is this blog too earnest?

probably. So here's an important story from the Daily Mash

Humans to stick with oil

HUMANS are to continue to base their societies on a highly toxic substance that obviously costs far too much money. As the price of oil reached yet another high for transparently artificial reasons, across the Earth humans vowed to stick with it even though it has clearly made their lives immeasurably worse in almost every conceivable way.

Bill McKay, a senior oil industry analyst at Donnelly-McPartlin, said: "Volatility Libya demand equals two China spikes and a triple Opec. Unstable India-Brazil spiked by Kuwaiti-Brent Opec demand as crude Libya instability Chinas a volatile Saudi."

He added: "Vortex of uncertainty."

McKay said the price of oil would continue to rise because and warned that if you stop using it people will think you're weird. McKay's analysis was backed by Professor Martin Bishop, the Nobel prize-winning economist who first developed the theory that large companies could make a lot of money by charging whatever they felt like.

He said: "Oil is the basis of our society for four incredibly good reasons: One, it is controlled largely by corrupt psychopaths in places like Libya, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Texas.

"Two, as it starts to run out it will become even more expensive leading to a series of exciting wars while we wait until there is none left before deciding to use something else.

"Three, every time the price increases it fucks up everything."

"And four, it gives off lots of delicious carbon dioxide and has killed more than 248 billion fish."

Bishop's analysis was backed by everyone who stressed that without oil they would be rooted to the spot and would eventually die of starvation and lack of plastic.

They also said that using different things to make things go was impossibly complicated and hopefuly illegal.

Tom Logan, from Peterborough, said: "If there was even such a thing as solar power I would be against it. Mainly because it doesn't smell of anything but also because the people who are in favour of it are homosexual.

"They put on bright red lipstick and kiss each other on the penis and then they all skip around a solar panel wearing fancy pink lace."

He added: "I'll die before I drive a car that likes bottom”

Gawd save us - another Quango

A short, depressed post.

I read, on the SAS website that there's a new(ish) marine management body (the MMO) to look after our seas. Er good?

Their website says, "We are a new executive non-departmental public body (NDPB) ...as a cross-government delivery partner...." If that doesn't scare the bejaysus out of you it probably should. What does it mean? Maybe I'm a cynic, but shouldn't it be a government department doing this? You know something run by a directly elected and accountable member of parliament. I don't want an independent body - when it comes to the protection of the seas around Britain, I want the Prime Minister himself at the point where the buck stops. We elected him and his cronies to look after our interests and yet another quango is not the answer.

The short history of quangos proves, pretty unequivocally that they're not up to the job of governing and policing important aspects of the country (I give you the Environment Agency or CSA as examples).

The Crown estate is technically in charge of the beaches and the seas, which means that the Queen should really be in charge, and god save her, she'd probably be a more diligent and protective guardian than the government.

"The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has been established to make a significant contribution to sustainable development in the marine area and to promote the UK government’s vision for clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas.

We are a new executive non-departmental public body (NDPB) established and given powers under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009. This ground-breaking act brings together for the first time key marine decision-making powers and delivery mechanisms.

We have incorporated the work of the Marine and Fisheries Agency (MFA) and acquired several important new roles, principally marine-related powers and specific functions previously associated with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Department for Transport (DfT).

The establishment of the MMO as a cross-government delivery partner therefore marks a fundamental shift in planning, regulating and licensing activity in the marine area with the emphasis on sustainable development."

Which is a lot of words to say, 'we'll be ineffective and powerless.'

"The short answer to that is, no."

The Guardian is reporting that the Government is set for another major U-turn over plans to dispose of Forestry Commission land.

David Cameron is to back away from plans to change the ownership of 258,000 hectares of state-owned woodland in England after admitting to MPs he is unhappy with the policy. The prime minister indicated that the government would embark on another major U-turn after Ed Miliband asked him in the Commons whether he was happy with his flagship policy to sell off the forests.

To laughter, the prime minister replied: "The short answer to that is, no."

The government will clarify its plans in the next few days, but Cameron will argue the coalition is not being forced into a policy about-turn because the forest plans are no more than a consultation.

"It is a consultation that was put forward," Cameron said. "We've had a range of interesting responses to this consultation. What is important is that we should be making sure that, whatever happens, we increase access to our forests, we increase biodiversity and we don't make the mistake that was made under the last government where they sold forests with no access rights at all."

The government has been under intense pressure since the environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, unveiled plans last year to dispose of about half of the 748,000 hectares of woodland run by the Forestry Commission by 2020. Spelman has faced intense criticism from Conservative MPs who have been confronted by angry protests from constituents who believe the government is showing a lack of sensitivity to a key fabric of the nation.

The government, which hoped the sale would generate as much as £100m, had earmarked the Forestry Commission for substantial reform in its review of quangos.

The government indicated over the weekend that it was shying away from the sale when it took 40,000 hectares of public forest off the market. The last Labour government had allowed about 15% of England's public forests to be sold.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said it would refrain from selling the forests until the government had decided what to do with the rest of the Forestry Commission's land.

Miliband mocked Cameron during prime minister's questions over the plans. The Labour leader said: "Even he must appreciate the irony. The guy who made the tree the symbol of the Conservative party flogging them off round this country. He says they are consulting on this policy. They are actually consulting on how to flog off the forests, not whether to sell off the forests. Is the prime minister now saying that he might drop the policy completely?"

Cameron replied: "I would have thought the whole point about a consultation is that you put forward some proposals, you listen to the answer and then you make a decision. I know it is a totally alien concept but what is so complicated about that?"

Miliband said: "Everybody knows you have to drop this ludicrous policy. Let me give him the chance to do it. Nobody voted for this policy; 500,000 people have signed a petition against the policy. Why doesn't he, when he gets up at the dispatch box, say not say he is postponing the sale but say he is cancelling it?"

Cameron replied: "Once again, he read the question before he listened to the answer. I think the bandwagon has just hit a bit of a tree.

Wind turbines and solar panels turn viaduct into generator

Green civil engineering on a bonkers scale . we like. of course.

The pictures tell the story but the details are here

opting out of the social future?

A few selected readers have received an ultra-personalised cover on their issue of Wired this month. "We wanted to see how much personal data we could easily find about them from publicly available sources -- as a means of emphasising some of the points made in our cover story on "what the end of privacy means for you".

And the amount of information that is available from legitimate sources is very alarming (the choice of Andy Coulson as the example cover star is perhaps too ironic) , but most worrying is the amount of information we are now voluntarily and carelessly sharing with the world - if often unwittingly. In his cerebral essay for Wired, Sharing Is A Trap, Andrew Keen paints a dark Orwellian picture, not of the distant future, but of the present.

Both articles are worth a read, and then sign in to facebook and see how many of your privacy settings are set to 'friends of friends'... do you really want to be sharing that widely and randomly? This is not an ill-informed scare-story, but a well thought out meditation on the inevitable stripping away of our privacy; layer by layer. To quote from Keen's article 'Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, the smiling utilitarian at the heart of this social darkness, has even come up with his own law to imagine the future of the trap he is laying for us all. "I would expect that next year people will share twice as much information as they share this year, and the next year they will be sharing twice as much as they did before," Zuckerberg's Law states.' And as he has publicly acknowledged elsewhere, 'privacy is dead'.

Having successfully navigated a month without beer, I am seriously considering a month without Facebook....just to see who I miss...and who misses me. And because I don't like the idea that the likes of Zuckerberg are arbitrarily farming my social life to build fantastic wealth - or to build anything else. I doubt that they have my best interests at heart.

(click on the image to see the details)

Papier-mache milk “GreenBottles”

Nice idea reported in Wired - An eco-friendly, papier-mache milk carton from an inventor called Martin Myerscough, has won over local dairies, and is now being trialled in Asda shops around the country.

The need for biodegradable and more recyclable milk bottle designs is a pressing concern. The traditional plastic milk carton can be recycled, but if it's chucked onto a landfill site, it will take some 500 years to decompose.

In 2007, the Environment Agency said Britain's West Midland landfills have only enough room for the seven more years of waste, if residents keep throwing it away at the current rate.

This new design, named GreenBottles, has a much longer lifespan, and decomposes much quicker when spent. The outer shell is made of thin, but sturdy, papier-mache, which can recycled up to seven times and then only takes a few weeks to decompose on the compost heap.

Inside, the milk is held in a plastic lining. It's not quite as environmentally friendly as the paper exterior, but it will take up less than 0.5 percent of the space of a plastic bottle when dumped.

Local Suffolk dairies were the first to trial the new eco-friendly packaging, and a handful of Asda stores in East Anglia have been using the bottle for a number of months. This week, the bottle will go nationwide, starting in Cornwall. "GreenBottles have hit the South West this week, we're now in stores in St Austell, Bodmin, Falmouth and Newquay," says the bottle's official Facebook page.

The paper bottles are greener, but not necessarily cheaper. With the expensive paper cases being manufactured in Turkey, the new bottles are actually about the same price to make as the plastic ones. But if they become more popular, bulk-production methods could mean price decreases.