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Green Living: Call for killing of birds deemed health hazard splits conservationists

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    • CommentAuthorjamesingram
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014 edited
     
    "Call for killing of birds deemed health hazard splits conservationists"
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/18/bird-killing-call-robin-starling-mallard-splits-conservationists
    Sounds rather strange?
    For a alternative viewhttp://tompride.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/heres-the-real-reason-the-tories-are-allowing-the-destruction-of-robin-eggs-and-nests/
    "There is no explanation of what exactly the public health and safety hazards of robins’ and starlings’ eggs are.

    However, after a little investigation into the murky waters of party donations all has now become clear.

    Last year government ministers chose Andrew Sells – a Chartered accountant with no experience of ecological or environmental matters – as the new Chair of Natural England.

    Sells is a venture capitalist and a major Tory party donor – in 2011 for example he donated £111,250 to the Tories.

    OK, so far so corrupt. But why would the Tories want to allow the destruction of robins, starlings, wagtails and other such beautiful birds?

    Well, Sells is one of the founders of Linden Homes, a property development business specialising in developing brownfield sites for residential housing.

    And what is one of the biggest problems facing property developers when they attempt to develop brownfield sites for residential housing?

    Yes, you’ve guessed it – nesting birds"
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    That some of our friendly furry friends constitute a health hazard is a new one on me.

    In my experience, THE biggest obstacle(s) in the way of ANYONE wanting to build a house are newts and bats.

    Is there, perhaps, a risk that a bit TOO much is being read into Andrew Sells involvement?
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    And a read-through of the Guardian article shows that the issue isn't (just) one of nesting birds stopping developments, but of their creating "health hazards" which the article covers. :wink:
  4.  
    Hence the 'alternative view' . Nice to see this one raised you from retirement though :bigsmile:
    • CommentAuthorowlman
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    Looks like I may be on the way out then.
    :sad:

    Criminals take the money and run. Politicians run then take the money.

    And they wonder why the apathy towards them and their profession in general.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    Posted By: jamesingram"Call for killing of birds deemed health hazard splits conservationists"
    Don't take much to split conservationists. An axe or log splitter would work well.

    The biggest threat to any species or ecosystem is unequal or overlapping resources.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014 edited
     
    The biggest 'health hazard' in the world currently (pending the next asteroid strike) is dinosaurs like Andrew Sells, the politicians who appoint them, the fearful and disconnected populations that elect them, and the lines in Genesis that begat that fear and disconnection:

    God tells humans to breed and multiply, and to use, subdue and rule over every living thing. They are to control and conquer the things of Creation.

    In fact, Genesis is far from an account of the primal Creation - it's a late-come re-write on the eve of the Agricultural revolution a mere 6000yrs ago, which necessitated and sanctioned wholesale disruption of happy ecosystems, now reaching a climax which exceeds Earth's ability to adjust.

    ST, it's disingenuous to imply that man is just another member of an ecosystem, doing its thing like any species. True in a way, but so excessively that it becomes something else - man's 'thing' is quite capable, now, of wiping out ecosystems altogether, which has never been on the cards before.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    Posted By: fostertomST, it's disingenuous to imply that man is just another member of an ecosystem, doing its thing like any species
    All depends on your views on religion, morality, biology, economics, genetics, history and probably a few other things.

    There is more and more evidence that humans, and other species have a built in altruism that protects the survival of their kin.

    When Einstein was asked what the environment was, he replied 'everything but me'. :wink:
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    Posted By: SteamyTeahumans, and other species have a built in altruism that protects the survival of their kin
    It's ironic that humans, the only species capable of foresight, are the first to be capable of, and hellbent on, wiping themselves out, by their behaviour as ecosystem members.
    • CommentAuthorbella
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    Posted By: SteamyTeaThere is more and more evidence that humans, and other species have a built in altruism that protects the survival of their kin.


    and leads us to ignore, compete with and if "necessary" (when the going gets tough) eliminate those who aren't.

    Posted By: fostertomIt's ironic that humans, the only species capable of foresight, are the first to be capable of, and hellbent on, wiping themselves out, by their behaviour as ecosystem members.


    Aren't the very qualities that have made us so succesful as a species the same as those that lead us to destroy?

    But - Hey! Enjoy the moment, engage, do your bit to stop them destroying the birds, feed and educate the children. The rest as we might once have put it is "in the lap of the gods".
    •  
      CommentAuthorjoe90
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    It was David Attenborough who said about a year or so ago that the biggest threat to this planet was the over population by man.
    • CommentAuthorowlman
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014 edited
     
    Posted By: fostertom
    God tells humans to breed and multiply, and to use, subdue and rule over every living thing. They are to control and conquer the things of Creation.

    Yes Joe and that's why.
    :sad:
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    Posted By: joe90the biggest threat to this planet was the over population by man
    That's a secondary effect of the Agricultural Revolution (of which the Industrial Revolution was and is just a branch), and the particular manner sanctioned by Genesis (which is the base document that originated at the very seat of the Agricultural Revolution, and is common to all the tribes of the western/mid-eastern world).

    Even pre-Agricultural Revolution, human pop, tho socially/ecologically held at bare replacement level, was rising slowly by expansion into new lands, and in some places land was no longer limitless without conflict, so something nasty had to happen.

    Agriculture requires big families to work to land, process the crops, fight off overcrowding/competitors; Agriculture caused the pop explosion, grossly abandoning ecological sustainability.

    Exiled from idyllic hunter-gatherer Eden, God omnisciently foresees how it will be from now on:

    • The snake will crawl on its belly and be hated by human beings.
    • The woman will endure intense pain when giving birth to her children.
    • The woman will yearn for the man, but he will be dominant (“And he shall rule over thee”). This is the double curse of love and subordination.
    • The soil of the world will be unproductive and full of weeds (“thorn and thistle”).
    • Human beings must eat “the plants of the field.”
    • In order to get enough plants (“bread”) to eat, the man will endure lifelong hardship.
    • All will end in death: “For dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.”

    And from this miserable litany the entire western mindset has descended, defended by religion, society and the new class of rich and powerful, as right and proper (most of this is pinched from 'The Other Side of Eden: Hunter-gatherers, Farmers and the Shaping of the World' by Hugh Brody
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Other-Side-Eden-Hunter-gatherers-Farmers/dp/057120502X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400760279&sr=1-1&keywords=the+other+side+of+eden+hugh+brody )

    Finally, thank God, this necessary educational phase is in full collapse - 'hollowing out from inside'. For 94% of Hom Sap's existence we've lived and thrived as hunter-gatherers; for a mere 6% as oppressed agriculturalists, and for 0.3% as disconnected and alienated industrialists. The end of that game is right here, and we're feeling our way to what comes next. See 'The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible (Sacred Activism)' by Charles Eisenstein
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beautiful-Hearts-Possible-Sacred-Activism/dp/1583947248/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400760950&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=charles+eistenstein
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    Posted By: fostertomIt's ironic that humans, the only species capable of foresight, are the first to be capable of, and hellbent on, wiping themselves out, by their behaviour as ecosystem members.
    Posted By: bellaAren't the very qualities that have made us so succesful as a species the same as those that lead us to destroy?
    you mean 'to destroy ourselves'? If so, we have some urgent re-shaping to do.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    During my lifetime I have always heard that humans are going to wipe themselves out (with collateral damage).
    We now have over double the population, more people are fed, more have access to clean water, education, health care, less wars, more trade, transport, information, the list is pretty long.

    So will the doom sayers say when it will all go wrong, within 2 decades would do me, rather than say it will. I will place a £10 bet with a bookie (their odds) for the closest guess to collect, on the understanding that if it does not go wrong, I am given all the doom sayers belongings and possessions (not as if they think they need them). :wink:

    Every generation needs a crisis, when I was at school it was pop music, then at university it was nuclear war, then something else, recently it has been the environment and terrorism. Strangely though, death by personal transport has never featured. :confused:
  16.  
    Fear as a means to control ?
    Anyway glad to see this one shot on to Genesis so quickly. Never realised Phil Colins packed such weight.
    :wink:

    Anybody figured what the main stream excuse for damaging nests in breading season is?
    All smelling like BS to me.
    Remember what happened when Mao encouraged a Starling cull! (Not Joseph unfortunately)
    Health and safety is always the scap goat for something. Sensible h&s should be top this list in all action. Shame it's gets so perverted.
    • CommentAuthorsnyggapa
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    my money is on termites being the dominant species on the planet in 100 or 200 years years time, I'm fairly sure that the human race will wipe itself out, I'm just not certain of which of the many possible causes will be the correct one :shocked:
    • CommentAuthorowlman
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    Posted By: SteamyTea</cite>During my lifetime I have always heard that humans are going to wipe themselves out (with collateral damage).

    We now have over double the population,---SADLY YES

    more people are fed, ---- YES AND AT WHAT ENVIRONMENTAL COST

    more have access to clean water,---- TRUE, AND IF YOU'RE IN ARIZONA AND OTHER STATES, YOU'VE DENUDED THE AQUIFERS TO UNPRECEDENTED LEVELS PARTLY IN OPRDER TO FILL YOUR SWIMMING POOL.

    education, --- AND FIND SMARTER WAYS TO KILL YOUR NEIGHBOUR

    health care,--- TO REPAIR THE DAMAGE WE LARGELY DO TO OURSELVES

    less wars,--- BIG ONES, MAYBE BUT REGIONAL SPATS ????

    more trade,--- MORE OUT OF SEASON FOODSTUFFS AIR FREIGHTED AROUND THE GLOBE

    transport,--- A REFLECTION OF OUR OWN RESTLESS DISSATISFACTION WITH OUR LOT

    information,--- YES, YOU CAN NOW RAID BANK ACCOUNTS, SOON MEDICAL RECORDS, TAX DATA, PERSONAL DATA ALL FROM A DISTANCE

    the list is pretty long,---AND GROWING

    :wink::bigsmile:
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    • CommentAuthorJonti
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    Not sure why it should be a problem. Why not just clear the site in the 8 months or so that they are not nesting?
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014 edited
     
    Posted By: SteamyTeaDuring my lifetime I have always heard that humans are going to wipe themselves out (with collateral damage).
    No, but we're going to sail very close indeed before shocking ourselves out of the trance.

    I say 'we' = the human race, but as always when something like traumatic mass emigration saves a race, at least as many individuals don't make it.

    Pop levels out naturally at 10bn by 2060, catastrophic cut-back to 3bn by 2100. Some of our grandchildren will come through; our great grandchildren in transformed fine state fundamentally, seriously wiser, eventually joyously wiser - but it won't be pretty in between.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    Some of us dont have children :wink:
    • CommentAuthorbella
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    By different routes to birth control, the Western World, China and the old USSR successfully addressed the problem of population growth. But we did it with easily available (to us) and cheap (to us) technology whilst feeling safe enough to limit family size because most of our children would reach adulthood. We acheived such "safety" by exploiting energy sources etc. etc. etc. The still rapidly growing populations of our world may or may not do the same but they will have to exploit the same resources as we did to achieve it.

    Almost certainly the hunter gatherer did it for their millenia, first by being very few, then by being eaten alive by almost equally successful top predators and then by early death on a grand scale. I very much doubt the Eden theory. And why attribute the causes of population growth to the bible narrative - description after the event perhaps? They had no choice in the matter and I am not certain that we have either. We can do things to make it better but, but, but................... Hmmmm.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014
     
    Posted By: bellaWe acheived such "safety" by exploiting energy sources etc. etc. etc. The still rapidly growing populations of our world may or may not do the same but they will have to exploit the same resources as we did to achieve it.
    But we are slowly moving over to more renewable energy sources. Not as fast as I would like, but we are building more nuclear reactors, more hydro, wind, solar, tidal and wave will happen, conservation will help to.
    Not really fair to take a snapshot today and compare it with 70 or 80 years ago (about the life of a large coal plant).
    None of us can predict more than a few hours in advance, so not really sensible of constructive to think that things have to carry on just as they do, because they always have, if that was the case, selling flip flops and ice cream will give us another hot summer.:cool:
    • CommentAuthorjamesingram
    • CommentTimeMay 22nd 2014 edited
     
    Check 'gap minder' for a posistive view on world population. Bangladesh birth rate is around 2.4. Most uk graduate s think its much higher . More so than those that haven't benefit from such expensive free eduction they presume a lower rate :wink:
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 23rd 2014 edited
     
    And world literacy rate 82% or something like that.
    The Facts About Population - Hans Rosling shows that the world might not be as bad as you might believe
    Here's the link
    http://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-population
    and watch a few more while you're at it - big factual surprises all the way.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 23rd 2014
     
    Posted By: bellaBy different routes to birth control, the Western World, China and the old USSR successfully addressed the problem of population growth
    Posted By: bellaThe still rapidly growing populations of our world ...
    Not as true as you think - see the gapminder link above
    Posted By: bella... may or may not do the same but they will have to exploit the same resources as we did to achieve it.
    Not so. The third world is now doing it by education and the recovery (after their colonial disaster) of rule of law = sense of security - i.e. not by thinking that infrastructure and consumption (= resource exploitation) is the way to make us feel 'safe'.

    Posted By: bellaAlmost certainly the hunter gatherer did it for their millenia, first by being very few, then by being eaten alive by almost equally successful top predators and then by early death on a grand scale. I very much doubt the Eden theory.
    I'd be v interested if you'd expand on your understanding of this.

    "the hunter gatherer did it" - and still does.
    "early death" - are we attached to living on as long as possible into decrepitude? Is that a measure of human success and wellbeing?
  28.  
    I'm skirting the theology mud-wrestle, beyond noting that there are *two* accounts in Genesis, and the second is more 'conservation oriented'.

    Anyhow, this is wonderful, excellent stuff. A marvellous flap (sorry) over nothing. Sorry for length - needed to cite.

    The proposal is modest, no one has produced any evidence that the Natural England analsyis is wrong, but the Guardian is stirring heavily:

    >"it appears that the country's 6.7m pairs of robins are no longer the feathered friend of yesteryear."

    Tom Pride's alternative conspiracy theory this time seems to be that the new Non-Executive Chairman of Natural England Andrew Sells (appointed January 20 2014) had a "kill-all-the-robins starlings and several others proposal published" out within 4-5 weeks of starting the 2 day a week job, at the secret behest of the Tory Party because he made a donation a couple of years ago. Tom provides no evidence of such a link.

    Sells was unanimously approved by a Select Committee of Parliament.

    And Tom doesn't seem to understand how licenses work. His major complaint is that allowing people to destroy nests without a requirement to report it will mean that nests being destroyed are not reported. As if people destroying nests at present will tell Natural England that they have committed a criminal offence.

    Then 38degrees picked up on the conspiracy theory, made it black and white and simplistic, and gave it wings. And the petition, based on Tom Pride's inaccurate claims, will get lots of signatures from silly people too lazy to check. Again, as per usual.

    A blogger called Eoin Clarke tried this with so-called NHS privatisation a couple of years ago, and got so much attention for his conspiracy theories/lies in the media and amongst Parliamentarians that the victims noticed and he ended up issuing a whole series of formal public apologies under threat of legal action.

    This has made my day. I love watching wombats and mad people with cats in their natural environment. There's a whole section in Tom's comments where they have a scrum defending innocent little Tibbles from complicity in bird-deaths (".

    I can't really see a problem with the proposal. And if it helps make houses better or cost less by killing some bureaucracy cost, then so much the better.

    The protected species that interests me is nightjars. I can see no reason why they should be protected based on numbers, and there are major disruptions/costs being caused up and down the country which have to be paid for by the house purchaser.

    I wonder if they are going to Occupy and stop any Affordable Housing projects, like the last lot?

    Ferdinand

    Links:
    Guardian:http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/18/bird-killing-call-robin-starling-mallard-splits-conservationists
    Pride 1:http://tompride.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/heres-the-real-reason-the-tories-are-allowing-the-destruction-of-robin-eggs-and-nests/
    Pride 2:http://tompride.wordpress.com/2014/05/19/how-natural-england-are-lying-about-their-plans-to-allow-destruction-of-robin-nests/
    Appointment:http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/about_us/ourpeople/chairappointmentannouncement.aspx
    • CommentAuthorjamesingram
    • CommentTimeMay 24th 2014 edited
     
    Think jonti gives a simple solution for protected species . Cohabiting sounds fine . Unaware of what costs nesting birds cause?
  30.  
    @james

    Couple of examples.

    From our local paper 2 days ago:
    "A nest of pied wagtail birds were discovered in the machinery of a 40-tonne crawler crane last month, and workmen have now been forced to ‘stand down’ the machine because the birds are protected by law."
    http://www.chad.co.uk/news/local/protected-birds-halts-3m-rainworth-sewage-work-1-6630883

    Cranes that size cost £5k a week to hire, so someone has lost around £10-20k of revenue (or work if they own it) or so.

    Blocked flues and carbon monoxide poisoning / inability to use woodburners. See any gas safety publications. Currently clearing it would be a criminal offence. Obviously costs attach to both.

    And, if you can't work on it from March to August, don't spend £100-150k on a site in January or February.

    There are always costs to extra regulation, which is why it must always be justified not kneejerk.

    Ferdinand

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