So the government has decided to go ahead with the badger cull.
Alright, I can see why some people might not like these creatures, especially the urban variety that is highly destructive of peoples gardens and other such property. I, myself, could see the point if they said that, as we now have about 290,000 badgers running loose in the UK and they are now being forced out of the countryside and into the cities were they are a pest, they were going to trap and cull the urban badger. If nothing else it is probably a mercy on the badgers as all animal surveys that study the urban populations say that the urban variety suffer from more diseases than their country cousins due to their association with humans. What does that say about humans.
But no, apparently they are going to cull them out in the countryside because they spread TB. At least that is what the head government vet said so that is what everybody is expected to believe. Rather like the report of weapons of mass non-existence, I mean destruction, out in Iraq.
And that's rather the point as to why the badger has become such a point of passionate protest for so many people. There is no correlation between badger population and bovine TB, despite what some farmers think. Scotland has a widespread badger population and is virtually TB free. Northern Ireland has numerous badgers but no TB cases in their cattle. Why is this? Because Scotland and Ireland still have yearly TB vaccines for their cattle, whereas in Britain the cattle have a yearly TB test and if that flags up positive then the cow is destroyed. In short Scotland and Ireland still run by the maxim 'prevention is better than cure' and it shows.
When people protest against the badger cull, they are not so much protesting against the culling of badgers as protesting against the ignorant mind set that is behind it. If the government had used the argument that the urban badger was a danger to children and pets and therefore had to go then fair enough. Badgers aren't meant to live in a city anyway . But it is because the government tries to fob it off with a phony excuse that people get mad. We are not stupid and we object to being treated like it.
The only thing is if badgers must be culled because they spread TB to cattle, when are cattle going to be culled because they spread TB to humans?
Saturday 28 September 2013
Sunday 22 September 2013
Abortion
Does that word make you uncomfortable?
It should do, especially in the light of something I recently discovered.
After 1991 the legal upper limit for 'social' abortions (i.e. abortion instead of contraception) was lower to 24 weeks of pregnancy. However, abortion on the grounds of disability became allowable up to birth. Before this all abortions had to be done before 28 weeks.
Apparently many people are aware of this provision but I wonder if they realise that the actual wording of the bill is not 'disabled' but rather 'seriously handicapped' and what some medical practitioners have take this to mean.
Some medical practitioners have decided that 'seriously handicapped' includes conditions such as a cleft palate or a club foot. While both these conditions are unsightly, they are so easily corrected by cosmetic surgery after birth that it's almost routine so nobody in their right mind should consider the children born with these conditions 'seriously handicapped'.
Considering that the UK has signed up to all the laws that protect minority groups (that includes the disabled) from unjust discrimination and forbid the unfavourable treatment of one person by another due to disability, then why are we allowing this anomalous denial of the equality of disabled people to continue. This law clearly states that a disabled baby is less worthy of life than a non-disabled baby.
While members of all three main parties from the House of Commons and the House of Law formed a Parliamentary Inquiry earlier this year to review the law and how it is put into practise, there still needs to be a public response to this law. Only then will the lives of unborn disabled people be protected.
One way of responding is to visit www.abortionanddisability.org
Another is to simple talk about it. Talk to your family, talk to your friends, talk to social clubs. One of the major lacks in our society that leads to babies being aborted on grounds of disability is the lack of support for Mothers' with disabled new-borns. Being the mother of a new born baby is stressful and exhausting in the best of circumstances. Being the mother of a new born who's disability leads to strangers turning away in pity is heart breaking. One of the joys of motherhood is people coming over to coo at the baby. Now imagine that being taken away because people don't want to look at a baby with a cleft palate.
There needs to be a mental shift in society towards people with disabilities. We need to start looking at people in wheelchairs, talking to those with deformities and scarring, exploring the minds of those with mental difficulties to find their talent, their gift that means they can give back to society.
Because it occurred to me there other day when I watched the film 'Warm Bodies' - what fantasy creature most reflects the popular perception of autistics? Well let's see - can't co-ordinate properly, can't communicate properly, have very little empathy with those they hurt and have been referred to as an "epidemic". I do believe that's a zombie.
Well in 'Warm Bodies' they save the world by teaching the zombies how to interact and connect again and the metaphor still holds true, autistics can be taught how to connect and interact and relate to people. It just takes a lot of time and effort on the part of so-called normal people when we're a little slow to catch on to what you're trying to teach us. Time and effort that people won't be willing to give while the attitude that autistics should be "euthanized" (to quote that truly offensive letter sent to the mother of an autistic boy in Ontario) is still present in our society.
The only way to get rid of that sort of ignorance is to start breaking the taboo that still surrounds disability and the easiest way to do that is to talk about it.
It should do, especially in the light of something I recently discovered.
After 1991 the legal upper limit for 'social' abortions (i.e. abortion instead of contraception) was lower to 24 weeks of pregnancy. However, abortion on the grounds of disability became allowable up to birth. Before this all abortions had to be done before 28 weeks.
Apparently many people are aware of this provision but I wonder if they realise that the actual wording of the bill is not 'disabled' but rather 'seriously handicapped' and what some medical practitioners have take this to mean.
Some medical practitioners have decided that 'seriously handicapped' includes conditions such as a cleft palate or a club foot. While both these conditions are unsightly, they are so easily corrected by cosmetic surgery after birth that it's almost routine so nobody in their right mind should consider the children born with these conditions 'seriously handicapped'.
Considering that the UK has signed up to all the laws that protect minority groups (that includes the disabled) from unjust discrimination and forbid the unfavourable treatment of one person by another due to disability, then why are we allowing this anomalous denial of the equality of disabled people to continue. This law clearly states that a disabled baby is less worthy of life than a non-disabled baby.
While members of all three main parties from the House of Commons and the House of Law formed a Parliamentary Inquiry earlier this year to review the law and how it is put into practise, there still needs to be a public response to this law. Only then will the lives of unborn disabled people be protected.
One way of responding is to visit www.abortionanddisability.org
Another is to simple talk about it. Talk to your family, talk to your friends, talk to social clubs. One of the major lacks in our society that leads to babies being aborted on grounds of disability is the lack of support for Mothers' with disabled new-borns. Being the mother of a new born baby is stressful and exhausting in the best of circumstances. Being the mother of a new born who's disability leads to strangers turning away in pity is heart breaking. One of the joys of motherhood is people coming over to coo at the baby. Now imagine that being taken away because people don't want to look at a baby with a cleft palate.
There needs to be a mental shift in society towards people with disabilities. We need to start looking at people in wheelchairs, talking to those with deformities and scarring, exploring the minds of those with mental difficulties to find their talent, their gift that means they can give back to society.
Because it occurred to me there other day when I watched the film 'Warm Bodies' - what fantasy creature most reflects the popular perception of autistics? Well let's see - can't co-ordinate properly, can't communicate properly, have very little empathy with those they hurt and have been referred to as an "epidemic". I do believe that's a zombie.
Well in 'Warm Bodies' they save the world by teaching the zombies how to interact and connect again and the metaphor still holds true, autistics can be taught how to connect and interact and relate to people. It just takes a lot of time and effort on the part of so-called normal people when we're a little slow to catch on to what you're trying to teach us. Time and effort that people won't be willing to give while the attitude that autistics should be "euthanized" (to quote that truly offensive letter sent to the mother of an autistic boy in Ontario) is still present in our society.
The only way to get rid of that sort of ignorance is to start breaking the taboo that still surrounds disability and the easiest way to do that is to talk about it.
Wednesday 18 September 2013
Big Companies or Governments - Who's Running the Show?
On a cold October last year a group of twenty one people dashed across the grounds of an EDF owned gas-fired power station, scaled two of the chimneys and forced the company to turn the station off. What for? In protest that, after intense lobbying from big energy companies like EDF, the UK government now plans to build forty new gas-fired power stations. According to their own committee on climate change, this would destroy our climate change targets and the rising price of gas would add around £600 to the average household's bills by 2020. This 'Dash of Gas' would push millions into fuel poverty but do the big companies care about this?
Well EDF certainly don't seem to. In response to the protest they planned to sue the protestors £5 million for 'significant knock-on costs by delaying its buildings work'. I do believe that translates as 'they caused us a loss of profits'. Thankfully the internet and social media resulted in a petition over 64,000 signatures long condemning EDF's actions, which resulted in EDF dropping their ridiculous law suit, which to my mind was nothing more than legal bullying.
However, EDF are not the only company who engage in this sort of behaviour.
Bayer, the company that manufactures the pesticide that resulted in the death of 35 million bees on a single farm in California, is now in the process of trying to sue the EU for loss of profits. The reason? The greater majority of EU countries banned the use and production of said pesticide within their boarders.
So, in answer to my question of is it the big companies or the governments who run our world, I conclude that it is the governments but only when the big companies let them.
The only thing that gives me hope is that people power still counts for something. A petition made EDF back off and there is a petition in the making on line to tell Bayer to do the same. If you are interested then check out the website of pressure group Some of Us. If they are not running the petition themselves then they have the links to find it.
But for one final sting from Bayer - Bayer is the only company that produce a treatment (Advocate) for lungworm in dogs so the only way to boycott their produce is to run the risk of your pet dying a hideous and agonizing death. And here's me thinking that monopolies are illegal.
Well EDF certainly don't seem to. In response to the protest they planned to sue the protestors £5 million for 'significant knock-on costs by delaying its buildings work'. I do believe that translates as 'they caused us a loss of profits'. Thankfully the internet and social media resulted in a petition over 64,000 signatures long condemning EDF's actions, which resulted in EDF dropping their ridiculous law suit, which to my mind was nothing more than legal bullying.
However, EDF are not the only company who engage in this sort of behaviour.
Bayer, the company that manufactures the pesticide that resulted in the death of 35 million bees on a single farm in California, is now in the process of trying to sue the EU for loss of profits. The reason? The greater majority of EU countries banned the use and production of said pesticide within their boarders.
So, in answer to my question of is it the big companies or the governments who run our world, I conclude that it is the governments but only when the big companies let them.
The only thing that gives me hope is that people power still counts for something. A petition made EDF back off and there is a petition in the making on line to tell Bayer to do the same. If you are interested then check out the website of pressure group Some of Us. If they are not running the petition themselves then they have the links to find it.
But for one final sting from Bayer - Bayer is the only company that produce a treatment (Advocate) for lungworm in dogs so the only way to boycott their produce is to run the risk of your pet dying a hideous and agonizing death. And here's me thinking that monopolies are illegal.
Wednesday 4 September 2013
Virunga: Africa's Oldest, Most Beautiful... Oil Field?
Virunga. It is actually Africa's oldest and most beautiful National Park. If you were looking for the National Park that started the drive in Africa to preserve at least some of it's natural history then this is it.
It covers a large chunk of the rainforest in the Democratic Republic of Congo and is home to quarter of the remaining population of mountain gorillas. The land of 'King Solomon's Mines', it is the most diverse national park in Africa, thanks to its long history. If Africa has managed to keep part of its land untouched by the ravages of mankind's industrial occupation of the land then this is the place.
However, this long and glorious history may soon be destroyed. The UK oil company Soco is planning to drill within the borders of the park for oil, hence the title of my blog.
Soco claims that it will provide a boast to the local economy and will do minimal damage to the environment. However, anyone who does a little research into even ultra-modern drill techniques will know that the sites of the drilling will be striped of trees, the water quality in the surrounding area will decrease and the noise pollution alone will drive wildlife from the area, assuming that it can make its way across the roads that will be driven into the heart of the forest.
There are also concerns that it will do quite the opposite for the local economy and population as several thousand people rely on the park for their food (they are allowed controlled gathering within its borders) and many more rely on the lake it contains for their water. The lake that will be one of the first points of contamination if the pollution makes it into the water supply.
The oil field will also encourage poaching as it will make what is under the ground more valuable than the wildlife on top of it. Time and experience has show that the best way to prevent poaching is to provide jobs for the local people guarding the creatures and acting as guides for eco-tourists. As Congo's civil unrest finally begins to calm down, the best way to reunite the people is to give them something they can be passionate about apart from money because money all to often goes back to be the realm of the haves and haves not, which restarts the violence. The wildlife and the beauty of the land that they have been given to guard is, to my mind, the best receiver for that passion as it can give something for those that were either side of the divide of the unrest something that they can talk about with each other without risk of blame and anger entering the conversation.
There is also the fact that the scientists who study the global weather patterns have noticed that there is a direct correlation between the destruction by logging of the Congo rainforest and the increase in the frequency and violence of the storms that are racking Europe and the East Coast of America. I'm sure the oil below Virunga will provide the board members and share holders of Soco with some very nice quarterly statements but how much worth will they be when the hurricanes blow your house down on top of you? Or when the American government sues you for damages to the Eastern Sea Board?
Then there's the threat of Ebola to consider. Scientists still have no idea where this hideous disease comes from or how it spreads. All that is know about it is that every now and then someone stumbles out of the depths of the jungle vomiting up their stomach and spreading it to every one that comes into contact with them. So I would say that carving a road into the heart of the rainforest and setting up an industrial site with a large population is the height of folly, unless you don't care about being remembered as the person who gave the green light to the project that unleashed something worse than the bubonic plague.
Finally, if Soco is having to go so far abroad to find a new source of oil, coupled with the drive to introduce Fracking to England's green and pleasant land, does that not give the impression that the current oil fields are all running dry? If that is so then surely, instead of scrambling around destroying the last few pristine places of the world, it's time to start really researching alternatives to oil and gas. Or is mankind going to continue to push aside the problems, saying 'let our children deal with the problems we could have solved'? What happened to Mankind the Great Explorer and Problem Solver?
If you agree that letting Soco destroy somebody else's back yard is a crime then the WWF is running a partition online. Signing up takes less than two minutes (I should know, I've done it).
It covers a large chunk of the rainforest in the Democratic Republic of Congo and is home to quarter of the remaining population of mountain gorillas. The land of 'King Solomon's Mines', it is the most diverse national park in Africa, thanks to its long history. If Africa has managed to keep part of its land untouched by the ravages of mankind's industrial occupation of the land then this is the place.
However, this long and glorious history may soon be destroyed. The UK oil company Soco is planning to drill within the borders of the park for oil, hence the title of my blog.
Soco claims that it will provide a boast to the local economy and will do minimal damage to the environment. However, anyone who does a little research into even ultra-modern drill techniques will know that the sites of the drilling will be striped of trees, the water quality in the surrounding area will decrease and the noise pollution alone will drive wildlife from the area, assuming that it can make its way across the roads that will be driven into the heart of the forest.
There are also concerns that it will do quite the opposite for the local economy and population as several thousand people rely on the park for their food (they are allowed controlled gathering within its borders) and many more rely on the lake it contains for their water. The lake that will be one of the first points of contamination if the pollution makes it into the water supply.
The oil field will also encourage poaching as it will make what is under the ground more valuable than the wildlife on top of it. Time and experience has show that the best way to prevent poaching is to provide jobs for the local people guarding the creatures and acting as guides for eco-tourists. As Congo's civil unrest finally begins to calm down, the best way to reunite the people is to give them something they can be passionate about apart from money because money all to often goes back to be the realm of the haves and haves not, which restarts the violence. The wildlife and the beauty of the land that they have been given to guard is, to my mind, the best receiver for that passion as it can give something for those that were either side of the divide of the unrest something that they can talk about with each other without risk of blame and anger entering the conversation.
There is also the fact that the scientists who study the global weather patterns have noticed that there is a direct correlation between the destruction by logging of the Congo rainforest and the increase in the frequency and violence of the storms that are racking Europe and the East Coast of America. I'm sure the oil below Virunga will provide the board members and share holders of Soco with some very nice quarterly statements but how much worth will they be when the hurricanes blow your house down on top of you? Or when the American government sues you for damages to the Eastern Sea Board?
Then there's the threat of Ebola to consider. Scientists still have no idea where this hideous disease comes from or how it spreads. All that is know about it is that every now and then someone stumbles out of the depths of the jungle vomiting up their stomach and spreading it to every one that comes into contact with them. So I would say that carving a road into the heart of the rainforest and setting up an industrial site with a large population is the height of folly, unless you don't care about being remembered as the person who gave the green light to the project that unleashed something worse than the bubonic plague.
Finally, if Soco is having to go so far abroad to find a new source of oil, coupled with the drive to introduce Fracking to England's green and pleasant land, does that not give the impression that the current oil fields are all running dry? If that is so then surely, instead of scrambling around destroying the last few pristine places of the world, it's time to start really researching alternatives to oil and gas. Or is mankind going to continue to push aside the problems, saying 'let our children deal with the problems we could have solved'? What happened to Mankind the Great Explorer and Problem Solver?
If you agree that letting Soco destroy somebody else's back yard is a crime then the WWF is running a partition online. Signing up takes less than two minutes (I should know, I've done it).
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