{"id":11683,"date":"2022-09-22T09:51:37","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T09:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=11683"},"modified":"2022-09-23T09:14:09","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T09:14:09","slug":"fossil-fuel-mined-with-weasel-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=11683","title":{"rendered":"Fossil fuel mined with weasel words"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>Q: when is a land reclamation scheme not a land reclamation scheme?<\/p>\r\n<p>A: When it&#8217;s actually an open-cast coal mine covering four square kilometres of south Wales.<\/p>\r\n<p>Which transports us <a href=\"https:\/\/www.visitmerthyr.co.uk\/about-merthyr\/\">Merthyr Tydfil<\/a> and its inappropriately-named <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ffos-y-fran_Land_Reclamation_Scheme\">Ffos-y-fran Land Reclamation Scheme<\/a>, which Wikipedia describes as a &#8216;<em>major opencast coaling operation<\/em>&#8216; to the town&#8217;s north-east.<\/p>\r\n<figure id=\"attachment_11703\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11703\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11703\" src=\"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2022\/09\/Ffos-y-fran_Land_Reclamation_Scheme.jpg\" alt=\"A general view of the Ffos-y-fran open-cast mine\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2022\/09\/Ffos-y-fran_Land_Reclamation_Scheme.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2022\/09\/Ffos-y-fran_Land_Reclamation_Scheme-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11703\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ffos-y-fran: open-cast coal mine or proper land reclamation scheme? Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<p>The scheme&#8217;s operators have this week filed an application to keep mining coal there for a further nine months until June 2023, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.walesonline.co.uk\/news\/local-news\/plans-put-forward-merthyr-coal-25060902\">according to Wales Online<\/a>, with landscaping of the site completed by December 2024.<\/p>\r\n<p>As revealed by the Wales Online article, the main aim of the scheme is the mining of 10 million tonnes of coal.<\/p>\r\n<p>In your &#8216;umble scribe&#8217;s opinion, this is not <em>reclamation<\/em> in <a href=\"https:\/\/dictionary.cambridge.org\/dictionary\/english\/reclamation\">either of its definitions<\/a>, i.e.:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>the activity of getting useful materials from waste (<em>unless the land itself is regarded as waste. Ed.<\/em>); or<\/li>\r\n<li>the activity of making land that is under water or is in poor condition suitable for farming or building.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>It is the pure and simple plundering of highly polluting fossil fuels for profit at a time when a climate crisis is occurring due to the past profligacy of homo sapiens &#8211; a misnomer if ever there was one &#8211; with fossil fuels, to which there is still no end in sight, especially under the less than benign apology for a government of one Mary Elizabeth Truss, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2022\/sep\/15\/liz-truss-to-lift-fracking-ban-despite-little-progress-on-earthquake-risk\">seems committed to continue fossil fuel extraction and shale gas<\/a> in particular.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Q: when is a land reclamation scheme not a land reclamation scheme? A: When it&#8217;s actually an open-cast coal mine covering four square kilometres of south Wales. Which transports us Merthyr Tydfil and its inappropriately-named Ffos-y-fran Land Reclamation Scheme, which Wikipedia describes as a &#8216;major opencast coaling operation&#8216; to the town&#8217;s north-east. The scheme&#8217;s operators [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,32],"tags":[36,16,22,33],"class_list":["post-11683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translation-and-language-related-matters","category-media","tag-comment","tag-english-usage","tag-language","tag-media-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11683"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11712,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11683\/revisions\/11712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}