George Monbiot has been harping for a long time about the crazy way that planners allow polluting activities far in excess of the tolerance of the watershed ecosystem. The appalling state of the water supply and sewage [lack of] treatment is well known at this point.
Here in California, the once pristine Lake Tahoe is suffering eutrophication due to both residential sewage handling and, IIRC, road runoff.
Vested interests and the power of money are slowly and surely rolling back environmental protections.
Hmm. So there’s a fair chance this policy fails spectacularly in preserving fragile ecosystems. And we have also learned there is very little to no evidence that existing protections are, in fact, the major or even a major blocker to development and economic growth. Deeply disappointing for a government elected on a promise of competence in contrast to chaotic, vibes-based policy.
The fourth paragraph of your post contains the clue to some part of the answer. It is, in most areas, the failures of regulation of the water industry and of farming that has created the water quality problem in the rivers.
Those issues need to be fixed in order to get a meaningful improvement in the state of the environment. In the mean time, the planning system - which bites on specific development projects that require explicit approval - means that developments that make a very bad problem a bit worse - get caught.
There are already arrangements to enable developers to buy offsetting sources of nutrient reduction in a number of river catchments, and private actors creating projects that are intended to serve that demand. A more strategic approach could, in principle, pool funds and get economies of scale.
But you are right that this kind of mechanism needs to be situated within a plan that considers all the sources of pollution and drives meaningful improvement, taking the river away from that critical threshold to a much safer place.
This one literally hits home - my parents live close to Lough Neagh and its 'vast and putrid algal blooms'.
https://www.impartialreporter.com/news/24965598.lough-neagh-locals-report-putrid-smells-vast-algae-blooms/
George Monbiot has been harping for a long time about the crazy way that planners allow polluting activities far in excess of the tolerance of the watershed ecosystem. The appalling state of the water supply and sewage [lack of] treatment is well known at this point.
Here in California, the once pristine Lake Tahoe is suffering eutrophication due to both residential sewage handling and, IIRC, road runoff.
Vested interests and the power of money are slowly and surely rolling back environmental protections.
Hmm. So there’s a fair chance this policy fails spectacularly in preserving fragile ecosystems. And we have also learned there is very little to no evidence that existing protections are, in fact, the major or even a major blocker to development and economic growth. Deeply disappointing for a government elected on a promise of competence in contrast to chaotic, vibes-based policy.
Okay, merits aside, “fungus and fungibility” is a great title.
The fourth paragraph of your post contains the clue to some part of the answer. It is, in most areas, the failures of regulation of the water industry and of farming that has created the water quality problem in the rivers.
Those issues need to be fixed in order to get a meaningful improvement in the state of the environment. In the mean time, the planning system - which bites on specific development projects that require explicit approval - means that developments that make a very bad problem a bit worse - get caught.
There are already arrangements to enable developers to buy offsetting sources of nutrient reduction in a number of river catchments, and private actors creating projects that are intended to serve that demand. A more strategic approach could, in principle, pool funds and get economies of scale.
But you are right that this kind of mechanism needs to be situated within a plan that considers all the sources of pollution and drives meaningful improvement, taking the river away from that critical threshold to a much safer place.
Tradeoffs always exist, but they’re not always easily quantifiable.