Telling

Climate clinic

I am planning to go to the 'climate clinic' today at Labour Party conference.  It is so well branded, sounds so cool.  But of course it is just a hotel.  Organisations are fond of rebranding hotels for the period of conference.  I remember IPPR's 'illuminations' at Blackpool a few years ago and there is the 'inclusion hotel' in Manchester this year (Novotel).

The Worst Journey in the World

I've just finished reading this book by Apsley Cherry-Garrard.  It really is magnificent and goes once again to show that it is only worthwhile reading books recommended by my mother.  I've had a lot of disappointing fiction reads recently (you know who you are Donna Tartt et al) and I think I'll stick to the world of fact for a while.  There's enough in the annals of Antarctic exploration to keep me going for some years I feel.

The book is two inches thick and heavy going at times.  I don't understand how large, wooden sailing ships work and much of the detail in the account of the sail from New Zealand to the Antarctic is lost on me.  But if you can tolerate being a little baffled by the scientific description and concentrate on the heart of the book, which is about friendship, tragedy, great risks, scientific discovery and an awe of nature, this is one of the most rewarding reads you can ever imagine.

At the end of the book I was left feeling intensely sympathic towards the author who writes with a clarity and honesty which rises above the ideals of the day.  The men on Scotts expedition were heroic, patriotic and patriarchic in a way which seems misplaced now. Cherry-Garrard himself was all of these things yet was also full of doubts about them.  A young man desperate to prove himself (he paid to go on the expedition) he paid the price for his three years in the South with a lifelong overdraft and a series of nervous breakdowns.

One reason for his distress is widely supposed to be his preoccupation about the five men who died on their way home from the Pole.  He and another companion made up the last support party which laid depots for the returning Polar party.  He could never have known about it at the time, but Scott and his men died in a blizzard only eleven miles from the last depot Cherry laid.  It is a fruitless thought but what might have been different if Cherry had gone eleven miles further and laid even just a small amount of food and fuel under a cairn and a flag?  One of the fascinations with the story of Scott's Last Expedition is the 'if onlys' about how the men could have survived.  In fact the real wonder is why more men did not perish in the support party and the additional scientific expeditions - all of which took huge risks.

In his foreword to the book, Paul Theroux suggests that in contrast to the Antarctic "one of the reasons we are still ignorant of what space travel or lunar exploration is like: no astronaut has shown any ability to convey the experience in writing".  I certainly feel that this observation is true.  I sometimes feel I have even been to the Antarctic, whereas I never feel the same about outer space!  I have noticed further parallels in my recent work with Demos on the future of space travel.  One dilemma that The European Space Agency and others face is whether to focus their resources on one grand gesture - such as a manned mission to the moon - or whether to focus on a wider range of scientific probes which may be of practical help to life on earth. 

They may take some inspiration from history.  The goal of Scott's expedition was twofold.  To reach the pole and to carry out scientific observations and experiments on unknown terrain.  In contrast Amundsen's expedition had only one goal: to reach the pole for the glory of Norway.  Scott's expedition was a failure in its first goal but it captured the public imagination for its heroicism in a way that Amundsen's never could.

Pay as you throw

Microchips in wheely bins, compostable supermarket food packaging (as announced today by Sainsburys).  Sounds like the waste debate in the UK is moving in the right direction.  But what about flytipping?  Tightening up the existing laws don't seem to be tackling this endemic problem.

A recent article from the IPPR states that "fly-tipping must be made as socially unacceptable as drink-driving and smoking around babies".  But the fact is that flytipping IS already socially unacceptable, the problem is policing it.  Enforcement officers currently search through rubbish bags for giveaway address labels, but now the flytippers are getting wise to it and don't include old letters in their rubbish.  The incentives to flytip are high for some people (e.g. cost and lack of local knowledge) and these issues need to be dealt with.  But penalties are crucial.

One solution is to involve communities more in finding out who is behind the mess.  OK i t's a bit stasi-state but surely more worthwhile than the 'shop a smoker' hotline currently being planned by the government.  A residents association I've visited in Stockton on Tees have seen great reductions in domestic flytipping since they began weekly volunteer walks to monitor where the flytipping is coming from and informing the council about it. 

Do solar panels make financial sense in the long term?

Yes, in the long term, according to an analysis by Midsummer Energy, a firm selling solar panels designed for anything from a garden shed to a yacht.  As energy prices continue to increase, the pay back time is getting shorter but can still run into decades.  Interestingly, my research into the subject has found that many people investing in renewables for the first time are retired or even elderly people who may not see their investment pay off themselves.  But many of them told us that the feel good factor was more important to them than any financial benefit.  I suppose it is just the equivalent of buying a new motorbike or going on a cruise for green minded retirees!

New baby boy

Rufus Edward Simpson born 20th April 2006.  Sadly none of the names below could be used!