Darkness Falling

Went to a big seminar on the Severn Estuary yesterday in Clevedon.

I learned stuff.

I learned that the Environment Agency do not realise that siltation is coming from farm runoff, and that soil erosion is much less of a problem from organic farms. Frightening ignorance.

And then we got onto the cost of electricity from the Severn Barrage, and comparative costs between coal and renewable, and it suddenly dawned on me that whereas renewable electricity costs are detailed down to the last penny, when they are then compared to coal, oil gas and nuclear where only the up front costs are counted, and the end of pipe costs are discounted, as "externalities". How can we put a cost on the atmospheric impact of global warming and acid rain? Or the cancers, or a Maximum Credible Accident caused by an al-Quaeda hit on a nuclear power station? They do not even insure the damn things. Comparative costings do not and cannot exist.

The more I look at it, the more I realise we are living in a stacked deck. Yet we must keep on speaking truth to power, not because we believe power is listening, but because if we do not, the darkness will get that much worse.