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.

There's charity and there's charity...

Walking in to work this morning was a bus-stop advert for a supermarket's charity Christmas cards. Not wishing to gripe or anything but from their 50p box of charity cards, only 10% went to the charity.

Card Aid, the not-for-profit organisation gives 100% of its profits to the charities involved. Indeed, their website also links to the Charities Advisory Trusts annual Scrooge Awards that "awards" the companies with the meanest donation from their "charity" cards.

So remember, if you're still looking to buy your Christmas cards this year, not all charity cards are equal.

Only 48 hours to save Europe’s new climate policy

Act Now on the EU climate bill, says Christian Aid

Dear supporter,We've only 48 hours to save Europe’s new climate policy.

France, Germany, Italy and Poland, urged on by industry lobbying, are drawing back on commitments for a strong EU response to the climate crisis. This threatens to undermine Europe’s resolve to play its full part in next year’s vital Copenhagen summit.
It is crucial we urge their governments not to break this vital deal. Help us save the deal – email their ambassadors now!.


For more information, go to http://www.christian-aid.org/

New poll

The latest SpaceOasis poll goes live today, debating the relative value of the ongoing efforts to save the economy from financial meltdown versus the ongoing debate about the environment. The poll runs until the end of December, so vote now!

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.

Bringing it home

As regular readers know, I'm particularly susceptible to issues affecting children, and here's one that particularly hit home - check out Picture 6:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7730357.stm

The picture comes from the BBC's excellent analysis of the situation in the DRC, and highlights the appeal launched today by the Disasters Emergency Committee to help people in the Congo (http://www.dec.org.uk/).

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.