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  • Johnston backs praises response of Lib Dem MEP Watson August 31, 2010
    Paul Johnston, a leading Aberdeenshire Councillor has welcomed the link between the Pakistan floods to climate change and the need for the UK to tackle it in a more co-ordinated manner. “In much of the coverage of the tragedy that is Pakistan at the moment it is hard to make the connection to the UK.  Its […]

Energy

 ------News-------

Welcome for maize crop trials

Aberdeenshire Councillor for Udny, Paul Johnston has welcomed the news of crop trials for maize destined for energy use through AD (anaerobic digester) by local Farmer Alistair Sinclair.

“I would be interested to know if, provided we maintain biodiversity, we are able to add to local sustainable crops that can feed an AD electricity generator .  This could add viability to local farming, create sustainable and environmentally friendly agriculture.  The three year trial at Alehouse, near Udny seems a positive step and Alistair and Magnus should be encouraged.”

Paul believes a diversified and flexible farming system that can feed anaerobic digesters as well as produce valuable food, will create sustainable communities.

“I think I should also be clear that sustainability means it is Environmentally sustainable AND economic AND provides for a sustainable community.  All three, none without the other. “

July 26th, 2010 | Category: News

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Paul's Blog

  • Exams and Scottish Higher Education
    August 5, 2010 | 7:21 pm

    On the day that Scottish Exam results drop through the letterboxes of expecting students, there remains the unresolved debate about the future of higher education that underlies all the comments that will flow forth from the great and good.

    My concerns that commentators will rubbish the results again, as they do when any increase in pass rates are announced.  The requirements of any qualification change with time.  It does not mean it gets easier – it can, but there is no evidence that it actually has.  But there is evidence it has changed in another way.

    Change in the the topics covered by exams have always happened.  How many doing Maths now would be able to handle a slide rule?  In my day, it was part of the exam.  Now students would no know what a slide rule was.

    For all those who are tempted to suggest the utter nonsense of advising students not to go to further Education but study things that industry bosses want now, could I enter the thought that we are really teaching people for occupations in technologies and systems that have not even been invented yet.  Such is the challenge of the future.

    Congratulations to all students in your results.  I just hope that the generation currently making decisions about your futures, your higher education places and the very sustainability of the Country, will not indulge in the short term thinking of ‘government spending’.  I hope they will have the courage for the investment in peoples’ futures and not our selfish present.

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