One of Wirral's leading environmental projects is re-launching itself as a charity.

The EEAC is re-launching itself as a charity. The Energy Efficiency Advice Centre, (EEAC) is currently a Limited Company set up under the ownership of the Wirral Green Alliance (WGA). The EEAC was launched in 1995, delivering free, impartial energy advice to individuals and companies in reducing CO2 emissions. The EEAC concentrated its early promotions in Wirral, before gradually growing throughout 1 million homes in Merseyside, Cheshire and N.Wales. The Home Energy Conservation Act of 1996 (HECA) increased the duty of local authorities to provide energy awareness, and EEAC have assisted in providing this, as well as helping Manweb plough some of their profits back into energy community projects.

EEAC have now decided to apply for charitable status in order to take forward their good work. As a non-profit orientated project, they are hoping the move will clarify this. It is currently viewed as a trading arm of WGA, despite having its own management committee and staff. As they have two different aims, EEAC requests funding for different projects so should be regarded as a different charity. WGA is an umbrella group with a good local reputation as well as a lot of influence, and this move would be good for both parties, with the prospect of working closely together in the future.

Food for thought

Our Food Links day is back on the menu of Wirral events.

It will give tantalising 'tasters' on nutrition, food miles, food-related community schemes and how to 'grow your own.' A mixed pot of enthusiastic particpants, local speakers and national organisations should stir up a few recipes for future projects around food issues and encourage people to support local growers or even have a go themselves.

Cooked-up by Wirral Green Alliance and Wirral Organic Gardeners, the day-long event is scheduled for Saturday 18th March at Leasowe Nursery School. The event is free to Leasowe residents, £5 for individuals and £15 for organisations. A complimentary creche will include food-related activities for children. Call the Centre for Sustainable Living on 0151 666 2221 for more information or watch local press for details.

Imagine a plague hitting our society. One in which prices have spiralled out of control, and a day's work will struggle to feed a family. Where children are taken out of the schools and onto the streets to sell soft drinks to passers-by who treat them like scum. One where custom and tradition is commercialised and prostituted as food comes before morals. Imagine strangers taking photos of you. Imagine being made to dress as a Morris Dancer to please your tormentors. Imagine the wildlife you're used to dying around you. Imagine watching your world crumble into nothingness, and having to adapt to an alien environment in the scenery you once called your own. No, this isn't the plot to the new Will Smith film, this is the reality faced everyday by the local inhabitants of tourists' destinations.

People tend to think tourism equals profit, but it's not as easy as that. Think about where your holiday money really goes. The flight and accommodation is booked through your local travel agent. Visting British bars and American restaurants takes money away from the region. Apart from the odd novelty donkey and cheap, jokey tee-shirt, what exactly do the local traders get? Often just 10% of all money spent. The rich multi-nationals can buy out the land and turn farms into hotels and the like to make a profit and reduce the sustainability of the land.

Obviously, the consequences of tourism are not always this bleak, but it is becoming increasingly common. Whilst a weekend in Paris may be good for their local industry, can the same be said of two weeks in Ibiza? The once idyllic island has been turned into an unsustainable nightmare, dependant on foreign travellers for its income and its cultural identity usurped by the drugs, sex and fighting persona it has today. Whilst the ruins and beauty spots remain, the impact of hundreds of thousands of visitors each year not only demystifies them but also devalues them; they no longer exist as a remembrance of the past and the beauty of nature but simply as something which can be marketed.

You're probably wondering how these places become so exploited. How often have you heard the expression "visit before the tourists ruin it" on TV or from friends? Picture a tiny fishing resort in, say, Vietnam. The fishermen work on the beach, live in wooden homes, and eat their own catch. Tourists enjoy the uncommercialised cultural experience, and advise their friends to visit. The travel industry notices this trend, and tries to attract visitors by appealing to the lowest common denominator, the package holiday. They take over the beach, ban fishermen, buy out the wooden homes and place hotels there, and suddenly the Vietnamese village becomes constrained in the same way as Ibiza. The culture seekers find a new home, and the cycle starts again.

The biggest problem with tourism isn't necessarily what we put there but what we take. Free will is often stolen from the locals. Photographs taken of strangers without their permission is invading their personal freedom. Wearing a national costume doesn't make someone a freak show for your personal viewing. Artifacts are nice for you, but have more significance for other people, and there is a big difference between not enjoying stuff, and simply not understanding it. But is tourism any worse than other industries? In practice, probably not, but in theory it is a lot worse. Tourism promotes itself as an attempt to bind together people of different cultures, with mutual respect for each other but is really acting in a way which creates a dominant force by placing Westernised values above all others.

With the cultural effects tourism brings (not to mention the pollution caused by air travel for instance), where can we go sustainably? Well, everywhere and nowhere. It depends on how you act; no matter where you go, acting irresponsibly will be detrimental, but a trip as a Green Tourist will always be time well spent. Wherever you go always say to yourself "As an inhabitant of the world, I can go anywhere I want. But I am just an inhabitant of the world, not the owner of it".

Held on Dec 9 in the Medical school, University of Liverpool
Reported by; Dr Judith Varley, Dept. of Veterinary Pathology, University of Liverpool

The Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones was established by Tessa Jowell, former secretary of Health in order to listen to you, to the personal experiences of individuals or groups, scientists, practitioners and members of the public. If you have any information, concerns or views of any sort to contribute, about mobile phones or base station masts, write to:
Sir William Stewart, Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, Scotland
But please don't delay because the official date for receiving evidence has already passed. Nevertheless, the chairman assured us that your comments will contribute to the final report, due to be published in April 2000. By then, the Expert Group will have considered all the contributions of personal testament, anxieties and scientific evidence, highlighted areas needing more research, and prioritised the urgency of those suggestions. We were assured that the Panel came to the subject with an open mind, and at this stage did not know what its conclusions would be.

A report of the meeting follows:
Ten members of the Expert Panel under the Chairmanship of Sir Bill Stewart, met with members of the public in Liverpool last week. Panel members represented the public interset and a wide diversity of specialist academic and professional expertise, from medical neuroscience to physicists and the WHO; 2 Panel members were from the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB)> Unfortunately, apart from the panel, only 27 people were present. However, if the turn-out was disappointing, the quality of the comments and debate was not, and informal debate amongst members of the audience continued long after the meeting had officially ended.

The problems presented by mobile phones and base station masts are different insofar as using a mobile phone is a personal decision, whilst masts may be erected despite local opposition and they are frequently placed amongst school buildings and/ or residential areas, so we are all exposed to their radiation effects.

One woman from Leeds lived 200m from a mast, which had been operating for 4 years. She spoke movingly of her husband's brain tumour, which was diagnosed last Summer, and of the disturbed sleep patterns, short term memory loss, headaches and ill health common to all the family since the mast had been operating. One young man reported ringing in his ears and disorientation on the side of use; this happened within 2 days of his beginning to use a mobile phone, and cleared once he no longer used it. Some of his friends experienced similar effects, but not all.

Dr Hyland, a physicist from Warwick University quoted from the Vienna resolution in 1998 and from research which had been undertaken in the early 70's. He said that low intensity micro-wave radiation similar to that used by mobile phones caused significant interference with biological activities, human, other animal and plant. Specific effects in humans included affecting blood-brain barrier causing neurological problems of many types, local micro-heating in tissues and vibration of the cochlea affecting balance and hearing sensitivity, and effects on the immune function. Chromosome abnormalities had also been reported in animals. Younger children or animals were more susceptible than older. In his view, existing safety guide lines were totally inadequate. Dr Hyland was giving a much more deatailed report to the Panel in camera the following day.

One member of the audience asked why Dr Hyland, who had years of published research in this area, had not been invited to join the Panel(and this was not answered), another asked how many people would have to be affected, even die, before the connection could be proven without doubt. Someone suggested that the links between government and the telecommunications business were so important economically that she doubted the public good was a real issue. Someone asked if it was correct that NRPB scientists had been told to deny all adverse effects,(and this was denied), was there a link with preliminary changes in the brain reminiscent of Alzheimer's Disease(this was denied)? Why had mobile phone operators changed their specification recently "to prevent health problems" if there was no risk?(this remained unanswered). If the present guidelines were satisfactory, why had other countries reduced the field strength if transmission to levels much below those acceptable in the UK?(this was unanswered).

The Chairman and other members of the Panel assured us that they would report with complete integrity, and that their report would be the basis of recommendations here and far beyond this country.