Vegetable Clients

“Granting rights to nature would ‘open the courtroom doors to radical environmentalist lawyers’ who’d ‘fire a continual barrage of lawsuits to uphold the rights of their animal and vegetable clients.” …
‘Each time there is a movement to confer rights onto some new ‘entity,’ the proposal is bound to sound odd or frightening or laughable'” https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/07/a-new-wave-of-environmentalists-want-to-give-nature-legal-rights/

M’on the conifer rights!

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Slow Election

“Scotland is different. At the simplest level, the full Scottish [EU election] result will not be known until Monday because they don’t count votes on the Sabbath in the Western Isles.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48270030

Go the teuchters; resisting the instant information imperative!

Rising Risibly

“I am a Conservative, and I believe in profit and that a rising tide lifts all ships.” Hugo Swire, MP for East Devon http://bit.ly/2VxSv94

…and strands them all over what used to be low-lying land.

Air on the Water

“In May the PLA [Port of London Authority] released its own air quality strategy for the Thames, including targets to cut NOx and particulates by half over the next 25 years.
Such measures are already being implemented in the Thames Clippers, but critics have pointed out that even with these changes pollution levels would still far exceed those of road vehicles.
“To me it’s weak – it’s a lot of smoke and mirrors to say they are doing something.”” https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/air-pollution-river-thames-boats-transport-shipping-ferries-nitrogen-dioxide-sadiq-khan-a8411561.html

The mirrors are making the smoke seem twice as bad as it actually is.

Dead Dolphilia

“By far, the world’s largest kill of dolphins and small whales is in Peru, where up to 15,000 dolphins are killed annually to be used as bait in shark fisheries. … The reasons differ from country to country; human consumption, use as bait, traditional medicines/amulets, currency, waterproofing, sexual gratification or the elimination of a perceived competitor for declining resources.” https://uk.whales.org/blog/2018/08/new-report-reveals-100000-dolphins-and-small-whales-hunted-every-year

The many cruel and unusual ways humanity revels in the slaughter of others.

Hare Today

“From 1954 to 1999 the mountain hare population on moorland sites decreased by nearly 5% every year, which ecologists attributed to the planting of conifer forests on former grouse moors. But from 1999 to 2017 the scale of the moorland declines increased dramatically to over 30% every year, leading to counts in 2017 of less than 1% of original levels in 1954.
…
David Noble, chairman of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust in Scotland, said data gathered by the GWCT over the same period as the study does not suggest such a decline in hare numbers on grouse moors.
“…we look forward to reviewing it, especially how the counts were made, because assessing hare numbers accurately is challenging.”” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/14/scotlands-mountain-hare-population-severe-decline

Especially when you’re lucky to see even one.

“Whilst hares can benefit from the intensive management intended for grouse (hare declines were lowest on grouse moors up to 1999) this is only when they are not being culled.” http://ww2.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/b/scotland/archive/2018/08/14/catastrophic-declines-of-mountain-hares-what-rspb-scotland-believes-should-happen-next.aspx

Biddable Binners

Rooks “will be encouraged to spruce up the park through the use of a small box that delivers a nugget of bird food each time the rook deposits a cigarette end or small piece of rubbish.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/11/rook-at-this-mess-french-park-trains-crows-to-pick-up-litter

We could simplify the process by rationing litterers’ food, and only issue them with pellets in return for tidying.