Rob Edwards

MoD ‘turning blind eye’ to terrorist risks

from Sunday Herald, 5 September 2010

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has come under fire from its own expert advisers for failing to take account of the risk of terrorist attacks on the nuclear submarine bases on the Clyde.

A previously secret report released under freedom of information law also says that there are “uncertainties” in the MoD’s risk estimates for accidents caused by aircraft crashes, fires, floods, explosions and ship collisions.

According to critics, other recently released reports show that a well organised attack on a Trident submarine while it is hauled out of the water could trigger a major catastrophe, contaminating large parts of Scotland with deadly plutonium.

The MoD asked the UK defence company, Serco, to assess its emergency plans for nuclear submarine bases. A censored version of the company’s report, produced in September 2008, has been made available to the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

“The coverage of man-made hazards currently excludes sabotage, terrorism, civil unrest and acts of war,” says the report. “Some consideration could have been given to these hazards.”

Winning the war on cars: how ministers plan to cut climate pollution

from Sunday Herald, 5 September 2010

Stricter and lower speed limits, higher parking charges and a five pence per kilometre road pricing scheme are being proposed by the Scottish government as part of a major new offensive to cut the pollution that is disrupting the climate.

A key policy report leaked to the Sunday Herald reveals that ministers are also considering big increases in spending on walking and cycling, grants for low-carbon cars, and boosts for buses and trains.

A further series of radical plans are being drawn up to meet the ambitious target of cutting climate pollution 42% by 2020. These include a renewed £1 billion-plus home insulation scheme, a massive tree-planting programme, bans on dumping waste as landfill, and moves to force farmers to clean up their act.

The government’s new package of 30 “proposals and policies” to combat climate change has been warmly welcomed by environmentalists. But some of the measures have already provoked the ire of the car lobby, businesses and farmers.

The Association of British Drivers dismissed the curbs on cars as “lunatic”. They would spark widespread anger, claimed Peter Spinney, the association’s co-ordinator in Scotland.

Delay and disputes over climate change targets

from Sunday Herald, 5 September 2010

Crucial government targets to cut climate pollution have been delayed by a fierce political row over how ambitious they should be.

By law annual targets for 2011 and 2010 should have been agreed and published three months ago, but that has been prevented by disagreements between the SNP and opposition parties.

The delay is frustrating environmental groups, who are worried that real action to reduce emissions could be postponed. The report listing the necessary polices, which has been leaked to the Sunday Herald, will not be published until after the annual targets have been set.

Exposed: the "evil scheming" of a property developer

from Sunday Herald 29 August 2010

A leading Scottish property developer employed “evil scheming” to gain access to historic land to build a lucrative private housing estate, according to documents seen by the Sunday Herald.

The Lomond Group secretly planned to bounce Fife Council into ordering the demolition of a 300-year-old wall in the conservation village of Falkland, so farmland behind it could be opened up for a development likely to reap a multi-million pound profit.

The company’s behaviour has been condemned as “bullying” and “despicable” by residents, who described the destruction of the wall as “an act of vandalism”. Lomond said the wall had to come down because it was unsafe.

A 20-metre stretch of sandstone wall was knocked down by a Lomond mechanical digger on April 7.

Residents have argued the company manipulated the council to try and further its development plans. Their suspicions have now been reinforced by two company documents.

Learning to love wasps

from Sunday Herald, 29 August 2010

We all know the scene.

You’re just sitting down to relax in your garden on a warm, sunny day, maybe with a chilled glass of wine and a newspaper ... and then they attack.

Buzzing at your head in a yellow and black blur, dive-bombing your ears in a desperate hunt for a sugar fix. Whatever you do, they just won’t go away – and nor does the threat of a painful sting.

Wasps are probably the nation’s most hated insect, provoking widespread fear and loathing, and death by rolled up newspaper. But campaigners are about to try and change all that. They want us to learn to love the wasp.

The insect conservation group, Buglife, will tomorrow launch a major campaign to rebrand wasps as “wonderful”. You shouldn’t kill them, the group says, you should try and be nice to them.

Buglife will be appealing to members of the public not to swat wasps. Instead, the group suggests, people should “calmly waft” or give a “little puff” to shoo them away.

“I love wasps. They are some of the most fascinating creatures on the planet,” said the TV presenter and naturalist, Steve Backshall, who is backing Buglife’s campaign.

Revealed: the £13 billion that RBS puts into polluting industries

from Sunday Herald, 22 August 2010

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has provided nearly £13 billion worth of funding to the world’s dirty oil and gas industries since it was bailed out by the taxpayer two years ago.

The figures, being revealed today by the Sunday Herald, are the first authoritative and detailed account of the bank’s controversial financing of the companies blamed for causing global warming.

Among the 66 companies backed by RBS are well-known names like BP, Shell, ConocoPhilips, Tullow Oil, Trafigura and Cairn Energy. The bank has helped them raise many hundreds of millions of pounds to finance oil exploration, extraction and development around the world.

To environmental groups and the hundreds of climate protestors currently camped on RBS’s lawn near Edinburgh, the revelations prove that the bank is guilty of an unforgivable crime against the planet.

But to the bank, which does not dispute the figures, they just show that someone has to raise the money to extract the fuels on which we all depend before we can work out how to phase them out.