Dark roads will lead to brighter future says pollution commission

Street and motorway lights should be dimmed or switched off to save energy and let people see the stars, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution says.

It says there is little evidence that such lighting significantly cuts accidents or crime. It recommends the removal of thousands of motorway lights, possibly even at junctions. The report says that since 1993 most of the UK has become brighter, obscuring the stars, and it backs a recent paper in the scientific journal Nature that said: “Without a direct view of the stars, mankind is cut off from most of the Universe, deprived of any direct sense of its huge scale and our tiny place in it.”

The commission proposes “dark- sky parks” all over Britain, with planning restrictions on outdoor lighting. The Galloway Forest Park in southern Scotland this month became Britain’s first official dark-sky park, with 7,000 stars visible there, compared with 500 in Glasgow.

It says that the planned replacement of 2.3 million of Britain’s 7.4 million road lights in the next two years is “a real opportunity for local authorities to think about minimising the negative impacts of stray light”.

It says motorway lighting reduces crashes by about 10 per cent and that this may be too low to justify the costs. It welcomes the Highways Agency’s trials of switching off lighting on six stretches of motorway between midnight and 5am. The trials began in March and have so far reduced carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation by 230 tonnes, equal to 100 cars’ annual emissions

Satellites to monitor countries for climate change under Gordon Brown plan

Last night at a meeting in Trinidad Gordon Brown reached agreement with Commonwealth leaders and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, to put forward a new £10 billion fund to tackle what Mr Brown said was “a climate emergency.”

He said the Launch Fund would allow the world to break the “deadlock” over a deal at Copenhagen (the conference starts next week) and “get moving on climate change as quickly as possible”.

Mr Brown said: “'Together the collective power of the Commonwealth must be brought together to tackle a new historic injustice, that of climate change.”

Ahead of the UN-sponsored climate change conference in the Danish capital, Mr Brown proposed a £10 billion rich-world fund - to which Britain would contribute £800 million - to give incentives to developing countries to halt deforestation, develop low-carbon energy sources and prepare for the effects of a warmer climate.

To police the new deal satellites would monitor countries, like Papua New Guinea, Guyana and Indonesia, responsible for deforestation. Any country found not to be abiding by the deal would have their funding halted.

But some countries, not least China, are likely to be very wary of allowing international satellites to spy on their country.

Floods in Cumbria: Army could build WW2 Bailey bridges

An emergency meeting is being held by the County Council this afternoon to discuss ways of bridging the Derwent at Workington, where residents currently face a 40-mile detour if they want to get from one side of the river to the other.
Structural engineers have told the council that prefabricated bridges could be built over the Derwent in a matter of days, if necessary, as they are strong enough to cross the river in a single span. Bailey bridges, named after their inventor, Donald Bailey, have been in use since the Second World War, when their light, modular design enabled soldiers to piece together bridges in a matter of hours without the need for cranes or specialist equipment. They are designed to hold the weight of a tank, and were credited by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery as being one of the most important inventions of the war

Revision - Mind Maps

Year 11 - see if you can use the mind map technique to help you revise for your mock exams. Mr Bains' Year 10 group - remember you have a piece of homework to draw a mind map about Coastal Defences.

Look at the example provided here and remember the key ideas:

1. Use different colours for the arrows - a different theme should have a different colour (in the example you can see the light blue arrows are all to do with things that can be done in the home to reduce global warming, the green arrows are things that people can do as individuals and the black arrow is all about transport and climate change)

2. Have different size writing - make the more important information larger in size than the less important information

3. Use pictures and few words - only have the key facts and key words on your mind map. They should trigger memories and thoughts and help you remember the important information

Hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes in Cumbria after flooding of 'biblical proportions'.

Record rainfall of 12.3 inches fell in the area in just 24 hours, causing rivers to burst their banks and flood waters to rise to 2.5m in some streets.
Hundreds of stranded residents have been rescued from their homes, roads have been blocked and four bridges have collapsed.
Workington MP Tony Cunningham said the flood was "of biblical proportions" and seen "once every 1,000 years".
The Environment Agency has six severe flood warnings in place - all in Cumbria - 29 flood warnings, and 65 less serious flood watches. More rain is expected on higher fells in Cumbria and across areas of the UK later today.
Flooding has also been reported in north-west Wales, Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland and other parts of north-west England.

Click on the title to go to photos of the floods and more information

Copenhagen Conference on Climate change - 4 weeks to go!

There are just over four weeks to go before the Copenhagen conference intended to agree a new international framework for controlling greenhouse gas emissions. The final round of preparatory talks in Barcelona has revealed deep divisions between some of the key participants.

What is the Copenhagen Conference?
It will run between December the 7th and 18th
192 countries will be represented
There will be 15,000 officials from around the world


What are they hoping to achieve?
They want to agree targets for the richer and poorer countries to cut greenhouse gases (which cause Climate change)
They want to agree funding for poorer countries to help them cut their greenhouse gas emissions


Click on the title to see a table of the differing viewpoints from around the world.

More information can be found by clicking this link

91 die in El Salvador floods

At least 91 people have been killed in El Salvador by flooding following days of heavy rain, the government says.

Authorities have declared a state of emergency in five regions

Journalist Juan Carlos Barahona told the BBC that San Vicente had almost been completely cut off by landslides and collapsed bridges.

Mr Barahona, of the El Salvador daily La Prensa Grafica, told the BBC that the other worst affected areas were La Libertad, La Paz and Cuscatlan.

60 people are still missing, and about 7,000 more are in shelters.

Environmental issues in China - Year 13 homework

Use this website on China to help you with your Superpower Geographies homework (due Tuesday 10th November). Have a look at the interactive map, videos and article (it's a bit long at 6 pages, but useful) and make a list of all the environmental problems that China have as a result of their rapid growth and emergence as a superpower.

ps - go down to the "Slideshare" widget on the left hand panel for past exam papers if you need some for the re-takes. Mark schemes are there as well.

Deadline for fieldtrips this week

A quick reminder to Year 10 and Year 12 students.......payments and slips are due for the fieldtrips by the end of this week. It is essential that slips are back and your parents should contact Mr Bains at school is they have any issues.

Ask your teacher if you have lost your letter.

Interactive Atlas of the Millenium Development Goals

Have a look at this resource. It has been produced by the World Bank and shows how each country around the world fares against the Millenium Goals. This Online Atlas of the Millenium Development Goals takes each goal and resizes the world map to show the inequalities that currently exist.just click on one of the development goals on the right hand side of the screen, select a map and then resize it by clicking 'play'. The results are fascinating.