Welcome to EcoNewsOnline which aims to bring interesting and easily digestible articles on new ecological research and news to all those who wish to sift out the truth about the global ecology from the many myths that abound. Most proponents of improving the earth’s ecological balance, especially the larger organisations have riding alongside them a political agenda which tends to distort the facts however slightly, so how can you and I determine which part of their message is political, and which isn’t?
Mostly, we can’t and this is where EcoNewsOnline comes in. We are totally non political and interested only in the facts of the matter. If we venture an opinion, we will say so but otherwise, what you read here will be a representation of scientific research and newsworthy occurrences which we hope will be of interest to all.

The term ‘Ecology’ covers a vast range of subjects and our aim is to cover those close to home which have stirred up the public interest such as global warming, electrical generation, wild life problems and successes, waste management, farming and smallholding, organic matters, household energy management and so on. But we won’t be limited by such a list and if any further ranging topics of interest raise their heads above the horizon, we will cover them.

This first issue of EcoNewsOnline will cover a small but diverse selection of highlights from research, news and surveys undertaken in 2008. We start off with some very recent and welcome news about icebergs and then move onto a problem so close to home that it affects every one of us and originates in the home itself – the £billions wasted on food every year. A report originated by WRAP – Waste and Resources Action Programme in the UK will amaze you with its statistics on household food waste that occurs in all households in all sectors of society from the young to the very old. Look at just two of their findings below:

People in the UK pay for, but do not eat, £10 billion of food every year.
It costs another £1 billion annually for local authorities to collect and send most of it to landfill.
Can you imagine the cost of all this to the consumer, the local authorities and the wider economy? Can you imagine what £10 billion looks like or what we could do with it? And that is just in one country. I have no reason to believe that it is any different in the other developed nations. Preventing this appalling waste could avoid 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents from being emitted each year – the same as taking 20% of cars off the road!

As I said earlier, the figures are staggering and when you think that 70,000 children die of starvation each year throughout the world it really puts the whole thing into perspective.

The summarized WRAP report is our first article January, but we go on to cover several more bite sized pieces including ‘earthworm detectives’; managing uncertainty in the ecological balance; we look at how the actions of individuals are the key to saving biodiversity; how the EU has doubled the ecological pressure on the planet and we take a look ‘Oceans of Death’ – sounds gloomy – Microbes as the new oil, the most interesting ‘Wedge Theory’ and how that vast resource, the soil can both hinder and help us. Remember though that independently conducted scientific research doesn’t always come up with the answers that we want to hear so be prepared to be disappointed at times.

Apart from these articles of interest we also take a quick look into eco history in our Historical Perspectives section; and we even investigate ‘the rise of slime!’

Our Angle at EcoNewsOnline
Our aim is to try and re-introduce science and common sense into the incredibly complicated ‘green’ equation. Politicians of whatever colour are rarely able to do this – especially the common sense bit because of their political ideologies and hangups. In New Zealand we have just been saved (I think) from a well intentioned but misguided attempt to force us all to use low energy light bulbs with no research having been carried out into the potential human health hazards of these items. Our politicians put forward an emissions trading scheme (which overall I think is good and which we need) but in which NZ farmers would have to take into account farm animals, thus making the most carbon efficient farmers in the world the only ones to front up for this. The resulting graduated reduction in New Zealand’s agricultural output to meet the emission targets would simply have shifted production to less efficient countries so what would have reduced New Zealand’s emissions on the one hand would be worse for the world on the global scale. Thus ‘clean & green’ New Zealand would have contributed towards more global warming! Some politicians seemed unable to see that global warming isn’t just a New Zealand problem. I would have thought that the word ‘global’ might have given them a clue, but anyway, see what I mean about common sense?

EcoNewsOnline is free and will appear every two months. In future we will have a free subscription system for your convenience so that we can inform you when each issue appears.

Finally, if you want to write in with articles, information or letters, or even advertising, please do so at info@econewsonline.com.
All of us here at EcoNewsOnline really hope that you enjoy our first issue and we also hope that you will return in two month’s time. (March 09)

Keep in touch

David Cramp
Editor

Editorial Editor