Can we save the environment?

I remember many things from my younger years... some of these things were the news stories of some tree hugger or other trying to stop the building of another bypass or airport runway. Back in those days nobody took a great deal of notice of these people because we had far more important things to think about - the cold war was still on, pop stars were making records in order to feed the children of the third world and everybody kept going on strike. The tree huggers were clearly only interested in stopping cars and planes because they couldn't afford to use them anyway and those who could were just considered odd.

So, bring on the modern world. The threat of nuclear armagedon has gone away, the world economy is generally good and the only hardship we read about now is usually in war zones - and there seem to be more than enough charities dealing with that now, so what do we worry about instead? Well, being green is the current fashion. The nuts that wanted us all to drive 2cv's have been joined en-masse by the media and politicians all of whom seem to have been brainwashed by the idea that we're all going to float away - those of us that don't get sunburn first that is. And with the cold war gone it's a good excuse to raise taxes!

Over the last few years prices on many things have been rising. Fuel, wether it be in the form of gas, coal, oil or electricity. All of these things are going up in price either because of wars or increased taxes, the latter usually with the excuse of it being to discourage it's use on environmental grounds. In addition to this our cars are being taxed more, we're being asked to pay extra for plane tickets although per person the fuel consumption on planes is far better than cars and local authorities want to charge us more for emptying our bins! The knock-on effect is that wage demands increase, grocery bills go up, and hence so does inflation. What a surprise!

I will admit that I do quite a few things I consider green. I've been recycling for years (although I shred anything with my name and address on it in case of identity theft), I switched from petrol to diesel when I replaced my car, I changed to energy-saving light bulbs in my house, replaced my thermostat with a digital one with a timer to more accuratly regulate my heating, I work from home, have my groceries delivered, replaced all my older electrical appliances with ones that use less electricity (like LCD TV's and computer monitors) and I walk or use my bike for short journeys. When I make a cuppa I only boil the amount of water I need. I don't use public transport on the whole though because it generally doesn't go where I'm going although I do occasionally fly. I have also considered a personal wind turbine to generate my own electricity.

Pretty impressive huh? All apart from the fact that I do most of the above because I believe in conserving resources, not because I think the world is overheating! In the early days I saved money, but I now seem to be paying more even though I'm doing most of the things that the environmentalists wanted me to do. Is it doing any good though?

Probably not. Many of the so-called experts on the subject say that if we all complied with the Kyoto protocols then we'd probably delay the doom by 2 years over the next century... so is it really worth it? Why instead is money and resources not being spent on trying to mitigate the impending doom? Humans got where they are now by evolving, survival of the fittest and all that. Our recent evolution has been through the use of intelligence, unfortunatly it seems as a race that we're not intelligent enough to realise that we're not going to be able to stop the planet from getting hotter, colder or anything else for that matter. We seem to be forgetting that over the last 3000 years alone we've seen a lot of different climate. 2700 years ago Britain and France were joined by a land-bridge but that was at the tail end of an ice age - and we had a mini ice-age a few hundred years ago when the River Thames froze over. Between those times we've had varying amounts of heat and cold, but none of these was caused by industrialistion, cars, planes or such line, they were caused by the natural cycle of the Earth and Sun.

I sit here thinking of the legendary King Canute sitting in his chair trying to order back the waves, and if us humans think we can change the weather by not driving our cars and throwing away our rubbish then we're sadly mistaken... climate change is happening, always has been and always will do. Unless we evolve to the changing environment (ether by intelligence or nature) then as a race we will die out... but until then I'm going to carry on driving, flying, eating and farting. Just so long as I can afford to anyway!

What in Britain really is British?

There has been a lot of debate on this subject over recent years and it would seem that the British public is being consistently conned into believing that many things we take for granted are British in origin and are taking a possibly racist stance against these things.

Take one of my favourite gripe - our long-winded conversion to the Metric system. Ok, so the metre was invented by the French, but it was designed to end trade problems between different regions where local weights and measures which often differed from town to town were used. The fact that the US and UK who are still non-metric use different variants of the old "Imperial" systems just goes to show how far behind we are. But what's the reason for not changing? One excuse is it's not British. Of course it's not. Nor is Imperial... it is something which evolved from measuring systems imposed on us by the Romans!

We all consider the chip shop to be a British tradition, but the chip wouldn't exist if the humble spud hadn't been brought back across the Atlantic from South America. That said, many Brits are now just as likely to grab a curry or a kebab after a night out at the pub, neither of which are exactly British but both have become a British institution in recent years. I'm betting that many of the people who eat these foods were the very same ones complaining about the number of Asian-owned corner shops in recent years - but the very fact that these corner shops, along with their culinary cousins, are prepared to work harder and stay open longer hours is why their "British" equivalents have been falling by the wayside.

And what about the car? Really it's as American as you can get. I know I grew up believing Ford and Vauxhall to be British companies and many still consider them British cars, but I'm sure that the head offices of Ford and General Motors in Detroit would disagree with you... unless of course it helps them sell more cars. And what about all those other brand names we grew up with? Heinz, Colgate, Kellogs... all very American. I clearly remember the adverts on TV for Milky Bar which until recently pronounced the brand name "ness-L's" rather than the correct Swiss pronounciation "ness-lay".

Even the English language isn't really British. Up until about 1000 years ago the language spoken in Britain was very Germanic/Nordic having been influenced by invasions from that part of the world along with influences from Latin (the Romans). Then when William the Conquerer came over in 1066 French became the "official" language of government and over hundreds of years since they have all merged to make the English we know today.

Our royal family isn't exactly British either. As mentioned above it became French in 1066 and since then it has been effected by marriages to other European royal families. The name Windsor only came about because they felt it prudent to change their name during the wars of the early 20th century because their name was actually German!

And our national religion isn't really British. Chritianity was actually a cult-offshoot of the Jewish religion which was later used by the Romans to their advantage, imposing it on all of the countries they still had influence in in an attempt to retain their power. Through the Holy Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church this continues today and from it's seat of power in the Vatican City in the heart of Rome it still tries to influence the day-to-day lives of millions of people across the world. One British monarch did break links from this but merely created another cult which we now know as the Protestant Church of England, but it's still an offshoot of a religion founded in the same place as the Muslim faith!

So, come on Britain. Stop being so insular. Yes, we're British, but we're also Europeans... in ancestry, language and culture. We're part of a world which is modernising, learning to live and work alongside each-other and strive for peace. For pitty's sake stop blowing off steam about all those foreigners taking our jobs and trying to take over our country, we're all the same!

What is the British problem with the EU?

Today I heard an interesting news report which stated that previously secret documents had come to light that in the 1950's the French Prime Minister had made moves to make France "British" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6261885.stm). Now I have to admit that I find this a little hard to believe, given that the French constitution is written such that any possibility of removing that country's status as a Republic is n0t possible and given how hard it's people fought to throw off it's own monarchy I would guess that to most French people the thought of becoming a part of the UK or the Commonwealth would make them feel quite ill... and so they're probably quite relieved that the British government of the day rejected both ideas.

This did bring to mind one of my favourite questions though... what is the British problem with the EU. Back in the 1970's when the UK first joined the Common Market as it was then known, it was the understanding of all member states that a federal Europe was one of the future possibilities so when several years later we said "yes" in a refferendum on the subject, we as a people signed up to this possibility. Now as then there are many vocal anti-EU groups, some have some good arguments about why we shouldn't have joined and some are quite valid and the powers that be should really listen to them and take some action. I personally agree with many of the criticisms, but I side with those with the view that if the problems were solved then there is a bright future ahead within a united, and yes possibly in the future federal Europe.

My problem with the British point of view comes from some of the more flawed arguments made by the less-informed (and usually tabloid-reading) portion of the British population. These arguments are usually confined to a few issues on which those people are quite rabid. Answering some of these arguments seems quite a good way to spend time on the 300th aniversary of the Act of Union - the law making Scotland part of the UK.

The first of these issues is that forging ahead with the EU is causing us to loose soverignty, independance and culture. Well ok, this is a valid argument and you can see a great example of this in the UK. Scotland, Wales and Ireland all became part of the UK and all lost their independance. The Irish (in the most part) fought long and hard to regain theirs and even Northern Ireland has had a patchy attempt at some self government. The Welsh and the Scots have also been given a limited amount of independence. The Scots have actually had some amount of legal leeway even as far back as the original Act of Union. The thing that really bugs me about all of this is the fact that unlike the rest of the UK, England does not have it's own independant legislative body and as such us English seem to be the ones who are disadvantaged. It's no surprise to me that in my experience the Welsh, Scottish and Irish people seem to be more favourable towards the EU!

The second of the issues is that of currency. It would seem that nobody wants to accept "foreign" money in the UK. Much has been made at the fact that we could not have a "one-size-fits-all" economy in Europe, we couldn't possibly have banknotes without the Queen's head printed on them, and what about all the poisonous metals in the Euro coins? Excuse me for a moment while I pick myself off the floor here. The UK has a "one-size-fits-all" economy and financial decisions taken by the government in London often do not often go down well in the rest of the country. Then there is the fact that Scotland and Northern Ireland print their own banknotes - and none of these have the Queen on them. The dependant islands (such as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) also produce their own banknotes and although they are all at parity with the British pound, none of them is actually legal tender in England - in fact I read somewhere that Scottish banknotes aren't actually even legal tender in Scotland!

The third is our system of measurements. There are many who seem to believe that the Metric system is some sort of conspiracy to take away our culture. Many argue that we have to keep it because our English speaking trading partners still use it. Forget the fact that the UK has been trying to go metric for 200+ years and was even involved in it's original conception. Also forget the fact that the entire Commonwealth (as well as all the ex-Empire countries) have all metricated, just leaving the UK and the USA, the latter of who do not even use "Imperial" measurements! Americans use "English Units" in which some quantities differ significantly from those traditional here in the UK and even Americans are starting to see the benefit of going metric - there are metric road signs in the US which are illegal in the UK and you will often hear metric in use on US tv programmes (I have heard the use of metres and grammes on CSI, Stargate, NCIS, ER... the list goes on). You will also be hard pressed to find a bottle of Coca Cola in the USA which isn't in "liter" sizes.

So, what do we have here in the UK. Well, the first letter of that tells it all - a "Union". Like the EU but smaller.

Except we have no consistency of government with member states having different levels of powers over their own and other member regions.

Except we have a single currency which often can't be used in other regions.

Except that we cling onto outdated nonsense like "Imperial Measurments" on the grounds that they're British and great, although they actually evolved from something imposed on us by the Romans!

One thing I am really glad of. In Britain I'm a "subject", in Europe I'm a "citizen"!

Anybody want a speeding ticket?

Ok, I haven't just got a speeding ticket and haven't for some years. It's getting quite hard to avoid them given the explosion in speed cameras and the reduction of speed limits on our roads so there is a good chance that many of us who consider ourselves safe drivers will get collared. There is however one consolation... if you look closely enough you may just find a loophole that, if you're willing to persue it, might just get you off the same way as some of the people you read about in the papers!

Let me say at this stage that I'm not encouraging people to drive dangerously, either inside or outside of the law. This piece is here merely to point out how so many people get let off of something that should be quite simple to prosecute.

Ok, so here's the assumption. I don't know how this works in other countries, but one would have to assume that (providing the authorities complete the correct paperwork) that if somebody puts up a sign then that's that, speed limit set. That's not exactly true and this is where the problem occurs; British laws are well known for being un-necessarily complex. I'm no lawyer and I've no doubt that some of what I'm about to write could be proven to be wrong... but it's my interpretation of the law as it stands today and is based on my reading of various traffic laws alongside information from organisations such as SafeSpeed and the Association of British Drivers. So here goes.

First of all, each different type of road in Britain has a speed limit which applies if there are no signs. These are quite easy to follow:

• Dual Carriageway road divided by a physical central reservation, regardless of number of lanes - 70mph.
  
• Single carriageway road with no physical central divider - 60mph.
• "Restricted" road road with a system of streetlights where the streetlights are no more than 183 metres apart (or 185 metres in Scotland) - 30 mph
• The above limits vary if you are towing a trailer/caravan or are driving an HGV or PSV.
  

This is where the first piece of confusion occurs. The third item differs slightly in Scotland, but for what reason I do not know. Also, the street lights MUST be on the road - pedestrian lighting doesn't count. Oh, and finally this rule doesn't apply on motorways. Also, you cannot put repeater signs on "restricted" roads (repeaters will be explained shortly). So, if you are driving on an un-lit dual carriageway with no signs you can do 70 mph... but if the local council have deemed it fit to light a section and not put up any signs then the speed limit becomes 30 mph!

So, now we look at signs. If you want to change the speed limit on a particular piece of road you have to put up signs. This starts with terminators - this means you have to put up two identical signs, one each side of the road. If the road is a trunk road and it is lit (the definition of "trunk road" is sketchy at best) then the signs MUST be illuminated. I'm sure from what I've read that the method of lighting must be the same, which means you can't have one with a light inside and one outside... but I have seen many places where this is the case!

Once you have the terminators, you then have repeaters. These are smaller signs and must be displayed at regular intervals within the speed limit. However the "regular interval" is not codified in law so you could have a 5 mile stretch of road with only 1 repeater... is this legal? Also, you cannot put repeaters on a "restricted" road.?

The signs themselves are also important. The current fad is to put the sign on some sort of backing-board, often bright yellow, the reason being to improve visibility of the sign. However some local authorities have cut this backing board into nice shapes, sometimes round to match the speed limit sign, sometimes round over the top to look nice with the village name underneath it. Both of these are illegal and so are not actually loopholes, but would most likely get you off of that speeding ticket!

I have also seen some signs in the West Midlands which not only have an illegal backing board, but also use different colours - the bit around the number which is supposed to be red is actually green... I am shocked that this hasn't yet been picked up either by the local authority or some poor motorist's lawyer!

Then there are the white lines on the road. There is no law that forces the painting of white lines on the road, but where they are painted they must be correct. Specifically, if the speed limit is 40 mph or below the total length of one white line and the gap to the next line must be 6 metres, if the speed limit is over 40 mph then the length must be 9 metres. I've seen a lot of cases where local authorities have reduced speed limits from 50, 60 and even 70 mph to 40 mph or below and they don't bother re-painting the white lines which makes the speed limit illegal.

Then there is the other current fad... the "roundell", this is the practice of painting the speed limit on the road (as if we don't already have too many signs and road markings to take our eyes off the road!). These cannot be used instead of terminator signs, but be carefull... this is done in the New Forest where they didn't want to ruin the landscape with too many road signs but is actually legal in this case as they had a law drawn up specifically for this!

This is just the pick of the bunch and I'm sure there is stuff that I've missed, but the essence of this piece is to show that people aren't getting off on "loopholes", they're getting off because of unnecessarily complex laws that even the authorities can't understand!

So, whats the answer? Well, scrap current speed limit laws and make it simple as follows:

• Scrap the National Speed Limit sign (the white circle with a black line through it) like they have in Ireland. If a road has a specific speed limit, put up a sign and tell us. Don't make us guess!
• Scrap the "restricted road" law. When I see street lights I'm not going to get out of my car with a measuring tape to check how far apart they are! You can't even use your speedo to check because the figure after the decimal point is 1/10 of a mile which in itself doesn't correspond to any sensible distance!
• Set a maximum and minimum placement distance for repeater signs. This would ensure a constant reminder of the current speed limit in force - again without having to guess when you've just pulled out of a petrol station and can't remember what the speed limit was when you drove in.

These three simple steps would make our roads safer, we wouldn't have to "pick a number" when road conditions change; we could look at a sign, set our speed and then think about more important matters such as safe driving!

It would also be helpful if, at the same time, we could get accurate speedometers by law (like they do in North America) and switch to metric so that our European neighbours who visit also know how fast to drive (and we would get it right on their roads too!)

Ok, so it's time to stop daydreaming and come back to the reallity which is 19th centrury Britain!