The decision by the UK government to give the green light to the use of a neonicotinoid pesticide currently banned across the EU is as predictable as it is appalling. The government’s decision to allow the use of thiamethoxam to deal with aphids on sugar beet crops went directly against the advice of its own expert advisers, and will undoubtedly mean further damage to our threatened bee species. Neonicotinoids act […]
I have been posting less frequently of late because I have become much more involved in the day to day running of Worcester community garden, a delightful teaching and display garden nestling alongside Worcester racecourse where I have volunteered for the past seven years. On our site, helped by a wonderful group of committed volunteers, we use organic, no-dig methods to produce a bountiful crop of fruit and vegetables each […]
The publication last month of the UK’s independent National Food Strategy was somewhat overshadowed by the United Nations “code red” report on climate change. That is a shame, because there is a lot of positive proposals in the food strategy document. These include using taxation to reduce our salt and sugar intake, maintaining high food standards, improving school education on diet, improving access to good food for the poorest in […]
“The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable”. So said UN Secretary General António Guterres as the UN released its damning climate change report earlier this week. Drawing on over 14,000 scientific studies, the United Nations IPCC report provides the most detailed and comprehensive picture of the imminent danger we are in because of man-made climate change and global warming. It is clear now that global warming is […]
As the climate emergency facing the world deepens, leaders of the so-called G7 (“Group of Seven”, representing the world’s richest countries), will be meeting next month in Cornwall, UK. Failure to agree on major changes in our relationship to the world around us will mean that our decline towards climate-driven chaos will gather momentum. Climate change already poses a direct threat to our food security, through soil erosion, crop failures […]
A healthy biodiversity – the assortment of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms that comprise the natural world around us – is vital to humankind’s continued existence on this planet. These various life forms work interactively, in ways we do not yet fully comprehend, to form an ecosystem that supports life whilst also maintaining equilibrium between living species. Biodiversity also provides all the fundamental conditions for human existence – oxygen, food, […]
Bumble bees, the wild cousins of the honey bee, are crucial to our existence. They help pollinate around a third of the world’s farmed and wild plants upon which humans and other species depend. Over recent years their numbers have declined alarmingly as a result of multiple factors, including intensive farming, pesticides and parasites. However, a new study conducted by the University of Ottowa has revealed that climate change is […]
Happy new year! More people than ever have chosen to give Veganuary a try this year. Others, who perhaps aren’t quite ready to take that step, will at least have resolved to reduce their meat intake. It’s encouraging to see so many people willing to challenge and change their food consumption habits, whether it be for health, environmental or ethical reasons, or all three. Sadly, world governments continue to show […]
There is no longer any doubt that neonicotinoid based pesticides are playing a significant role in the catastrophic collapse in world bee populations. Neonicotinoids, introduced in the 1990s, were designed to kill insect pests, but the reality is that they do not discriminate between pests and beneficial insects. As bees are larger than most insects, neonicotinoids don’t usually kill them outright, but studies have shown that they cause reduced sperm […]
Amongst the lies, chicanery and subterfuge that currently passes for politics in the UK right now, most people may have missed a key part of Boris Johnson’s first speech to parliament since becoming Prime Minister. In that speech he urged “let’s start now to liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti-genetic modification rules, and let’s develop the blight-resistant crops that will feed the world.” Johnson was obliquely presaging a […]
For several decades following the end of the Second World War we really believed that the challenge of feeding a growing population would be solved by chemicals and technology. Now a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has laid bare how catastrophic this belief has proved to be. The IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, and in the […]
A few weeks back, as the UK’s wettest June on record gave way to its hottest July on record, I decided it was time to dust down my bicycle. I have since been out cycling on a regular basis around the lovely city of Worcester where I live. On my trips I have been delighted to see that the Council has deliberately left some roadside verges and traffic islands unmown. […]