Wednesday 16 April 2008

ATISHOO, ATISHOO! WE ALL GO HUNGRY?

Whilst its fascinating to read that 'Kent's Finest' believe Tivoli's arson attack and O'Leary's murder were not connected, which I do not believe, this is Thanet Planet mind-set at its worst. There are actually more serious issues to contemplate.

A strange coincidence? As the Government regulation comes into force, that all car fuel must now have 2.5% of 'renewable' bio-fuel in it, your nostrils might have started twitching and your eyes watering as oil-seed rape around Thanet starts to come into full flower.

I am convinced that our Government is stark raving mad on this issue. We should be growing crops to feed ourselves and animals that we can then eat, not pouring Tesco's cooking oil into our diesel engines as I saw one of my neighbours do last week! By all means re-cycle used cooking oils and our re-cycling tips should have vats that we can pour the stuff into.

In the week that China exceeds the USA as the world's largest Carbon emissions polluter, all the 'environmental' nonsenses that the UK is implementing remind me of 'peeing into the wind'. It might just be dawning on some of us that when 1.2 billion Chinese stopped waving little red books and wearing blue boiler suits and wanted the good things of life like the rest of the world (cars, fridges, air-conditioning etc etc!) and like-wise 1 billion on the Indian sub-continent, our planet was in for trouble.

If you hadn't noticed, your basic food crop prices have risen by 20% in the past few months and there were food riots in Egypt last week. India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand all restricted rice exports last year to stabilise prices for their own populations. So what the hell are we doing growing crops for fuel that still produce CO2 emissions and finding that rain-forests have been cut down to grow fuel crops?

I am not an environmental expert but Nuclear powered electricity should have been our priority 10 years ago and we should have had numerous Nuclear Power stations under construction NOW not in 10-15 years time. At the same time as building our own we should have been helping the Chinese build theirs. The 'CO2 less' nuclear generated electricity could then have been used in the electrolysis of water. Remember your early Chemistry lessons, before the days of dumbed down Science of the National Curriculum, and breaking down water into Hydrogen and Oxgen and getting a satisfying 'pop' when you inserted the glowing match? Hydrogen in our cars produces H2O (water) when combusted, wow! A clean non polluting fuel! Dodgy to handle and expensive but with diesel at 119.8p per litre, hell , fuel is already £5 per gallon!

So, as we head towards a serious world crisis in all resources including energy, raw materials and food, isn't it time for our Government to stop 'peeing into the wind' and work out how to guarantee we can be fed, heat our homes and cook our food(if we have any) and still drive our cars in 20 years time?

TDC, as our local Government, talks similar 'New-speak tosh' about sustainability as we are forced to travel out of our immediate neighbourhood by car to shop 'out of town' at Westwood and whilst it allows more of our precious food producing land in Thanet to be covered by houses, caravan sites, and Chinese Gateway Industrial Parks! Wake up to reality Councillors and get an allotment fast while you can. I am off to join Sue and the other 'bean-planters' as soon as possible, fences or not!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nationally a huge increase in the demand for allotments so TDC sells off Manston Road site as 'no-one wanted an allotment there due to vandalism'. Thanet Earth ripping up acres of arable land to put down concrete for enormous polytunnels to grow tasteless salad crops requiring vast amounts of water (and chemicals). When I flew to Malaga my first site of the area from the plane was what I thought were lakes but turned out to be polytunnels where hundreds of Moroccan laboureres spent hours in chemically-polluted growing tunnels. If you're worried about what you're eating start by growing 'micro-greens' on the kitchen window sill -baby lettuce, beetroot, rocket etc. that grow quickly and can be cut when only inches high. Get your name down for an allotment before they're all sold off for housing or find someone to share with.

Bertie Biggles said...

Tell Mrs Biggles that the geraniums are not going in the window boxes this spring? I'll be camping on the allotment!

Anonymous said...

She can make jelly from the geranium petals.

Bertie Biggles said...

I think I will keep that snippet about geraniums to myself 13.18 and had better not give her ideas!