In 1976, Robert Pollard, a rarity among US government nuclear officials – honest and safety-committed – said of the Indian Point nuclear power station that it was “an accident waiting to happen.”

Pollard had been project manager at Indian Point for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) from which he resigned at that time charging the NRC “suppresses the existence of unresolved safety questions and fails to resolve these problems.” He joined the Union of Concerned Scientists.

An explosion and fire at a transformer at Indian Point 3 on Saturday is but one of the many accidents that have occurred at the Indian Point facility through the years – none of them catastrophic as have been the disasters at the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plants.

But Indian Point 2 has been in operation for 41 years – though when nuclear power was first advanced in the United States, plants were never seen as running for more than 40 years because of radioactivity embrittling metal parts and otherwise causing safety problems. So licenses were limited to 40 years.

Now, an application to extend the license for another 20 years

Since September 2013 Unit 2 has been runing without an operating license under a ‘Period of Extended Operation’ while the NRC considers an application before it from the plant’s owner, Entergy, to allow it to run another 20 years – which would, if approved, make 60 in total.

Indian Point 3, where the transformer explosion and fire occurred, has been operational for 39 years and its license expires this year. (Indian Point l was shut down early because of mechanical deficiencies.) Entergy also is seeking to have Indian Point 3’s operating license extended to 60 years.

These old, long problem-plagued nuclear plants, 26 miles up the Hudson River from New York City, are now disasters waiting to happen in a very heavily populated area. Some 22 million people live within 50 miles of the Indian Point site, which lies just 38 miles north of New York City.

“This plant is the nuclear plant that is closest to the most densely populated area on the globe”, declared New York Governor Andrew Cuomo at the Indian Point site on Sunday.

Cuomo, who has been pushing to have the Indian Point nuclear plants closed, noted that this was “not the first transformer fire” at them. And the concern is that “one situation is going to trigger another.”

Entergy PR people in recent days have stressed that the transformer explosion and fire occurred in the “non-nuclear part” of Indian Point 3. However, as Pollard noted in a television documentary, ‘Three Mile Island Revisited’ (see below), that I wrote and narrated on that accident, “there is no non-nuclear part of a nuclear plant.”

What could be the extent of a major accident at Indian Point?

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1982 issued a report titled ‘Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences‘ or CRAC-2. The research for the report was done at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.

CRAC-2 projects that in the event of a loss-of-coolant accident with breach of containment at Indian Point 2, there could be 46,000 ‘peak early fatalities’, 141,000 ‘peak early injuries’, 13,000 cancer deaths and a cost in property damages (in 1980 dollars) of $274 billion – which in today’s dollars would be $1 trillion.

For an accident at Indian Point 3 in which the transformer explosion and fire happened, because it is a somewhat bigger reactor (generating 1,025 megawatts compared to Indian Point 2’s 1,020) the impacts would be greater, said CRAC-2.

For Indian Point 3, in the event of a meltdown with breach of containment, CRAC-2 estimates 50,000 ‘peak early fatalities’, 167,000 ‘peak early injuries’, 14,000 cancer deaths and a cost in property damage at $314 billion.

‘One of the least favorable sites from an earthquake hazard and risk perspective’

Compounding the problem of the Indian Point plants being old – consider driving a 60 year-old car on a high-speed Interstate – they are at the intersection of the Ramapo and Stamford earthquake faults. As a 2008 study by seismologists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory found:

“Indian Point is situated at the intersection of the two most striking linear features marking the seismicity and also in the midst of a large population that is at risk in case of an accident. This is clearly one of the least favorable sites in our study area from an earthquake hazard and risk perspective.”

“This aging dilapidated facility has endless problems leaking radioactive chemicals, oil and PCBs into the Hudson River. It’s unconscionable to permit the continued operation of Indian Point”, said Susan Hito-Shapiro, an environmental attorney and member of the leadership council of the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition.

Further, she pointed out this week, Indian Point has been described as “the most attractive terrorist target” in the US because of its proximity to New York City and it also being seven miles from the US Military Academy at West Point.

Indeed the 9/11 terrorists may have considered crashing into Indian Point as a fallback target: both captured jets flew over the Indian Point nuclear station before striking the World Trade Center minutes later.

And just how do they propose to evacuate NYC?

And Hito-Shapiro described it as “outrageous” that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved an evacuation plan for Indian Point “although it would never work” in the event of an major accident at the plants considering the millions of people who stand to be affected.

The key to New York State’s strategy to shut down Indian Point is the denial by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to give Entergy a ‘Water Use Permit’ to let it continue to send many hundreds of millions of gallons of water a day from the nuclear plants into the Hudson River.

“We need to make sure DEC stays strong”, says Hito-Shapiro.

In light of the historic, reckless, scandalous weakness of the federal government when it comes to Indian Point – and the nuclear power plants of other utilities – strong state action is most necessary.

Petition: ‘Citizens Demand To Close Indian Point Nuclear Plant‘ by MoveOn.org.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York / College at Old Westbury, and the author of ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’ and host of the nationally-aired TV program ‘EnviroCloseup‘.

Our work began 12 years ago in a single coastal village in Madagascar.

With communities facing extreme poverty and their fisheries collapsing, we started by encouraging locals to cordon off a small section of their octopus fishing area for 7 months.

When it was reopened the community saw huge increase in not only their catch, but also their incomes.

As news of this remarkable fishery boom spread, neighbouring communities started copying this approach. Crucially, this sparked interest in more ambitious coastal management efforts, leading to the creation of the country’s first Locally Managed Marine Area (LMMA) governed by a small network of fishing villages.

Going viral along the Madagascar coast

Since then, this temporary fishery closure model has gone viral along thousands of kilometers of Madagascar’s coastline, spawning a grassroots marine conservation revolution with 64 more Locally Managed Marine Areas established to date.

Our work is about much more than just octopus. These experiences have guided our journey searching for new approaches to demonstrate that marine conservation can be in everyone’s interest and that taking less from ocean can give us much, much more.

We work in places where the ocean is vital to local cultures and economies and is home to some of the highest levels of marine biodiversity on the planet. These areas are now experiencing unprecedented threats from climate change and overfishing.

Currently 90% of the world’s fisheries are fully fished or overfished, negatively impacting 1.5 billion people who live around tropical coasts. This includes 500 million people directly dependent on small-scale fishing, many of whom are among the worlds poorest.

Rather than some of the other flawed conservation models consisting of ‘ocean grabbing’ (as previously discussed in The Ecologist), we work to engage rather than alienate local people and help them recognise their rights.

We aim to show that not only is it the fair and reasonable way to behave, but that our model can be a far better and more durable approach in terms of conservation outcomes.

It’s about growth, not austerity!

All too often, there’s a fear that forgoing fishing in protected areas represents a severe economic sacrifice and the promised ‘spill-over’ benefits of marine protection can be slow to accrue.

But our approach is bringing tangible benefits quickly. We achieve this by focusing first efforts on the quick reproducing and quick recovering species that respond very favourably to management.

This works to demonstrate to other communities what is possible. Many conservationists overlook these ‘low hanging fruit’ – asking too much too soon – by looking at species that take years to recover. By focusing on the easy wins, we can see results faster and communities are impressed at how quickly their fisheries can recover.

Our use of periodic fisheries closures for the right species gets people interested and engaged, reaping dividends in workable timeframes. We also focus on reducing communities’ dependence on fishing through a number of different initiatives including environmentally sustainable seaweed and sea cucumber farming.

In Madagascar we’ve helped local people to establish the world’s first community-based sea cucumber farms. Sea cucumbers, which play an important role in the marine ecosystem, are in high demand as an aphrodisiac in Asia but have been almost totally wiped out by overfishing for Asian markets.

Farming them enables local people to harvest them sustainably, supplementing their fishing incomes. Conservation doesn’t need to be about taking less. It can be one of the highest yielding opportunities on the planet because of the speed and productivity with which fisheries can recover.

But it’s only by working closely with local communities can we ensure this continues to be the case.

Investing in education and reproductive health in coastal communities

We realised that poor local health services and rapid population growth – in the coastal community of Velondriake in southwest Madagascar it is doubling every 10 years – also puts pressure on the natural environment.

84% of people in Velondriake have said they are worried there would not be enough resources to survive if they did not practice family planning and 90% of women have expressed the desire to be able to plan their pregnancies, something for which there was no service provision when we first arrived.

We responded to these unmet demands by providing family planning and maternal health services, and since introducing the program in 2007 have seen a rapid uptake in contraception use.

In Velondriake it has risen five fold in this time, which is partly down to the relationships we have built with communities through our collaborative marine conservation work, but also due to our culturally sensitive rights-based approach to providing healthcare.

Irene, who lives in Tampolove, Madagascar, was in her final year of secondary college when she had her son, now four years old. She decided to start using family planning so she could work and afford to support her son.

Irene now grows seaweed and sea cucumbers through an aquaculture initiative supported by Blue Ventures. She also has a small business selling products that she sources from outside the village. Thanks to these efforts she’s been able to build a large house with four rooms, buy several goats and pay for her son’s school fees.

International recognition means our model of conservation can be rolled out more widely.

When we found out we were one of four recipients of this year’s Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship, we felt hugely honoured – even more so as we were the only European organisation to be recognised this year.

The three-year core support investment allocated with the award will be used to scale up our work dramatically. We aim to offer support to partners replicating our models in order to reach three million people in tropical coastal communities by 2020.

Our models work by demonstrating that conservation can yield meaningful benefits of communities in realistic timescales. Only by making this connection can marine conservation be sustained and scaled beyond its current limited scope.

The grassroots movement inspired by these catalytic models for community led marine management has led to unprecedented national level support for marine conservation in Madagascar, with the President recently committing to triple the coverage of the country’s marine protected areas, with a special emphasis on local governance.

So far our work has impacted the lives of more than 150,000 coastal people, but this is just the beginning. In collaboration with our many partners, our goal is to engage 3 million people in tropical coastal communities over the next five years.

We believe that this is the scale required to drive systemic change, by creating a new paradigm in which marine conservation works for – rather than against – fishing communities.

Alasdair Harris is a marine ecologist with an unhealthy obsession for corals, and the founding CEO of Blue Ventures. He has spent the past decade developing conservation initiatives in the Indian Ocean, and led his first marine research expedition to Madagascar in 2001. He is the recipient of a 2015 Skoll Award for social entrepreneurship.

Within Blue Ventures Al is responsible for coordinating conservation and research activities, leading an interdisciplinary and international team of scientists, educators and conservation practitioners. His work focuses on developing scalable solutions to marine environmental challenges, in particular pioneering market-based approaches that make marine conservation make economic sense to coastal communities.

On Saturday afternoon, I stood on a shingle beach with waves crashing against the shore. I always feel invigorated by the power of the sea and this was a great way to clear the head following the surprising election result 24 hours earlier.

Behind me were some 200 hectares of new wetland habitats which now provide homes to birds such as little tern, grey plover, avocet and even a spoonbill.

I was visiting Medmerry – the largest known open coast managed realignment project. It’s a wildlife site in West Sussex that I last visited in 2012 before the sea wall was breached and sea had been let in.

Today, it’s a spectacular example of what can be achieved with determination, expertise and a little help from the power of the sea. Prior to the breach, the Environment Agency constructed four miles of new floodbank inland from the sea between Selsey and Bracklesham on one of the largest undeveloped stretches of coast anywhere between Southampton and Brighton.

It’s primarily a flood risk management project protecting 300 homes from coastal flooding. But it is also providing ‘compensatory habitat’ for that which is lost through coastal squeeze and sea level rise.

And it’s all thanks to the Nature Directives

The Environment Agency is obliged to recreate 100 hectares a year under the terms of the EU Nature Directives (the EU Birds and Habitats & Species Directives) and the Medmerry scheme is a major contribution to this target.

At Medmerry, things are going so well that we celebrated the successful breeding of black-winged stilts last year. Yet, the site will evolve over time as the sea shapes its future. Trees and scrub will eventually die unable to cope with the salt water but the birds will come in big numbers as it becomes an important home for nature on the densely populated south coast.

If you ever visit yourself, go and see the little terns protected by the Birds Directive at nearby Pagham Harbour and pop in to the wonderful Natura 2000 site Pulborough Brooks to hear nightingales, see snakes and enjoy the woodland flowers.

These are sites protected and created, and species under recovery, thanks to the Nature Directives – those European laws that are so vulnerable today.

Last September I reported on the decision by the new President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, to consider a ‘merger’ of the two Nature Directives.  Given the anti-regulatory context within which this announcement was made, our concern was that ‘merger’ was simply code for ‘weaken’.

And now the battle to defend the laws that protect our nature is under way following the launch of a public consultation on the Directives.

Our wildlife depends on our response!

It’s hard to exaggerate the importance of the Nature Directives to conservation. For example, the overall population trend for birds that are specially protected by the Birds Directive has gone from declining to increasing.

Species such as red kite and bittern have increased dramatically off the back of the protection they’re afforded by the Directives, while species such as the fen orchid would be at serious risk of extinction without them.

There are 421 million fewer birds in Europe than there were 30 years ago, and there would be far fewer if the Directives hadn’t played such a crucial role in stemming declines.

They must also have influenced the government’s decision to welcome free-living beavers back to Devon earlier this year – perhjaps decisively as beavers are listed for the highest level of protection.

The Directives help the economy to prosper, too, with the network of areas they protect creating €200-300bn worth of economic benefits per year. Cemex – a global quarrying company with over 40,000 staff and an annual turnover of $15b – emphatically supported the Directives in a recent statement.

Moreover, the Directives allow people and nature to live together in and around some of our most iconic protected areas. Whether it’s enabling affordable housing to be built without affecting capercaillies in the Cairngorms, or water to be extracted from Rutland without affecting ospreys – the Directives work for people, nature and the economy.

It short, they are good for wildlife, good for people and good for business.

Challenging the Commision’s ‘anti-regulation’ agenda

Despite this, the political context is hostile to regulation. Some European leaders would like to weaken the European Nature Directives because they mistakenly think weaker protection for wildlife is good for business. This would be bad for business, and a disaster for wildlife.

We need people to join our ‘Defend Nature‘ campaign, and show their support for the Directives during the current public consultation on the future of the Directives.

There is currently a public consultation that is part of a ‘Fitness Check’ (a test of whether a regulation is fit for purpose) of the Nature Directives, launched by the European Commission last year.

The Fitness Check involves collating evidence from a range of sources across Europe, but the public consultation launching today will be the only formal opportunity for the citizens of Europe, including you, to have their say in this process.

Whilst the Fitness Check itself will be looking at the evidence, the decision the European Commission makes as a result of it will inevitably be a political one.

Given that, without a massive demonstration of public support for the Directives, the RSPB and many other NGOs are concerned that this review will lead to the Nature Directives being weakened.

We will not tolerate a weakening of wildlife protection!

We need to remind our politicians that the Directives were established on the smart principle that no Member State should gain competitive advantage by trashing their natural environment, and that attempts to meet international commitments to halt the loss of biodiversity will be seriously undermined if the Directives were weakened.

We’re working with partners across the UK and EU to ensure that European leaders are left in no doubt that the citizens of the UK and Europe care passionately about nature and won’t tolerate a weakening of its protection.

That is why, along with over 100 other organisations across the UK – including Friends of the Earth, the Marine Conservation Society, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and the Wildlife Trusts – we have launched a major campaign to defend the Directives.

We are asking as many of you as possible to respond to the public consultation – and to encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Join the consultation: Please just take a few moments to respond to the consultation. Just two minutes of your time could help make a crucial difference to the future of our wildlife!

Beceause it’s quite long and technical, we have pre-answered a subset of questions (alongside explanations of the answers) that people can submit to the Commission via a few simple clicks.

Martin Harper is the Conservation Director at the RSPB – the largest conservation NGO in Europe. Having studied Biological Sciences at Oxford and Conservation at UCL, he worked at Wildlife and Countryside Link before spending five years as Conservation Director at Plantlife. After that he joined the RSPB as Head of Government Affairs in 2004, became Head of Sustainable Development in 2006, before becoming Conservation Director in 2011.

The coalition government was never popular. But it did have one thing to be said for it: it represented, however imperfectly, a majority of UK voters.

In 2010 36.1% voted Tory and 23% for the LibDems, meaning that the coalition was elected by almost 60% of those that voted.

Now we have a single party government elected by just 37% of voters (and just under a quarter of the electorate), unfettered by any need to secure broader support. So for those of us now used to a more balanced coalition government, a shock is coming …

Farming and countryside

One big change that’s coming up – and probably sooner rather than later – is the repeal of the 2008 Hunting with Dogs Act, which outlawed fox-hunting and hare-coursing.  Cameron has nailed his colours to the mast on the ‘country sports’ issue and there’s probably no stopping him.

With Liz Truss remaining in place as environment secretary, badger culling is also certain to continue. But the Tories may now feel emboldened to roll out culling more widely regardless of the scientific evidence indicating that the policy is at best very marginally effective.

Also, expect more pressure to build on the countryside, including the Green Belt and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the further dismantling of the already inadequate protections the planning system affords, as the existing policy to make economic growth the over-riding objective is developed yet more aggressively.

We also know that the Tories are keen to press ahead with genetically modified ‘GMO’ crops in England, and that new EU regulations will make this possible in fairly short order, along with GMO foods. With no legal means to prevent the rollout of GMO foods and crops, the main hope for environmentalists is to press retailers not to sell them, and to convince farmers not to grow them.

We may well also see a further attempt to sell off government land and forests. The top-down forced sell-off of Forestry Commission (FC) land proved an unpopular policy even among the Conservatives’ own supporters in rural constituencies, so they probably won’t try that again.

More likely they will just leave agencies from the FC to National Park Authorities so underfunded as to force them to sell off their landholdings on a harder to track, piecemeal basis.

The one area where good things may happen is with marine protection – not in British waters, but far away in the UK’s sprawling Overseas Dependent Territories. Recently the government created a huge marine reserve around the Pitcairn islands. Next, Ascension Island?

Outside the EU

The EU is responsible for plenty of bad stuff, but for plenty of good stuff too. The existence of powerful EU legislation on the environment – the Birds Directive, Habitats & Species Directive, Water Framework Directive, the Air Quality Directive, and the Waste Directive to name but a few – has provided an important defence against the Tories’ desire to deregulate and de-protect.

Although Cameron says he does not want to leave the EU, many of his back-benchers do, and they have forced him into promising a referendum which could take place as soon as 2016. The outcome wil probably be decided by the media coverage and Rupert Murdoch at least wants out.

Result – there’s a significant risk that we may find ourselves out of the EU and suddenly all that wildlife and environmental law will no longer apply.

But so long as we are in the EU, we can expect the UK to play an broadly anti-environment role – supporting the weakening of environmental laws like the Habitats Directive, favouring ‘free trade’ deals like TTIP, loosening regulation on GMOs, pesticides, and pollution. And of course, resisting efforts to reform the Common Fisheries Policy and keep fishing quotas within sustainable limits.

Transport – roads to nowhere

It’s now certain that the government will press ahead with major environmentally destructive transport infrastructure projects. These include the ridiculous boondoggle that is the HS2 high speed railway line from London to Birmingham, and a greatly expanded road building / improving programme.

And let’s not forget – a new runway somewhere in the south east. It may well not be at Heathrow – after all that’s strongly opposed by a couple of Cameron’s Eton chums, Zac Goldsmith and Boris Johnson, both MPs in west London. My guess is it will end up going to Gatwick.

And of course with most of the transport budget lavished on roads and high-speed rail, there will be precious little left for small scale, sustainable local transport improvements, cycle lanes, local bus services, etc.

Energy and climate

Today’s appointment of Amber Rudd to DECC, the department of energy and climate change, looks like good news in the circumstances. She accepts the scientific concensus on climate change, and recognises the huge damage it’s set to cause.

Doubtless she will ‘put up a good show’ in the Paris climate talks later this year. And she’s not about the repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act as many Tory backbenchers would like.

But how much will really change on the ground? At some point the government will probably have to withdraw from the disastrous Hinkley C nuclear project, and the sooner the better. if and when that happens, it will only be to clear the decks and move ahead with alternative designs of nuclear reactor that are not quite so terminally hopeless as the EPR planned for Hinkley.

Rudd is also unlikely to relent on Conservative hostility to Britain’s two cheapest renewable energy sources – onshore wind and field-scale solar, both of which have been starved of resources. And even if she tries to, her ambitions will probably be thwarted by the Treasury and the planning system.

Insulating homes – another no-brainer for creating jobs, reducing emissions, raising living standards, making life more affordable for people on low incomes, and reducing the dominance of the Big Six – will be under-funded, while the zero-carbon homes initiative will remain watered-down

The Tories’ manifesto promise was to insulate 1 million homes over the next five years. That may sound like a lot, but as we have the least efficient housing stock in Europe it’s nowhere near enough.

Then as for fracking, underground coal gasification, and all that, we can only expect the most rapid possible development of oil and gas resources. Our best hope is that investors decide that unconventional hydrocarbons in the UK are an expensive gamble that’s not worth taking.

In fact, DECC’s whole policy arena is one where the absence of the LibDems probably won’t make a huge difference – because, seduced by mininsterial status, they were only implementing Tory policies anyway.

Constitutional trickery

We know that the Tories are keen to push through a fast-track ‘constitutional reform’ which will give Scotland some greater autonomy, while solidifying their control of England.

The main mechanism they will use to achieve the latter is ‘English votes for English laws’ (EVEL). That is, to pass a low that excludes MPs from parts of the UK with devolved powers, from voting on laws that apply only to England.

And this does matter – because these ‘English laws’ are likely to include planning, energy, farming, forestry and other matters with powerful environmental implications.

The EVEL idea does have a certain superficial logic. But that’s not why the Tories like it. They like it because it could, thanks to their political dominance in England, give them the power to legislate for England even under a future coalition or Labour government of the UK.

But there is a serious flaw: the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all elected by proportional representation. This means that any government must, in effect, represent the wishes of a majority of voters.

But under EVEL, England would be stuck on the manifestly unfair First Past the Post system, which can give absolute power to a party elected on barely over a third of the votes.

Second, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are presiding over far fewer people. If we are to have any form of ‘devolution’ to England from the UK, this needs to go far beyond EVEL to encompass the aspirations of English citizens for a greater say in their cities and regions.

Elected by just under 25% of the electorate of the UK, the current government clearly has no mandate to embark on far-reaching constitutional reform in the absence of a broad, inclusive and representative process, or ‘constitutional convention‘. If they try, they must be challenged and the exercise denounced as illegitimate and an abuse of democracy.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

In 1976, Robert Pollard, a rarity among US government nuclear officials – honest and safety-committed – said of the Indian Point nuclear power station that it was “an accident waiting to happen.”

Pollard had been project manager at Indian Point for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) from which he resigned at that time charging the NRC “suppresses the existence of unresolved safety questions and fails to resolve these problems.” He joined the Union of Concerned Scientists.

An explosion and fire at a transformer at Indian Point 3 on Saturday is but one of the many accidents that have occurred at the Indian Point facility through the years – none of them catastrophic as have been the disasters at the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plants.

But Indian Point 2 has been in operation for 41 years – though when nuclear power was first advanced in the United States, plants were never seen as running for more than 40 years because of radioactivity embrittling metal parts and otherwise causing safety problems. So licenses were limited to 40 years.

Now, an application to extend the license for another 20 years

Since September 2013 Unit 2 has been runing without an operating license under a ‘Period of Extended Operation’ while the NRC considers an application before it from the plant’s owner, Entergy, to allow it to run another 20 years – which would, if approved, make 60 in total.

Indian Point 3, where the transformer explosion and fire occurred, has been operational for 39 years and its license expires this year. (Indian Point l was shut down early because of mechanical deficiencies.) Entergy also is seeking to have Indian Point 3’s operating license extended to 60 years.

These old, long problem-plagued nuclear plants, 26 miles up the Hudson River from New York City, are now disasters waiting to happen in a very heavily populated area. Some 22 million people live within 50 miles of the Indian Point site, which lies just 38 miles north of New York City.

“This plant is the nuclear plant that is closest to the most densely populated area on the globe”, declared New York Governor Andrew Cuomo at the Indian Point site on Sunday.

Cuomo, who has been pushing to have the Indian Point nuclear plants closed, noted that this was “not the first transformer fire” at them. And the concern is that “one situation is going to trigger another.”

Entergy PR people in recent days have stressed that the transformer explosion and fire occurred in the “non-nuclear part” of Indian Point 3. However, as Pollard noted in a television documentary, ‘Three Mile Island Revisited’ (see below), that I wrote and narrated on that accident, “there is no non-nuclear part of a nuclear plant.”

What could be the extent of a major accident at Indian Point?

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1982 issued a report titled ‘Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences‘ or CRAC-2. The research for the report was done at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.

CRAC-2 projects that in the event of a loss-of-coolant accident with breach of containment at Indian Point 2, there could be 46,000 ‘peak early fatalities’, 141,000 ‘peak early injuries’, 13,000 cancer deaths and a cost in property damages (in 1980 dollars) of $274 billion – which in today’s dollars would be $1 trillion.

For an accident at Indian Point 3 in which the transformer explosion and fire happened, because it is a somewhat bigger reactor (generating 1,025 megawatts compared to Indian Point 2’s 1,020) the impacts would be greater, said CRAC-2.

For Indian Point 3, in the event of a meltdown with breach of containment, CRAC-2 estimates 50,000 ‘peak early fatalities’, 167,000 ‘peak early injuries’, 14,000 cancer deaths and a cost in property damage at $314 billion.

‘One of the least favorable sites from an earthquake hazard and risk perspective’

Compounding the problem of the Indian Point plants being old – consider driving a 60 year-old car on a high-speed Interstate – they are at the intersection of the Ramapo and Stamford earthquake faults. As a 2008 study by seismologists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory found:

“Indian Point is situated at the intersection of the two most striking linear features marking the seismicity and also in the midst of a large population that is at risk in case of an accident. This is clearly one of the least favorable sites in our study area from an earthquake hazard and risk perspective.”

“This aging dilapidated facility has endless problems leaking radioactive chemicals, oil and PCBs into the Hudson River. It’s unconscionable to permit the continued operation of Indian Point”, said Susan Hito-Shapiro, an environmental attorney and member of the leadership council of the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition.

Further, she pointed out this week, Indian Point has been described as “the most attractive terrorist target” in the US because of its proximity to New York City and it also being seven miles from the US Military Academy at West Point.

Indeed the 9/11 terrorists may have considered crashing into Indian Point as a fallback target: both captured jets flew over the Indian Point nuclear station before striking the World Trade Center minutes later.

And just how do they propose to evacuate NYC?

And Hito-Shapiro described it as “outrageous” that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved an evacuation plan for Indian Point “although it would never work” in the event of an major accident at the plants considering the millions of people who stand to be affected.

The key to New York State’s strategy to shut down Indian Point is the denial by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to give Entergy a ‘Water Use Permit’ to let it continue to send many hundreds of millions of gallons of water a day from the nuclear plants into the Hudson River.

“We need to make sure DEC stays strong”, says Hito-Shapiro.

In light of the historic, reckless, scandalous weakness of the federal government when it comes to Indian Point – and the nuclear power plants of other utilities – strong state action is most necessary.

Petition: ‘Citizens Demand To Close Indian Point Nuclear Plant‘ by MoveOn.org.

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York / College at Old Westbury, and the author of ‘Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power’ and host of the nationally-aired TV program ‘EnviroCloseup‘.

On Saturday afternoon, I stood on a shingle beach with waves crashing against the shore. I always feel invigorated by the power of the sea and this was a great way to clear the head following the surprising election result 24 hours earlier.

Behind me were some 200 hectares of new wetland habitats which now provide homes to birds such as little tern, grey plover, avocet and even a spoonbill.

I was visiting Medmerry – the largest known open coast managed realignment project. It’s a wildlife site in West Sussex that I last visited in 2012 before the sea wall was breached and sea had been let in.

Today, it’s a spectacular example of what can be achieved with determination, expertise and a little help from the power of the sea. Prior to the breach, the Environment Agency constructed four miles of new floodbank inland from the sea between Selsey and Bracklesham on one of the largest undeveloped stretches of coast anywhere between Southampton and Brighton.

It’s primarily a flood risk management project protecting 300 homes from coastal flooding. But it is also providing ‘compensatory habitat’ for that which is lost through coastal squeeze and sea level rise.

And it’s all thanks to the Nature Directives

The Environment Agency is obliged to recreate 100 hectares a year under the terms of the EU Nature Directives (the EU Birds and Habitats & Species Directives) and the Medmerry scheme is a major contribution to this target.

At Medmerry, things are going so well that we celebrated the successful breeding of black-winged stilts last year. Yet, the site will evolve over time as the sea shapes its future. Trees and scrub will eventually die unable to cope with the salt water but the birds will come in big numbers as it becomes an important home for nature on the densely populated south coast.

If you ever visit yourself, go and see the little terns protected by the Birds Directive at nearby Pagham Harbour and pop in to the wonderful Natura 2000 site Pulborough Brooks to hear nightingales, see snakes and enjoy the woodland flowers.

These are sites protected and created, and species under recovery, thanks to the Nature Directives – those European laws that are so vulnerable today.

Last September I reported on the decision by the new President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, to consider a ‘merger’ of the two Nature Directives.  Given the anti-regulatory context within which this announcement was made, our concern was that ‘merger’ was simply code for ‘weaken’.

And now the battle to defend the laws that protect our nature is under way following the launch of a public consultation on the Directives.

Our wildlife depends on our response!

It’s hard to exaggerate the importance of the Nature Directives to conservation. For example, the overall population trend for birds that are specially protected by the Birds Directive has gone from declining to increasing.

Species such as red kite and bittern have increased dramatically off the back of the protection they’re afforded by the Directives, while species such as the fen orchid would be at serious risk of extinction without them.

There are 421 million fewer birds in Europe than there were 30 years ago, and there would be far fewer if the Directives hadn’t played such a crucial role in stemming declines.

They must also have influenced the government’s decision to welcome free-living beavers back to Devon earlier this year – perhjaps decisively as beavers are listed for the highest level of protection.

The Directives help the economy to prosper, too, with the network of areas they protect creating €200-300bn worth of economic benefits per year. Cemex – a global quarrying company with over 40,000 staff and an annual turnover of $15b – emphatically supported the Directives in a recent statement.

Moreover, the Directives allow people and nature to live together in and around some of our most iconic protected areas. Whether it’s enabling affordable housing to be built without affecting capercaillies in the Cairngorms, or water to be extracted from Rutland without affecting ospreys – the Directives work for people, nature and the economy.

It short, they are good for wildlife, good for people and good for business.

Challenging the Commision’s ‘anti-regulation’ agenda

Despite this, the political context is hostile to regulation. Some European leaders would like to weaken the European Nature Directives because they mistakenly think weaker protection for wildlife is good for business. This would be bad for business, and a disaster for wildlife.

We need people to join our ‘Defend Nature‘ campaign, and show their support for the Directives during the current public consultation on the future of the Directives.

There is currently a public consultation that is part of a ‘Fitness Check’ (a test of whether a regulation is fit for purpose) of the Nature Directives, launched by the European Commission last year.

The Fitness Check involves collating evidence from a range of sources across Europe, but the public consultation launching today will be the only formal opportunity for the citizens of Europe, including you, to have their say in this process.

Whilst the Fitness Check itself will be looking at the evidence, the decision the European Commission makes as a result of it will inevitably be a political one.

Given that, without a massive demonstration of public support for the Directives, the RSPB and many other NGOs are concerned that this review will lead to the Nature Directives being weakened.

We will not tolerate a weakening of wildlife protection!

We need to remind our politicians that the Directives were established on the smart principle that no Member State should gain competitive advantage by trashing their natural environment, and that attempts to meet international commitments to halt the loss of biodiversity will be seriously undermined if the Directives were weakened.

We’re working with partners across the UK and EU to ensure that European leaders are left in no doubt that the citizens of the UK and Europe care passionately about nature and won’t tolerate a weakening of its protection.

That is why, along with over 100 other organisations across the UK – including Friends of the Earth, the Marine Conservation Society, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and the Wildlife Trusts – we have launched a major campaign to defend the Directives.

We are asking as many of you as possible to respond to the public consultation – and to encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Join the consultation: Please just take a few moments to respond to the consultation. Just two minutes of your time could help make a crucial difference to the future of our wildlife!

Beceause it’s quite long and technical, we have pre-answered a subset of questions (alongside explanations of the answers) that people can submit to the Commission via a few simple clicks.

Martin Harper is the Conservation Director at the RSPB – the largest conservation NGO in Europe. Having studied Biological Sciences at Oxford and Conservation at UCL, he worked at Wildlife and Countryside Link before spending five years as Conservation Director at Plantlife. After that he joined the RSPB as Head of Government Affairs in 2004, became Head of Sustainable Development in 2006, before becoming Conservation Director in 2011.

The coalition government was never popular. But it did have one thing to be said for it: it represented, however imperfectly, a majority of UK voters.

In 2010 36.1% voted Tory and 23% for the LibDems, meaning that the coalition was elected by almost 60% of those that voted.

Now we have a single party government elected by just 37% of voters (and just under a quarter of the electorate), unfettered by any need to secure broader support. So for those of us now used to a more balanced coalition government, a shock is coming …

Farming and countryside

One big change that’s coming up – and probably sooner rather than later – is the repeal of the 2008 Hunting with Dogs Act, which outlawed fox-hunting and hare-coursing.  Cameron has nailed his colours to the mast on the ‘country sports’ issue and there’s probably no stopping him.

With Liz Truss remaining in place as environment secretary, badger culling is also certain to continue. But the Tories may now feel emboldened to roll out culling more widely regardless of the scientific evidence indicating that the policy is at best very marginally effective.

Also, expect more pressure to build on the countryside, including the Green Belt and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the further dismantling of the already inadequate protections the planning system affords, as the existing policy to make economic growth the over-riding objective is developed yet more aggressively.

We also know that the Tories are keen to press ahead with genetically modified ‘GMO’ crops in England, and that new EU regulations will make this possible in fairly short order, along with GMO foods. With no legal means to prevent the rollout of GMO foods and crops, the main hope for environmentalists is to press retailers not to sell them, and to convince farmers not to grow them.

We may well also see a further attempt to sell off government land and forests. The top-down forced sell-off of Forestry Commission (FC) land proved an unpopular policy even among the Conservatives’ own supporters in rural constituencies, so they probably won’t try that again.

More likely they will just leave agencies from the FC to National Park Authorities so underfunded as to force them to sell off their landholdings on a harder to track, piecemeal basis.

The one area where good things may happen is with marine protection – not in British waters, but far away in the UK’s sprawling Overseas Dependent Territories. Recently the government created a huge marine reserve around the Pitcairn islands. Next, Ascension Island?

Outside the EU

The EU is responsible for plenty of bad stuff, but for plenty of good stuff too. The existence of powerful EU legislation on the environment – the Birds Directive, Habitats & Species Directive, Water Framework Directive, the Air Quality Directive, and the Waste Directive to name but a few – has provided an important defence against the Tories’ desire to deregulate and de-protect.

Although Cameron says he does not want to leave the EU, many of his back-benchers do, and they have forced him into promising a referendum which could take place as soon as 2016. The outcome wil probably be decided by the media coverage and Rupert Murdoch at least wants out.

Result – there’s a significant risk that we may find ourselves out of the EU and suddenly all that wildlife and environmental law will no longer apply.

But so long as we are in the EU, we can expect the UK to play an broadly anti-environment role – supporting the weakening of environmental laws like the Habitats Directive, favouring ‘free trade’ deals like TTIP, loosening regulation on GMOs, pesticides, and pollution. And of course, resisting efforts to reform the Common Fisheries Policy and keep fishing quotas within sustainable limits.

Transport – roads to nowhere

It’s now certain that the government will press ahead with major environmentally destructive transport infrastructure projects. These include the ridiculous boondoggle that is the HS2 high speed railway line from London to Birmingham, and a greatly expanded road building / improving programme.

And let’s not forget – a new runway somewhere in the south east. It may well not be at Heathrow – after all that’s strongly opposed by a couple of Cameron’s Eton chums, Zac Goldsmith and Boris Johnson, both MPs in west London. My guess is it will end up going to Gatwick.

And of course with most of the transport budget lavished on roads and high-speed rail, there will be precious little left for small scale, sustainable local transport improvements, cycle lanes, local bus services, etc.

Energy and climate

Today’s appointment of Amber Rudd to DECC, the department of energy and climate change, looks like good news in the circumstances. She accepts the scientific concensus on climate change, and recognises the huge damage it’s set to cause.

Doubtless she will ‘put up a good show’ in the Paris climate talks later this year. And she’s not about the repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act as many Tory backbenchers would like.

But how much will really change on the ground? At some point the government will probably have to withdraw from the disastrous Hinkley C nuclear project, and the sooner the better. if and when that happens, it will only be to clear the decks and move ahead with alternative designs of nuclear reactor that are not quite so terminally hopeless as the EPR planned for Hinkley.

Rudd is also unlikely to relent on Conservative hostility to Britain’s two cheapest renewable energy sources – onshore wind and field-scale solar, both of which have been starved of resources. And even if she tries to, her ambitions will probably be thwarted by the Treasury and the planning system.

Insulating homes – another no-brainer for creating jobs, reducing emissions, raising living standards, making life more affordable for people on low incomes, and reducing the dominance of the Big Six – will be under-funded, while the zero-carbon homes initiative will remain watered-down

The Tories’ manifesto promise was to insulate 1 million homes over the next five years. That may sound like a lot, but as we have the least efficient housing stock in Europe it’s nowhere near enough.

Then as for fracking, underground coal gasification, and all that, we can only expect the most rapid possible development of oil and gas resources. Our best hope is that investors decide that unconventional hydrocarbons in the UK are an expensive gamble that’s not worth taking.

In fact, DECC’s whole policy arena is one where the absence of the LibDems probably won’t make a huge difference – because, seduced by mininsterial status, they were only implementing Tory policies anyway.

Constitutional trickery

We know that the Tories are keen to push through a fast-track ‘constitutional reform’ which will give Scotland some greater autonomy, while solidifying their control of England.

The main mechanism they will use to achieve the latter is ‘English votes for English laws’ (EVEL). That is, to pass a low that excludes MPs from parts of the UK with devolved powers, from voting on laws that apply only to England.

And this does matter – because these ‘English laws’ are likely to include planning, energy, farming, forestry and other matters with powerful environmental implications.

The EVEL idea does have a certain superficial logic. But that’s not why the Tories like it. They like it because it could, thanks to their political dominance in England, give them the power to legislate for England even under a future coalition or Labour government of the UK.

But there is a serious flaw: the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all elected by proportional representation. This means that any government must, in effect, represent the wishes of a majority of voters.

But under EVEL, England would be stuck on the manifestly unfair First Past the Post system, which can give absolute power to a party elected on barely over a third of the votes.

Second, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are presiding over far fewer people. If we are to have any form of ‘devolution’ to England from the UK, this needs to go far beyond EVEL to encompass the aspirations of English citizens for a greater say in their cities and regions.

Elected by just under 25% of the electorate of the UK, the current government clearly has no mandate to embark on far-reaching constitutional reform in the absence of a broad, inclusive and representative process, or ‘constitutional convention‘. If they try, they must be challenged and the exercise denounced as illegitimate and an abuse of democracy.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

The coalition government was never popular. But it did have one thing to be said for it: it represented, however imperfectly, a majority of UK voters.

In 2010 36.1% voted Tory and 23% for the LibDems, meaning that the coalition was elected by almost 60% of those that voted.

Now we have a single party government elected by just 37% of voters (and just under a quarter of the electorate), unfettered by any need to secure broader support. So for those of us now used to a more balanced coalition government, a shock is coming …

Farming and countryside

One big change that’s coming up – and probably sooner rather than later – is the repeal of the 2008 Hunting with Dogs Act, which outlawed fox-hunting and hare-coursing.  Cameron has nailed his colours to the mast on the ‘country sports’ issue and there’s probably no stopping him.

With Liz Truss remaining in place as environment secretary, badger culling is also certain to continue. But the Tories may now feel emboldened to roll out culling more widely regardless of the scientific evidence indicating that the policy is at best very marginally effective.

Also, expect more pressure to build on the countryside, including the Green Belt and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the further dismantling of the already inadequate protections the planning system affords, as the existing policy to make economic growth the over-riding objective is developed yet more aggressively.

We also know that the Tories are keen to press ahead with genetically modified ‘GMO’ crops in England, and that new EU regulations will make this possible in fairly short order, along with GMO foods. With no legal means to prevent the rollout of GMO foods and crops, the main hope for environmentalists is to press retailers not to sell them, and to convince farmers not to grow them.

We may well also see a further attempt to sell off government land and forests. The top-down forced sell-off of Forestry Commission (FC) land proved an unpopular policy even among the Conservatives’ own supporters in rural constituencies, so they probably won’t try that again.

More likely they will just leave agencies from the FC to National Park Authorities so underfunded as to force them to sell off their landholdings on a harder to track, piecemeal basis.

The one area where good things may happen is with marine protection – not in British waters, but far away in the UK’s sprawling Overseas Dependent Territories. Recently the government created a huge marine reserve around the Pitcairn islands. Next, Ascension Island?

Outside the EU

The EU is responsible for plenty of bad stuff, but for plenty of good stuff too. The existence of powerful EU legislation on the environment – the Birds Directive, Habitats & Species Directive, Water Framework Directive, the Air Quality Directive, and the Waste Directive to name but a few – has provided an important defence against the Tories’ desire to deregulate and de-protect.

Although Cameron says he does not want to leave the EU, many of his back-benchers do, and they have forced him into promising a referendum which could take place as soon as 2016. The outcome wil probably be decided by the media coverage and Rupert Murdoch at least wants out.

Result – there’s a significant risk that we may find ourselves out of the EU and suddenly all that wildlife and environmental law will no longer apply.

But so long as we are in the EU, we can expect the UK to play an broadly anti-environment role – supporting the weakening of environmental laws like the Habitats Directive, favouring ‘free trade’ deals like TTIP, loosening regulation on GMOs, pesticides, and pollution. And of course, resisting efforts to reform the Common Fisheries Policy and keep fishing quotas within sustainable limits.

Transport – roads to nowhere

It’s now certain that the government will press ahead with major environmentally destructive transport infrastructure projects. These include the ridiculous boondoggle that is the HS2 high speed railway line from London to Birmingham, and a greatly expanded road building / improving programme.

And let’s not forget – a new runway somewhere in the south east. It may well not be at Heathrow – after all that’s strongly opposed by a couple of Cameron’s Eton chums, Zac Goldsmith and Boris Johnson, both MPs in west London. My guess is it will end up going to Gatwick.

And of course with most of the transport budget lavished on roads and high-speed rail, there will be precious little left for small scale, sustainable local transport improvements, cycle lanes, local bus services, etc.

Energy and climate

Today’s appointment of Amber Rudd to DECC, the department of energy and climate change, looks like good news in the circumstances. She accepts the scientific concensus on climate change, and recognises the huge damage it’s set to cause.

Doubtless she will ‘put up a good show’ in the Paris climate talks later this year. And she’s not about the repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act as many Tory backbenchers would like.

But how much will really change on the ground? At some point the government will probably have to withdraw from the disastrous Hinkley C nuclear project, and the sooner the better. if and when that happens, it will only be to clear the decks and move ahead with alternative designs of nuclear reactor that are not quite so terminally hopeless as the EPR planned for Hinkley.

Rudd is also unlikely to relent on Conservative hostility to Britain’s two cheapest renewable energy sources – onshore wind and field-scale solar, both of which have been starved of resources. And even if she tries to, her ambitions will probably be thwarted by the Treasury and the planning system.

Insulating homes – another no-brainer for creating jobs, reducing emissions, raising living standards, making life more affordable for people on low incomes, and reducing the dominance of the Big Six – will be under-funded, while the zero-carbon homes initiative will remain watered-down

The Tories’ manifesto promise was to insulate 1 million homes over the next five years. That may sound like a lot, but as we have the least efficient housing stock in Europe it’s nowhere near enough.

Then as for fracking, underground coal gasification, and all that, we can only expect the most rapid possible development of oil and gas resources. Our best hope is that investors decide that unconventional hydrocarbons in the UK are an expensive gamble that’s not worth taking.

In fact, DECC’s whole policy arena is one where the absence of the LibDems probably won’t make a huge difference – because, seduced by mininsterial status, they were only implementing Tory policies anyway.

Constitutional trickery

We know that the Tories are keen to push through a fast-track ‘constitutional reform’ which will give Scotland some greater autonomy, while solidifying their control of England.

The main mechanism they will use to achieve the latter is ‘English votes for English laws’ (EVEL). That is, to pass a low that excludes MPs from parts of the UK with devolved powers, from voting on laws that apply only to England.

And this does matter – because these ‘English laws’ are likely to include planning, energy, farming, forestry and other matters with powerful environmental implications.

The EVEL idea does have a certain superficial logic. But that’s not why the Tories like it. They like it because it could, thanks to their political dominance in England, give them the power to legislate for England even under a future coalition or Labour government of the UK.

But there is a serious flaw: the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all elected by proportional representation. This means that any government must, in effect, represent the wishes of a majority of voters.

But under EVEL, England would be stuck on the manifestly unfair First Past the Post system, which can give absolute power to a party elected on barely over a third of the votes.

Second, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are presiding over far fewer people. If we are to have any form of ‘devolution’ to England from the UK, this needs to go far beyond EVEL to encompass the aspirations of English citizens for a greater say in their cities and regions.

Elected by just under 25% of the electorate of the UK, the current government clearly has no mandate to embark on far-reaching constitutional reform in the absence of a broad, inclusive and representative process, or ‘constitutional convention‘. If they try, they must be challenged and the exercise denounced as illegitimate and an abuse of democracy.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

The coalition government was never popular. But it did have one thing to be said for it: it represented, however imperfectly, a majority of UK voters.

In 2010 36.1% voted Tory and 23% for the LibDems, meaning that the coalition was elected by almost 60% of those that voted.

Now we have a single party government elected by just 37% of voters (and just under a quarter of the electorate), unfettered by any need to secure broader support. So for those of us now used to a more balanced coalition government, a shock is coming …

Farming and countryside

One big change that’s coming up – and probably sooner rather than later – is the repeal of the 2004 Hunting with Dogs Act, which outlawed fox-hunting and hare-coursing.  Cameron has nailed his colours to the mast on the ‘country sports’ issue and there’s probably no stopping him.

With Liz Truss remaining in place as environment secretary, badger culling is also certain to continue. But the Tories may now feel emboldened to roll out culling more widely regardless of the scientific evidence indicating that the policy is at best very marginally effective.

Also, expect more pressure to build on the countryside, including the Green Belt and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the further dismantling of the already inadequate protections the planning system affords, as the existing policy to make economic growth the over-riding objective is developed yet more aggressively.

We also know that the Tories are keen to press ahead with genetically modified ‘GMO’ crops in England, and that new EU regulations will make this possible in fairly short order, along with GMO foods. With no legal means to prevent the rollout of GMO foods and crops, the main hope for environmentalists is to press retailers not to sell them, and to convince farmers not to grow them.

We may well also see a further attempt to sell off government land and forests. The top-down forced sell-off of Forestry Commission (FC) land proved an unpopular policy even among the Conservatives’ own supporters in rural constituencies, so they probably won’t try that again.

More likely they will just leave agencies from the FC to National Park Authorities so underfunded as to force them to sell off their landholdings on a harder to track, piecemeal basis.

The one area where good things may happen is with marine protection – not in British waters, but far away in the UK’s sprawling Overseas Dependent Territories. Recently the government created a huge marine reserve around the Pitcairn islands. Next, Ascension Island?

Outside the EU

The EU is responsible for plenty of bad stuff, but for plenty of good stuff too. The existence of powerful EU legislation on the environment – the Birds Directive, Habitats & Species Directive, Water Framework Directive, the Air Quality Directive, and the Waste Directive to name but a few – has provided an important defence against the Tories’ desire to deregulate and de-protect.

Although Cameron says he does not want to leave the EU, many of his back-benchers do, and they have forced him into promising a referendum which could take place as soon as 2016. The outcome wil probably be decided by the media coverage and Rupert Murdoch at least wants out.

Result – there’s a significant risk that we may find ourselves out of the EU and suddenly all that wildlife and environmental law will no longer apply.

But so long as we are in the EU, we can expect the UK to play an broadly anti-environment role – supporting the weakening of environmental laws like the Habitats Directive, favouring ‘free trade’ deals like TTIP, loosening regulation on GMOs, pesticides, and pollution. And of course, resisting efforts to reform the Common Fisheries Policy and keep fishing quotas within sustainable limits.

Transport – roads to nowhere

It’s now certain that the government will press ahead with major environmentally destructive transport infrastructure projects. These include the ridiculous boondoggle that is the HS2 high speed railway line from London to Birmingham, and a greatly expanded road building / improving programme.

And let’s not forget – a new runway somewhere in the south east. It may well not be at Heathrow – after all that’s strongly opposed by a couple of Cameron’s Eton chums, Zac Goldsmith and Boris Johnson, both MPs in west London. My guess is it will end up going to Gatwick.

And of course with most of the transport budget lavished on roads and high-speed rail, there will be precious little left for small scale, sustainable local transport improvements, cycle lanes, local bus services, etc.

Energy and climate

Today’s appointment of Amber Rudd to DECC, the department of energy and climate change, looks like good news in the circumstances. She accepts the scientific concensus on climate change, and recognises the huge damage it’s set to cause.

Doubtless she will ‘put up a good show’ in the Paris climate talks later this year. And she’s not about the repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act as many Tory backbenchers would like.

But how much will really change on the ground? At some point the government will probably have to withdraw from the disastrous Hinkley C nuclear project, and the sooner the better. if and when that happens, it will only be to clear the decks and move ahead with alternative designs of nuclear reactor that are not quite so terminally hopeless as the EPR planned for Hinkley.

Rudd is also unlikely to relent on Conservative hostility to Britain’s two cheapest renewable energy sources – onshore wind and field-scale solar, both of which have been starved of resources. And even if she tries to, her ambitions will probably be thwarted by the Treasury and the planning system.

Insulating homes – another no-brainer for creating jobs, reducing emissions, raising living standards, making life more affordable for people on low incomes, and reducing the dominance of the Big Six – will be under-funded, while the zero-carbon homes initiative will remain watered-down

The Tories’ manifesto promise was to insulate 1 million homes over the next five years. That may sound like a lot, but as we have the least efficient housing stock in Europe it’s nowhere near enough.

Then as for fracking, underground coal gasification, and all that, we can only expect the most rapid possible development of oil and gas resources. Our best hope is that investors decide that unconventional hydrocarbons in the UK are an expensive gamble that’s not worth taking.

In fact, DECC’s whole policy arena is one where the absence of the LibDems probably won’t make a huge difference – because, seduced by mininsterial status, they were only implementing Tory policies anyway.

Constitutional trickery

We know that the Tories are keen to push through a fast-track ‘constitutional reform’ which will give Scotland some greater autonomy, while solidifying their control of England.

The main mechanism they will use to achieve the latter is ‘English votes for English laws’ (EVEL). That is, to pass a low that excludes MPs from parts of the UK with devolved powers, from voting on laws that apply only to England.

And this does matter – because these ‘English laws’ are likely to include planning, energy, farming, forestry and other matters with powerful environmental implications.

The EVEL idea does have a certain superficial logic. But that’s not why the Tories like it. They like it because it could, thanks to their political dominance in England, give them the power to legislate for England even under a future coalition or Labour government of the UK.

But there is a serious flaw: the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all elected by proportional representation. This means that any government must, in effect, represent the wishes of a majority of voters.

But under EVEL, England would be stuck on the manifestly unfair First Past the Post system, which can give absolute power to a party elected on barely over a third of the votes.

Second, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are presiding over far fewer people. If we are to have any form of ‘devolution’ to England from the UK, this needs to go far beyond EVEL to encompass the aspirations of English citizens for a greater say in their cities and regions.

Elected by just under 25% of the electorate of the UK, the current government clearly has no mandate to embark on far-reaching constitutional reform in the absence of a broad, inclusive and representative process, or ‘constitutional convention‘. If they try, they must be challenged and the exercise denounced as illegitimate and an abuse of democracy.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

The coalition government was never popular. But it did have one thing to be said for it: it represented, however imperfectly, a majority of UK voters.

In 2010 36.1% voted Tory and 23% for the LibDems, meaning that the coalition was elected by almost 60% of those that voted.

Now we have a single party government elected by just 37% of voters (and just under a quarter of the electorate), unfettered by any need to secure broader support. So for those of us now used to a more balanced coalition government, a shock is coming …

Farming and countryside

One big change that’s coming up – and probably sooner rather than later – is the repeal of the 2004 Hunting with Dogs Act, which outlawed fox-hunting and hare-coursing.  Cameron has nailed his colours to the mast on the ‘country sports’ issue and there’s probably no stopping him.

With Liz Truss remaining in place as environment secretary, badger culling is also certain to continue. But the Tories may now feel emboldened to roll out culling more widely regardless of the scientific evidence indicating that the policy is at best very marginally effective.

Also, expect more pressure to build on the countryside, including the Green Belt and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the further dismantling of the already inadequate protections the planning system affords, as the existing policy to make economic growth the over-riding objective is developed yet more aggressively.

We also know that the Tories are keen to press ahead with genetically modified ‘GMO’ crops in England, and that new EU regulations will make this possible in fairly short order, along with GMO foods. With no legal means to prevent the rollout of GMO foods and crops, the main hope for environmentalists is to press retailers not to sell them, and to convince farmers not to grow them.

We may well also see a further attempt to sell off government land and forests. The top-down forced sell-off of Forestry Commission (FC) land proved an unpopular policy even among the Conservatives’ own supporters in rural constituencies, so they probably won’t try that again.

More likely they will just leave agencies from the FC to National Park Authorities so underfunded as to force them to sell off their landholdings on a harder to track, piecemeal basis.

The one area where good things may happen is with marine protection – not in British waters, but far away in the UK’s sprawling Overseas Dependent Territories. Recently the government created a huge marine reserve around the Pitcairn islands. Next, Ascension Island?

Outside the EU

The EU is responsible for plenty of bad stuff, but for plenty of good stuff too. The existence of powerful EU legislation on the environment – the Birds Directive, Habitats & Species Directive, Water Framework Directive, the Air Quality Directive, and the Waste Directive to name but a few – has provided an important defence against the Tories’ desire to deregulate and de-protect.

Although Cameron says he does not want to leave the EU, many of his back-benchers do, and they have forced him into promising a referendum which could take place as soon as 2016. The outcome wil probably be decided by the media coverage and Rupert Murdoch at least wants out.

Result – there’s a significant risk that we may find ourselves out of the EU and suddenly all that wildlife and environmental law will no longer apply.

But so long as we are in the EU, we can expect the UK to play an broadly anti-environment role – supporting the weakening of environmental laws like the Habitats Directive, favouring ‘free trade’ deals like TTIP, loosening regulation on GMOs, pesticides, and pollution. And of course, resisting efforts to reform the Common Fisheries Policy and keep fishing quotas within sustainable limits.

Transport – roads to nowhere

It’s now certain that the government will press ahead with major environmentally destructive transport infrastructure projects. These include the ridiculous boondoggle that is the HS2 high speed railway line from London to Birmingham, and a greatly expanded road building / improving programme.

And let’s not forget – a new runway somewhere in the south east. It may well not be at Heathrow – after all that’s strongly opposed by a couple of Cameron’s Eton chums, Zac Goldsmith and Boris Johnson, both MPs in west London. My guess is it will end up going to Gatwick.

And of course with most of the transport budget lavished on roads and high-speed rail, there will be precious little left for small scale, sustainable local transport improvements, cycle lanes, local bus services, etc.

Energy and climate

Today’s appointment of Amber Rudd to DECC, the department of energy and climate change, looks like good news in the circumstances. She accepts the scientific concensus on climate change, and recognises the huge damage it’s set to cause.

Doubtless she will ‘put up a good show’ in the Paris climate talks later this year. And she’s not about the repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act as many Tory backbenchers would like.

But how much will really change on the ground? At some point the government will probably have to withdraw from the disastrous Hinkley C nuclear project, and the sooner the better. if and when that happens, it will only be to clear the decks and move ahead with alternative designs of nuclear reactor that are not quite so terminally hopeless as the EPR planned for Hinkley.

Rudd is also unlikely to relent on Conservative hostility to Britain’s two cheapest renewable energy sources – onshore wind and field-scale solar, both of which have been starved of resources. And even if she tries to, her ambitions will probably be thwarted by the Treasury and the planning system.

Insulating homes – another no-brainer for creating jobs, reducing emissions, raising living standards, making life more affordable for people on low incomes, and reducing the dominance of the Big Six – will be under-funded, while the zero-carbon homes initiative will remain watered-down

The Tories’ manifesto promise was to insulate 1 million homes over the next five years. That may sound like a lot, but as we have the least efficient housing stock in Europe it’s nowhere near enough.

Then as for fracking, underground coal gasification, and all that, we can only expect the most rapid possible development of oil and gas resources. Our best hope is that investors decide that unconventional hydrocarbons in the UK are an expensive gamble that’s not worth taking.

In fact, DECC’s whole policy arena is one where the absence of the LibDems probably won’t make a huge difference – because, seduced by mininsterial status, they were only implementing Tory policies anyway.

Constitutional trickery

We know that the Tories are keen to push through a fast-track ‘constitutional reform’ which will give Scotland some greater autonomy, while solidifying their control of England.

The main mechanism they will use to achieve the latter is ‘English votes for English laws’ (EVEL). That is, to pass a low that excludes MPs from parts of the UK with devolved powers, from voting on laws that apply only to England.

And this does matter – because these ‘English laws’ are likely to include planning, energy, farming, forestry and other matters with powerful environmental implications.

The EVEL idea does have a certain superficial logic. But that’s not why the Tories like it. They like it because it could, thanks to their political dominance in England, give them the power to legislate for England even under a future coalition or Labour government of the UK.

But there is a serious flaw: the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all elected by proportional representation. This means that any government must, in effect, represent the wishes of a majority of voters.

But under EVEL, England would be stuck on the manifestly unfair First Past the Post system, which can give absolute power to a party elected on barely over a third of the votes.

Second, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are presiding over far fewer people. If we are to have any form of ‘devolution’ to England from the UK, this needs to go far beyond EVEL to encompass the aspirations of English citizens for a greater say in their cities and regions.

Elected by just under 25% of the electorate of the UK, the current government clearly has no mandate to embark on far-reaching constitutional reform in the absence of a broad, inclusive and representative process, or ‘constitutional convention‘. If they try, they must be challenged and the exercise denounced as illegitimate and an abuse of democracy.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.