UK environmental issues

The Guardian reports that scientists at the University of East Anglia have

drawn up a list of the 100 biggest questions to face the UK environment, including controversies such as whether farmers should be allowed to kill badgers to protect their cattle from disease and how many seabirds are slaughtered by wind farms.

The list, a roll call of Britain's most pressing ecological problems, is based on the suggestions of more than 650 experts in universities, conservation groups and government institutes. It is intended to inform policy-makers and steer research over the next decade to answer key questions in areas such as farming, climate change, pollution and urban development.

One term you hear if you spend any time with people in the British government is the phrase "evidence-based policy," which is exactly what it sounds like: policy based on evidence. However, proponents of this don't argue that policy has heretofore been made without evidence, but that it can be improved with deeper and more forward-looking information.

The list is pretty specific.

The list includes current controversies in environmental science, and introduces some new ones. It asks whether there is evidence that organic farms are better for the environment, as supporters claim. It revisits the problem of whether badgers spread bovine TB to cattle. And it raises the thorny issue of the damage that domestic cats might be doing to bird and animal populations, a long-standing question that ecologists rarely voice in case they anger the UK's millions of pet owners....

Several of the questions cover the indirect environmental effects of government decisions in related fields, such as energy. Groups including the RSPB have objected to large wind farms, such as the one planned for the Isle of Lewis, because they argue not enough is known about their impact on wildlife. Scientists in Norway recently reported that coastal wind turbines there were responsible for a spate of sea eagle deaths, and are now investigating how to keep the birds away from the blades.

The experts who compiled the list also want to know more about the environmental impact of other forms of renewable energy, including wave power.

Some of the questions are "effectively unanswerable", the report admits, while others are "essentially too vague". For that, Dr Sutherland says we should blame the policy-makers, who had the final say and deliberately broadened the specific problems posed by the scientists.

Interestingly, the process they used to come up with their top 100 sounds rather like one of our expert workshops.

The original survey gathered 1,003 suggested questions - including "if the government gave more money to ecologists, would the country be better off?". These were whittled down during a two-day exercise at the University of East Anglia in February 2005.

The suggestions were printed and pasted across the walls and the policy experts invited to mark their favourites with sticky labels. (The scientists were there to advise only, and, in the words of Dr Sutherland, "to make the tea".)

Paul Armsworth, a lecturer in the animal and plant science department at the University of Sheffield, said the exercise was among the strangest experiences of his career. "For a nerdy scientist who usually sits at my desk this was a very physical experience. It was very much a one-off - a unique and ground-breaking effort."

Many of our expert workshops begin with a big brainstorming exercise. From there, we narrow down and order the ideas, by doing voting exercises that rank them, sorting them into categories, or building a map around them.

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