Thank goodness for some common sense

You'll notice the new SpaceOasis poll to the right of these posts. One of the things that has baffled me over recent weeks is this split in thinking between saving the economy & saving the environment. The debates have always been about one or the other - how can we kick-start the economy? How can we reduce carbon emissions? Governments have talked about investing in capital projects, preventing runaway unemployment, reducing our reliance on foreign oil. In the next interview, they talk about the need to cut emissions, improve energy efficiency, become self reliant.

Yet I've only just found the magic key I've been looking for - someone to link the two and say why don't we kick-start the economy (domestic & global) by doing exactly those things that we need to do to prevent the impacts from climate change irreversably damaging our future.


According to the New York Times, "President-elect Barack Obama is arguing that there is no better time than the present to invest heavily in clean energy technologies. Such investment, he says, would confront the threat of unchecked warming, reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil and help revive the American economy."


The UK government is proposing capital projects such as road building, but why would this be a good idea when we already know that more roads mean more cars and that more cars mean more emissions, regardless of how fuel-efficient the car is. George Monbiot, in his book Heat, argues for major investment in public transport, especially coaches and trains, as a way to reduce transport emissions. Why don't these two desires marry up - invest heavily in public transport and other "green" initiatives, and kickstart the economy at the same time?


I found the NYT article through the BBC news website via a US-based organisation, the Pew Charitable Trusts. Reading through their website, I get a comforting feeling that despite all the gloom & doom and the naysayers, there are some pretty heavyweight people on our side.

Downs and ups

It’s been a while since my last post, due in part to other commitments. However, I have to admit, I felt a bit despondent after reading the last couple of posts at monbiot.com. I’ve read his stuff for quite a while, and was always impressed by the optimism and can-do attitude but the last couple really quite scared me. The first was the blackest projection I’ve yet seen that it’s actually pretty much too late to do anything now. The second was the opportunities missed in the recent Climate Change bill. Faced with such a bleak projection, it's difficult to see where to go.
However, it’s important to take a range of views, and there’s great value in reading the no-holds-barred worst case scenarios. It can fire you up, make you angry, make you determined for change. And it’s also important to see the good around you.

And I’ve been inspired by a couple of things this week.

The first is the website of the East Anglian Food Link – a not-for-profit organisation promoting resilient food production. The thing I like about the site is the fact that it doesn’t start by highlighting a big problem and then revealing the magic bullet solution. Instead it states “The problems are relatively clear, the solutions more tentative” and provides evidence, discussion and debate. I was interested to learn that the evidence they have gathered does not support the notion that the answer is simply local food, and also that the Real Bread Campaign was launched a week or so ago on 26th November. I was amazed to find that, despite living in a medium-sized city, there are only two places near me that bake “real bread” (based on being made of only four basic ingredients, and without the use of improvers). The campaign’s website is, like that of the EAFL, engaging and clear.

The second source of inspiration is, of all things, soil… I’d been reading National Geographic’s September 2008 issue, all about where food comes from (no prizes for guessing it’s the soil!). But the thing that interested me most was the discussion around terra preta, the dark soil created in the Amazon thousands of years ago by indigenous peoples enriching the soil with charcoal. Not only does it create a microbial environment that improves crop yields, but, also locks away vast quantities of carbon. I’d already read an overview of this process in the book “What about China?”, so was really delighted to find that tantalising mention expanded upon in Nat Geo. While many in the developed world are looking for high tech solutions (seeding oceans, space mirrors etc), it’s a wonderful thought that a solution to global warming could be simple, centuries old, and under our feet all the time.

The appliance of common sense

A piece by The Guardian’s Simon Jenkins prompted an interesting debate on the subject of the so-called “War on Drugs” (an earlier variation on the seemingly endless “War on Terror”). The particular trigger was the assertion that “In the south (of Afghanistan) the British have no strategy except to re-enact the Zulu wars at exorbitant cost in money and lives. The Helmand campaign is magnificent but mad.” Simon Jenkins was talking about the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq, rather than the war on drugs, but our view, as non-experts, was that a solution to one war (on drugs) could be an, admittedly partial, solution to another (in Afghanistan). Without degrees in development economics, international politics or the history of US drug policy, we came up with two workable strategies:

1. Instead of bombing opium fields (specifically in Afghanistan), buy the opium and use it for legitimate medical purposes. The farmers would have a steady income, don’t feel punished by the government (or the West for that matter), and are not drawn into criminal activity by the “drug lords”. A recent article, also in the Guardian, lamented the shortage of opium for medical purposes at the same time that piles of it were being burnt up in Afghanistan.
2. Instead of bombing coca fields (in Central America), encourage the farmer to grow coffee, bananas, whatever, and pay a – and here’s the key part – fair price for those products. Growing coca / manufacturing cocaine will then seem less attractive, not least because growing coffee doesn’t normally come with the built in risk of being bombed by various air forces.

There we are; two people with nothing but a bit of common sense, with a plan with a clear outcome that is better than the one we currently have (an endless “war” with no clear achievable end). So, to paraphrase Simon Jenkins, how come “London's finest minds joined with those of Washington” cannot consider such a plan and make it happen?

If anyone can see a fundamental flaw in this reasoning, I’d be delighted to hear it. Sure, it won’t be easy, it won’t be done in a day, but it’s got to be better than what we have now.

Paying off the Debt II

Following my recent post paying off the debt, I was interested to see the BBC News Science pages run a similar piece - Earth on course for eco 'crunch'. I was mentioning this to some people the other day and their view was "why do I care about the possible eco-crunch tomorrow when the financial credit crunch is affecting me today?"

It's always difficult to think about other people when your own welfare is threatened, but I can't help thinking that the more we view ourselves as all tied in to this world together, that if one loses, we all lose, the better things will be.

Newton’s Third Law?

It’s a funny thing when you are reminded that for every person with a strong belief or opinion, there’s someone with an equal and opposite opinion.

Had some interesting conversations last week about the role of the armed forces, and reasons for joining. The people I was talking to asserted that they had joined up to “defend Queen and Country”. We had an interesting debate around who exactly our armed forces are defending Q&C from, which I guess is basically around semantics, but let's say that between us we had "equal and opposite" views!

However, it reminded me of something the monks used to say at school, which was that there were only three useful and worthwhile careers for someone to have – teacher, doctor or farmer (teaching, healing & feeding). While this view is somewhat restrictive, and certainly, in this analysis, my own chosen career would have nothing to offer (!), I wonder whether there is a fourth worthwhile career – defending those who cannot defend themselves. This could redefine the role of our armies, navies & air forces (the UN, Nato, Peacekeepers & national forces alike) to provide that security for people who are deprived it, whether from outside aggressors or from their own corrupt or unlawful governments.

With no agenda other than defence of those people, it would seem that there are a number of candidate countries for such an intervention. After which, the teachers, doctors and farmers can be allowed to do what they do best – teaching, healing and feeding.

Paying off the debt

The recent study by Deutsche Bank (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity – aka TEEB) argues that the cost of the current financial crisis is miniscule compared to the annual cost of the environmental destruction we are doing to the rainforests. The study analysed all the “services” that the forests deliver by being there (carbon capture, water filtration etc) and looking at the costs of losing those services, or providing them ourselves by other means. The study estimates the costs in lost “natural capital” as being between $2 and $5 trillion per annum, compared to $1 to $1.5 for the current financial losses on Wall Street.

Both the BBC and George Monbiot report and comment on this study.

One thing that strikes me is a conceptual link between this study and the reports over the last year on personal debt in the UK. When times were good, we spent and spent and spent until levels of debt soared out of control. There are probably lots of people now wondering how they can pay back the interest on their debts, before they can even start to think about paying off the capital.

In the same way, by taking resources out of the natural world, we are borrowing against this natural capital, with no concept of how we’re going to pay it back. At some point, in the same way we’re seeing now with the economic crisis, that capital is going to run out. And if that happens, it’s difficult to see what environmental “bank” or “government” is going to jump in and magically supply a fix to sort it all out. And even if we could get round it, the “interest” will be the cost of clearing up the mess we’ve already made.

Translate all the lessons we’re currently learning from the disintegration of our deregulated and frankly free-wheeling economy into the various challenges that our attitude towards our environment pose and you have a fairly stark view of a possible future for all of us. Yet as with debt, the earlier we can reduce our borrowing, the less painful will be the payback in capital and interest. The quicker we start tackling the environmental issues highlighted in the report, we more able we will be to make long-term small steps to save ourselves, instead of the big, painful shock moves that will be the inevitable outcome.

Nothing new under the sun

I wrote on 23rd September about the concept that climate change could be a form of wake-up call for us all, and that in seeking to address an issue that affects rich & poor alike, we could build a more equitable world for us all. That in effect, climate change could be "good" for the developing world.

So, I was rather pleased to see an article on the BBC news website asking the same question in the context of animal species facing extinction. They come to similar conclusions - that the wake-up call occasioned by climate change could actually result in the kinds of action necessary to save many of the world's most endangered species.

One of the consequences of the current global economic crisis (credit crunch, financial melt-down etc) is the aparent loss of interest in "environmental issues". According to various surveys, these issues have been relegated behind the availability of mortgages, house prices and fuel price rises. The profligacy of unregulated borrowing and bankers' bonuses has lead many to call for, or claim to be seeing, the end of the Age of Irresponsibility, or the Age of Greed.

Yet, scarily enough, I'm now old enough to have seen this before! In 1990, at the end of the 80's boom years and facing the prospect of slowdown, the (now defunct) Today newspaper ran a seemingly endless series of articles & Op Ed pieces on this very subject. The "greed is good" era was over - kindness, responsibility, the emergence of the "new man", and an increased interest in the environment would be the hallmarks of the new age. Yet, nearly 20 years later, the same opinions are being espoused all over again. It seems that we have very short memories, and we are happy to allow our collective lives to run rampant when things are "good", yet have a colleactive mea culpa cleansing when things are starting to look bad.

If we are really going to enter a new "Age of Responsibility" or "Age of Generosity", whatever those words mean to the various pundits, we are going to need to commit ourselves to actively remember what happened before, and turn our self-conscious and confessional desire to make ourselves anew into real action. That is going to take the kind of discipline we have allowed ourselves to become unused to.

Could Climate Change be a great opportunity for the Developing World?

On the face of it, climate change looks like it will disproportionately affect the developing world more than the rich northern countries. Predictions are that vast areas of Bangladesh will be subjected to even more severe, or even permanent, flooding. More of Africa will become desert, and, in one of the predictions I was most surprised by, the Amazon basin will become savannah. Each of these, set alongside hotter summers in southern Europe, and milder, drier winters in England, seem to suggest that the developing world will suffer more than we will, through increased poverty, competition for water and farmland, and local environmental issues.

So it’s an odd premise that climate change could be looked at as an opportunity. Yet, climate change, “the defining issue of our age” as various pundits have called it, could be the first event that will unequivocally affect every single person on the planet. Hotter summers, wetter winters and the reduction in food-growing capability around the world, as well as rising sea levels, will affect us all, rich or poor, north or south. Wherever we are, if the climate change predictions come true, we will have to adapt and this will affect our economies, our politics, our lives in every way. If everyone is affected, then everyone has a stake in solving the problem.

Perhaps I’m being overly optimistic, in the face of all historical evidence, but this could be our opportunity to come together and devise not just a solution to climate change, but to all the other issues that are intrinsically linked – the issues of local environmental degradation, crushing poverty, unfair trade rules & deregulation. In the same way that climate change will affect us all, regardless of national boundaries or income bracket, so the solutions will benefit us all. We can, in essence, use climate change to build that better world.

Pale Blue Dot

This sent to me from one of the guys at work with a picture of a bunch of stars and a pale blue spot:

The picture was taken by Voyager 1 in 1990, at his suggestion engineers turned the craft around for one last look at Earth when it was 4 billion miles away. At the moment it is about 10 billion miles away, before you read the extract think about that - 10 billion miles, coupled with the extract below it really made me think!

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

Turns out it's on Wikipedia (what isn't?) from Carl Sagan, the astronomer and author. I like this as it pretty much summed up the reasons why I called this blog SpaceOasis. If the universe really is a desert, then this pale blue dot is a tiny oasis in that vastness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

Looks like the government's coming in for a pounding today over its refusal to provide some sort of one-off payment to cover the rise in fuel costs for the most needy people - Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary argued for improvements in energy saving measures such as insulation etc rather than a one-off payment or a windfall tax on energy companies. But surely this is just avoiding the root cause of the issue - namely that we cannot guarantee energy security in the current climate (economic, political &, hey, why not climate change too), that a deregulated energy market cannot prevent speculation, and that energy companies may not always be working in the public interest, despite what their PR says. Until we tackle those things, energy is always going to be a social issue.

On a more cheery note, Planet Earth interviewed a chap called Johan Eliasch, a businessman who "put his money where his mouth is" and bought a huge chunk of rainforest from a logging company to prevent its destruction. Lo and behold, I wikipedia it and come across http://www.coolearth.org/. What a great idea - and it provides jobs for local people at the same time. And even James Lovelock approves!

Getting in the way

I’m sitting here in the dark, in a hotel room (travelling for work), having just watched the last episode of Planet Earth on my work laptop. My brain is buzzing a bit with all of the things I’ve been reading, watching and thinking over the last few days and weeks. I’m sitting in the dark, partly because the video is brighter with all the lights off, but also because here in the room there must be about eight lights that come on automatically when I walk in the room and put my electronic key card in the slot just inside the front door. Add to that the fact that the TV is always “on”, on standby mode, 24 hours a day and you’ve already got a pretty big footprint. Luckily, there is a (slightly platiscated) feedback card so I’m going to suggest they do something about that.

Planet Earth has been a pretty amazing series – I bought it with my Christmas money (!) and it’s taken me just over eight months to watch it all. It’s been exhilarating, yes, really, and also depressing. Sad that so much wildlife and wilderness is being destroyed all over the world, and it’s still difficult to see what we can do about it. I think one of the difficulties is that individuals are well-meaning but distracted by a lot of the day to day things we have to do – jobs, families, etc. (Big) businesses on the other hand, have people whose jobs it is to undertake activities that, sometimes by definition, conflict with what some of us consider important (the environment, justice, fairness etc). One of the chaps being interviewed in this last episode was a something-of sustainable agriculture for a large drug & hygiene products company. He suggested that part of his remit was to promote a balance between sustainability & production (in this case, of palm oil). I just don’t buy it. If you work for a business, you’re in the game to make money. The other things are only a by-product. If doing things sustainably is compatible with making money, that’s great; but if it’s not, then that’s the end of it, they will only ever do what’s going to make money, create profit & satisfy shareholders.

So, certainly the last few weeks has seen one step in the right direction for me – I’ve finally ditched my “evil” old bank and transferred all my dealings to the UK’s foremost ethical bank, the Cooperative Bank. They have a strong ethical policy and I can sleep soundly (when small daughters permit!) knowing that my money isn’t going into funding arms dealers and tin pot dictators around the world. My previous bank responded positively to accusations that they were supporting the remnants of Zimbabwe’s government, in defiance of the views of the rest of the world, and quickly shut off the money. But I wanted a bank that didn’t need to do that, that didn’t try to push the envelope of what they could get away with – I wanted one that had a moral and ethical stance built in. I’m only annoyed that I didn’t do it earlier. I’ve known for years and years that my bank was particularly “unethical” but never got round to switching. I think that’s one of the big things that prevents us doing the “right thing” – it’s not that we consciously choose wrong, it’s that other things get in the way.

Greyhounds

I’ve been reading Heat by George Monbiot – the book that defies you to read it and not to want to make a change. In fact, in the conclusion he tells the reader to return the book & ask for a refund if it doesn’t make you want to make a difference. Well, it did, though perhaps he was preaching to the converted. There were a number of areas where I was really impressed, notably about the conservation of energy in the home (some real areas for me to think about there) and also about the public transport system, which I’ve long been frustrated by, particularly with it being cheaper (and arguably more pleasant) to drive somewhere in the car, compared to public transport. However, public transport, always the preserve of the desperately poor (esp in the USA, where the Greyhound was an entertaining insight into the impoverished classes and the mentally unstable drifters of the west coast, but one I wouldn’t want to spend too much time indulging in) is really the way forward, so something I really want to push on. There was a (surprisingly small) section at the back of the book, of organisations committed to tackling climate change, so I’ll have to look further in to it. The one area where Monbiot claims to fail is air transport, and I have to say this is a difficult area, even for us, who take one short-haul flight per year, to see the relatives in Ireland. Having tried once by car & ferry, when Daughter Number 1 was very small, I’m in no hurry to do it again. The ferry part was wonderful – the cabin was comfortable and really quite elegant, but the car journey, with a less-than-one year old who screamed from leaving the house at six o’clock in the evening, and only stopped when we rolled down the ramp into the ferry some six hours later, just in time to unload her from the car into the cabin – was a nightmare. I suspect the only way to do it, especially now with two littlies, would be to either hire a bigger car (or buy one if our current car dies a death soon!) or go by the dreaded public transport. With the amount of stuff we have to cart around for two weeks with the rellies is anything to go by, it’ll be a while before I’m brave enough to do that.

Can a bar of soap change the world?

Probably not in itself, though I guess enough of it would certainly make the world a cleaner place.

However, the question has a serious point. We were staying with some relatives over the summer and while in the shower, I couldn’t help noticing how many plastic bottles there were on the bathroom shelf, probably about 30 bottles of various gels, shampoos, conditioners, de-tanglers etc etc for a fairly small household. All of those bottles (apart from maybe the Body Shop ones) were destined to be thrown away once empty. And I thought, what’s wrong with an old-fashioned bar of soap?

So, one personal, small-scale commitment - no more plastic bottles of shower gel. I’m gonna stick with the humble bar of soap from now on.

And recycle the cardboard box it comes in!

The barbarians at the gates

As is so often the case, I'm reading about five books at once.  Today's entertainment was Heat by George Monbiot.  In it he asserts that he was once giving a presentation somewhere and was asked what the UK would look like if it cut carbon by 80%.  he didn't have the answer, but a colleague of his did.  The colleague suggested that the UK would look like a poor third world country!  A scary thought.  He goes on to suggest that we are the few generations that lived in luxury (in the west) and that our ancestors & our descendents would not be able to believe the lifestyle we live in (in the same way that, I guess the Anglo-Saxons thought about the Romans who had left the shores of Britain generations before).  However...  Not to be too gloomy (and I'm only there on chapter one) he does claim that if we take his advice on board, we can keep our standard of living and reduce carbon emissions enough to avoid disastrous climate change.  I for one, will carry on reading!

Making a difference

Just after my last post, got a note from my favourite campaign website - pressureworks - to say that it's closing down, but that it's gonna carry on under the Christian Aid "Act Now!" banner. Will have to check that out - my social justice alert mechanism seems to be on overdrive at the moment.

We live in strange and interesting times. With wars in ex-Soviet republics, trouble in Zimbabwe and starvation and poverty all over the world, it sometimes seems that the whole scope of it is beyond us. What can any of us do to change the world? And then it struck me. Everything is a choice. Poverty and injustice isn't just something that happens, out there, beyond us. It's something that we all make an active choice to allow or deny. We, each of us, choose in our daily lives to allow poverty, to allow injustice, to survive and thrive. So, what would be my list of top things that we can each do to make a difference.

1. Be informed. Ignorance is the greatest breeder of injustice I can think of. So much goes on without our knowledge of consent. Knowing, understanding how the world works is the first step to changing that. Read, listen, look around you.
2. Act - don't put off making a difference - see what other people are doing and copy it. Strike out on your own and bring people with you.
3. Write letters and take up campaigns - there are so many websites that help you - try Oxfam, CAFOD, Amnesty International, Save the Children, WWF. Whatever takes your fancy, use that as a starting point. Tell other people what you're doing.
4. Buy Fair Trade. A little thing that makes an enormous difference. Every time you choose not to (and I'm guilty of doing this) you choose to support unfair trade. By definition, if it isn't fair, it's unfair.
5. Remember how powerful you are. We are all powerful - we spend money, we invest money, we vote, we have a voice. All of these things can make a tremendous difference.

Friday at last

Today was fairly mad at work, relentless!  Still, could have been worse - the Beijing Olympics began today (8th of the 8th, 2008!) as 8 is a lucky number for the Chinese.  Not so lucky if you happen to live in Georgia (Russia, not Alabama!) as Russia invaded today.  Nightmare; according to the BBC they reckon it'll develop into a full-scale war.  Not what anyone needs right now (except perhaps the various companies supplying arms and possibly post-war services!)  Or am I just getting way too cynical.  I've ordered a couple of books from the library by George Monbiot, who's a famous (originally) anti-globalisation guru, but seems to have got to grips with the global-warming thing - he's apparently a great polemicist, so I'm looking forward to reading that. 

Was watching the Extras disc from Planet Earth yesterday and crikey, it was bleak stuff - all about species extinction.  There was one comment, by, I think James Lovelock (of Gaia fame) who suggested that after one and a half centuries of unrivalled growth, what we actually need is to go backwards!  Actually contract our lifestyles.  There was also quite a bit of discussion about the role of poverty relief - ie that it's no use talking to desperately poor people in the third world about saving species when all they're concerned about, quite rightly, is saving themselves.  Goes back to my idea a while back about the value of providing pensions for people in poor countries so that they didn't have to struggle so desperately as they got older, and also didn't feel they had to have ten kids each (unless I guess they actually wanted ten kids!) in order to support themselves when they couldn't work any more.  Might have to come back to that one sometime.

Oh and possibly the end of the world will come tomorrow as CERN will be turning on the Large Hadron Collider tomorrow sometime!  In theory (well, nutter-theory, apparently) it could create a black hole that will implode the earth and destroy everything in the solar system.  I don't suppose any of us will actually experience it as, should it happen, I guess it'll be instantaneous!  See you tomorrow!