Revenge of James Lovelock?

I've just heard James Lovelock on Start the Week talking about his new book Revenge of Gaia.

He basically said that sinc we (the British) can't stop India, China and the United States from continuing their impact on global warming, our government would do better to concentrate on preparing flood defences for London and East Anglia than cutting down Britain's impact on climate change, since ours is minimal in the first place and we are past the point of no return.

He said that wind farms are utterly useless, that they only work for approximately half the time so we would need back up energy sources anyway, and until such time as we can adapt our attitude to energy useage Nuclear power is the way forward.

He also said that nature flocks to areas which have become radioactive because there are no people.

This goes against everything that I thought I believed in, which is flummoxing since it has come from someone whom I hugely admire. I don't want to have to consider Nuclear power as the way forward because I thought that I thought it was fundamentally wrong.

Now I am sitting here thinking about why I actually think that, and it pretty much stems from spending a lot of time on CND marches as a child. Not perhaps the ideal basis for considered opinion.

What not to post on Barbelith

In relation to posting on Barbelith and the rules behind what should and shouldn't appear, see the following diagram:

Beautiful Places I know Part 30405838.

This is Threecliff Bay, in Wales. We went there at the weekend. It's now officially my favourite beach.



And here is the silly dog, waiting for the beautiful man to throw the Frisbee.

On London's whale and why it's not in fact exciting but actually unutterably sad.

If the whale in the Thames doesn't find it's pod soon it's likely to become the equivalent of a Swedish tramp following your family around the park desperate to join you and shouting about it in a language you don't understand.

Whales live in family groups or pods, and for a whale to become separated from it's pod is really bad news. most whale pods have their own family dialect and a separated whale trying to join another pod is often not accepted because it speaks the wrong language.

That whale is probably really disorientated and frightened, and what's worse than anything else is the fact that there is another whale in Southend, and still another one in Aberdeen. I think these other whales are part of the same pod and they've become separated; Northern bottle-noses are almost never seen in UK waters, yet now we suddenly have three.

Everyone everywhere appears to be really excited about the one swimming up the Thames but I'm not. It's utterly awful. A whale has never been seen on the Thames since records began in 1913, and this is why:

1/It's shallow water and stranding is likely.
2/It's brackish water and whales hate that.
3/ It's very loud for a whale in London.

If that whale doesn't die trying to find it's way back to sea it's likely to end up a lonely whale, hunting for its pod for the rest of it's life.

Where's the excitement in that?

Test.