Margaret Thatcher, Elvis and Friends of the Earth's month of news, views and action

Mike Childs

10 April 2013

Do you remember where you were when you heard Elvis had died? I do. I was on holiday in Scotland. When Nelson Mandela was released? At a friend's house in London. When the Twin Towers were attacked? On holiday, again, in Slovakia. And, of course, when Margaret Thatcher died? I was at the British Ecological Society's annual conference.

April 2013 may be remembered for this one momentous event. For this review of Friends of the Earth news, and views and action it would seem perverse not to mention it. Whether you loved or loathed her there is no doubt that she had an impact on the environment movement as Roger Harrabin reports. 

Aside from Baroness Thatcher's death, here are ten other snippets of important news over the last month.

1.       Spring has arrived, the bees are out and about, and the Government is still failing to protect them. Instead they released a dodgy study of the impact of neonicotinoid pesticides that so many are concerned about. Bee expert Professor Goulson said of the Government's research, "[it] is facebook science - doing a rushed, poorly designed piece of work, writing it up badly, and whacking it on the internet. That is not how science is done." Meanwhile at an EU level there is stalemate on whether or not to heed scientific advice to ban the pesticides.. But the pressure is building as a result of Friends of the Earth's great Bee Cause Campaign, including a report from the Environmental Audit Committee demanding action and Welsh politicians taking the lead.

2.       The Dept of Energy and Climate Change has almost finished a new calculator that works out the greenhouse gas benefit from burning biomass. The results are one big game-changing jaw-dropping surprise, as Kenneth Richter's blog reveals.

3.       George Osborne continues to throw tax-breaks at fossil fuel companies and gave away £5 billion through failing to raise petrol duty in line with inflation. I thought we were broke? Here's a briefing on the Budget by David Powell. And here's the video of George Osborne being booed at the Paralympics (because it seems appropriate)..

4.       In a brief moment of sanity energy giant EDF decided to back-off suing No Dash for Gas protestors. A result of large public protest. Beautiful.

5.       During Maggie's rein, her green-minded Environment Secretary Chris Patton promised to recycle half of the UK's rubbish by 2000. His officials quickly amended that to 'half of half' of our rubbish - i.e. a quarter. This aspirational target was missed by a mile, but it's heartening to see that Wales (again) has now managed it. Englishman Julian Kirby reluctantly explains all.

6.       Al Gore came to London to tell us to tell pension funds to tell business to reduce carbon emissions. Joanna Watson went to Guildhall to hear him and reports on his speech here. Meanwhile Friends of the Earth has launched a new campaign aimed at Pension Funds to encourage them to get out of dodgy land grabs that are robbing local people of their access to land and water.

7.       Our splendid local groups in Cumbria have recently published a report demanding action to make Sellafield safe which includes some very disturbing facts.

8.       Pressure is building within the Energy Bill debate, with a vote on the critical decarbonisation target expected in April or May. Incidentally John Gummer - aka Lord Deben - was a long-standing member of Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet and now heads up the Committee on Climate Change that is advocating for the target.

9.       Clever people have calculated that the UK's uses over one and a half times its land size to provide the nation with products such as food, clothing and biofuels. The idea behind the calculation is to get countries to better manage their environmental impacts.. A new coalition has been formed to press the case.

10.   It's great to see businesses doing the right thing, so hats off to Acorn Dairy in the North East who accepted an award for kick-starting their own green energy.

I hope you enjoyed this month's review. Maggie will of course have missed it. But I'm pretty sure Elvis is alive and kicking somewhere, gobbling up every word.