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asteroid, moon and Mars mining INSIGHT UK environment plan
will be especially cheered. But the
launch will be tense: there is only
so much that can be simulated.
“With the simultaneous ignition
of 27 orbital class engines, there’s
a lot that can go wrong,” SpaceX
CEO Elon Musk has warned.
He is not alone in developing a
means to take people far beyond
Earth. NASA is designing its Space
Launch System; the Boeing and
Lockheed Martin joint venture,
United Launch Alliance, has a
design called Vulcan in the wings;
and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin has
New Glenn on the drawing board. DAN KITWOOD/GETTY
But Falcon Heavy is first to the
start line. And, if it works, its
27 engines will make it, for now,
the most powerful rocket on claims the 25-year plan. But again,
Earth, capable of sending a Plasticbagbanisno there is no substance.
16-tonne capsule to Mars. The So what should be done? For
mission has attracted attention starters, the UK should stop blocking
for far more idiosyncratic planforagreenfuture new onshore wind farms – wind is
reasons: Musk chose his old Tesla the cheapest form of renewable
Roadster car as Falcon Heavy’s energy. It also needs to come up
dummy payload, to go into orbit with a coherent plan for improving
around the sun as far out as Mars. Michael Le Page states that “we want to eliminate all the woeful energy efficiency of its
He has deemed the usual choice of avoidable plastic waste” by 2042. housing and replacing fossil gas
a lump of metal as too boring. THE UK prime minister, Theresa But this is just a vague aspiration, as the main source of energy for
That’s debatable, but when May, has unveiled the government’s not a legal requirement. heating. Both will take decades.
those 27 rocket engines finally go long-awaited 25-year plan for What about climate change? We are New homes should have stringent
for launch, what happens next is improving the environment. It talks currently heading for a world about standards – retrofitting is much harder
likely to be anything but dull. Q about protecting wildlife, making 4°C warmer, which would result in and more expensive. And England
the country cleaner and greener, huge swathes of the UK disappearing and Wales should follow Scotland’s
Paul Marks is a technology, aviation and and so on. It all sounds wonderful, under the waves and would utterly example and ban fracking – it is simply
space-flight writer based in London but it is mostly waffle. transform what countryside remained. not compatible with meeting
“The government’s 25-year Here, the Conservative party’s emissions targets.
environment plan is a monumental record is abysmal. After the party Then there is air pollution, which
for the first time. Congress tried to anti-climax,” declared the Green party. won an outright majority in 2015, is so bad in the UK and many other
repeal it and aims to weaken it, “Nothing new, nothing of substance, the government scrapped a long list countries that it will probably cut
while also allowing the Children’s nothing to tackle climate change.” of policies designed to reduce carbon years off people’s lives. Reading
Health Insurance Program, which Take the plans to reduce plastic dioxide emissions, such as subsidies this plan, you wouldn’t have a clue
provides low-cost cover to pollution, which dominated headlines that the UK is not only failing to
9million children, to go unfunded. last week. A worthy goal, absolutely. “Almost all the major meet EU standards that came into
As Americans debate policies in But what will actually be done? improvements to the UK’s force in 2010, but it still hasn’t even
an increasingly polarised country, A mandatory 5-pence charge for environmental regulations come up with a credible plan for
its health disadvantage continues plastic bags will be extended to come from the EU” meeting them.
to grow. Until the nation starts to smaller shops. Plastic bag use has Indeed, almost all the major
bridge some of its divides and act already fallen nearly 90 per cent due for renewable energy. As such, improvements to the UK’s
on the evidence, its people will to the 5p charge in large shops, so this the UK is no longer on track to meet environmental regulations in recent
continue to pay a steep price. ■ is not going to make a huge difference. its own emissions targets. decades, from clean beaches to plastic
It is worth pointing out, too, that The claim at the time was that the bags, come from the EU. “Brexit will
Laudan Aron was study director of the this charge was introduced to meet scrapped policies were inefficient and not mean a lowering of environmental
Shorter Lives, Poorer Health report, European Union rules for reducing would be replaced with better ones. standards,” May claimed in her speech.
released by the Institute of Medicine plastic bag use, rules opposed by Nearly three years on, we are still But like just about everything when
and US National Research Council, and May’s Conservative party. waiting. “We will take all possible it comes to Brexit, this remains far
is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute And that is just about it. The plan action to mitigate climate change,” from certain. Q

20 January 2018 | NewScientist | 25