• Chevron first in line to explore north Atlantic prospects
• Greenpeace prepares to take government to court
Terry Macalister The Guardian, Monday 27 September 2010
The government is shortly expected to give permission for new deepwater drilling off the Shetland Islands in a controversial move that could trigger a legal confrontation with Greenpeace.
The environmental group fears the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) could make a decision as early as tomorrow for the first wells of this kind off Britain since BP ran into trouble in the Gulf of Mexico.
US company Chevron will be first in line for permission to explore two prospects, with BP following, but Decc officials insisted last night that a decision had yet to be taken.
Greenpeace yesterday started a new campaign of direct action using swimmers against a Chevron-chartered ship, Stena Carron, in a bid to stop it sailing to the Shetlands where it is expected to drill on the Lagavulin prospect. The Greenpeace protestors took to the waters of the north Atlantic less than 48 hours after a separate occupation of the same vessel was ruled illegal by an Edinburgh court.
The protest comes just after the UK government derailed attempts by other nations in the European Union to introduce international scrutiny of deepwater drilling operations that could have led to a moratorium offshore.
Greenpeace said it planned to extend the wider campaign against David Cameron's administration, including going to court to seek a judicial review.
"We think the government is acting irrationally if it presses ahead with new drilling permits when the lessons from the Gulf of Mexico have not yet been learned," said Ben Ayliffe, a spokesman for Greenpeace. "We will be doing all we can to ensure a change of policy."
Late last week Richard Benyon, a minister at the department for the environment, was dispatched to Oslo to head off a German initiative to subject drilling to far more scrutiny following the BP well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
Germany wanted firm action taken under the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the north-east Atlantic treaty (known as Ospar) but retreated in the face of opposition from Britain, Norway and the Netherlands – all big North Sea oil producers.
Greenpeace condemned the result of the Ospar summit, saying it sat very badly with the coalition government's supposed commitment to taking environmental issues more seriously. "When the self-styled 'greenest government ever' sends its ministers overseas to block international scrutiny of its deepwater drilling regime, it's obvious they have something to hide," said Ruth Davis, policy director at Greenpeace.
"With ministers acting as special envoys for the oil industry, it's no wonder people feel they need to take peaceful direct action against new deepwater drilling, to protect their oceans and their climate."
Last Friday the campaign group lost a case brought by Chevron, forcing its activists to abandon a direct action against the Stena Carron drillship that was being prepared for operations off the Shetlands.
A court in Edinburgh ordered Greenpeace to end its protest on the grounds that it endangered the safety of the vessel. Activists spent four days in a "survival pod" hanging off the ship's anchor.
The environmental group's action follows similar protests against Cairn Energy's drilling off the coast of Greenland. Greenpeace says both waters – off the Shetlands and Greenland – are inappropriate for oil exploration given the unspoiled natural environment and the new information from BP's Deepwater Explorer accident about how devastating a blowout can be to the local shoreline.
BP, Chevron and Total of France are all pushing Decc to give permission for further drilling west of the Shetlands. Decc itself has estimated that 17% of the UK's unexploited oil and gas reserves may lie in this deepwater Atlantic area. BP already has Foinaven, Clair and Schiehallion as producing fields there, and wants to drill the North Uist prospect.
The department is keen to see the area developed but is also wary of allowing BP and others to drill in deep water so soon after the Gulf of Mexico spill. BP has already withdrawn from a planned new licensing round off Greenland rather than risk being banned by the government in Nuuk.
The move to the Shetlands and Greenland are all part of a wider push towards the Arctic as oil companies are forced into increasingly environmentally sensitive areas as reserves in more accessible and less controversial locations.
Last week the Russian government held a major conference on the Arctic which is believed to be the home of one quarter of the world's resources of oil and gas at a time when global warming is breaking up the ice and making it easier to drill.
Russia, America and other countries are all pushing to have their sovereignty accepted by the United Nations amid fears of a a new cold war over this polar region.
Monday, 27 September 2010
Bill Bryson: 'Have faith, science can solve our problems'
Bill Bryson will honour scientists in a lecture celebrating 350 years of the Royal Society. He tells Max Davidson why his favourite is an obscure 18th-century vicar
By Max Davidson
Published: 7:00AM BST 26 Sep 2010
Bill Bryson: 'I've just been to Paris with my wife for a couple of days. Wonderful city, but it's not London, not even close.' "Think of a single problem confronting the world today," says Bill Bryson, in full rhetorical flow. "Disease, poverty, global warming… If the problem is going to be solved, it is science that is going to solve it. Scientists tend to be unappreciated in the world at large, but you can hardly overstate the importance of the work they do. If anyone ever cures cancer, it will be a guy with a science degree." There is a fractional pause, then a sheepish smile. "Or a woman with a science degree."
There never was a less chauvinist author than this gentle, genial American who, with his folksy humour, has charmed the nation, men and women in equal measure. The bestselling author of Notes from a Small Island, that quirky love letter to all things British, now lives in a large rectory in Norfolk, where he devotes a lot of time to his garden. I meet him outside a library in Norwich, and he could be one of the natives, with his unprepossessing manner and his comfy, lived-in clothes.
Twin peaks - and troughsIn the small island of which he wrote so lyrically, he has become part of the furniture, his love for his adopted country undimmed. "I've just been to Paris with my wife for a couple of days," he tells me. "Wonderful city, but it's not London, not even close." And on Thursday he will go in to bat for one of the great British institutions, the Royal Society, the most august scientific body in the world.
Bryson is no stranger to science. In 2004, he published A Short History of Almost Everything, a serendipitous overview of science and scientists which became an instant bestseller. Not having done much science at school, but insatiably curious about the nuts and bolts of the world, Bryson wanted to share some nuggets of knowledge he had picked up. "You don't need a science degree to understand about science," he insists. "You just need to think about it." But for the author of an easy-to-read primer on general science to step up to the plate – as baseball fan Bryson might put it – in the rarefied company of Fellows of the Royal Society is another matter.
Previous fellows include Isaac Newton, Christopher Wren and Charles Darwin, plus enough Nobel Prize winners to fill a laboratory, so some great ghosts will be stirring when Bryson delivers a lecture in London's Guildhall marking the 350th anniversary of the society.
"I'm not a scientist, I'm what you might call an informal cheerleader. But I feel very excited to be associated with the society. On big occasions like this, I look around my audience and think, 'Well, you're not in Iowa now, Bill.'" The son of a Des Moines sports journalist has strayed a long way from his roots, but he is proud of his links with the Royal Society, because it is classless: a community of ordinary people with extraordinary minds.
Of the 8,000-odd fellows of the Royal Society, past and present, his favourite is the Reverend Thomas Bayes, an obscure 18th-century Kent clergyman and a brilliant mathematician. "He devised a complex equation known as the Bayes theorem, which can be used to work out probability distributions. It had no practical application in his lifetime, but today, thanks to computers, is routinely used in the modelling of climate change, astrophysics and stock-market analysis."
In the flesh, Bryson reckons, Bayes would not have struck anyone as remarkable. "There is the odd exception, like Albert Einstein, but as a breed, scientists tend not be very good at presenting themselves. It took The Royal Society, with its instinct for excellence, to recognise that Bayes was a genius. Over the years, its record in identifying great scientists early in their career has been quite extraordinary."
The 17th century astronomer Edmond Halley was made a fellow before he received his degree from Oxford. Charles Darwin was elected in 1839, just three years after his first Beagle voyage, long before he had developed his Theory of Evolution. Throughout its history, the Society has remained true to its core principles, cleaving to the notion of peer review, funding research projects, and publishing journals of scrupulous scientific accuracy.
"It is quite simply the voice of science in Britain," says Bryson. "It is intellectually rigorous, not afraid to be outspoken on controversial issues such as climate change, but it is not aggressively secular either, insisting on a single view of the world. In fact, there are plenty of eminent scientists – Robert Winston, for instance – who are also men of faith."
Bryson has a respect for science that borders on the devotional. When the scientific community comes under attack, he is tigerish in its defence. And at a time when some scientists, such as Russell Stannard, the eminent physics professor and lay preacher, are starting to argue that the only ''new'' discoveries will be ones of such intellectual complexity that only computers can arrive at them, or even understand them, Bryson still has faith in the curiosity and ingenuity of people.
He has another bee in his bonnet about which he has become increasingly vocal – litter. Since 2007, he has been President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and makes no bones of the fact that those strewing England's green and pleasant land with crisp packets should face the full force of the law. "If someone went into a pub and said, 'I don't believe it, I've just been fined £200 for throwing a cigarette carton in the street', people would sit up and take notice." For a second, there is real anger behind the kindly face. "As for people who throw litter out of cars: if they got three points on their licence every time, they would kick the habit in no time."
Bryson has no illusions about his powers of influence. "I can't fix the world. If you want to make a difference in life, you have to direct your energies in a focused way. I'm going to be 60 next year, so it's time to start putting down cudgels."
What does this Anglophile, who fell in love with the country in the 1970s, make of the Britain of 2010? "Well, I wouldn't live here if the positives didn't far outweigh the negatives. Before the election, I interviewed the three main party leaders, and it struck me how lucky your country was to have had three such able, smart, fundamentally decent people to choose from. In my country, you can get a really decent president followed by a crazy, scary one. Or an idiot."
• To celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society (royalsociety.org), Bill Bryson has edited 'Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society' (£25, HarperPress), available from Telegraph Books for £23 plus £1.25 P&P. To order, call 0844 871 1516 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 0844 871 1516 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or visit books.telegraph.co.uk
By Max Davidson
Published: 7:00AM BST 26 Sep 2010
Bill Bryson: 'I've just been to Paris with my wife for a couple of days. Wonderful city, but it's not London, not even close.' "Think of a single problem confronting the world today," says Bill Bryson, in full rhetorical flow. "Disease, poverty, global warming… If the problem is going to be solved, it is science that is going to solve it. Scientists tend to be unappreciated in the world at large, but you can hardly overstate the importance of the work they do. If anyone ever cures cancer, it will be a guy with a science degree." There is a fractional pause, then a sheepish smile. "Or a woman with a science degree."
There never was a less chauvinist author than this gentle, genial American who, with his folksy humour, has charmed the nation, men and women in equal measure. The bestselling author of Notes from a Small Island, that quirky love letter to all things British, now lives in a large rectory in Norfolk, where he devotes a lot of time to his garden. I meet him outside a library in Norwich, and he could be one of the natives, with his unprepossessing manner and his comfy, lived-in clothes.
Twin peaks - and troughsIn the small island of which he wrote so lyrically, he has become part of the furniture, his love for his adopted country undimmed. "I've just been to Paris with my wife for a couple of days," he tells me. "Wonderful city, but it's not London, not even close." And on Thursday he will go in to bat for one of the great British institutions, the Royal Society, the most august scientific body in the world.
Bryson is no stranger to science. In 2004, he published A Short History of Almost Everything, a serendipitous overview of science and scientists which became an instant bestseller. Not having done much science at school, but insatiably curious about the nuts and bolts of the world, Bryson wanted to share some nuggets of knowledge he had picked up. "You don't need a science degree to understand about science," he insists. "You just need to think about it." But for the author of an easy-to-read primer on general science to step up to the plate – as baseball fan Bryson might put it – in the rarefied company of Fellows of the Royal Society is another matter.
Previous fellows include Isaac Newton, Christopher Wren and Charles Darwin, plus enough Nobel Prize winners to fill a laboratory, so some great ghosts will be stirring when Bryson delivers a lecture in London's Guildhall marking the 350th anniversary of the society.
"I'm not a scientist, I'm what you might call an informal cheerleader. But I feel very excited to be associated with the society. On big occasions like this, I look around my audience and think, 'Well, you're not in Iowa now, Bill.'" The son of a Des Moines sports journalist has strayed a long way from his roots, but he is proud of his links with the Royal Society, because it is classless: a community of ordinary people with extraordinary minds.
Of the 8,000-odd fellows of the Royal Society, past and present, his favourite is the Reverend Thomas Bayes, an obscure 18th-century Kent clergyman and a brilliant mathematician. "He devised a complex equation known as the Bayes theorem, which can be used to work out probability distributions. It had no practical application in his lifetime, but today, thanks to computers, is routinely used in the modelling of climate change, astrophysics and stock-market analysis."
In the flesh, Bryson reckons, Bayes would not have struck anyone as remarkable. "There is the odd exception, like Albert Einstein, but as a breed, scientists tend not be very good at presenting themselves. It took The Royal Society, with its instinct for excellence, to recognise that Bayes was a genius. Over the years, its record in identifying great scientists early in their career has been quite extraordinary."
The 17th century astronomer Edmond Halley was made a fellow before he received his degree from Oxford. Charles Darwin was elected in 1839, just three years after his first Beagle voyage, long before he had developed his Theory of Evolution. Throughout its history, the Society has remained true to its core principles, cleaving to the notion of peer review, funding research projects, and publishing journals of scrupulous scientific accuracy.
"It is quite simply the voice of science in Britain," says Bryson. "It is intellectually rigorous, not afraid to be outspoken on controversial issues such as climate change, but it is not aggressively secular either, insisting on a single view of the world. In fact, there are plenty of eminent scientists – Robert Winston, for instance – who are also men of faith."
Bryson has a respect for science that borders on the devotional. When the scientific community comes under attack, he is tigerish in its defence. And at a time when some scientists, such as Russell Stannard, the eminent physics professor and lay preacher, are starting to argue that the only ''new'' discoveries will be ones of such intellectual complexity that only computers can arrive at them, or even understand them, Bryson still has faith in the curiosity and ingenuity of people.
He has another bee in his bonnet about which he has become increasingly vocal – litter. Since 2007, he has been President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and makes no bones of the fact that those strewing England's green and pleasant land with crisp packets should face the full force of the law. "If someone went into a pub and said, 'I don't believe it, I've just been fined £200 for throwing a cigarette carton in the street', people would sit up and take notice." For a second, there is real anger behind the kindly face. "As for people who throw litter out of cars: if they got three points on their licence every time, they would kick the habit in no time."
Bryson has no illusions about his powers of influence. "I can't fix the world. If you want to make a difference in life, you have to direct your energies in a focused way. I'm going to be 60 next year, so it's time to start putting down cudgels."
What does this Anglophile, who fell in love with the country in the 1970s, make of the Britain of 2010? "Well, I wouldn't live here if the positives didn't far outweigh the negatives. Before the election, I interviewed the three main party leaders, and it struck me how lucky your country was to have had three such able, smart, fundamentally decent people to choose from. In my country, you can get a really decent president followed by a crazy, scary one. Or an idiot."
• To celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society (royalsociety.org), Bill Bryson has edited 'Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society' (£25, HarperPress), available from Telegraph Books for £23 plus £1.25 P&P. To order, call 0844 871 1516 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 0844 871 1516 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or visit books.telegraph.co.uk
Nuclear power: a clean solution or a cul-de-sac?
By John Lichfield
Saturday, 25 September 2010
Far from being a guarantee of a greener future, the revival of nuclear power would be a costly cul-de-sac. Au contraire, nuclear energy can be cheap, clean, abundant and secure. Europe will never meet its carbon emissions targets by wind and solar power alone.
Two visions of the nuclear future – a sceptical British view and the enthusiastic official French view – collided head on at yesterday's Lyon environmental conference.
Tom Burke, a former head of Friends of the Earth and a leading anti-nuclear campaigner, took his nuclear scepticism into the most pro-nuclear, and nuclear-dependent, country in Europe. He was opposed by France's "Monsieur Nucléaire", François Roussely, former president of Electricité de France (EDF) and the man charged by President Nicolas Sarkozy with charting France's nuclear future.
Mr Burke, a regular adviser to British energy ministers and the Foreign Office, said his anti-nuclear arguments went beyond fear of radioactive leaks or the proliferation of nuclear arms, or worries about waste. A nuclear revival would soak up the "capital and skills" which would be better invested in "more reliable and less costly low-carbon energy technologies".
Mr Roussely said there were three arguments for nuclear power. It was clean, cheap and more secure, geo-politically, than oil or gas.
Saturday, 25 September 2010
Far from being a guarantee of a greener future, the revival of nuclear power would be a costly cul-de-sac. Au contraire, nuclear energy can be cheap, clean, abundant and secure. Europe will never meet its carbon emissions targets by wind and solar power alone.
Two visions of the nuclear future – a sceptical British view and the enthusiastic official French view – collided head on at yesterday's Lyon environmental conference.
Tom Burke, a former head of Friends of the Earth and a leading anti-nuclear campaigner, took his nuclear scepticism into the most pro-nuclear, and nuclear-dependent, country in Europe. He was opposed by France's "Monsieur Nucléaire", François Roussely, former president of Electricité de France (EDF) and the man charged by President Nicolas Sarkozy with charting France's nuclear future.
Mr Burke, a regular adviser to British energy ministers and the Foreign Office, said his anti-nuclear arguments went beyond fear of radioactive leaks or the proliferation of nuclear arms, or worries about waste. A nuclear revival would soak up the "capital and skills" which would be better invested in "more reliable and less costly low-carbon energy technologies".
Mr Roussely said there were three arguments for nuclear power. It was clean, cheap and more secure, geo-politically, than oil or gas.