Rob Edwards

Official warnings over climate-busting projects ignored

for Sunday Herald, 05 July 2009

 

Scottish ministers have ignored warnings from official advisers that their plans for improving airports and building roads could bust their targets to cut climate pollution.

Both the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) and the Sustainable Development Commission cautioned that major developments approved in the government’s National Planning Framework, published ten days ago, could put the aim of cutting emissions 80% by 2050 in jeopardy.

But ministers decided to go ahead with the developments despite their “potential for adverse effects” on the grounds that they were needed to support economic growth and “connectivity” within the UK and with other countries.

Revealed: deception over plan for new Forth road bridge

from Sunday Herald, 28 June 2009

The public is being deliberately deceived about the government’s plan to build a new road bridge over the Firth of Forth to make it an easier sell, according to internal documents obtained by the Sunday Herald.

The £2 billion bridge - by far the largest construction project proposed by ministers - is officially badged as a “Forth replacement crossing”. This is despite the fact that it will not replace, but supplement the existing road bridge at Queensferry as part of a “twin crossing strategy”.

The documents reveal that advisers recommended last year that the name be changed to reflect the real role of the new bridge. But this was rejected by the government’s Transport Scotland to protect “political sensitivities” and to avoid “confusion among the public”.

Outraged opponents of the bridge are this weekend demanding that the Scottish government comes clean, and cancels the scheme. In a letter to the finance minister, John Swinney, last night, the Green MSP, Patrick Harvie, accused Transport Scotland of failing to be honest with the public.

Harvie said: “The problems with the crossing are not simply public relations problems. It is now fatally flawed, and I would urge you to scrap it before more money and effort is wasted.”

New Forth road bridge ‘could be cancelled’

from Sunday Herald, 28 June 2009

Government plans for a new road bridge over the Firth of Forth, airport improvements and coal-fired power stations have been thrown into doubt by the target to cut climate pollution agreed by the Scottish Parliament last week.

Senior civil servants are privately warning that major polluting projects will now be vulnerable to legal challenge and cancellation because they pose a threat to the new statutory target to cut greenhouse gas emissions 42% by 2020.

As a result, fears are growing that ministers will backtrack on the historic and world-leading climate change bill passed unanimously by MSPs on Wednesday. The eleventh-hour government amendment agreed by the parliament enables the 42% target to be lowered if experts advise that it is not achievable.

‘We got it wrong’ admits McDonalds

from Sunday Herald, 28 June 2009

It’s one of the world’s most popular brands, but also one of the most hated.  It makes children happy and saves parents money - or it kills us with calories while trashing the planet.

The American fast food chain, McDonalds, has often provoked fierce arguments. But it’s never been known for its humility, its tact or its diplomacy.

Yet there, between the horse manure and the hordes at the Royal Highland Show last week, were the company’s sharp-suited, short-haired executives sounding almost apologetic. In an interview with the Sunday Herald, they admitted that they had got things wrong, and that their business had suffered as a result.

Naturally they insisted that the company was now getting things right, but new evidence suggests that it is still exploiting children in its advertising, still destroying tropical rainforests and still making a massive contribution to global warming.

Whatever way you look at it, McDonalds is a $24 billion phenomenon. It serves more than 58 million people a day in 31,000 restaurants in 118 countries, and has become perhaps the most ubiquitous and high-profile symbol of American capitalism.

Revealed: the 1,700 problems plaguing nuclear plants

from The Observer, 21 June 2009

Britain’s ageing nuclear power and weapons plants have been plagued by more than 1,700 leaks, breakdowns and other mishaps over the past seven years, according to a secret report by the government’s chief nuclear inspector, Mike Weightman.

The report, released under freedom of information legislation, reveals the catalogue of incidents and accidents that have confronted the UK safety watchdog, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), as it struggles to cope with a growing workload and a severely depleted staff.

The NII faces “major challenges” in ensuring that old nuclear plants are run or dismantled safely at the same time as checking that new plants are safe to build, Weightman says. There are problems “across all areas of existing nuclear plant”, including Sellafield in Cumbria, Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire, and reactors around the country.

With relatively fewer inspectors than any other nuclear-powered country in the world, the NII has to police the safety of 39 nuclear sites across the UK, some of them dating back more than half a century. It is also having to assess foreign reactor designs proposed as part of the government’s new nuclear power programme.

In January this year, Weightman put a 37-page report to the board of the NII’s governing body, the Health and Safety Executive. Marked “restricted”, it lays bare the crisis that is afflicting the regulation of the British nuclear industry.

World calls on Scotland to act tough on climate

from Sunday Herald, 21 June 2009

Scotland’s target for cutting the pollution that is wrecking the climate will still hurl the world into an environmental catastrophe in which billions will suffer, scientists are warning.

The Scottish leader, Alex Salmond, and other political leaders are being told by 13 top climate experts that the current aim to reduce emissions 34% by 2020 is “wholly inadequate”. The target must be raised to at least 42% to help save the planet, they say.

The scientists’ dramatic plea, to be delivered tomorrow, is the latest in an extraordinary global groundswell of voices putting mounting pressure on ministers and MSPs to strengthen their climate change bill, due for its final debate in the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday.

Business leaders, celebrities, politicians, trade unions, students, faith groups, community organisations and environmentalists have united with leaders and campaigners in developing countries like Malawi, Ethiopia and the Maldives to demand tougher action from the Scottish government.