Animals at Christmas

Christmas Eve: uses for an iPad #77: sitting on.

Christmas Day.

Boxing Day. No hounds loose up this road.

Jaguar can't curl his tail so well, but he can tell the time. You can adopt a jaguar at the World Wildlife Fund Adopt A Jaguar page.

How to give the wrong impression by telling the truth

The Telegraph pulls off the trick beloved of tabloids today of giving a completely false impression by telling the truth. The headline reads "Greener energy will cost £4,600 each a year". The sub heading says: "The Coalition's plans to convert Britain to green energy would cost the country the equivalent of £4,600 per person a year, according to official forecasts."

And the first paragraph goes on: "Reducing dependence on fossil fuels and moving to renewable and nuclear energy would cost an additional £60 billion every year until 2050, the officials said."

Now the figure that's quoted is true. The country would spend the equivalent of £4600 per person on a plan to produce energy from renewable sources. But only later on do they make it clear that estimates show that other options, such as continuing to produce our energy the same way we do now would actually be more expensive even than that.

It's that little word "additional" that really gets to me, because if you stop reading there, you leave with the impression that you're going to be spending money you would not otherwise have spent.

But then they quote Professor David MacKay "doing nothing to reduce carbon emissions would prove even more expensive because of rising energy prices".

So the headline says green energy will cost us more. The figures in the article make clear that green energy will cost us less than going on the way we are.

The Guardian is more accurate, though it hedges its bets slightly: "UK switch to low-carbon energy 'no dearer than doing nothing'". Well, if it's no dearer and it saves on carbon emissions, let's do it.

Update: 7 p.m.
I'm indebted to Anne H for this: "Sunday Times bury wind farm survey after it reveals majority support". The statement by Yougov notes that there was a majority in favour of expanding wind farms even among Conservative supporters.

It's amazing what you can find locally

Local produce:

from the predictable:

to the pretty amazing:

All of those available at Ringmer Wine Store.


And this terrorist teapot is on sale at Potts in Lewes:

Blimey, I hope this doesn't happen here

From the BBC:

"Stuart MacMahon sent in this stunning image of a turbine at Ardrossan Windfarm bursting into flames during severe weather." (It's the last in the slideshow, click along to the right to see it.)

Road fatalities

This is a map of the road fatalities that have occurred near Ringmer in the last ten years. It comes from a BBC interactive site which has mapped all of the UK road fatalities for that period.

Our concern with the way people drive is primarily environmental, but there is a deep connection between environmental concerns and those of road safety. All of the sixty incidents mapped here were unnecessary.  Sixty people have died, sixty families and sixty sets of friends have mourned unnecessarily. In every case someone was driving badly, driving in a way that was not suitable for the road, weather and traffic conditions. In many cases that means they were driving too fast, not necessarily exceeding the speed limit, but driving too fast to be able to stop the vehicle safely when something unexpected happened. Driving in a way that respects the environment also saves lives.

Arlington reservoir in the rain

With Arlington reportedly at around 20% of its capacity, and Ardingly even worse at around 12%, South East Water has applied for permission to take more water from the Ouse. It's quite an irony that the day this was announced was one of the wettest days of the year.

 Arlington - low but wet

 Really wet

Not Arlington but very, very wet.