Charlie Hebdo: Rights, freedoms, responsibilities: How far can satire go?

I saw this doing the rounds. Will Self is good, he presents fresh thinking, but he's not always right, he's not infallible. And I disagree with him on this.

He, as many others do, churns out the pithy 'every right comes with responsibility' expression. I think this is dangerous talking. If he's talking about entitlements (such as those pesky rights of way things) then yes, I might buy it as a guide. But, in reality they're not Rights in the ethical sense of the word. Ethical, Human Rights are absolute. There's no associated responsibility to go with a right to life, it's not a reward that follows your satisfactory completion of your responsibilities or duties. Rights, such as those that are in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and used to be called fundamental rights, are inalienable, they aren't negotiable, they're so protected that I can't even give mine away. Because it is not possible to give up those rights, even to avoid violence, torture or threat, it means that after the event, the perpetrators have no excuse, no defence, they can't say anyone agreed to give up their rights.

They're important, the right to life, freedom, security, expression, privacy, the freedom of thought, conscience, religion and more. They can't be traded over the possibility of insult, or hurting someone's feelings. I can't take someone's religion away from them, but I can and should be able to criticise them. There are weapons against insults and bad feeling whether thrown by pen or word, and that's an articulate response by pen or word, not a withdrawal of freedoms. Religions are free to make their case, but if they're not good enough at doing that, then they can't expect to get their way by snuffing out others' expression. If anyone wants to state anything under the umbrella of their religion, then anyone else should be able to state anything they want. There can't be an advantage, or a head start in debate for the religious.

So, this relates to the violence of last week, where violence was justified with religion. The perpetrators claiming religious justification they have given up on their argument, they have been unable to persuade on even terms, so they used violence to change the terms. They lost.

If we accept the argument, that our rights are a privilege, or something we're lucky to have because of the sacrifice of others in a some war a long time ago, if we offer our rights up to be traded, then we're risking those rights people have and many still have to fight for. People didn't fight in past wars because they were trying to gain rights, but because they already had them. They were defending them them and we should defend them now.

Millions of people didn't come out on France's streets yesterday to call for more restriction on speech, or restriction of thought, or religion. They came out to celebrate their secularity, to express their freedom without fear to their security. They came out to assert a universal right to debate with their words, and with pens and pencils.

European Elections 2014: Why I'm Voting. And voting Green.

So. There's an election tomorrow: time for my political broadcast!

This isn't a general election; it isn't an opinion poll about the government at Westminster, it isn't even a vote on whether you want the UK to be in the European Union, or want to vote UKIP to give some politician somewhere a kicking. It's a vote for an MEP, to sit in the European Parliament and make policies and laws. A referendum about being in Europe, or whether Scotland should be part of the UK, would be another time.

The main thrust of the laws and policies of the EU are to make a level playing field for business across Europe, so, the laws that control businesses that are otherwise obliged to act just for profit - like environmental laws, employment rights, import and export rates and controls - are the same, and match the power of international businesses who might otherwise play one country against another.  This level playing field also makes it easier for smaller businesses to operate across borders in Europe.  The aim is not only to make one market for business, but also for workers and spenders, which means we can work anywhere in Europe, and spend money anywhere in Europe online without paying import tax, and sell things without paying another import tax.  Not just online, but in person too, and that includes easy travel and holidays anywhere in Europe. All such laws have been agreed by every country, unanimously, who are members of the European Union, and they're the same for everyone in Europe.  Whichever MEPs are voted in will be working on this until any time the constitution of Europe says not.

So it's for this I'm voting. The person who might continue to make laws that make for easy holidays without paying visas; that mean that next year phone calls and data on my mobile will cost the same on holiday in Europe as at home; that protect the birds and habitats such as the Severn Estuary, Chew Valley Lake, the Exe Estuary, and the ones where I've visited in France, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere; the laws that set the standards on beaches in Spain in the same way as the beaches in Cornwall; laws that have improved the air we breath, reduced acid rain, and stopped the spread of diseases that don't really stop at borders, and laws that protect Cuckoos, swifts, swallows, ospreys and more as they migrate anywhere in Europe, except Malta, and that can be sorted out through the enforcement of those same European laws.

So, just one party political point. The constituencies for these European elections are big - I'm in the South West England constituency, where 6 MEPs will be elected, and the votes are distributed proportionally. So, if half of all votes cast go for party X, then party X gets three MEPs. I don't really fancy wasting my vote, and so I'd normally not vote for a 'minor' party. But a minor party in the UK might not be a minor party across the whole of Europe. There's one fact that caught my attention more than any other for these elections:

Last time, the vote for the Green Party was just 1% less than they needed for an MEP in South West England.

I'm saying this, not completely because I'm trying to persuade you to vote Green (though Prof Molly Scott Cato, Green Party Candidate for SW England, would be pretty grateful if you did!) but to say that your vote has a purpose, and as I realised, because of the way this vote works, you're more likely to get who you vote for this time than if you're in a 'safe' constituency in a general election. There's no safe seats in this election and if you don't vote, you're more likely to get who you didn't vote for.

That's all folks!

Properly Protecting Property from Precipitation is Perfectly Possible. (An essay!)

Managed Water Meadows in Salisbury

"Severe flooding threatens to undermine the country's food security, according to farmers and environmental groups, who today accuse the government of failing to address the effects of climate change on coastal and rural areas."
(http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/08/severe-floods-threaten-food-security-climate-change )

It looks good to see farmers and environmental groups on the same side... until you read down and the NFU takes a swipe at the environmentalists...

There doesn't have to be such a dichotomy - great farming can work with great conservation and managed flooding...



Today, I followed the River Avon (the River Avon that reaches the sea at Christchurch in Dorset) for 11 miles from near Stonehenge downstream to Salisbury, flooded along much of this length onto managed water meadows. Beyond Salisbury, this Avon again flows through lakes and wetlands as it runs on, passing the New Forest to Ringwood. As described on this sign on Harnham Water Meadows in Salisbury: "The watercourses distribute water evenly over the surface in the early part of the year, so that warm water from the chalk downs prompts rich early grass needed for sheep grazing and for hay".

Then I read:

'Peter Kendall, chairman of the National Farmers Union, which has produced evidence showing that 58% of England's most productive farmland lies within a floodplain, said the floods were a wake-up call for a country that has "believed for too long that producing food wasn't a big issue".'

It is amazing that the Chairman of the NFU doesn't seem to understand WHY the land in the floodplain is so productive: because, (annually or historically) it floods!!

The last few months of exceptional rainfall in southern England is an extreme weather event (of many more to come).   Earth is warming, there's more energy that has to go somewhere so there will be more extremes and variability of weather across the globe. This winter, North America has been locked in a freeze.  All our storms have tracked down the pacific coast of the USA, across the Gulf of Mexico, across the Atlantic to us, all the way picking up energy and water. And in the future there's going to be more and more energy.

This flooding has caused tragic damage to property and extreme inconvenience to residents.

For farmers, often with the heritage of generations before them, it must be heart wrenching to see the damage to property and machinery, to have to evacuate livestock to other farms or market, and to watch the damage to areas of pasture. For grassland in particular, areas seeded with the most common agricultural grass mixes will need draining, drying and reseeding, then will likely be dressed with the artificial fertilizers they require to yield.

The Somerset Levels are the largest part of a network of flat land bordering the River Severn, which continue north eastwards to Gloucestershire, and reflect similar landscapes on the Welsh side of the river near Newport.  This whole area was naturally marshy - it was the landscape that surrounded the Isle of Avalon, a landscape inhabited by neolithic man who travelled along floating wooden tracks, including the Sweet Track built in 3807 BC and discovered in the 1970s.  The landscape today is radically different - apart from some areas of marshland, most notably at the Avalon Marshes network of nature reserves, the levels have been drained, the water table artificially lowered by a network of rivers and rhynes (pronounced reens, the local name for drainage ditches).

The principle purpose of the rivers and rhynes are to lower the water table, to create the drier landscape of fields familiar in this area for most of the year.  The levels are sectioned into areas, and where these areas join, and where they reach tidal waters, locks and sluices control the water level.  These are managed by local Drainage Boards and the Environment Agency.  This network of watercourses allow fresh water out into the sea, and stop sea water running into the levels.  In practice, they are reservoirs - once they reach a certain level, any water that runs into them spills out the other side.  When tides are high, areas of land on the levels are below sea level, and with the rivers and rhynes full, as recently, there is nowhere for this water to go.

Calls for the dredging of rhynes and rivers (as with pumping of water) can help reduce short term extreme flooding events, by increasing the volume of these systems, though it remains that any water that comes into the system must go out.  In general, the principle for flood management means that dredging only helps land and properties alongside or upstream.  If there's anything downstream the water arrives more quickly and has to be dealt with - or it floods where it isn't wanted.  The best solution, as described below, is to slow water down upstream of vulnerable land - upstream of the levels - using land management and much less intervention of watercourses.  Then target the channeling of water through or past the specific areas of valuable property to prevent local flooding.

Large areas of the Somerset Levels are now modern pasture farming, particularly cattle, fed by grass.  There are much fewer grass species in modern commercial grass mixes than in more traditional pasture, hay meadows and water meadows. The native mix of grass (and flower) species are much better suited to their very localised environments - and, in water meadows are perfectly resilient to standing water... and, can be more productive with less expensive fertilizers than generic commercial mixes. It takes more work to get the right mix, and longer to (re)establish meadows, but, once restored traditional grassland is suited to flooding. Oh, and is better for the birds and bees too.

On the Somerset Levels areas of restored peat moors, reed beds and local native grasses produce an incredibly effective sponge to slow down the flow of water and reduce flooding. This is crucial to flood management on the levels.  When full, rivers and rhynes effectively deliver any water in as water out.  However, areas of peatland and marsh are able to soak up water, to add much more delay into the system between water in and water out.

Peat also stores a huge amount of carbon, which when released into the atmosphere fires climate change. If you stand on the Polden Hills, a ridge that dissects the Somerset Levels and along which the A39 runs you can see.  To the north, there is much less flooding than to the south of the A39 where there has been much more damage to property. To the north you'll see more extensive areas of such native peatland environments, particularly at the spectacular Avalon Marshes network of nature reserves Ham Wall, Shapwick Heath and Westhay Moor near Glastonbury, known for the mesmerizing shows (or 'murmerations') of hundreds of thousands of starlings at winter dawns and dusks.

The RSPB's Ham Wall nature reserve on the Somerset Levels

A solution: in principle slow water flow by changing land management practice and target increased flow to specific stretches of dredged and drained land where there is risk to life and property.

So, upstream, increased ground cover and woodland, less intervention of watercourses by allowing streams to bung up, slow and flood where unless there is a direct risk to adjacent property
.
Work with farmers to work with nature, not against it.  Reintroduce management of water meadows, by installing the ditches, sluices and hatches that were such a technological innovation in the past.  Flood waters rarely leach fields, they build soils.

To work with flooding, farmers could reduce their reliance on very few commercial grasses that are not always suited to very localised soils.  Farmers can work with their specific soils and environmental conditions to plant seed mixes with a much greater range of grass, sedge and wildflower species that are more flood resilient than common commercial seed mixes, and actually gain an increased yield from the mass of nutrients brought onto the land during seasonal flooding, and with their deep dense root systems also reduce erosion and hold more water in the soil.

Reinstate more areas of natural environment on the flood plains and levels - more reedbeds, restored soils and peatlands, to soak up, filter and hold water and reduce flooding on valuable property elsewhere in the watershed.  This is particularly needed on the southern part of the Somerset Levels where there as been such tragic damage to people's properties. The expertise to do this is there: where Natural England, the Environment Agency, the RSPB, the Hawk & Owl Trust and the Somerset Wildlife Trust work effectively at Avalon Marshes.  Wessex Water now has a strong role in the provisions of the Water Resources Act, and experience to lead on managing the Somerset Levels catchment for water quality. http://link.chogg.com/qwgcf

And wetlands can draw an income. Develop a local market for biomass to energy from reed wetlands, helping farmers work together to buy harvesting equipment and sell to energy markets, so management of wetlands and willow coppice or pollarding, which has a strong local tradition in the area, can provide effective income. This, being piloted and demonstrated now in the north of the levels, should now be extended to the south of the levels.

The Somerset Levels Biomass to energy project:http://link.chogg.com/cucvx
A Demonstration of Biomass Harvesting at Ham Wall: http://link.chogg.com/orwkm

There is now a massive opportunity for the southern area of the Somerset Levels that has been so badly battered by the weather this winter.  There is already local expertise in restoring wetlands and demonstrating wetland biomass to power schemes in the Avalon Marshes Partnership http://link.chogg.com/eohzk.  Wessex Water now has a clear role in managing river catchments in the area. The catchment of the Somerset Levels includes areas covered by the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Quantocks AONB.  The attention of the NFU, the Environment Agency, Natural England, Local and Central Government right up the the Prime Minister, is on the future of the levels, and Europe has a focus through it's designation of parts of the Somerset Levels through it's Habitat and Bird Directives.  Farmers, residents, visitors and businesses will all benefit from a transformation of the landscape.

There will occasionally be freak weather events - and occasional need for the country to help repair and restore.  But there are changes that can be made to insure against what is known to be an increase of extreme weather.

The Somerset Levels is not a natural environment - but management of the whole catchment of the rivers Tone, Parrett, Axe, King's Sedgemoor Drain and more, for good farming, for good husbandry of nature, to protect beautiful places to live in, to work on and to visit, and to properly protect property from precipitation, is perfectly possible.

#flooding   #floods   #SomersetLevels   #environment  #farming   #nature   #climatechange