government are pointing the finger at wild bird populations for the source of the H51N superbug. Whenever have you heard the NHS or the government point the finger for deaths in hospitals from MRSA to the local post office or pub? Never.

Now I live in Perthshire Scotland. If you don’t know Perthshire it is difficult to explain. Try God made Perthshire, then with the remnants, offcuts and waste he made the rest of the planet. We are on the M25 of migration routes. I probably see in one day more wild birds than many people see in a life time. What I never see is dead unexplained ‘wild birds’. OK I see ones a fox or a cat may have had, I see ones hit by a car, I see young fallen out of a nest. It is not just me. I have a girlfriend doing a degree in environmental and earth sciences, she misses nothing. I have a dog who will tell me if they find anything dead or out of place. Now I watch the news and the ‘pundits’ expect me to believe that a wild bird suffering from Bird Flu, what is the probability of that, flew down a ventilation shaft of an intensive turkey farm, what is the probability of that, and infected a150,000 turkeys. You must be joking, insane or taking far to many drugs to suffer such improbable delusions.

What is an ventilation vent in open surface area, we will measure it in square inches, so the only bird with Flu chose that out of the millions of square miles available, to fly down. Oh really.

So someone having a night out in a pub in Barnsley is reponsible for all the cases of MRSA in the UK. To stop MRSA in hospitals do the government disinfect all post offices and working mens clubs in Yorkshire.

Outside of the turkey farm the wild bird population is happily going about it’s business as it has done for millions of years. Free range chickens are shown are on TV healthily pecking about all day.

So what does the government advise. You get the free range birds and lock them up in intense conditions, inside sealed buildings. Yes take your healthy free range birds and put them in conditions which exactly recreate the conditions the only place where Bird Flu has been found.

Brilliant.

With that I will leave Bird Flu for tonight, but this subject will be back tomorrow. Please if you have any comments, please leave them.

If you are wondering about the title. It was me who sorted out Foot and Mouth for the Prime Minister and the Government. Good of him to send me a letter acknowledging, and for his Ministers to quote word for word from my work. Work which is and has been for a while in the science libraries of the biggest organisations involved with the 2001 FMD epidemic.

Letter to Greenwich MPs and Councillors

2007-02-04T14:10:00.000Z

Dear Greenwich Political Representative

I have used the press release by Greenwich Councillor Nigel Fletcher in the following post on Milennium Project Two, Googles No 1 blog search and resource for the Millennium Dome.

http://millenniumprojecttwo.blogspot.com/2007/02/millennium-dome-loss-in-climate-change.html

Do you not think it would have been in the public interest for the UK, London or at the least Greenwich to have been informed that in 2001 the Governments consultants, in letters considered the establishment of a global environmental centre at Greenwich "good" and "interesting", that in emails confirmed it had been moved forward in the competition ie shortlisted and in private discussions was the proposal they wanted to support. Time and world events also proving this was the best proposal for the Dome. Which was why it was entered.

How ironic that in the week that global environmental management is the top global news story, all the coverage Greenwich got was that it didn't get a casino.

Imagine if the competition criteria had been followed Greenwich this week would have been getting a a £ mutli billion cheque from the IMF, World Bank and the UN. Every single news media in the world would be in Greenwich reporting on how the Dome was the leading global resource in resolving climate change and all other environmental challenges. Bird Flu in Suffolk, flooding in Indonesia and that is on an average Sunday morning.

Do you think Greenwich has been sold down the river, especially when sea level rise takes hold. Oh yes the proposal did specifically mention flooding in London and it's solutions. It may be of some consolation that when London does flood with the £10s if not £100s of billions that will be incurred in cost and damage, the Government did have the solutions all along. They just 'forgot' to tell anybody.

Yours sincerely

Roger Thomas
Millennium Project Two

Millennium Dome Loss in Climate Change Chaos

2007-02-04T00:08:00.000Z

The 2001 proposal to give the Millennium Dome ‘iconic status’ as a centre of global environmental management, 30th January, Millennium Dome: The 2001 Proposal the Government's Consultants Wanted To Support has now involved the Dome in a new and perhaps the most bizarre twist so far. Following the publication of the United Nations Environmental Programme report on climate change on Friday 2nd February, President Chirac of France has called for nations to support his idea of a ‘global environmental management’ body.

Exactly the same words and exactly the same concept as the proposal the Government's consultants Jones Lang LaSalle wanted to support to take over the running of the Millennium Dome 6 years ago.

Greenwich Councillor Nigel Fletcher recently referred to the ‘curse of the dome’, if the press reports are true then this is it’s ultimate damnation. If the Government had followed the criteria of the competition for the Dome the winner in 2001 would have been the global environmental management centre.

In 2001 the Labour Government turned down the equivalent sized project as NASA, Microsoft and U2 all moving their centre of operations to Greenwich for the chance of gambling they might get a casino there instead. This latest instalment now moves into the realm of the only imaginable, or unimaginable, depending on how much you can imagine.

Imagine going back a few hundred years. The Government gather Joshia Wedgwood, Abraham Darby, George Stephenson, James Watt, Hargreaves et al all into a room. The Government of the day tells them they have decided they are not going to have an industrial revolution and they must all stop what they are doing. The Government having decided they are going to base the future development and economy of the UK on bear dancing and gin palaces.

Just try to imagine how much of the total economic wealth of the UK has been generated from the last few hundred years of the industrial revolution. Imagine that the Government has decided that they didn’t want that wealth and development creating. Everything the UK had created from the industrial revolution never ever existed.

Well that is what Prime Minister Tony Blair’s New Labour Government has done to Britain's future in the global ecological revolution. David Miliband, Minister for Environment has had the front to make a vacuous and pathetic ‘call to action’ over climate change. Nothing more than a smokescreen for an incompetent Government to hide behind while giving the global ecological revolution away, because they wanted a casino instead. Why don’t they resign, I do not want my life, my family’s life, my friends lives or this planet endangered any longer by their complete and total stupidity.

Climate change is serious, so stop gambling and playing games with our lives!

So now France has taken a 6 years lead straight off the UK. I leave that for Al Murray’s Pub Landlord to comment on. Makes more sense than a New Labour Government.

Millennium Dome: Isn't it iconic

2007-02-02T13:44:00.000Z

Mild mannered Greenwich Conservative Councillor Nigel Fletcher, when not being Shadow Education Special Advisor, raised the question of whether the AEG casino bid was ‘tainted’, with the connections to Deputy PM John Prescott. A point picked up on by the ever watchful Greenwich Watch.

Meanwhile over at The Business, Fraser Nelson also puts the spotlight on the hapless Prescott.

How ironic.

Tags and memes, tracking information flow through systems. If I had a pound for every journalist and comment that calls the Millennium Dome ‘iconic’, I would buy AEG out with an offer they couldn’t refuse. So where did ‘iconic’ come from. An internet search has so far has revealed no connection between the words ‘iconic’ and ‘Millennium Dome’ prior to Lord Falconers announcement of what was to become AEG winning the bid to take over running the Dome on 18th December 2001. There are plenty of references to that date and speech, for example and at random, this one.

How ‘ironic’ that the new buzz word, ‘iconic’, to describe the Millennium Dome was never used in public in the previous 5 or 6 years. Now why and how did it suddenly appear on Lord Falconer’s lips while announcing the winner of the Dome competition.

Lord Falconer and most since like to use the word in the sense of an ‘iconic building’ Somehow this seems strained. The word hangs unfulfilled by the premier wordmiths of our culture. Marilyn Monroe is iconic.......as a blond Hollywood sex symbol. The Pentagon is iconic........as a world recognised centre of defence. See how iconic likes to be followed by it’s association. Perhaps a definition could help: icon, a symbol resembling or analogous to the thing it represents. Lets add ....ic: relating matters to a particular subject.

Is this why Lord Falconer’s and everybody else's use of the word ‘iconic’ seems false, strained or unfulfilled. To use the word iconic in it’s full beautiful context, should also entail to what it is associated with. The Millennium Dome is iconic, is not enough. Though I have to admit it is a lovely word.

So the word to describe the Dome has only been used in public since 18th December 2001 when Lord Falconer used it in announcing AEG had won the competition, and it has never been used in it’s full context.

Now in the posting of 30th January Millennium Dome: The 2001 Proposal the Government’s Consultant’s Wanted to Support, what appears in this, supplied in April 2001 to Jones Lang LaSalle, 8 months before Lord Falconer announces AEG as the winner of the ‘iconic building’, oh, a little phrase and concept.

‘The Millennium Dome would have ‘iconic status’ as a centre for global environmental management’. Wow. The first time ever the word ‘iconic’ has been used to describe the Dome, and as a bonus in it’s proper full usage.

Anyone with any suspicions over the Governments involvement with AEG might be tempted to consider that the Government supported the AEG proposal by using the marketing strategy from another proposal.

Perhaps the other proposal was so good and was so attention grabbing, that parts may have been lifted from it, that given a proper open competition it may have even won. There again when has an outsider ever won anything connected to the Dome?

Perhaps this was the reason askFT, the advisory arm of the Financial Times called it "a truly exciting and innovative project".

Well who would have wanted an extra £50 billion coming into the UK economy via Greenwich, the problems of climate change more or less sorted, many of those killed in the SE Asia Tsunami, hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters now alive, with it’s one size fits all global environmental monitoring and alert system. Etc Etc, as Yul Brynner may have said.

Well no one when you could have had a bling bling do nothing casino. Well lets put those suspicions aside right now. I mean, while the competition was running, Lord Falconer wouldn’t have been having meetings with one competitor, showing unfair bias, would he? There are no suspicions that somehow Blair's aides may be involved, are there?

See what you could’ve won. ............ Isn't it ironic.

The Millennium Dome: Costing the Earth Part 1

2007-01-31T22:52:00.000Z

The first time it was possible to predict there was going to be a problem with the Millennium Dome was 25th August 1997, the Daily Mail ran a front page headline. Dome: Smell of Doom. There are many ways to assess projects or complex systems. Using various techniques, that would not be employed by project managers engaged in the Millennium Experience (as it was called at the time), it was possible to determine what these problems were and how to correct them. Unfortunately the Dome organisation did not want outside assistance and the project ran into the predictable problems without the solutions.

The greatest thrill and anticipation was knowing there was to be a competition to take over the running of the Dome. The intention was quite simple. Enter the competition, win it and run the Dome as it should be run. Make it the worldwide success it always had the potential to be.

Just like the the recent annoucment of the winner of the Supercasino, with attention focused on a web page, similar took place at the start of 2001, and the awaiting of the announcement of the competition to run the Millennium Dome. In this case it was the website of English Partnerships.

Detailed predictions were made of the future. These showed the environment was going to play an increasingly greater role in determining policy and development. Also that the consequences of the damage we were inflicting on the ecological systems of the planet, those that support and sustain all life, were becoming increasingly critical. In 2006 society would start to be destroyed by them, if the effects were not stopped and started to be reversed by 2012 the extinction horizon would be reached. The point of no return, billions of people dead and the loss of most of the planet's animal and plant species. The 'Mad Max' scenario.

Space had NASA, Defence had the Pentagon. Yet the Earth, the single most important resource on which all life depended had no globally recognised iconic representation to protect and enhance it.

So what could save a planet. What or who could drag a world from the precipice of oblivion, deflect the Earth from it's trajectory of disaster to the path of a safer better future.

The angel sat there, white and beautiful, unloved and unwanted, ridiculed and despised. But she could save a planet. She could be the beacon of light and hope for a world that would soon slide into chaos.

Tony Blair never understood her, didn't get what she was about. So in a speech said the Millennium Dome would be the envy of the world. He says he is a Christian, so should have known envy is a deadly sin. It's all just spin. Just change a word and lift the curse. The Millennium Dome would be for the benefit of the world.

The website was watched, waiting for the process to begin to make the Millennium Dome a centre of excellence in global environmental management.

Millennium Dome: The 2001 Proposal The Government's Consultants Wanted To Support

2007-01-30T20:16:00.000Z

The original one page synopsis of the proposal entered into the competition for the Millennium Dome April 2001. This is the proposal that the Government's own consultants wanted to back. Some formatting has been lost in transfer.

MP2
millennium project two

Introduction

The use of the Millennium Dome and Greenwich Peninsula as a centre of excellence in environmental management, research, consultancy, co-ordination and education.

Status

Pentagon:Defence The City:Finance NASA:Space Dome:Environment
Iconic Definitive Unambiguous

Concepts

Future Sustainable Interactive Progress Locally Relevant Globally Significant

Range

Accessible for a child with a computer, connected to an inner city tree planting scheme, a resource for local and regional authorities, interactive with national governments and international organisations. Applicable to anywhere and everyone in the world. A project that will benefit every single person on the planet. A fusion of ecology and IT interfacing with socio-economic, commercial and political systems

Components

Visitor centre, interactive exhibition and experience, media and IT networked, conference venue, research, education, entertainment, forum and co-ordination for agencies and organisations, consultancy, policy and strategy development.

Mission and Historical Precedent

21st Century Catalyst Millennium Defining Epoch Making
Agrarian Revolution:The Fertile Crescent Industrial Era:North West England The Next Way: The Millennium Dome and Greenwich Peninsula

Project Creation
All ideas, concepts and intellectual property by Roger Thomas 1988,1991/8,2000/1. Creative direction and project management. Simple solutions to complex challenges.

The Millennium Dome, Why a Supercasino? An Applied Planetary Engineering Assessment.

2007-01-28T17:23:00.000Z

Synopsis

In the 2001 competition to find a use for the Millennium Dome, the proposal that the Government’s own consultants wanted to back was Millennium Project Two, a global environmental management centre. In the criteria of the competition this should have been the winning proposal. The proposal outlined a revenue generation for the Dome of £50 billion per year. Recent events and associated reports validating the initial projections. Why did Greenwich throw away such a world leading and revenue generating proposal, wanting a supercasino instead? An applied planetary engineering assessment would indicate this was not the optimum decision.

----------------------------------

So is the Millennium Dome going to be a Supercasino? One reason why a global environmental management centre was proposed for the Millennium Dome in the 2001 competition, was simply because it was the best proposal. The Government’s consultants Jones Lang LaSalle thought the same. This was the proposal they wanted to raise the finance for and provide the project team to implement.

Recently we obtained the competition criteria from Jim Fitzpatrick MP Office of the Deputy prime Minister, via Pete Wishart SNP MP for Perth and North Perthshire. These criteria were withheld from the Millennium Project Two Bid, thereby excluding it from the competition by default.

So why was a casino chosen over the proposal the Government’s consultants liked and why was the competition criteria withheld? Did the Government all along believe that a casino and AEG would win the competition? Suddenly on the criteria of the competition did the winning proposal appeared left field and totally unexpected catching them unprepared? By withholding the competition criteria did the Government exclude what would have been the winning proposal from the competition.

Was this a face saving exercise by New Labour? After making such a mess of the first Millennium Project at the Dome, even pining their ability to run the country on the way they ran the Dome. If a bid appeared that made a complete and total success of the Millennium Dome, would this severely dent their credibility in running the original project and the country?

Did the Government have to ensure that whoever won the competition would be the worst acceptable proposal? Thereby having to exclude the best and favourite proposal?

So what will happen if the Millennium Dome becomes a Supercasino? The future is not bright. Without the Millennium Dome being used as a major resource in global environmental management, the effects of global ecological life support system collapse and it’s symptoms such as climate change will increase in severity and sooner than without it. Due to the international recognition the Millennium Dome had, it’s use from 2001 in supplying solutions to the global environmental challenge would have put the Earth 6 years ahead of where we are in confronting the problem and with a greater magnitude of available response. The destruction that is now going to occur from society neglecting the environment would probably never occurred. It appears the Government had the choice between planetary ecological apocalypse avoidance and a casino, and chose the casino.

What do casinos do? All a casino does is move and/or concentrate money. In return for the thrill of the experience of believing you may obtain more money than you are willing to bet, and against the odds in favour of the house. It just takes money from individuals in return for the thrill that they believe they can take more from it. Thereby concentrating the money from many into the form of profits for the casino. Here will lie the compounded problem for the future of the Dome and Greenwich.

As the environmental parameters that society will have to develop within become more severe as the ecological back lash increases in response to the damage, projects will have to be assessed and conform to a principle that they create more planetary ecological stability than they consume in their initiation. Similar to the past business model, that financial return must be greater than investment in order for a business to be viable. In future projects must contribute more to the sustainable evolution of the socio-economic/ecological system than they initially detract from it in their inception. A sewage treatment works will require energy and resources in it’s set up; concrete, other materials, machinery and the costs involved with the human resources to construct it. The resources are an initial drain on the Earth system, but over the life of the sewage plant it is creating clean water, reducing pollution, increasing biodiversity and productivity (algal blooms apart which increase biological oxygen demand). There is a net gain over the life cycle analysis of the project to the total planetary system.

The redevelopment of the Dome site, it’s construction and all the resources in the set up and running of a casino are an input from and a drain on the total Earth system. A casino though never pays back what it has borrowed, unlike a sewage works. A casino only moves or concentrates money. It never as part of it’s process imparts stability back to the total Earth system. It is in ecological terms a parasite on sustainable evolution or development.

In a legislative context in terms of environmental audits it has a future which may be terminated, as we become a more ecologically aware and benign society in order to survive. Again return to the Marshall Macluhan quote used in another article, "there are no passengers on spaceship Earth only crew". A casino is not even a passenger in environmental audit terms it is a parasite, with a negative return to the host (Earth).

Where is the income for a casino going to come from. Is this the local area or does it want to attract visitors and especially overseas visitors? The clue could be Supercasino. The service or catchment area of it’s customers may be extended to overseas visitors. Only by looking at the business plan of the casino would we know to what extent overseas customers play in it’s financial planning.

Already we are seeing the backlash against air travel. This is coming financially from sources such as the Chancellor Gordon Brown increasing taxes on air travel. How much further will this go? Secondly as the consequences of climate change become more severe, high polluting activities such as air travel will become a social pariah activity. As more people die as a result of climate change, air travel will become a socially unacceptable activity.

The onset of the effects of climate change will occur much quicker and more severely than the Government or media is portraying. In a very short term vast changes will occur. Due to the way climate is modelled, the constraints imposed on climate models in the way they are funded and the imposed parameters, the models tend to produce the least severe or under estimated consequences.

This situation will reduce the number of visitors by air travel. Visitors by air travel contribute to the planetary system negatively and by then engaging in an activity, casino gambling, also contribute negatively again. Any guidelines or legislation based on real world analysis of environmental systems, and not subject to political spin to hide the truth, would have air travel to a casino very close to the top of the list for activities that need banning either by legislation or by being so morally, ecologically and socially unacceptable they will not be tolerated.

The media carry many reports of vigilante action and protest against paedophiles. Similar may occur against air travelling for gambling. The environmental cost of air travel must be offset against the reason for that travel. Someone flying to implement a project to reduce pollution, increase biodiverity etc. will offset the damage to the environment caused by the travel, by the benefits obtained by the whole Earth system as a result of that work. Air travel for gambling does not fulfil that criteria.

The future for such an unsustainable activity as gambling linked with air travel for the Greenwich area is bleak, either legislation or a social pressure will impose limits on it in the near future. Though a great deal has been written on the social consequences of gambling, such as addiction, very little has been produced on the effects of somebody working in an industry as regards their own assessment of the their worthwhile contribution to society.

This can be expanded to ask the question, what is a place like Greenwich doing being involved with such an industry? Greenwich had a world renowned past, it is still the datum from which the world takes it’s position in time, GMT is a world defining standard. The tradition of Greenwich is rich in astronomy, observation, exploration and setting the standard. The knowledge of the world draws from Greenwich.

Greenwich had the opportunity to build on that illustrious past and take a planet safely into the future by navigating the course of sustainable planetary evolution and development.

Why did Greenwich sell it’s soul, integrity, past and future so cheaply? Why did it want to shed it’s pride as a world leader for the cheap and pointless world of being a gambling centre? Greenwich had the option of having the world leading centre of environmental management at the Dome, a beacon of hope and inspiration across a planet. The income from the venture would have dwarfed anything a casino could supply. As when reporters now want a quote on space they refer to NASA, when they want the authoritative response on defence they quote the Pentagon. Now the global focus of world attention is the environment, all the world’s media would have referred to The Dome Greenwich for the foremost authoritative comment, analysis research and implementation.

Greenwich safely charted the world as a historical precedent. When the time came to make a decision on it’s present and future it could have been the NASA of the environment, the Silicon Valley of sustainable planetary development and evolution. £50 billion a year would have come to the Dome, Greenwich would have had the global kudos and esteem. Development would have been respected, required and sustainable. No thanks said Greenwich, we want to join the scramble for a casino, let somewhere else in the world have the honour, reputation and revenue from having the world’s leading centre on the environment. Applied planetary engineering would suggest Greenwich may have not made the best decision.

If it wasn’t true it would be unbelievable.

MSC Napoli Part 3

2007-01-27T15:23:00.000Z

Well the Napoli Incident is moving up the news ratings just as we have reported, and is to be expected. MSC Napoli in Google News is getting an ever increasing number of returns. These range from the local concerns of residents that nothing was done, to the building up of an international incident. Pollution threats to the marine environment, VW car parts to South Africa, French winemakers lost barrels.

Only to be expected, here was a major marine and environmental incident unfolding and what did the world’s media see as the response. Well absolutely nothing from the UK Government or any political party, but plenty of pictures of a rummage free for all.

Devon 24 the collective website of the areas local papers have a place for suggesting stories for follow up, this is what MP2 applied planetary engineering placed:

The situation of why there was no centralised control of the grounding of the Napoli. The decision ended at grounding and then no attempt to follow that up. Did anyone know whether any of the containers washed up contained toxic or dangerous material?

The Napoli should be seen as an indicator of the actual level of attention the environment gets from political parties and the political system in general. None.

The Napoli has shown despite all media attention politics has craved over the environment, the actual political concern and imperative is zero. This maybe due to most politicians are lawyers, accountants, economists or managerial. Their qualification and experience from school until the present are history, art history, politics or subjects that President J F Kennedy would consider from the 'mind of man'. When confronted with a situation that requires some knowledge of the ‘real’ bigger ‘world’ of environment and effective decision making and project management to meet those demands. They prefer to retreat into their 'comfort zone' cocoon of politics, law and commerce, or bury their heads in the sand of the beach. Better to play some political game of law and the Home Office rather than deal with the real world of a ship, a pollution threat and a potentially international environmental incident. That might require some technical knowledge, an actual appraisal of a situation and decision making being actually implemented in full view; instead of the ineffectiveness hidden away in some biased report or evasion of questions when the incident has all but forgotten in the safe place of the future.

"Ship on a beach, perhaps we should stick to what be know let’s carry on with the social, legal and economic consideration of casinos".

Politicians drone on about the importance of democracy. Perhaps they should also let on to the public that democracy is government by the people or their elected representatives. You don’t need politicians to have a democracy. That politicians are increasingly ignoring the important aspects of life on Earth, might mean that their time for some natural extinction is due. You concentrate on your bloody casinos and let the rest of us deal with securing a safer better future for this planet we are part of.

MSC Napoli Part 2

2007-01-26T11:51:00.000Z

PM Tony Blair grins and promises the "Greenest Olympics ever". No they can’t be or ever be the greenest Olympics if the full audit is done, as covered in Scottish Olympic Costs 20th January.

Mean while down on the south coast somebody has parked a 80,000 tonne ship on the beach. Providing a major attraction for a group of people that under went a spectrum of descriptions. Starting as beachcombers, then to scavengers, finally to looters. Why were they there? The reason was because no one else was. No police, no coastguard, no army, no anybody. No Government or other overall authority at all.

What were we told through the media? An 80,000 tonne ship has run aground on the south coast but it is thought that it is ‘only’ carrying 150 containers of toxic or dangerous material, (and 3500 tonnes of heavy fuel oil). It is reassuring that the ships manifest details exactly what it is carrying. This means that if a ship manifest doesn’t say it is carrying cocaine or heroin or illegal immigrants, then the Customs won’t need to look. A massive ship ‘only’ carrying 150 containers of dangerous materials, beached and aground, went totally missed by the radar of the Government and the opposition parties.

"Talk is cheap but Whisky costs money", as my friend Martin would say, and in this case Galore. The MSC Napoli has torpedoed the thin veneer of political pretence of concern over the environment.

While Tony smiles and glad hands on a PR and photo opportunity desperately trying to improve the image of an out of control Olympic budget, pantomime takes over.
"It’s behind you". Shout the audience.
"What". Says Tony.
"It’s behind you".
"Gosh", says Tony looking over his shoulder, "an 80,000 tonne ship left on a beach unattended, where did that come from?"

So does the PM still think he can still be a world leader with any credibility on global environmental issues. "Oh you're the guy who forgot about the ship on the beach, what did you want to lecture us about, climate change was it?

The Government could have had an applied planetary engineering centre at the Millennium Dome that would co-ordinate events like this as well as providing the solutions to climate change. but gambled on a casino instead, as part of costly sport event. While explaining how 'green' it is, completely miss the environmental agenda basking on a beach. Where is the opposition, where is the media analysis. Environment has a long way to go before it is taken seriously by either the politicians or the media. Beware the dangerous obsession with climate change.

Scotland: The World's First Ecological Superpower? Feb 2006

The Torrey Canyon Disaster 1967 One reason some of us put the environment first, these were some of the events that made us what we are.

Good Intentions

2007-01-26T11:39:00.000Z

There is a ship on a beach, climate change now causes George W Bush to announce he wants 20% of US fuel from sustainable sources, the Olympics are costing more and more, raising complaints from Scotland over that and Trident, terrorism and war still are in the news, and cash for peerages . All separate?

Six horses gallop through our daily news their reins trace back in time to the clutched hand of February 2001: An odyssey in time.

Well that was how the story started for the next post. Come 11.30 last night and still writing it was getting obvious that story was proving to large for a single sharp approach in a short one article format. Making the connections and putting in the references for the forensic reader to follow to make an definitive account of the last 6 years was being defeated by the length to do it justice. Perhaps better to break it down and if any connections are questioned or queried, be assured they do exist and are valid.

MSC Napoli Part 1 (of many)

2007-01-24T22:26:00.000Z

First, that is some qualification for a ship to get, OU was it. Right joke's over. Second, this story is going to run and run, so put the Part 1 as we mean to go on. This story is going to keep the media going for weeks or even months, there is so much mileage so many questions, it's about for a while.

Let's start in this article by looking at a previous one from 14 January 2006, The Nuclear Deterrent: An Applied Planetary Engineering Analysis, this contained the line "6) Vast maritime clean ups are required of chemical dumps and dangerous ship wrecks containing cargo and materials which should not be in the oceans". This article referred to the document Scotland: The World's First Ecological Superpower, sent to all Members of the Scottish Parliament at the beginning of April 2006.This document was produced on the recommendation of Perth Business Gateway as an update for Scotland in 2006 of the proposal for 2001 for the Millennium Dome.

For the start of understanding the MSC Napoli story that with unfold over the next days, weeks, and months, we can only ask or advise for you to read that document. If you do this will give you the grounding and lead to the unfolding Napoli story.

When I saw the beachcombers taking their findings home on the TV news I wondered how these pictures would be viewed around the world. I didn't have long to wait, US main news, ABC, showed them as their 'and finally' slot last night. "Booty and the Beach", "looters" and "hundreds of scavengers" ran the voice over.

It's only by acting 'on the way others see you' that may be the reason suddenly today the beach has been sealed off by coastguards and police. No worries though the MSC Napoli story has got legs to keep running and running, it hasn't even got going yet. Please return for the full implications of the story which will now unfold in the media.

Attitude to the United States: 8 out of 10 Cats........

2007-01-23T21:45:00.000Z

The press today reported that there is a dissatisfaction with the UKs relationship with the United States. 68% of those questioned thought the US presence in the middle east provoked conflict etc.

Changing Futures was the 2nd in a trilogy of works submitted to UN and Government reports trying to dissuade the UK Government from invading Iraq. "It will all end in tears". Quite simply as your mother would have said.

The 3rd addressed the UK relationship with the US in the build up to war. The UNED-UK summarised them as it as ‘questioning UK response to the USA not agreeing to Kyoto Protocol...... Relationship between north (UK and USA) and south (Ethiopia)........strength and capacity of the UK.

This is the final part of the trilogy dated 8th January 2003

Is the UKs Relationship With America the Cause of Many of Our Society's Problems

The UK was the first country in the world to enter and lead the Industrial Era of global development.
Much of the science, technology, commercial, financial, political and institutional processes that took the world into the industrial age originated in the UK.

At this point in America Davy Crocket hadn't got round to fighting the Mexicans yet.

Much of the model and strategy that America used when it went and entered its industrialised phase of development came from what the UK had already developed and gone through.

The UK had already had a global empire or was in the process of building it up.

Like children countries have to grow up and develop, it is the nature of change.

The UK has finished its secondary education and now needs to go to university.

America is a much younger country it is now leaving primary education and needs to start secondary school.

For some reason the UK wants to hang around with its much younger friend. There is no problem with a 19 year old being friendly and getting on with a 11 year old.

The trouble comes when the 19 year old starts spending all its time with the 11 year old doing the things it wants.

If the 11 year old is a bit of a bully and starts stealing sweets from the other kids in its class and one of them turns round and gives it a slap. A 19 doesn't go into the playground and join in with its friend.

Far better if its worried about 11 year olds to carry on with its education and become a teacher and lead by example.

19 year olds hanging round with 11 year olds stagnate, they stop getting on with their own life. They need to do things a 20 or a 21 year old does, become an adult.

America goes on and on about its economy, well let it. Does Bush ever express his concerns for the environment local or global. Britain has been through that.

Britain needs to continue its development for itself. But in doing that by virtue of its leading edge position in global development it must also be the world leader in post-industrial, third phase, ecological sustainable development. The next step after the industrial era.

British society is bored and listless, because Britain is playing in last centuries back yard with an 11 year old. Waiting for the 11 year old to grow up.

Britain is stagnating and falling apart beacause it has forgotten that it is the leader and where it goes eventually America will follow.

Britain has lost leadership in itself. It has forgotten to be innovative, creative and bold in its journey into the frontier of the future.

The world does then not have a leader, it too stagnates and falls apart in quarrels and bickering. Instead of Britain saying "well we are moving on", it holds itself back joining in.

Britain wastes its time trying to tart up and patch yesterdays ideas. That is what Britain has never been about.

Britain needs to be starting today and building the path to tommorrow, then walk the walk. Once Britain changes and moves the rest will follow, then the world will be dragged out of the mire it's in.

Does anyone else think differently?

Roger Thomas

8th January 2003

Carbon Offsetting: The Gold Standard Part 2

2007-01-23T21:35:00.000Z

Coincidentally just after putting the post of 20th Jan Carbon Offsetting, a message was received from the Sustainable Development Research Network (SDRN) to take part in the consultation exercise in carbon offsetting the Government has proposed.

It’s going to be a time of calculators, Avogadro’s Number, dry mass and time graphs. We will do our best to ensure the carbon offsetting proposals are of the highest standard. The only problem that occurs with these consultation exercises is sometimes when you get all the science and the strategy correct, everything then seems to defer to some political goal which wasn’t previously part of the plan.

MP2 will offer a carbon offsetting service in the near future. Whether it will be the one the Government decides or one we think will be more effective, we will be literary setting the standard.

Applied Planetary Engineering Blairgowrie Perthshire

2007-01-22T20:28:00.000Z

MP2 applied planetary engineering is based in Blairgowrie, the 2nd largest town in Perthshire Scotland. Perthshire was the location for the G8 Summit in 2005, whose main agenda was climate change and Africa.

As MP2 had some influence on this agenda via a contribution to a United Nations Environment and Development-UK report commissioned by the UK Government. An automatic legacy would to carry out leading edge research into the global challenges for effective implementation.

Blairgowrie is ideally situated in this respect. It is just south of the Cairngorms National Park, a sub arctic/tundra area of outstanding beauty and wilderness. While celebrity campaigners travel the globe reporting on the effects of climate change, needlessly contributing to the problem. In Blairgowrie it is only necessary to look out of the window.

Applied Planetary Engineering Search Update

2007-01-22T19:20:00.000Z

We appreciate there have been some problems with this site falling out of the search engines. When it was launched it was the top hit on Google for applied planetary engineering. It then mysteriously disappeared, Google would not even acknowledge it's existence let alone search for it.

This problem may have been over come and the site has returned to the top of the Google index. If any of our readers would like to try searching for the site using applied planetary engineering and would like to report their results it may help us in providing an improved service.

Scotland, Trident and the Legacy of JFK

2007-01-21T20:57:00.000Z

In the early 60s President Kennedy initiated a programme to put man on the moon and bring him back alive before the end of the decade. This was done, but it is the space programme in the 70’s which will give us the example of how to save a planet.

Apollo 13 lost it’s life support system due to a small explosion in the service module. Earth has now but all lost it’s ecological life support system due to economic growth, greed and exploitation. When it finally shuts down about 5 billion or more will die.

The only way the astronauts arrived back on Earth alive was to shut down all non essential systems to preserve sufficient power to enable them to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and land safely.

The only way we can survive is to assist the Earth to rebuild the ecological life support systems of the planet. To do this we must shut down all non essential systems. One of the biggest emitters of pollution and consumers of resources is the global weapons industry.

The results of it’s products bring about destruction further adding to the collapse of the planets life support systems. Repairing the damage and rebuilding towns, cities, infrastructure and countries after war consumes resources and causes pollution, causing more ecosystem collapse.

The weapons industry is a ‘multiplier’, each and every step from production, through implementation and restoring the consequences of it’s actions destroys a little bit more of the planetary systems that keep us alive and the beauty of life, part of the reason for living.

Opposition to the new nuclear deterrent can be justified in that the resources used and emissions released in it’s production are an unacceptable contribution in destabilising the increasingly fragile ecology of the planet.

The arms industry and the nuclear deterrent are one of the non essential systems that need immediately shutting down on the space ship that is this Earth. The peace of the planet and the security of Scotland then comes down to the mutually assured destruction of the 21st century.

As Marshall McLuhan said, on spaceship Earth there are no passengers only crew. The resources allocated by the Government previously for nuclear weapons, now go into the creation of making Scotland a world leader in planetary management.

All life on the planet is now threatened. Scotland takes a global lead in maintaining that life on the planet. So who will threaten Scotland? Any threat to Scotland reduces the viability of Scotland to ensure the continuation of life on Earth. Any potential aggressor risks their own demise by their course of action.

The only weakness that if the carrying capacity of the planet is reduced so much one group may decide to reduce the population of the planet by the mass killing of others to try and give themselves a better chance of survival.

Though by the stage that this scenario is reached chaos and anarchy on a global scale will be so rampant it will be difficult to identify one particular enemy, each part of humanity will be at conflict with the rest over the scraps of existence that remain.

Soon the soils of Scotland will dry out in searing summer heat, fires will burn through the mountains uncontrolled. Winter winds will blow the dust of Scotland across the surface of the Earth. That remaining will be washed down by storms into the rivers choking and blocking them. Flood waters spilling through villages, towns and cities.

What has taken millennia to create will disappear. No longer will we have to travel to the moon to see barren desolation, the lunar landscape will be brought here. Glen Lyon, Cairngorms, Rannoch Moor, everywhere denuded and gone. Deposited in the streets and houses of towns.

There is no point in having a nuclear deterrent to protect nothing. Use those resources to create the future. Through the flip flops of fate Kennedy left us the legacy of how life is sustained on a stricken space craft. Get rid of or shut down all none essential systems. Trident first, free the resources.

Scotland: The World's First Ecological Superpower

2012 Deadline

2007-01-21T14:49:00.000Z

In 2004 the BBC ran a week of programming on climate change. This had 2 central themes. The UK’s Chief Scientist says, "Climate change is a greater threat than terrorism", and the Pentagon report to the US President and "Abrupt Climate Change Scenario.....".

Contacting the BBC (News Planning) to say I was the original author of the climate change / terrorism risk assessment, the BBC having read the original (it was live on line at the time) agreed I was the original author and not the Chief Scientist. Unfortunately they felt as I was not a media personality or celebrity it was not suitable to me to comment on what they agreed was my own work. The moral is beware what you hear in the media, there is a dumbing down of news and information, style takes precedence over substance and the celebrity campaigner’s views on the environment are the most important because they are a celebrity.

The Pentagon report to the President ‘An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario...’ is one of the most important works on the environment for Scotland as it covers the shutting down of the North Atlantic Conveyor, the Gulf Stream. If this happens potentially Scotland then suffers the ‘Day After Tomorrow' scenario, the instant ice age. Though since it’s publication the rate of global warming has increased so much that it may be negated by that rise.

One interesting part of the work is the forecasts for the future. On page 17 in their opinion, 2012 is the start of the big break down of civilisation. The point from which there is no return. As MP2 produced this figure 25 years ago and quite independently, the date of 2012 should be given a high degree of credibility.

Lovelock thinks we have gone past the point of no return and the deaths of billions is now an inevitability. The date of 2012 may be the last possible chance we have to save our lives and the planet, if we haven’t sorted out the complete global situation by then, we know our death and our extinction.

An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario is an easy, informative and influential read for anyone with an interest in society and the environmental challenge, especially in Scotland. Now over 3 years old and though showing it's age it is still worth a look.

This is the obscene scandal of the UK Government. They go for a massive project such as the Olympic Games, it’s resource use and emissions produced only hastening the impending environmental catastrophe, while doing nothing of the appropriate magnitude to ensure we have a 2012 to have an Olympics in.

Carbon Offsetting: The Gold Standard

2007-01-20T19:34:00.000Z

The Government has recently proposed a standard for carbon offsetting schemes. MP2 will in the near future be offering such a scheme. Anticipating the proposal and as a information resource on carbon offsetting we started to produce a Q&A section last year. Using the technologies we have developed we plan to move the standard of offsetting to another level over and above anything the Government may consider as a gold standard.

The World Wild Fund for example run a carbon offsetting scheme. As part of their awareness and fundraising programme they use the quote "climate change is a greater threat than terrorism", which they attribute to the Governments Chief Scientist Sir David King, especially in ther participation in the Stop Climate Chaos campaign. Though Sir David was not the original author of the concept. MP2 was with a submission, Changing Futures, to a UNED-UK report commissioned by the UK Government 13 months before Sir David published.

Even though the WWF do not pay any money to MP2, it is our R&D base which is assisting their and many other organisations offset schemes. That report from 2002 also linked Climate Change and Africa, which became the agenda for the G8 in Perthshire in 2005. Influence or prediction? How much is MP2 already contributing to carbon offsetting around the world, with it's leading edge work assisting other organisations. Even without planting a tree MP2 has helped change the consciousness of a planet for the better. How many tonnes of carbon has that offset?

The exploration of carbon offset figures make for an interesting journey into the world of planetary ecology and political policy. The figure given to the Government consultants in the Dome bid of 2001, as the Domes market potential as an environmental management centre was $1000 billion per year, the damage to the global environment. The UN and other organisations gave a figure of $200 billion, but this was for climate change alone. What about pollution, species extinction, loss of bio-diversity related stability and all the other damage being inflicted on to the environment as a consequence of human activity, plus the exponential nature of the rise of this damage (cost)? Both the consultants on 17th April 2001 and Pete Wishart MP on 9th January 2006 accepting the figure on the basis of it's rationale.

When PM Tony Blair gave a keynote speech on the environment to the world's media on 14th September 2004 he gave the cost of damage to the environment as $150 billion per year. Less than a sixth of the figure supplied to the Government's consultants 3 years before.

Take the figure for the market potential of the Dome. $1000 billion is in dollars, so to make it more understandable, lets us convert it to £s. Here we have to realise the dollar has recently fallen against the pound. If we use a recent rate as if by magic it would look like the damage to the global environment has reduced. If we use an exchange rate of 1.76 dollars to the pound, similar to the rate in place at the time this will give a more realistic assessment of damage.

This figure is:£568,181,818,181 £568 billion of damage per year to the global environment due to human activity.

If we are going to look at carbon offset we need to consider how much oil we consume a year. This is 80 million barrels a day or 29,200,000,000 barrels per year.

For those like to ask "Do you know....."
The world uses just over 1 cubic mile of oil a year.

A barrel is 42 US gallons, which is less than a UK gallon, so we have to convert from barrels to US gallons (at 1.2 US to the imperial gallon) to the UK gallon we are familiar with, giving 1,022,000,000,000 UK gallons.

It could be said that this is not a true picture as some of this oil may be used in the production of plastics or other products and not burned as fuel and that gas or coal have not been brought into the equation. Again the fuel could have been used in a chain saw to cut down a rain forest, being used as a 'multiplier' increasing the destruction of the planets ecological life support systems. The intention here has been to give an overview of the situation, to make those large global figures understandable, tangible and human in scale.

To find the amount of damage to the environment in pounds caused by oil use divide the environmental cost by the number of gallons giving
55.6p per gallon or 12.25 p per litre

With many politicians reading this site and with all the political parties working out their environmental taxes perhaps we should leave this article on carbon offsetting there for now, with our damage to the environment based on the £1000 billion figure.

Scottish Olympic Costs

2007-01-20T10:37:00.000Z

For many months MSP Alex Neil has been simmering away in the media as a regular commentator on the spiralling cost of the London Olympics and the effect it will have draining resources from Scotland. Yesterday the debate came to the boil with cross media news reports on the loss Scottish charities and other organisations will suffer as a result. The number of comments to an article by Michael Howie from The Scotsman underline a public discontent to match.

Unfortunately the way the figures are represented, perhaps that should be unrepresented, hide the true enormity of a blunder of gold medal proportions. The Millennium Dome is to be used as part of the Olympic programme. On the basis of the competition criteria for the Millennium Dome, obtained by Perth MP Pete Wishart, the winning proposal should have been that of the global environmental management centre. The proposal the Government's own consultants, quite rightly, wanted to back and as recent media and political attention on the environment as shown, would now be generating the £50 billion per year figure presented in the submission; supplying the solutions to the planet's ecological challenge such as climate change.

Over 10 years, leading up to the Olympics, £500 billion lost to the UK economy, on an approximately 10% of the population pro rata basis of the UK, £50 billion lost to Scotland, by virtue of deciding to use the Dome as part of the Olympic bid instead. Add on to this the environmental and social costs. The environment proposal did contain an early warning and alert system for natural hazards. How many more would now be alive from the South East Asia Tsunami, hurricane Katrina and the numerous other extreme events since, (500,000?), if the Government hadn't gambled on taking the venue/casino option?

If the 2012 Olympics ever go ahead the real full audit of the cost to the UK will be £500 billion and lives around the world. It would be unbelievable, if it wasn't true.

Perthshire Flood Damage: A Case Against the Government?

2007-01-17T23:29:00.000Z

Synopsis

The UK Government knew about and were given the solutions to the recent flooding in Perthshire on 17th April 2001. On that day there was a discussion with the consultants Jones Lang LaSalle appointed by the UK Government and English Partnerships to find a use for the Millennium Dome. The proposal submitted was to use it as a global environmental management centre, providing the solution to climate change and most importantly global ecological life support system collapse. This was the proposal the consultants wanted to back as a use for the Dome. That proposal contained the threat, to Perthshire and elsewhere, and the solutions. The final decision was to have a venue/casino complex instead. No alternative attempt or strategy was made by the Government to protect Perthshire and other places from environmental damage to the same degree or appropriate magnitude. Is there a case for Perthshire to take action against the Government for civil or criminal neglect or other legal action?

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On 9th January 2006 I had a meeting with Pete Wishart MP for Perth and North Perthshire at his Perth office. At that meeting Mr Wishart was given an outline of the bid and process to use the Millennium Dome as a global environmental management centre. Though at the time, in 2001, of the competition for the Dome the UNEP IPCC and other sources had put the cost of global damage due to climate change at $200 billion per year, my submission to the consultants that the true cost of total environmental damage was nearer $1000 billion per year. Due to the effective argument in support of that revised figure both the Government consultants in 2001 and Mr Wishart in 2006 accepted it as a valid reasoning. A figure in October 2006 supported by the Stern Report.

As the proposal had been removed from the competition despite it’s short listing, by default, due to the non supply of the competition criteria to allow it to continue in the process, Mr Wishart said he would try and obtain the competition criteria.

Mr Wishart did eventually obtain the criteria, though these came from Jim Fitzpatrick MP Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, not Tessa Jowell DCMS as we had both originally thought.

The criteria of the competition were: a worthwhile and sustainable use for the dome; value for money; deliverability of the deal; and regeneration benefits. As the proposal for the use of the Dome as a global environmental management centre would have beaten the venue/casino on all these grounds, the question must be asked, were these withheld to ensure another, but not the best, proposal won?

What Perthshire and elsewhere are now doing, is paying the cost of the decision not to use the Dome as an environmental management centre. Perthshire is in fact subsidising AEG to run a venue and casino in London. The environmental and social costs of the decision being imposed on Perthshire and everywhere else as environmental damage. A decision that was not made on the true criteria of the competition, which the tax payer paid to have run.

Even without going into detail ask yourself would you rather have, 1) the problem of climate change resolved or 2) a casino/venue in London, what would you choose? The Government chose a casino/venue.

Perthshire should consider whether it has a legal case against the Government for the damage it has suffered as a result of that decision.

As a damage limitation exercise, which was in the interests of Perthshire, when I was invited to make recommendations to DEFRA on sustainable policy. I very specifically and strongly pushed for changes in the Common Agricultural Policy to allow the provision of land to be taken out of production allowing the development of natural flood plains etc. together with other land use changes to reduce the damage of flooding by smoothing out river surges.

When the Cabinet Office asked me to review Regulatory Impact Assessment; Guidelines for Legislation, I took the model for multiple goal analysis of economic, social and environmental factors and made strong recommendation that this be changed to a concept of optimum win win scenarios, specifically using the example of river hydrology and flood prevention.

The implementation of these recommendations will have resulted in some minimisation of the recent flood damage to Perthshire, but not to the extent which could have been achieved had the criteria for the Millennium Dome competition been adhered to.

In submission to a United Nations Environment and Development -UK report commissioned by the UK Government the article Changing Futures gave the original and now globally known risk assessment "climate change is a greater threat than terrorism". Please use this link then, go to the specific document from within that text ‘published’. Most importantly for Perthshire, the original outline for the agenda of the G8 Summit in 2005.

An assessment of the Millennium Dome competition criteria has been sent to Mr Wishart as requested. I have asked him for his advice on launching an inquiry into the running of the competition, which as Perthshire is now paying the costs of that competition it is particularly relevant. At present I am awaiting his reply.

Suggestions

1) Consider is there a legal case against the Government in view that the damage to Perthshire could largely been avoided?

2) What support can Perth and Kinross Council give to setting up a global environmental management centre in Perthshire as laid out in the consultancy document Scotland: The World’s First Ecological Superpower, sent to all MSPs at the start of April 2006. All the solutions to climate change already exist they only need implementing?

3) We are the leading and most influential authority on sustainable planetary evolution and are local. As such would be delighted to provide any consultancy, strategy and other services to Perth and Kinross to overcome the environmental challenges and ensure a safer better future for the area and the planet.

The UK Nuclear Deterrent: An Applied Planetary Engineering Analysis

2007-01-14T18:42:00.000Z

Synopsis

The UK cannot have a new nuclear deterrent due to the resources used and CO2 emitted in it's production and implementation. Costs to the environment which are not covered or payed back later. The budget approx £25 billion should be used to produce ships, equipment, training and research making Scotland a world leader in oceanographic research and marine management. These jobs and investments will be sustainable both for the benefit of Scotland and the planet as a whole. This is in line with the Scottish: Ecological Superpower summary sent to all MSPs at the start of April 2006.

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On the 12th January 2007 Prime Minister Tony Blair said he wants the UK to be a warrior nation for decades, (and in so doing demonstrates that he doesn’t know the true meaning of warrior). On 20th April 2006 Chancellor Gordon Brown at the World Bank said he wanted the environment to be at the centre of policy.

Both want a new nuclear deterrent for the UK, indicating that neither understand the environmental challenge and agenda. The Scottish National Party oppose the nuclear option on moral grounds, but many are concerned this with also cause job losses in Scotland.

One aspect of planetary engineering is foresight. This situation, as a win win scenario, was covered in the consultancy document and executive summary, Scotland: The World’s First Ecological Superpower? Produced at the suggestion of Perth Business Gateway in February 2006, as an update from the original 2001 proposal to use the Millennium Dome as a global environmental management centre. The document was sent to every Member of the Scottish Parliament at the start of April 2006.

So Tony Blair and Gordon Brown want a nuclear deterrent. Well they can’t have one. The reason? They have given that themselves. Climate change is the greatest threat to the international community. (It isn’t, planetary ecological life support system collapse is, which climate change is a symptom of, but that’s another story).

The process of a £25 billion defence project consumes resources and emits CO2. A consequence of which is the moving of the Extinction Horizon (EH) closer to the present. This is a point of no return sometime close in the future. After this date, the degrading of the planet’s ecological life support system will occur reducing it’s capacity to support life. This includes human society, civilisation and individuals. The ‘Mad Max’ scenario.

Some such as James Lovelock believe we have already passed this point of no return, and the deaths of billions is now inevitable. The reason billions aren’t dying at this exact moment is there is a lag time between reaching that point and it’s physical manifestation. This is the ‘time zone’ we are not occupying as a human society. The end of days. This extinction of human society may be true if taking a passive approach, allowing the Earth’s ecological systems alone to recover after the extinction of human civilisation has reduced the loading and destruction imposed on them.

Taking an interventionist approach, which is where human society and civilisation works with and assists the earths ecological systems to recover, could move this Extinction Horizon to some time into the near future as opposed to being at some point in the recent past. The interventionist approach involves massive and immediate applied planetary engineering implementation. The time frame which we are working to is the period between the non assisted extinction horizon, which is in the past, and the point in time of it’s physical manifestation.

Climate change and the overemphasis on reducing CO2 emissions is a convenient political over simplification sound bite, which does not address the true situation. An analogy would be having a vehicle and in preparing it for an MoT or other vehicle inspection test, talking of and only concentrating on the tyres. These may well be essential and important to the vehicle passing the test, but they are not the only important thing. The vehicle as a whole must pass the test and that includes brakes, steering, suspension and every other component and system involved in the safe an continued progress of the vehicle on the highway.

The test and objective of applied planetary engineering is to grab this Extinction Horizon, which is behind us, in the time frame of planetary evolution. Having grabbed it, move it into the present, then push it away into the future. Applied planetary engineering is about moving the Extinction Horizon further away into the future. Each and every action, by one degree or another is moving this Extinction Horizon relative in time to where we are now.

If we move further into the time zone of the lag time between potential extinction and physical manifestation, we can no longer grab behind us in time and move the Extinction Horizon into the future. Game Over.

Applied Planetary Engineering is the development and implementation of the strategies to move the Extinction Horizon further into the future.

Now assessing Tony and Gordon’s desire to have a new nuclear deterrent in terms of applied planetary engineering, this is a none starter.

1) The resources used and CO2 emitted do not push the Extinction Horizon into the future. The results of the project bring and make more inevitable the ecological backlash or Armageddon due to it’s contribution to the destruction and destabilisation of the Earth’s ecological life support system.

2) This is a long term project. By the time the new nuclear deterrent is ready, this point in time will be after the physical manifestation of the Extinction Horizon, if not resolved, which the resource use and emissions released in building a nuclear deterrent will have contributed to. We cannot afford the luxury of any large projects which do not contribute to moving the EH further into the future. There will be nobody left to make war against.

3) Every single person and most species of animal and plant are now under threat from global ecological life support system collapse. This is the great unifier. We must all work as one, as one planet to rescue our collective future. If we do not do this, there will be no future in which to fight each other in. When we are as one with one common cause, why do we need weapons of mass destruction?

4) Production of military products do not pay back the initial resource use and pollution footprint in their creation. Use resources in waste water treatment for example and this improves the stability of the ecosystem, giving a stability return on the projects initial environmental cost. Military projects do not do this, and jaw jaw is less detrimental than war war.

5) Strategy to manage the planet and push the Extinction Horizon into the future will require climate and oceanographic monitoring, research, assessment and implementation. The £25 billion can finance the new generation of ships and research vessels to do this. Building these in Scotland still provides jobs which push the Extinction Horizon into the future, not moving it into the past.

6) Vast maritime clean ups are required of chemical dumps and dangerous ship wrecks containing cargo and materials which should not be in the oceans. The oceanic ecosystems are not just under stress and hence losing stability and productivity due to climate change, they are being affected by pollution. This needs cleaning up. The £25 billion can go towards the ships and technology required to do this. Jobs will be created in Scotland which will contribute to the continuation of the sustainable evolution of the entire planet.

The executive summary Scotland: The World’s First Ecological Superpower gave the main areas for investment. Applied Planetary Engineering needs the tools to do the job of ensuring a future for all of us and this planet. Make that investment.

If Tony and Gordon go for their nuclear toys instead, it will be over all our dead bodies

Welcome

2007-01-12T21:32:00.000Z

This is one presence on the net of Millennium Project Two, the entry into the 2001 competition to use the Millennium Dome London as a global centre of advanced environmental management. Using the study and implementation of Applied Planetary Engineering