The Times, Frank Pope: The wreck of HMS Victory, a British warship sunk in the English Channel in 1744, is being destroyed by fishing trawlers, according to the American treasure hunters who discovered the site last year.
“We were shocked and surprised by the degree of damage we found in the Channel,” said Greg Stemm, chief executive of Odyssey Marine Exploration.
“When we got into this business, like everyone else we thought that beyond 50 or 60 metres, below the reach of divers, we’d find pristine shipwrecks. We thought we’d be finding rainforest, but instead found an industrial site criss-crossed by bulldozers and trucks.”
Odyssey - the world’s only publicly-listed shipwreck exploration company - surveyed 4,725 sq miles (12,300 sq km) of the western Channel during its search for high-value shipwrecks. It discovered 267 wrecks, of which 112, or 41 per cent, show evidence of damage from a type of fishing known as bottom trawling.
The site of HMS Victory shows nets and cables snagged around cannon and ballast blocks. Three bronze cannon were displaced. One, a 42-pounder weighing 4 tonnes, was dragged 55 metres and flipped upside down. Two other cannon recovered by the company last year show fresh scratches from trawls and damage caused by friction from nets or cables.
“It turns out that Victory is right in the middle of the heaviest trawling area in the Western Channel,” Mr Stemm said.
Out of 34 survey boxes, each measuring 74 miles x 55 miles, more vessels were sighted in the area surrounding Victory than in any other. More than 66 per cent were beam trawlers, the most destructive.
Tags: English Channel, Frank Pope, HMS Victory, Odyssey Marine Exploration, The Ministry of Defence, The Times, Wreck Watch International
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The Guardian, Alok Jha: Move sees convent swap fuel-hungry abbey for new home with solar panels, grass-covered roof and reedbed sewage system.
It is not often that the Benedictine nuns of the Conventus of Our Lady of Consolation leave their monastery. It is even rarer for them to move monasteries entirely.
But today, the nuns left their Worcestershire home of 171 years to take possession of their new residence in the North York Moors national park - a new building that they insisted must remain as environmentally-friendly as possible as they lead their quiet life of prayer.
Among the £4.7 million building’s green features are solar panels to provide hot water, a woodchip boiler that will be fuelled by locally-sourced trees and a roof covered in sedum grass to better insulate the buildings and attract local wildlife.
Rainwater from some of the roofs will be collected and used to flush the toilets and, instead of an electrically-driven waste water treatment plant, the architects have installed a reedbed sewage system. The effluent from the monastery will filter through the reedbed and, after it is processed through natural anaerobic digestion, the resulting water will trickle out onto the surrounding land.
And the basic materials for the building - everything from timber to stone - have been sourced as locally as possible.
“A lot of building projects start out with all these environmental features and, by the value engineering stage, usually you’ve lost quite a few of them,” said project architect Gill Smith of Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, winners of the 2008 Stirling Prize. “The nuns have been remarkably good at sticking with their principles and not letting them drift as other clients tend to do. The list they’ve ended up with is quite impressive.”
Tags: Alok Jha, Benedictine Nuns, Conventus of Our Lady of Consolation, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, reedbed sewage, sedum roof, solar panels, Stanbrook Abbey, The Guardian, The Stirling Prize, woodchip boiler
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The Energy Saving Trust has today launched a 3-minute comedy video entitled ‘Eco-Pads’ featuring the comedian, writer and actor Marcus Brigstocke. Inspired from MTV’s CribsTM Marcus reveals some of the eco-renovations he has made to his London home in true MTVTM style:
Following a trip to the Arctic with Cape Farewell to witness the effects of climate change, Marcus explains why he agreed to work with the Energy Saving Trust. He explained, ‘Climate change can be a difficult subject for comedy, but like anything else it can be made funny and in the face of too much earnestness it’s important that it is. There’s a lot of apathy around personal responsibility; we need to talk about climate change but not for too long, the important thing is to take action and the easiest and best place to start is in the home.’
‘Over the years I have gradually made green improvements to my home, and I genuinely feel proud of what I have achieved. There are lots of things that you can do that can help your home be more energy efficient and cost effective. Insulation and lining the backs of radiators is easy and cheap. I did the a lot of the garden and water harvesting arrangements myself and the simple thing of changing over light bulbs to eco ones then leaving them off when they are not needed… Having made the changes I’ve noticed a difference to the household bills and although they’re only small steps, I feel that it’s making a difference. I would recommend that everyone should look into and start improving their homes by making them more energy efficient, a great way to start is to contact the Energy Saving Trust for free and impartial advice.’
Marcus takes viewers on a tour of his ‘Eco Pad’, discussing the alterations he has made to his own home to save money and energy, where he:
- Reveals his ‘big butt’, also known as his water butt
- Demonstrates ‘where the magic happens’, in his composter
- Boasts his energy saving light bulbs
- Brags about his insulation made from recycled plastic bottles
- Explains a ‘water saving device called a plug’
- Shows off his two bicycles, with ‘fourteen inch rims’
Philip Sellwood, chief executive of the Energy Saving Trust, added, ‘Everyone’s purse strings are tighter nowadays and bank holidays are the perfect time to take stock and check which DIY jobs will save you cash on the household bills. Our research shows many Brits are shying away from easy cash savings by ignoring simple, energy saving tasks which need to be done around the home. This is a real shame. This bank holiday weekend we urge householders to call their local Energy Saving Trust advice centre on 0800 512 012 to find out which simple things - from draught-proofing to bleeding the radiators - they could do this bank holiday. I am sure they will be shocked at the savings they’re missing.’
The EST carried out a UK-wide survey of more than 2000 consumers and found the top four home improvement jobs most dreaded by the DIY-shy were:
- Top-up existing loft insulation - 63% would never attempt this job but if they did it would save them £60 a year on energy bills.
- Put jacket on hot-water cylinder - 44% avoided this despite a £40 annual saving.
- Draught proof doors & windows - 43% weren’t keen, yet there’s £30 to be had.
- Insulate or “lag” hot water pipes - 56% didn’t want to know, £10 could be saved here.
‘Eco Pads’ is the first in a series of short celebrity films to kick off the Energy Saving Trusts Celebrity Green Ambassador campaign.
Further star-studded videos will be released throughout the summer.
For details and to view the video, please visit http://www.EnergySavingTrust.org.uk/MarcusBrigstocke
Tags: Cape Farewell, composting, draught proofing, energy saving light bulbs, Energy Saving Trust, insulation, Marcus Brigstocke, MTV, water butt, water saving
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The Independent, Rachel Shields: Last year, you couldn’t give away old paper and bottles. But now the salvage industry is back in business and starting a new boom.
As an investment tip it is unlikely to inspire a rush: put your money in rubbish. Nevertheless, new figures reveal that the price of recyclable waste has doubled in the past six months.
The news will provide a boost to Britain’s flagging recycling movement, and go some way towards reversing the gloom over mountains of glass bottles and newspapers piling up across Britain after the drop last year in the value of recyclables.
It will also be a welcome change for UK waste collection companies and councils, hit hard by a drop in demand last autumn for paper, bottles and cans from countries such as China and India. There had been calls for warehouses and disused airfields to be made available for storing rubbish that could not be sold.
A huge global drop in the volume of waste being produced, partly due to the economic downturn, is thought to have sparked the recent sharp rise. The price of cardboard has trebled to £59 per ton since November, while PET - the plastic used in drinks bottles - has also more than doubled from £75 per ton to £195. During the same time period, the price of gold has risen by just 14 per cent, and crude oil by 16 per cent.
“The main reason for this is that the quantity of recycled material available around the world is lower than it was six months ago. It is a question of supply and demand,” said George Broom, the owner of the commercial recycling company Environmental Support Services. “Also, the international demand that had dropped off is coming back.”
Tags: China, Environmental Support Services, India, Rachel Shields, recycling, rubbish, The Independent, WRAP
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The Guardian, Frances Wright: But seeking a judicial review of the way the 1 April protests were policed is unlikely to be an easy process.
The Climate Camp went to the European Climate Exchange in Bishopsgate on 1 April to highlight the failure of carbon trading as a solution to climate change. We were met by the same kind of heavy-handed policing as at previous Climate Camps - but for once, the outrageous behaviour of the police has been reported widely in the mainstream media. This gives us a welcome opportunity to challenge and debate the way protest is now being policed in the UK.
After the Kingsnorth Climate Camp, the legal team were so frustrated at the pre-emptive policing - involving blanket searches and seizures of people’s possessions - and the lack of ways to effectively hold the police to account for their actions, that we produced a report and film to document what had happened.
After the G20 Climate Camp, we did the same.
Last week as the author of this report I appeared as a witness before the joint parliamentary select committee on human rights and the home affairs select committee. While it is positive that there is parliamentary interest, we are worried that the only detailed inquiry being undertaken into the policing of the G20 protests is being carried out by HM inspectorate of constabulary.
This is hardly independent, but rather the police reviewing their own performance against their own standards; an exercise in damage limitation at best.
Tags: carbon trading, Climate Camp, European Climate Exchange, Frances Wright, G20, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, Home Affairs Select Committee, Kingsnorth, Metropolitan Police, The Guardian
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