Help stop the proposed marina at Penlee Quarry
between Newlyn and Mousehole
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Environment , Quarrying , Regeneration? and Alternatives An argument for Penlee to be designated as a 'wilderness area'... Beyond Conservation
A WILDLAND STRATEGY
click here for more informationBy Peter Taylor After decades of operating off-the-back-foot and protecting and conserving nature perceived as under threat, conservationists are becoming proactive and creative in the face of habitat loss, agricultural intensification and climate change. Beyond Conservation offers a revolutionary agenda for both managing existing wildlands in Britain and for expanding and connecting such lands. Central to this strategy is the imperative to 'rewild' or restore and repair damaged habitat and ecosystems, promote existing biodiversity and reintroduce vanished plant and animal species, while working to reconcile human needs and livelihoods and the needs of nature. Restoring the EarthA Vision of Hope for the 21st Century
marine habitat, eel grass beds/ harbour empowerment order Will this rare fish scupper the Harbour Empowerment Order?
 click image to enlarge click here for further information on Gobius Cobitis  Penlee's Geological Site of Special Scientific Interest (gSSSI): notice the light-coloured diagonal mineral seam in the centre of the picture.
(click images to enlarge) click here to see the Penlee Quarry full mineral list
How Long Can Our Fish Hold Out?
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'Right-Sizing The Fleet' click here to read the report from the UK Cabinet Office Strategy Unit on the forthcoming de-commissioning of fishing boats Beam Trawlers Adam Round (aged 10+ - St Mary's C of E School) Like an army of robotic warriors, Huddled in the harbour. Ancient rusting boats; Dinosaurs in the mist. A film of oil forms Grotesque rainbows On the water. Further info and links coming soon: over fishing, fishing industry, charles clover book, defra report, wwf report mcs report, foe report, ecologist article, guardian articles alternatives - nature reseves - afteruse. CARLYON BAY A similar 'development' disaster is being imposed on the residents of Carlyon Bay near St. Austel. click here to go to the Carlyon Bay Watch website or click here to read the BBC Action Report. loss of footpaths and cycleway, no public access to most of sandy cove and newlyn south pier Fuel Shortages / Peak Oil There is one major 'event' that will assure the failure, and possibly even the early cancellation, of the proposed developments regardless of any of the issues that we are highlighting in these pages. We are about to experience an 'energy-price shock' in the near future. This will occur due to a world-wide inability of oil and gas supplies to meet demand, the effects of this will be far-reaching and catastrophic and will make the fuel shortages of the '70's look tame by comparison. To read more on this vitally important subject click here What They Don't Want You To Know About The Coming Oil Crisis
by Jeremy Leggett. Published in The Independent 21st Jan 2006 click here Energy gap: Crisis for humanity? BBC report 26th Jan 2006 click here
urban sprawl/cpre report, light pollution climate change and rising sea levels road congestion/pollution/accident stats/demographics green politics - green party/MK cwt/foe statements "Democracy Cannot Survive Overpopulation" - Isaac Asimov
The Struggle against Ourselves By George Monbiot Monbiot.com Monday 05 December 2005 Speech to the Climate March on December 3, 2005. I want to take a moment to remind you of where we have come from. For the first three million years of human history, we lived according to circumstance. Our lives were ruled by the happenstances of ecology. We existed, as all animals do, in fear of hunger, predation, weather and disease. For the following few thousand years, after we had grasped the rudiments of agriculture and crop storage, we enjoyed greater food security, and soon destroyed most of our non-human predators. But our lives were ruled by the sword, the axe and the spear. The primary struggle was for land. We needed it not just to grow our crops but also to provide our sources of energy - grazing for our horses and bullocks, wood for our fires. Then we discovered fossil fuels, and everything changed. No longer were we constrained by the need to live on ambient energy; we could support ourselves by means of the sunlight stored over the preceding 350 million years. The new sources of energy permitted the economy to grow - to grow sufficiently to absorb some of the people expelled by the previous era's land disputes. Fossil fuels allowed both industry and cities to expand, which permitted the workers to organise and to force the despots to loosen their grip on power. Fossil fuels helped us fight wars of a horror never contemplated before, but they also reduced the need for war. For the first time in human history, indeed for the first time in biological history, there was a surplus of available energy. We could keep body and soul together without having to fight someone else for the energy we needed. Agricultural productivity rose 10 or 20 fold. Economic productivity rose 100 fold. Most of us could live as no one had ever lived before. And everything you see around you results from that. We have been able to assemble here from all corners of the country because of fossil fuels. We have not been charged and cut down by the yeomanry - or not yet at any rate - because of fossil fuels. Our freedoms, our comforts, our prosperity are all the result of fossil fuels. Ours are the most fortunate generations that have ever lived. Ours are the most fortunate generations that ever will. We inhabit the brief historical interlude between ecological constraint and ecological catastrophe. I don't have to remind you of the two forces which are converging on our lives. We are faced with an impending shortage of the source of energy which is hardest to replace - liquid fossil fuels. And we are faced with the environmental consequences of the fossil fuel burning which has permitted us to be standing here now. The structure, the complexity, the diversity of our lives, everything we know, everything that we have taken for granted, that looked solid and non-negotiable, suddenly looks contingent. All this is a great tottering pile balanced on a ball, a ball that is about to start rolling downhill. I hear people talking about the carbon cuts they would like to see. I am not interested in what people would like to see. I am interesed in what the science says. And the science is clear. We need not a 20% cut by 2020; not a 60% cut by 2050, but a 90% cut by 2030. Only then do we stand a good chance of keeping carbon concentrations in the atmosphere below 430 parts per million, which means that only then do we stand a good chance of preventing some of the threatened positive feedbacks. If we let it get beyond that point there is nothing we can do. The biosphere takes over as the primary source of carbon. It is out of our hands. The notion that we can achieve this by replacing fossil fuels with ambient energy is a fantasy. It is true that we have untapped sources of energy in wind, waves, tides and sunlight, but it is neither so concentrated nor so consistent that we can plug it in and carry on as before. A cut like this requires massive reductions in our energy use. There are some technofixes available, but they are unlikely to take us more than halfway there. If carbon emissions are to be capped at 10%, energy use will have to be capped at under 50%. The only fair means of doing this is national rationing accompanied by global contraction and convergence. And we find ourselves in an extraordinary position. This is the first mass political movement to demand less, not more. The first to take to the streets in pursuit of austerity. The first to demand that our luxuries, even our comforts, are curtailed. These are the greatest political challenges any movement has faced. But we are rising to it. We are rising. But let no one tell you it will be easy. If it were just a matter of slagging off George Bush, we would have won by now. But we must struggle not only against him, not only against our own government, not only against each other, but also against ourselves. The struggle against climate change is a struggle against much of what we have become. It is a struggle against some of our most fundamental urges. We cannot call on others to stop flying if we still fly. We cannot ask the government to force us to change if we are not ready to change. The greatest fight of our lives will be fought not just out there, but also in here. Our journey so far...
Where do we go from here? |
| What can I do to help ? Local contact numbers: Penzance: Caroline 331086 ~ Mousehole: Sybil 731147 ~ Newlyn: Adam 364554 ~ Paul: Rod 731548 email us |