Speaking
to The World This Weekend's Shaun Ley, Dame Helen Ghosh
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27008510
Exploring erosion through art along the Jurassic Coast, England
Saturday 26 April 2014
National Trust -2013 Shifting shores report
Clean-up crew moving seaweed at Middle Beach, Studland ©
Nick Meers
2013 Shifting shores report
In the United Kingdom no one lives more than 75 miles from the sea.
For us, as an island nation, the sea has an all-embracing presence. Spiritually and physically we are intimately connected with our shores. The sea has immense power, which we ignore at our peril.
Did you know that with 1,130 kilometres of coastline in our care, we now own nearly one tenth of the coast of England, Wales and Northern Ireland?
The extent of our coastal holdings – and the variety of development and coastal features that they encompass – gives us a unique window on the issues of coastal change. The coast is an immensely dynamic environment. Sea-level rise and climate change are forecast to increase the scale and pace of coastal change.
To help plan for the future, we have commissioned research to assess how the coastline is likely to change over the next 100 years. The results suggest that many of the Trust’s important sites are at risk from coastal erosion and flooding. As a result we face some difficult choices in managing this change, and need to make well-informed decisions that stand the test of time.
Learning from experience, our policy now favours adaptation, to give us time and space to change with the coast and work with the forces of nature.
We are not alone in facing challenges from climate change and sea-level rise. People’s homes and livelihoods are at stake, so wider solutions are needed to help vulnerable communities live with a changing coast.
We have looked at several areas around Britain, and produced reports examining the problems in closer detail.
Download the report you're interested in to see the bigger picture.
Overview report
Wales
N. Ireland
South West England
Shifting shores in the South West
Living with a changing coastline
The National Trust owns more than 740 miles of coastline around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, around a tenth of the total coastline for the three countries.
Peter Nixon, the trust's director of land, landscape and nature, said:
"We're expecting more extremes, less predictability, more stormy events, combined with an underlying issue of rising sea levels."
He warned against the trap of believing "we can engineer our way out of this".
He said: "We all have to be sensitive to those who have become dependent on artificial defences, but if you keep up defending, you build up the risk of a catastrophic event.
"A false sense of security in artificial defences can lead you to a catastrophic collapse, as opposed to a managed impact.
"You can't hold the line everywhere, it's physically impossible and it's not good for society."
Mine for today
Good signs Jeff.
That must mean - "Table too wide to polish from this side" And " Beware - Gallic Shrug"
Here's mine for today
That must mean - "Table too wide to polish from this side" And " Beware - Gallic Shrug"
Here's mine for today
Monday 14 April 2014
Thursday 10 April 2014
Tuesday 8 April 2014
Attractions of France
Jeff has swanned off to France, though I really can't see that they have better erosion over there than we do! This picture he sent me might give some clues to the kind of research he's involved in ......
That'll be ... WARNING Wine Bottles Ahead, then will it?
Monday 7 April 2014
From Viking warrior to English king -
Canute (Knud) The Great
'THE KING WHO COULD NOT STOP THE SEA
Cnut the Great[2] (Old Norse: Knútr inn ríki;[3] c. 985 or 995 – 12 November 1035), more commonly known as Canute, was a king of Denmark, England,Norway, and parts of Sweden, together often referred to as the Anglo-Scandinavian or North Sea Empire. After his death, the deaths of his heirs within a decade, and the Norman conquest of England in 1066, his legacy was largely lost to history. Historian Norman Cantor has made the statement that he was "the most effective king in Anglo-Saxon history", despite his not being Anglo-Saxon.[4]
Landing in Wessex
According to the Peterborough manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, early in September 1015 "[Cnut] came intoSandwich, and straightway sailed around Kent to Wessex, until he came to the mouth of the Frome, and harried in Dorsetand Wiltshire and Somerset",[27] beginning a campaign of an intensity not seen since the days of Alfred the Great.[28] A passage from Emma's Encomium provides a picture of Cnut's fleet:
Ruler of the waves
Henry of Huntingdon, the 12th-century chronicler, tells how Cnut set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes. Yet "continuing to rise as usual [the tide] dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person.
Then the king leapt backwards, saying: "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings. For there is none worthy of the name but God whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws ".
So spoke King Canute the Great, the legend says, seated on his throne on the seashore, waves lapping round his feet. Canute had learned that his flattering courtiers claimed he was "So great, he could command the tides of the sea to go back". Now Canute was not only a religious man, but also a clever politician. He knew his limitations - even if his courtiers did not - so he had his throne carried to the seashore and sat on it as the tide came in, commanding the waves to advance no further. When they didn't, he had made his point that, though the deeds of kings might appear 'great' in the minds of men, they were as nothing in the face of God's power.
This incident is usually misrepresented by popular commentators and politicians as an example of Cnut's arrogance.[95]
The encounter with the waves is said to have taken place at Thorn-eye (Thorn Island), or Southampton in Hampshire. There were and are numerous islands so named, including at Westminster and Bosham in West Sussex, both places closely associated with Cnut. According to the House of Commons Information Office,[97] Cnut set up a royal palace during his reign on Thorney Island (later to become known as Westminster) as the area was sufficiently far away from the busy settlement to the east known as London. It is believed that, on this site, Cnut tried to command the tide of the river to prove to his courtiers that they were fools to think that he could command the waves.[98] Conflictingly, a sign on Southampton city centre's Canute Road reads, "Near this spot AD 1028 Canute reproved his courtiers".[99][100]
wikipedia
Sunday 6 April 2014
Cheap Fags
Looks like the coast guards didn't manage to retrieve all of the shipwrecked Chinese Marlborough ciggies. Here's a few I found biodegrading on the beach. Overall the beach was remarkably clean and tidy though.
Except for the Saharan Dust
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