the ubiquitous blog

I have just seen the first bats of the year, two of them flying around at the back of my flat. Unfortunately it was just too dark for taking photos. It was flying in roughly clockwise circles at about 12 to 15 m above the ground, actively hunting, wing span approximately 20 to 25 cm, the body appeared dark, I didn’t see any light patches on the body. First seen at 19:25. It was probably Pipistrellus pipistrellus or Pipistrellus pygmaeus.

Reading the Sunday Herald the other week, my eye was caught by the headline “Eco-chic: the kilt that cuts pollution“, this was one I had to read. The story was about a collaboration between Kilt Maker Howie Nicholsby and Scientist Tony Ryan, to create a kilt for the Edinburgh International Science Festival which could “help clean the air of polluted cities”, apparently. The idea behind this is to spray the kilts with titanium dioxide nanoparticles so that the clothing then acts as a catalytic converter, mopping up the air pollution and converting it into less toxic substances. The pollutant these kilts are aimed at dealing with is Nitric oxide (NO), which mainly comes from vehicle and industry emissions. NO is not considered harmful in itself, but when released in the air it becomes nitrogen dioxide, which can cause respiratory problems. In this case, it converts nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) into “harmless” nitrates which can then be washed away.

I have a few reservations about these pollution-busting garments.

It is not because it uses nanotechnology, there is much rubbish talked about the supposed risks of nanotechnologies, as if they are all the same thing. Each technology needs to be looked on its own merits, talk of grey goo is best left to those whose knowledge of biology comes from talking to the plants in their greenhouse.

Nor is it because I under estimate the level of the problems of air pollution. Four thousand people died as a result of the Great Smog of London in 1952, and this led to the introduction of the Clean Air Act in 1956. In 2008, 4,000 people died in London from air pollution and 30,000 died across the whole of the UK. Air pollution costs Britain £10bn a year, with 925,000 people exposed to concentrations of NO₂ exceeding the legal limits. There is a very serious problem with air pollution in Britain which is not being taken seriously enough. According to SEPA, there has been “little or no demonstrable improvement in air quality” over the last 10 years in areas targeted for action by local and national government. We are now in a situation where Scottish ministers have applied to the EU for permission to delay complying with the safety limits, even though we have already had ten years to get things sorted out. We don’t need an extension to the deadline for compliance, we need our politicians to get their heads out of the sand and take the issue seriously.

No, the reason I have reservations about these “pollution-busting garments” is because they fail to actually address the problem of pollution.

First off, they only remove one air pollutant, what about all the others that come out of the exhaust pipes of motor vehicles? Secondly, it doesn’t actually remove the pollutant from the environment, it merely moves it to another place. When the garments are washed, the nitrates are mixed with phosphorus from the washing powder and flushed down the drain, where they become a potent water pollutants, causing problems with eutrophication down stream.

It would be far better to deal with the problem at the source and reduce the number of motor vehicle movements which lead to pollution in the first place. Fortunately, there are signs that this is starting to happen in Edinburgh where higher than average death rates, linked to air pollution, have prompted plans for an overhaul of traffic systems. These proposed changes are not before time, and it is only to be hoped that they are not scuppered by a narrow minded campaign from a scurrilous local rag.

Before the final Scottish budget debate and vote there were rumours that Finance Secretary John Swinney was “looking carefully” at “sustainable travel budgets”. I decided to take the advice of Spokes that a last-minute e-mail supporting a change-of-heart might still help, and sent the following e-mail to my list MSPs, using WriteToThem.

Dear Sarah Boyack, Margo MacDonald, David McLetchie, Alison Johnstone, Gavin Brown, Neil Findlay and Kezia Dugdale,

Active travel is a great idea as it achieves so many policy objectives: it is clean, it is green, it reduces congestion in towns and cities, it
can boost local economic activity, and it is healthy (active people, such as regular cyclists, live longer). In addition, people who use
active ways of travel to get to work are more productive, and it is relatively cheap and therefore has great potential to save money (the
future savings in health cost alone make worthwhile).

So please keep up the pressure on John Swinney to reverse the severe planned cuts to active travel, which also represent a breach of the
promises in the SNP manifesto.

Your sincerely,

Kim Harding

So far I have received the following relies (in order received)-

Neil Findlay MSP (Labour):

Thanks Kim – I agree with what you say and the pressure will continue

Neil Findlay MSP for the Lothians

Alison Johnstone MSP (Green):

Dear Kim

Thank you very much for getting in touch on this important issue. The Scottish Green MSPs have consistently called for substantially increased spending on public transport and active travel within the Scottish Government’s transport budget. I believe the Government’s spending priorities are wrong, by prioritising an absurdly expensive second road bridge across the Firth of Forth ahead of other areas, such as active travel, that would be far healthier for people, better for the environment, and reduce costs and congestion.

Our most recent manifesto included a commitment to target 10% of the transport budget towards active travel. It is vitally important to ensure that those who wish to cycle are encouraged to do so and the provision of new and maintenance of existing cycle lanes will help progress this aim. Safe streets with well-maintained pavements are required if we wish to see an increase in those walking to work and education. Street furniture should be streamlined and safer routes to school should be in operation across the school estate.

I have, and will continue to do all I can to challenge the Government, so that money within Scotland’s budget flows in a direction that improves people’s health, livelihoods and our environment. To this end I have spoken about active travel, public transport and infrastructure within a number of Parliamentary debates. Indeed I used the example of cycling in a debate with John Swinney on the Autumn Budget Statement and the Scottish Economy. I also took part in a protest against the severe cuts to funding for cycling and walking projects in the Scottish Government’s draft budget, joining a bicycle rally outside St. Andrew’s House.

My colleague Patrick Harvie also raised this issue in recent budget debates, and a meeting with John Swinney.

Please be assured of my continued support on this matter.

Yours sincerely

Alison

Margo MacDonald MSP (Independent):

Dear Mr Harding,

Margo MacDonald MSP has received a large number of messages concerning funding for active travel initiatives. Unfortunately she is currently in hospital and will not be present for today’s debate.

Yours sincerely,

Mary Blackford
Secretary
Office of Margo MacDonald MSP

Sorry to hear that Margo, I hope you are able to leave hospital soon.

Gavin Brown MSP (Conservative):

Dear Mr Harding

The Scottish Conservatives are supportive of cycling and fully understand the wider benefits both to public health and the environment.

I have reviewed the draft budget and note that the budget line for ‘support for sustainable and active travel’ decreases in 2012/13 to £16m before increasing to £25m in 2013/14.

It is not clear to me why this budget line is slashed so heavily for the next financial year. I have asked my colleague Alex Johnstone, who sits on the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, to look into this and establish why it is happening.

Thank you for taking the time to contact me to voice your concerns.

Kind regards.
GAVIN BROWN MSP

Followed by (10/2/0212)

On Wednesday the Cabinet Secretary announced an extra £4million next year, £5m for 2013/14 and £4m for 2014/15.

This means next year’s Budget is still decreasing although subsequent years are better.

I haven’t yet worked out the exact percentages but I suspect you are correct about their breach of a manifesto commitment.

Kind regards

Gavin Brown

These last two replies from Gavin Brown are interesting, I shall post up any further replies as I receive them.

Dear Mr Salmond,

You may be aware that rather a lot of people are very upset with the proposed cuts to the proportion of transport spending that goes on active travel. Active travel is a great idea, as it achieves so many policy objectives: it is clean, it is green, it reduces congestion in towns and cities, it can boost local economic activity, and it is healthy (active people, such as regular cyclists, live longer). In addition, people who use active ways of travel are more productive at work, take fewer sick days. Supporting active travel is relatively cheap and therefore has great potential to save everybody money (the future savings in health costs alone make worthwhile).

In your 2011 Holyrood SNP manifesto, you told us that your party was committed “to increase the proportion of transport spending that goes on low-carbon, active and sustainable travel”. I assume that you did actually read this document before adding your signature to it, so it is only reasonable to expect you to stand by the commitments you and your party made in it.

However, your Government’s current spending plans show that funding to enable more local journeys to be made on foot or by bike is set to be cut by a third. This will make it much harder for Scotland to achieve its transition to a low carbon economy, decarbonise our transport sector and ensure 10% of all journeys are made by bicycle by 2020. These aims have cross-party support, as they have great potential to bring additional social, environmental and economic benefits.

You are on record as saying that Scotland should be regarded as a Nordic nation, and you frequently hold up other small nations in Europe as examples of what an independent Scotland could be. So why not learn lessons from the Nordic countries on active travel? Denmark, Sweden and Norway clearly show the way, they are actively investing in this concept and are reaping the rewards. It is not just the Nordic countries, The Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland are also embracing the benefits of active travel. These projects have been shown to have the highest Cost Benefit Ratio of all forms of transport investment.

I know that you consider the Scottish economy to be of prime importance, but poor air quality, poor public health, congestion and road safety are all major drags on the Scottish economy. The costs associated with all these ills can be reduced with a relatively small investment in active travel. So, go on, why not put your money where your mouth is?

Yours sincerely,

Kim Harding
A Scottish voter.

December, the darkest month of the year, is also noted for its storms, and we have just had a big one. Neighbours meeting in the street were heard to say “Aye, it’s breezy oot today”, as the wind speeds in Edinburgh hit 70mph (113 Km/h). The winds on the top of Cairngorm reached 165mph (266 Km/h), just 8mph off the highest recorded wind speed there, although there was no standing about discussing the weather at the time.

Meanwhile on Twitter, as the storm broke, the London media started to gather information about something they where calling Storm UK, although this was soon replaced with Scot Storm, so as not to be confused with the “southern drizzle crisis”. The media wanted to portray the whole thing as a major crisis with tales of doom, gloom and crushed cars, which is the standard fare when such winter gales make landfall down south. Noting the wind speed recorded at the Cairngorm Automatic Weather Station, someone declared that Scotland was being battered by a Category Five Hurricane.

At this point it was decided that, if this was a hurricane, it should have a name, so some wag came up with Hurricane Bawbag (exactly who this wag was is a subject of much journalistic interest). Within an hour #HurricaneBawbag was trending worldwide on Twitter (as Americans sought to find out why they hadn’t been warned about this dangerous hurricane, and which state they needed to evacuate first). Meanwhile in Scotland most people had heeded the advice to stay indoors and not to travel at the height of the storm. As a result, there were no fatalities and no reported serious injuries. Overall the Scots’ attitude to the storm was to treat it as a tremendous joke, hence giving the storm the name Bawbag, which is used to mean a stupid, glaikit, foolish or generally annoying person (or thing). This is a point that has been somewhat missed by some media outlets based further south who are trying to make out that it was a great disaster. Whereas in Scotland it spawned a Wikipedia page and a range of merchandise.

So what actually happened?

At the height of the storm, one wind turbine failed spectacularly, at the Ardrossan Wind Farm. This has been portrayed by some sections of the London media as proof that all wind generation is doomed to fail, and that this should stop all further wind farm development. This is obviously ridiculous, as there are currently over 500 large scale wind turbines on 123 operational wind farms in Scotland, and only one failed during this storm. Nor was this failure responsible for the loss of power to 75,000 homes at the height of the storm, that was due to power lines being damaged. These London based “journalists” (several of the newspapers they work for have recently admitted to making up stories) are totally unaware that this particular wind farm is very popular with the local people living nearby. Nor are they keen on the idea that Scotland has the potential to be a world leader in renewable energy, as this just doesn’t fit with their London centric view of the world.

Transport wise there was some disruption, most of the major road bridges had to be closed for a time. The rail system was restricted to a 50 MPH (80 Km/h) speed limit, but the rail bridges remained open. This is probably due to that fact that Scotland’s major rail bridges are heavily over engineered following the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879. However, there were some delays due to trampolines on the line, which is more original than leaves on the line. Indeed, trampolines proved to be more disruptive than had been previously expected. Also there were a few roads blocked by fallen trees, and the Eriskay causeway was also temporarily closed. Other reported damage included a house in Gifford hit by a falling tree, the gable end of a tenement in Bellshill fell off (probably due to poor maintenance), and the roof of a cinema in Glasgow suffered some damage.

We are told the storm caused an estimated £100m worth of damage, but walking around Edinburgh in the days after Hurricane Bawbag (or cyclone Friedhelm, if you are a humourless German insist), one of the things that was notable was how little damage had been done, considering that this was the most severe storm to hit Scotland for 10 years. The only signs of storm damage I have seen so far has been a length of zinc flashing laying in a front garden and some severed TV aerial cables flapping about.

It is also worth noting that at the same time as this storm was battering Scotland, the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Durban. If the climate models are right, storms like Hurricane Bawbag are set to become more frequent and more powerful, unless we take serious steps to cut the levels of fossil carbon we are releasing into the atmosphere.