Good News: Biden is rolling back some of the environmental laws that Trump broke for his billionaire friends. In fact Biden is unsigning quite a few.
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/biden-s-first-order-business-was-environment
Bad News: Brexit is as bad as we expected. If I see that grinning face of Farage whittling on I shall truly contemplate murder. I despise that man and his stupidity. There again Boris Johnson hardly gets a vote from me or a nod of approval. There is something inane about the man. He finds words for the occasion but the emptiness lurks at the back. He postures, but unfortunately his imitation of a prime minister doesn't work.
Yesterday I filled in a survey from Newcastle University on the pros and cons of conventional gas against unconventional gas, i.e. fracking. I am still wondering if I answered the questions properly.
If you remember fracking was tried just down the road at Kirkby Misperton but protest and the fact that financing was unobtainable, except from an American company, stopped the extraction and protestors were happy. But there is a bias in the survey that suddenly struck me. It mentioned money being given to those that lived in the area of exploitation, (originally £10,000 a household). Sweet bribery which never happened. It asked about the small shocks of earthquakes and had it happened. Kevin Hollincrake our local conservative MP was all for fracking, and I don't think has changed his mind. So was this the thin edge of the wedge, slowly being thrust for the return of fracking I wonder, every time I see a helicopter patrolling the fields, if exploration is taking place and if local opposition can fight it off.
Looking at the environmental ravages that America has to face off in the Sierra Club article, puts the below quote in a light that we must be forever vigilant in the face of unscrupulous businessmen and politicians.
Quote of the day: “We never win. If someone pours the concrete for a dam, they’ve won. If I save Glen Canyon, I haven’t won. I’ve just got a stay of execution.” Ex director of Sierre Club
Oh dear Thelma - your post today is so right and yet at the same time so depressing. Against big business we are reduced to nothing.
ReplyDeleteExcept we have to go on fighting as so many people do and not fall into the Pit of Despair ;)
Delete"...a stay of execution." That is what our President Biden gave us. (It feels so good to write President Biden."
ReplyDeleteA second term of the last incumbent would have reduced America to a 'Wild West' I think.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the £10,000 bribe would have come with a legal disclaimer so that accepting it meant householders would have no future right to claim for damage to their health and property.
ReplyDeleteThe film Erin Brokovich springs to mind.
Well not being cynical of course Jean, I would expect there would be a lot of writing in the agreement and it would be buried in it somewhere in language we can hardly understand.
DeleteI'm hoping fracking will disappear as the use of oil decreases.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course there is a lot of oil around as well, as the price lurched lower in the last few months.
DeleteOur poor planet! It has certainly been used and abused!
ReplyDeleteI think from the moment when humans evolved. Our Yorkshire moors were forests before they were burnt down in prehistory. We have not yet got the balance.
DeleteIn my opinion, fracking was responsible for the recent small earthquakes along the existing fault line under the Perry, Ohio (Lake Erie) nuclear plants. My opinion changes little about fracking, a scourge.
ReplyDeleteWe are such a small country Joanne, and so full of people, that any 'natural' disaster brought on by fracking would be bad.
DeleteAs for the PM, I'm still getting over his claim that the government had "done all they could" to deal with the pandemic. What a whopper.
ReplyDeleteI think lying is catching as far as politicians are concerned. But Johnson's inability to act quickly as far as his decisions is a crime for which people are paying with their lives. And that is a strong statement sadly.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I'm cynical but I think he can act quickly if he wants to. I think, though, that he knows that his backbenchers (quite a few of whom, incredibly, are against lockdowns) don't want to see him being told what to do and when to do it by scientists.
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