Views about our real wealth - the natural and social world, the source of our resources and the basis of our lives - and how it can and should be sustained for generations.
Loved Obama's re-election speech and am really pleased that he won (and very relieved that Mitt Romney didn't!). My favourite part is this, from about nineteen minutes in, as he is coming towards the end...
'...I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you're
willing to work hard, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or
what you look like or where you love. It doesn't matter whether you're black or
white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor,
able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you're
willing to try.
I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as
our politics suggests. We're not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are
greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a
collection of red states and blue states...'
Included in some materials on ecology I've been reviewing are Commoner's four laws of ecology. Professor Barry Commoner first stated these in his 1971 book The Closing Circle. They are a great legacy. We still have a lot to learn with respect to them. Sadly we have yet to make them part the core of our decision making in practical terms, though they continue to have a great impact. Here's a screencast summarising Commoner's four laws of ecology, along with a few additional comments on the science and its implications.
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Shouldn't have been drilling in this deep water location to begin with but both BP and the US Govt were happy with this. Should use joined up, systems thinking to run their business. Oil as a finite, non-renewable, polluting but very useful and valuable resource should only be used minimally and highly efficiently - all legislation, regulation, control and international agreement should be geared to achieving this.
This is a great series and for me is very compelling viewing. Its not endearing me to a lot of what America stands for...
BBC - BBC Two Programmes - American Dream, Plenty and Paranoia "The American dream" - a phrase coined in 1931 that has become a national motto. It represents a unique brand of optimism that goes to the heart of what it is to be American. It is a simple phrase but a complex notion whose meaning is sustained and challenged by each generation.
After World War Two ended, Americans faced a future that seemed not only full of promise but also replete with danger. The United States emerged as the richest and most powerful nation in the world yet its safety and even its existence were widely perceived to be threatened as never before.
This series features those who helped foster and sell the dream, those who feel they have lived it, as well as those who challenge or reject the very notion. Through rare archive and eyewitness testimony, this series explores the realities behind America's most powerful myth - from the eve of the Second World War to the end of the Vietnam War. More information and links here.
An exhibition documenting the impact of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II opens in London today.
Stopped clocks, flattened clothing, the charred contents of a tin lunchbox and a mangled glass bottle are among artefacts recovered from the wreckage of the two Japanese cities and brought to the UK for the first time to coincide with the 65th anniversary of the attacks.
The exhibition brings together first hand accounts of what took place on the 6th and 9th of August 1945 with objects representing the 340,000 people killed when the United States dropped two atomic bombs- events which led to Japan’s surrender from the war only days later...
Its the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima tomorrow and Nagasaki on 9th Aug. We then demonstrated the capability and willingness to deploy atomic weapons of mass destruction in a war situation, mass killing non-combatants on a scale and with a speed previously unmatched. We can kill on an even bigger scale now (there's 'progress' for you) and continue to regard the threat of mass destruction as acceptable and worth spending billions on to update systems. Presumeably the [growing number of] countries in possession of nuclear weapons are all willing to use them in certain circumstances. We cannot escape the consequences of our ethical choices - so lets hope nuclear disarmament proceeds ever more effectively and rapidly.
I agree very strongly with the second report of the Green New Deal group entitled 'The Cuts Wont Work' (extract below from the Executive Summary) available from the New Economics Foundation when they assert that their Green New Deal will reduce the public debt, cut carbon emissions, increase energy security and reduce fuel poverty:
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The notion that the most acute financial crisis since the Great Depression is now a thing of the past sounds unerringly like the politicians who, in August 1914, promised that the Great War would be all over by Christmas. Instead, it was the start of a 30-year crisis that embraced two world wars, an economic slump unrivalled since the dawn of the industrial age, and the rise of brutal totalitarian governments. Just as in 1914, the global balance of power is changing, with China threatening America’s hegemony in the way that America and Germany rivalled Britain a century ago. Just as in 1914, an established economic order has been uprooted. Then it was the Gold Standard, free trade and unrestricted capital flows. Today it is the dollar, free trade and unrestricted capital flows.
Add in the new ingredients – the battle for control over resources and global warming – and everything is in place for a prolonged period of upheaval. There will be periods, similar to that in the middle to late 1920s, when the global economy goes through a benign patch, but the respite will be brief. Even feeble economies show occasional signs of health if they are provided with enough support. But make no mistake: what we have now is a zombie economy that inhabits a netherworld between life and death.
Guest blog post (for Blog Action Day: Climate Change) from CARE International's, Simon Owens: Swinging weather patterns are creating disasters on a scale that human civilization has never before witnessed. For the world’s poorest people – the ones least equipped to deal with its effects – climate change is devastating their crops, livelihoods and communities.
"Climate change is worsening the plight of those hundreds of millions of men, women and children who already live in extreme poverty – and it threatens to push hundreds of millions more people into similar destitution," says CARE International’s Secretary General Robert Glasser. "A concerted international response to this unprecedented challenge is required if we are to avoid catastrophic human suffering."
CARE is working toward a world where poor people can create opportunity out of crises like climate change. But the current reality is that climate change makes poor people even more vulnerable.
For instance, agricultural production will likely decline in the poorest countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Less reliable rainfall will likely affect planting seasons, crop growth and livestock health – and lead to increased malnutrition. In other parts of the developing world, flooding will likely further diminish the quality of already-marginal soil and could cause outbreaks of water-borne diseases such as cholera and dysentery.
Climate change also is hurling many poor families into "Catch-22" situations. For example, they may select crops that are less sensitive to rainfall variation, but also less profitable. As incomes decline and people are not able to eke out a living, children are forced to leave school, assets are sold off to afford essentials, malnutrition rates increase and large-scale migration ensues. The end result? Deepening poverty for tens of millions of people around the world.
What Must Be Done?
At the international level, negotiations to develop a new treaty to guide global efforts to address climate change will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark in just a couple weeks. The United States must help lead those efforts, and forge a strong agreement that caps emissions, stops global warming and responds to the effects already in motion. We must do this for the sake of all of humanity.
What can I do to help?
First, you can make a tax-deductible donation to CARE to help poor families access the tools and education they need to adapt to the effects of climate change, make efficient use of their existing resources and overcome poverty for good.
Second, if you live in the Unites States, you can write your senators and urge them to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, a critical step toward U.S. leadership in tackling climate change. U.S. leadership is critical to making the Copenhagen negotiations a success.
Third, you can join the CARE mailing list to be kept up to date on CARE’s activities and other ways you can take action in the days counting down to Copenhagen.
To donate, take action and join our e-mail list, please visit www.care.org/climate
1000+ Palestinians and 13 Israelis killed. The death toll mounting daily. The Gaza offensive escalates. Action to end the violence and protect civilians is desperately needed. I've signed the petition (wording below) calling for robust international action to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and take further crucial steps toward a fair and lasting peace in the Middle East.
The message and numbers signing (which has already reached 500,000) will be published in US ads and delivered to key powers in the coming days:
Petition to the UN Security Council, the European Union, the Arab League and the USA:
We urge you to act immediately to ensure a comprehensive ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, to protect civilians on all sides, and to address the growing humanitarian crisis. Only through robust international action and oversight can the bloodshed be stopped, the Gaza crossings safely re-opened and real progress made toward a wider peace in 2009.
An adapted and edited version of the petition site.
It looks good for Obama in the US Presidential election and for the Democrats in general. I've followed the Obama/McCain campaigns with keen interest. I really hope Obama wins though I'm not in agreement with him on some big issues. He does at least offer hope of something new and different and will keep the dangerous and deluded Sarah Palin away from serious power, for the present at least. Obama talks the talk so lets hope he also walks the walk once in power.
If having a huge new shopping centre like Cabot Circus helped us to live happier, healthier, fairer, greener lives I’d be all for it but the opposite is the truth! I'm one of the people the Bristol Evening Post Comment of 26 Sept, 'Thanks due for our new retail centre', called 'cynics, doubters and critics' but far from 'sneering and carping' as the comment said, my case against developments like this is a perfectly rational and reasonable one.The celebration and advocacy of mass consumerism, the belief that the more we consume the better off we are, from all Bristol’s mainstream politicians and the media is remarkable, particularly in these pretty unprecedented times of credit crunch, economic downturn, resource depletion and environmental degradation. The system, with its short-termist banking, sleeping regulators and politicians who have sucked-up and basked in the glow of short-term ‘success’, allows a small number of people to take the profit whilst society pays the costs. As I write I’m watching news of crisis meetings in America between Bush, McCain and Obama, some of which have ended in shouting matches, about an absolutely massive $700 billion (£380 billion) bailout plan to save the US and thus the world economy! There are doubts about this plan and whether we have the leadership and the mechanisms needed to solve this problem.
Debt-funded mass consumption around the globe is causing extremely serious and urgent economic and environmental problems. So what do we do in Bristol? Build a massive shopping centre, including one of Europes biggest car parks!! Mass consumerist societies eat up resources (sparking oil price rises) like there is no tomorrow and spew out vast amounts of climate change causing carbon and very large amounts of all kinds of wastes, though some consumers are in denial about the effects of their high consumption. Cabot Circus fights against Bristol's 'green capital' ambition. It raises the city environmental footprint, already several times what it should be for sustainability, even further. This just adds fuel to the fire of economic downturn, social division and environmental decline. Its like being beaten on the head continually with a stick and asking for more, instead of ducking and doing something to stop the beating!!
Despite this Bristol's media has been in a positive frenzy for days now about the opening of Cabot Circus, producing some great reactions on local blogs (in particular the Bristol Blogger and the Green Bristol Blog). The BBC have given a great deal of free advertising to shops, playing their part in getting people to identify strongly with the products or services they consume, especially those commercial brand names with obvious status-enhancing appeal, even though they are not supposed to advertise (see Bristol Blogger). Often luxuries and unnecessary consumer products are social messages, all about keeping up with the Joneses. Any substitution of healthy human relationships, often lacking in our communities, for relationships with products or brand names is very unhealthy. Some say mass consumerism is a social control process, part of cultural leadership in modern society.
The Bristol Evening Post produced page after page of coverage, demonstrating how our culture is thoroughly permeated by mass consumerism. Bizarrely it has simultaneously published stories of shops and consumers in trouble due to the credit crunch (example here)! You could not make it up! They have painted a picture of optimism and happiness about the Cabot Circus launch over several editions but the evidence shows that mass consumption make us less happy!
It is satisfaction, security, stability and fulfillment that makes us happy but product advertisers and marketers (helped massively by the BBC, Bristol Evening Post and mainstream politicians...) have no interest in these things. It’s in their interest to see that needs become wants and that the wants are perpetuated. Thus mass consumerism favours selling products that wear out or break, instead of being made to last. Ever-changing fashion is similarly favoured because purchases in a nearly-new and good condition ‘must’ be replaced or you ‘wont be trendy’. This maintains sales and maximises profits, from which a small number of people gain. Fostering obsession with super-rich celebrities helps here (they feature in many ads, often dominate the media and are courted by politicians).
Local councillors and MPs have enthused about shops too. Bristol City Council Leader Helen Holland said that Cabot Circus 'is a quantum leap' beyond anyone's wildest dreams! Cant she dream any wilder than shops? There must be socialists from Labour's past turning in their graves! My MP Kerry McCarthy described Cabot Circus as ‘pretty stunning’ and sparked quite a hot debate on her blog.
All I seem to have succeeded in doing by persistently arguing the green case with my MP is annoying her. Cabot Circus wont prominently feature local products, quite the opposite. People will not on the whole walk or cycle there, the focus is on driving to the very large car park (see Green Bristol Blog on poor cycle access). Genuinely green items like recycled products or second-hand goods are very far from what it’s about. Plastic bags will be given out left right and centre!! The focus of Cabot Circus is more global economy than local economy, more about a small number of people getting rich than local people meeting their needs. Would it not have been much more valuable to individuals, neighbourhoods and communities in Bristol to get together a proper strategy to maintain and develop shops, services and jobs in each locality? We need development to be localised. Cabot Circus is a million miles from local production for local needs yet this is the pattern of development we need for a happier, healthier, fairer, greener and more convivial city!
Republican US Presidential Candidate John McCain's running mate Sarah Palin, who has described herself as a pitbull wearing lipstick, is certainly a social conservative! She is a million miles away from progressive and green politics - and even worse has views consistent with being an enemy of reason!
She is on record as: very strongly opposing abortion; against "explicit sex-ed programs" in schools, backing abstinence-only education; opposing same-sex marriage; supporting capital punishment; supporting teaching creationism in public schools; supporting the right to bear arms, including handguns; promoting oil and natural gas resource development in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR); opposing federal listing of the polar bear as an endangered species; opposing the designation of the Cook Inlet beluga whale as an endangered species; supporting 'predator control' initiatives such as the aerial hunting of wolves; and unlike John McCain, she apparently does not believe that climate change is largely human-caused, though as a believer in creationism she is hardly keen on rational, scientific concepts like evidence and investigative testing and questioning!!
Received this today (thanks to Jean for this) and thought it well worth passing on. Wonder if the newly resigned former Shadow Home Secretary David Davies would take up this issue of liberty? Email sent to my MP and local councillors today.
The next UK Census (in 2011), in which participation is compulsory, might be run by an arms company with close links to the United States government, and which also focuses on intelligence and surveillance work. See below for more info.
The decision is now imminent. Sign the petition today: (Deadline to sign up by: 15 June 2008) Petition on the Downing Street website -
What's the problem? The process of running the 2011 Census will be contracted out by the Office of National Statistics to a private company.
One of the two contractors in the final round of selection is the arms company Lockheed Martin, 80% of whose business is with the US Department of Defence and other Federal Government agencies.
This might concern you because: The Census rules mean that every household will be legally obliged to provide a wide range of personal information that will be handled by the chosen contractor.
Lockheed Martin produces missiles and land mines which are being used in Afghanistan and Iraq and which are illegal in many countries. They also focus on intelligence and surveillance work and boast of their ability to provide `integrated threat information´ that combines information from many different sources.
New questions in the 2011 Census will include information about income and place of birth, as well as existing questions about languages spoken in the household and many other personal details. This information would be very useful to Lockheed Martin´s intelligence work, and fears that the data might not be safe could lead to many people not filling in their Census forms.
Census Alert is therefore campaigning to stop Lockheed Martin from being given the contract. The campaign is supported by the Green Party, politicians from Plaid Cymru, Labour and the Scottish National Party, and others opposed to the arms trade and concerned about personal privacy.
We are not opposed to the Census itself. Aggregated, the information collected is important in allocating resources to local authorities and public services. But personal privacy is important too, and we are concerned that Lockheed Martin's involvement could undermine public confidence in the process and lead to inaccurate data being collected. There is still time to stop this happening and we are not calling for a boycott of the Census at this stage.
Before the final decisions on the contract are made, we are asking you to do the following: *Sign our petition opposing arms company involvement in the Census.Contact your MP and ask them to raise the issue in Parliament. *Contact your local Councillor and ask them to highlight their concerns about the allocation of local authority resources.
Today is Martin Luther King Jr day in the US, marking his birthday on 15 Jan.. King, imperfections and all, continues to inspire action on justice, civil rights, civil disobedience and non-violence, not least in the Greens ,with non-violence being one of our core values...
We look for non-violent solutions to conflict situations, which take into account the interests of minorities and future generations in order to achieve lasting settlements. And also:
Electoral politics is not the only way to achieve change in society, and we will use a variety of methods to help effect change, providing those methods do not conflict with our other core principles.
I would be considerably challenged in attempting to live up to some aspects of the pledge below (and it does have a distinctly religious feel to it in places that I'm not comfortable with) and so I'm sure does American society as a whole - its a pretty violent place.
PLEDGE OF NONVIOLENCE IN HONOR OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
IN HONOR OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.’S LIFE AND WORK, I pledge to do everything that I can to make America and the world a place where equality and justice, freedom and peace will grow and flourish.
I PLEDGE TO MAKE NONVIOLENCE A WAY OF LIFE in my dealings with all people. I WILL REJECT all forms of hatred, bigotry and prejudice, and I will embrace the values of unconditional, universal love, truthfulness, courage, compassion, and dedication that empowered Dr. King.
I WILL DEDICATE my life to creating the Beloved Community of Dr. King’s dream, where all people can live together as sisters and brothers.
I’m finding the US electoral process really interesting. It seems to have some real life in it these days. I’m a fairly regular listener to Simon Mayo’s program on Radio Five Live. The show’s session today on religion and US politics was fascinating. It revealed of course that it plays a significant role.
Assuming I'd won the Democrat nomination for US President against the likes of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and others (!!) and was generally as well qualified as my Republican opponent, 5 in 10 voters, according to polls, would then not vote for me because I don’t believe in god. Many more US voters would desert me than would desert a candidate because they were a woman, or black, a Mormon, Catholic, Jew or homosexual. No real surprise to me but it says a great deal about US people and politics.
Loved Obama's re-election speech and am really pleased that he won (and very relieved that Mitt Romney didn't!). My favourite part is this, from about nineteen minutes in, as he is coming towards the end...
