Goals To Stop Decline of Nature in England 'Off Track,' Report Warns (theguardian.com) 31
Goals to stop the decline of nature and clean up the air and water in England are slipping out of reach, a new report has warned. From a report: An audit of the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), which is the mechanism by which the government's legally binding targets for improving nature should be met, has found that plans for thriving plants and wildlife and clean air are deteriorating. This plan was supposed to replace the EU-derived environmental regulations the UK used until the Environment Act was passed in 2021 after Brexit.
The report found that there was no data to measure many of the metrics such as habitat creation for wildlife and the status of sites of special scientific interest. It also highlighted that the government was off track to meet its woodland creation targets, and that water leakage from pipes had in fact increased since the targets were set. The Labour party announced on Tuesday that it would overhaul these goals. The environment secretary, Steve Reed, said the government would lay out detailed delivery plans for each target, such as tree planting and air quality, working with environment groups to do so.
The report found that there was no data to measure many of the metrics such as habitat creation for wildlife and the status of sites of special scientific interest. It also highlighted that the government was off track to meet its woodland creation targets, and that water leakage from pipes had in fact increased since the targets were set. The Labour party announced on Tuesday that it would overhaul these goals. The environment secretary, Steve Reed, said the government would lay out detailed delivery plans for each target, such as tree planting and air quality, working with environment groups to do so.
pipes continue to deteriorate (Score:2)
In other news, setting non-measurable targets is, NOT MEASURABLE.
And finally, on a lighter note: setting laws that have no measurable enforcement mechanism, probably just for fun then, right?
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Virtue-signalling. Grandstanding.
"LOOK! BASK IN OUR GLORY! Look upon our radiance, as we move to make a better world! LOOK at the laws we passed!" ...that do nothing.
That's how politicians operate, folks. Tha'ts how *many* many many people operate too.
Remember that, next time you're in a queue behind some ecowarrior's ride and you count up the stickers loudly proclaiming what they are. It's all fake. It's all just virtue-signalling.
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It's not that they do nothing. They're just not doing what they claim to be doing. What they're actually doing is raising taxes and routing the money to their supporters, and themselves.
Virtue signaling is expensive.
Such a surprise (Score:2)
Most "promises" made in that space are just lies too keep the masses complacent a little longer. Delays, delays, reducing efforts, canceling efforts, everywhere the same thing. Do these people think that climate will fix itself?
Re:Such a surprise (Score:4, Informative)
It was mostly a scheme to funnel taxpayer money to Tory chums.
Warning: Track Wolves! (Score:2)
To be fair (Score:2)
UK took same approach as FAA did regulating Boeing (Score:4, Insightful)
Under the Thatcher government the UK privatized water and sewer services. Now privatization in itself is neither here nor there; here in the US there are a mix of private and public water utilities, and both types seem capable of doing a reasonable job. But under David Cameron responsibility for monitoring sewage spills in the UK was transferred from the government to those private companies.
On paper was a great success: reported instances of sewage spills dropped. However more rivers seem to have developed sewage contamination problems -- more than 1/3 of inland waterways in fact, which is frankly shocking. Private citizens are finding raw sewage on beaches where there have been no reported spills.
Environmental protection is always a problem of balancing costs and benefits, so there's always going to be political wrangling over how much cost we should be willing to bear for how much benefit. But unless you take one or the other extreme position -- that people shouldn't be allowed to pollute at all in any circumstance, or that people should be allowed to pollute as much as they want -- the only sensible way to manage any intermediate position is to start by collecting reliable data.
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>But under David Cameron responsibility for monitoring sewage spills in the UK was transferred from the government to those private companies.
Yeah, we had a conservative government try that in Ontario, Canada... people died.
If you let a profit motive interfere with public safety, the profit motive will eventually win and public safety will lose. Greedy, incompetent people will take little steps to direct money into their pockets without having to do as much work, and they'll keep doing that incrementall
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Like I said, I don't think the profit motive is incompatible with a business running in a socially responsible manner. But in a world where the shareholder value theory [wikipedia.org] is a mainstream business thinking, it's absolutely crucial that no business ever be relied upon to regulate itself. Under that theory, if a company can pollute, or even kill people without getting caught, management has a moral duty to do that if it maximizes profit.
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It was the same with Potters Bar, the whole accident caused by a private contractor not doing the job properly.
Privatisation of rail and other services was essential in those days as after many years of public ownership such things tend to stagnate. The funding to fix the issues is pushed more and more out of reach as it being public money it's in high demand.
Privatisation solved that issue. But then after many years we have hidden faux-pas and secret failures, competitive practices that encourage time sa
Water leakage from pipes maintained by the private (Score:2)
We change things permanently (Score:1)
The UK seems to be ... (Score:4, Insightful)
... in an epic nose-dive on all fronts. Just today they had yet another stabbing of children by a migrant with 3 dead and a few still critical after being mortally wounded. Earlier this week the new government discovered a 20-something billion pound hole in their budget, something the preceding government had swept under the rug. Living costs are through the roof and public services are being cut back left right and center with the legendary NHS being only a shadow of it's former self.
I knew Brexit would hurt but seeing one bad news unfold after the other is hard to watch. Even as a continental European who's glad not having to listen to perpetual British bickering anymore.
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Just today they had yet another stabbing of children by a migrant
Yes that happens when migrants become desperate and develop mental problems when you do the utmost treat them like shit and keep them down. Honestly these migrants are saints. I'm sure I would have cracked and gone on stabbing sprees far sooner given the way the UK treat them.
The UK has suffered severely under 15 years of conservative rule. That said it's not just the lable "conservative" here that's the problem. The issue is more than the conservative party seems to be run by people truly incompetent.
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Yes that happens when migrants become desperate and develop mental problems when you do the utmost treat them like shit and keep them down. Honestly these migrants are saints.
Mental problems? They are frustrated and angry because the traffickers and others told them they would receive free housing, free food, and free women. It is the old story like people believed London's streets were paved with gold. So they set about getting some recompense and revenge, ranging from petty crime, rape, and upwards. What is needed is to send them back with a flea in their ear to get the message back to others where they came from.
The criminal record of immigrants as a whole is horrific an
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Desparate? Dont make me laugh.
Most of them are bored of their life where they came from so came here for two reasons. Better money and free money and to help form new terrorist cells.
The actual asylum seekers are thankfully mostly intercepted and dealt with. Many of these economic migrants however end up in the backs of vans and driven to sweatshops and modern slave industries. It is a extremily profitable human trafficing industry allowed to exist by virtue signallers who only care that they can love th
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Just today they had yet another stabbing of children by a migrant
Yes that happens when migrants become desperate and develop mental problems when you do the utmost treat them like shit and keep them down. Honestly these migrants are saints. I'm sure I would have cracked and gone on stabbing sprees far sooner given the way the UK treat them.
The UK has suffered severely under 15 years of conservative rule. That said it's not just the lable "conservative" here that's the problem. The issue is more than the conservative party seems to be run by people truly incompetent.
It needs to be pointed out that the alleged suspect the police have in custody was born in Wales and lived in Stockport for over a decade. He's not a migrant, let alone a recent one.
That bit has been made up by propagandists trying to sow division and blame immigrants (and Labour who've been in power for a month, and not even a whole one at that).
I suspect, given the victims in question (young girls) that if the suspect was radicalised by anything it's more likely to be the kind coming from the likes
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> something the preceding government had swept under the rug
It wasnt swept under the rug. Starmer knew it was there all along and lied about it. Labour alwasy increase the taxes and drain the coffers. The last conservative government were frequently critisiced for being too Labour like "Labour light" with their tax rises to pay off the Covid debt.
Just because flip flop Starmer walks in doesnt mean taht Covid debt has gone, they just ignored it as they new they had to get in, then they would deal with i
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> something the preceding government had swept under the rug
It wasnt swept under the rug. Starmer knew it was there all along and lied about it. Labour alwasy increase the taxes and drain the coffers. The last conservative government were frequently critisiced for being too Labour like "Labour light" with their tax rises to pay off the Covid debt.
Just because flip flop Starmer walks in doesnt mean taht Covid debt has gone, they just ignored it as they new they had to get in, then they would deal with it.
Like all previous governments of both sides, Starmers one will do the usual short term planning, never considering the long term.
When Starmer raids your pension you'll probably blame the Tories for that too. If you actually read up on it, they were always going to raid the pensions, its what Labour do.
I think this person's spelling tells you all you really need to know.
Historically Labour has always been better at paying down the debts whilst conservatives rack it up. The conservative propaganda that "conservatives are better with the economy" has finally died a death with the last 14 years.
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... in an epic nose-dive on all fronts. Just today they had yet another stabbing of children by a migrant with 3 dead and a few still critical after being mortally wounded. Earlier this week the new government discovered a 20-something billion pound hole in their budget, something the preceding government had swept under the rug. Living costs are through the roof and public services are being cut back left right and center with the legendary NHS being only a shadow of it's former self.
I knew Brexit would hurt but seeing one bad news unfold after the other is hard to watch. Even as a continental European who's glad not having to listen to perpetual British bickering anymore.
Erm... that "migrant" was born in Cardiff... I think the Welsh would take exception to being called foreigners in their own country. Meanwhile we've had dozens of pissed up "Tommeh Robinson" types go and smash retaining walls in Stockport (where this horrific incident took place a few days ago) so they had bricks to throw at a mosque, as well as looting and trying to burn down a convenience store.
As a UK resident, we seem to want to destroy ourselves, migrants have nothing to do with it. Hopefully now
Mod parent up (Score:2)
Population Increase (Score:3)
Ther is no sign of it stopping. I keep old maps (a sequence starting with ones my father bought) and comparing them the built up areas look like fractals growing on a computer screen. In a generation or two the entirity of the UK will be urban except for the Scottish and Welsh mountains and a few little "country parks".
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> I don't know how the natural environment can be increased or even maintained while everywhere I look they are building new houses and industrial sites like crazy.
With Labour banning NIMBY's it going to get worse. Much worse, the greenbelt is in their sights and they are not hiding that fact.
> despite what some say is a population implosion
Such people probably also think the world is flat as I cant understand how anyone who can count can think there is an "implosion" when the population goes up and u
20 days?! (Score:2)
Starmer has only been at the reins for 20 days and already the Grauniad is highlighting an outdated report?
All that proves is the Tories messed that up too.
Manmade (Score:3)
The UK countryside is almost entirely man-made and has been like that for many thousands of years. It, the island of Britain used to be covered in a dense forest which over time was cut down for settlements, building materials, farming etc.
Some areas remain ancient, some woods and forests. We even have a rain forest that still exists.
Many areas are sectioned off as SSSI (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) and "country parks" etc.
Recently in Norfolk a whole field used for farming was left as-is to see what would happen. The whole thing turned into a poppy field!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/art... [bbc.co.uk]
I also remember a story of a very rare and endangered plant found growing in a car park! An area of the car park was out of bounds from human trampling and this rare plant was in the news having been found having a great time in its little area.
I've been watching Series 3 of Clarksons Farm and have become interested in a couple of guys helping Clarkson in that series experiment with a different way of farming a field, where multiple types of crops are planets in the field, mixed, like nature usually does. It is not typical that a whole area just has one type of plant, they tend to mix things up a bit and this experiment is in aid of trying to see if that can be used to rejuvenate the soil making it more capable and less "processed". It's a very interesting watch and makes total sense for anyone who has used companion planting techniques when growing at home.
I suspect that much of the declines we have been seeing in insects etc are a result of such things, it's better for them to have a mix a wilder mix of plants to feed upon vs one whole big field of oilseed rape. Perhaps larger fields need to be divided smaller if mixed planting is too troublesome (you have to literally sort the wheat from the potatoes). In ancient times the fields were just like that, smaller. They were very frequently hedged, in fact not that much has changed today besides fields being merged together into bigger ones, they still have the same hedges and shape as all those thousands of years ago.
Another thing of note are the grass verges on the roads, between fields and across the country. These usually get mowed, cut short by farmers and councils. It improves visibility and river safety but much of it is unneeded. Curves and bends certainly could benefit, junctions and roundabouts too. But this year the "no mow may" idea has resulted in something I've never seen before. In my county the "no mow may" idea is extended quite a bit, still into July I find many of the verges on the roads totally un-mowed save for where there are footpaths and where it is needed for visibility and I have seen loads of blue flowers, wild flowers, that I simply had no idea were there as we just mowed them down.
I remember on a holiday to the Peak District a couple of years ago I was overjoyed to see so many of my fave natural British cowslips growing everywhere.
So we need smaller and more mixed variety of fields, no more seas of endless yellow rape no matter how much a brilliant sight that is. We need less mowing of verges, more hedges, and importantly, more meadows. Our ancestors only 100 years back were doing just that, maintaining hedges and planting copses and woods for birds (that’s why you see islands of trees in the middle of a field) but since then we have looked more at intensive farming where efficiency and yield is more important and much of that is caused by rules and regulations imposed by the EU farming bodies which wasn’t resolved by Brexit as the cowardly government of the time simply adopted all the EU regs as our own to placate them.
To fix it we need to look to the past and see how they did it as their soils were healthier and they didn’t have the ability to pump chemicals into that soil like we do. Expensive chemicals and fertilisers, which with that experiment on Clarksons Farm with Wildfar
If you can't meet your goals (Score:2)
then change your goals. Now *that's* ambition!
Gee, I can't imagine why... (Score:2)
I mean, Brexit, and 14 years of utterly incompetent government who are the wealthy...