Over on Jim Killock’s blog there’s a poll in which you can express a preference for who should be running for the new Green Party leadership positions. There’s not too much doubt who’ll finish No 1, but the No 2 is pretty evenly split in these early stages. (All of this being complicated by the constitutional requirement for gender balance – which I do support, even though it does produce complications.)

And after you’ve done the serious stuff, do go over and check out dogsblog. (Legal note: if you are unable to resist adopting a stray dog after following that link, I accept no responsibility.)

A reminder of just how bad the world situation regarding water is:

“The glaciers on the Himalayas are retreating, and they are the sponge that holds the water back in the rainy season. We’re facing the risk of extreme run-off, with water running straight into the Bay of Bengal and taking a lot of topsoil with it,” he said.
“A few hundred square miles of the Himalayas are the source for all the major rivers of Asia – the Ganges, the Yellow River, the Yangtze – where 3bn people live. That’s almost half the world’s population,” he said.

But the British government has belated shown some (small) sign of urgency on renewables in providing the ground (or rather the sea) for many new windfarms.

How can it be that the British government is considering, nay promoting, nuclear power, when there’s still such a mess from the last lot: “Nuclear consultant Ian Jackson estimates, in his new book Nukenomics: The Commercialisation of Britain’s Nuclear Industry, that the total being spent on decommissioning is equivalent to an extra 1p in the pound on income tax.”

In the 1960s the notorious Agent Orange was tested in Australia, near the Queensland town of Innisfail. The sprayed area is still barren, and the town has an extraordinarily high cancer rate – which does, of course, make you think about SE Asia, where vast quantities of the stuff was thrown around.

Cuts in agricultural research funding have hollowed out scientific institutions. But now we really, really need them – and plant breeding specialists don’t grow on trees.

What we’re doing to the world: world wildlife vertebrate populations have fallen 27% since the 1970s, with the biggest drop from 1995. “Over-fishing and hunting, along with farming, pollution and urban expansion, were blamed. … In the next 30 years, climate change is expected to become a significant threat to species, said the WWF.”

But so as not to be too depressed on a rainy London Saturday: a city in Alaska has cut electricity use by about 30% in a matter of weeks – because it had to, due to a cut in supplies. And this is in a cold, wet, dark place. Imagine what you could do with London if you really tried.

And in one more small piece of good news, the socialist mayor of Tours, with the backing of the Green party, has decided no longer to pay the city’s subsidy to Ryanair. I wonder if the EU could block all such subsidies on environmental grounds? Anyone know if that might be legally possible?

Yes, London may have a mayor Boris, which is a horrifying thought, but there is a little good news that you might not have heard; the two Greens on the London Assembly, Jenny Jones and Darren Johnson, held their seats, with an identical percentage of the vote to last time, which means 43,000 more people voted Green on the Assembly list. It was the Lib Dem vote that got caught in the two-party crunch, and they lost two seats on the Assembly, their vote falling to 11.22% (from 18.09%).

I’m pleased with the Camden vote: in the Camden and Barnet consitituency Miranda Dunn took 9.50% of the vote, only 3% behind the Liberal Democrats (which since Barnet isn’t exactly our natural constituency means, I’d hazard a guess, that we out-polled them in Camden).

And Sian Berry got nearly 4% of the mayoral first preferences, roughly half Paddick’s, and will I’m sure have done very well on second preferences – unfortunately people are still getting to grips with the voting system. Eventually I’m sure a lot more will realise they can vote for the first choice with their heart, and use their second vote to choose between the final two.

On one level it is horrifying that the BNP got an Assembly seat, but I’m not sure that it won’t be helpful as a pressure valve. and when they are exposed to the light many people who voted for them in anger and frustration will see them more clearly.

Update: over on The Daily Maybe, Jim has a full listing and analysis.

It has been buried in the news in the Conservatives surge in the British local elections, but there has been a change in Norwich, where the Green Party, for the first time has become the official opposition by taking three seats from the Lib Dems. (They missed out on this status last year by one vote.)

The city council tally is now Labour 15, Greens 13, Lib Dems 6, Conservatives 5.