Environment

Yes, yes, just to get the obligatory ‘of courses’ out of the way up front: of course ‘weather’ is not the same as ‘climate’; and of course the thickest iciest ice on record could well be evidence of ‘global warming’, just as 40-and-sunny and a 35-below blizzard and 12 degrees and partly cloudy with occasional showers are all apparently manifestations of ‘climate change’; and of course the global warm-mongers are entirely sincere in their belief that the massive carbon footprint of their rescue operation can be offset by the planting of wall-to-wall trees the length and breadth of Australia, Britain, America and continental Europe. But still: you’d have to have

This week’s issue of Country Life magazine has been guest-edited by the Prince of Wales. As long term perspectives disappear from national debate, we should all be grateful for his presence in public life, says Ben Goldsmith. It is hard to name an area of modern life which has not been overcome by short-term considerations. Companies sacrifice long-term growth for their quarterly financial reports, politicians are blind beyond the next election, and the attention span of rolling news channels is shorter than ever. In cricket, the deep satisfaction of a five-day Test Match is threatened by one day or even shorter match formats. Long termism speaks with a quiet voice; a voice that has been all but obliterated. The Prince of

Climate change has done more good than harm so far and is likely to continue doing so for most of this century. This is not some barmy, right-wing fantasy; it is the consensus of expert opinion. Yet almost nobody seems to know this. Whenever I make the point in public, I am told by those who are paid to insult anybody who departs from climate alarm that I have got it embarrassingly wrong, don’t know what I am talking about, must be referring to Britain only, rather than the world as a whole, and so forth. At first, I thought this was just their usual bluster. But then I realised

The grey long-eared bat is threatened by extinctions, according to various news reports this morning. Scientists at the University of Bristol, who made the discovery, have called for more protection of ‘foraging’ habitat in marshland and lowland meadow in southern England, where the climate is ideal for the grey long-eared bat. The scientists will probably get what they want, because the Bat Conservation Trust wants for nothing. Melissa Kite explains in this week’s issue of the Spectator: ‘Imagine: it’s Sunday morning, and the warden of a medieval village church arrives to get the place ready for communion only to find the altar covered in bat droppings.  As he gets scrubbing,

Marc Rich, the godfather of global commodity trading who died last week, ‘deserves credit as one of the greatest creators and sharers of wealth in business history’, wrote James Breiding in the Financial Times in a counterblast to obituarists who had painted the secretive Swiss-based billionaire and former fugitive from US justice as ‘a flamboyant, tax-evading crook’. Bill Clinton certainly saw the better angel in Rich’s nature, granting a presidential pardon for his embargo-busting dealings with Iran against all precedent and advice. But leaving aside the unpatriotic oil trades and the unpaid taxes (not to mention the former Mrs Rich’s timely donation to the Clinton Library), is Breiding right to

Good luck to all the animal rights activists setting off this weekend to harass the members of the Game and Wildlife “Conservancy” Trust shooting blameless badgers. The cull, which could stretch to 100,000 of the poor bloody animals, makes no more sense than our determination to get involved in Syria’s civil war. The government department DEFRA has been in the pockets of the gamekeepers and farmers since – oddly enough – May 2010; conservation is out and a brutal supposed utilitarianism is in. Expect more in the way of culling – it’ll be magpies and assorted corvines next, on the pretext that they endanger our songbirds (which common sense tells

The section of the A83 that runs between Loch Long and Loch Fyne in western Scotland is known as the Rest and Be Thankful. It would be better described as the Get the Hell out of Here. For this, as far as I can tell, is the British trunk road most afflicted by landslips. The soil on the brae above the road is highly unstable. There have been six major slips since 2007, which have shut the road for a total of 34 days. The cost of these closures is estimated at about £290,000 a year. It’s a minor miracle that no one has yet been killed. The Scottish government

Are wind turbines really good for the environment? The economics, as we know, is often deeply dubious. But in this week’s Spectator, Oxford biological lecturer Clive Hambler reveals another drawback: the slaughter inflicted on birds and bats caught in the blades. Hambler argues that despite death tolls from numerous sources in various countries, many environmentalists are not being thorough with their questioning of renewable energy. In Britain, this argument isn’t made much — but overseas, as Hambler says, they’re realising the damage inflicted on nature: ‘Every year in Spain alone — according to research by the conservation group SEO/Birdlife — between 6 and 18 million birds and bats are killed by

Even the most ardent supporters of renewable energy would agree that wind turbines should be erected only when the output is worthwhile. If a huge rotating beast is to blot a corner of the British countryside, then it must produce as much energy as is feasibly possible. However, this does not appear always to be the case. In my article for this week’s Spectator, we uncover an abuse of government subsidies, in which green developers erect large turbines and then throttle the output (known as ‘de-rating’) in order to maximise profits: ‘Under the government’s Feed-In Tariff (FIT) scheme, which aims to make renewable energies competitive with fossil fuels, the size of a turbine is measured not by height but by power output. If a turbine pumps

Anyone know a good method of trapping mice humanely? I’ve got lots of them scurrying around. I bought two humane traps and have so far caught ten of the creatures. But there’s a design flaw; the mice get trapped inside a narrow black box for far too long. The manufacturers say the mice shouldn’t be left inside for more than six hours – but of course they are caught at night, just after I’ve gone to bed, so they ALWAYS are left for more than six hours in the trap. Inside they are terrified and get way too hot. Of the ten I caught, one died and six or seven

Another day and another unasked for letter asking me to live online. This time it is from my bank, NatWest – and yes, yes, thank you I know that by not moving my account to a reputable bank I am endorsing the pocket-lining incompetents who helped bring Britain to its knees, but as gleeful financiers say: bank customers are more likely to divorce than change banks. The heirs and successors to Fred Goodwin say they will now send me a bank statement once every three months instead of once a month. They will save on the cost of paper and postage if I agree, and I suppose that in the

The 2013 Matt Ridley Prize is now open. Click here for more details. When Matt Ridley offered £8,500 for the best prize essay for environmental heresy, we at The Spectator expected lots of entries. But what took us by surprise was the quality of the submissions. The winner is Pippa Cuckson, whose piece on hydropower is the cover story of this week’s magazine. The judges had a pretty tough task. There were quite a few brilliant demolitions of environmentalism in general: as Stephen Hawking said at the Paralympic Games opening ceremony, the enemy of knowledge isn’t ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. It could sum up the problem with rational