Tag: unsafe

Fossil Fools Day – 2008

Fossil Fools Day: Tuesday 1st April was Fossil Fools Day, a day of protests around the world over our increasing use of fossil fuels, despite the effect they are having on global climate.

Fossil Fools Day - 2008

The ‘greenhouse effect‘ of various gases in the atmosphere had first been described in 1824, although the actual term only dates from 1901. But already in 1856 American scientist and women’s rights campaigner Eunice Newton Foote had shown that carbon dioxide was very effective in trapping the sun’s energy and warming the atmosphere.

Almost all polyatomic gases are ‘greenhouse gases’ with some such as methane much more effective than carbon dioxide. But its great importance is because of the huge amounts of it formed when carbon-containing fuels are used. And burning wood, coal and oil and their use in powering machines of all types and electricity production became the basis of the industrial revolution and our whole civilisation from around the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Fossil Fools Day - 2008
Protesters with power station ‘cooling towers’ in Parliament Square

Wood is not of course a fossil fuel, and in pre-industrial times the carbon dioxide produced by burning it was more or less in balance with the amount that was removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis producing new plants, trees and other organisms. CO2 levels remained roughly constant during human history at around 280ppm until they began to rise more and more rapidly after 1850, and increasingly rapidly since then. They are now around 430ppm and rising steeply.

The full effects of the current levels only become apparent over a period of around 50 years, though we are already seeing some of them already, particularly in the global South – though we too are beginning to see the effects on our climate, not just in terms of temperature but even more as instability.

Fossil Fools Day - 2008

For well over fifty years it has been obvious that we need to take urgent action to stop burning fossil fuels, but that urgency has not led to any really significant action. Talk, investment in renewable energy – but fossil fuel use, even of coal, is still increasing. If life on this planet is to have a future we need to see a rapid drop in the consumption of coal, oil and gas – and also aathe development of ways to use renewable energy to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, as well as increasing natural ways such as planting more trees.

And there is another reason to end the use of oil for fuel, as I first mentioned in the 1970s. These finite resources are of much greater use as a chemical feedstock for producing other essential materials of our modern life, including plastics.

Everything at the moment is still going in the wrong direction – and the huge energy requirements of AI are making things worse.

Fossil Fools Day: No New Coal

Parliament Square

Fossil Fools Day - 2008
Lighter fuel goes up in flames on the Climate BIll

The focus of the protest by students from ‘People and Planet’ and other climate activists were the plans by E.ON to build a new new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent.

The protesters brought three large white ‘cooling towers’ and many had cutout masks of Gordon Brown’s face as they shouted out advice to him over the ridiculous Draft Climate Change Bill which would have resulted in an increase in carbon emissions.

The launch of ‘ev-eon Unnaturally Carbonated Water’

They were joined by a group with the spoof launch of ‘ev-eon Unnaturally Carbonated Water’ a new carbon capture technology to be used at E.ON’s Kingsnorth Power Station.

“‘Ev-eon’ uses the CO2 from coal burning to carbonate water which you then swallow. And if you can swallow the governments coal-fired policy you can swallow anything. And of course with Ev-eon, should you burp, breathe or otherwise release that CO2 you’ve swallowed, global warming is all your fault – and not E.ON’s.”

As a result of this and other environmental protests and criticism by a wide range of organisations E.ON eventually dropped the plans.

More on My London Diary at Fossil Fools Day: No New Coal.

Fossil Fools Day: Opencast Coal

Albany Courtyard, Piccadilly

Campaign against Climate Change protest at the offices of Argent Group PLC in Piccadilly over the UK’s largest opencast coal mine, Ffos-y-Fran in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, run by Miller-Argent.

The manager of Albany talks with the demontrators, taking some information for Argent

As well as the at least 30 million tons of CO2 of carbon dioxide from the coal the mine was expected to produce over the next 15 years, this mine was also only 36 metres from the nearest houses – compared to the Scottish Safety standards of 500 metres. The Welsh Office delayed the implementation of a Welsh safety standard to enable the mine to go ahead.

Locally it produced years of misery and health hazards through air-borne dust, diesel fumes and noise to the 70,000 or so people who live in Merthyr. A Health Impact Study commissioned by the authorities was so damning they refused to accept it.

The initial scheme for the mine had been approved by the Welsh Assembly in 2005 despite huge local objections and residents took it to the High Court which quashed it – but this was reversed on appeal in 2006.

The mine licence expired in 2022 and an appeal for an extension was refused with the mine shutting down in November 2023.

London protest Welsh Opencast Coal

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Grenfell 4 Years On – Still No Justice

Like many I woke up on the morning of 14th June 2017 to the news of a terrible fire that had engulfed a tower block in North Kensington with horrific stories of the death of so many trapped in the building, particularly on its upper floors. It had begun early in the morning after I had gone to bed and switched off my computer and phone, so I hadn’t got the text from an agency asking if I could go there. Clearly by the time I woke up to the morning news the area was swamped by the media and I decided not to add to the pressure on the survivors and the local residents who were traumatised by what they had seen and heard.

I was shocked by the news, but not surprised. It came after years when the government – particularly the coalition, but others too – had been attacking health and safety measures as ‘red tape’ and making cuts to the fire service, particularly in London, that I’d reported on. And after years of attacks by local and national governments on social housing. Though I was shocked to find that the London Fire Service, thanks to cuts made by the London Mayor Boris Johnson, now longer had an appliance to deal with fires in such high-rise buildings and had to call on the neighbouring suburban Surrey Fire Services for one.

I then knew enough about the design of such towers to understand that this fire should not have been possible. If design and building regulations had been followed it should have been confined to the flat were it started and quickly burned out. Instead the videos clearly showed its rapid spread up the outside of the buildings.

It took only a few weeks for the basic facts behind the fire to be discovered, with Architects for Social Housing in particular producing a straightforward account of the many faults, The Truth about Grenfell Tower on July 21st. Their report not only identified the various faults in the type of cladding and in particular its incorrect installation, but also of the lack of proper oversight in large schemes such as this and the culpability of local councillors and officers.

An unnamed senior architect stated at the end of a lengthy comment to ASH,

‘Since PFI was introduced by Thatcher we have a legacy of hundreds, if not thousands, of sub-standard buildings – schools, hospitals, police stations, etc – that the taxpayer is still paying extortionate rents for under the terms of the 30-year lease-back deal that is PFI. This is her legacy of cosy relationships between local authorities, quangos and their chummy contractors. It is a culture of de-regulation, of private profit before public good. Thomas Dan Smith, the Leader of Newcastle City Council from 1960 to 1965, went to gaol in 1974 for dodgy dealings with local authorities in property development, albeit from a different motivation; but what the public must demand and get now over the Grenfell Tower fire are criminal convictions, and soon.’

https://architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk/2017/07/21/the-truth-about-grenfell-tower-a-report-by-architects-for-social-housing/

What should have followed in the next few months was the criminal trial of those responsible, after which there could perhaps have been a public inquiry in particular looking at the lessons to be learnt and the changes in laws required. Instead we got the usual empty rhetoric from politicians and and public inquiry that was set up in September 2017 but only began taking evidence in June 2018. Much of its first phase was concerned with trying to transfer responsibility from the faults of the building and those responsible for it onto the London Fire Brigade, who had acted heroically on the night and managed to rescue many, and in particular to demonises LFB’s Dany Cotton, who shortly afterwards took early retirement.

This report by retired judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, selected by Theresa May to lead the enquiry should and hopefully will be seen as an incredible indictment of our public inquiry system, which seems to exist to push issues into the very long grass and allow the guilty to escape any real judgement allowing them to spend millions on barristers to muddy the waters and save their skins. The firefighters and the survivors don’t have that protection.

The enquiry continues with some startling testimonies from those responsible for the defective refurbishment and councillors and officers as well as from residents. So far these broadly repeat and support the conclusions of the July 2017 ASH report – but it has taken almost 4 years longer. It’s hard to read some of the testimonies and not think that person should be in jail. But the chances of any justice for Grenfell still seem remote.

In the days after the fire I went on several protests and four days later made my way to see for myself and, like others pay my respects to the dead. The pictures with this article are from that visit. Since I’ve returned for some of the monthly silent walks and other protests in the area, though these have been suspended for Covid.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.