Philobiblon

The people of  it’s-the-suburbs-really-but-let’s-pretend-it-is-the-countryside Thaxted, Essex, put out on average the most carbon dioxide per household of any area in the UK.

The average household in leafy, tidy Uttlesford spews 8,092kg of carbon dioxide each year, more than double the comparatively clean, green dwellings of Camden in London, which on average produce just 3,255kg of CO2.

…Each year the average home here produces CO2 emissions equivalent to taking a Boeing 747 to Australia and back.

… “There’s all these huge pads out in the sticks where they leave their lights on all night and their big tellies on. That’s where it’s happening,” said Joe Hobbs, an architect.

The story goes on to say that those who have tried to do the right thing in terms of installing solar and wind power have run into problems with conservation and planning rules. The area obviously just doesn’t get it; all those lovely twisted old wood-framed buildings with thatched roofs won’t survive long underwater.

Then, you do have to feel sorry for this guy:

AN AIRLINE has apologised to a teacher after a short flight home to Manchester from France took more than 30 hours on a zigzagging journey on two aircraft, two coaches and a taxi, passing through five airports in three countries.

But then again, he was travelling from Angers, in the Loire Valley. It probably would have taken two hours on the train to Paris (if that) and three hours on Eurostar – and he would have been home probably quicker than the plane, even had things gone according to plan. And with far lower carbon emmissions. As a teacher, he should know better.

Finally, Australia has been hit by “drought” again. I put the word in quote marks, because when I studied agricultural science many years ago, I was told the definition of drought is exceptional weather conditions. Yet large parts of Australia are, according to farmers and officials, in “drought” for much of the time.

In fact, they are in denial about the actual normal (and quite possibly likely to get drier with global warming) climate of Australia. They’re trying to grow crops and run animals – at least the wrong sort of animals – in places where more often than not they’ll be in trouble.

Unfortunately I haven’t got a copy of it, but I once wrote an article interviewing an academic who maintained the only sensible form of “farming” across a majority of Australia was running kangaroos – leave the native pastures to maintain their own natural balance, let the roos have the run of the place (they have soft feet, not the hard hooves of the non-native ungulates, which chop up the soil and cause erosion), and harvest them once a year.