Badgers saved!

Great news:

On 7 July the Secretary of State announced Defra’s policy will be not to issue any licences to farmers to cull badgers to prevent bovine TB. The Secretary of State has decided that we need to put our effort into strengthening our programme of research to develop cattle and badger vaccines and plan for their deployment. £20 million will be invested over the next three years in developing usable cattle and badger vaccines.

(response from the government to a Save the Badgers petition)

The full text of Mr Benn’s statement can be found on the Defra website at:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/ministers/statements/hb080707.htm

Yay!!! I am really pleased about this.

climate change petition

From Avaaz.org:

24 hours to go, and crisis at the Bali climate talks. In the last day alone, over 150,000 of us have surged to the global rescue -- calling on the world not to give in to wrecking tactics by the governments of the US, Canada and Japan. We're putting a full-page ad in the Jakarta Post?s summit edition where all the negotiators will see it, warning them to avert Titanic-like disaster -- and we're coming together with other NGOs to deliver millions of signatures for climate action to governments.

If the world can muster well over 200,000 crisis signatures in the last 24 hours for our actions tomorrow, we can show negotiators how urgently we care about setting a course for decisive climate action.

Last week, things in Bali looked good: near-consensus on a delicate framework of 2020 targets for rich countries, in return for which China and the developing world would do their part over time. IPCC scientists have said such targets are needed to prevent catastrophe. But Japan, the US and Canada are banding together to wreck the deal. The rest of the world is starting to waver, so we must do all we can - please sign the petition.

renewable energy

Greenpeace have just produced a new video, called The Convenient Solution showing why nuclear power is not the answer to the climate change problem. I was already pretty convinced that it wasn't the answer, but Greenpeace have done the maths and worked out how renewable energy sources could be implemented faster than a new generation of nuclear power stations - and of course the renewables would be much safer and cleaner and more local.

Everyone who cares about the environment should watch this video and then spread the word, write to your MP, etc.

planning disaster

The government wants to reduce public consultation in the planning process. This can only be bad news, considering some of the dreadful planning decisions that get made, and it will mean further destruction of greenbelt and wildlife habitats, because they want to reduce restrictions on building out-of-town supermarkets. Act now.