Tag: environment

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To Margaret Curran’s boy – Scotland does not waste taxpayer money to monitor all of its nearly 4 000 water outflows because, unlike in England, almost all of them are not and have never been polluted – SIMPLE

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Professor John Robertson OBA Another ‘Scottish’ Labour MP, Chris Murray, son of a Labour member of the Lords, Margaret Curran, feeds an English Labour minister with lies about Scotland that can be used then to attack the SNP rather than the Labour-run councils actually responsible for any beach pollution or supposed lack of monitoring. First the supposed Portobello beach pollution, Murray reported last year: Pink diesel, 100% commented one reader. From a tractor raking the sand The actual facts on water company illegal sewage disposal: English water companies fined FOURTEEN THOUSAND times as much for illegal sewage discharges as those … Continue reading To Margaret Curran’s boy – Scotland does not waste taxpayer money to monitor all of its nearly 4 000 water outflows because, unlike in England, almost all of them are not and have never been polluted – SIMPLE

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Mythbusting: “(Scotland’s) wind power is unreliable, inefficient and harmful to nature”

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By JB From Europe’s largest renewable energy producer Statcraft  2nd April 2024: “Wind power is often characterised by incorrect, inaccurate and misleading claims.” Six stubborn myths about wind power 1. “Wind power takes up large areas of land.”  If you count the entire area around and between the turbines in a wind farm, there is no doubt that a wind farm is the energy source that requires the largest area of land per MWh produced, even if the direct impact on nature is small. However if the land where the wind turbines are located can be used at the same time … Continue reading Mythbusting: “(Scotland’s) wind power is unreliable, inefficient and harmful to nature”

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Scotland second most likely to survive climate change?

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Professor John Robertson OBA In the Herald today, a report from the Royal Scottish Geographical Society making the above claim but apparently suggesting the Scottish Government’s ‘scrapping’ (changing) its 2030 climate change target is key. So, 0.06% of the world’s population and 0.01% of the land mass area and we are key to climate change? What’s the wider, bigger picture? Which countries are most likely to survive climate change? To assess which countries are best prepared for climate change, we used data from the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative. Its ND-Gain Index measures the vulnerability and ability of a country to … Continue reading Scotland second most likely to survive climate change?

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Grangemouth – Why would a well-informed BBC journalist omit to inform on the Scottish Government’s substantial contributions alongside those of the Westminster government?

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By stewartb The BBC News website (March 17) has this headline: ‘Grangemouth: A new dawn for the home of UK’s oldest oil refinery?’. It’s no surprise to find such a long article in both the main Scotland and Scotland Business sections written by BBC Scotland’s environment correspondent. After all, it’s one of the most important topics currently in Scotland – economically and politically. The article emphasises the past and present importance of the Grangemouth refinery and its potential for the site to be important economically in future. Readers of the BBC piece are told this: ‘The UK government commissioned a report – … Continue reading Grangemouth – Why would a well-informed BBC journalist omit to inform on the Scottish Government’s substantial contributions alongside those of the Westminster government?

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Massive seagrass project – Scottish Government provides core funding for this high profile project but you’d never know that from the reporting

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By Professor John Robertson OBA BBC UK had this story and it’s getting fairly wide UK media coverage. I see little ‘Scottish’ media coverage but maybe they’re not up yet. What’s it all about? Seagrass is a wonder plant, the only true flowering plant in the sea. The meadows it creates in shallow and intertidal waters are home to a bewildering array of wildlife and are often likened to rainforests because of the thousands of species they provide food and shelter for. Scottish seas are a special place for marine habitats like seagrass, with our coast stretching 18,000 km and … Continue reading Massive seagrass project – Scottish Government provides core funding for this high profile project but you’d never know that from the reporting

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Climate change targets in the country with 76% of the UK’s new tree planting – ‘Why don’t they do it as well as the Scots?’

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By Professor John Robertson OBA, former Faculty Research Ethics Chair, UWS Severin Carroll in the Guardian today, with a worried John Swinney photo: Scotland is likely to miss its legally binding climate target by up to 20m tonnes, according to official data seen by the Guardian. The Scottish government set itself the world-leading target of reaching net zero – the point where any excess carbon emissions are soaked up by trees, peat or carbon capture – by 2045. Successive first ministers, including Nicola Sturgeon and the current first minister, John Swinney, have described Scotland repeatedly as a world leader on climate and stated their … Continue reading Climate change targets in the country with 76% of the UK’s new tree planting – ‘Why don’t they do it as well as the Scots?’

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Drax the Destroyer of Worlds, Jackie Baillie, £10 exrtra on your bill and the UK’s biggest CO2 emitter

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By Professor John Robertson OBA From BBC North Yorkshire, today: A UK power station that has received billions of pounds in government subsidies has failed more than once to report it burned wood from primary forests, BBC News has found. Drax Power Station, which burns wood pellets, is required to report where it sources its wood and whether it is from natural, previously untouched forests. BBC Panorama and BBC News has previously reported that Drax held logging licences in British Columbia, Canada, and used wood, including whole trees, from primary and old-growth forests for its pellets. These are natural forests that have … Continue reading Drax the Destroyer of Worlds, Jackie Baillie, £10 exrtra on your bill and the UK’s biggest CO2 emitter

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Will Anas Sarwar follow Sir Keir Starmer on this too – radioactive emissions through your windows and now floodwaters on your doorstep?

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By Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks to Dottie, again, for alerting me to this. In the Guardian today: More than 100,000 new homes will be built on the highest-risk flood zones in England in the next five years as part of the government’s push for 1.5m extra properties by the end of this parliament, Guardian analysis suggests. Building on areas with the highest risk of serious flooding is supposed to be discouraged. Experts say development should be avoided unless absolutely necessary because there is a significant chance of regular deluges, which will flood the properties, cause hundreds of millions of pounds of economic … Continue reading Will Anas Sarwar follow Sir Keir Starmer on this too – radioactive emissions through your windows and now floodwaters on your doorstep?

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As BBC Reporting Scotland find someone else to moan about the A9 dualling, what they don’t want you to know – it’s much safer than it was and the dualled bits are no more safe

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The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland – a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson By Professor John Robertson OBA This is just another story fed directly to Reporting Scotland but not making it onto the BBC Scotland website, to keep an SNP-bad narrative alive. This time it’s about a letter, yes just the one, from one … Continue reading As BBC Reporting Scotland find someone else to moan about the A9 dualling, what they don’t want you to know – it’s much safer than it was and the dualled bits are no more safe

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In its 45 year lifetime how many childhood cancers were caused by refuelling at this Ayrshire nuclear power station?

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By Professor John Robertson, OBA Thanks to JB for researching this. Hunterston B Nuclear power station, in North Ayrshire, Scotland, was in operation for nearly 45 years, from February 1976 until November 2021.1 In that time, there will have been around 30 re-fuelling instances2 and up to 300 inspections.3 During these events, there are spikes of radioactive emissions. Researchers in Germany, published this in 2011: According to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in Germany, the normal emission concentration during the rest of the year is about 3 kBq/m³, but during inspection/refuelling (in the afternoon and evening … Continue reading In its 45 year lifetime how many childhood cancers were caused by refuelling at this Ayrshire nuclear power station?