(Outdoor creatures) Britain could be new ‘Alcatraz’ Island.
No commentsBy carbon good guys
The tiny spec of land chartered by Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala in 1775 named the island La Isla de los Alcatraces, which translated to “Island of the Pelicans”. After many various uses the island now know as ‘Alcatraz’, finished its days being used as a Federal prison, with strong cold currents being the deterrent to would be escapees.
Britain holds a fairly unique position of its own, as an island with 7723 miles of coastline, unlike many of its land-locked European partners. In the UK, you are never more than 70 miles away from the sea.
The UK ranks 6th, on the International Monetary Funds statistics as of April 2009 worlds richest countries, at $2.674 trillion, down by 4.6 percent. According to 2008 figures, the United Kingdom was in 9th place for the biggest exporter, with exports totalling $464.9 billion. Imports totalled $636 billion of foreign goods last year led by foodstuffs, fuels, machinery and manufactured goods.
The UK has seen a steady decline over the last 20 years of manufacturing business, with many companies packing up once local enterprise and government incentive grant schemes have dried up. Local labour markets have been dumped in preference to impossibly cheaper labour costs on the other side of the world. Car manufacturing is the latest victim, with thousand of jobs hanging in the balance, with Germany the largest supplier of imported goods to the UK at 13.1%, being the preferred country for car manufacturers moving away from Britain.
Farming has also had its pressures and casualties over the last two decades, with farm production considerably reduced. According to recent figures, there are 10.85 million less sheep and lambs in the national flock compared to 1997, a drop of 25% to 33.13 million. In total, the number of pigs, cows and sheep is down by more than 15 million over the last 10 years. The UK imported 15.2 billion more food than was exported, up 52% on top of inflation since 1998. The amount of land to grow crops has been cut by more than 20 percent leading to a huge reduction in home grown fruit and vegetables.
Supermarkets are beginning to embrace environmental values, as their consumers become more environmentally aware, looking for ways to reduce their impact on global warming due to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Sainsburys long recognised as a pioneer of new environmental initiatives, are now top cookies on Carbon Good Guys supermarket league tables.Supermarkets need to be more honest and true to the values they portray to their consumers, which means not sourcing fish caught around Scotland which has been sent half way around the world on a 10,000 mile trip to be processed by workers being paid a pound a day and re-frozen on a number of occasions before it reaches the shop shelf, with huge costs to our environmnet and climate change. Consumers need to change their grocery shopping habits, if we are to stand any chance of reducing the 6 billion worth of food thrown away in a year, which includes 4.4 million apples and 1.3 million yoghurt’s each day, as global food production is stretched to breaking point.
In order to further reduce Britain’s annual CO2 Carbon footprint, which over the past two years has dropped 18,741 thousand metric tons to 568,520, the United Kingdom needs to replace ageing power stations with the latest renewable sources of energy. This new energy production will not have the same de-commissioning costs as those associated with former nuclear installations, which when factored in, question the true cost of previous energy to us and the environment. In its bid to become the renewables centre for the world, Scotland is at the front of technological frontiers with ongoing negotiations being held with Middle Eastern investors to develop offshore wind generating facilities, with capacity almost equal to the total electricity-generating capacity of the UK. Edinburgh based Aquamarine Power have just installed the worlds very first prototype wave energy machine in the choppy Atlantic waters near Stromness in Scotland.
The British Isles, far from being on a collision course with disaster, with respected figures predicting a ‘blackouts by 2016 unless large swathes of land are industrialised to produce power, should instead look to the Scots for inspiration and start viewing our island status as an asset in producing renewable energy including the sighting of wind farms offshore. This will free up the land to produce more of our own desperately needed fruit and vegetables to reduce our dependence upon imports and more importantly the effect on Global warming from Carbon emissions due in part to transportation, with supermarkets sourcing more produce from local suppliers.
Despite Britain’s ‘Alcatraz’ status and its dependence upon staples such as food being flown and shipped in by the container load in ever increasing quantities, the UK possess the ability to produce more for her 61.1 million citizens, who would be happier in the knowledge that they are buying produce which are locally produced. They would also sleep more easily if they knew that their islands dependence on foreign energy sources had been vastly reduced, due in no small part, to the emerging investments in technologies harnessing the seas wave and tidal systems around our coast.
Reducing dependence upon food imports, is at the very core of Britain’s exitance and survival. The explosion in take ups of local authority vegetable allotments, popular during the second World War, should be taken as a barometer to the mood of the British public and their eagerness to get back to basics. Those basics will be eroded if the Government continues on its planned charm offensive over the next 12 months, to persuade the British public of the need to accept Genetically Modified (GM) seed technology. The Government’s push on GM coincides with the decision to appoint former Labour minister and GM supporter Lord Rooker as chairman of the Food Standards Agency. A chapter in the ‘Little Earth Book’ published in 2003, contained a chapter entitled Terminator seed, out-lining American Corporations plans. What you are seeing said Robert Farley of Monsanto in 1998 after describing its purchase of seed companies around the world, “is not just a consolidation of seed companies, it’s really a consolidation of the entire food chain”.But that is not all; controlling humanity’s food source is only a part of Monsanto’s ambitions. To quote Bob Shapiro when Chief Executive, ” It is truly easy to make a great deal of money dealing with primary needs: food, shelter, clothing”. The government of Brazil, responding to the will of the people, banned the planting of GM Soya. Monsanto spent $600m in buying Brazilian seed companies and encouraging farmers to smuggle large quantities of GM seed across the border. The government was forced to cave in and Brazil is no longer a GM free country.
Seed that ‘commits suicide’ and is genetically engineered to remain sterile unless its own chemicals are applied can not be good for the publics food production, with self reliance as a country being eroded in favour of imported ’smart’ goods which force the country to be at the mercy of corporations who have profit as their goal, with little consideration to the environment or global warming. The United Kingdom, far from being disadvantaged because of its seemingly imprisoned island status is more than capable of producing for its inhabitants and does not need Ministers pushing through policies benefiting Global Corporations, disguising them as requirements for Britain’s continued growth and survival.
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Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 8:00 pm and is filed under environmental.
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