Wales Outdoors Reactions 19/1/25
Wales Outdoors subscribes to a variety of Welsh Government, local authority, mountain and tourism related content, so, we thought we’d write an information sharing and commentary post every now and again, when the news is newsworthy or where it piques our interest.
This therefore is the first in a series of every now and again commentaries on news that has an impact upon Wales Outdoors and the Wales Outdoors community.
Wales to take part in largest ever UK-wide pandemic response exercise
If only Wales had gone the way of Sweden during the last pandemic. But remember, the UK had robust pandemic response protocols but the scaremongering from China and Italy in February and March of 2020 had those honed protocols thrown out of the window and instead of isolating the vulnerable the governments of the UK decided to isolate everyone…
First Minister Eluned Morgan said:
Our priority is to keep the people of Wales safe. We are committed to learning lessons from the pandemic and building on the existing foundations to ensure Wales is prepared for future emergencies.
No lessons will be learnt from the pandemic enquiry as the right questions are plainly not being asked. And our politicians, despite the facts, will likely go, as Kier wanted at the time, harder and faster…
https://www.gov.wales/wales-to-take-part-in-largest-ever-uk-wide-pandemic-response-exercise
Calls for vigilance following Foot and Mouth Disease case in Germany
Never again! Do you remember the last time? I do. It destroyed a good few businesses and we, outdoor activity providers, lost a year of development and income, without any assistance from the government. This is what I wrote, describing my frustration with how foot and mouth in the UK was handled:
The UK for and mouth crisis hit all rural businesses. There was a ban on use of the countryside. This at a time when many adventure activity companies and countryside tourism businesses were looking forward to a great year to cover the cost of their investments. The restrictions on us were unnecessary and guided by that serial catastrophist, Neil Ferguson, who received an OBE for his shameful modelling. Wales Outdoors was mostly closed that year, 2001, and had to start up, from scratch, in 2002. Although vaccination was effective, export rules would prevent the export of vaccinated British livestock in the future, and it was decided, following pressure from the National Farmers Union, that this was too great a price to pay. This was controversial because the value of the cattle export industry (£592 million per year) was small compared to losses to tourism resulting from the measures taken. Following the outbreak, the law was changed to permit vaccinations rather than culling, which we had been calling for throughout the crisis. Furthermore, there was little in most activity providers’ provision that meant walking groups through farms. Indeed, most never did that. I, alone of all providers in South Wales, did manage in 2021 to negotiate with Ashford Price the use of a small crag and cave on his property and to negotiate with Natural Resources Wales, then known by one of its many previous names (they do love new stationery), for the continued use of Dinas Rock for climbing and gorge walking. I negotiated the opening of these venues not just for my business but for all activity providers in South Wales. I saved many a business, they being able to gain a small income through this period to ‘keep ticking over’.
https://www.gov.wales/calls-vigilance-following-foot-and-mouth-disease-case-germany
More than £20m to help universities tackle climate change
It’s loan funding, but all the same… See comments in the next piece as to why I think that every penny spent on the war on carbon is a dangerous waste of money.
https://www.gov.wales/more-20m-help-universities-tackle-climate-change
Rise in carbon dioxide off track for limiting global warming to 1.5°C
It doesn’t matter! The world is still leaving an ice age, the data offered by frauds such as the Met Office (did you know they have been making up the data from over 100 non-existent weather stations to fabricate the UK’s climate statistics) is garbled nonsense and carbon is, quite honestly, not a driver of climate change. Here is a post from a while back detailing my position on climate change, titled ‘We are not going to burn’. And here are a couple of graphics that go a good way to clearly defining the issues, but you won’t see these on TV news…
£1.5m to help communities stay warm and connected
We should not need ‘warm hubs’. We should all be protesting on the streets at the state of our country which appears has need of places to shelter from the cold and find solace in other people’s company. And what happened to libraries that were always used for this purpose? Oh, yes, the local authorities closed most of them…
Here are some stats regarding the expenditure on energy in the UK:
Household consumers in the UK faced higher electricity prices in the second half of 2023 than those in any of the 27 EU countries
This is why we need warm hubs!!! And the meteoric rise of fuel bills in the UK is as a direct result of the UK being wedded to Net Zero. See comments on the Met Office above ;)
https://www.gov.wales/1-5m-help-communities-stay-warm-and-connected
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