Enraged, appalled,

Disgusted. 1,000 formal objections, from pretty much every scientific body in existence—and yet the government is shutting down three of Britain's most important wildlife monitoring centres. Goodbye CEH Banchory, Monks Wood and Winfrith.

I also sent an objection, an angry one, you know. My own small, hackles-raised angry voice. It's highly egalitarian, this process of 'consultation': Royal Society, RSPB, pluvialis, all ignored equally. None of us made any bloody difference at all. Such august company.

Sir David Attenborough said yesterday the decision to close the centres was "very sad news". He said: "That kind of work is going to be needed ever increasingly as the effects of climate change take hold."Nerc says the closures, which will cost 160 jobs, are needed to reduce the running costs of its centre for ecology and hydrology, which is scattered over nine sites. A spokeswoman said: "We didn't have any choice - we had to do something. David Attenborough does not fund science and he clearly doesn't understand the broader picture."

What broad picture is this? Hang on: this story says that Nerc has decided to allocate a further 1.3m per annum to the remaining centres.

And a reliable source informs me that the original deficit was only 1.4m.

So let's get this straight: the closure of 4 CEH sites, the loss of 160-200 scientists, and dismantling of Britain's long-term biological monitoring and climate change research ... is to save 100k per annum.

I'd write more, but I'm just too angry. I'm too angry to swear. That's how angry I am.