No Incinerator In Sherwood Forest!
I mentioned the planned incinerator that Veolia are hoping to build in Nottinghamshire as part of the Notts CC Waste PFI in my weekly links on 25th February. PAIN, (http://www.p-a-in.co.uk/) the group leading the local campaign against the proposals are stepping up their work with a meeting to be addressed by the high profile anti-air pollution campaigner Dr Dick van Steenis.
The meeting is scheduled for 7pm at Rainworth Village Hall on Wednesday 12th March, all welcome.
Some of Dr van Steenis' work can be found at UK Health Research
PAIN have just submitted their comprehensive planning objection.
The planned incinerator would be situated in the heart of Sherwood Forest - the Major Oak, Edwinstowe, Center Parcs and other main tourist attractions would be immediately downwind. This at a time when Nottinghamshire's elected reps are licking their wounds over losing out to Sustrans in a major funding bid, and still seeking to establish Nottinghamshire's most famous area as one of the country's major conservation and "eco-tourism" areas.
The only note of caution to PAIN would be to treat cautiously the support (welcome as it is on an individual level) of climate change deniers such as David Bellamy, and note that Dr van Steenis' work is also carried on the site of "Country Doctor" David Roberts, who is another denier prone to veering into reactionary Vernon Coleman territory. Health experts and botanists pronouncements on meteorology and climate science should be given the same amount of weight as those of other people who have no particular expertise in the field - i.e uninformed opinion. On climate change, I will stick with the overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed scientists in the field. I will listen to medical doctors on health and epidemiology. The fact remains that majority relevant scientific opinion is that increased CO2 emissions are a bad thing, and this is an additional reason to object to the projected large expansion of incineration as opposed to proper development of alternatives like anaerobic digestion.
Labels: British Politics, Climate Change, Environment, Green Politics, Polemic, Protest, Waste
posted by greenman @ 8:31 am
1 Comments:
Your wise words of caution are much appreciated - and taken to heart. Our campaign does not rest upon any one set of arguments - hence the title of our 60-page objection: Wrong site, Wrong technology. We are well aware of being vulnerable to the health arguments being thrown out as not being material planning considerations 9especially after they receive their inevitable rubber stamp of approval from the mis-named Health Protection Agency). This is why we deliberately held back on these issues until after the first wave of planning objections. We are looking to run a responsible campaign, and we are looking to expose interested members of the public to a wide range of arguments and perspectives. I for one am convinced of the climate change arguemtns - and as waste incinerators emit roughly 1 tonne of CO2 for every tonne of waste incinerated, and as other technologies exist that can do much better from a climate change perspective, and as climate change impact is a material planning consideration, we have not discounted these issues!
Thanks for all your thoughts on the matter, and for helping put this situation into the public domain.
Keep on blogging,
shlomo
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