News & Comment
Amenity Forum Conference
website launched
Dedicated website supporting the Amenity Forum Conference on October 17th
THE Amenity Forum have launched a dedicated website providing full information on their conference event taking place on October 17th at Leicester City Football Club, including speaker profiles, the conference programme and the list of supporters who will have stands at the event.
The site also has full information on how to book your place, with online facilities for payment as needed. The website can be found at
www.afconference.co.uk
Alan Spedding, the Forum Secretary, said “We are delighted with the new website, running alongside our existing main site and specifically promoting the conference planned in October. We have excellent speakers and the programme is very focused on addressing the practical implications of recent policy and technical changes. There is something of value and interest for
everybody in our sector.”
John Moverley, Forum Chairman, said “We have put considerable effort into bringing together a really strong programme for this event. We would like to see as many as possible attend to demonstrate the real commitment of our sector to best practice and continuing to drive up standards. We would like to see this as being one of the major events in 2013 for anyone interested in the amenity sector and, in particular, issues concerning weed, pest and disease control.”
Thanks to the support of partners, the delegate fee has been kept as low as possible at £45 for non-members and £40 for member organisations.
Further information is available from Alan Spedding, Secretary to the Forum, at Alan.Spedding@amenityforum.
co.uk
Sweet result?
The Horticultural Trades Association calls for a ban on the import of sweet chestnut trees
The Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) has welcomed the government consultation on the proposed ban on the import of sweet chestnut trees into Britain in a bid to prevent a repeat of the ash dieback outbreak. The HTA called for the ban in May.
Owen Paterson, Environment Secretary made the call for a ban at the “Stop the Spread” garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, a garden commissioned by FERA and supported by Government and trade bodies such as the HTA. There will be a six-week consultation on the total ban on imports of sweet chestnut trees before the next planting season.
Chestnut blight, caused by the 10 PC JUNE/JULY 2013
fungus Cryphonectria parasitica has already affected two sites in the UK. So far, 180 trees have been destroyed on sites in Warwickshire and Essex, following the
importation of infected trees from France in 2011.
Tim Briercliffe, Director of Business Development at the HTA said: “With the potential increase in the planting of sweet chestnut as an alternative to ash, this could present an unnecessary risk to UK woodland already under stress from chalara. We therefore support the proposed ban, and will continue to work with Defra to control the outbreak of pests and diseases in the UK.”
COMMENT
Theories and relativity!
Latest report on Global Climate Change leaves many questions unanswered
AS I gaze out of my window on a rather cold and windy day in mid June, I am left in little doubt that today is not a typical English summer’s day. Equally, the extended winter and late spring experienced this year was certainly unusual.
So, when I read about an IPCC report on climate change that had been sent to Governments around the world, I thought I would dip in to see what was being said.
At first I thought it odd that the Independent Police Complaints Commission should be worrying itself over this topic, and was somewhat relieved to find the acronym actually stood for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. At least our streets will remain safe, even if it rains a lot!
Now, I’m not a scientist - I got thrown out of chemistry for setting fire to one of the wooden test benches with a bunsen burner - but I do understand English. Here is an excerpt from the report on the report:
“Governments around the world have just received one of the most important scientific reports ever written. It provides the starkest assessment yet of how the earth’s climate is responding to rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and creating risks for billions of people from extreme weather events and rising sea levels.
A confidential draft of the new report on the causes and consequences of global warming was sent to governments to review on June 7, ahead of the publication of the final version this autumn. Compiled for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by 255 scientific experts from universities and research institutes in 38 countries, the report provides an up- to-date overview of the findings of thousands of recent peer-reviewed research papers.
Most important, the latest IPCC report - part of its fifth
comprehensive assessment in its 25- year history - includes an analysis of new computer projections of how global warming might develop by the end of the century. The initial results show that, at current rates of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, average global temperature could be at least three degrees centigrade higher by the end of this century than it was before the onset of the Industrial
Revolution and widespread burning of fossil fuels.”
All heady stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree, but what concerns me is the use of words such as ‘assessment’, ‘might’ and ‘could’. Surely that makes the report nothing more than conjecture. Spurs ‘might’ win the Champions League one day. Well, that’s my assessment anyway!
Some of those opposing the report commented:
“The grandiosity of the declaration that this is one of the most important scientific reports ever written immediately makes it dubious. No bona fide scientific work presents itself this way. Science is calmly measured data and conclusions. This computer modelling is an extrapolation which reflects the inherent bias of the modeller. It is not possible in today’s realm of politically funded scientific research for any impartial analysis of global warming to emerge from a government-funded research institution. Why? Because no rebutal is permitted. No alternate view is allowed to be presented. This is not science. Science is about vigorous debate and multiple working hypotheses.” Mike Nelson.
“No one gets money to study climate change if they don’t believe in climate change. There is a severe selection bias, fuelled by scientists who (perhaps unawares) want to get $ from world governments to promote their careers.” Mark Pitts.
I’m never going to be opposed to scientific fact, but conjecture ‘could’ be considered as little more than scaremongering, and I’m sure that’s not the intention.
Scientists expounding The Big Bang theory as the prevailing
cosmological model that describes the early development of the Universe agree that the event occurred ‘approximately’ 13.798 billion years ago. That is, until March of this year when it was discovered that our Universe is actually 100 million years older than first thought!
Maybe those scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider [is there a small one somewhere?] will eventually crack the theory, but I can’t help wondering if the Higgs Boson might just turn out to be an old man with a long white beard who will exclaim; “Why hast thou done this, for this is my job?”
PETER BRITTON, Sales & Production,
Pitchcare.com
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