The Threat:   George Eustace – Brexit would free UK from ‘spirit-crushing’ green directives, says minister. Farming minister George Eustice says leave vote would free up £2bn now spent on insurance schemes and incentives for farmers

Brexit and the sea     Charles Clover Blue Marine Foundation: Let us remember just what our seas were like before the UK joined what was then called the Common Market.  There was dumping of sewage and toxic chemicals at sea, bathing water was polluted and the nations of Europe could not bring themselves to agree on a sustainable catch.  As the UK chooses to leave the EU, our waters are cleaner, the majority of fish stocks are recovering, the Common Fisheries Policy is being assessed for an eco-certification and the future for the British fishing industry looked bright.

Whatever the failings of the EU, it is important to recognise what the EU with Britain in it has achieved.  Those environmental improvements must be defended as Brexit gathers pace.  The environment and fisheries were barely debated in the campaign – it can be argued they were never debated properly.   So it we would all be poorer if the achievements of the past 43 years on pollution control, nature protection and fisheries management were thrown out in a great bonfire of the directives, as there is a real danger that they might be.

Response to EU Referendum Result – MCS

The Marine Conservation Society is hugely disappointed that the UK will be leaving the European Union, as the results of the referendum confirm today (24th June 2016).

Membership of the European Union has brought substantial benefits for the protection of the marine environment, with the majority of environmental legislation governing our seas emanating from the EU. Being in the EU has, over time, enabled MCS and our supporters to defend the things we love from loss and damage, and lead towards achieving our charitable objectives to protect the marine environment.

Greenpeace

Reacting to the vote to leave the EU, Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said:

“Many of the laws that make our drinking and bathing water safe, our air cleaner, our fishing industry more sustainable and our climate safer now hang by a thread. But Greenpeace is determined that this country does not go back to year zero on environmental protection.

“Over the coming months we all need to demand that the government replaces European regulations protecting nature with new UK laws that are just as strong.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/other/greenpeace-reaction-uk-decision-leave-eu-20160624

Tactics & Communications of Climate change & Expert deniers and the Leave campaign

Bob Ward Grantham Institute   ‘…….This disdain for expert organisations and individuals that undermined their flawed arguments is a key characteristic of those who deny the potential consequences of both Brexit and climate change. It means that scientists who warn of the risks of climate change and economists who warn of the risks of Brexit are simply dismissed as “alarmists”.

So if the Vote Leave campaign prevails on 23 June, it may not only be the end of the UK’s membership of the European Union. It may also mark the end of enlightened decision-making, based on expertise and evidence. Click here to read the article.

Bob Ward is policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The real facts of the consequences can be found here (skip to 12mins) to show the immense and un-democratic process we are about to enter…and it’s about a lot more than the markets and the economy https://twitter.com/livunislsj/status/743724209000484864

Red Alert for the Environment James Thornton, the chief executive of Client Earth, the lawyers who forced the government to improve its air pollution plans, said Brexit “leaves me shocked, disappointed and extremely concerned about the future of environmental protections in the UK.” Craig Bennett, head of Friends of the Earth, said the leave vote was a “red alert” for the environment