Friday, 17 May 2019

So, is LafargeHolcim financially back on track?

This week, LafargeHolcim reported "very good market demand globally", according to Reuters, beating sales and profit expectations during its first quarter, with cement demand forecast to increase by 2 to 3 percent this year. LafargeHolcim’s CEO Chief Executive Jan Jenisch told reporters:
"In Europe we have very good order books in most of the countries. Germany continues to have very strong construction activities, so does France, so does eastern Europe. The formerly more difficult markets in the south are all growing again."
However:
Britain, in the midst of a messy exit from the European Union, was the exception in Europe, Jenisch said, adding he expected a 2% volume decline there this year.
LafargeHolcim’s subsidiary in Britain is of course Aggregate Industries.

So, is LafargeHolcim financially back on track after the €42bn merger of France’s Lafarge and Switzerland’s Holcim in 2015?

This month, the company pulled out of the Philippines, and, following divestments in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, will now no longer have a foothold in Southeast Asia. Proceeds of $4.9 billion "will be used to pay down debt." As Global Cement puts it:
when the world’s largest cement producer leaves an entire sub-continental market it deserves mention... That’s a region with 651 million inhabitants or around 8% of the world’s total population. All of those people need cement and other building products as their nations build houses, infrastructure and so on. And LafargeHolcim is no longer there.
Our strategic decision to divest South East Asia was executed with very attractive valuations allowing us to achieve a new level of financial strength.
However, The Manila Times paints another picture in the articles "Issue-plagued Holcim calls it quits" and "The mess Holcim leaves behind". It uses phrases such as "controversy-plagued" and "scandal-ridden", and talks about non-compliance of Environmental Compliance Certificates, numerous complaints about noise and dust, about dust-related allergies and respiratory problems, about officials accusing Holcim Philippines of damaging corals and other marine life:
For LafargeHolcim, the end of its Philippine sojourn represents a double loss, for which it only has itself to blame. Having bailed out the Indonesian market due to a huge overcapacity in that country’s cement industry, the company could have made great strides here where demand far outstrips demand [sic]. Instead, it cut corners and generally behaved as though the market situation obviated the need to follow any rules, and for that, it has been penalized with a diminished reputation, the loss of a strong foothold in a lucrative market, and the dubious honor of being a case study in bad strategy.
According to The FT's Lex column, LafargeHolcim still has some way to go, the merger of Lafarge and Holcim having "failed on its own metrics":
Since the deal, LafargeHolcim has sold businesses with an enterprise value of SFr8.4bn ($8.3bn). Sales have suffered from sluggish economies.
Returns on invested capital were meant to improve by 3 percentage points by 2018. Mysteriously, no 2015 group figure was published. Less surprisingly, economies of scale did not emerge.
Annual reports show ROIC of just 5.2 per cent in 2016, rising to 6.5 per cent last year, barely more than its cost of capital.
LafargeHolcim’s shares have fallen a quarter since the merger, trailing global building material stocks by a third. Jan Jenisch, the chief executive since September 2017, has cut central costs, risking French ire by closing the prestigious Paris offices. He aims to lift group ROIC above 8 per cent by 2022.

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‘New drive to cut carbon emissions across Devon’

Devon’s ruling Cabinet has agreed to set aside £250,000 towards an initiative to persuade organisations, communities and individuals to do more to reduce global warming.
Council leader John Hart says Devon has to do more.
He wants to bring together public bodies across the county with business representatives and the utility companies to support urgent action on the climate emergency.
"We clearly can’t do this alone but I want Devon to take a lead in bringing organisations, communities and individuals together to take action.
"This is an issue that affects us all and requires action from all of us from large-scale corporate concerns to the individual resident.
"That’s why I’ve asked the Chief Executive, Phil Norrey, to lead on this to demonstrate how seriously we are taking it."
This comes at a time when there are calls for the UK's planning system to evolve to help deliver a net zero carbon target. The Committee on Climate Change’s recent report Net Zero The UK's contribution to stopping global warming warned:
Realising deep emissions reductions in buildings will require co-ordination and co-operation across all levels of Government, industry, businesses and householders… with evolution in the planning system to keep pace with Government ambitions.
Whilst Devon County Council’s planning remit is limited, it is nevertheless responsible for determining planning issues relating to mineral, waste and county council developments. It is therefore responsible for determining Aggregate Industries’ planning application for a quarry at Straitgate Farm – with its climate-busting 2.5 million mile haulage plan to process the material 23 miles away.
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Wednesday, 15 May 2019

‘The importance of the Ottery St Mary wellfield’

Those reliant on springs, wells and boreholes in the area for their drinking water supplies will know all about the importance of groundwater – and how important it is that we protect it.

Next week, the Ottery St Mary Heritage Society has arranged for Marcus Adams, a hydrogeologist from South West Water, to discuss the 'The Groundwater Resource under Ottery'
. Visitors welcome.

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Monday, 13 May 2019

Whilst AI is failing on CO2 emissions, other companies now promise dramatic cuts

Aggregate Industries' record on cutting CO2 would be laughable, if our bioclimatic crisis wasn’t so serious.


Of course, it’s not just AI that should be ashamed of its climate record. In 2018, the government’s official climate change adviser criticised the UK housebuilding industry, saying the "the industry should be ashamed of itself".


A majority of voters would now support radical action to slash greenhouse gases, a new poll has found.


Why should the UK act? As the birthplace of the industrial revolution, the UK has large historical emissions, and – if global CO2 emissions are allocated using per capita calculations – is more responsible for global warming than any other country. As the chair of the CCC recently warned:

In the last few days, some companies have been shaken into making promises to slash emissions. Bosch says it will be carbon-neutral by 2020, and even one company in the construction sector: BAM – a Dutch construction-services business – has committed to halving emissions by 2030:
Royal BAM Group group director of sustainability Nitesh Magdani said: "This medium-term CO2 reduction target will influence BAM to drive innovative solutions for our own operations as well as products and services which we provide to others. This target supports our efforts to reduce CO2 emissions in our business and through our value chain, and paves the way to meeting our strategic target for a net positive impact by 2050. We hope this motivates others as well to achieve the level of impact needed. We can only do this together!"


Unless they want to be seen as pariahs, risking reputational damage and losing their social licence to operate, companies may have little choice but to change. John McDonnell has threatened that a UK Labour government would delist companies from the London Stock Exchange that don’t do enough to tackle climate change, saying his plans were about:
weeding out those that are not taking it seriously.
We’ve got to signal now that we’re being serious about tackling climate change. And we’re going to use every lever of government we possibly can to enable that to happen.
There is new urgency to the public discourse – both in the UK and overseas. Some would say we’re at the dawn of a new era – a frightening new era that will see our very existence under threat. Business as usual is not an option, if we want to survive. A low-carbon future is the only direction we have.

What future will there be for the polluters – Aggregate Industries and parent LafargeHolcim among them – in this new era, where the spotlight of attention will increasingly shine on CO2 emissions and the actions companies are taking – or not taking – to cut them, where companies will be increasingly judged – financially and morally – on their environmental performance, where the huge ethical issues of climate justice and climate equity will increasingly dominate?

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Another day – another accident on the B3174 Exeter Road...

... Aggregate Industries' proposed haul road for up to 200 HGVs a day:


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Sand: ‘the environmental catastrophe you’ve probably never heard of’



The problem, according to the WEF, is that:
Estimates suggest that between 32 and 50 billion tonnes of aggregate (sand and gravel) are extracted from the Earth each year, according to a report from the WWF, making it the most mined material in the world.
In 2012 alone, the UNEP estimates enough concrete was created to build a wall around the equator measuring 27 metres high by 27 metres wide.
According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), sand mining of river deltas, such as the Yangtze and Mekong, is increasing the risk of climate-related disasters, because there’s not enough sediment to protect against flooding.
The solution? According to the WEF:
While pressure on governments to regulate sand mining is increasing, more needs to be done to find alternatives for use in construction and for solving the world’s continuing housing crises.
Breaking the reliance on concrete as the go-to material for building houses, by increasing the tax on aggregate extraction, training architects and engineers, and looking to alternative materials such as wood and straw, would also reduce our demand for sand.

The Mineral Products Association – the trade association that supports Aggregate Industries and others – thought it would add its tuppence worth, with a briefing on sand supply "as a contribution to the current global debate regarding the availability, access to and consumption of sand":
The MPA’s new report clarifies that the UK is not running out of sand and construction aggregates, has robust regulatory systems, and industry operating standards are generally high, which allows the delivery of a sustainable supply of aggregates from extracted and recycled sources.
The MPA agrees with the WEF about the problem:
These enormous development demands are putting increasing pressure on global materials supply and, significantly, creating adverse environmental impacts due to a lack of effective management of resources and associated illegal activity.
But on potential solutions? Here’s where the MPA – a proponent of digging holes in the ground, and cheerleader for its aggregate multinational friends, and who clearly would not countenance "breaking the reliance on concrete as the go-to material" – deviates from the WEF. It has come up with four "potential solutions" of its own, one of which is:
Third, resource and minerals businesses have a responsibility to act sustainably wherever they operate and to evidence such responsibility, for example through independently-audited environmental management and responsible sourcing standards (ISO 14001 for environmental management systems and BES 6001 for the responsible sourcing of construction products).
A responsibility to act sustainably wherever they operate – including the UK presumably. Perhaps Aggregate Industries didn't get the memo – when it planned its unsustainable multi-million mile HGV haulage scheme for Straitgate Farm.
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Don’t always trust the minerals press to tell the whole story

Take the Silverstone debacle. Tarmac gear up for Silverstone resurfacing, says Agg-Net – "a specialist publishing and exhibition company that serves the quarrying, recycling and natural stone industries":
This essential track maintenance work will take place over 20 days between 10–30 June and will see a bespoke and highly durable asphalt solution laid that has been specifically designed to withstand the high demands and stresses of vehicles competing in professional racing series.
And indeed Tarmac has been called in by our premier motor racing venue – as we posted in Silverstone to be resurfaced again – this time by Tarmac.

But you mustn’t always trust the minerals press to give the whole story.

Because, bizarrely, Agg-Net’s article manages to entirely avoid mentioning Aggregate Industries. They avoid mentioning that AI resurfaced Silverstone only last year, or that AI suffered a PR nightmare when riders aquaplaned off its new asphalt at 150mph and sustained serious injuries and races had to be cancelled, or that AI tried to gag a journalist over the affair, or that AI’s promised investigation into what went wrong has still not been made public, or that Tarmac has only been called in to redo AI’s malfunctioning work. Funny that.

But we’re being a bit harsh on Agg-Net. Because, as in too much journalism today, Agg-Net has simply rehashed a press release. Whose? Tarmac’s.

How very decent of Tarmac – as a competitor – not to make the most of AI’s troubles. Other construction journalists have been less kind:

It will be the second time in two years that Silverstone has been resurfaced. The surface laid by Aggregate Industries last year has come in for criticism for its performance in wet weather.
The circuit was relaid by Aggregate Industries before the season began last year but complaints about the surface by drivers led to the cancellation of the MotoGP race.
Aggregate Industries - who carried out the initial resurfacing project before last season’s race - launched a full review of its work after race promoter Dorna was forced to cancel the race for the first time since 1980 after the start was delayed by six hours as repeated efforts were made to clear standing water. It had to refund 56,000 ticket holders.

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Thursday, 9 May 2019

Another accident today on B3174 Exeter Road


How could this dangerous stretch of the B3174 be suitable for Aggregate Industries' plans for up to 200 HGV movements a day, when there are already so many accidents? What impact would AI's 44-tonne lumbering HGVs add to the mix? Two lorries have already come off the road in 2019 – here and here.

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Wednesday, 8 May 2019

Silverstone to be resurfaced again – this time by Tarmac

Silverstone is clearly wanting to avoid a repeat of last year’s fiasco – when its track was resurfaced by Aggregate Industries, and races were subsequently cancelled. Readers will be all too aware of the fun and games that ensued – covered in way too much detail on this blog.

Next month, the track will be resurfaced again – this time by Tarmac, who will be "working closely with Dromo, an Italian circuit consultant company" – at a reported cost of up to £5m. Silverstone will hope these parties really are racing circuit experts.


It’s unlikely they’ll make a worse job, judging by Lewis Hamilton’s comments about last year’s resurfacing:
The people they hired did the worst job ever. It’s the bumpiest track I’ve ever experienced
Have the lawyers left the scene yet? Seemingly not, according to Silverstone's MD Stuart Pringle:
We are considering the options available to us as regards last year’s resurfacing
Why Tarmac? In another interview:
In the end, Aggregate decided they didn’t want to do it and they stepped back, so we’ve gone with Tarmac.
The journalist that AI tried to gag, Mat Oxley, writing in Motor Sport Magazine, quotes hopeful Mr Pringle as saying:
Dromo has very exacting standards and Tarmac are well up for this – they are very aware that the eyes of the world are on them. Dromo’s Jarno Zaffelli has a very precise methodology and his approach to the design of the asphalt mix is very scientific. Tarmac want to get it right and even they are learning from Dromo.
To me, the big deal is that Dromo are involved. They know what they are doing
with the obvious inference that somebody else didn't.




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Tuesday, 7 May 2019

Is there any life left in AI’s application to quarry Straitgate, or is it just “resting”?

Aggregate Industries has again failed to meet an agreed extension of the determination date for its planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm.

Nothing has changed – at least publicly – since the last extension was agreed.

Devon County Council has agreed yet another extension with Aggregate Industries for the period for determination of its Straitgate application - the seventh - this time from 31 March to 28 June 2019.
What has been achieved since the last extension, or the one before, or before that?
Who knows? DCC is still awaiting information it requested from AI some 18 months ago.
This latest extension date – like the many before – has now been missed, given that the submission of any further information would require at least 30 days of public consultation before DCC’s next DMC meeting of 5 June.

Local people – who have had this threat of major development in the open countryside hanging over their lives for years – will draw their own conclusions from these continual delays. Plainly DCC is beyond caring, despite knowing that:
Is it acceptable to have more than one agreement to extend the time for determination?
Yes, if agreed by all parties, but good practice would be to make sure the first, agreed new target date was realistic given the work to be done, so a further agreement wouldn't be necessary.
Clearly, in the case of AI’s applications to quarry Straitgate, "good practice" went out the window long ago. Incredibly, even for this charade, DCC and AI will now be looking to agree their 8th extension to the determination date.

The last batch of information from AI – the Regulation 22 responses, which raised even more questions – was supplied to DCC almost 2 years ago. AI’s initial application went live almost 4 years ago.

Is there any life left in AI’s proposal to haul material millions of miles across Devon, contrary to Objective 1 of the Devon Minerals Plan which aims to:
secure a spatial pattern of mineral development that delivers the essential resources to markets within and outside Devon while minimising transportation by road and generation of greenhouse gases
or – in this newly climate-conscious era we thankfully, at last, find ourselves in, with David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion et al. shaming our politicians into calling a climate emergency and the CCC calling for net-zero emissions by 2050 – has AI’s polluting and unsustainable application "ceased to be"? Is it "pushing up the daisies"? Is it in fact an ex-application? Or would AI representatives, on the contrary, remind us of its "beautiful plumage" (in this case a relatively small pile of sand and gravel) and have us believe "It’s not dead, it’s resting"?

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Thursday, 2 May 2019

MPA reports Q1 dip in sales, and spams every MP with the news

The Mineral Products Association – the trade association representing Aggregate Industries et al – has reported a sluggish start for construction-related mineral products in 2019; seasonally adjusted sales volumes for aggregates had the sharpest decline.

Someone at @MineralProduct was plainly concerned about this – and presumably the impact that the Brexit impasse is having on the cement and aggregate multinationals – and spent this afternoon spamming all our MPs with the news:



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UK Parliament declares climate change emergency

The power of protest. The power of school children. Yesterday, MPs approved a motion to declare an environment and climate emergency.







Today, the Committee on Climate Change – the independent adviser to government on climate change issues – says the UK must set a zero-carbon target for 2050, which would mean, amongst a gamut of other measures, the planting of an estimated 1.5 billion trees. Lord Deben, the chair of the CCC, said the zero emissions target for 2050 must be passed into law immediately:
We [must] do it now. The urgency is not just a matter of a shortness of time, but the quicker you do it, the cheaper it is. Recent events have shown how strongly people feel.
For some, including Mark Maslin, Professor of Climatology at University College London, the target is not urgent enough:
The zero-carbon target is essential, but the date of 2050 is too far in the future. The UK must adopt a 2030 zero-carbon target.
For one company in particular, any target is apparently meaningless.

The momentous, historic, if symbolic, events of yesterday did not go unnoticed by Aggregate Industries, one of the UK’s major polluters. The company planning a 2.5 million mile climate-busting haulage route across Devon thought yesterday would be a good opportunity to tell the world "From #climate to #circulareconomy, we are pioneers of best practice in #sustainability...". Pioneers? Really?


The tweet provides a link to the company’s Sustainability Policy signed off by Guy Edwards, the company’s new CEO:
We are committed to tackling climate change. We are determined to reduce our emissions per tonne...
They are words that Aggregate Industries has uttered before, and words that have proved utterly meaningless. In 2006, AI had a clear message:


They didn’t. AI now emits nearly 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 each year – more than 3x the amount it did in 2006, and 5x the amount it did in 1999. Here are the results of its action on emissions per tonne too:

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What happened to AI’s bagging plant at Uffculme – that caused all that fuss in 2013?

In 2013, Aggregate Industries decided to run an aggregates bagging operation out of Hillhead quarry without planning permission.

It was picked up by local people, and AI was forced to submit a retrospective application DCC/3527/2013. At the time, we posted:
DCC has finally received a planning application for Aggregate Industries' bagging plant at the block works near Uffculme - "a direct replacement for the Company’s former aggregate bagging plant, located at Bishops Court Quarry in Exeter". AI had been running a bagged aggregates distribution operation out of the mothballed Hillhead Quarry without permission. Even after DCC had served AI notice to clear the site, there were local reports that AI continued to deliver bagged aggregates to Hillhead. DCC said:
We are keeping the situation under review and the company has been served notice requiring them to provide us with information on land ownership should the need to take formal action arise.
Hillhead was not cleared by the deadline imposed by DCC, but AI has evidently secured an extension. Is AI's haphazard modus operandi any way for a multinational business to be conducting its affairs, any way to be integrating itself into the community it disrupts?
We returned to AI’s modus operandi in 2017, pointing out that:
Many will be surprised to learn that it wouldn’t be Aggregate Industries' personnel rolling up their sleeves and quarrying Straitgate Farm. According to the company:
Contractors would haul any material off site.
Contractors would be engaged for soil stripping, earthworks and restoration.
And contractors are expected to be brought in to extract any sand and gravel.
It’s AI’s hard-nosed modus operandi: screwing down costs now it's part of the lean mean LafargeHolcim money counting machine, as workers facing the sack at AI’s Glensanda superquarry are finding out.
But we missed something in 2017, something to do with the bagging operation – the one that caused so much fuss just four years earlier.

Staff at Aggregate Industries must be smiling. They must think DCC is a pushover, following the council's approval of its bagging plant application this afternoon. Robert Westell, AI's Senior Estates Manager, gave a faltering defence of his company's retrospective application, noted by a DCC officer as being "fairly disastrous" from a public relations point of view, seemingly unaware of one of the basic planning conditions - that there were to be no retail sales from the site.
Mr Westell – one of those referred to in Gosh, another person behind the Straitgate project moves on and once responsible for AI’s Straitgate proposals – is no longer with the company.

Was the restriction on retail sales from the site a problem for AI? Perhaps it was.

AI’s planning application concluded:
The proposed facility would be a suitable location for a strategic aggregates bagging facility to serve Devon’s construction market. 10.5
And indeed it did prove a suitable location – for somebody else. Because in the same month that the second planning application for Straitgate was set in motion, we failed to notice that AI – or rather the bean-counters at Swiss-parent LafargeHolcim – quietly disposed of that bagging operation at Uffculme to Midlands-based GRS Group.

GRS is apparently the "UK’s largest independent trader and handler of construction aggregate, waste materials and associated services". In 2017 it was, according to GRS, among the highest climbers in the Sunday Times top track 250 growth companies. Plainly GRS is a company on a mission, and one worth watching. Why?
2017 was a critical year for GRS – firstly acquiring West Country materials firm Maen Karne in January, then buying two further bagging plants, and at the end of the year came the acquisition of London infrastructure services business S Walsh & Sons.
Long suffering readers might remember S Walsh & Sons, who were in touch with us in 2014. They wanted to increase the use of secondary aggregates, of which Devon and Cornwall have hundreds of millions of tonnes littering the landscape, and assured us there was 'no need for any more new quarries'. In fact, S Walsh won the contract to supply the South East with secondary aggregates derived from china clay waste in Cornwall. The company’s directors believed, however, that wider use of secondary aggregates would not come about without a higher Aggregates Levy:
Our message is clear... quarries should only be used as a last resort. Digging and filling holes in our countryside does not provide a sustainable future for Britain’s building requirements. We seek that Government introduce an Aggregates Levy Escalator in next year’s budget to create thousands of sustainable green British jobs which will make the UK a worldwide leader in sustainable building.
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Monday, 29 April 2019

Gosh, another person behind the Straitgate project moves on

Last year AI lost another CEO. At the time we said:
During the time that AI has been trying to get its act together in East Devon – to gain permission to butcher a successful farm and risk water supplies for more than 100 people for the sake of a relatively small amount of sand and gravel that could only be processed off-site 23 miles away – the company has gone through three CEOs, and will now be looking for its fourth. Is this simply an indication of how long the Straitgate Farm fiasco has been staggering on, or an indication of deeper problems?
The previous year, Aggregate Industries' parent LafargeHolcim also lost its CEO – after he was charged over allegations of colluding with terrorists in Syria; charges that were only dropped last month.

But it’s not just CEOs.

Over the many years that all this has been rumbling on, it’s hardly surprising that some of the players behind the Straitgate 'project' have moved on. We’ve posted about some of them before, here and here:
We suggested "he should have a good look at what his company is trying to get away with at Straitgate Farm". Perhaps he did. Today it’s been announced he’s moving to Breedon.
and here and here:
The Regional Director who had been overseeing the Straitgate project ever since we’ve been involved was replaced last year. At the same time, the Estates Manager responsible for Straitgate also moved to pastures new.
The person at the Environment Agency who knew most about Straitgate – who over the years had been concerned that a minimum safeguard of 1m should be left unquarried above the maximum water table – also left in 2017, having been with the agency some 29 years.

But what is perhaps even more noteworthy is that two of the leading protagonists behind the most contentious and complicated part of the application – hydrogeology – have also both now moved on. One went last year – AI’s head geologist – and the other – a Technical Director at consultants Amec Foster Wheeler (now Wood) – left in February. Dr Tim Haines was the name that has appeared at the bottom of AI’s water reports since 2015. He was also the person who defended AI’s scheme at the last public exhibition – the scheme to dig down to the maximum water table, leaving a 0m unquarried safeguard, even though with only 6 maximum data points across some 55 acres he could only guesstimate where that level might be – telling local people what the chance was they would lose their water supply:
He was explaining how there was a chance, a small chance in his view, 1 in 20 if pushed to put a number on it, that people currently relying on springs and wells for their drinking water would suffer subsequent problems with their supply if AI's quarry plans were to go ahead.
How central were both of these people to AI's plans for Straitgate? Look who championed AI’s madcap seasonal working scheme at this meeting with the EA in 2017:
TH explained it was a composite taken using the maximum levels form 2013-14 at each piezometer and using elevations of springs. Because the extremely wet period of 2013-14 was used the maximum level is higher than one that would be derived if more recent groundwater levels were used and therefore can be considered to be conservative.
In 2018, that prediction – "considered to be conservative" – failed in four locations.

Both of these key players at AI and AFW are no longer with their respective companies. Telling, or just coincidence? Whichever, perhaps their replacements will realise what a lunatic proposal this really is.
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Wednesday, 24 April 2019

Extraordinary times

These really are extraordinary times. Not only because we have just seen the biggest civil disobedience event in recent British history, with Extinction Rebellion arrests now passing 1,000, but also because photos of a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist are splashed across this morning’s front pages, after she met with applause in the House of Commons, earlier having told MPs: "You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to", before asking them "Is my microphone on? Can you hear me?" Read her full speech, or watch a short clip of it below:



The messages from the Extinction Rebellion protests and from Greta Thunberg are beginning to resonate with more and more people; here are two who used to work for the Police:
Attending the protests on Monday, was Philip Kedge, a retired chief inspector with Hampshire constabulary. "I have a seed of doubt that’s been growing in terms of what’s been happening to our environment and I decided that I could do two things. I can go sit on Bournemouth beach and enjoy the sunshine with ice cream or I can come here and find out more. My respect to all the service officers here. I’ve seen nothing but the utmost professionalism and respect. And the same goes to the protesters who have treated the police with dignity and respect."
Another former police officer, Richard Ecclestone, who attended the protests separately from Kedge, said he had policed protests against the A30 road in Devon in the 90s, but that Extinction Rebellion felt different. "This is very different because it is not just a bunch of very well meaning and committed activists. This is all of us".
I am really quite terrified of the prospects for our society and civilisation if we don't take action on climate change. The sense of emergency of it is just so important that we need to get a hold of this. We are in the situation where we need to turn this catastrophe that we are sleepwalking into around.
Read about some of the others. As one protester put it:
We are coming into Parliament Square because we have captured the media’s attention and a lot of attention around the globe, and now it’s time for the politicians to come and talk to us.
But as far as one of our politicians is concerned:
Surely this is the time for the protesters to take their pink boat to Tiananmen Square, and lecture them in the way they have been lecturing us.
Five years ago, we posted Climate change – we should all be doing our bit ... We said:
There are many notable projects around the country attempting to bring down our carbon footprint. There’s one in Lyme Regis - a hydro-electric system in the Town Mill. By generating electricity from the River Lim, it hopes to save 13 tonnes CO2 annually.
But benefits from schemes like this are dwarfed by unsustainable proposals from corporations, selfishly focusing on nothing but profit. Whatever happens with Straitgate, the idea of processing material 7.5 miles away must be a non-starter. With climate change, everybody must pull their weight.
Things have changed since then. The scale of our climate emergency, and what needs to be done, has come into sharper focus. What has also changed is that Aggregate Industries now wants to process Straitgate material some 23 miles away, not 7.5. Plainly this is a company that fails to recognise the climate emergency. This is a company that neglected to report around 600,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2016. This is a company owned by LafargeHolcim – named second worst company for increasing CO2 emissions. As we posted:
AI has talked about reducing its CO2 emissions for more than 15 years, and has achieved exactly the reverse. It is plainly in denial: denial about having to do anything to change the way it operates, denial about having to do anything to reduce its contribution to an impending climate catastrophe.
AI is now emitting nearly 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 each year, more than 5x the amount in 1999.

As Greta Thunberg says:
... the basic problem is that basically nothing is being done to halt – or even slow – climate and ecological breakdown, despite all the beautiful words and promises.
Now we probably don’t even have a future any more. Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money.


Some of the other climate-related posts we've made this year and last can be found here:

Resource extraction responsible for half world’s carbon emissions; Concrete: “the most destructive material on Earth”; UK experiences hottest winter day ever; DCC declares ‘climate emergency’ but rejects 2030 target; Schoolchildren across the world call for climate action; DCC declares “climate emergency”; Our future, and our children’s future, in numbers; AI’s digital presence on climate change; We’re killing our planet; There must be two Aggregate Industries; If AI’s record is an example of corporate action on climate change, we’re all screwed; IPCC: “The next few years are probably the most important in our history”; ‘If the cement industry were a country, it would be third largest emitter in the world’; Whilst Europe burns, what’s the UK minerals industry doing about climate change?; The terrible human cost of LafargeHolcim’s operations; ‘Cement companies must double emission cuts to deliver Paris Agreement’; Legacy; “We are committed to tackling climate change”.
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Thursday, 18 April 2019

It’s not just Extinction Rebellion & school children, now BoE warns of climate danger

You can sense that the climate emergency is thankfully climbing up the agenda and increasingly into the public consciousness – as it must, if we are to survive as a species.

Not only are the impacts of climate change becoming more apparent for all to see, not only are increasing numbers of ordinary people being compelled to engage in peaceful but illegal activities in an effort to force urgent action, not only – at the time of writing – have more than 400 people been arrested at the Extinction Rebellion protests where the streets of London are being brought to a standstill, not only are school children going on climate strike across the world, not only has our public broadcaster changed its stance – no longer giving deniers equal air time in the face of science, and this very evening putting David Attenborough prime time to warn us of Climate Change - The Facts, not only all that, but now there are warnings from the Bank of England and other central banks too:
"If some companies and industries fail to adjust to this new world, they will fail to exist"
The debate has accelerated over the space of just a few years, and the spotlight will now increasingly be shone on corporate action – or inaction – on climate change; even perhaps on humble aggregate and cement producers – LafargeHolcim, parent of Aggregate Industries, being the biggest one of all.

Sonja Laud, deputy chief investment officer at Legal & General Investment Management:
We are now aware of the urgency, so the shift towards companies is probably the right one, because it seems that politicians for the time being are not willing to take the drastic steps that would be needed to shift towards achieving the Paris Accord climate pledge.
She’s right. Something’s got to change. But how?

Some companies continue to spout nonsense like this:


... whilst continuing to grow their CO2 emissions and plot 2.5 million mile haulage routes across Devon; If AI’s record is an example of corporate action on climate change, we’re all screwed.








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