Category: Geography

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COP 30

Do not let the fascists and deniers win! Starmer is retreating as Reform do well in the polls – but it does not have to be like this. Musk has launched a competitor to Wikipedia and the right wing knuckle draggers and flag shaggers have referred to Wiki as Wokepedia thus identifying there greatest weakness. FACTS. Wiki is fact checked and whilst tgere have been mistakes it is very good and accurate. The right wing hate this attention to facts, much preferring to brag about the lies they circulate on social media.

I recognise that there will often be disputes about facts, and that even substantiated ones may sometimes be disproven. However when even the POTUS sprouts garbage we have a problem. Paracetamol does not have any supporting evidence for causig autism – fact, but if Trump says so! But I can make up my own mind about that – but climate change affects every single one of us. The theory is indisputable; the impacts verified; but still the empty heads claim it is a left wing conspiracy! Fuck me, how stupid can these people be, and then gullible to extreme levels.

270 million were made homeless in the last decade by climate change, and 117 million by war. Is there a bigger exlistentual threat to our planet. My apples had fewer insect intrusions than ever before – I guess this should be welcomed, but I use no insecticides and the bird feeder was used less often. I just realised that I had jumped from 250 million homeless to maggot free apples – however they are linked inextricably.

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HURRICANE MELISSA

Hurricane Melissa has developed into a Category 5 hurricane over the warm seas of the Caribbean (2 degrees warmer than the norm). What this means is 250kph winds and a storm surge of upto 4m. The storm is slow moving and could also bring a metre of rain. The hurricane will cause widespread damage and hit the economy. If only it hit Miami! Not to kill people, but a huge impact on the U.S. might at least the MAGA idiots rethink? On reflection probably not, they would just blame democrats for upsetting God!

Will it bring heavy rainfall to the UK in a couple of weeks? I suspect so. Maybe it will coincide with Starmer announcing a step back of green energy promises? I was a Labour Paty member until recently, but Labour seem to be almost as clueless as the last jerks. Raising Nat. Ins. was, in retrospect wrong, and harmed the economy. A wealth tax would have been/be better. I see lots of houses being built, but no drop in prices. I read that on average rent is 45% of wages – fucking ridiculous. Introduce a rent freeze for 3 years – that would allow people to plan ahead. If new houses are not being bought to rent out the price should fall. I am sorry if tat means some people end up with negative equity – but the gravy train for landlords and house builders and banks needs to be halted. If only 10% of income was unnecessarily going to rent/mortgage and could be retained by tenants and mortgagees we would see a booming economy. Workers could be paid a fair wage, food quality could rise and people would not resent the taxes which pay for the NHS and Education and Police and so many others who make this country great.

So I do not think Labour are brave enough or even have the intellectual ability to be bold. I live in a 3 bed bungalow – by myself. Make me pay for this anti-social behaviour! My house value has more than doubled in the last 25 years and I have made no great improvements (unless you count my wildlife garden!).

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COAL

So India celbrated passing 1bn tonnes of coal extracted and burnt. Oceans warming, increased species extinction, Iceland has mosquitos for the first time, Forests continue to be felled unsustainably. Will humans be clever enough to solve the problems of melting glaciers, rising sea levels and, as yet unforseen catastrophes? Well the signs are there – the traffic lights are amber and yet our politicians carry on regardless – but nothing funny about this carry on! Hey folks – burning your clothes and matresses this winter will keep you warm – but you will be fucked in the future! Farage and tory followers want to increase fossil fuel burning ‘because it keeps the energy costs down’. Basically they are saying screw the environment as I will be dead before the shit hits the fan – ‘hopefully’.

However there are positive signs – one in five new cars sold last year in the UK was electric, in China nearly half. However I am not sure we are doing enough to protect our oceans. Just because they seem endless, and are 80% of earths surface area, they should not be ignored. They are the carbon sink and the oxygen provider for life on earth.

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FACT CHECKING

Do we fact check enough? I was talking in the shop and pointed out that the number of people crossing into the UK was 25000. (fact check it was 36000 in 2024 and higher this year), My colleague then said “per day” and he was serious! The publicity has distorted reality by that much. My colleague is not right wing, and would classify him as reasonably intelligent but also someone who does not follow the news. He was shocked when I said per year, genuinely shocked! Also of the 36000 about 5000 (mostly from Albania) were returned and with about 68% granted asylum. they were mostly from Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Albania, Syria, and Eritrea. 73 people died attempting the crossing.

International asylum law, primarily established by the 1951 Refugee Convention, protects individuals fleeing persecution in their home countries. It grants the right to seek asylum in another country and outlines the responsibilities of states towards refugees. Key aspects include the principle of non-refoulement, ensuring that refugees are not returned to places where they face persecution.  It is not true that they must seek asylum in the first country they visit. France in 2023 had about 167000 asylum seekers whilst the UK had 67000 in total. Asylum seekers in the UK typically receive £49.18 per week for each person in self-catered accommodation to cover essential living needs like food, toiletries, and clothing.If they are in catered accommodation (where meals are provided), they receive £8.86 per week

The latest scam by Reform is to highlight the number of illegal immigrants (those staying without permission. Obviously this number is unknown so there is a difficulty fact checking and it allows the hateful to elaborate and exaggerate. What we do know is that the last government were abject in this area, like most others. Hence this government suggesting a ID Card. Estimates put us as second only to Germany in the numbers of unregistered migrants. There seems to be some grey area here, in theory a 20 year residence in this country gives a permanent residence permission – but stories of the Windrush Generation and deportations by the Home Office vary with this interpretation! I am not sure about ID cards – they have them across most of Europe but I really do not have the info!

Statistics Showing the Impact of Immigrants on the UK Economy and Society. The economic and societal impacts of immigration in the UK are significant. According to the Office for National Statistics, migrants contribute approximately £83 billion to the UK’s economic output annually.

It is impossible to know the exact number of illegal migrants in the UK because some people successfully evade border controls and remain undetected, while others enter legally but their status becomes irregular later on. However, estimates suggest there are between 417,000 and 863,000 irregular migrants in the UK, including UK-born children.  farless than the figures quoted by Reform and Farage (the source of these stats admit that they are flawed!)

So these are the facts as provided by respected authorities.

PS. I just put inials on apples so that they rippen with my grandchildrens inials embedded in the skins as the ripen.n



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CHINA

Why now? The BBC website has 2 major articles about China – both vaguely hostile. The first was about Chinese plans for a new embassy. I am sure that all the embassies of major countries are riddled with spying equipment – even the so called friendly ones – all will have their spy networks. So the article seemed rather hostile. China is far from a beacon of democracy but more later. The second article was about Chinese students at Uni in the UK being asked to spy on fellow students. The article went further to state that university lecturers were being ‘encouraged’ to avoid certain topics.

Both these articles have elements of truth – China is bit of a mystery to most of us. When young in 1950’s my dad sowed the seeds of nightmares by saying that there were so many Chinese that if we went to war with them ‘they would just over run us’. As a geographer I know a bit about China, and a little of its history. But basically I am ignorant about it and try to avoid imposing my own beliefs when hearing about China. I am aware that China has been more than nasty regarding  alleged ethnic cleansing in China’s Xinjiang region. Hong Kong has also raised questions regarding western style democracy. Tibet is another issue, although huge investments in infrastructure have been made. The big issue is Taiwan. Here Trump needs to be very careful in withdrawing the US from its world power.

China is also used as an excuse for not pursuing green energy projects. Yet China has an indisputable lead in installation of renewable energy – and yes it has a lot of coal power stations. China  Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below $1.90 per day – the International Poverty Line as defined by the World Bank to track global extreme poverty– has fallen by close to 800 million. That is fucking amazing! Maybe we should be pushing Chairman Xi for a Nobel Peace Prize?

In the realms of fairness as I have mentioned a lot of negatives about China. The USA is attempting to defund universities that have criticised Trump. ICE is arresting and deporting citizens born in the USA (with glee). In the UK an 80 year old woman was arrested and her house searched for – holding a Palestinian flag and a banner stating that Israel should stop killing Palestinians.

Can I make a philosophical comment here? And I have thought it through so it may be open to much criticism. “A nation should not be judged on its successes, but how it handles its failures”. I was thinking about the Windrush generations, Hillsborough, Grenville Tower, miners riots under Thatcher, bean field debacle, PollTax riots. Our recent history of dealing with civil disobedience and dissention is not great.

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SOME LIKE IT HOT!

A quick look at this weeks stories – Greece, Turkey, and France are among several popular holiday destinations in Europe currently struggling with devastating wildfires following record-breaking heatwaves. Tourists and business travelers alike have had their travel plans disrupted or are now reconsidering their journeys due to safety concerns. Travelers are left questioning their options as wildfires continue to threaten these picturesque regions.

Wildfires across Europe this summer have increased dramatically, with destinations including mainland Greece, Greek islands like Rhodes and Crete, parts of Turkey, southern France, and the Balkans heavily affected. Extreme heat saw temperatures soaring to a staggering 50.5°C in Silopi, Turkey, and reaching 44°C in cities such as Athens and regions of Cyprus, intensifying the blaze and making it difficult to control. New York and New Jersey are also suffering from flooding.

Santa’s reindeer are suffering in the heat! https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/02/nordic-countries-hit-by-truly-unprecedented-heatwave

Beijing has had massive floods and mudslides are affecting Columbia and Venezuela.

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EPPING

Naked agression towards the police should result in harsh penalties. Social media is probably a culprit in spreading the words of a demo. Shut them down for 24 hours and doubling? The police have 200+ clear images of the violent perpetrators – prosecute them. If they were campaigning against the Jewish genocide in Gaza or against the climate crisis which threatens us all they would now be in jail.

The one law for one and another for the rest also applies to water. Water companies have built up debts of over £60 billion whilst paying huge bonus payments and dividends, whilst at the same time dumping sewage in our rivers and seas. Senior Whitehall figures (bullshit speak for rich white publicly educated males) have said that pollutin fines may put firms off from investing. They can fuck off! nationalise them – no compensation. If foreign companies do not wish to invest in companies unless the economics are weighed in there favour – well then they can FO too.

Andrea Jenkyn state that climate change did not exist and was just a money making racket. Obviously appealing to knuckle draggers. Obviously thick as shit, but how many due brains voted for her? In teaching climate change I never once was questioned about the safety of my results as I presented. TBH there is no doubt.

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WEATHER

The tragedy in Texas was horrific – possibly 80 dead – after 250mm of rain fell in just 3 hours. Of course people are looking for someone, or some organisation to blame. Is it facetious to suggest that it maybe referred to as “An act of god”. This term is used to identify unpredictable events and is much used by insurance policies to avoid claims. And it was a summer camp for Christian girls. Just sayin’ thats all!

Analysis of the weather event has pointed to the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry which passed over the Gulf of Mexico (or can it be natures way of rebelling against Trump’s renaming it the Gulf of America? This lifted huge amounts of moisture into the atmosphere above Texas. And the hurricanes season in the south-west North Atlantic has only just begun. As a former geography teacher I have long taught that in a hurricane the wind is of less importance than the storm surge and the excess rainfall. It is predicted to be a busy year for hurricanes – but one can never be 100% certain about long range forecasts. However I can be certain that there will be another horrendous hurican in the next couple of years. With higher temperatures there is more evaporation, and thus more flooding. I am not sure about the formation of tornado’s, but …. they are more likely to proliferate with conditions favouring their development.

There is also a human element here. Apparently floods were not unusual – why was there no escape plan? Yes it rained a lot and the river rose rapidly. But with so many little girls resident, surely there should have been an evacuation procedure. If this event had occured on a Geography field trip there is absolutely no way in which we would not have evacuated the area. Radio warnings were given. Gross negligence seems to have occurred!

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TV

It is time for TV companies to get topical – something they use to justify the blanket coverage of the racist Reform Party. My proposal a weekly bulletin about the climate crisis. It should include extreme weather events from around the world – todays bulletin would include the Texas floods and the heat wave in the Mediterranean. It should also braodcast the abount of renewable energy produced weekly (or daily). Green initiatives could be highlighted with expert input. It could also report on sewage events – name and shame. It could also include debate between climate deniers and green proponents.

National Grid https://grid.iamkate.com stats show 71.5% of energy used at this moment was renewable. I do not care about the arguments that it is daytime and breezy. This is 71.5% of non-polluting energy now. If we can scale this up and add battery storage we can lead the world. The Guardian today has a report on balcony solar panels – cost abot £2000. I know many cannot afford this but maybe some of the UK’s wealthy cound set up a fund to support. My solar panels repaid in 8 years and this year have been spectacular!

PS. My wild garden is well known, but I wonder just how effective it is? Does it attract insects and other wildlife? Does it lower the temperature in summer and raise it in winter? And I know I get a financial result from the herbs and Mulberries at the front and the tomato and raspberries at the back. My little apple tree is now 3m around and the replacement apricot tree is doing ok. It sounds like I have a large garden but this is not true, about 10m wide and 5m at front and 10m at back. It is wild though! A dozen roses and a large sage and a large rosemary, also thyme and a variety of mints. And tomato and a cucumber and basil in greenhouse. Some neighbours are restricting mowing – whether for ecological reasons or just lazy I have no idea!

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VENICE and Tourism

So Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez thought their wealth would enable them to “hire” Venice. The obscenity of their extravagant display of wealth was however no match for locals who threatened to flood the canals with plastic crocodiles!. However there are a reported 95 private planes flying in for the wedding. The cost is gross, and did Ms Sanchez’s space flight count as a bachelorette party? Venice is blighted by too much tourism anyway – cruise ships over 25000 tonnes have already been banned due to the congestion and pollution cased.

Unrest is spreading across the Mediterranean Region. House prices have risen by double in some cities. But wages are low in tourism, locals are forced to leave as properties are bought up to turn into Airbnb and apartments. Tourists flock from Northern European countries and movements to restrict these migrants are growing in momentum, despite the jobs they bring. Even some areas of the UK are imposing surcharges on holiday stay overs. Councils have the right to increase council tax on second homes.

So this has become a difficult problem. The right to holiday away from home in a nice environment versus the right to be able to live in ones home area. Congestion in Cornwall can be horrific at times, and parking is expensive. House prices in Cornwall have soared (especially due to covid). House pices in villages make the traditional small cottages extortionately expensive. A parking space in a laybye was sold in St.Ives for over £50000. Is there an equitable answer? Probably not. Places like Cornwall and west Wales are too remote for the growth of employment hubs. Wages are therefore depressed and often seasonal.

But conversely it is surely every workers right to escape from the urban existence once a year? 2nd home ownership is perhaps the worst example. 1 in 19 homes in Cornwall is a second home. 19000 properties are classified as second homes. Occupancy levels are 89% in peak season – but statistics out of season are difficult to obtain The average salary in Cornwall is £34.6k, according to Cornwall Community Foundation, while the UK average salary is £42.2k.  Education levels of achievement are also lower commensurate with the employment opportunities offered. And still the Numpties voted for Brexit that cut off a lifeline of investment! It is definitely a problem – solution ?????