Over 370 arrests have been made since October 2014 in an activist group’s campaign against a fracked gas storage facility near Seneca Lake in New York’s Schuyler county

Of those 13 took place in a single action last week on 26th August during a blockade of the facility which kept gas tankers waiting at the gates.

Shortly after sunrise on Wednesday, the protesters, led by students from multiple universities, blocked two tanker trucks at the north entrance of energy company Crestwood Midstream’s gas storage facility on Route 14.

“Today young people and their supporters took a stand for our collective future here in the Finger Lakes”, participant Garbiel Shapiro told Earth First! Newswire.

“Crestwood wants to turn our region into a storage hub for fracked gas serving the entire Northeast US. Their plans put too much at risk. We want to come back and possibly raise children here someday. We don’t want methane, [liquid petroleum gas], brine, heavy machinery and the fracking industry to have anything to do with that.”

The protesters, who ranged from age 18 to 78, held a banner stating “We Must Safeguard the Planet for Those Who Follow“ and blocked trucks from entering the facility until police came and arrested them at around 7.30 a.m. on Wednesday.

The protests, organized by activist group We Are Seneca Lake, have targeted Houston-based Crestwood Midstream. Last week’s action brings the total number arrests made in this civil disobedience campaign to 372 since last October.

No place for massive underground gas storage

In September 2014, despite warnings of the geological risks from scientists and protests from locals, the company was granted permission by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, to turn abandoned lakeside salt caverns on the west shoreline of Seneca Lake into storage centers for methane gas and liquid petroleum gas, or LPG, obtained through fracking in Pennsylvania.

The large concentration of stored gas, only two miles north of the small town of Watkins Glen, has many locals and environmentalists concerned about the harmful effects that may come as a result. This includes gas leaks, contaminated water, explosions, and even negative impacts on the local wine and tourism industries.

“The volume of gas to be stored in this area will be unprecedented”, We Are Seneca Lake said in a statement. “This proposed LPG storage facility alone will be the largest in the Northeast and one of the largest in the United States.

“The current natural gas expansion project would increase the methane inside the caverns from 1.5 billion cubic feet to 2 billion cubic feet with future plans, according to Crestwood’s website, to expand up to 10 billion – a seven-fold increase. 

“No environmental assessment has considered the cumulative hazards of LPG and methane stored in massive amounts in close proximity. If Crestwood’s plans are realized, LPG and methane will be stored in caverns less than a quarter mile apart from each other.”

Ever since the September 2014 decision by FERC, activists have been regularly engaging in acts of civil disobedience to protest the construction and expansion of these storage centers, as well as bring attention to the widespread disapproval of Crestwood’s actions in the region.

Clean air, drinking water vs corporate profit

Earlier this month, on 18th August, 19 protesters were also arrested for blocking Route 14 and preventing two tanker trucks from entering the facility. On 13th August, eight protesters were arrested while blockading the same road, and before that, on August 4, 13 were arrested while forming a blockade and reading Pope Francis’ recent encyclical on climate change.

The last two months have also seen blockades of the same entrance followed by arrests on June 30, July 20 and July 29 with protesters demanding that construction and expansion of the gas storage facilities be ended.

Crestwood, which has also received much support from local Republican politicians, insists that ending the use of the natural gas storage facilities is impractical and that they will bring jobs and investment to the region.

“Certainly if we were starting from scratch and saying, ‘Where would you build a liquefied petroleum gas storage facility?’ you probably wouldn’t put it right there over Seneca Lake, near the wine country”, Bill Gautreaux, president of Crestwood’s liquids and crude business unit, told AlterNet. “But the reality of it is that it already exists.”

The activists say that Crestwood either doesn’t realize or doesn’t care about the possible negative consequences of storing so much natural gas in Schuyler county’s salt caverns. In order to bring attention to the situation and disrupt Crestwood’s day-to-day activities, they’re more than willing to put their bodies on the line.

“The dangers of gas storage in the leaky old salt caverns in Watkins Glen are shrugged off by Crestwood”, 77-year-old Janie Meaney, who was arrested during the August 26 blockade, said in a statement.

“Children who live in Schuyler County are the basis for my decision to risk arrest to protest the debacle of endangering children and the ruin of Seneca Lake that provides drinking water for their families and neighbors.”

Ashoka Jegroo is a journalist born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He has bylines in The Santiago Times and the New York Times’ The Local blog. He has covered protests in Santiago, Chile and New York City. When he’s not causing trouble for the establishment, he’s live-tweeting protests at @AshAgony.

This article was originally published by Waging NonViolence under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Facebook: We are Seneca Lake.

Web: We are Seneca Lake.

By training, I am a plant biologist. In the early 1990s I was busy making genetically modified plants (often called GMOs for Genetically Modified Organisms) as part of the research that led to my PhD.

Into these plants we were putting DNA from various foreign organisms, such as viruses and bacteria.

I was not, at the outset, concerned about the possible effects of GM plants on human health or the environment. One reason for this lack of concern was that I was still a very young scientist, feeling my way in the complex world of biology and of scientific research.

Another reason was that we hardly imagined that GMOs like ours would be grown or eaten. So far as I was concerned, all GMOs were for research purposes only.

Gradually, however, it became clear that certain companies thought differently. Some of my older colleagues shared their skepticism with me that commercial interests were running far ahead of scientific knowledge. I listened carefully and I didn’t disagree.

But now we are all eating GMOs, directly and through animal products

Today, over twenty years later, GMO crops, especially soybeans, corn, papaya, canola and cotton, are commercially grown in numerous parts of the world.

Depending on which country you live in, GMOs may be unlabeled and therefore unknowingly abundant in your diet. Processed foods (e.g. chips, breakfast cereals, sodas) are likely to contain ingredients from GMO crops, because they are often made from corn or soy.

Most agricultural crops, however, are still non-GMO, including rice, wheat, barley, oats, tomatoes, grapes and beans.

For meat eaters the nature of GMO consumption is different. There are no GMO animals used in farming (although GM salmon has been pending FDA approval since 1993); however, animal feed, especially in factory farms or for fish farming, is likely to be GMO corn and GMO soybeans. In which case the labeling issue, and potential for impacts on your health, are complicated.

I now believe, as a much more experienced scientist, that GMO crops still run far ahead of our understanding of their risks. In broad outline, the reasons for this belief are quite simple. I have become much more appreciative of the complexity of biological organisms and their capacity for benefits and harms.

As a scientist I have become much more humble about the capacity of science to do more than scratch the surface in its understanding of the deep complexity and diversity of the natural world. To paraphrase a cliché, I appreciate more and more that as scientists we understand less and less.

The flawed processes of GMO risk assessment

Some of my concerns with GMOs are ‘just’ practical ones. I have read numerous GMO risk assessment applications. These are the documents that governments rely on to ‘prove’ their safety. Though these documents are quite long and quite complex, their length is misleading in that they primarily ask (and answer) trivial questions.

Furthermore, the experiments described within them are often very inadequate and sloppily executed. Scientific controls are often missing, procedures and reagents are badly described, and the results are often ambiguous or uninterpretable. I do not believe that this ambiguity and apparent incompetence is accidental.

It is common, for example, for multinational corporations, whose labs have the latest equipment, to use outdated methodologies. When the results show what the applicants want, nothing is said. But when the results are inconvenient, and raise red flags, they blame the limitations of the antiquated method.

This bulletproof logic, in which applicants claim safety no matter what the data shows, or how badly the experiment was performed, is routine in formal GMO risk assessment.

To any honest observer, reading these applications is bound to raise profound and disturbing questions: about the trustworthiness of the applicants and equally of the regulators. They are impossible to reconcile with a functional regulatory system capable of protecting the public.

Dangers of GMOs – just how safe is the Bt toxin?

Aside from grave doubts about the quality and integrity of risk assessments, I also have specific science-based concerns over GMOs. I emphasise the ones below because they are important but are not on the lists that GMO critics often make.

Many GMO plants are engineered to contain their own insecticides. These GMOs, which include maize, cotton and soybeans, are called Bt plants. Bt plants get their name because they incorporate a transgene that makes a protein-based toxin (usually called the Cry toxin) from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis.

Many Bt crops are ‘stacked’, meaning they contain a multiplicity of these Cry toxins. Their makers believe each of these Bt toxins is insect-specific and safe. However, there are multiple reasons to doubt both safety and specificity.

One concern is that Bacillus thuringiensis is all but indistinguishable from the well known anthrax bacterium (Bacillus anthracis). Another reason is that Bt insecticides share structural similarities with ricin. Ricin is a famously dangerous plant toxin, a tiny amount of which was used to assassinate the Bulgarian writer and defector Georgi Markov in 1978.

A third reason for concern is that the mode of action of Bt proteins is not understood (Vachon et al 2012); yet, it is axiomatic in science that effective risk assessment requires a clear understanding of the mechanism of action of any GMO transgene. This is so that appropriate experiments can be devised to affirm or refute safety.

These red flags are doubly troubling because some Cry proteins are known to be toxic towards isolated human cells (Mizuki et al., 1999). Yet we put them in our food crops.

Herbicide resistance – ignoring the hazards

A second concern follows from GMOs being often resistant to herbicides. This resistance is an invitation to farmers to spray large quantities of herbicides, and many do. As research recently showed, commercial soybeans routinely contain quantities of the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) that its maker, Monsanto, once described as “extreme“ (Bøhn et al 2014).

Glyphosate has been in the news recently because the World Health Organisation no longer considers it a relatively harmless chemical, but there are other herbicides applied to GMOs which are easily of equal concern. The herbicide Glufosinate (phosphinothricin, made by Bayer) kills plants because it inhibits the important plant enzyme glutamine synthetase.

This enzyme is ubiquitous, however, it is found also in fungi, bacteria and animals. Consequently, Glufosinate is toxic to most organisms. Glufosinate is also a neurotoxin of mammals that doesn’t easily break down in the environment (Lantz et al. 2014). Glufosinate is thus a ‘herbicide’ in name only.

Thus, even in conventional agriculture, the use of glufosinate is hazardous; but With GMO plants the situation is worse yet. With GMOs, glufosinate is sprayed on to the crop but its degradation in the plant is blocked by the transgene, which chemically modifies it slightly. This is why the GMO plant is resistant to it.

But the other consequence is that when you eat Bayers’ Glufosinate-resistant GMO maize or canola, even weeks or months later, glufosinate, though slightly modified, is probably still there (Droge et al., 1992). Nevertheless, though the health hazard of glufosinate is much greater with GMOs, the implications of this science have been ignored in GMO risk assessments of Glufosinate-tolerant GMO crops.

Hazardous virus fragments – swept under the carpet?

A yet further reason to be concerned about GMOs is that most of them contain a viral sequence called the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) promoter (or they contain the similar figwort mosaic virus (FMV) promoter).

Two years ago, the GMO safety agency of the European Union (EFSA) discovered that both the CaMV promoter and the FMV promoter had wrongly been assumed by them (for almost 20 years) not to encode any proteins.

In fact, the two promoters encode a large part of a small multifunctional viral protein that misdirects all normal gene expression and that also turns off a key plant defence against pathogens.

EFSA tried to bury their discovery. Unfortunately for them, we spotted their findings in an obscure scientific journal. This revelation forced EFSA and other regulators to explain why they had overlooked the probability that consumers were eating an untested viral protein.

This list of significant scientific concerns about GMOs is by no means exhaustive. For example, there are novel GMOs coming on the market, such as those using double stranded RNAs (dsRNAs), that have the potential for even greater risks (Latham and Wilson 2015).

The true purpose of GMOs

Science is not the only grounds on which GMOs should be judged. The commercial purpose of GMOs is not to feed the world or improve farming. Rather, they exist to gain intellectual property (i.e. patent rights) over seeds and plant breeding and to drive agriculture in directions that benefit agribusiness.

This drive is occurring at the expense of farmers, consumers and the natural world. US Farmers, for example, have seen seed costs nearly quadruple and seed choices greatly narrow since the introduction of GMOs. The fight over GMOs is not of narrow importance. It affects us all.

Nevertheless, specific scientific concerns are crucial to the debate. I left science in large part because it seemed impossible to do research while also providing the unvarnished public scepticism that I believed the public, as ultimate funder and risk-taker of that science, was entitled to.

Criticism of science and technology remains very difficult. Even though many academics benefit from tenure and a large salary, the sceptical process in much of science is largely lacking. This is why risk assessment of GMOs has been short-circuited and public concerns about them are growing.

Until the damaged scientific ethos is rectified, both scientists and the public are correct to doubt that GMOs should ever have been let out of any lab.

Dr Jonathan R. Latham is editor of Independent Science News, where this article was originally published. An earlier version appeared at Nutrition Studies.

References

• Bøhn, T, Cuhra, M, Traavik, T, Sanden, M, Fagan, J and Primicerio, R (2014), ‘Compositional differences in soybeans on the market: Glyphosate accumulates in Roundup Ready GM soybeans’. Food Chemistry 153: 207-215.
• Droge W, Broer I, and Puhler A. (1992), ‘Transgenic plants containing the phosphinothricin-N-acetyltransferase gene metabolize the herbicide L-phosphinothricin (glufosinate) differently from untransformed plants’. Planta 187: 142-151.
• Lantz S et al., (2014) ‘Glufosinate binds N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors and increases neuronal network activity in vitro’. Neurotoxicology 45: 38-47.
• Latham JR and Wilson AK (2015) ‘Off -­ target Effects of Plant Transgenic RNAi: Three Mechanisms Lead to Distinct Toxicological and Environmental Hazards‘.
• Mizuki, E, Et Al., (1999) ‘Unique activity associated with non-insecticidal Bacillus thuringiensis parasporal inclusions: in vitro cell- killing action on human cancer cells’. J. Appl. Microbiol. 86: 477-486.
• Vachon V, Laprade R, Schwartz JL (2012), ‘Current models of the mode of action of Bacillus thuringiensis insecticidal crystal proteins: a critical review’. Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 111: 1-12.

A recent article on The Ecologist went to great efforts to show how bovine TB in Dorset had fallen significantly since the start of 2012, quoting Defra statistics to back this up.

These figures were then used as justification for saying that a badger cull wasn’t needed in the county.

Defra’s most recent TB statistics actually show that the number of new herds being affected by the disease each year has remained largely unchanged over the past three years as has the percentage of the county’s herds that have been under movement restrictions because of bTB at the end of each year.

Let’s look at the figures. According to Defra’s figures, the number of cattle herds registered in Dorset has fallen, from 1,409 in 2012, to 1,400 in 2013, to 1,285 in 2014.

During the same period the number of new herd incidents of bovine TB has remained roughly the same – 162 in 2012, 168 in 2013, and 167 last year.

In terms of the percentage of the total number of registered herds, these figures actually represent a gradual increase year-on-year – 11.5% in 2012, 12% in 2013, and 13% in 2014.

Despite appearances, the situation is not improving

Now let’s look at the number of herds under movement restriction because of bovine TB in the county at the end of each of the last three years. There were 210 herds under restriction at the end of 2012, 200 in 2013 and 189 in 2014. However, while the number of herds under restriction has fallen so has the total number of registered herds.

So this doesn’t automatically mean the overall situation has improved. In fact, taken as a percentage of the total number of registered herd the situation has actually remained virtually static – around 15% of herds in 2012, 14.3% of herds in 2013, and 15% of herds again in 2014.

In basic terms, Defra’s figures show that around one in seven of Dorset’s cattle herds have been under movement restrictions for bovine TB at the end of each of the last three years. No one can say that these figures show the situation is improving dramatically or that bovine TB isn’t having a significant impact in the county.

The number of cattle slaughtered in Dorset as a result of bovine TB has fallen year-on-year – from 1,192 in 2012, to 901 in 2013, to 748 last year. This news will be welcomed by everyone, not least the farmers in the county who are seeing fewer of their cattle taken off farm before their time because of this terrible disease.

But in itself this cannot be taken as evidence that the underlying infection problem is being dealt with – especially when Defra’s own herd figures show this isn’t the case.

Badger culling is not needed everywhere, but it is part of the solution

No one has ever said that badger culling alone will solve the problem of bovine TB. Just like no one has ever said that badger culling needs to be rolled out across the whole country. The NFU has always said every available option needs to be used so this disease can be tackled on all fronts at the same time.

We believe the Government’s 25-year TB eradication strategy – the first comprehensive plan of its kind to tackle the disease in England – gives us the best chance of controlling and eradicating the disease and we want to see it implemented in full as quickly as possible.

The NFU supports annual TB testing in high risk areas like Dorset; it supports cattle movement controls that minimise the chance of disease spread while allowing farm businesses to continue to operate viably; it supports badger vaccination in areas on the edge of the disease spread to help stop it spreading further.

But it also supports badger culling in areas where bovine TB is endemic to stop the cycle of reinfection occurring. You have to deal with all the disease reservoirs to stand any realistic chance of eradicating it.

Bovine TB is the enemy here, not badgers. If there was another way of dealing with the disease in badgers we’d use it. But there isn’t and we cannot afford to wait until there is. Tens of thousands of cattle are slaughtered every year because of it. Previous trials have shown culling can have a positive impact on disease control in areas where the disease is endemic.

That is why the pilot has to be rolled out to Dorset – and why we believe the county’s farmers will benefit from it in its fight against bovine TB.

Mel Squires is the NFU’s South West Regional Director.

Original article: ‘The NFU’s dishonesty over badger culling‘ by Jay Tiernan & Lesley Docksey.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Brian May: I’ll take Dorset badger cull to the High Court‘.

Editor’s note: This a ‘right of reply’ article published in the interests of open debate on matters of public interest.

As we enjoy the August bank holiday and a three-day weekend, it is worth reassessing the amount of time we devote to work.

What if all weekends could last for three or even four days? What if the majority of the week could be given over to activities other than work? What if most of our time could be devoted to non-work activities of our own choosing?

To even pose these questions is to invite the criticism of Utopian thinking. While a fine idea in principle, working fewer hours is not feasible in practice. Indeed, its achievement would come at the expense of lower consumption and increased economic hardship.

For some advocates of the work ethic, the route to health and happiness lies with the perpetuation of work, not with its reduction. Work makes us healthier and happier.

Such pro-work ideology is used to legitimate welfare reforms that seek to coerce the non-employed into work, whatever its rates of pay and qualitative features. It also offers an ideological barrier to the case for spending less time at work. Working less is presented as a threat to our health and happiness, not a means to improve it.

Yet, the idea of working less is not only feasible, it is also the basis for a better standard of life. It is a mark of how we have come to accept work and its dominant influence in our lives that we do not grasp this idea more readily.

The costs of working more

A growing number of studies show the human costs of longer working hours. These include lower physical and mental health. Working long hours can add to the risk of having a stroke, coronary heart disease and developing type 2 diabetes.

By working most of the time, we also lose time with family and friends. And more than this we lose the ability to be and do things that make life valuable and worth living.

Our lives are often too much tied up in the work we do that we have little time and energy to find alternative ways of living – in short, our capacity to realise our talents and potential is curtailed by the work we do. Work does not set us free, rather it hems us in and makes it more difficult to realise ourselves.

All this speaks to the need to work less. We should challenge the work ethic and promote alternative ways of living that are less work centred. And, if this reduction of time spent at work is focused on eliminating drudge work then we can also better realise the internal benefits of work itself.

Working less may be a means not only to work better but also to enjoy life more.

Barriers to less work

Technological progress has advanced continuously over the past century, pushing up productivity. But not all the gains in productivity have fed through to shorter work hours. At least in modern times, these gains have been used to increase the returns of the owners of capital, often at the cost of flatlining pay for workers.

The lack of progress in reducing time spent at work in modern capitalist economies reflects instead the influence of ideology as well as of power. On the one hand, the effects of consumerism have created powerful forces in favour of longer working hours. Workers are constantly persuaded to buy more and in turn are drawn into working more, to keep up with the latest fad or fashion and to stay ahead of their peers.

On the other hand, the weakened power of labour relative to capital has created an environment that has suited the extension of work time. The recent expose of work practices at Amazon speaks to the power of capital in imposing poor working conditions, including excessive work hours, on workers. The effects of rising inequality has also fed a long work hours culture by increasing the economic necessity to work more.

David Graeber makes the provocative claim that technology has advanced at the same time as what he calls “bullshit” or pointless jobs have multiplied. This is why we have not realised Keynes’ prediction that we’d all be working 15-hour weeks in the 21st century, as a result of technological progress.

Instead, we are living in a society where work gets created that is of no social value. The reason for this, according to Graeber, is the need of the ruling class to keep workers in work.

While technology with the potential to reduce work time exists, the political challenge of a working population with time on its hands makes the ruling class unwilling to realise this potential. Working less, while feasible and desirable, is blocked by political factors.

Working for change

The costs of long work hours, as mentioned above, are poorer health and lower well-being for workers. But for employers too there are costs in terms of lower productivity and lower profitability. Yet these costs seem to go unnoticed despite evidence pointing to their existence. Here again politics may explain why shorter work time has not been embraced by many employers.

Experiments in shorter working exist, to be sure. Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing retailer, is to allow its employees to work a four day week. This has been widely reported in a positive way. Workers will benefit from a better work-life balance, while the firm will reap the benefits of lower labour costs due to lower turnover costs.

Yet, on closer inspection, the new scheme to be introduced by Uniqlo has its downsides. In return for a four-day working week, workers will be expected to work ten-hour shifts during the days they work (a 40-hour working week will be squeezed into four days).

This is not only an extension to the normal length of the working day; it also puts at risk the potential rewards of working four days in the week. Workers may be so exhausted after working a four-day work week they need a full day to recover from their previous exertions. In this case, their quality of work and life may not be enhanced at all; indeed it may be diminished, if they suffer the ill-effects of overwork.

Ironically, schemes such as the one to be introduced by Uniqlo illustrate the obstacles that remain in achieving less work. Only a reduction in the working week to 30 hours or less can be seen as genuine progress in the achievement of shorter work time.

For us to reach – and enjoy – a three or ideally a four-day weekend, we need to reimagine society in ways that subvert the prevailing work ethic. We need to embrace the idea of working less as a means to a life well lived. We need to reject the way of living that sees work as the be all and end all of life.

So enjoy the bank holiday while you can. See it as a reminder of a life that could be – a life that we should seek to achieve, by resolving to overcome the barriers, economic as well as ideological and political, to working less.

David Spencer is Professor of Economics and Political Economy at the University of Leeds.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Rock Star Brian May is to challenge the government’s decision to press ahead with a new badger cull in Dorset.

The action will be filed by the Save Me Trust, founded by May, following a warning sent last week by lawyers acting for the Trust to the Chief Executive and the Chief Legal Advisor of Natural England.

“If any licences to cull badgers are either activated in Gloucestershire and Somerset or any new licences granted for this purpose anywhere, then the lawfulness of the decisions to do so will be challenged by a Judicial Review in the High Court”, states the Trust.

“To continue the culling of badgers is unlawful as it does not rationally serve the statutory purpose which permits the killing of badgers only to achieve the aim of preventing the spread of disease”, said Anne Brummer, the Trust’s CEO.

“Additionally there has been a fundamental failure in the consultation process, a logically flawed approach in calculating badger numbers and a failure in Gloucestershire in any event to meet its minimum targets in 2013 and 2014.”

Brian May added: “We are all hugely disappointed that the government has decided to continue its cull policy, despite Natural England’s scientific advisor branding the badger cull ‘an epic failure’.”

“The badger cull has been a disaster. Worse still, it’s certain that most of the murdered badgers are perfectly healthy, and free of bovine TB. This awful policy must be put to bed now, in favour of a policy that really will address the TB problem in cattle.”

Six weeks of culling to begin in December

English Nature has issued licences that allow six weeks of continuous culling in Dorset until 31st January, along with renewed licences to cull in Somerset and Gloiucestershire.

The target for the county is to kill at least 615 badgers, up to a mximum of 835. However, if it’s not reached, the miimum number is likely to be lowered to fit – as has just taken place in Gloucestershire.

Last year riflemen were meant to kill a minimum of 615 badgers in the county, and a maximum of 1,091. In the event, they only managed to kill 274. So this year the minimum has been set at just 265, and the maximum 679.

Likewise in Somerset, a very low minimum number of badgers has been set – just 55, a maximum of 524; compared to last year’s minimum of 316, and maximum of 785, after the cull narrowly exceeded the target with 341 culled.

The danger with killing small numbers of badgers is that it makes the cull ineffective at controlling TB, indeed scientists have shown it increases the spread of the disease by perturbing badger colonies, causing the migration of animals into new areas, transmitting disease and increasing the risk of infecting cattle.

The earlier minimum culling targets were set at 70% of the estimated population in order to prevent this effect. However the very low minimum numbers set for the next round of culling means that cattle infection risk is likely to rise even if they are achieved. This will form a key element of the forthcoming court action.

The Badger Trust has branded the government’s decision to extend the cull to Dorset, and continue with the culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset as “irrational”.

“The decision to extend the badger cull to Dorset in particular has no scientific justification as the County has seen one of the largest declines in bTB rates in England with a 37.25% drop between 2012 to 2014 without killing any badgers”, said the Badger Trust’s CEO, Dominic Dyer.

“To cap it all, Defra’s latest figures show TB incidents in and around the cull zones are actually increasing. This was predicted not just by the scientists but was also highlighted as a serious concern in the government’s own risk assessments. Taking all these factors into consideration, their decision to carry on culling badgers is completely irrational.”

An irrational decision

He continued: “These culls were sold to the public as an experiment to see if free-shooting badgers was humane and effective, and on both counts they have comprehensively failed.

“However, the real scandal is that the vast majority of culled badgers will not have had Bovine Tuberculosis. The government has insisted that none of them are tested for the disease either before or after they are killed. This means the culling method is not only ‘blind’ but also that there is no way of ever knowing if it has worked.”

“Defra’s own data suggest that while 15% of badgers may test positive for bTB, just 1.6% of them are capable of passing on the disease. This means 98.4% pose no risk whatsoever to cattle and 85% are likely to be completely bTB free. Trying to control bTB in cattle by culling badgers that don’t have bTB doesn’t make any sense.”

Peter Martin, Badger Trust Chairman, added: “The government and the farming lobby are continuing to play the badger blame game in order to mask their failure to properly control this disease.

“The Welsh Government’s approach has been far more successful by focusing on improved testing and movement controls in cattle. New incidents of  bTB in Wales are down 28% with a 45% cut in the number of cattle being slaughtered. This leaves 94% of the Welsh herd now free of bTB, without culling any badgers.”

Dorset Wildlife Trust also condems the move and is considering its options. “We are extremely disappointed because science has shown that culling is unlikely to work and will probably make matters worse”, said its chief executive, Simon Cripps.

“Scientific tests have shown that diseased and non-diseased badgers will move into areas that badgers have been removed from. So what you get is a stirring of the population and a potential increase in the disease.”

The government’s Independent Expert Panel (IEP) and now the British Veterinary Association (BVA) have both condemned free shooting as ‘inhumane’.

Rock Star Brian May is to challenge the government’s decision to press ahead with a new badger cull in Dorset.

The action will be filed by the Save Me Trust, founded by May, following a warning sent last week by lawyers acting for the Trust to the Chief Executive and the Chief Legal Advisor of Natural England.

“If any licences to cull badgers are either activated in Gloucestershire and Somerset or any new licences granted for this purpose anywhere, then the lawfulness of the decisions to do so will be challenged by a Judicial Review in the High Court”, states the Trust.

“To continue the culling of badgers is unlawful as it does not rationally serve the statutory purpose which permits the killing of badgers only to achieve the aim of preventing the spread of disease”, said Anne Brummer, the Trust’s CEO.

“Additionally there has been a fundamental failure in the consultation process, a logically flawed approach in calculating badger numbers and a failure in Gloucestershire in any event to meet its minimum targets in 2013 and 2014.”

Brian May added: “We are all hugely disappointed that the government has decided to continue its cull policy, despite Natural England’s scientific advisor branding the badger cull ‘an epic failure’.”

“The badger cull has been a disaster. Worse still, it’s certain that most of the murdered badgers are perfectly healthy, and free of bovine TB. This awful policy must be put to bed now, in favour of a policy that really will address the TB problem in cattle.”

Six weeks of culling to begin in December

English Nature has issued licences that allow six weeks of continuous culling in Dorset until 31st January, along with renewed licences to cull in Somerset and Gloiucestershire.

The target for the county is to kill at least 615 badgers, up to a mximum of 835. However, if it’s not reached, the miimum number is likely to be lowered to fit – as has just taken place in Gloucestershire.

Last year riflemen were meant to kill a minimum of 615 badgers in the county, and a maximum of 1,091. In the event, they only managed to kill 274. So this year the minimum has been set at just 265, and the maximum 679.

Likewise in Somerset, a very low minimum number of badgers has been set – just 55, a maximum of 524; compared to last year’s minimum of 316, and maximum of 785, after the cull narrowly exceeded the target with 341 culled.

The danger with killing small numbers of badgers is that it makes the cull ineffective at controlling TB, indeed scientists have shown it increases the spread of the disease by perturbing badger colonies, causing the migration of animals into new areas, transmitting disease and increasing the risk of infecting cattle.

The earlier minimum culling targets were set at 70% of the estimated population in order to prevent this effect. However the very low minimum numbers set for the next round of culling means that cattle infection risk is likely to rise even if they are achieved. This will form a key element of the forthcoming court action.

The government’s Independent Expert Panel (IEP) and now the British Veterinary Association (BVA) have condemned free shooting as ‘inhumane’.

An irrational decision

The Badger Trust has branded the government’s decision to extend the cull to Dorset, and continue with the culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset as “irrational”.

“The decision to extend the badger cull to Dorset in particular has no scientific justification as the County has seen one of the largest declines in bTB rates in England with a 37.25% drop between 2012 to 2014 without killing any badgers”, said the Badger Trust’s CEO, Dominic Dyer.

“To cap it all, Defra’s latest figures show TB incidents in and around the cull zones are actually increasing. This was predicted not just by the scientists but was also highlighted as a serious concern in the government’s own risk assessments. Taking all these factors into consideration, their decision to carry on culling badgers is completely irrational.

“These culls were sold to the public as an experiment to see if free-shooting badgers was humane and effective, and on both counts they have comprehensively failed.

“However, the real scandal is that the vast majority of culled badgers will not have had Bovine Tuberculosis. The government has insisted that none of them are tested for the disease either before or after they are killed. This means the culling method is not only ‘blind’ but also that there is no way of ever knowing if it has worked.”

“Defra’s own data suggest that while 15% of badgers may test positive for bTB, just 1.6% of them are capable of passing on the disease. This means 98.4% pose no risk whatsoever to cattle and 85% are likely to be completely bTB free. Trying to control bTB in cattle by culling badgers that don’t have bTB doesn’t make any sense.”

Peter Martin, Badger Trust Chairman, added: “The government and the farming lobby are continuing to play the badger blame game in order to mask their failure to properly control this disease.

“The Welsh Government’s approach has been far more successful by focusing on improved testing and movement controls in cattle. New incidents of  bTB in Wales are down 28% with a 45% cut in the number of cattle being slaughtered. This leaves 94% of the Welsh herd now free of bTB, without culling any badgers.”

Dorset Wildlife Trust also condems the move and is considering its options. “We are extremely disappointed because science has shown that culling is unlikely to work and will probably make matters worse”, said its chief executive, Simon Cripps.

“Scientific tests have shown that diseased and non-diseased badgers will move into areas that badgers have been removed from. So what you get is a stirring of the population and a potential increase in the disease.”

A drift at sea in a lifeboat, life is suddenly different. Should the rich passengers get bigger shares of the rations? Of course not. Money doesn’t count in a lifeboat; the situation demands a new frame. But frames can be hard to spot – unless you suddenly find yourself in a lifeboat.
As we look forward to the Paris climate summit this December, how we look will determine what we see. And how we look at things is strongly influenced by how they’re framed.

The language of distraction
Take economic growth, one of the major excuses to block action on climate change. Our logical brains tell us that growth can’t go on forever on a finite planet, and yet growth is so strongly framed as being both good and necessary that, for many people, to question it has become unthinkable. Some of this framing is obvious: when the economy is growing you’ll hear positive words like ‘healthy’, ‘buoyant’ and ‘good’; if not, look out for ‘weak’, ‘stagnant’ and ‘bad’. But this overt propaganda is just the beginning; deeper frames misrepresent what growth actually is. If you level off at 70 mph on the motorway, you haven’t slowed down, let alone stalled; and yet levelling off our economy is usually described in these terms, sometimes even as going backwards. Or take the phrase ‘economic recovery’. That frames a lack of growth as an illness: something you recover from. If a resumption of growth is called a recovery, who wouldn’t want it? We need to get our language straight.

It’s time to tackle the cause of climate change
Now, does framing apply to the climate talks in Paris? You bet it does. Our response to climate change is to seek international agreements on emissions. Does that sound about right? Well, it shouldn’t: that phrase, in a mere twelve words, frames the problem unhelpfully in four different ways.
First, to regard climate policy as a ‘response’ is to frame climate change as something that’s just ‘happening’. In this frame our role is to respond to it (building flood barriers, say). Asking whose fault it is, or what can be done to stop it – these both fall outside the frame. Staying in the response frame is like rearranging deckchairs on a sinking ship instead of fixing the hole in the hull: it doesn’t tackle the problem. We don’t have to respond to climate change; we have to stop causing it.

Global emergencies require global action
How? Well one part of the plan must be to limit or ‘cap’ the carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels. The aim shouldn’t be to agree what is politically feasible; rather, it should be to determine what is necessary and then ensure that it happens. We must reject the frame that realism means ‘political realism’, and insist that it means ‘recognising physical and ecological limits’.
Next, what about that word ‘international’? Most people unthinkingly accept the frame that portrays the world as a collection of countries. So in looking at a global problem, attention immediately focuses on national commitments, and negotiations between nations. It’s only if we look outside this ‘nations’ frame that we might think of a worldwide solution for the planet as a whole. A single, global system would bypass all the inter-national posturing and bargaining at a stroke. Global emergencies require global action: after all, it’s global warming, not international warming.

Challenging the framework
And lastly, is a focus on emissions (and hence on vehicles, power stations, and so on) a frame, by any chance? Yes: a frame that concentrates attention on the place where the emissions take place. But the root cause lies outside this frame. An ‘upstream’ focus would concentrate on the fossil fuels themselves; the same change in emphasis that underpins the divestment movement and ‘keep it in the ground’ campaigns.
Wouldn’t it galvanise the debate if the climate marches and rallies in the run-up to Paris not only harnessed the widespread feelings of public concern, but also helped to focus them into a clarion call for a specific and inspirational plan of action that broke out from the old frames? Wouldn’t it be a historic turning point if the negotiators at Paris listened, ditched the international game-playing, and adopted a single, global, fair and effective upstream system instead?
How realistic does that sound? Not very? It’s easy to feel the framing closing in again. But we can all resist. If we’re prepared and we can spot when frames are being used, that’s a powerful inoculation against them. It gives us the power to counter many of the arguments put forward by politicians and economists, and by acquaintances closer to home.
We can reject the framing of climate change as down to individuals ‘doing their bit’: a frame that distracts us from pushing for a global policy to tackle the problem as a whole. We can unmask the framing of climate change as an environmental issue; looking outside that frame, it’s clear that it will affect every aspect of everyone’s lives, whatever it is they care most about. And we can reject the frame that it’s all about money: isn’t securing a planet for our children a moral issue? Spiritual leaders typically use completely different frames from economists!
At a deep level, this can be liberating and empowering. Think what escaping from the growth frame, say, might feel like. Growth is fine for children, but adults stop growing when they reach maturity. So letting go of growth is growing up. This can be a powerful new story for our times: our species’ coming of age. Doesn’t that yield a grander sense of what it means to be human than clinging to a childish desire to keep on growing forever?

Let’s be mature about the climate situation, highlight the ‘playground thinking’ of the economists, politicians and corporations – and climate negotiators – and argue for an adult approach to tackling this urgent planetary crisis. It’s up to us to make them look reality squarely in the face – and grow up.

Laurence and Alison Matthews are the authors of Framespotting, published by Iff Books.

This article was first published in Resurgence & Ecologist, September/October issue 2015. To find out more about Resurgence & Ecologist magazine visit: www.resurgence.org

A pine marten has been spotted in England recently, the first in more than 100 years.

The reemergence of Britain’s second-rarest mammal, a cat-sized relative of badgers and weasels, is a great story in itself.

But it may have another upside, as pine martens could be bad news for one of the UK’s least popular animals: the invasive grey squirrel.

Unlike pine martens, grey squirrels are not native to Britain. These North American ‘aliens’ were first introduced in the 1870s and soon made themselves at home. In the UK they are considered an invasive species – their ‘bark-stripping‘ harms the growth of new woodlands and has a big economic cost.

Grey squirrels’ success has also been to the detriment of the native red squirrel. Greys do not kill reds directly, but they do spread squirrel pox, a virus that causes distinctive ulcers on the reds’ eyes and nose, leading to death within a week. Grey squirrels themselves are unaffected – they’ve developed immunity.

Things are looking pretty dire for the UK’s red squirrels. Competition, disease and habitat loss mean that, if current grey squirrel control efforts were to stop, red squirrels would become extinct in Britain.

I’m interested in how pine martens fit into this struggle. Habitat loss, hunting for fur and predator control by game keepers meant they became practically extinct in England and Wales. However in Scotland and Ireland they are making a comeback – and where they are returning, grey squirrels are disappearing.

Why Ireland has red squirrels

The impact in Ireland has been particularly notable. A four-year study I published in 2014 found pine marten recovery in the Irish midlands was linked to such a significant decline in grey squirrel numbers that the once beleaguered red squirrel population was able to recolonise its former range, including woodlands which had been dominated by greys for more than 30 years.

The study provided the first evidence for what foresters and gamekeepers had been saying for years – where pine martens had returned to healthy numbers, grey squirrels had all but disappeared. But in areas with few or no pine martens, grey squirrels persisted at ‘invasive‘ levels.

Red squirrels on the other hand have coexisted with pine martens throughout much of Europe for tens of thousands of years. The two species evolved together.

While pine martens will very occasionally eat red squirrels, they don’t seem to have a negative impact on population numbers. In fact, in the Irish study, the areas that red squirrels had recolonised naturally were exclusively those with healthy pine marten populations.

Do pine martens eat grey squirrels?

We do know that more pine martens in an area means fewer grey squirrels, but we don’t yet know if this is down to direct predation. It does happen though: the first evidence of a pine marten preying on the American grey squirrel was also recorded in Ireland in 2013, and we are now looking for evidence of this in the Scottish borders too.

Grey squirrels are larger and less agile than red squirrels and typically spend more of their time on the ground, making them an easier prey.

However, having a healthy native predator around could also affect grey squirrels in various other ways: they might simply learn to avoid known pine marten areas, or they might spend less time on the ground foraging, leading to reduced fitness. Grey squirrels might even be suffering physiological effects such as stress-induced reproductive problems.

Ultimately we need to determine whether the pine marten could act as a natural biological control for the grey squirrel in Britain and Ireland. That’s why I’m now looking at Scotland, where there have been reports of grey squirrel declines after pine marten recolonisation since the early 2000s. I want to know if the two processes are linked.

Pine martens as pest eradicators?

There are several subtle but potentially important differences between pine marten populations in the two countries that I’ll need to take into account – Scottish pine martens can feast on field voles, for instance, a rich food source that isn’t found in Ireland.

Mass reintroduction of pine martens may be implausible but the creatures are moving south through Scotland and are literally just a few miles from the English border, so the process of natural recolonisation in England is almost underway.

The recent sightings in Shropshire may even mean the remnant Welsh population is spreading into England too. It is important to remember pine martens are very slow breeders however, and it will take the recovering population quite some time to reach levels healthy enough to potentially impact on grey squirrel populations.

Predators are a vital part of a healthy ecosystem and predator prey interactions have an important function. What’s happening in Ireland and potentially Britain with squirrels and pine martens is a great example of how restoring natural predators can reduce the damage caused by invasive species.

We are currently living in an unnaturally predator-poor environment, and it’s possible this has allowed some introduced species to reach ‘invasive’ levels, which has ultimately wreaked havoc on our ecosystem.

Interaction between pine martens and squirrels is fascinating from a scientific point of view and we still have lots to learn. But you don’t have to be an ecologist to appreciate the value of promoting one of Britain’s most beautiful native species in order to preserve another.

Emma Sheehy is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Ecology at the University of Aberdeen.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Join us for a two-day event looking at how we can move away from an obsession with economic growth to a growth in wellbeing. The Festival of Wellbeing is part of a growing movement that aims to put personal, community and planetary wellbeing at the heart of political and social decision-making. Inspiring speakers and entertainment on the Saturday will be followed by a day-long workshop on Sunday.

Saturday 10th October
A day of speeches, music, dance and poetry to explore personal, social and planetary wellbeing held at the Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 4QH.

Programme for Saturday
There will be talks by Satish Kumar, editor-in-chief of Resurgence & Ecologist magazine, Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party, Bishop James Jones, Dr Iain McGilchrist, David Lindo, QC Philippe Sands, Scilla Elworthy, James Wallman and Karen Downes. Plus, poetry from Jo Shapcott, Indian dance from Ragasudha and music by Susie Ro Prater.

Sunday 11th October
A days for discussion, ideas and future plans hosted by the Network of Wellbeing at FoE, 139 Clapham Road, London SW9 0HP.

The second day of the festival provides an opportunity to network and explore the ideas presented on day one in more depth. This is a free workshop open to anyone who attends on Saturday. Limited places, so booking is essential. Please note this is held at a different venue to day one. To book a place on the workshop email the Network of Wellbeing

Tickets for Saturday 10th September
£45 individual/£35 concessions    
£15 Indian vegetarian lunch (only available on 11th October)

Book your ticket
Telephone: 01237 441293
Send a cheque payable to The Resurgence Trust to: Resurgence & Ecologist, Ford House, Hartland, Bideford, Devon, EX39 6EE
Online: www.resurgence.org/wellbeing

Sponsors
With thanks to our sponsors and supporters including: Network of Wellbeing, Pukka Herbs, Neal’s Yard Remedies
, Permaculture, Friends of the Earth, Action for Happiness, Network Review, Oxfam, Positive News, Alternatives, New Internationalist, Soil Association and Red Pepper.

This event will raise money for The Resurgence Trust, an educational charity (no. 1120414).

Another day, another government attack on renewable energy. This time it’s smaller scale renewable energy that’s in the firing line – and domestic-scale solar in particular.

Under changes announced yesterday in a ‘consultation’ on the future of the Feed-in Tariff, (FIT), energy secretary Amber Rudd wielded the axe on pretty much everything, but solar in particular.

Rooftop installations will see the FIT payments reduced to just 13% of current levels, the princely sum of 1.69p per unit. The biggest installations in the 1-5MW range will get just 1.03p.

The solar industry believes it can produce power at the same price as fossil fuels by 2020 – but to achieve that will need sustained investment and growth. Now we know – it’s not going to happen.

Oh yes – the government is also planning to end the FIT scheme altogether by 2019, for all technologies. And as far as the government is concerned, the only alternative to these proposed cuts is to bring the FIT scheme to a complete halt in January 2016.

But has the government got a point?

Actually, yes it has. Where it’s going wrong is that while it cuts away at renewable energy incentives, abandons the plan for all new homes to ‘zero carbon’ in 2016, and ditches the ‘Green Deal’ scheme for raising the energy performance of existing dwellings, it’s putting nothing in their place, and apparently has no plan to do so.

But should environmentalists be hugely attached to the current structure of renewable energy support? No. It is in fact an expensive, wasteful and ineffective way of leveraging the enormous sums we need to be invested in greening the UK economy.

And if there’s one thing to be said for what the Tories are doing, stripping away all the support mechanisms for renewable energy, it’s that it creates an opportunity to begin again with a more rational and cost effective mechanism.

So what the problem with FITs, the Renewables Obligation (RO), Contracts for Difference (CFDs) – all the existing mainstays of renewable energy support?

They all work by offering future ‘income support’ for renewable installations. On the back of the promise of a future income stream the developer then has to go out and get the finance to pay for it now.

But while the government can borrow money at just 0.5% interest, green energy developers are paying at least ten times as much to cover all the perceived risks, and add an element of profit to the lender on top.

And because almost all the cost of renewable energy is capital cost (small running cost as there’s no fuel to buy, and wind and sun are free) the single biggest cost element is the cost of capital – that is, the interest paid.

What that means, in effect, is that every new solar power station or wind farm represents a huge long term financial cost to the nation, to be paid out of everybody’s future electricity bills. And most of the money is actually going, not into renewable energy, but into servicing loans to the exclusive benefit of banks and other financiers.

Another result is that many potential schemes never go ahead at all, not because of any intrinsic fault in their design or viability, but because they fail to attract finance at a viable interest rate, or indeed at all.

Then there’s the uncertainty of future cost inherent in, for example, CFDs. Because they guarantee the generator a fixed price for many years to come for the power they generate, the amount of public money to be dished out varies inversely to the wholesale power price. When the price is low, the cost of the CFD increases.

And that’s exactly whey the unhelpfully named ‘levy control framework’ (which finances the FITs, CFDs etc) has run out of money – lower than expected power prices.

So what’s the answer?

The solution is actually astonishingly simple – as indeed it has to be, given that another problem with the existing system is its inordinate, multi-layered complexity.

First, no more income support for renewable energy. Scrap FITs, CFDs and the RO altogether. That’s easy – after all the government is already most of the way there.

Second, provide capital grants paid on successful commissioning and verified operation of a project, at scale and technology appropriate rates, periodically reset for each technology to reflect their declining cost and risk.

Because these grants would be paid by the government, they would carry an effective interest rate of the Bank of England minimum lending rate, currently 0.5%. That represents a huge saving in public cost.

Third, guarantee market access to renewable energy generators through two mechanisms: requiring energy companies to provide an ever-increasing minimum proportion of renewable electricity in their power mix; and to buy renewable energy whenever it’s available, up to an ever-increasing maximum level of their total power needs at any point in time.

Fourth, guarantee domestic-scale renewable generators at least the wholesale electricity price per unit exported, plus a 10% bonus to account for absence of transmission / distribution losses since their power will feed directly into the local network.

This package would provide all the necessary incentives for the UK to build a growing, successful renewable energy industry, at far lower cost and risk to taxpayers and energy users than the current system.

No way should we feel grateful to the Tories for ravaging the renewable energy sector. But we should seize the opportunity to design a better, cheaper, more effective system to support its growth well into the future.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

Petition: ‘Amber Rudd, don’t kill off the UK solar industry!‘