The Moral of Missing Sandy Island

So a tiny island, called Sandy, sitting (as shown by Google Maps and many others) in the South Pacific between Australia and New Caledonia, does not exist.

Scientists exploring drowned islands off the eastern seaboard of Australia, found themselves sailing over the spot where Sandy Island had been recorded on the World Vector Coastline Database and local weather charts for more than a decade. Only it wasn't there and at no point did the sea depth get less than 1300 metres. So it had never been there in the first place.

How did it end up on all those maps and charts? Apparently the World Vector Coastline Database is a source for many maps, which means that if something is marked as a fact on the database, it will be propagated, as a fact, on all following databases, maps and charts. Sadly, we don't know how Sandy Island found its way onto the World Vector Coastline database yet, but we do know that one of the sources it uses is the CIA!

Now, let's pass over the host of delicious conspiracy theories that could be constructed from the CIA's involvement in this mystery. Does something strike you as remarkably familiar about this tale? Someone in the mysterious world of the CIA gets their facts wrong. The wrong fact finds itself onto a scientifically reputable database and from there ripples around the world where everyone believes it. And when the truth is uncovered, people are still reluctant to change their world view. Apparently the skipper of the boat was terrified that the island was there, even though they couldn't see it, and insisted on all safety procedures being put into place in case they ran aground! So strong is the faith in scientific 'fact' even in the face of reality.

The Climate Change lobbyists are always telling us that the facts are all there and that we are being dumb, biased, bigotted, irresponsible, [supply your own derogatory term] for not believing in their 'science'. Mmmm.  Kuhn has a few words to say about scientific paradigms and how difficult it is to shift from one to the next. Maybe the case of the non-existing island is a nice little reminder of that. Warmists take note: facts aren't always what they seem.

PCC Elections and the Absent Voter

There'll be a lot in the mainstream press in the next 24 hours or so about the appallingly low turnout for yesterday's PCC elections. There will be soul searching and blame-dishing. Was it because all the candidates basically said the same thing? Was it because the LibDems pushed the elections from May to November when no-one wants to vote? And there will be point-scoring, especially from the more left-leaning arguing that the PCCs have no mandate as a result of the low turnout. (Although where that leaves Lucy Powell in Manchester, I'm not sure.)

So why am I adding my own three-penny-worth to it all? Well, from where I'm sitting I think it's quite clear what went wrong and I'm not sure that the press will necessarily pick up on all this because, in some cases, it was there fault.

Here we go:

• compared to a typical parliamentary election or council election, the candidates for PCC were almost invisible. Yes, you could read their manifesto on a website or call a freephone number and have it sent to you. But that takes initiative. The British voter is used to being bombarded with election literature. They may hate it but some of it does leech into the brain and at the very least acts as a reminder to vote.
• too many people bought the 'politicisation of the police' argument that was being pushed by the 'liberal' press. Most people are blissfully unaware that the police forces used to have police authorities running them and that those authorities were stuffed full of all manner of political placemen, none of whom had been elected to do that job. Grant Shapps has been tweeting today that even with the low turnouts PCCs had a larger mandate than what preceded them. Maybe more should have been done to put that message about before - maybe our beloved state broadcaster, who has a mission to educate, had a role to play there?
• and yes, it was difficult to distinguish between mandates that were so bland as to be almost meaningless and that meant you had to try reading between the lines. This one was a former police officer - would he really take on the vested interests? This one seemed to be a bit of an eco-freak - did that mean she would have the usual Green attitude to expenditure. And so on...  But this is probably inevitable first time around and, at the very least, there will be things to vote against if it turned out your PCC didn't do such a good job after all.

Maybe these elections haven't been such a great success and maybe things could have been better. At least we can learn from the mistakes and  keep an eye on our new PCCs to make sure that if they don't do what we want we come out in force to get rid of them when their time's up.

UPDATE 17/11/12: Since writing this, several stories have started to spin around the internet reporting that a number of the elected 'Independent' PCCs are actually members of the Liberal Democrat Party. I confess I don't know whether this is grounds for disqualification, but, if true, it certainly brings into question their suitability to undertake a public role in which being trustworthy is a key quality.

Investment for the future or filthy carbunkle?

Where's Prince Charles when you need him?

In the week which brought us Ben Pile's little movie about wind farms and the appalling environmental damage they wreak, I stumbled across news that, in North Norfolk, one council is contemplating trying to put a stop to another form of eco-inspired vandalism.

Photo: Andrew Kelly

This is a house in a conservation area - you know, one of those areas where you are lucky if you don't have to contact the planning department before you change the colour of your front door and you certainly would need planning permission before, say, installing double glazing (which permission, incidentally, you almost certainly wouldn't get). So you might be forgiven for thinking that you wouldn't get permission to install solar panels on the front roof. Clearly that's the view the Council is taking and that's why they are now considering forcing the owner to remove them.

But this isn't the only place where solar panels are being installed with total disregard to their effect on the street scape. And the scary thing is that the law in this area, although recently reviewed and redrafted, is still a little bit vague. The weasel words are: Panels on a building should be sited, so far as is practicable, to minimise the effect on the external appearance of the building and the amenity of the area. You see the problem. As far as is practicable. But what if the only southerly facing roof aspect is at the front of the house, then surely, it is only practicable for the panels to be sited there.

Frankly, this appalls me. Are we seriously saying that a few extra green kilowatts are worth destroying our built environment? Or is it the serious money to be made from those generous feed in tariffs that's behind this?

Of course, the green lobby don't get my concerns at all. Indeed many of them believe their panels are things of beauty. The picture below for example is actually used for advertisement.

Note the sun glinting off the blue panels. Note also the total lack of harmony with the terracotta coloured roof tiles.

Of course, some do accept that conventional panels are not that attractive, but they disintegrate into rapturous adoration of some of the more environmentally-friendly versions.

Now this one really horrifies me. It's described as 'gorgeous' by ecogeek. Gorgeous? OK so the texture of the panels is in keeping with the rustic tiles, but the colour? It's ghastly. It looks like someone's dropped ink all over the picture. That deep, stark indigo cuts through the muted ochres, terracottas and greens of the the rest of the image like a hot knife through butter.

And it's not only the beauty of buildings that are harmed by these carbunkles. Here's the view from the villa we rented this summer is the stunning Abruzzo mountains in Italy:

 Idyllic isn't it? But wait? Can you see that blueish smudge over the the right hand side? Here's a detail:

Yep. Solar panels. Three vast arrays slap bang in the middle of an exquisite landscape. Same colour tone problem here too.

So here's a question. Why is it OK for environmentalists to destroy the environment? Are we all really that convinced that mankind is headed to annihilation? What happened to preserving our heritage for future generations?

Or are the tweenies destined to be characterised by shiny slate blue installations in the same way as the seventies is by its tackily-built boxes and the sixties by its ugly high rises? So sad. I thought we'd learnt from those mistakes.