Plan to sell off nature reserves risks 'austerity countryside'

[SarzWix]

How about you quote and comment on the last paragraph of my post then? Which IMO has more to do with the OP than bashing the Met Office does

[snohare]

Getting back to the original point, I just heard today that Mar Lodge Estate in the Cairngorms - a National Trust for Scotland property - is going up for sale. Don't know if this is public knowledge yet, but one thing is for sure - any multimillionaire who buys it will not be as keen to worry about the birds and beasties as the NTS have been, there is no chance of the Rangers who currently work there keeping on with all their wildlife monitoring and protection programmes. Quite the opposite, it is more likely that drainage changes will be reversed to provide more ground for commercial shooting.

And the UK's weather is driven by high and low pressure systems - which are affected by anything from sunlight to clouds and volcanic ash.

So the Met Office to do a 100 year forecast which has any meaning has to accurately forecast volcanic eruptions...

There is a difference between weather and climate; qualitative as well as quantative. It is the difference between throwing a bucket of water and forecasting where the water will go, and doing the same thing but trying to forecast where an individual drop of water will go. At present, we simply do not have the modelling power to say what will happen on a small scale, because we do not have the measurements on a local scale to tell us how the laws of atmospheric chemistry are affected by, or affect, small differences in geography. When you only measure once in a cubic kilometre of atmosphere, treating the conditions the same everywhere in that kilometre, all you can do is tell what the laws of physics will do on a large scale in time and volume.
Throw in sunspots (which are a wild card, admittedly) and you get extremely variable and unpredictable weather, but you still know how things will turn out in the long term.
There are no climatologists who claim that man alone changes the climate. However whenever I hear the old chestnut that "But you can't be sure that it is man who is changing the climate, it has changed in the past" I always remember that the same people who first discovered that it has changed in the past, and measured that, are also the people measuring incredibly fast changes now (2ppm per year ! ) and making measurements telling us that manmade emissions are 130 times greater than natural emissions. ( I got that from Wikipedia.)
If you walked into your living room and it was filled with smoke, would you just assume someone was smoking a single cigarette ?

[Madasafish]

<i>and making measurements telling us that manmade emissions are 130 times greater than natural emissions</i>

Ignore Wikipedia..

Manmade emissions are nothing compared to a major volcanic eruption... Factors of hundreds and thousands are involved...

http://www.nerc.ac.uk/publications/p...xtinctions.pdf

"The masses could be
prodigious, with a single 1000km3
eruption emitting 10,000 megatonnes
(mt) of sulphur dioxide and 25,000mt of
carbon dioxide. Some flows may be more
than ten times this size; and an entire
flood basalt province, such as the Siberian
Traps or Deccan Traps, is built from
many hundreds of such eruptions. To put
these masses into perspective, a 1000km3
lava flow would cover the area of
Leicestershire to a depth of almost 400
metres; and the 1990 global production
of sulphur dioxide from burning fossil
fuels and industry was about 150mt."

[zazen999]

So, selling off the countryside then. Good idea or no?

[Jeanied]

Carp idea, Zazen - they need to reverse the enclosures act and return the land to the common people.

[Dekzion]

<i>and making measurements telling us that manmade emissions are 130 times greater than natural emissions</i>

Ignore Wikipedia..

Manmade emissions are nothing compared to a major volcanic eruption... Factors of hundreds and thousands are involved...

http://www.nerc.ac.uk/publications/p...xtinctions.pdf

"The masses could be
prodigious, with a single 1000km3
eruption emitting 10,000 megatonnes
(mt) of sulphur dioxide and 25,000mt of
carbon dioxide. Some flows may be more
than ten times this size; and an entire
flood basalt province, such as the Siberian
Traps or Deccan Traps, is built from
many hundreds of such eruptions. To put
these masses into perspective, a 1000km3
lava flow would cover the area of
Leicestershire to a depth of almost 400
metres; and the 1990 global production
of sulphur dioxide from burning fossil
fuels and industry was about 150mt."

I'm glad I live in Wiltshire.

[zazen999]

Ministers plan huge sell off of Britain's forests - Telegraph

[FionaH]

God help us

[Jeanied]

Oh nooo. Whatever are they going to get rid of next?
As Fi says - God help us.

[Nicos]

It'll probably end up being a tax break for the wealthy!!!

[Two_Sheds]

Our local bit of forest is under threat from quarrying. Never mind, it'll create some jobs (and lots of profit for shareholders)

Fritton Woods petition handed in - News - Great Yarmouth Mercury

.

[SarzWix]

I don't know HOW to campaign, but I'm going to rejoin the Woodland Trust because I'm sure they will be doing something about this, and writing to my MP and local LibDem candidate

[SarzWix]

Help us campaign to enable the creation of more native woods and places rich in trees; to protect native woods, trees and their wildlife for the future; and to inspire everyone to enjoy and value woods and trees - the Woodland Trust

The Woodland Trust have set up an easy way to email DEFRA to 'have your say', you don't have to be a member and it only takes a couple of minutes. PLEASE do it!

[snohare]

Note though that it is DEFRA who is involved in this. What are the chances of them getting it right ? They're the folk who ran out of money for flood defences because all their budget was going towards paying EU fines for making such a total hash-up of payments to farmers, leading to wholesale evictions, poverty and bankruptcy.
Happily there is no real money to be made from traditionally grown timber as a resource in the UK at present; we are competing against Scandinavian government subsidies to ultra-efficient Swedes etc, so logging will not be financially sustainable. Even as wholesale clearance prior to building it would be incredibly costly to hire a tree harvester, and the timber would sell at a loss. And who is going to be rushing to build Center Parcs or run community projects in the boondocks, when there is no money in the pockets of the populace ?
The devil's in the detail, and to sell off successfully I think they would have to pass a whole raft of legislation making it easier to do offgrid selfbuilds in rural areas, a la Grand Designs.

[Two_Sheds]

The Woodland Trust have set up an easy way to email DEFRA ...PLEASE do it!

done it, here