In the light of the second major oil spillage on European coastlines in recent months, some media attention has suggested that environmentalists have reacted ’hysterically’. These comments reflect on the fact that a hurricane and exceptional weather conditions have apparently cleaned the beaches of Shetland around the Brner of every visible trace of oil.

If as environmentalists we mustn’t be hysterical, what must we be? Intrigued, perhaps. This has the great advantage of allowing us to observe environmental developments without betraying alarm and, indeed, without even having to say whether we believe them. Indeed, scientists (according the New Scientist) have been ’intrigued’ to note that a pattern of extreme weather conditions developed around the Shetlands around the time of the breaking up of the Braer, with average waves 50 per cent higher than they were during the 1960s, and storm waves 10% higher. They also noted that barometric pressure around Shetland fell one Sunday in early January to 195 millibars, the lowest since records began a century ago. ’Could this be anything to do with global warming?’ they mused.

The same question occurred to other scientists who reported the progressive damage to the ozone layer, which suffered a seasonal average loss of 12% in 1992. It now appears that global warming and ozone depletion feed on each other: as more heat is trapped in the lower atmosphere, the colder the ozone layer above it becomes. This reduction in temperature accelerates ozone depletion, and as more ozone is destroyed, so more ultra violet light hits the earth’s surface, where it damages plants and plankton (reducing carbon dioxide absorption) while becoming converted, in part, into heat, and the cycle begins again. Arctic reindeer note the effects of this, as ultra violet radiation is killing the moss on which they depend, so they are starving to death. Intrigued?

If you’re not happy about being intrigued, you could be enraged. That is the widespread response to the World Banks continuing policy of financing the Sardar Sarovar dam project with money provided by Western taxpayers. A recent independent study of the project was ‘...the most painstakingly comprehensive compilation of evidence of Bank lying, vested interest, incompetence, sloppy thinking and shoddy execution ever assembled‘ and, (as reported in The Ecologist) i t focuses our minds on what really matters, namely ‘...cutting off the funds for this monstrous colonial institution and closing it down.’ Which is exactly what enraged radical environmentalists would like to do with their proposed boycott of the supermarket chain Tesco’s, if that friendly giant does not end its habit of building out-of-town superstores which, they claim, are encouraging people to use their cars, killing off town centres, siphoning funds out of localities, failing to buy local produce, using vast quantities of packaging and destroying greenfield sites.

Surely something is going right? Yes indeed: there is a market worth $200 billion a year for environmental goods, and it is growing at 5.5% per cent year; micro- organisms have been developed which feed on the pesticides washed out of wool at textile plants; part of the US cotton industry is going organic; a technique has been developed to recover aluminium from dross at smelters; solvent-free adhesive for shoemaking has been invented; and heavy metals can now be vitrified permanently into material that can be used for building.

On the other hand, the UK has missed out on the market for those environmental goods, and is now a net importer, according to the OECD; the European Ozone Research Coordinating Unit in Cambridge finds that air transport is seriously damaging the ozone layer, and the UK Open University’s Energy and Environmental Research Unit has found that, however much the environmental performance of cars improves, the benefits of this will be overwhelmed by the forecast growth in traffic.

But positive steps are being taken. An EC backed scheme is seeking to establish an experimental system where drivers entering Coventry, Milan, Barcelona and Tours will exchange their petrol cars for electric cars at the city boundaries. More generally, the Danish presidency of the EC is seeking to push forward EC action on environmental auditing (the EC’s Eco- auditing scheme has now been renamed as the Eco- management and audit scheme in order to better reflect its content), and also to push forward EC policies on waste and Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control.

The UK government has declared its ’firm commitment’ to the use of economic instruments in its new White Payer on the environment, but has been severely criticised in relation to its less than enthusiastic application of the Freedom of Access to Environmental Information Directive which came into force at the beginning of the year. Nevertheless, in efforts to ensure consultation and public access to decision making, the Department of Environment has published a major discussion document on climate change.

Meanwhile, the much-maligned Prince of Wales is doing his bit by insisting that in order to qualify for the Royal Warrant, a company must implement a comprehensive policy of environmental improvement.

And finally, in the US Senator A1 Gore is now installed as vice-president, with the self-imposed mandate to make saving the global environment ’the central organising principle of our civilisation’. Perhaps there is room for some optimism?

David Fleming and Andy Gouldson

European Environment 1