Here I Go Again

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.

Pole Position Articles and Blogs

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

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

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.

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

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?

Letter to Greenwich MPs and Councillors

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

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

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

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

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.

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 2

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

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)

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.

Scottish Olympic Costs

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?

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.

Welcome

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