Policies not protest
I am deeply concerned by the impact that humans are having on the planet. That is why it is important that concerns over the environment are brought to the attention of the public and politicians. Unfortunately I was unimpressed by the Extinction Rebellion protests that took place recently.
My issues with the protests included:
- Timing - It was the Easter recess and so no politicians were even in the London
- Public transport - Shutting down public transport which reduces CO2 was ridiculous
- Public support - Eroded support by negatively impacting the public
- Why the UK? - The UK has cut its CO2 footprint and globally produces little
More than anything I didn’t see a coherent plan.
I don’t believe that any country can fix the world's problems. I do think that the UK can be a role model. The objective should be to create a mixed bag of policies that helps to secure the environment now and for the future.
Building retrofitting
The easiest way to reduce CO2 emissions is to simply not produce them.
Households account for about 25.5% of the total of the 366.9 million tonnes emitted by the UK. This could be substantially lowered by simply retrofitting the existing housing stock. Many people already do this when they upgrade to double glazing or fit insulation.
I propose going road- by- road across the nation and upgrading all houses. This would mean, where needed, replacing all doors and windows, installing roof and cavity wall insulation and upgrading boilers.
The aim should be to reduce heat leakage and increasing energy efficiency to reduce the energy needed to heat homes. To ensure public support, where a property already has sufficient upgrades in place the owner should be given a cash bonus to help offset the original cost.
If we could reduce household emissions by 40% that would equal 36,690,000 tonnes of CO2.
Alongside reducing the consumption and wastage in homes, it should be possible to install renewable systems to the houses where applicable. This could be anything from solar cells to micro- wind turbines. At an aggregate level this could help generate substantial amounts of energy for the UK.
It would also help create an economic boost if the procurement was channeled via domestic manufacturers, and also via household savings, due to reduced energy costs.
National parks
The UK has over 8,749 square miles of national parks spread over Scotland, Wales and England (Currently there are none in Northern Ireland). These encompass a wide range of environments from fenland to forest to heathland, to name but a few.
Many of the parks are man- made environments like the Peak and Lake Districts. This is driven by the large-s scale animal grazing such as upland sheep farming. Though it looks very beautiful to the eye, it is in fact a desert for most animals. Much of this area without this intervention would be upland forest.
The country should aim to reforest 20% of the national parks. This create a group of large, varied and bio-diverse rich environments which would be a positive for wildlife and humans. To reforest this amount of land it will be necessary to stop grazing. This will have an impact on some farmers. Therefore a compensation scheme should be introduced to reduce the size of flocks or if possible buy the farms out.
20% of the national parks is 1749.8 square miles or 1,119,872 acres. I am told that a healthy forest will have about 2000 trees per acre and suck in about 48lbs of CO02 per year. So that is 48,764,638 tonnes of CO2 taken out of the atmosphere every year.
New regional forests
Alongside the above, the country should aim to create new regional forests within easy reach of major towns and cities. The objective again should be about creating carbon sinks and increasing biodiversity.
These new forests though should be designed as leisure zones and therefore have good public transport links designed as part of their planting. They could incorporate lakes and rivers with boating, kayaking, water skiing, etc. The actual forests could include activity zones for families and even provide courses to educate people and bring them back into contact with both nature and food production.
The creation of 20 regional forests of just 5 miles squared would equal 500 square miles across the whole the UK. This is not much when you consider the UK is actually one the most deforested countries in western Europe.
That would be another 13,934,346 tonnes of CO2 scrubbed from the atmosphere per year.
This would also create jobs in tourism for the country. This new revenue would easily repay the cost of buying out landowners where the forests are grown. If done cleverly these new forests could be grown to connect existing forest and woodland therefore increasing the roaming zone for humans and nature.
National marine reserves
Overfishing is a massive concern with some predicting that there will be more plastic in the sea than fish by the middle of the century. This is a concern for the UK as well and its vital we do something about it.
With the exit of the UK from the EU and the dysfunctional Common Fisheries Policy it is important that a new legal structure is defined which puts sustainability at its centre. This new approach to fishing should be focused on the creation of a group of marine national parks around the UK. These marine reserves should be focused on increasing diversity and providing safe breeding grounds for fish.
The UK’s only marine protected area is around Lundy Island in the Bristol channel. Studies have shown that the zone has actually helped to increase both fish stocks and average size in the surrounding areas. So the creation of the marine national parks will protect the catch that is vital for the fishing industry.
This process can be helped by taking old military and commercial ships - removing any toxic materials and sinking them to form artificial reefs. These would both create ideal fish nurseries whilst providing unique dive environments encouraging tourism.
The actual parks should be created with the help of scientific research to maximise their value. Though it might be worth trying to create them where offshore wind turbines are being deployed and thus make fishing difficult anyway.
Animals routes
In spring and summer it is common to drive across the UK and see absolute carnage from roadkill. This has become ever more common as the volume of cars on the roads have increased but also the countryside has become segmented via road building. This has created islands of countryside which animals can’t move between without crossing roads with often tragic consequences.
This is actually not difficult to resolve as proven by Kenya which used to have multiple accidents involving elephants after they built a new highway splitting a wilderness area in two. As a response to this they built an underpass to allow elephants and other animals move freely without crossing traffic. The designers didn’t know if it would be successful but within a day or so cameras picked up the first herd of elephants passing through the underpass along with other animals. The same is already practised across Europe for deer populations.
The UK should aim to do the same on all major roads which cross the country. This could be implemented as part of the normal cycle of road upgrades and resurfacing. The aim to build tunnels every few miles which allow animals of various sizes to pass safely underneath roads from one area to another. These tunnels should be designed to allow the largest animals to pass and scientific advice should be sought. This would reduce animal road deaths, increase biodiversity and allow for the repopulation of areas which are currently blocked by roads. From an economic perspective, this would reduce cleanup costs from road kill and damage to cars.
Plastic recycling and refining
Plastic is one of the most useful materials ever created by humanity. The ease that it can be formed into nearly any shape with minimum amounts of energy is unbeatable. Much of modern life that we take for granted is built using plastics and other artificial polymers.
Unfortunately, plastics and polymers only break down very slowly normally due to sunlight or exposure to salt water or other corresives. This has meant that plastic pollution has become a worldwide problem on land and in the sea. This is not an insurmountable problem socially or technologically.
Recycling has been increasing for several decades across much of the world and it is something that Europe leads the way due to efforts from the EU. There are two major obstacles which need to be overcome to resolve the plastic pollution problem.
The first is that recycling rates in and out of the home have plateaued as most of the low hanging fruit has been picked. This is a challenge as there is still long way to go before we reach a sustainable recycling level. The second more serious issue is that much of the recycling output is exported where it is actually dumped. These are both solvable within a national framework.
Increasing recycling could be done by adopting an enhanced version of the Norwegian system. The system is very simple, you buy the bottle and get a refund when you return it to a recycling facility. By putting a monetary value on the bottle this encourages the population to collect and return as many as possible. There is absolutely no reason that this could not be extended to all plastic types including bottles, clothing, wrapping etc. This should lead to a massive increase in recycling rates by providing a incentive which would be linked potentially to the weight. This is common in other forms of recycling such as metals.
The best way to resolve concerns over the actual recycling is to process it in the country. This should be done via the creation of a network of plastic refineries which would use a new technique to boil plastics back to the components i.e oil, The technology is proven and is being deployed now. This would ensure that the UK is responsible for the plastic it uses and would also generate an additional flow of hydrocarbons for the national economy. These could be used for fuel or, more wisely, used for further manufacturing. This would further help the country economically by helping to reduce oil imports.
Taken together this should reduce the amount of plastic entering the environment and affecting wildlife. It would also reduce the amount of oil being consumed and hence reduce CO2 emissions. Thinking into the future it may become commercially viable for old refuse dumps to be re-opened and the plastics removed for recycling. This would further clean the environment for future generations.
Integrated rail and metro systems
A major issue the UK suffers from is short term planning on infrastructure. This is sadly a function of the electoral system but can be improved by creating a cross-party consensus. The aim should be to create a long-term national plan for developing the country which maximises output whilst rebalancing the economy away from the South East. An example of true long-term thinking would be to reconsider the white elephant that is HS2 which has marginal value due to the distance from London.
Instead, a new HS2 route could be agreed which would run the track up the side of the motorway to Nottingham, on to Edinburgh and perhaps over / under the Irish sea to Northern Ireland. This railway could be extended down to Dublin should the Republic of Ireland wish to be involved. A similar line could be built from London down to Bristol and the over / under the Bristol channel and onto to Cardiff.
Alongside this regional networks should be upgraded to make them more frequent, cheaper and environmentally friendly. This should start with a focus on the northern ones linking Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham. This would increase connectivity within and between regions. This should be linked to the existing public transport systems in major cities. Where applicable new subways and trams system should be constructed to allow easy access and increase capacity.
The aim should be to create an integrated nationwide public transport system. This will help reduce the amount of cars and airplanes used helping to lower CO2 emissions. It will also mean less road building and airport expansion. It should also rebalance growth away from London and the south east.
If done alongside efforts to reduce overall population it may even lead to London shrinking.
Going Nuclear and dealing with the past
The advent of electric cars means we will need much more electricity - a lot more. Some of this can be produced via renewables but the UK still needs a base load of reliable electricity and this needs to be planned and construction started soon. Though everyone hates it nuclear is the most logical source being both low in CO2 emissions (Zero from generation) and a technology we have used for nearly 70 years.
The risks are real but can be mitigated using good design and logical deployment. A first step should be to cancel the Hinkley point station that is being built by EDF. This design is unproven with EDF struggling to complete two in Finland and France. It is also highly unlikely the company will have the money to complete the project as massively in debt. This would be welcomed by the French government which suspects it will need to bailout the company.
A better approach would be to use public money to build either Japanese or Korean designs which are proven and much less complicated. These could be produced at a much lower cost and help to quickly replace older nuclear power stations in the UK which are being decommissioned. These could be built at Hinkley point or Sellafield or other locations.
But before we generate more it is important that the country deals with waste generated by the historical nuclear program. This is mostly stored at Sellafield which is one of the most polluted industrial sites in western Europe.
Firstly the current highly radioactive used fuel rods etc need to be recycled to create new fuel and it made a legal requirement that any plant operating in the UK must use these where applicable. The aim should be to use this fuel which would massively reduce its radioactivity on each cycle meaning that it will be safer quicker.
Secondary a location needs to be found to store much of the leftover radioactive waste. This is vital as by 2030 the UK will have generated 1.4 million cubic metres of low level waste (LLW), 260 thousand cubic metres of intermediate level waste (ILW) and 3 thousand cubic metres of high level nuclear waste (HLW). This can’t stay indefinitely at Sellafield though much of it will not need to be stored longer term.
The objective should be to remove the HLW to a deep mined geological facility. This needs to be secure and somewhere it will not impact the broader environment. A potential way to deal with this would be to pay a community indefinitely to host the site near them. This would include a quarterly payment to every household based on how near they are to the storage site. This should be coupled by with an extremely transparent process with yearly updates on the site and its contents and also widely deployed radiative sensors with publicly available data.
It is unacceptable that we should leave this for future generations.
Improved farming
The UK imports 48% of the food it consumes and this percentage is increasing. This is partly a function of the size of the population but also because we have some of the best supermarkets in the world which sell such a wide variety of produce. This is a benefit for the population which gets to enjoy foods from around the world, all year and at a price that is very affordable.
This is problematic though for a number of reasons.
At an economic level it contributes to the UK’s trade deficit which is already negative. More importantly the country has no food security meaning that in an economic or military crisis the UK could not feed itself - think WW2 on steroids. Finally it is bad for the environment due to CO2 emissions created by the transportation of food over great distances and also some of the negative farming practices used in many countries especially the emerging markets. Beyond that ‘Horsegate’ and other food scares have demonstrated that longer logistic chains make it harder to ensure quality and safety.
It may never be possible or desirable to stop all food imports. The large selection we enjoy is partly a function of being able to exchange food production with other others. Furthermore many countries rely on our imports for money. We should though aim to reduce the volume of imports and ensure that at a basic level we are better able to feed ourselves.
We need a nationwide effort to create a quantum leap in agriculture production and we should look to the Netherlands as a template. In 2000 the Dutch government launched a national commitment to double food production whilst halving the amount of inputs needed. This involved the deployment of cutting edge scientific research and technology and the results have been impressive. On many crops water use has been reduced by 90% and chemical fertilizer has been eliminated. In livestock and poultry farming the amount of antibiotics has been gone down by 60%.
This has been done in partnership between universities and business to create innovative systems to ensure sustainability whilst increasing production. Examples of this innovation include creating specialised soil for individual crops helping to boost yields. Particular insects types have been identified which when disseminated into the crops act as a natural pest control. More importantly the partnership has led to new seed types generated not via modern genetic modification but molecular breeding. This is an enhanced version of traditional selective breeding but combined with modern genetic mapping. Cheap, efficient and has enhanced crop yields massively.
This has been twinned with the deployment of cutting edge physical technology. Driverless tractors have been deployed to help till and process the fields. Much of the farming takes place in hi tech greenhouses which allows for the use of LED lighting and heating systems to actively optimise the growing environment. Alongside this drones are used to measure soil chemistry, water content, nutrients and growth rates. Information is fed back in real time. Due to this most of the farms are powered directly via renewable energy and watered via rainwater reducing environmental impacts. It has combined to mean that yields have shot up, outputs have declined precipitously down and the food quality continuously improves.
There is nothing here that the UK can’t replicate or even improve with leadership from both government and business. This should be tied to setting up an agricultural investment bank to provide seed and slow capital to the sector to aid with the change.
This would help the environment by reducing CO2 and also harmful farming practices. It would reduce water usage which in a potentially warming world could be important. Finally though more farm land would be enclosed in green houses to maximum the yield, this would free up under productive land which could be used for rewilding projects including forest.
Conclusion
Moving into the future I believe the green lobby should focus raising awareness of the problems we face whilst providing realistic policies backed up by fleshed out plans on how to deploy them. This would help to provide momentum by stopping politicians and people avoiding action as too difficult or overwhelming.
The object of this blog was to throw some of my ideas down for public consumption which I think are highly achievable. Individually they will not solve our many problems but taken together they could form the basis of a brighter, far more sustainable future for the UK. That it will require the people of the UK to demand it and elect politicians who are able to deliver it.
My issues with the protests included:
- Timing - It was the Easter recess and so no politicians were even in the London
- Public transport - Shutting down public transport which reduces CO2 was ridiculous
- Public support - Eroded support by negatively impacting the public
- Why the UK? - The UK has cut its CO2 footprint and globally produces little
More than anything I didn’t see a coherent plan.
I don’t believe that any country can fix the world's problems. I do think that the UK can be a role model. The objective should be to create a mixed bag of policies that helps to secure the environment now and for the future.
Building retrofitting
The easiest way to reduce CO2 emissions is to simply not produce them.
Households account for about 25.5% of the total of the 366.9 million tonnes emitted by the UK. This could be substantially lowered by simply retrofitting the existing housing stock. Many people already do this when they upgrade to double glazing or fit insulation.
I propose going road- by- road across the nation and upgrading all houses. This would mean, where needed, replacing all doors and windows, installing roof and cavity wall insulation and upgrading boilers.
The aim should be to reduce heat leakage and increasing energy efficiency to reduce the energy needed to heat homes. To ensure public support, where a property already has sufficient upgrades in place the owner should be given a cash bonus to help offset the original cost.
If we could reduce household emissions by 40% that would equal 36,690,000 tonnes of CO2.
Alongside reducing the consumption and wastage in homes, it should be possible to install renewable systems to the houses where applicable. This could be anything from solar cells to micro- wind turbines. At an aggregate level this could help generate substantial amounts of energy for the UK.
It would also help create an economic boost if the procurement was channeled via domestic manufacturers, and also via household savings, due to reduced energy costs.
National parks
The UK has over 8,749 square miles of national parks spread over Scotland, Wales and England (Currently there are none in Northern Ireland). These encompass a wide range of environments from fenland to forest to heathland, to name but a few.
Many of the parks are man- made environments like the Peak and Lake Districts. This is driven by the large-s scale animal grazing such as upland sheep farming. Though it looks very beautiful to the eye, it is in fact a desert for most animals. Much of this area without this intervention would be upland forest.
The country should aim to reforest 20% of the national parks. This create a group of large, varied and bio-diverse rich environments which would be a positive for wildlife and humans. To reforest this amount of land it will be necessary to stop grazing. This will have an impact on some farmers. Therefore a compensation scheme should be introduced to reduce the size of flocks or if possible buy the farms out.
20% of the national parks is 1749.8 square miles or 1,119,872 acres. I am told that a healthy forest will have about 2000 trees per acre and suck in about 48lbs of CO02 per year. So that is 48,764,638 tonnes of CO2 taken out of the atmosphere every year.
New regional forests
Alongside the above, the country should aim to create new regional forests within easy reach of major towns and cities. The objective again should be about creating carbon sinks and increasing biodiversity.
These new forests though should be designed as leisure zones and therefore have good public transport links designed as part of their planting. They could incorporate lakes and rivers with boating, kayaking, water skiing, etc. The actual forests could include activity zones for families and even provide courses to educate people and bring them back into contact with both nature and food production.
The creation of 20 regional forests of just 5 miles squared would equal 500 square miles across the whole the UK. This is not much when you consider the UK is actually one the most deforested countries in western Europe.
That would be another 13,934,346 tonnes of CO2 scrubbed from the atmosphere per year.
This would also create jobs in tourism for the country. This new revenue would easily repay the cost of buying out landowners where the forests are grown. If done cleverly these new forests could be grown to connect existing forest and woodland therefore increasing the roaming zone for humans and nature.
National marine reserves
Overfishing is a massive concern with some predicting that there will be more plastic in the sea than fish by the middle of the century. This is a concern for the UK as well and its vital we do something about it.
With the exit of the UK from the EU and the dysfunctional Common Fisheries Policy it is important that a new legal structure is defined which puts sustainability at its centre. This new approach to fishing should be focused on the creation of a group of marine national parks around the UK. These marine reserves should be focused on increasing diversity and providing safe breeding grounds for fish.
The UK’s only marine protected area is around Lundy Island in the Bristol channel. Studies have shown that the zone has actually helped to increase both fish stocks and average size in the surrounding areas. So the creation of the marine national parks will protect the catch that is vital for the fishing industry.
This process can be helped by taking old military and commercial ships - removing any toxic materials and sinking them to form artificial reefs. These would both create ideal fish nurseries whilst providing unique dive environments encouraging tourism.
The actual parks should be created with the help of scientific research to maximise their value. Though it might be worth trying to create them where offshore wind turbines are being deployed and thus make fishing difficult anyway.
Animals routes
In spring and summer it is common to drive across the UK and see absolute carnage from roadkill. This has become ever more common as the volume of cars on the roads have increased but also the countryside has become segmented via road building. This has created islands of countryside which animals can’t move between without crossing roads with often tragic consequences.
This is actually not difficult to resolve as proven by Kenya which used to have multiple accidents involving elephants after they built a new highway splitting a wilderness area in two. As a response to this they built an underpass to allow elephants and other animals move freely without crossing traffic. The designers didn’t know if it would be successful but within a day or so cameras picked up the first herd of elephants passing through the underpass along with other animals. The same is already practised across Europe for deer populations.
The UK should aim to do the same on all major roads which cross the country. This could be implemented as part of the normal cycle of road upgrades and resurfacing. The aim to build tunnels every few miles which allow animals of various sizes to pass safely underneath roads from one area to another. These tunnels should be designed to allow the largest animals to pass and scientific advice should be sought. This would reduce animal road deaths, increase biodiversity and allow for the repopulation of areas which are currently blocked by roads. From an economic perspective, this would reduce cleanup costs from road kill and damage to cars.
Plastic recycling and refining
Plastic is one of the most useful materials ever created by humanity. The ease that it can be formed into nearly any shape with minimum amounts of energy is unbeatable. Much of modern life that we take for granted is built using plastics and other artificial polymers.
Unfortunately, plastics and polymers only break down very slowly normally due to sunlight or exposure to salt water or other corresives. This has meant that plastic pollution has become a worldwide problem on land and in the sea. This is not an insurmountable problem socially or technologically.
Recycling has been increasing for several decades across much of the world and it is something that Europe leads the way due to efforts from the EU. There are two major obstacles which need to be overcome to resolve the plastic pollution problem.
The first is that recycling rates in and out of the home have plateaued as most of the low hanging fruit has been picked. This is a challenge as there is still long way to go before we reach a sustainable recycling level. The second more serious issue is that much of the recycling output is exported where it is actually dumped. These are both solvable within a national framework.
Increasing recycling could be done by adopting an enhanced version of the Norwegian system. The system is very simple, you buy the bottle and get a refund when you return it to a recycling facility. By putting a monetary value on the bottle this encourages the population to collect and return as many as possible. There is absolutely no reason that this could not be extended to all plastic types including bottles, clothing, wrapping etc. This should lead to a massive increase in recycling rates by providing a incentive which would be linked potentially to the weight. This is common in other forms of recycling such as metals.
The best way to resolve concerns over the actual recycling is to process it in the country. This should be done via the creation of a network of plastic refineries which would use a new technique to boil plastics back to the components i.e oil, The technology is proven and is being deployed now. This would ensure that the UK is responsible for the plastic it uses and would also generate an additional flow of hydrocarbons for the national economy. These could be used for fuel or, more wisely, used for further manufacturing. This would further help the country economically by helping to reduce oil imports.
Taken together this should reduce the amount of plastic entering the environment and affecting wildlife. It would also reduce the amount of oil being consumed and hence reduce CO2 emissions. Thinking into the future it may become commercially viable for old refuse dumps to be re-opened and the plastics removed for recycling. This would further clean the environment for future generations.
Integrated rail and metro systems
A major issue the UK suffers from is short term planning on infrastructure. This is sadly a function of the electoral system but can be improved by creating a cross-party consensus. The aim should be to create a long-term national plan for developing the country which maximises output whilst rebalancing the economy away from the South East. An example of true long-term thinking would be to reconsider the white elephant that is HS2 which has marginal value due to the distance from London.
Instead, a new HS2 route could be agreed which would run the track up the side of the motorway to Nottingham, on to Edinburgh and perhaps over / under the Irish sea to Northern Ireland. This railway could be extended down to Dublin should the Republic of Ireland wish to be involved. A similar line could be built from London down to Bristol and the over / under the Bristol channel and onto to Cardiff.
Alongside this regional networks should be upgraded to make them more frequent, cheaper and environmentally friendly. This should start with a focus on the northern ones linking Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham. This would increase connectivity within and between regions. This should be linked to the existing public transport systems in major cities. Where applicable new subways and trams system should be constructed to allow easy access and increase capacity.
The aim should be to create an integrated nationwide public transport system. This will help reduce the amount of cars and airplanes used helping to lower CO2 emissions. It will also mean less road building and airport expansion. It should also rebalance growth away from London and the south east.
If done alongside efforts to reduce overall population it may even lead to London shrinking.
Going Nuclear and dealing with the past
The advent of electric cars means we will need much more electricity - a lot more. Some of this can be produced via renewables but the UK still needs a base load of reliable electricity and this needs to be planned and construction started soon. Though everyone hates it nuclear is the most logical source being both low in CO2 emissions (Zero from generation) and a technology we have used for nearly 70 years.
The risks are real but can be mitigated using good design and logical deployment. A first step should be to cancel the Hinkley point station that is being built by EDF. This design is unproven with EDF struggling to complete two in Finland and France. It is also highly unlikely the company will have the money to complete the project as massively in debt. This would be welcomed by the French government which suspects it will need to bailout the company.
A better approach would be to use public money to build either Japanese or Korean designs which are proven and much less complicated. These could be produced at a much lower cost and help to quickly replace older nuclear power stations in the UK which are being decommissioned. These could be built at Hinkley point or Sellafield or other locations.
But before we generate more it is important that the country deals with waste generated by the historical nuclear program. This is mostly stored at Sellafield which is one of the most polluted industrial sites in western Europe.
Firstly the current highly radioactive used fuel rods etc need to be recycled to create new fuel and it made a legal requirement that any plant operating in the UK must use these where applicable. The aim should be to use this fuel which would massively reduce its radioactivity on each cycle meaning that it will be safer quicker.
Secondary a location needs to be found to store much of the leftover radioactive waste. This is vital as by 2030 the UK will have generated 1.4 million cubic metres of low level waste (LLW), 260 thousand cubic metres of intermediate level waste (ILW) and 3 thousand cubic metres of high level nuclear waste (HLW). This can’t stay indefinitely at Sellafield though much of it will not need to be stored longer term.
The objective should be to remove the HLW to a deep mined geological facility. This needs to be secure and somewhere it will not impact the broader environment. A potential way to deal with this would be to pay a community indefinitely to host the site near them. This would include a quarterly payment to every household based on how near they are to the storage site. This should be coupled by with an extremely transparent process with yearly updates on the site and its contents and also widely deployed radiative sensors with publicly available data.
It is unacceptable that we should leave this for future generations.
Improved farming
The UK imports 48% of the food it consumes and this percentage is increasing. This is partly a function of the size of the population but also because we have some of the best supermarkets in the world which sell such a wide variety of produce. This is a benefit for the population which gets to enjoy foods from around the world, all year and at a price that is very affordable.
This is problematic though for a number of reasons.
At an economic level it contributes to the UK’s trade deficit which is already negative. More importantly the country has no food security meaning that in an economic or military crisis the UK could not feed itself - think WW2 on steroids. Finally it is bad for the environment due to CO2 emissions created by the transportation of food over great distances and also some of the negative farming practices used in many countries especially the emerging markets. Beyond that ‘Horsegate’ and other food scares have demonstrated that longer logistic chains make it harder to ensure quality and safety.
It may never be possible or desirable to stop all food imports. The large selection we enjoy is partly a function of being able to exchange food production with other others. Furthermore many countries rely on our imports for money. We should though aim to reduce the volume of imports and ensure that at a basic level we are better able to feed ourselves.
We need a nationwide effort to create a quantum leap in agriculture production and we should look to the Netherlands as a template. In 2000 the Dutch government launched a national commitment to double food production whilst halving the amount of inputs needed. This involved the deployment of cutting edge scientific research and technology and the results have been impressive. On many crops water use has been reduced by 90% and chemical fertilizer has been eliminated. In livestock and poultry farming the amount of antibiotics has been gone down by 60%.
This has been done in partnership between universities and business to create innovative systems to ensure sustainability whilst increasing production. Examples of this innovation include creating specialised soil for individual crops helping to boost yields. Particular insects types have been identified which when disseminated into the crops act as a natural pest control. More importantly the partnership has led to new seed types generated not via modern genetic modification but molecular breeding. This is an enhanced version of traditional selective breeding but combined with modern genetic mapping. Cheap, efficient and has enhanced crop yields massively.
This has been twinned with the deployment of cutting edge physical technology. Driverless tractors have been deployed to help till and process the fields. Much of the farming takes place in hi tech greenhouses which allows for the use of LED lighting and heating systems to actively optimise the growing environment. Alongside this drones are used to measure soil chemistry, water content, nutrients and growth rates. Information is fed back in real time. Due to this most of the farms are powered directly via renewable energy and watered via rainwater reducing environmental impacts. It has combined to mean that yields have shot up, outputs have declined precipitously down and the food quality continuously improves.
There is nothing here that the UK can’t replicate or even improve with leadership from both government and business. This should be tied to setting up an agricultural investment bank to provide seed and slow capital to the sector to aid with the change.
This would help the environment by reducing CO2 and also harmful farming practices. It would reduce water usage which in a potentially warming world could be important. Finally though more farm land would be enclosed in green houses to maximum the yield, this would free up under productive land which could be used for rewilding projects including forest.
Conclusion
Moving into the future I believe the green lobby should focus raising awareness of the problems we face whilst providing realistic policies backed up by fleshed out plans on how to deploy them. This would help to provide momentum by stopping politicians and people avoiding action as too difficult or overwhelming.
The object of this blog was to throw some of my ideas down for public consumption which I think are highly achievable. Individually they will not solve our many problems but taken together they could form the basis of a brighter, far more sustainable future for the UK. That it will require the people of the UK to demand it and elect politicians who are able to deliver it.
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