Tuesday, July 27, 2021

On Monday, Mr Justice David Holgate of the High Court of Justice for England and Wales dismissed an application for legal review by campaigners from the Transport Action Network (TAN) regarding the United Kingdom (UK) government’s Road Investment Strategy 2: 2020-2025 (RIS 2) plan, announced March 11 last year, for an assessment into the plan’s adherence to the Paris Agreement and Climate Change Act 2008.

The investment strategy of GBP27.4 billion over five years follows its predecessor, RIS 1, adopted December 1, 2014 for the period 2015-2020. RIS 2 consists of fifty schemes: 45 rolled-over from the previous plan which could not be completed in time, and five new schemes that would create or improve upon 40 miles (64 km) of England’s strategic roads network. RIS 1 was written prior to the UK making binding net zero commitments, according to The Guardian.

The plan has been accused by TAN as failing to meet criteria set out in the Infrastructure Act 2015, which stipulates “[a] strategic highway company must also, in exercising its functions, have regard to the effect of the exercise of those functions on [the] environment”, which was dismissed in the ruling as containing “nothing […] which remotely resembles environmental decision-making”.

TAN argued the government was legally obligated to undertake a “quantified assessment of the emissions in RIS 2 and to consider their impact on the ability of the UK to meet the net zero target in 2050 and the carbon budgets running to 2032”, which an organisational press release says “the UK is already set to miss by a mile.”

The Court ruled appropriate “numerical analysis” was undertaken by the government prior to the strategy’s announcement, and there was a “legally adequate precis of” it in a March 6 briefing, which failed to “assess how the predicted emissions related to the carbon budgets […] the likelihood that they would not be met, and cumulative emissions”, but “adequately summarised” the relation between the results of relevant analysis and the Climate Change Act 2008. Further analysis the next month by the Department for Transport (DfT) judged total impact as de minimis, that is, minuscule beyond ruling or legally insignificant, which the Court left undisputed. The Court also regarded a March 6 briefing note to the Secretary of State for Transport, which said in line with “a comprehensive programme of analysis” the plan was “consistent with a major carbon saving required to deliver net zero”.

In a press release, TAN said it is currently crowdfunding for an appeal to the ruling, which its director Chris Todd was quoted in that press release as “fail[ing] to grapple with the clear requirement created by Parliament that ministers must carefully consider environmental impacts”. The ruling says “the evidence is plain” the UK “government is taking a range of steps to tackle the need for urgency in addressing carbon production in the transport sector” at a level emphasised by TAN.

Although the call for legal inquiry was dismissed, a second suit with the government led it to withdraw its defence July 14 and begin an environmental review, to be completed no earlier than 2023, on the impact of its transport decarbonisation plan. It will remain effective until then.

RIS 2 would support 64 thousand jobs in the construction industry and has been defended by a former chief executive of Highways England Jim O’Sullivan as “mak[ing] journeys faster and more reliable for freight and road users.” A 2015 DfT analysis of RIS 1 found the scheme would increase the projected rise in emissions by 2040 by between 0.1 and 0.2%. An April 2020 analysis of RIS 2 found the five new schemes covered would amount to an estimated 0.016% of emissions of the 2028-2032 carbon budget.

Expert witness on behalf of TAN Professor Jillian Anable of the University of Leeds said the decision to heighten roadbuilding “can only be interpreted as either blatant dishonesty or failure to understand the science”, adding “all modelling shows that we need to cut traffic”. Professor Phil Goodwin of University College London and the University of the West of England, Bristol criticised forecasts for potential inaccuracy “if the current trajectory of global heating is continued, with all its disruption of economic and social life”, nor reversed, as doing so would “require traffic reduction”.

The government of Wales suspended all new roadbuilding projects June 22 for its own emissions review, according to the BBC.

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Saturday, April 3, 2010

Nearly two feet of the rail route in Kashmir, India was blown up by militants near the Pulwama district, affecting train services from north to south Kashmir. The blast came a few days after militants fought with the Indian army in the area, thereby killing fourteen people.

“There were no casualties, as no trains were running when the militants set off a powerful bomb on the railway track,” said Aijaz Ahmad, a local police official. He added that train services have been temporarily suspended.

According to police, the attackers detonated an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) near Galbug at about 10 PM local time (4:30 PM UTC), Thursday night. Two feet of the rail track on the Qazigund-Baramulla area was damaged. This track was developed two years ago, police sources stated. The attack came just before senior officers were supposed to inspect ongoing works in the Kashmiri railways.

The track was repaired on Friday morning and train services resumed in the region. Kamal Saine, Deputy Inspector General of Police, south Kashmir, told the Press Trust of India agency that the damage to the track was not significant and it took a short time to mend it.

Saturday, April 2, 2005

Regional U.S. telephone giant SBC Communications is one step closer to offering cable television to the 18 million households in its 13 state coverage area. The company announced a $195 million contract with Scientific-Atlanta Thursday to provide a video operations center and regional hubs for the new service. Under the brand name, U-verse, the SBC’s television rollout is set to launch in 2006 after field trials begin later this year.

The company is seeking the so-called “triple play,” where a telecommunications company offers voice, data and video in one bundled package. Local telephone companies like SBC have been losing business to cable TV companies, which have added telephone and Internet services in recent years.

In a slew of recent deals, SBC is looking to stop that trend. Within the past six months it has signed alliances with various technology firms to build out a fiber network to the home strategy. For instance, SBC has a $1.7 billion deal with Alcatel to build out its fiber optic network and a 10-year, $400 million, pact with Microsoft to license its IPTV technology to allow multi-channel television to stream over its Internet backbone.

In most of the U.S. only cable TV companies like Comcast have been able to offer the “triple play” of voice, video and data services. But traditional phone companies like SBC and Verizon have been upgrading their copper wire telephone networks to fiber optic. SBC says it plans to spend billions of dollars to overhaul its telecommunications network, saying the aging and brittle copper wires which were originally laid in the early 1900s do not have enough bandwidth to allow television capability.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

At least eight people have been killed in a plane crash near the southern Minnesota town of Owatonna, the Associated Press and local media reported Thursday morning.

One person, who had been listed in critical condition as of 11:40 a.m. in the Owatonna hospital has died from injuries sustained in the accident, the Associated Press reported just before 3:00 p.m. that afternoon. At least one person is unaccounted for while investigator determine whether the person boarded the plane in New Jersey, according to the Steele County Sheriff’s Office.

Star Tribune reported that charter flight 81, a Raytheon BAE 125-800A commercial jet, had not landed properly on the 5,500 foot runway at Owatonna Degner Regional Airport just after 9:30 a.m local time en route from Atlantic City, New Jersey. The plane either tried to take off or could not stop in time.

The plane was owned by East Coast Jets Inc. of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Aviation Research Group told the Star Tribune that East Coast Jets operates 11 aircraft — Hawker and Lear jets — and employs 21 pilots.

“They have a good safety history,” ARG President Joe Moeggenberg told the Star Tribune, based on federal data. “There were no recent incidents.”

This model of aircraft “has a very good safety record; been around along time,” said Gary Robb, aviation expert and attorney with a Kansas City law firm that represents aviation crash victims.

Gary Robb, an aviation expert and attorney told the Star Tribune that the aircraft “has a very good safety record [and has] been around along time.”

According to the Star Tribune, the pilots have been identified as Clark Keefer of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Dan D’Ambrosio of Hellertown, Pennsylvania. Pilot error has not been identified as a cause for the crash, but investigators caution it is to early for any conclusions to be made.

Graphics released by the Star Tribune show that the plane ended up past the runway it was attempting to land on. The Associated Press reports that debris was scattered 500 feet beyond the runway.

The bodies have been taken to Rochester for examination, while the plane’s data recorders have been flown to Washington, DC.

Both WCCO-TV and the Star Tribune report that the time of the crash coincided with a line of storms moving through the area, though what effect, if any the storm had, is under investigation. Witnesses told the Star Tribune that the worst of the storm had gone at the time of the crash and only light wind and rain remained. The Associated Press confirms from the National Weather Service that “the storms were subsiding at the time of the crash.”

Owatonna resident John Billingsly, a retired pilot who worked at the airport for many years, told the Star Tribune, “I saw the plane making its final approach, and it appeared nothing was wrong. We’d just had a lot of wind, but it had calmed down a bit and mostly subsided by that time.”

The plane, a charter for Viracon, Inc. of Owatonna, was flying customers from “a couple of different companies” to discuss a $2 billion dollar casino and hotel project in Las Vegas, Nevada that Revel Entertainment is building. Atlantic City Mayor Scott Evans told the Associated Press that two high-level employees for Revel and an employee of Tishman Construction. Viracon is an architectural glass fabricator and Tishman is assisting Revel.

As of 5:00 a.m Friday, five of the victims, including the two pilots, have been identified by the Associated press.

APG International, a company specializing in glass facades, lost two executives: Marc Rosenberg, the chief operating officer, and Alan Barnett, an assistant project manager, according to the Glassboro, N.J. company’s spokeswoman Amelia Townsend.

The Tishman empoyee, the only victim identified, was project manager Karen Sandland, 44, based in Newark, New Jersey company spokesman Bud Perrone told the Associated Press.

The Revel employee’s idenities were released by the Star Tribune Friday, they are: Tony Craig, 50, of Brigantine, N.J., vice president of construction development; Chris Daul, 44, of Northfield, N.J., vice president of construction development; and Lawrence (Chip) Merrigan, 62, of Absecon N.J., director of field operations.

The crash is the deadliest in Minnesota since October 2002, when Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone and seven others died after their chartered twin-engine plane crashed in the woods near Eveleth, in Northern Minnesota, according to the Star Tribune.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), an independent agency responsible for investigation of accidents involving aviation, highway, marine, pipelines and railroads in the United States (except aircraft of the armed forces and the intelligence agencies), will be investigating the crash.

The NTSB reported Friday through the Star Tribute that the agency has 14 investigators working on the crash, with assistance from the FBI.

The NTSB reports two other fatal accidents since 1962 at Owatonna airport. A crash in 1992 killed one and injured another and a crash in 2004 killed four people.