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.

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.

Some changes to SpaceOasis

Blogging seems to be one of those things that just never stand still! Some great new functionality for SpaceOasis courtesy of those nice people at blogger.com:

• An opinion poll - this month's poll is on peacekeepers in the DRC - let us know what you think
• A bookstore - all the recommended books reviewed on SpaceOasis can be found at the SpaceOasis "astore" from amazon.co.uk
• An RSS Feed - you can now subscribe to SpaceOasis wherever you happen to be

All this sparkling new functionality can be found in one of the boxes to the right.

Let us know what you think.

And then there were two...

And update from the Control Arms website brings news of an important victory in the fight for an international Arms Trade Treaty.  This treaty aims to ensure tougher arms controls - the UN treaty aims "to control the unregulated international arms trade, which fuels conflict, poverty and serious human rights abuses around the world".

On Friday 31st October, the UN voted overwhelmingly to move forward with work on the Arms Trade Treaty.

Only two countries voted against it - the US and Zimbabwe.  It's amazing to think that America and Zimbabwe should choose to become isolated together on this issue.  Let's hope that the new President of the USA and the infant, and fragile, power-sharing government in Zimbabwe together take the opportunity for their new governments to do something right for themselves and the rest of the world, and reconsider their votes.

"Big" news, "small" news

It's been a tumultuous week, and today is the day of the American elections - what happens today will shape the history of the world for the next few years. In a sense, that's obvious - one could argue that what anyone does today could shape the history of the world - history, the present & the future belong to us all. However, given the recent history of the USA and the hopes riding on both candidates, there's arguably a feeling that we are at a crossroads. And only time will tell.

The events in the Democratic Republic of Congo (there's a title surely sorely inaccurate) have shocked everyone, and as a parent, the coverage has been heartbreaking. A number of charities are active in the area, including Save the Children, Christian Aid and Oxfam. And no doubt a host of others.

But there's a frightening view, raised by the BBC on TV and radio that we are all implicated in the war - the BBC News at Ten suggested that if people have bought a mobile phone (the components inside) or gold in the last few months, it could have come out of the conflict zone. The BBC website points out that Rwanda has been accused of being behind the current crisis, but also hosts a link to Global Witness, an organisation dedicated to "breaking the links between natural resources, conflict and corruption". This idea was put to David Miliband, the UK Foreign Secretary on the Today programme on 3rd November, following a UN report of corporate "profiteering" (my words), however, to my mind, he refused to be drawn on the subject, instead talking about the importance of a political and economic settlement in the region.

And, finally, in many ways, the story that broke my heart the most, that of the thirteen year old girl in Somalia, who, according to Amnesty International, as reported by the BBC, was stoned for alleged adultery.

Many stories, many ways to get involved.

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.

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.

Buying the Rainforest

Seems there is an Early Day Motion 893 to look at this proposal from the president of Guyana to set aside 80% of his country's rainforest as a carbon sink. Controversial, intruiging, but definitely a step in the right direction. Until the money-value of living rainforest is greater than the value of its logs, gold seams etc, we will continue to cut them down.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7603695.stm

An interesting comment on the BBC

There was an interesting article on the BBC the other day about reform of the various environmental agencies:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7592899.stm

Even more interesting was one of the comments posted by a reader, who stated:

The world is full of "do-gooders" who have a vision of a "perfect sustainable unchanging fair-to-all world". All they need is everybody else's money to do it. "No thanks!"

Interesting, is that presumably he preferred a vision of a world that was inherently unfair & unsustainable?