Urban shepherds and rural escapes

No, not a travel article. Below is an article from the Guardian about the use of sheep to reduce mowing in a British park. And to the left are the pictures of our own college sheep doing much the same thing, albeit in a rural setting at the MOFGA Fairgrounds, along with Sustainability Coordinator and Farm Manager Rob Beranek and summer shepherd Robbie Johnston..

All this talk of mowing lawns with sheep is m-ewe-sic to my ears. One benefit of moving our own sheep to the much drier Fairgrounds is that the mild but chronic hoof-rot they were plagued with this summer has gone. This fall we plan to build a barn with a concrete slab floor to give them drier housing for the winters, which should permanently alleviate the condition.

Unfortunately, we've had some difficulties with escapes at MOFGA. Not enough fence of the correct 48 inch double-wire spec for dry ground use, and so the grass is always greener. But we're learning slowly. Robbie is learning to move them frequently enough, and to build the fence strong each time, to prevent these escapes, and Haggis, our own Womerlippi Farm sheepdog is getting some good open-ground sheep-rounding-up practice not available here at home where the sheep know where to go and the job is easy.


The rise of the urban shepherd

* Karen Dugdale
* The Guardian,
* Monday July 21, 2008


'It's not often you go from your day job to turning a sheep over and inspecting its hooves," says Brigitta Richards. A nursery nurse, Richards is one of a growing number of volunteer shepherds recruited by Brighton and Hove city council as part of an initiative to reintroduce grazing to its urban parks, after an absence of more than 50 years. "It gets me out and about, and you're doing something to protect and conserve the environment as well."

"We've been working on this for about a decade," explains countryside ranger Lisa Rigby. "Having successfully grazed other sites on the outskirts of Brighton, we're now looking to up the ante."

While encountering sheep is nothing out of the ordinary for country dwellers, it may prove more of a shock to city folk taking a stroll. But introducing hardy rare breeds such as herdwicks and southdowns to Wild Park, which is flanked by large council estates...#65279;, this winter may encourage greater flower and insect diversity. The idea is that the sheep's idiosyncratic grazing patterns - some nibble bushes while others prefer chomping coarse terrain - will re-establish different levels of grass (good breeding ground for rare species), gradually replacing the aggressive approach of industrial mowing.

Rigby is keen to highlight the communal benefits. "You can't underestimate the value of livestock, the feelgood factor. A lot of people will go just to see the sheep."

But what about city dog owners? Won't they feel aggrieved at having their daily routines interrupted by the park's new inhabitants? It would seem not. Many of the respondents to a recent advert for watchers, according to Ribgy, are dog owners themselves - in her view ideal candidates because they are out every day.

So what does being a watcher involve? After a one-day introductory course on sheep-related welfare - including how to untangle a ewe from a fence - you sign up to a rota for as many hours as you can spare; no uniform or special equipment required, simply a mobile to ring in your report and a willingness to count sheep.

New book by Paul Erhlich

Human consumption: Flying in the face of logic

Forty years after dropping his Population Bomb into the environment debate, Paul Ehrlich is still railing at man's destructiveness

In 1968, six years after Rachel Carson published Silent Spring - the book regarded as marking the beginning of modern environmental consciousness - a young American entomology professor at Stanford University, California, published The Population Bomb. The tenor of Paul Ehrlich's book echoed the revolutionary sensibility and pervasive anxiety of the time. In it, Ehrlich and his wife, Anne, presented a neo-Malthusian scenario of imminent population explosion and ensuing disaster. "The battle to feed all of humanity is over," the Ehrlichs warned. "In the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programmes embarked upon now. At this late date, nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate..."

Read more...

Floating turbines

A British company is poised to construct the world's first floating wind turbine, in a move that could herald a new generation of cheaper, less problematic wind energy.

Blue H, a firm registered in the UK but based in Holland, aims to anchor its prototype device 12 miles off the coast of southern Italy later this month.

The company is one of several racing to build commercial-scale floating wind turbines that sit in deep water far from land. These turbines benefit from more powerful winds and avoid many of the issues that afflict existing wind farms.

Read more...

A Road Not Taken

The preview for Roman Keller and Christina Hamaeur's documentary about the Jimmy Carter solar panels can be seen now on You-Tube. It's very good indeed:

Alladale update

For those of you who followed our scientific fact-finding trip to the Highlands this spring, the plot thickens! Mercurial British millionaire Paul Lister and his plans for the estate are the focus of a six-part BBC Scotland TV series, The Real Monarch of the Glen. Apparently, Paul's somewhat difficult character is one focus of the show, which aired it's first episode the other night.

It comes as no surprise to us that the BBC saw a "star in the making" here. We were all quite amazed and entertained by Mr. Lister's antics when we visited the estate.

But none of this means he isn't right to advocate for some of the things he's advocating for. For one thing, culling deer will help regenerate the Caledonian forest. For another, a cheap efficient way to do this would be by introducing predators.

I'm just not sure he can get them the way he's going about getting them.

Here's the review. Enjoy.

The man who cries wolf

PAUL LISTER’s dream is to re-wild his highland estate with wolves and other animals long since driven from Scotland, but not everyone shares his vision

By Julie Davidson

There is nothing grand about the Laird of Alladale; or, as BBC Scotland prefers to call him, The Real Monarch Of The Glen. He rarely claims the master bedroom in his big house - an opulent corner room which has all the glory of the River Alladale gorge, bright with new birch leaf, outside its windows. When the lodge is full he happily slums it in a small back room with no en suite and an inferior view. "I think I've slept in every bedroom in the house," he says. "There are only two which haven't been refurbished, and I can make plans for them when I'm lying awake at night."

Read more....

Weatherizing the winter

I expect Unity College will be providing some of these crews.

Mick


Group seeks to hold off winter heating crisis

An energy panel presents ideas -- including insulating every Maine home -- to Gov. Baldacci.


By TUX TURKEL, Staff Writer July 9, 2008 [Portland Press Herald]

Neighborhood teams would fan out this summer to winterize 5,000 homes in Maine, and every community would designate a "warming shelter" for residents facing a heating crisis.

All of Maine's 477,000 single-family homes would be insulated and air-sealed during the next decade, at a cost of $3 billion.

These are among the preliminary recommendations of a 90-member task force set up to prepare the state for an energy emergency this winter, and to help break Maine's heavy dependence on imported oil -- over time. The group, called the Pre-Emergency Energy Task Force, presented a draft of its initial suggestions this week to Gov. John Baldacci.

A copy of the 16-page draft was obtained Tuesday by the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.

Final recommendations are due July 15, and Baldacci will then decide which ideas seem most practical, based on available money and resources. The state will be looking to the federal government for additional aid, such as low-income energy assistance, although most specific funding sources have yet to be determined.

The governor also has raised the possibility of calling a special session of the Legislature, which could modify laws or direct money to advance some of the recommendations.

"We understand that we have a very serious situation developing," said David Farmer, the governor's spokesman.

Farmer and those involved in the effort stress that state government alone can't solve the pending crisis. That's why the task force is trying to marshal the combined efforts of local agencies, businesses, volunteer groups and individuals to begin a process that will take many years and cost billions of dollars.

John Kerry, the state's energy director and chair of the task force, uses oversized analogies, such as the Apollo moon program, to describe the scale of what Maine must accomplish.

"It sounds like a grand vision, but you have to have one," he said. "The time for planning is over. We need action. That's the governor's message."

The need for action is apparent to anyone who drives a car or heats a building with oil. Average gasoline prices in Maine set a record Monday, $4.13 a gallon. The price of heating oil -- normally low in summer -- hit a new statewide average high of $4.71 a gallon. Some dealers have crossed the $5 a gallon mark, a price that seemed unimaginable last winter.

Maine is nearly 100 percent dependent on petroleum for transportation and 80 percent for home heat. Families and businesses are spending roughly $8 billion a year on petroleum, Kerry's office estimates, with most of the money going out of the country. Against this economic backdrop, Baldacci and lawmakers will be under pressure to quickly get some of the task force's suggestions in place.

The group represents a broad cross section of Maine's political, business and advocacy communities. Members include utilities, environmental groups, charities and banks. Their recommendations are broken down by subject, including transportation, housing and finance.

For instance: The task force highlighted a need to keep the state's elderly and most vulnerable residents warm in their homes. A first step would be to mobilize local teams to seal air leaks and perform basic efficiency measures for eligible homeowners.

Civic groups and faith-based organizations would lead the way, using state-provided "warm kits" that include weatherstripping, compact fluorescent light bulbs and other basic efficiency products. This effort would build upon the state's existing Keep Me Warm program, with the aim of reaching 5,000 households before winter. The cost of 5,000 kits is $300,000. Money could come from the federal program for low-income energy assistance.

Looking ahead to cold weather, charitable groups would be asked to work with local and county officials to help address acute needs of isolated elderly and poor residents. The primary goal is to keep people warm in their homes, the draft report says, but temporary "warming shelters" at unspecified locations in each town should be set up to make sure people have heat and food in a crisis.

Longer term, the state would set a goal of cutting residential energy consumption by 18 percent to 30 percent. At today's prices, cutting consumption by 18 percent could save the state's economy $1.7 billion over 10 years, the draft report estimates.

The report also calculates what it would take to weatherize 477,000 homes over 10 years. The job would require 500 crews and cost $3 billion, with money coming from bonds and below-market-rate loans.

An average house could save $712 a year, assuming oil costs $4.60 a gallon. A challenge, aside from funding the program, would be finding enough energy auditors and insulation contractors to do the work.

The task force also suggests expanding the state's GO Maine van pool and ride-sharing programs, buying more buses and extending passenger rail service. Employers would be encouraged to consider four-day work weeks and telecommuting.

Whatever recommendations emerge, the state plans to create a public education and outreach program supported by an Internet site. It will be part of the recently consolidated energy assistance information at www.maine.gov.

Greenpeace shaming video

I thought this new video from UK Greenpeace that is doing the rounds on the Internet was interesting, provides a follow-up on yesterday's post about shaming, and is even diagnostic of cultural differences between the UK and US senses of "humour" as well as differences in ordinary people's understandings of the climate change issue in both countries. In the video, an office worker is hazed and shamed by his coworkers because he drives an SUV to work.

In the UK, where comedy and hazing at other people's expense is much commonplace and even more brutal than in this country, and where ordinary people are now very concerned about climate change, Greenpeace could expect to succeed with a video like this.

In the US, I would expect this video would just cause resentment and a backlash.

I showed it to Aimee, and she said that the first few minutes were incomprehensible to her because the hazing that was going on was so subtle. After that she got the idea, but it still didn't translate that well.

Two countries forever "separated by a common language."

What I thought was really funny was not the video, but the comments, which were just riddled with confusion and indignity first on the part of Americans, and then from Brits in response.