Letters to the Editor - May 2007

Air travel is killing planet

The Country Diary (March) item regarding the flatulence of cows is really a red herring to draw the attention away from the main cause of global warming – the aeroplane. I have been pushing this argument for about eight years but it is only recently that those who should know about these things have grasped the nettle and admitted that aeroplanes do contribute to greenhouse gasses. Concorde – may this aerial muckspreader never fly again – used ninety tons of fuel to cross the Atlantic and another ninety to return. This means that most of one-hundred-and-eighty tons of a hydrocarbon with its attendant impurities was burned in the sub-stratosphere taking oxygen from the atmosphere for combustion. All this for the transportation of one hundred passengers each way. Nearly a ton for each of them. When a hydrocarbon is burned the main products are heat, carbon dioxide, water and the bi-products of the impurities – one of which is sulphur dioxide. This combines with the water vapour to form sulphurous acid which may fall as acid rain or combine with other combustion bi-products. This was fourth-form chemistry when I was at school. The carbon dioxide produced by cars is largely dealt with by surface vegetation and probably does not significantly increase the greenhouse effect as long as the world’s forests are not decimated. I understand that other passenger aircraft use about seventy-five tons of fuel for the same round trip. The only way that this sort of pollution can be decreased is to return to surface travel, which may be slower and less convenient but it may save the world. Politicians should not be allowed to fly; they should set a good example.

D Duke, Highbridge

The point of no return?

Following Robin Page’s article on predation in February there were interesting letters from Peter Wheble and H Wooldridge in your March edition on the same theme. Science has proved Mr Page’s views on the loss of hedgehogs to badgers. A study by Oxford University, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology (1994 63 pp. 851-860) concluded that legal protection of badgers ‘may have serious consequences for the survival of the hedgehog in rural areas. Badgers and hedgehogs both make extensive use of pasture fields to forage for invertebrate foods but badgers are able to eliminate hedgehogs in areas where they encounter them’. From being an uncommon and treasured part of British wildlife the badger population has reached pest proportions in some areas. Not only are they carriers of bovine TB but also they burrow under country roads and farmers’ fields, damage ancient monuments and trash crops and gardens. They are now a serious threat to bumblebees and ground-nesting birds. The problem has arisen because the badger population is no longer controlled by more powerful natural predators – wolf, lynx or bear – which formerly existed above them in the predatory hierarchy, and now they are no longer controlled by man. Similarly, the sparrowhawk suffers no serious predation in lowland Britain and is causing great losses among those songbird species which are particularly vulnerable to its hunting methods. Just as the reintroduction of wolf, lynx and bear would be unacceptable in lowland Britain, so would goshawk, pine marten and eagle owl be unwelcome for the natural control of the sparrowhawk. These major predators would pose a serious threat to small farm animals and domestic pets – and in some circumstances to man.The conclusion must be that badger and sparrowhawk numbers should be limited in a sensitive and humane manner, by man. As Peter Wheble put it: ‘how long can excessive predation be allowed to go on before other species pass the point of no return?’

Gavin Morris, Somersham

Cold, hard winters

Humphrey Phelps’ articles often remind me of when I was living and working on a mixed farm in the Trent valley in South Derbyshire between 1941-45 and onwards. I particularly remember the cold, hard winters when as a strong lad I had to break the ice on the Trent and Mersey canal with a sledgehammer to let the cows drink. We milked cows by hand and you were a good milker if you could milk eight cows an hour. I also remember some good summers when hay was swept into stacks in the field to a stationary baler or loose back to the hay barn. It was always hard physical work, as was the corn harvest in the days of heavy horses, stooking, carrying and eventually threshing. This could be for 4-5 days at a time, needing seven hands along with two men with threshing tackle, usually having extra help from your neighbour – and we returned the favour. With quite a few workers and a great variety of crops there was never a dull moment and a lot of fun. We looked forward to the help we got from Irish workers who assisted with the sugar beet and mangolds, while prisoners of war helped on a daily basis, hoeing, lifting potatoes etc. The Army from a nearby camp and of course the Land Girls also helped out. Today’s climate in farming bears no comparison to these wartime years and its hard work, heavy horses and occasionally a few early (now vintage) tractors. The future hope is that farming will soon recover from the mess that politicians have led our industry into.

R W Emery, Griffydam

Wasteful and rotten policy

It’s a strange world we live in. While over one third of its people go hungry the EU pays farmers NOT to grow food or leaves it to rot. More than 325,000 tons of fresh fruit and vegetables were taken off the market by EU bureaucrats last year alone. This mountain of farm goods would have been enough to feed the city of Birmingham or Manchester for three years. Instead it was dumped to keep prices high for farmers. Brussels agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel admitted that the total of this waste last year was 325,487 tons. Of this the vast majority was from Continental farmers. Less then one per cent came from the UK (yet another reason to come out of the EU?). Brussels chiefs have admitted this was done under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). We are being encouraged to eat five portions of fruit and veg a day to help reduce the risk of heart disease and cancers, yet these vast amounts are left to rot. CAP is not taking the health of the people into account when it decides which products and prices to support and is this good for the farming industry in the long run? I think not.

Ron Bird, Leighton Buzzard

Singly special

I had heard my late mother mention Gypsy Smith many times (March). She lived in London in the early 1920s and said that when he preached you could hear a pin drop. At that time he was the only non-ordained person to preach in St Paul’s Cathedral.

Carol Goff, Exeter, Devon

Don’t attract the rats

Never put cooked food, raw meat or fish into the compost (April issue). Some places, I understand, can process waste food. But until that happens in your area, keep it out of your compost.

Jean Coulson, Polstead by Colchester

Bird numbers

I have something of a contrary experience. I live in the middle of five acres in the middle of nowhere in north Devon. I am in a very exposed position with no nearby trees, but two bird tables outside a front window regularly entertain up to fifteen blue tits and twenty-five house sparrows besides several great tits, greenfinches, chaffinches and coal tits; also the occasional sparrowhawk flits by and has his way ...and good luck to him I say. I attribute this comparative abundance partly to the use of a magpie trap in season and also the absence of squirrels.

Christopher Price, Umberleigh

Raptor rage

Here, until about three years ago, my garden was alive with greenfinches, blue tits, great tits, dunnocks, chaffinches and the like but now there are none to be seen. Sparrowhawks are regular visitors and I deplore the RSPB’s protection and encouragement of these birds and other raptors.

Norah Titley, Angmering, west Sussex

If only...

Your editorial (March) rightly states that not everyone always agrees 100% with your two most distinguished columnists, but even on those rare occasions when I find myself taking issue with something which either writes I still acknowledge that they are speaking with sincerity and from experience. If only some of the others who give us their views on country matters – such as many politicians – could be said to be doing the same!

Martin Broadribb, by email

Durham Derivative

I was amused by Wendy MacLeod-Gilford’s nonsense tune (March). My father taught me a little ditty which went, as I remember it: Coynamara, Coynamara, Coynamara Candi, Rim Strim Stramadiddle Aravalla Rimtim, Ring Num Bulatina Kymee. This was nearly eighty years ago and I still sing it to myself. We lived in West Hartlepool with no Welsh connections that I know of.

Rosemary Hopkins, Sheffield

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