Road salt from Peru

  This has been an exceptionally cold winter for most of the British Isles. Britain is not very good at coping with heavy snowfalls; it does not have many snowploughs and very few vehicles have snow tyres. The traditional British response to snow is to grit the roads (or as many of them as can [...]

Property is robbery

The various measures by which governments are cutting down on their spending without decreasing the taxes that they collect (and in most cases by increasing the taxes that they collect) are easily explained but the explanation is hard to swallow. Taxpayers are assured that previous governments have spent so much more than they have collected [...]

The rationale of bankers’ bonuses – is there one?

It is hard for me to understand the rationale of bankers receiving bonuses. Apparently they get the bonus because they have done a good job. On the face of this the rationale seems sound but when I think about it, it makes no sense to me.

January Morning.

It is a calm and warm Saturday in London and I should rest. I have no horse, there is no snow, no woods, but there are trees. I can hear birdsong from birds who sit on the leafless tree tops. Across London there is a high mist, and although I know that outside my cocoon [...]

The benefits of the Deepwater Horizon leaks

In the United States a report blames BP, Transocean and Haliburton for the great environmental disaster that started in the Gulf of México in April 2010. Locally in Louisiana the people also blame the federal Government, whose duty was to regulate the activities of those who drill for oil, and whose regulation clearly failed. Regardless [...]

The north wind doth blow and we shall have snow…

December 2010 was the coldest December that the United Kingdom’s Met Office records have recorded in the past one hundred years. The United Kingdom is position on the Western edge of a continental shelf and its uncertain weather is caused by its location being a place where different weather systems meet. For the most part [...]

What a lot of rubbish!

The most important public health initiatives have not been in the field of medicine, as important as discoveries like antibiotics have been, but have occurred in the areas which are far less technical; the provision of clean water and a good and efficient system of waste disposal. Sewers have brought immense public health benefits as [...]

The most common reason for condensing boiler breakdowns – loss of pressure

Probably the most common reason for a condensing boiler to fail to provide heat is due to loss of pressure. The heating circuit on most condensing boilers is a sealed circuit. It is usually pressurised to one bar. Most condensing boilers are designed to stop providing heat if the pressure in the sealed heating circuit [...]

When the party has to stop

Ultimately all financial crises are caused by greed. The rich want to become richer, and so they indulge in financial speculations that are aimed to increase their wealth for the minimum amount of work. The banks want to become richer, so they indulge in fractional lending, where they leverage their lending on the basis of [...]

Economic prosperity depends upon environmental protection

The second day of the New Year is a good time to take stock of the old year. We celebrate the New Year arriving, but do we ever celebrate the old year that has passed? There has not been much to celebrate in the old year, as far as the environment is concerned.  Nations have [...]