Tuesday, 9 February 2010
ALARMING NEWS- Beddington Farmlands
News is circulating today that there is a proposal for an incinerator and waste disposal plant to be built in the centre of Beddington Farmlands. The proposal is part of the South London Waste Plan. The actual proposed site is the same area that has been designated as a large area of wet grassland within the urban nature reserve. Despite the fact that there is a conservation management plan in place (as a result of an earlier public enquiry) something of this nature poses a real and immediate threat to the urban nature reserve plan. There are various loop holes and areas open for interpretation within the conservation management plan that has already permitted the building of recycling and waste management facilities on the east side of the site (contrary to the original Conservation Management Plan). Similar strategies can be used to encroach further into the core of Beddington- slowly loosing sight of the original plan which was to generate a major urban nature reserve, to be replaced by an industrial vision and brought about by stealth under the false promises of environmental and social improvement. Such industrial strategies are commonplace and it is important for the social and environmental sector to defend against it and achieve a balance between the intersts of industy, people and nature.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
Have you thought about petitioning against this? I'm not sure how effective a petition would be, or how many signatures you would need to get heard, but there are lots of free petition websites that you could use to collect a large number of signatures quite quickly just by emailing it out to people. Just an idea. Might be worth contacting your MP about it anyway.
Petitions and getting the local MPS involved are a good tool as part of any eco-campaign but I think it is important they these tools are part of something which is conceptually sound.
I reckon that the main thrust of conservation should be in pro-social-environmental profit making alternatives to anti-social/environmental profit practises. What's all this talk of social/environmental non-profits- that's like saying- crap businesses (its mental not environmental)
Beddington can become a valuable resource as the south london nature reserve- the WWT at London Wetland Centre have proven that nature reserves can be good businesses. That's the way forward in my opinion:-))
Just for the sake of clarity can you explain your definition of 'profit' and how you intend to measure it? I might have misread this, but I fear your new paradigm runs the risk of being confined by the rules of 'the old game'.
Viva la Revolución! Or something like that.
PS. Surely a sizeable petition to your MP in a general election year can't be a bad thing.
The rules of the game are 'the same'. There are no rules.
I simply suggest change the game.
Old Game: To get what you want at the expense of people and the planet.
New Game: To get what you want at the benefit of people and the planet.
Nothing wrong with money, nothing wrong with power- it's what you do with it. N'est-ce pas? Viva la revolution indeed :-))
Petitions are a good idea- I am just saying they should be part of a sound alternative to a traditional 'industrial' model. It's a good idea to update what has become obselete.
Hmmm, I fear there might be something 'wrong' with money, e.g. http://bit.ly/4pq5H2 and http://bit.ly/PfjtF and
http://bit.ly/aqQYkp
I'd humbly suggest the 'new game' (if we want to do something about biodiversity loss, climate change, etc.) is going to have to be a skillfully navigated course of negative global economic growth (and a concommitant reduction in human population). Unfortunately, I see no economic Magellan amongst the current crop of world leaders pretend.
Environmental projects (a la 'Revolución Beddington'), which might only 'pay off' over very long periods of time, or only provide 'pay offs' to species other than our own, should not be shackled by the innate short-term materialism of the average human mind (tawdry little thing that it is).
Sorry, typo,...
We have an interesting future to inhabit or, as the Sami might put it:
Duhát geainnut leat ovddabealde,
boahtteáigi mearriduvvo válljema geažis
[A thousand roads stretch before us
From many choices a future is selected]
(From Siivu by Lawra Somby/Adjagas)
I'm off to buy a tie-dye t-shirt and a 1965 VW camper van (complete with splitty window, dinky sink and cozy cooker) :-)
Money..... something very wrong with it but will have to do for the time being- blogger is free so getting there.
Negative economic growth and decrease in human population should occur naturally as these systems mature- the emphasis should switch to economic maturing-better rather than bigger. Poverty is the cause of exponential population growth- need to end that.
Environmental projects- examples such as London wetland centre and Bedzed were lucrative rather quickly. The majority of people building them were only interested in short term materialism. Got to work with what ya got- most people only see the immediate gain and the person next to them.
Indeed there are a thousand roads to choose. Good to know where you are trying to get to first and then choose the route that gets there I guess.
Come and visit me on your VW van road trip- I better join you. No free sex though- you know me-I'm a businessman.
One other thing- the world leader everyone is waiting for..... it's themselves :-)
Be the change mofos
Post a Comment