MP's vague promises

GRANTHAM & Stamford MP Gareth Davies (my local MP) received more than 600 emails from constituents complaining about the actions of government chief advisor Dominic Cummings.

In a reply on Friday (29 May) sent to all the correspondents revealed that only a few of them had supported prime minister Boris Johnson’s stance to keep his advisor in post.

But the MP declined to say what his own position was on the crisis that engulfed the government the weekend before.

“I have received well over 600 emails from constituents containing a variety views, stories and opinions,” he wrote.

“Given the volume of correspondence I have not written a personalised response to each and every one but I reiterate that your email has been read.

“Rest assured that these are views which will certainly be shared in specific discussions with the government.”

Mr Davies (36) admitted in his letter there has been a lot of anger regarding Mr Cummings and the decision he took to travel to Durham with his family at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK.

Across the country the furore over the chief advisor’s breach of his own rules prompted tens of thousands of voters to flood their MPs’ inboxes.

According to figures collected by The Guardian newspaper, the average number of emails received on the matter by Conservative  MPs was 590.

And several MPs in marginal seats said they had received more than 1,000 emails about the case, in some cases dwarfing their majority.

“As a relatively new MP, I hope that constituents can see that I have sought be a very active constituency representative,” added Mr Davies.

“It is in this vein, that I commit to ensuring that your views are heard at the highest levels of government.”

Lockdown lunacy

THE Covid-19 pandemic has been the ultimate test for any government. And by just about any measure you care to use the UK government has spectacularly failed - practically, strategically and morally.

Let’s be under no illusion. The lockdown easing announcements of this week have not come about because the time or the conditions are right.

Sadly, in the 24 hours up to Thursday (28 May), 256 more people across the UK died. Johnson says that meets his test for easing the lockdown.

But compare that to a country like South Korea where 269 people have died during the whole of the pandemic.

In other countries where lockdown measures are being eased the daily death tolls are being measured in tens not hundreds still.

For comparison, coronavirus deaths yesterday across Europe on Friday (29 May): Spain 2, Italy 87, Germany 24, France 52, Turkey  28, Belgium  42, Sweden 84, Portugal 14, Ireland 6, Poland 13, Romania 13, Hungary 8, the Netherlands 28 - and the UK 324.

In addition, given that the estimates for daily new coronavirus cases in England are approx 8-9000 a day and the ‘R’ rate in many places is hovering only just below one, it feels like the mistakes of early March are in danger of being repeated.

Let's be in no doubt. Lockdown measures in England are being eased now because popular headlines are needed to buy Johnson credit and time.

In this context, it is essential to understand Johnson and his government don't really give a stuff about the British people.

We're in the middle of a pandemic but there's only one real item on their agenda - to leave the EU transition period on 31 December without an EU trade deal.

Next week, when parliament returns, only 50 MPs will be allowed in the chamber. The old way of voting has stopped and the remote access system suspended but no new way of voting has been decided.

Conveniently, it means the opposition’s job will be that much harder and the government’s power that much greater.

This is what “taking back control” looks like and it should matter to us all. At a UK-wide level, the House of Commons is the only democratically-elected institution in the country and if nearly 600 of our MPs are shut out of Parliament, democracy is effectively partially suspended.

Then, at yesterday’s daily press briefing the prime minister told journalists what questions they may and may not ask, and told his medical advisers which questions they may and may not answer. Dictatorship is creeping in.

And, of course, the Cummings episode of the past week makes a mockery of the populist claim of an anti-elitist government looking out for the good of the public at large.

The idea that a country, battered by a pandemic, should be led into the calamity of an EU no deal in just six months' time - or even just to the shocks of moving from single market membership to a limited trade agreement - is seriously crazy.

Coronavirus is already reshaping the political landscape. For any honest government, it should also be reshaping the arguments for an EU transition period extension which has to be decided on by mid-June.

Johnson and the Brexiters would love to pull things back to the heady ‘will of the people’ days. But, to coin an over-used phrase this week by you know who, the people have “moved on”.

Almost everyday the British prime minister is exposed as being completely out of his depth in almost every respect, heading a government which looks exhausted, incompetent and bereft of common sense.

As Chris Grey, Professor of Organisation Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London, says: "It is seemingly intent on acting only in the interests of a small faction of fanatical nihilists.

"To drag the country towards an even greater disaster at the end of the year on the back of political ideology becomes more grotesque by the day in every conceivable way -  democratically, intellectually, economically and morally."

Further reading:
The truth about Dominic Cummings 
Not moving on, not going away
 

Blue for danger

A COUPLE of weeks on from my ‘Car crash politics’ blog article and, despite any optimism or benefit of the doubt, little seems to have changed - particularly in the fantasy world of Westminister spin.

The Johnson government continues to prove itself a master manipulator of the media agenda and thus continues to mis-inform public opinion, a trait it started long before it ever came to power, if you get my drift.

Yesterday’s tawdry, yet skillful, PR manoeuvres highlight this yet again in an unambiguously sinister way to a still largely unsuspecting and sycophantic public. However, one suspects the tide will eventually have to turn.

Given Johnson’s blatant playing of the media in his previous life, this should come as no surprise to any astute observer of current British politics. He liked to call himself a “journalist” but in reality he was never more than an eagliterian over-inflated columnist. And he got the sack for blatant lying. Now he likes to call himself “prime minister”.

Yesterday’s actions were breath-taking in their craven alacrity because it was the day of all days when the tripmeter of recorded deaths from covid-19 tipped the UK into the worst in Europe category, and second only in the world to the United States.

Unsurprisingly, and true to form on such an auspicious day, Johnson was nowhere to be seen and so the daily Downing Street presser was hosted by the hapless Raab, who shamelessly tried to hide the growing magnitude of the UK death toll by suggesting it wasn’t fair to make country-by-country comparisons at this stage.

Acutely aware that all of this would normally make front-page headlines the next day and be the lead item on television news programmes, the government’s slick PR machine masterminded by Cummins had a devious plan waiting in the wings for such a time as this.

Just as the figures were being “announced” at the presser, a reporter from the Daily 'Torygraph' (aka Daily Telegraph) was receiving a private briefing from a Downing Street insider about a key member of SAGE who had transgressed the golden rules of social distancing some four weeks previously.

The story about the resignation of Neil Ferguson, who had “entertained” his lover, was destined to push the increasingly tragic coronavirus death figures off the front pages and top of the news bulletins. A perfect bit of PR timing and manipulation.

I certainly do understand that Ferguson's actions genuinely upset some. But make no mistake his story shouldn't be on any front page, especially at the expense of the UK's covid-19 death figure.

It does look like - from the dates of when the "trysts" took place - that someone had waited to hand it over to the Telegraph, calculating the best moment to publish it and in the process help bury bad news.

On the BBC, morning bulletins were calling Prof Ferguson's visitor “his married lover”. Not so may days before the same airwaves were gushingly celebrating the birth of Carrie Simon's baby by the prime minister, without a the merest mention of you know what.

Ferguson was obviously wrong to break the lockdown and so probably had to resign. But remember cabinet minister Robert Jenrick’s ‘illegal tryst’ a few weeks back? Unlike Ferguson, he’s actually part of the government that introduced the lockdown rules but he didn’t resign (yet). Double standards or just rank hypocrisy?

It seems that everything about this story and the ensuing flood of right-wing hate on social media for ‘Dr Doom’ screams that this was a deliberate ‘political’ operation mounted by people who seek an early end to the lockdown.

If the UK ends up with the highest death toll in the world relative to population size, this won’t be bad luck or because of the hard work of NHS staff, carers and the like. It will largely be down to the strategy of our government.

There's an almost biblical irony that the Conservatives under Johnson "took back control" of the UK on 31 January when Brexit became a reality and then pretty much lost it again to a microbial life-form exactly 40 days later.

I have no joy in seeing that Britain now has worst figures of any country in Europe. If only it were different. I wish the government had done well and proved of me and all who doubted them wrong. But in this sad and difficult time, negligence and ideology haven taken preference over collective safety and public health. I can only say expect more of the same.

Car crash politics

THE UK government’s handling of the virus pandemic has been breath-takingly incompetent at almost every stage. It may sound harsh but when the facts are reviewed it is not hard to reach such a conclusion.

Johnson and his cabinet have always claimed they are being “led by science” not politics. But many scientists who are not in the government’s inner circle have voiced serious concerns and expressed alternative views.

And what exactly is scientific about having no mass testing? A lack of personal protection equipment for NHS staff? No protection for our care homes? And no social distancing for seven weeks after the first case of coronavirus was reported in the UK?

Italy, Singapore, Germany, Switzerland, France, Japan, China, South Korea all introduced measures at an early stage to try and contain the spread of coronavirus. In the UK, Johnson’s initial response was, “Take it on the chin.”

The government's daily press conferences and media interviews by ministers have largely become an enraging exercise in fluent, complacent, platitudinous stonewalling. No answers to important questions, just evasive promises along the lines that everything will improve sometime soon.

Much of it boils down to a government that fundamentally objects to scrutiny -  the Commons has sat for one full month in Johnson’s first 10 as premier. And one of the reasons for this is because it is founded on political ideologies. For a decade it hasn’t valued or protected the people the country depends on, and it has spent years weakening the NHS and social care. Now, faced with the real world, it is struggling to accept its own culpability.

Why, for example, are there still around 15,000 people a day flying into the UK. That's the equivalent of 105,000 passengers a week, including those flying in from countries with their own serious Covid-19 outbreaks, like the US, China, Spain and Italy.

Even America has banned entry for people from Britain and elsewhere in Europe, whereas the UK has no such limits in place and deems it not important to impose health checks or a period in quarantine on people arriving at UK airports.

It seems increasingly apparent that this is a single-pony, Brexit-driven government with no script or comprehension for serious subjects, and is at its flagrant happiest when dishing out slogan politics.

A lamentable conclusion to draw from the UK government’s overall handling of the crisis so far is that its approach has appeared largely reactive and laissez faire, at least on the surface. In the corridors of money and power, however, there may be more sinister political forces at work.

In recent days it has seemed disingenuous for ministers to repeatedly infer that the British public are not capable of engaging in or understanding a proper debate about how a Covid-19 exit strategy is going to be managed in the weeks to come? As a result, one might also be inclined to conclude that UK plc currently has no plausible lock-down exit strategy.

If anything, public compliance with the lock-down has been more solid than anticipated and there is no evidence that people will stop complying if ministers start talking openly about how and when some restrictions might be lifted. Democracy entails debate.

Inspite of Covid-19, the government has also been adamant it sees no reason to change its looming Brexit trajectory, even though we’re less than nine months away from the transition period ending with no future trade terms in place.

The consequences of such a final EU departure are now magnified in economic terms because they will come on top of the grisly impact of the pandemic, as outlined by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) this week.

The government’s proposition is that, despite a predicted (albeit possibly short term) 35 percent fall in GDP, a rise in unemployment to maybe three million and annihilation of public finances, it remains the inviolable “will of the people” to add the effects of Brexit (with or without a deal) to the devastation being wrought by the virus pandemic.

As the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) put it earlier this week in advising an extension - “why make a tough situation even tougher?” With coronavirus still rampant and economies tanking there are surely no rational arguments against agreeing an extension to allow time for a proper trade deal.

As summer 2020 unfolds, the days and weeks ahead will shine an ever more critical spotlight on Johnson and his egalitarian government’s handling of the pandemic. And it may yet prove to be one of the most egregious and catastrophic failures of democratic leadership in our lifetime.

But given Johnson's shoddy and disingenuous performance on other issues - such as on Brexit, immigration policy and even his response to the devastating winter flooding across the UK - it can surely come as no surprise that the UK is rapidly staking claim to be the poor man of Europe when it comes to its abject handling of the coronavirus crisis.

Sunday Times (19 April 2020) -  38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster

Traffic lights in the night sky

Starlink satellites leave diagonal lines as they pass through a telescope’s field of view.

UNITL relatively recently in human history the night sky remained one of the last unspoilt vestiges of our natural world. From the time of Galileo to the present day, astronomical observations from Earth’s surface have led to exceptional progress in the scientific understanding of the world around us.

Now, just as we enter the third decade of the 21st Century and a dynamic new phase in space exploration and exploitation begins, some of the current capability of astronomical instrumentation from the ground is potentially being endangered by the rapid development of micro-satellite fleets in low Earth orbits (LEO).

In the interests of preserving the ability to make meaningful visual and radio ground-based observations, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is sounding a clarion call for greater protection and international safeguards.

The IAU claims that if the deployment of mega constellations remains unchecked the view of the night sky will be increasingly impeded by artificial satellites, not only visible to the naked eye but also crossing and scarring professional and amateur time-lapse observations alike with parallel streaks at all latitudes.

SpaceX has already embarked on its ambitious Starlink project to populate the sky with some 42,000 satellites which, together with planned constellations such as those from OneWeb, Amazon and others, means there could one day be more than 50,000 small satellites encircling the Earth at different low altitudes.

These small, mass-produced satellites orbit very close to Earth with the intent to provide speedy internet connections via low-latency signals. But that proximity also makes them more visible and brighter in the night sky. Astronomers argue that such constellations will severely diminish our view of the universe, create more space debris and deprive humanity of an unblemished view of the night sky. If these networks come to fruition, they suggest that every square degree of the sky will eventually have a satellite crawling across it throughout the whole observing night.

As space becomes ever more commercialised the speed of such development is quickly overtaking the existing, globally agreed rules governing space activities. Mega constellations are just one area where new rules of governance are urgently needed. Others include the exploitation of resources on the Moon and elsewhere, preserving peace and resolving disputes, and rules for everyday living in space.

Recognising the urgent need for coordinated action, next year the space nation Asgardia is organising a second congress in its ‘Paving the Road to Living in Space’ series. It will focus on discussing key aspects of space law needed to ensure the success of future space exploits.

Of course, ROOM fully supports the growth and advancement of space technologies and the ensuing benefits they bring to everyday life, business and commerce across the globe.

But it would be ironic indeed if, by exploiting LEO without due responsibility, we neglect to consider the resultant damage to scientific research and a previously unblemished part of our natural environment that deployment of such new technologies could unwittingly deliver.

The urgent question is, do we continue to rush headlong into deploying massive new orbital networks without checks and balances, and with scant regard for the heavens above - or can the global space community approach this kind of thing in a more mature and responsible manner that is fair to everyone?

Editorial (originally published under the title 'Mega-constellations raise awkward questions for space community') 
by Clive Simpson in the Spring 2020 edition of ROOM Space Journal

Light changes everything

 

I’VE always been fascinated by light. Or perhaps, to put it more accurately, by the lack of dark compared to the perpetual electronic daylight most of us now live in and accept as the norm.

It may have been an early interest in astronomy and growing up under big Fenland skies that first prompted this lifelong interest. The stunning wonder of the heavens in a gloriously dark and primitive sky that, in those days, was hardly touched even by artificial satellites.

A decade or so ago I started taking a more professional interest in new types of lighting and its potential impacts on life in general and human health in particular, attending some international lighting conferences and writing about the subject more widely through my work as a freelance journalist.

I had a feeling deep inside that something about our modern forms of light and our more recent headlong dash to LED technology wasn’t quite right - and yet I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Of course, I was as keen as anyone to promote better dark skies by removing as much of the unnecessary light pollution as possible that now pervades our life after darkness falls. I was also a keen supporter of the fledgling environmental movement so, like most of us, I quickly bought into the industry-led narrative about LED lighting, its energy-saving properties and how good it would be for our planet.

Was there a downside? On the face of it there didn’t appear to be one and it seemed we were all left with little choice but to purchase vastly more expensive LED technology light bulbs. Okay, so the cost was a bit steep compared to the incandescent bulbs we were all replacing but if we were saving Earth in the process surely that was a price worth paying?

But all along the light sensitive ‘eyes’ in my gut were posting warning signs about the slow but inexorable creep of modern-day LED lighting.

In the past few years they might have darkened the heavens in a few locations though that might be more the result of councils up and down the country switching off lighting to save money.

What we might have saved in energy consumption on an individual light has likely more than been replaced by the massive increase in the quantity of lighting installations of all kinds. In reality, LEDs have led to a pandemic of uncontrolled and excessive lighting inside our homes, on public buildings, on transport and on the roads.

Driving home after dark the other evening, I was momentarily blinded by the dazzling headlights of an oncoming car. At first I thought the driver had mistakenly left his lights ‘on beam’ but then I realised this excessive brightness was a new normal for night-time driving. These were just the ultra-bright LED headlights now installed as de facto standard on every new car.

I fear I am not alone in finding overly bright vehicle headlights an increasing driving and road safety problem - and not always just at night, sometimes in the daytime too.

It seems our lighting designers - whether for street “function”, inside the home or on motor vehicles - have run with the excitement of LED technology merely because it was new and the latest thing.

In the process little thought has gone into its intense luminosity, blue-white colour balance or the fact that LED light is acutely directional, more akin to a laser than a conventional light source with excessive glare, a huge increase in light intensity at the centre and a very sharp cut-off.

The UK is not alone. Populations around the world have readily embraced these new forms of light, often unwittingly and without due process to its effect on our bodies and the environment. If I have learnt one thing whilst studying this issue over recent years it is that light is not just light.

Certainly the more intense blue-white light of lower cost high lumen LEDs is potentially damaging for us whether in the home or outdoors - and, treated without due caution, may actually turn out to be a lot worse than our now rejected traditional forms of incandescent lighting.

In her recently published book (Incandescent, September 2019), journalist Anna Levin throws her own spotlight on the transforming colour and tone of our everyday environments. “Light is changing, dramatically. Our world is getting brighter - but is brighter always better?” she asks.

The thrust of Levin’s book is that natural light (and dark) is fundamental to almost every aspect of life on Earth, interacting with humans and animals in profound yet subtle ways. “We mess with the eternal rhythm of dawn-day-dusk-night at our peril,” says Levin. “But mess with it we have, and we still don't truly understand the consequences.”

She claims that technology and legislation have crushed our previously warm, incandescent lighting in favour of harsher, often glaring alternatives.

And there is the irony. Since regulations were passed introducing legislation banning incandescent lamps, domestic energy consumption has actually risen and so, according to the UK Department for the Environment, there has been no overall saving.

In recent years there can be no question that our night-time world has been rapidly infiltrated by a voracious predator - an un-natural form of light that is both seen and unseen at the same time.

Incandescent is a well-researched and written book, with accessible analysis and explanations supported by technical details about LED lighting’s potential impact on human health and the wider environment. It throws an intriguing new light on an unanticipated problem that is only now becoming recognised.

Some useful links:
Anna Levin - Incandescent
LightAware - charity & support
Soft Lights - lighting with thought 
Clive Simpson - Writer & Editor

NASA's sand dune solution

ANTHROPOGENIC climate change and its associated rise in sea levels could prove a significant threat to some of the world’s iconic coastal space launch sites, including Florida’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

NASA is building a massive artificial dune along a stretch of the coast in a bid to protect the nation’s only launch site for human missions - but many experts say that ultimately it isn’t going to be enough.

Even conservative estimates suggest the low-lying Florida peninsula can expect to experience at least 5 to 8 inches of sea level rise by the 2050s, a figure which could double or treble if global warming is not contained at current levels.

Launch Complex 39A, the historic Apollo 11 and Space Shuttle launch pad that SpaceX now leases for its Falcon Heavy rocket, is one of the most vulnerable, as the base of the pad sits only a few feet above sea level and is just a quarter mile from the coastline.

The founding fathers of the US space programme chose a barrier island to launch rockets into space for safety reasons, preferring out of control rockets to explode over the ocean rather than land. But the very quality that makes this location a safe spot for launches threatens to be its downfall.
       
This year, the pad 39A complex is estimated to face a 14 percent annual risk of flooding, a figure which is likely to rise unless additional measures are taken to protect it, according an analysis released in late 2019 by Climate Central, an international organisation researching and reporting the science and impacts of climate change.
                               
Predictions are equally uncertain for launch complex 39B, the future home of NASA’s SLS rocket which will be used to launch the first people to the Moon by 2024. The current annual flood risk, estimated at six percent, is likely to double within two decades.

It is unclear how much damage sea floods could cause to the actual launch pads but, at the minimum, rising water could isolate the complexes as inaccessible islands, also threatening support roadways and other infrastructure.

At the same time, natural barriers along the coastline are also eroding. Based on historical records and aerial photos, the beach in front of the Cape Canaveral area has thinned and moved inland by as much as 200 feet. Losses have been most severe along the stretch near pads 39A and 39B.

NASA biologist Don Dankert, technical lead for KSC’s environmental planning office, is charged with protecting the agency’s valuable launch assets. “Climate change is obviously important to the agency,” he says. “Looking into the future and how we address this with our infrastructure in our inland areas is a top priority.”

After studying various engineering solutions, Dankert and his team settled on constructing hefty inland sand dunes as a barrier between Florida’s launch pads and the encroaching ocean.

AS a result, NASA is currently using 350,000 cubic yards of sand to build a 3.2 mile long dune 17 feet high and 90 feet wide. The sand is being trucked from an inland source and is matched to the sand that is on local beaches for grain texture and size consistency. Once complete the dune will be covered with native vegetation to help maintain its integrity. 

But as global temperatures continue to climb and with forecasters warning of more frequent and stronger hurricanes, not everyone is convinced. Joseph Donoghue, an ocean sciences professor at the University of Central Florida, is assessing the effects of major storms on coastal environments at the National Center of Integrated Coastal Research.

“Sure, dunes are a good short-term solution. But the dunes are only good for as long as no major hurricanes come through,” he says. “Long-term, dunes aren’t going to do the job.”

NASA reckons the $35 million it is spending on the shoreline restoration project, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year, is money well spent. But according to Leesa Souto, Executive Director of the Marine Resources Council and Assistant Professor of Ocean Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology, sand dunes and sea walls only protect against storm surges and do not address flooding from rising groundwater.

“It's not just flooding from the ocean that we are concerned about; a rising sea level also increases pressure inland, causing the groundwater to rise,” she explains. “The launch pads are particularly vulnerable because they are out on a peninsula in the middle of the ocean between the estuary and the ocean.”

"Ground water is sea level so when sea level rises, ground water rises. So when the elevation of the land and the elevation of groundwater are the same, you have a lake," she added.

“So unless they’re going to build the launch pads on the top of the 17 foot dune they are going to be under water.”

The Jeff Bezos-led Blue Origin commercial spaceflight company, which is pumping a billion dollars into the Space Coast area as a launch base for its New Shepard rocket, is taking no chances. The company leases Launch Complex 36 and is currently building it both out and upwards. “The base of our rocket will be 50 feet above the ground, which is 20 feet above the 100 year flood plain,” says Scott Henderson, Blue Origin's vice president of test and flight operations.

Space Launch Complexes 40 and 41, which could be the site of the first commercial rocket launch of American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), are also at significant risk from future flooding, according to Climate Central's analysis.

United Launch Alliance (ULA), which leases space complexes 41 and 37 from the US Air Force, is not currently addressing climate change related impacts. “It becomes a real challenge of ‘what are you going to try to mitigate?’ and ‘what are you going to accept as an acceptable risk?’ So we’ve tried to balance that,” says Mark Dornseif, senior manager of engineering and infrastructure at ULA.

For an industry that routinely talks about its costs in millions, the billion dollar question remains: how viable will Kennedy Space Center be in the future? Florida’s Space Coast economy, which earns around $3 billion a year from ‘space’, is certainly banking on its success as long as possible.

But Blue Origin's Henderson envisions a time when there will be thousands of spaceports across the world and that, ultimately, Cape Canaveral may prove to have been just a starting point for human space exploration. “Today we’re constrained to coastal areas but in the long haul you need to be flexible and reliable enough to fly from lots of places," he says.
 
This is an extended version of an article first published 
by Clive Simpson on the ROOM Space Journal website.