Coming to a screen near you – me!31 Jul 2008Three years ago, the environmentalist and writer Bill McKibben made a striking observation: that despite overwhelming evidence of a world-threatening rise in temperatures, our cultural realm seemed unaware of the looming crisis. “Where are the books?” he demanded. “The poems? The plays? The goddamn operas?” Global warming, he concluded, “hasn’t registered in our gut; it isn’t part of our culture”. How things have changed. Today, bookshops have entire shelves devoted to climate change. Television, too, has belatedly begun to catch up. Which is not to say every contribution has been well-informed or progressive: Channel 4 commissioned a contrarian polemic, The Great Global Warming Swindle, broadcast in March last year. Directed by the committed anti-environmentalist Martin Durkin, the spectacularly misleading Swindle marked a broadcasting nadir for the number of distortions, errors and misrepresentations that can be crammed into 75 minutes. On 21 July the broadcasting regulator Ofcom handed down a severe censure, ruling that the programme had breached impartiality guidelines and treated contributors unfairly. This should be embarrassing for a scrupulous public service broadcaster, yet Channel 4 seems to have a higher regard for controversy than for truth. But, into the intellectual and ethical vacuum that is Channel 4?s environmental programming steps the BBC with a new, two-part TV drama called Burn Up. Screened on 23 and 25 July on BBC2, this thriller surely marks the belated coming-of-age of energy politics as a legitimate topic for popular entertainment. Written by Simon Beaufoy, screenwriter for The Full Monty, and starring Rupert Penry-Jones (from Spooks) and Bradley Whitford (The West Wing), Burn Up really is thrilling (if you missed the original transmission, make sure you get hold of the download on the BBC?s iPlayer, quickly). The story finds the young chief executive of a British-based oil company wrestling with his conscience as the deadline looms in global climate-change talks. There?s a fast-talking scientist and a bad-turned-good government apparatchik, both trying to confront the evil axis of oil blobbyists and the US government. Yet this is not a televised Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report: there?s sex and murder. I could quibble that, in the interests of gripping drama, the portrayal of climate negotiations isn?t quite as I?ve seen in reality, but I imagine policemen feel the same way about The Bill. Also well worth watching out for on the cultural front is the upcoming feature film The Age of Stupid, a drama-meets-documentary epic that casts Pete Postlethwaite in the role of ?the archivist?, alone in the year 2055 in a specially constructed Arctic museum-cum-fortress, one of the last surviving human beings on the climatic ally devastated planet. The archivist ? using his cache of all the world?s broadcast material from past decades ? is constructing a digital broadcast for other, future civilisations about why humanity failed to save itself from global warming. This is where the real documentary comes in. The director, Franny Armstrong, spent years filming people in various countries who illustrate the dilemmas of climate change: an elderly French mountain guide, the chief executive of an Indian low-cost airline and a Shell petroleum geologist who lost his house to Hurricane Katrina, among others. The film is anything but a good guys-versus-bad guys polemic; it is angry but nuanced, despairing but also strangely motivating. Indeed, the hero (in my opinion) ? the one who coins the name of the film itself ? is none other than the Shell man, who saved dozens of people in his boat in the aftermath of the hurricane, and has clearly done more thinking about the environment than many greens I know. I should probably mention that I appear in the film (sketching carbon-emissions graphs in the garden shed), and I also had a hand in writing and advising on the scientific content of the script. Armstrong hopes for UK-wide cinema release in October or November this year, and discussions regarding a prime-time television slot are already under way. Watch out for the fast-paced animations and for the peculiarly captivating soundtrack. It seems that, finally, someone is answering Bill McKibben?s lament.
British government implicated in abuse of refugees and asylum seekers31 Jul 2008The British government has been implicated in the abuse of refugees and asylum seekers, according to a report published this month by a group of human rights campaigners and medical legal experts. The report, Outsourcing Abuse: the use and misuse of state-sanctioned force during the detention and removal of asylum seekers, contains a detailed dossier outlining cases of systematic physical and verbal abuse against refugees and immigrants who face deportation to their country of origin. Most of the alleged assaults took place at the hands of security guards during transit between detention centres, during deportations to airports, or removal from places of residence. Outsourcing Abuse was a response to a demand by the Home Office to corroborate an earlier dossier, which hit the headlines after the Independent published details in October 2007. Home Office ministers and officials dismissed the claims of abuse as unfounded, saying that many of the alleged victims had not come forward with further information to prove their mistreatment.
The new report contains nearly 300 cases of alleged assault, which took place between January 2004 and June 2008, and draws on a wide range of sources including solicitors, journalists, airline passengers, hospital staff and doctors. Many refugees and asylum seekers were also prepared to recount their ordeals, despite fears of retribution from the Home Office or the private security companies it employs to detain and deport them. The report states that ?Many additional allegations of assault have been reported to us that we simply have not had the resources to consider and therefore have not been included in the dossier. Because of this, coupled with the fact that other victims are fearful of coming forward, we feel our dossier is just the tip of the iceberg.? Outsourcing Abuse paints a picture where appalling physical and verbal abuse is condoned and accepted, if not actively encouraged. People are routinely kicked and punched, or otherwise injured by excessive use of force, and many are subjected to racist verbal abuse. Some victims allege they were given injections to sedate them or forced to take pills. Others tell how they were denied access to emergency hospital facilities after sustaining injuries. Typical of the 48 case studies contained in the dossier are: A 19-year-old Congolese man who claims that in 2007 he was thrown to the ground and kicked in the face, whilst being transferred to a segregation unit. An independent doctor advised care for head injury and noted abrasions to the forehead, bruising and swelling around the face. A Malawian man in the same year who alleges that he was pinned to the floor by Detention Custody Officers (DCOs) and ?kicked all over his body, including his head?, at Dungavel detention centre. A Sudanese woman whose escorts repeatedly jabbed her in the eye and assaulted her after the pilot refused to fly. An Armenian man was left with a punctured lung after escorts stamped on him in the back of a van and then left in an immigration holding bay without medical support for hours. A Cameroonian man who claims he was detained without sufficient food or water and denied medication for treatment of hepatitis C. When, because of his illness, he refused to co-operate with efforts to move him on board a Kenya Airways flight for deportation he said, ?They started beating me, kicking me all over. They put me on the floor and continued to kick me everywhere. I was agonising of pain. I thought that they will kill me.? The report comments that, ?Usually removals are stopped when the pilot refuses to proceed, which may be because the detainee is screaming and / or because there is a physical struggle with escort staff occurring and the pilot considers it will be unsafe to fly.? A total of 78 charter flights were arranged between February 2006 and March 2007, 60 of which were flights to Eastern Europe and 14 to Afghanistan. It is not known how many airlines are contracted out by the government for deportees, or what the budget is for this policy, though it is likely to be in the millions. Many of those affected by this process are small children and babies, who may be separated from their parents for days or weeks. John Wilkes, chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, said, ?The UK government has signed up to protect the rights of children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but shamefully except for children in the asylum and immigration system.? Many refugees and asylum seekers are suffering mental health problems as a result of the abuse they are subjected to. The report reveals that 85 percent have chronic depressive symptoms and 65 percent contemplate suicide. In 2007 there were 1,517 immigration detainees on ?suicide-watch?. Many of the abused immigrants were of uncertain legal status when they were detained or deported. In some cases the state ?pre-empted? the legal process altogether by intervening before they had access to legal representation?clearly breaching the Geneva Conventions and International law. The situation is so bad that the former Chief Inspector of Prisons, David Ramsbotham was forced to caution the government in the introduction to Outsourcing Abuse. He states, ?Of course there will always be cases that are less than genuine, and they must be dealt with accordingly. But every case must be investigated and, in line with the law of the land, individuals regarded as innocent until proved guilty. That applies to those whose cases are outlined in this dossier. If the Home Office, Ministers and officials alike, is sensible it will pay due attention to the dossier, which is not written in an emotive way, but contains constructive advice that should not simply be rejected.? Ramsbotham?s exceedingly modest appeal is likely to fall on deaf ears. Requests for further information under the Freedom of Information Act regarding forced removals on charter flights, as well as the government?s contract with the private security firms, have been rejected by the Home Office on the grounds of ?commercial secrecy?. The same secrecy surrounds the detention centres used to hold asylum-seekers pending the outcome of their application. Seven out of 10 in the UK are managed by private companies on behalf of the Home Office. Labour?s immigration minister, Liam Byrne, boasted in May, ?We now remove an immigration offender every eight minutes?but my target is to remove more, and remove them faster.? The government announced in August 2007 that it intended to ?fast-track? the deportation procedure and in May this year announced a 60 percent increase in the number of detentions. Despite a 72 percent fall in asylum applications between 2002 and 2007, there has been a 106 percent increase in the number of applicants detained. In Europe, in the name of combating ?illegal immigration?, a Return Directive is being set up across the continent to send undocumented workers to neighbouring countries without any administrative formalities. This legislation will allow states to hold immigrants for up to 18-months and impose a five-year ban on their return to the EU. According to a representative of the European Association for the Defence of Human Rights, the Directive will establish detention as a ?norm?. The website Inter-Movement Committee for Evacuees commented on the new directive, ?Retention has been slipping little by little into the logic of internment, transforming these centres into camps.?
SFO wins appeal in BAE-Saudi case31 Jul 2008The Law Lords have this morning upheld an appeal by the Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) against the High Court’s ruling that he acted unlawfully in terminating a corruption investigation into BAE Systems’ arms deals with Saudi Arabia. The appeal followed a High Court judgment in April that the SFO, acting on government advice, had dropped the investigation following lobbying by BAE and a threat from Saudi Arabia to withdraw diplomatic and intelligence co-operation if the investigation were not dropped. This judgment was in response to a judicial review brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and The Corner House. Nicholas Hildyard of The Corner House said: “Now we know where we are. Under UK law, a supposedly independent prosecutor can do nothing to resist a threat made by someone abroad if the UK government claims that the threat endangers national security. The unscrupulous who have friends in high places overseas willing to make such threats now have a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card ? and there is nothing the public can do to hold the government to account if it abuses its national security powers. Parliament needs urgently to plug this gaping hole in the law and in the constitutional checks and balances dealing with national security. With the law as it is, a government can simply invoke ‘national security’ to drive a coach and horses through international anti-bribery legislation, as the UK government has done, to stop corruption investigations.? Symon Hill of CAAT said: “BAE and the government will be quickly disappointed if they think that this ruling will bring an end to public criticism. Throughout this case we have been overwhelmed with support from people in all walks of life. There has been a sharp rise in opposition to BAE’s influence in the corridors of power. Fewer people are now taken in by exaggerated claims about British jobs dependent on the arms trade. The government has been judged in the court of public opinion. The public know that Britain will be a better place when BAE is no longer calling the shots.? CAAT and The Corner House will issue a more detailed statement following an analysis of the Lords’ judgments.
Miliband strikes31 Jul 2008What a day for the androids! Miliband half comes out as a leadership challenger, then backs down under pressure from Downing Street, but then it is noticed that he wouldn’t explicitly rule out a leadership challenge. On the basis of this hopeless placard, Labour’s demoralised members have nothing – neither policies nor charisma nor added common sense – to hope for in a Miliband leadership. As a pronunciamento from a plotting putschist it lacks everything, including novelty. “Labour needs to change and change now” is how The Guardian summarises Miliband’s intervention. In fact, the argument is that Labour must not change under any circumstances, but must defend everything it has done, and insist that the only flaw is that it didn’t do it faster and better. Even the language must remain the same, the better to reinforce a stifling orthodoxy – “the many, not the few”, “change” this, “radical” that, “modernisation” the other… Whoever wrote this drivel for Miliband has the mind of a small child, and he better give it back. It was mentioned in the papers the other day that if the swing at Glasgow East were repeated in Labour’s remaining heartlands (how hollow that term is beginning to seem), there would only be a dozen Labour MPs left after the next general election. The Tories have a clear plurality in every sector of the electorate, whether you stratify them by gender, region, age, or ‘social class’ (see poll [pdf]). From leading by 10% this time last year, Labour is now behind 19% (poll [pdf]). Recent polling evidence [pdf] suggests that the government’s core policies of pay restraint in the public sector and tax breaks for corporations and the rich are deeply unpopular. Unsurprisingly, a party that assures us there is no such thing as class and then goes on to take the side of the ruling class in every key policy area or battle is making itself look a bit ridiculous and contemptible. Because of the government’s commitment to privatization (what Miliband somnolently calls ‘NHS reform’), New Labour is now even less trusted on the NHS than the Tories. That is a colossal reversal, and it shows that while people did support massive public investment, you can’t disaggregate that investment from what is done with it. If you plough billions into colossally wasteful PFI projects, which everyone knows are wasteful and reduce the quality of care provided, you don’t get brownie points. If you ram through a raft of market-driven measures and internal competition, which is the reverse of what Labour promised to do, you don’t improve people’s experience of the health service. Naturally, people are turning against the governing party on what was once its biggest strength. I don’t think I need to keep underlining the point: New Labour is in meltdown on all fronts, and the cause of it is policy. The Miliband clarion call for ‘change’ actually maintains that all will be well if you only explain to the voters that New Labour was right all along, and that everything is going fabulously well. This is not just a foolish political logic, but part of a dangerous epoch we are in. When people are suffering, stressed, in pain, they will look for solutions, not soothing bromides. And if real solutions aren’t in evidence, the pseudo-solutions of the far right may gain a bigger foothold. Look at what’s happened just today: British Gas put up prices by 35%. What can Gordon Brown say about this? He wouldn’t dream of nationalising the energy giants. He is unlikely to even consider a tax on energy profits and a mandatory cut in fuel bills. He surely isn’t going to ask us to ‘stop wasting energy’, is he? So, the recession is going to kick in, alongside soaring food and energy prices, and the government can only insist on belt-tightening from its constituents and obedience from its supporters. The trade unions got precious little for their supposedly militant demands in Warwick Two, and there is a reason for this: because they fundamentally accept the system that is crashing and burning, they have to accept that it needs to be rescued with wage restraint and public sector spending curbs. And they are subject to intense pressure to reinforce the government’s line on ‘belt-tightening’ with their membership. Only a powerful, countervailing pressure from the rank and file could possibly stiffen their spines. Without working class militancy of the kind we have seen in Germany and, recently, Poland, we are going to see the politics of despair and reaction thrive. As for Miliband, one last question: where did this idea that he is some kind of a rising star come from? I gather that the papers like him, but who else does? Is he even remotely electable? Transplanted into one of the safest Labour seats in the country, where his predecessor had a 56.8% majority (Miliband has helped chisel that down to 40.8%, and probably much lower still come 2010), has he ever really been tested? Both Blair and Brown had years of political streetfighting in them before they got to power, but Miliband has always been essentially a Blairite mini-me for as long as he has been in politics. The man is a suit-stuffer, probably set to go down as the Portillo of the 2010 election. So, again, enlighten me: who said he was a star?
SFO wins appeal in BAE-Saudi case as public outrage continues31 Jul 2008The Law Lords have this morning upheld an appeal by the Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) against the High Court’s ruling that he acted unlawfully in terminating a corruption investigation into BAE Systems’ arms deals with Saudi Arabia. The appeal followed a High Court judgment in April that the SFO, acting on government advice, had dropped the investigation following lobbying by BAE and a threat from Saudi Arabia to withdraw diplomatic and intelligence co-operation if the investigation were not dropped. This judgment was in response to a judicial review brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and The Corner House. Nicholas Hildyard of The Corner House said: “Now we know where we are. Under UK law, a supposedly independent prosecutor can do nothing to resist a threat made by someone abroad if the UK government claims that the threat endangers national security. The unscrupulous who have friends in high places overseas willing to make such threats now have a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card ? and there is nothing the public can do to hold the government to account if it abuses its national security powers. Parliament needs urgently to plug this gaping hole in the law and in the constitutional checks and balances dealing with national security. With the law as it is, a government can simply invoke ‘national security’ to drive a coach and horses through international anti-bribery legislation, as the UK government has done, to stop corruption investigations.? Symon Hill of CAAT said: “BAE and the government will be quickly disappointed if they think that this ruling will bring an end to public criticism. Throughout this case we have been overwhelmed with support from people in all walks of life. There has been a sharp rise in opposition to BAE’s influence in the corridors of power. Fewer people are now taken in by exaggerated claims about British jobs dependent on the arms trade. The government has been judged in the court of public opinion. The public know that Britain will be a better place when BAE is no longer calling the shots.? CAAT and The Corner House will issue a more detailed statement following an analysis of the Lords’ judgments.
Leave it in the ground!30 Jul 2008A new open cast coal mine site is about to get under way in beautiful Derbyshire unless we stop it. Lodge House site which is east of the village of Smalley and spans either side of Bell Lane, is one of seven new sites that UK Coal is to open cast. The area is about to be devastated. Despite objections from local councils, residents and local environmental groups the Secretary of State granted planning permission in 2007. The 122 hectare site will have one million tonnes of coal ripped out over 5 years and UK Coal claims that it will be returned back to its natural state afterwards. However residents fear there may be more to the plot, as they were excluded from parts of the planning meeting under grounds of commercial confidentiality. According to campaigners UK Coal are one of those companies that looks to maximise their profits by raping the land and profiting from it any way they can. After coal extraction, they often turn the area into business parks, housing and industrial estates. According to their website in some cases they return it to farmland and charge the farmers rent or in low grade land grow energy crops. They are apparently even into wind power, but have yet to erect a single turbine. Coal is not clean energy and is a major contributor to climate change. With the new onslaught of proposed power stations, UK Coal are looking to cash in on climate devastation and destruction unless we stop them. The area is rich with wildlife and backs onto Shipley County Park. Some houses, (the sort of place you dream of living in) have been shuttered up and items like toys, dog kennels and other personal bits remain looking like something from a hurried evacuation from a war zone. UK Coal has stated that the site will be returned to farm land, but they are able to expand beyond the 122 hectares without needing further planning permission. www.leaveitintheground.org.uk
The Price of Carbon: What should it be and why?30 Jul 2008Introduction The back?drop to this seminar was the Government?s Climate Change Bill, currently being debated in Parliament, which will set a series of carbon budgets for the UK economy up to 2050. The Committee on Climate Change is advising the Government on what these budgets should be, and will report by the end of 2008. These carbon budgets are likely to be a challenge for the UK, and require the use of both new policies and strengthened existing policies. Carbon pricing has been identified, by the Stern Review amongst many others, as a critical policy tool for achieving carbon reductions, so how carbon pricing is implemented or revised will have a crucial effect on whether the UK meets these new carbon budgets. Carbon pricing of course takes many forms ? for example market prices per tonne of carbon in the traded sectors in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, prices applied by Governments via taxation, or ?shadow? prices applied by Governments in policy and project appraisal, to determine the relative weight to attach to carbon compared with other positive and negative impacts of potential policies. This seminar focused on the latter point ? what approach should be used towards carbon pricing in policy and project appraisal. Which approach is used has significant impacts ? it affects the determination of whether big infrastructure projects have positive or negative net benefits, it affects the decision as to what is, say, the ?optimal? level of energy efficiency or renewable electricity to adopt in new buildings. Getting this approach right will be a fundamental part of a successful carbon budget strategy. However, it is not clear what is the best approach to take. There are a number of plausible options with numerous pros and cons for each. There are genuine difficulties here. What is clear though is that to ensure a successful strategy for delivering carbon budgets, these issues need resolving quickly. And so, the purpose of this seminar was to bring together people from Government, academia, business and the NGO sector to discuss what is the best way of tackling this problem. Friends of the Earth welcomes the Government?s decision to review the use of its current method for valuing carbon in appraisal ? the Shadow Price of Carbon (SPC) ? and hope that the discussion at the seminar, and this meeting summary, will be helpful to the Government as it reviews its policy. Friends of the Earth would like to thank all the participants for their constructive engagement in this seminar. Context ? where are we now? Carbon valuation for appraisal is controversial. The argument for its use is that there are often real choices between competing objectives ? explicit pricing in appraisal helps decision making by putting a price on something currently without one. However, which method to use for setting the price is controversial, and in addition there are arguments that the difficulties with each of the methods are so substantial that a different approach is required. The figure the Government uses is based on the Social Cost of Carbon (?SCC? ? broadly, the societal cost of a tonne of emissions) set out in the Stern Review, assuming the world is on course to meet a 550 ppmv CO2e target concentration. This value is currently 26.5 tCO2e, and is called the ?Shadow Price of Carbon? (SPC). The current carbon price approach has come in for some criticism, and is being reviewed by Government. An extra factor for this review will be the need to ensure compatibility with the new approach to carbon budgeting set out in the Climate Change Bill. One concern, for example, is that if high?carbon and very?long lived infrastructure is approved via the current carbon pricing approach, this locks the UK into a high carbon trajectory when in future decades carbon budgets will be becoming very small, making these budgets extremely difficult to achieve. There are alternative methods ? such as basing it on the cost of abating a tonne of emissions (?MAC?), or the market price. A further approach is to say that the difficulties in accurately calculating SCCs or MACs are too great for them to be of practical use as a guide price in policy appraisal, and that a different approach altogether is required. However, all of these approaches, like the SCC, have pros and cons as well. Summary of discussion The discussion focused first on the purpose of carbon pricing, in general and then more specifically for policy appraisal. It then went on to look at the advantages and disadvantages of four possible approaches for treating carbon in policy appraisal. A) Purpose of carbon pricing There was general consensus that the purpose of carbon pricing is to help deliver the Government?s policy goals on climate change ? soon to be set out as a series of carbon budgets as part of the Climate Change Bill currently going through parliament. Two additional points were made. First, the purpose of carbon pricing is not primarily to ?internalise the external costs? of carbon emissions (although in practice it will go some way to doing this). In this sense pricing is analogous to the situation with the development of the UK landfill tax, which started off set at rates to internalize external costs, but has since moved to be set according to the level deemed necessary to reach politically agreed targets. Second, carbon pricing is not the only policy tool needed, a point strongly emphasised in the Stern Review, and indeed does not on its own necessarily guarantee that the overall policy objective is met. B) Carbon pricing in policy and project appraisal There was general consensus too that there needs to be clarity over the different types of carbon pricing. The focus in the seminar was how to use carbon pricing in project and policy appraisal ? in deciding what level of carbon emissions reduction to aim for in a particular policy, or how to assess the carbon impact of a specific new proposal against other objectives. Carbon pricing is already in place in other areas to some degree ? for example in the EUETS, the use of a carbon cap leads to a (changing) carbon price; and in other areas the use of a variety of environmental taxes creates a carbon price of sorts, albeit varying considerably by sector. C) Different approaches to carbon pricing in appraisal Four different approaches were discussed: 1) ?Social Cost of Carbon? approaches (SCC) Social cost approaches come from valuing in monetary terms the costs to society of a tonne of additional carbon emissions. This is used to assess the ?cost? of the carbon emissions of any policy, for comparison with other impacts, both positive and negative. The main advantage of this approach is that it is an attempt to measure actual costs, and as such is good for comparing with other types of costs and benefits of any proposal. However, there are a series of major disadvantages. The first is that any estimate is riven with significant uncertainties, at many levels ? from how to value ecosystems and knowledge of likely catastrophic damages, to how to value damage to different generations and how to model the effects on economic systems. The combination of all these difficulties leads to major difficulties in assigning any level of accuracy and precision to any figure, let alone the +20/?10% range currently used. Many of these uncertainties are unresolvable any time soon, certainly not within the period we have left to cut emissions; many of them are also ethical issues, and reflect distributional concerns to which there are no definitive ?right? answers. Second, because many of these impacts are so uncertain, the models which do exist usually assign a zero value to them ? particularly for ?socially contingent? and ecosystem losses. These represent a trend for SCC to be underestimates. A further recent trend for underestimates is that the SCC values are inevitably based on relatively old science. As the trend has been for the science of climate change to show things are getting worse with every passing year, the current SPCs are based on an overly optimistic and increasingly outdated view of lower costs of climate damages. Third, values for the SCC are future?dependent. With strong emissions reductions in decades to come, future climate damages will be lower, so a tonne of emissions now has less impact. The SCC figure has to be based on some vision of the future. Unfortunately, assuming a world of strong future action on climate leads to a lower value for the SCC now, which when used in policy appraisal means less weight given to climate policies, which leads to less strong action on climate?a self?defeating cycle. In addition, the current value for the SCC used by Government in its Shadow Price of Carbon is based on a 550ppmv C02 future, which will require far stronger policies than currently exist to be achievable. The reality is that we are on a higher trajectory, which under this methodology would require a higher price. Fourth, there is little certainty about the link between this approach and with the Climate Change Bill?s carbon budgets. It could well be that carbon pricing here results in major carbon intensive projects or policies going ahead (if the carbon costs were outweighed by other benefits). The current Heathrow expansion proposal was cited as an example of where the carbon cost of the proposal using SCC is outweighed by calculations of benefits of expansion ? the proposal thus passes its impact assessment, despite its projected large net increase in carbon emissions, in likely conflict with carbon budgets requiring large overall cuts. 2) ?Marginal Abatement Cost? approaches This approach assesses the cost of cutting carbon emissions by an additional tonne, and compares the figure derived from this for the ?cost? of the carbon emissions with other impacts. The main advantage of this approach is that it is in theory compatible with the carbon budgets in the Climate Bill. If the carbon price used in appraisal is simply the most expensive measure in the strategy to meet the budgets, then a new policy or proposal is judged more easily against other carbon abating policies. However, there remain a number of significant problems with a MAC approach. First, MAC estimates have major uncertainties too, although possibly not to the same extent as for SCC estimates. MACs can change massively over time (eg as innovation kicks in), MACs can be artificially high due to market failures, many MACs assume policies which are not likely to happen at present for other reasons (for example wholesale improvement in domestic energy efficiency). MACs also have major problems with consistency in definitions from different studies. The issue of whether global or UK based MAC curves should be used also has a major impact on MAC values. Overall, there appears to be little sensitivity analysis around these figures. Second, if used in appraisal, MAC figures would not be comparing like with like. For example, for all its flaws, cost?benefit analysis currently remains the main arbiter in policy appraisal. All other impacts would be considered in terms of their costs and benefits, monetized where possible. But using MACs for carbon would mean using the cost for cutting a tonne of carbon, rather than the cost to society of emitting a tonne ? two completely different measures. There is no guarantee at all that the MAC and the SCC are the same. 3) Market price approaches This approach is to take the already existing market price for carbon ? for example the price for a tonne of carbon traded in the EUETS. The advantage of using a market price is that it is very ?real? ? this figure is the one financiers and business people use; it is the one which genuinely affects business decisions. A second advantage is that the price relates to a target that has been set; it is an approach which is in theory quite compatible with carbon budgets. The market price is created by Government policy ? so for appraisal purposes what that policy is is crucial. The disadvantage of this market price approach for appraisal (where there are no real prices) at the moment is that the market price is going to be very low, because it is based on an EUETS cap which is far too high in relation to a cap needed to keep climate change damages to an ?acceptable? level, and also likely to be incompatible with the soon?to?be set UK carbon budgets. A further potential disadvantage with this approach is that the market price is currently based only on particular sectors, and does not bear much relation to other sectors such as surface transport and households. 4) ?Precaution and Pragmatism? approaches The main argument for this approach is that the previous approaches, owing to their major uncertainties (SCC and MAC), are impractical to ensure carbon budgets are met. It was argued that a more pragmatic approach is needed instead. This proposed approach uses an escalating carbon tax to have a medium?long term influence on decisions (until it is having a strong enough effect on decision making to ensure carbon budgets are met) combined with a policy presumption against high carbon infrastructure to address the potential for carbon lock?in via short?term and high impact proposals. The advantage of this approach is that it is likely to be compatible with the Bill?s budgets, whereas the other three are likely to throw up situations where major carbon?intensive proposals get the go?ahead, requiring major revision of the strategy to deliver carbon budgets. However, there are disadvantages over as yet unclear definitions ? how would ?carbon intensive? or ?carbon?increasing? be defined, and at what rate would the carbon escalator need to rise? D) Which is the best approach? There is a genuine unresolved question as to whether the uncertainties surrounding both SCC and MAC figures are so large as to make them unsuitable for setting a carbon price for use in appraisal. There is strong evidence that these uncertainties are too large for the SCC. For MACs, the jury is still out. Even if these figures can be calculated with any precision and accuracy it may not also ensure that the UK?s carbon budgets are met ? applied to very long term capital projects they may lock the UK into long?term high carbon infrastructure which although justifiable on short?term MAC or SCC analysis, in the long run would prove very costly to the UK. It may be more effective to use a different approach. Using one based on market based prices does not look attractive at present, as carbon markets are new, based on inadequate caps and coverage of too small a fraction of total emissions. The fourth approach ? around a combination of an escalating carbon tax and a presumption against high carbon projects or policies ? has potential, and should be looked into in more detail. Critical questions would be how to define the boundaries as to what is carbon intensive or high carbon, and at what levels to set an effective carbon escalator.
Whitehall Farce over Nuclear Clean-up29 Jul 2008Well, what do you know? Another news story has broken which demonstrates that the UK’s nuclear industry is not the robust, well-managed machine our ministers would have us believe. The government has sneaked out a report assessing the working practices of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) which is managing the clean-up of existing power stations and waste. They were clearly hoping no one would notice as there’s no doubt that many people have been caught with their pants anklewards. Setting aside the spiralling costs of nuclear waste management (which are now about the same as the bill for the Apollo moon landings), we find the NDA in a sorry state of mismanagement. Staff apparently lack basic financial skills and were confused about accountancy terms, leading to severe errors in the balance sheets. I’m happy to report that employees in the finance team have been sent for retraining to brush up on their times tables. It’s not just specialised knowledge that’s lacking. Simple tasks like taking notes at meetings seem to have been overlooked, to the extent that major decisions made between the NDA and the Treasury have gone unrecorded, leading to gross misunderstandings over budgets. Everyone has since agreed that it would be a good idea to write these things down and put them somewhere safe. Like a filing cabinet. The audit goes on to say that there are "inherent risks" in the way the NDA operates, pointing out that half of its income is dependent on unreliable sources such as fuel reprocessing at Sellafield’s Thorp plant (closed since a leak was discovered in 2005) so perhaps a more stable financial model might be in order. Given all this, investing in less volatile and more reliable sources of energy might seem appropriate. But oh dear, it looks like the government is still set on knobbling those in favour of its twin obsessions, nuclear and coal. The proposed EU renewables directive – legislation designed to set minimum levels of energy generated from renewable sources across Europe – wants to see the UK getting 15 per cent of its energy from clean sources by 2020. A section has been included in the directive to ensure that "member states shall also provide for priority access to the grid system of electricity produced from renewable energy sources", but British ingenuity has been focused on changing "shall" to "may". A teeny tiny change, you might think, but in practice it would remove any obligations on our government to make sure renewable sources were given access to the National Grid before others such as, well, nuclear power and coal. And it’s a stance at odds with the energy strategy launched by Gordon Brown last month which promised to "[remove] grid access as a barrier to renewables deployment". But then maybe someone didn’t take minutes at that meeting. And I can’t finish without mentioning the fourth leak from a French nuclear power station in just two weeks. Safe, reliable energy, no doubt about it.
Why Kingsnorth?29 Jul 2008Given how much CO2 you get when you burn coal, building a coal fired power station in the middle of a climate crisis would be really stupid. Really, really, stupid. But incredibly, down at Kingsnorth that’s exactly what power company E.ON and the Government plan to do. Here?s our top 10 reasons for not building Kingsnorth, or burning coal or digging it up or well, doing pretty much anything with it other than leaving it in the ground. You don’t have to read them all. Any one will give you reason enough to join us this summer. A new power station at Kingsnorth really is that daft. 1. Let’s build a coal-fired power station! If built, Kingsnorth will emit between 6 and 8 million tons of CO2 every year. That?s a hell of a lot of CO2, more even than the proposed third runway at Heathrow would produce. Scientists are usually a fairly reserved bunch but even they are starting to sound frantic about what?s happening with the climate. That?s not surprising given that, if we carry on treating the planet like a cheap boil in the bag dinner, we risk causing catastrophic climate change. That?s probably a bad idea. To avoid it we need to rapidly reduce emissions. So, in a world where we respect the ecology of the planet and the lives of those whose home it is, no Kingsnorth. 2. Kingsnorth is just the beginning. Six other similar power stations are planned. How do you multiply stupid? We’re not sure, but that?s what the power utilities want to do. Unless there?s a big fight over Kingsnorth these companies, with the backing of Government, want to build six more atmosphere-crunching coal fired power stations in the next few years. Collectively these power stations would emit around 50 million tons of CO2 a year. It?s hard to understand such a callous disregard for your fellow humans but if you want to, start by following the money. Power stations make lots of it and, given the amount of coal around, they’re a ?safe? long term investment. It?s an age-old story but the ending isn?t written yet. What happens at Kingsnorth is vitally important. When people get together determined to make the world a better place there is history-making potential. Look at the Suffragettes, the struggle for workers rights, the anti-roads movement. Kingsnorth can and will be stopped if enough of us get together to make it happen. 3. Because coal is the most polluting fossil fuel. Coal was a really cool idea for the convenient long term storage of a load rotting prehistoric forests but burning it to make electricity is a monumentally bad one. It might have made sense at the beginning of the industrial revolution but then so did child labour, slavery and woollen swimming trunks. Now we know burning coal is wrecking the climate. Of CO2 in the atmosphere from human activity around 50% has come from the burning of coal. Mainly this is from Western nations who industrialized first. Today burning coal is responsible for around one quarter of our global CO2 emissions. One of the great challenges for this generation is to find ways of living on this planet whilst leaving fossil fuels (especially coal) in the ground. We are quite literally the Power Generation. We have to change the ways we generate power and we need to find the power to make these changes happen. 4. Because coal is about as clean as an anthrax sandwich. Proudly brandishing the phrase ?clean coal?, the coal industry is confidently striding forth into our warming world. It?s a brilliant piece of PR greenwash. However, like ?friendly? fire or the ?great? war, it sounds kind of good but actually, when you get down to it, it really isn?t. Modern coal fired power stations are slightly more ?efficient? than old ones but the bottom line is: coal burning is responsible for one quarter of global emissions and those emissions are causing serious problems. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is an important part of the ?clean? coal myth. It?s basically a method of capturing and compressing the waste CO2 from a power station and then pumping it into salt aquifiers and old oil wells for long term storage. There?s a few problems with CCS. The biggest one is that it doesn?t exist, it’s science fiction. Sure there?s the odd experimental trial but at the scale of large coal fired power stations even the industry themselves say it’s 10 years away at best. E.ON are saying that the power station they plan to build will be CCS ready. But ready for what exactly. We might be ready for the second coming but that isn?t going to help solve climate change that?s happening in reality in the here and now. Given that the next few years are crucial and that other ready-to-go alternatives exist, CCS is just a distraction. E.ON want to talk about CCS because they don?t want to talk about CO2 emissions. They want to obscure the truth: Kingsnorth power station will emit at least 6 million tons of CO2 every year and damn the lot of you. 5. Oh dear we’re running out of oil. Wahey there’s loads of coal! No need to worry about the coming oil crunch, there?s loads of tar sands and coal – we?ll burn that instead. If you?ve got big investments in fossil fuels or you?ve just bought a villa in Greenland then maybe this ?solution? to the oil crunch makes sense. To the rest of us it makes about as much sense as a petrol-filled fire extinguisher. Most of the geological evidence suggests that there is a lot of coal left, up to 200 years at current rates of consumption. But burning it really isn?t an option if we want a planet to live on (forget Greenland, those villas have sold out and the neighbours would be horrible). 6. But if we don?t burn coal the Chinese will. Blimey. Where do you start? Yes the Chinese are building coal fired power stations but… 1. Climate change is a global problem and nearly every country is going to have to reduce emissions – the British, the Chinese, the Americans – we all have to get our shit together and change the way our societies make and use energy. If we’re going to do it fairly (which in our view is essential), that means countries like the UK will have to cut a lot more than the Chinese. If you’re burning coal you’re making the problem worse. We’re burning it here in the UK so that?s where we?ve got to stop it. 2. Not only are average emissions for each person significantly lower in China than in Britain, a large percentage of Chinese coal is burnt so that Chinese factories can make the throwaway consumer items that fill the shopping centres and refuse dumps of the west. 3. We?ve got to start somewhere. The very ecological systems we rely on for life are in jeopardy. If someone doesn?t wake up and try to turn off the gas we’ll probably fry sleeping. Arguing about who should set the alarm is as pathetic as it is suicidal. 7. Without these power stations there will be an energy gap. The old ones are the best ones. Problem: a load of companies want to make big bucks but can only achieve it by doing the rest of us over. Answer: come up with something scary so people are distracted and don?t notice what you’re up to. O?oo the energy gap. A frightener isn?t it. It?s meant to be what happens if we don?t build new coal and nuclear power stations to replace the ones that are being decommissioned. We run out of energy, the Christmas lights go out , rubbish blows in the streets and we?re all transported back into the 70s and forced to listen to crackly Val Doonican records on pedal powered stereos. But the energy gap is a nonsense. Check out the Government’s own projections: ? The amount electricity generating capacity reduction by 2027 from closing old coal and nuclear power stations: 35% ? The amount of energy Gordon Brown has said we will generate from renewable sources by 2020: 40% On these figures there is no energy gap. In fact we’re up five percent seven years early. There are other gaps. A commitment cap, a vision gap, a take the bull by the horns and do something useful for a change gap. But no energy gap. 8. Because there is a growing movement against coal. It?s not just about Kingsnorth. In Wales and Derbyshire people are trying to stop new open cast mines. And from Bangladesh and the Appalachians to Columbia and Ecuador people are fighting against coal and fossil fuel extraction. This summer there are five other climate camps in other countries all focused on the issue of coal. This is an essential way of facing the energy and climate change crisis. It?s a call to get together and work for something better in solidarity with people across the globe. It might sound like an old fashioned idea but then these days so does a stable climate and hell, if flares can make a come back anything has to be possible. 9. Because we need to talk about work. Here?s a crazy idea. Instead of employing people to burn coal how about we build install and run an energy system based on renewables. They?ve started doing it in Germany and the industry already employs 250,000 people which is a lot more than work in our entire power sector. Here?s another one. We know that we need to make a transition from one energy system to another so what about building that transition around the workers in those industries, what about making it a just transition. And one final one. How about instead of working more and being exploited more so we can compete more just to produce more and more stuff, we work less to produce what we need and want, compete less and share more so we have more time and live better. Phew. 10. They don’t have to build Kingsnorth. There are a load of brilliant alternatives that would solve the energy issue without messing with the planet. If we’re serious about these other options then it’s crucial we stop the building of Kingsnorth and the other five power stations. We?ve probably already said it so sorry to go on, but if enough of us get together and say no, then Kingsnorth will never get built. Last year a new runway at Heathrow was seen as a done deal. The Climate Camp helped galvanise almost universal opposition to that stupid plan. With enough of us, we can do the same with building new coal-fired power stations. See you at Kingsnorth on August 9th.
Derail Doha, save the climate29 Jul 2008There?s something surreal about the ongoing World Trade Organization talks in Geneva, which aim at coming up with a new agreement to bring down tariffs in order to expand world trade and resuscitate global growth. In the face of the looming specter of climate change, these negotiations amount to arguing over the arrangement of deck chairs while the Titanic is sinking. Indeed, one of the most important steps in the struggle to come up with a viable strategy to deal with climate change would be the derailment of the so-called ?Doha Round.? Global trade is carried out with transportation that is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. It?s estimated that about 60% of the world?s use of oil goes to transportation activities which are more than 95% dependent on fossil fuels. An OECD study estimated that the global transport sector accounts for 20-25% of carbon emissions, with some 66% of this figure accounted for by emissions in the industrialized countries. Global Trade: Deeply Dysfunctional From the point of view of environmental sustainability, global trade has become deeply dysfunctional. Take agricultural trade. As the International Forum on Globalization has pointed out, the average plate of food eaten in Western industrial food-importing nations is likely to have traveled 1,500 miles from its source. Long-distance travel contributes to the absurd situation wherein ?three times more food is used to produce food in the industrial agricultural model than is derived in consuming it.? The WTO has been a central factor in increasing carbon emissions from transport. A study by the OECD done in the mid-nineties estimated that by 2004, the year marking the full implementation of free-trade commitments under the WTO?s Uruguay Round, there would have been an increase in the transport of internationally traded goods by 70% over 1992 levels. This figure, notes the New Economics Foundation, ?would make a mockery? of the Kyoto Protocol?s mandatory emissions reduction targets for the industrialized countries. Transportation: More Fossil Intensive than Ever Ocean shipping accounts for nearly 80% of the world?s international trade in goods. The fuel commonly used by ships is a mixture of diesel and low-quality oil known as ?Bunker C,? which has high levels of carbon and sulfur. As Jerry Mander and Simon Retallack point out, ?If not consumed by ships, it would otherwise be considered a waste product.? Aviation, which has the highest growth rate as a mode of transport, is also the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, with its consumption of fuel expected to rise by 65% from 1990 levels by 2010, according to one study cited by the New Economics Foundation. Other estimates are more pessimistic, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggesting that fuel consumption by civil aviation is going up at the rate of three percent a year and could rise by nearly 350% from 1992 levels by 2050. Note Mander and Retallack: ?Each ton of freight moved by plane uses forty nine times as much energy per kilometer as when it?s moved by ship?.A two-minute takeoff by a 747 is equal to 2.4 million lawn mowers running for twenty minutes.? In support of trade expansion and global economic growth, authorities have by and large not taxed aviation fuel as well as marine bunker fuel, which now account for 20% of all emissions in the transport sector. Along with fossil-fuel-intensive air transport, fossil-fuel-intensive road transport has also been favored by the expansion of world trade, instead of modes with less emission intensities like rail and marine traffic. In the European Union, for instance, the focus on building up a road transport network led an OECD study to comment that ?the way in which the EU liberalization policy has been implemented has favored the less environment-friendly modes and accelerated the decline of rail and inland waterways.? Decoupling Growth and Energy: a Panacea There has been talk about decoupling trade and growth from energy or shifting from fossil fuels to other, less carbon-intensive energy sources. The reality is that the other energy sources being seriously considered are either dangerous, like nuclear power; with deleterious side-effects, like biofuels? negative impact on food production; or science fiction as this stage, like carbon sequestration and storage technology. For the foreseeable future, trade expansion and global growth will fall in line with their historical trajectory of being correlated with increased greenhouse gas emissions. A sharp U-turn in consumption and growth in the developed countries and a significant decrease in global trade are unavoidable if we are to have a viable strategy against climate change. This will set the stage for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, including from the energy-intensive transportation sector. The outcome of the Doha negotiations will determine whether free trade will intensify or lose momentum. A successful conclusion to Doha will bring us closer to uncontrollable climate change. It will continue what the New Economics Foundation describes as ?free trade?s free ride on the global climate.? A derailment of Doha won?t be a sufficient condition to formulate a strategy to contain climate change. But given the likely negative ecological consequences of a successful deal, it?s a necessary condition.
Burning Ice29 Jul 2008Before me is a wall of glacial ice forty-five metres high, slowly, inextricably moving towards Noorderlicht as we navigate the seas just thirty metres from it, at six o?clock in the morning. Another cold grey day is dawning as I project video from the boat, a series of texts onto the glacier face. At times the image is swallowed up, disappearing through aeons of ice and then as we traverse the glacier it is reflected magically back with an electronic edge that gives the texts a living urgency. ?Sadness Melts?, ?The Cold Library of Ice?, ?Burning Ice?: texts that bring into focus the state we are in, as the glacier continues its accelerated path towards total melt and oblivion. There have been five Cape Farewell expeditions into the Arctic, on which forty-five artists/creators and fifteen scientists have co-habited, sailed, observed, measured and been inspired. The outcome of this collective effort becomes ever more poignant. In this high Arctic of sea, land and ice are three climatic tipping points of such significance that their demise or alteration promises a global effect on our environment: ? The top end of the Gulf Stream or Norwegian Current. Both Cape Farewell?s and other scientific studies indicate that the current?s health appears robust; however, its temperature has increased. At the parallel 78 north the current travels north twenty metres below the surface and is the size of two Amazon rivers. ? The Greenland Ice Cap. The ice cap is undoubtedly melting with increased tempo. To give scale to this melt, on the Greenland mainland, which has a land mass the size of Europe, the ice is over 3,000 metres thick. ? Ice melt at the North Pole. Most worryingly, in the summer of 2007, 25% of the northern ice cap melted and it is predicted that all the summer ice at the North Pole could disappear within a decade. The consequences of this happening would be a rapidly warming sea due to more absorption of the sun?s power, a change that will accelerate the warming of our planet. Our onboard scientists, from the National Oceanography Centre and the British Geological Survey, measure, analyse and collect data, which adds to a global scientific effort to establish clarity on climate change and the timescale of that change. Importantly, the Cape Farewell artists can witness and absorb the physicality of the science fieldwork ? slow, careful and at times laborious. It is up to the artists to bring back stories and emotions on a human scale of these tangible climatic changes that we ignore at our peril. Our warming planet is affecting the natural Arctic balance, a warming that is caused by how we, as a species, choose to live. Some of our most exciting cultural thinkers and practitioners have added their weight to the Cape Farewell project. The changing climate is largely a cultural problem and we need vision to move us out of the dangerous situation that we are in. This northern magic, this harsh physical place, these climate impacts have become marked into my very being ? the Arctic has become part of my emotional force, powerful and addictive. For me, artistically, this emotional force is best expressed in and by the mercurial nature of ice. Ice is not an object, and it is difficult to view objectively. If you move it, it changes: thousands of hair-line cracks fracture its purity. If you raise its temperature, it ceases to be. If you analyse it, unlike rock it releases its information, its history in an instant; there are no repeats and no reviews. Ice is alive. The wall of ice we engaged with is in the process of dying ? 100,000 years of knowledge going, going, gone. It is a non-biological changing force and I can only engage with it subjectively as I would another living form. It has a language that is as clear as words, and understanding it is like dealing with poetry and raw emotion. Ice is the million-year-old history of our planet. From it we know what the air, temperature and world were like at any given point, just by analysing ice-core samples. Our actions are burning this cold library of ice. There is no one kind of ice: we have sampled new sea ice, decade-old sea ice, glacier ice, diamond-clear ice, black ice, ice clouds that cause vertical light refractions. There are glaciers that move with speed, whole landscapes on the move, rocks and valleys sculpted by their force, and we have witnessed and nearly been entrapped as the sea froze solid before our eyes. The ice that sits upon waves, causing a sea to perambulate as in a frightening dream: sea and glacial ice that we have had to force a passage through aboard our boat, but which leaves no memory of our passing as it reforms neatly in our wake. Ice is fascinating to project video onto, and as well as the previously mentioned texts, I have projected a walking, naked and pregnant woman, running feet and a newborn baby. The texts projected onto ice are slogans that appeal for an immediate emotional engagement with climate. The running feet carry urgency whilst the pregnant woman is layered in meaning. I am often surprised just how powerful this image has become and how well it resonates. She epitomises vulnerability and promotes care. She is naked, without the armour and the protection of clothes. Her walk is defiant and in her belly she carries the only possible future for humankind. Her growing baby has a lifespan in front of her/him, yet the image is projected on ice that is disappearing: two future truths colliding in opposing time-planes. If we have it inside us to care for, nurture and protect our children then surely we must also nurture and protect their environment. No other symbol better encapsulates the need for a symbiotic relationship between humans and our habitat. A Californian artist who has also journeyed with Cape Farewell is Amy Balkin. In the process of making a series of artworks called ?Public Smog? she has stated, ?We should make our atmosphere into a world heritage site.? We know inherently that to dump waste on a designated world heritage site is wrong. We wouldn?t pollute such a site; but having the same sense of wrong with regard to our atmosphere should be even more of a priority. Ian McEwan lends his word-craft and wisdom to our BBC film with powerful insights. He also made a ?word sculpture?, lines of text that were projected onto the outside walls of the Bodleian in Oxford ? words physically impressing themselves upon a custodian of our heritage: ?The pressure of our numbers, the abundance of our inventions, the blind forces of our desires and needs are generating heat ? the hot breath of our civilisation? We are shaped by our history and biology to frame our plans within the short term, within the scale of a single lifetime. Now we are asked to address the well-being of unborn individuals we will never meet and who, contrary to the usual terms of human interaction, will not be returning the favour.? The sculptor Antony Gormley collaborated with the architect Peter Clegg to produce a triptych of snow constructions on the edge of a frozen Arctic sea. In temperatures of -35C they toiled for four days to produce Three Made Places. One Made Place came from an idea Clegg had been working on to demonstrate physically the invisible, odourless greenhouse gas CO2. Clegg has written, ?One kilogram of CO2 at atmospheric pressure occupies 0.54 of a cubic metre. That is the volume taken up by ourselves and the space immediately around us ? it is roughly the volume occupied by a coffin.? In Canada each member of the population produces 23,000kg of CO2 per annum. In the UK it?s 12,000kg per person. Gormley made another artwork where he cast himself in ice, Marker 1. It stood on the frozen sea of the fjord until spring and ice melt arrived and the sea reclaimed it. Each artist who has been part of the Cape Farewell expeditions has found a voice that deals in some way with climate change. Each has added uniquely to a new bank of ideas and imagery that brings the subject of climate change into focus on a human scale. The process of the artists developing their Arctic work is recorded by the director David Hinton in a film we were commissioned to make for the BBC. This film, Art from a Changing Arctic, has been shown worldwide and is part of the Cape Farewell exhibition ?The Ship: The Art of Climate Change?, which was first mounted at London?s Natural History Museum: sixteen works of art that include a whole-whale-skeleton artwork by Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey; a cinema-scale video projection of the demise of an iceberg, The End of Ice; and a work by the choreographer Siobhan Davies entitled Endangered Species in which a virtual dancer dances to extinction in an antique display cabinet. This exhibition is now on a world tour which this year includes Madrid and Tokyo, bringing new and provocative voices and ideas to the issue of climate change. Science continues to lead our enquiries into climate change. One of the great pleasures for me during the past ten years has been the open dialogue we have with the worldwide climate science community. These are the most rational people I know, and to detect in them a real concern and at times palpable fear that they have for humanity and of irreversible damage being done to our planet is very worrying. They are clear that the window of opportunity for action is short: perhaps just a decade. Echoing Balkin, the solution is simple: stop polluting our atmosphere with damaging greenhouse gases. But we have a global economy and a lifestyle based on the cheap supply of energy that will require a Herculean effort to reverse. There is, however, the possibility of a cultural shift, as was witnessed in the Age of Enlightenment: a wind of change that embraces all and in doing so secures our, and our children?s future. Maybe this is the evolving story of Cape Farewell: to rattle the cage and throw some of our best creative minds into the mle. To paraphrase McEwan in our film, we?re having to address the needs of people unborn. Even the most idealistic of thinkers on the world stage in the past have only addressed themselves to problems in the present. To bear the weight of the future in this way is both interesting and difficult and runs (probably) counter to our nature. The Cape Farewell project continues with two expeditions to Greenland in September 2008. A youth expedition carrying 26 students from 8 different countries will be followed by an art/science team furthering the oceanography conducted in the Greenland Sea last autumn. Working alongside the scientists will be an international team of musicians, playwrights, visual artists, architects and academics. It will be possible to track both voyages live on the website and both will be filmed for a forthcoming sequel to Art from a Changing Arctic. www.capefarewell.com David Buckland is a video artist and Director of the Cape Farewell project. Burning Ice: Art and Climate Change, published by Cape Farewell, is available at 19.99. Tel: +44 (0) 1904 431213 to order a copy.
Belfast’s walls have not come down yet, Senator29 Jul 2008Senator Barack Obama made the inevitable reference to Northern Ireland during his speech in Berlin last week, saying that walls had ?come down in Belfast, where Protestants and Catholics found a way to live together?. These are delightful sentiments ? but they do not tell the story. There are, in fact, more walls up separating communities in Belfast than at the time of the Agreement 10 years ago. In truth, it could better be argued, Protestants and Catholics have found away to live apart – and they have done so, primarily, for economic reasons. Life is unmistakably better in Northern Ireland than it was 10 years ago. It is worth recalling that, even into the 1990s, people could not move freely without security check, unemployment was high, more people left than arrived, foreign visitors were almost unknown, holidays abroad were a luxury for the few, city and town centres were grim. Nowadays, free movement, low unemployment and immigration are taken for granted, with a range of holiday and retail options open to people in Northern Ireland to an extent that would be the envy of many other UK regions ? the economic benefit of learning to live at least without violence. However, society in Northern Ireland remains fundamentally divided. 95 per cent of people attend schools segregated by religious denomination, and leisure, sporting and political preferences often proceed along those same sectarian fault lines. On one occasion, Unionists and Nationalists in the Assembly even divided up on the issue of whether or not to wear jackets in the chamber on a hot day! Most obviously of all, peace walls are being constructed faster than they are being taken down ? including one, within the past year, in the grounds of an integrated school. This ?secret sectarianism? does not just blight the communities where the walls are put up ? separating them in many cases from their nearest health centre, job opportunity or leisure facility. It continues to hinder social progress, threaten the political settlement, and cost billions which could be better spent on frontline public services and reducing rates bills. Those ?costs of division? alone are estimated to come to over 1 billion out of the Northern Ireland budget alone (for example, through maintenance required for extra leisure centres, additional capital and transport costs in the segregated education system, or higher policing costs to maintain the peace), before costs to local business. It was welcome that Senator Obama mentioned Northern Ireland, and legitimate to mention the progress made. But he might have been better calling for ?change we can believe in?. Indeed, given the economic benefit of peace but the ongoing costs of division, he might have used the last Democratic President?s famous line ? ?It?s the economy, stupid?.
?My son was killed by a knife…’28 Jul 2008‘... but he was failed by the system? Leon Francis was just 24 years old when he was fatally stabbed in December last year. He was a bright young man, adored by his family and treasured by his friends. Yet life had not been easy for Leon. He was excluded from his Birmingham school aged 15, and without proper help he drifted into crime and then a prison sentence. On release, Leon was determined to turn his life around and plan a future away from crime. But every effort Leon made to do this was met with failure or contempt by the very bodies that were supposed to help him. Following Leon?s death some of the press chose to demonise him. This week Jackie Ranger, Leon?s mother, speaks to Socialist Worker to set the story straight. My eldest child Leon was only 24 when he was stabbed to death in December last year. Our family and friends are still devastated at his untimely death, but we are campaigning for justice for Leon, and to make sure that his name is not discredited. We want him to be remembered for the person he was. Sadly Leon?s story is indicative of the destructive paths that some of our young people find themselves trapped on. My son was no angel. He made some mistakes throughout his short life, but it is important to know that 2007 had been a year of reflection and transition for him. He realised that he had to change and he kept trying to turn his life around right until the day that he died. Leon brought joy and laughter throughout his life and was a popular young man with a potentially bright future ahead of him. He was extremely loyal to his family and friends and greatly valued his close relationships. His troubles began when he was permanently excluded from school aged 15. Sadly it was a downward spiral from there. Exclusion Inadequate post exclusion support contributed to the choices that Leon made. He blindly entered a life of crime and went to prison for five years for attempted armed robbery. To this day I question if Leon really understood the seriousness of the offence that he committed and the consequences it would have on his life ? he was after all still a child at the time. Leon?s imprisonment was an extremely traumatic period for all his family, but more so for Leon himself. He often tried to mask the pain of the injustice he felt at being excluded from school, and subsequently excluded from society. As a parent it was important that I did not allow him to minimise his responsibility for what he had done, while acknowledging the way social factors contributed to his predicament. Leon himself understood he had done wrong and was remorseful. During his sentence Leon was transferred between prisons more than 15 times. He was also placed in some difficult situations ? a poignant and most insensitive ordeal was being jailed on the same wing as the man who killed his fiance?s brother. Nonetheless, Leon remained extremely resilient, striving to remain positive about the future. While incarcerated he gained some qualifications and was determined to lead a more productive life after his release in 2006. Due to the nature of his offence, and the political climate around ?gangs? at the time, Leon was released with extremely strict conditions about where he could go and what he could do which impacted on his human rights. In April 2007 he was wounded after being shot in the head while in his ?exclusion zone?. He reluctantly offered the police information about the incident and was assured he would be treated like a victim, but instead he was sent back to prison. This led to an irretrievable loss of trust in the police. When he was released again in August 2007, Leon fought to maintain his focus of rehabilitation. He was on the verge of beginning a new life outside Birmingham and had secured a place on a BTEC music technology course. Leon was excited about his fiance?s pregnancy and the thought of becoming a father. He was looking forward to 2008 with an increasing sense of maturity ? he had everything to live for! However he became increasingly concerned that his efforts appeared not to be taken seriously by those responsible for assisting his rehabilitation. He was sick of the differential treatment and outcomes for people of African heritage in education and the criminal justice system. A series of incidents in October last year meant Leon was in breach of his residency conditions, and as a result he went on the run. His family urged him to give himself up, but Leon was adamant that he would never go back to prison. On 27 December 2007 Leon was fatally stabbed. Quite rightly there is national uproar when the victims of knife crime are innocent. However, when the victim is involved in a gang or caught up in violence it is a different story. The press demonises them, and their families are further victimised, humiliated and treated with disrespect. There is no opportunity to present an accurate picture of their loved one. Yet my pain is no less than the mothers of ?innocent? victims. My son is also dead. My family have the same feelings of grief, sorrow, regret and frustration that the family of all other victims share. Leon was also somebody?s son, somebody?s fianc, somebody?s father, somebody?s brother and somebody?s friend. He was my child and I love him and miss him dearly. He was my friend, my confidant, and my heartbeat. Statistics about exclusions, violence and black deaths belie human tragedies, and Leon is yet another tragic victim that can all too easily be forgotten. However, both his life and his death emphasise the drastic and urgent need for more preventative, innovative and timely measures to be developed for all young people who have been excluded from school or who are subject to anti-social behaviour measures. Myths We should not fall for the myths of poor parenting, absent fathers, family breakdown or demonise our youth like the media often does. Instead we must try to understand the complex reality of young people?s struggles and provide them with proactive support and an earned second chance. That is their right! I want to reach out to all the families, and especially the mothers, who have lost someone to gun, gang or knife crime ? particularly those who have been made to feel ashamed that their child was involved in a gang, and it is said that they only ever did terrible things. Now our children are dead, and there is little sensitivity towards us. We have to stop demonising people and look behind the myths that stop us from acting to change things. Leon left us with a beacon of hope, his beautiful daughter Princess who was born five months after his death. She symbolises life, youth, opportunity, hope and light.
Getting Stuck On28 Jul 2008I’ve been campaigning and taking direct action against the growth of the aviation industry for the last two years. Last month I found out I won an award for my work. To collect it I was to go to 10 Downing Street and meet the PM, the same man who has been wilfully ignoring all of Plane Stupid’s campaigning work, and the objections to the third runway of 70,000 London residents. It didn’t take long to decide what I would do. With a team from Plane Stupid backing me up, I put on my second hand suit wearing a device in my pocket which was linked up to an anonymous Skype account on a computer in front of the team, so that they could hear what was said. At 6.15, the Prime Minister made his way out into the audience to shake our hands. I knew what I was about to do as I squeezed the superglue packet into my left hand… ‘By the way Prime Minister, I’ve just super glued myself to your arm,’ I said. ‘Don’t’ panic. This is a peaceful protest in line with Plane’s Stupid uncompromising commitment to non-violent direct action.’ I continued: ‘We just wanted five minutes of your time because, Prime Minster, you cannot shake off climate change just like you can shake off my arm. ‘Prime Minster, you must realize that we can beat climate change- but not by expanding the worlds’ biggest international airport at Heathrow, and supporting aviation, the fastest growing contributor to global carbon emissions. That’s why we, Plane Stupid, are taking our campaign from the roof of parliament to inside ten Downing Street. (to the whole audience including the PM): ‘We are the last generation with the opportunity to adequately tackle climate change before it is too late. ‘We need the Prime Minster to make the tough decisions he keeps on talking about and if he needs someone to hold his hand, then we are willing to do just that. But we are not going to wait around for politicians to catch up. Remember, he only has two possible legacies before he leaves office. As the first Prime Minster to take climate change seriously. Or the last one not to. ‘It’s time you stopped hiding from communities on the frontline affected by climate change. Whilst we stand here smiling nicely for the cameras in the Arctic, Inuit communities are planning survival strategies for their families as the deep seas gradually engulf them. Whilst we stand here drinking champagne and eating canaps, communities in Tuvalu are desperately building sandbanks to stop their island, their families, their lives and ultimately, their dignity, from going underwater. And, Prime Minister, as you know so well, whilst we stand in each other’s arms, the community of Sipson in West London awaits complete demolition because the of the planned third runway at Heathrow airport.. ‘ Brown’s Heathrow consultation is a fix pure and simple. It is the single most anti-democratic, anti?national, anti-human, outright evil thing this government has done since the Iraq war and that’s saying something. If super-gluing myself to the Prime Minister is the only way to cut through the power of corporations like BAA and ensures he hears what people from West London really think, then so be it. I talk of Heathrow, not because everyone is, but because it is a sign of things to come. In Heathrow, the battle lines are drawn. We could continue careering down the path of relentless economic growth and ignore the world’s top scientists who are calling on us to curb aviation, or stop, take a breather, and support workers in the aviation industry and communities living around airports into a sustainable lifestyle, before it is too late. The choice, Prime Minster, is yours. Allow us, the future generation, to shake your faith. Put your hand in ours, let us lead you through this labyrinth and realize that we have this remarkable opportunity. I could be your son. Explain yourself to the next generation. The people of next generation will either thank us for taking the necessary, logical action, or lament us for not being radical enough. It is not good enough to do our bit- we must do what is necessary. Do this, because it’s important that you understand. If you find a basis to disagree, by all means take the other side. But please don’t ignore it, don’t look away. Prime Minister. It’s time to stand up to the bullies from BAA and stand up for the British public. Every morning since leaving 10 Downing Street, I have woken up and asked myself whether I should write press releases or obstruct the machinery which is causing environmental destruction. The world is drowning in a sea of words, and I don’t want to add to the deluge. Almost everyday I notice signs that more and more people are longing for our species to cease its self-destructive war with the earth and each other. And that’s the real strength of Plane Stupid; creating new spaces in which to confront climate change. Powerful people know that ordinary people are not innately selfish or slaves to consumerism. Creating spaces to strategise resistance to forces promoting this inter-generational catastrophe is not just a campaign, or even a movement -it’s a whole culture not negotiated by governments, but enforced by people. By the public. A public who can link hands across national borders and acknowledge that we are all learners, and always continuing to learn to tackle climate change. Brown’s brazen belief that we can run the world disjointed from natural phenomena with his imprudent riot squad of aviation industry techno-crats has exposed the fragile relationships this government upholds with the polluting industries. The sheer ignorance of deliberately ignoring the consultation results regarding Heathrow expansion has placed on full public view the trickery and collusion inside the government walls. Now that the Government’s sinister relationship with the aviation industry has been put into mass circulation, it could be disabled quicker than the pundits predicted. Bring on the spanners. If we succeed no one will remember; if we fail no one will forget Plane Stupid, and communities taking action on aviation expansion around the world, will not go without a fight.
Commons Apology Over 1971 Bomb Disinformation28 Jul 2008The Government this week apologised for smearing the victims of one of the first major bombings of the Troubles. McGurk’s Bar on North Queen Street in Belfast was blown up on 4 December 1971, killing 15 people including two women and three children. Allegations quick surfaced that the dead included IRA members who had accidentally detonated their own bomb. Among those smeared was 73-year-old Philip Garry, the great-uncle of Linlithgow and East Falkirk MP Michael Connarty, who raised the case in a Commons adjournment debate on Monday. Connarty highlighted documents uncovered in the National Archives which revealed the Army’s role in spreading the smears: The Pat Finucane Centre submitted those reports, having found them, to the historical inquiries team. It is clear from the reports that there was a travesty involving the Army, which said in the report that the bomb was clearly inside the pub, because five men standing around it were blown to smithereens. The Army said that the bombing was clearly an IRA own goal?it said that the bomb was, in effect, in the pub in transit. That was then. The historical inquiries team report says that it was recommended that the Secretary of State answer a question in the House confirming that story. That was never done, but, sadly, a former Member of the House, now Lord Kilclooney, said on television and in Stormont that the bomb was an IRA bomb. He said that there was no question that the bombing was a Protestant paramilitary operation. The Army’s account was reflected in press reports at the time. The truth only began to emerge in 1977, when one of the bombers, UVF member Robert Campbell, was arrested on a separate matter. For six years, the approach taken in all the police reports?this is clear from the historical inquiry team’s report of the police reports?was to keep trying to turn the evidence to suggest that the Army report was correct. The reports said things such as that the forensics showed there was no doubt that the bomb had been inside the pub. The forensic evidence did not come out until February, but Dr. Hall, who produced it, said that there was no doubt that the bomb had been placed outside the door or adjacent to it?not in the pub at all. However, the police reports still spread the same story, and every single inquiry in the report shows that the police tried to pin the bombing on the people in the bar to show that they had killed themselves and their fellow citizens from the community. That is unforgivable. The debate was closed by Northern Ireland Minister Paul Goggins,who delivered an apology on behalf of the Government. Although we cannot speak for the Ministers who made statements at the time, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I are deeply sorry not just for the appalling suffering and loss of life that occurred at McGurk’s bar, but for the extraordinary additional pain caused to both the immediate families and the wider community by the erroneous suggestions made in the immediate aftermath of the explosion about who was responsible. Such perceptions and preconceived ideas should never have been allowed to cloud the actual evidence. Goggins told the House that the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s Historical Inquiries Team had found no evidence that the security forces had colluded in the bombings. However, some relatives question why the army was so quick to lay a false trail of suspicion. Philip Garry’s grandson, Robert McLenaghan, has called for an investigation into allegations that the bombing was a false flag operation. The claims surfaced last year, when a number of newspaper articles quoted a loyalist using the pseudonym ‘John Black.’ He claimed to have been working with the a secretive British Army unit called the MRF. Some of Blacks claims, such as the suggestion that MRF members were present in Derry on Bloody Sunday, are regarded as outlandish within the North’s human rights community. However, the MRF is known to have conducted plain-clothes patrols in Belfast in the early 1970s, and to have recruited paramilitaries from both sides. On a visit to England last month, McLenaghan called on former British service personnel who may have knowledge of Black’s allegations to come forward. “We would like a public forum, which is international and independent of both the British and Irish Governments for him and others like him to be allowed to speak, he said.
Islamophobia in the British media28 Jul 2008A recent Channel 4 Television ?Dispatches? documentary, ?Muslims under Siege,? showed how the demonisation of Muslims and the propagation of Islamophobia have become widespread in British media and politics. Presented by journalist Peter Oborne, the programme was based on research for a pamphlet, also entitled, ?Muslims under Siege?[1] written by Oborne and James Jones, a television journalist. The ?Dispatches? programme commissioned a survey of newspaper reportage by the Cardiff School of Journalism. It involved nearly 1,000 articles written since the year 2000, noting the content and context of articles pertaining to Muslims and Islam. The findings showed that 69 percent of the articles presented Muslims as a source of problems not just in terms of terrorism but also on cultural issues, and that 26 percent of the articles portrayed Islam as dangerous, backward or irrational. Professor Justin Lewis said the survey of the articles showed a ?series of ideas repeated over time… that links Muslims with terrorism… with extremism… with incompatibility with British values. Those ideas are repeated over and over again and inevitably they are going to play a part in shaping public consciousness.? A significant finding was that the emphasis of the articles switched this year from terrorism (27 percent) to religious and cultural issues (32 percent). Professor Lewis explained that the focus on Muslims having different cultural values is ?in some ways more damaging, it portrays all British Muslims with this notion of being extreme and incompatible with British values.? Many of the articles in tabloid newspapers were either outright lies or gross distortions. A Sun newspaper report of October 7, 2006 stated that a ?Muslim hate mob? had attacked a house in an exclusive suburb of Windsor that was being refurbished to be used by British soldiers returning from Afghanistan. Whilst the house had been vandalised, no evidence could be produced to show it had been carried out by Muslims. Oborne spoke to the senior policeman who had investigated the case. He explained the attack had taken place overnight and there was no evidence to show who had done it. The pamphlet states the real reason for the attack was ?simpler and rather closer to home.? An article written in the local paper the previous day revealed that the local army barracks received three anonymous calls objecting to the presence of the soldiers. The calls were from local residents objecting that the plans for the house would lower property prices. A petition had been also been signed by 40 residents objecting to the use of the house by the army. Three months later the Sun had to issue a formal statement retracting the story, but has issued no apology. A Daily Express article of October 24, 2005 claimed that pressure from Muslims had led to two major banks withdrawing the use of ?piggy? banks in their advertising material. In fact one of the banks, the Halifax, had not used piggy banks for several years and the other bank, the NatWest, issued a press statement explaining, ?There is absolutely no fact in the story. We simply had a UK-wide savings marketing campaign, which included pictures of piggy banks, running until the end of September. Piggy banks have been and will continue to be used as a promotional item by NatWest.? The pamphlet makes clear the denigration of Muslims is not confined to the tabloid press, but is also present in the broadsheets, including the ?liberal? ones. It notes that Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee, then writing in the Independent ten years ago, said ?I am an Islamophobe and proud of it.? In another example from the Independent, Bruce Anderson wrote: ?There are widespread fears that Muslim immigrants, reinforced by political pressure and, ultimately, by terrorism, will succeed where Islamic armies failed and change irrevocably the character of European civilisation.? Also quoted is the notorious outburst of author Martin Amis in the Times: ?There is a definite urge?don?t you have it? The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.? The pamphlet notes: ?Islamophobia is a tremendous force for unification in British public culture. It does not merely bring liberal progressives like Polly Toynbee together with curmudgeonly Tory commentators like Bruce Anderson. It also enlists militant atheists with Christian believers.? In the introduction to the pamphlet, the authors say that the impulse to write it came from the comments of ex-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw against Muslim women wearing the veil. This was then taken up by other Labour politicians. Labour MP Phil Woolas, then Minister for Race Relations, wrote to the press in support of Straw?s statements, claiming that wearing the veil invited hostility. Interviewed in the TV documentary by Oborne, Woolas claimed he was merely reflecting the views of his constituents. The pamphlet comments, ?It soon became clear that this was more than a random rumination from a member of the government… Labour appeared… to try to identify with a general mood of resentment and anxiety about the presence of Muslim communities in this country and to intervene in the politics of religious identity.? As the programme pointed out, less than one percent of Muslim women wear the veil. The campaign of Islamophobia, especially since the London bombings of July 7, 2005, has led to increased threats towards Muslims. An ICM poll of Muslims found that since July 2005, 61 percent report an increase in hostility and 36 percent said they or a family member had been subject to abuse. Oborne spoke to several Muslims who had been subject to abuse and attacks. Sarfraz Sarwar has lived in Basildon, Essex for 40 years. He related how, over the last few years, his house has been subject to fire bombings and had bricks thrown at it. Sarwar has set up surveillance cameras around his house and feels he is living in a state of siege. The programme and pamphlet brought out how the far-right British National Party (BNP) uses Islamophobia to try to increase its influence, noting that Nick Griffin, BNP leader, ?has been inspired by the press.? In Griffin?s words, ?We bang on about Islam. Why? Because to the ordinary public out there it?s the thing they can understand. It?s the thing the newspaper editors sell newspapers with.? In their foreword to the pamphlet, Jones and Oborne point out that Muslims in Britain are: * Mainly young.
* Tend to live in the most deprived cities.
* Are disadvantaged and discriminated against in housing, education and employment by comparison with other faith groups. The orchestrated campaign of Islamophobia can only serve to increase their isolation and lead to a growing frustration. While noting that Islamophobia was promoted by the Labour cabinet following Straw?s lead in 2006, a limitation of the pamphlet is that it fails to link it to other aspects of government policy: namely the whipping up of fear of terrorist attacks and using the ?war against terror? to justify the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as numerous attacks on democratic rights. Notes:
[1] ?Muslims under Siege? by Peter Oborne and James Jones, Democratic Audit, 2008 See Also:
Britain: Demand the release of Hicham Yezza
[2 June 2008]
The ?White Season?: The British Broadcasting Corporation?s Pim Fortuyn moment
[19 March 2008]
Labour faces wipe-out after defeat in Glasgow East28 Jul 2008Labour?s defeat by the Scottish National Party in the Glasgow East by-election is a devastating blow to the party and leaves Prime Minister Gordon Brown one of the walking dead. Labour saw its vote collapse in what was previously its third safest seat in Britain, losing a majority of over 13,500 in the 2005 General Election. The SNP, which came in a distant second three years ago, gained 11,277 votes on Thursday, a narrow majority of 365 with a massive swing of 22.5 percent from Labour. It is Labour?s third by-election defeat in nine weeks, not counting the recent Haltemprice and Howden vote in which the government would not even put up a candidate. Up until the last hours of voting, most pundits speculated that Labour?s huge majority would be eroded or even halved. Labour, while acknowledging the possibility of a big swing against it, pointed out that it had campaigned extensively in the seat, with local activists and party workers from across Scotland visiting over 20,000 homes. In the end voters expressed a level of hostility towards the government that far exceeded these expectations. Turnout was relatively high for a by-election in an inner city area, particularly during the period when businesses in Glasgow have their holidays. At 42.2 percent, it was only slightly lower than the figure for the seat at the last General Election. If the swing away from Labour in Glasgow East was replicated in the next general election, the party would retain just one of its current 41 seats in Scotland. Among those who would lose office would be Gordon Brown and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling. Expressing the growing hostility of millions of workers across the UK to the party and the government, many traditional Labour voters either switched to the SNP or stayed at home. Journalists and candidates have reported the mood in the constituency?among the poorest in the UK with high levels of unemployment and ill-health?as one of disillusionment with and hostility toward Labour, which has dominated the city?s politics for generations. Many voters cited rocketing food and fuel prices as key factors in their opposition to Labour, as the government holds down or cuts public sector wages and welfare benefits. In May 2007 the SNP won a plurality of seats in elections to the Scottish Parliament, overtaking Labour to become the main party in Scotland. The SNP campaigned heavily in the area, with party leader and First Minister of the devolved Scottish government Alex Salmond visiting the constituency 12 times. Commenting on the campaign, Salmond said that the election was a ?test of strength between two governments.? During the campaign the SNP deliberately tried to play down its key policy of independence for Scotland, focusing on local health problems and rising domestic prices. Despite the SNP?s claims that the vote represents a ringing endorsement of their policies at Holyrood, most commentators have put the vote for the SNP down to the collapse of Labour?s support. The Conservative Party could only poll 1,639 votes in Glasgow East, only slightly higher than three years ago. It only came in third because the Liberal Democrat vote also collapsed to just 915 votes?suggesting that many of its supporters, along with traditional Labour voters, stayed at home or switched directly to the SNP to give the government a beating. Conservative leader David Cameron responded to the result by calling for a general election. In response, Brown said lamely, ?My task is getting on with the job. It?s exactly what people want me to do.? Looking like a condemned man, he commented on the loss of an area that Labour has held since the 1920s, ?We?ve got to listen and hear people?s concerns and that?s exactly what we are doing.? The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and Solidarity also stood in the constituency. The parties split from each other in 2006 after founding member Tommy Sheridan left the party over a successful libel case against Rupert Murdoch?s News of the World, which the SSP refused to support. Both parties, which have identical programmes, campaigned largely on local issues. Francis Curran, the SSP candidate, received 555 votes, with 512 votes cast for Solidarity. At just over four percent, the combined result for the two parties is slightly higher than the 3.5 percent of the vote garnered by the SSP alone in the constituency in 2005. It is lower, however, than the result for the SSP in the 2001 election, when it received 6.8 percent of the vote in the now defunct constituencies of Glasgow Baillieston and Glasgow Shettleston. At the count in the early hours of Friday morning, Labour?s candidate Margaret Curran requested a partial recount, claiming that some of her votes may have been wrongly awarded to her rival from the SSP, Francis Curran. Following this recount, Labour actually lost 11 votes. Brown may have rejected calls for his resignation, but pressure is mounting on the prime minister from within the party. Reflecting concerns among Labour MPs fearful of losing their seats at the next election, Graham Stringer, MP for Manchester Blackley, commented: ?We need a new start and that can only come from a debate around the leadership. I hope those discussions take place.? An unnamed Labour MP told the BBC that the party ?could not simply ignore? such a bad defeat, and predicted that Brown would face senior figures ?shooting from the hip? at the party conference in the autumn. There is little wonder. The pro-Labour Guardian newspaper was moved to ask: ?Does Labour face defeat at the next general election?or obliteration? The result from Glasgow East early this morning was more than simply terrible for Gordon Brown: it raises the spectre of a parliamentary wipe-out from which his party would struggle to recover.? It added, ?Perhaps the closest parallel is the 1990 Eastbourne by-election, which saw a 21% swing to the Liberal Democrats and triggered Margaret Thatcher?s ejection from office a month later. Some will speculate that the same could happen to Brown this autumn.? Labour is a party on its last legs. Labour membership has rapidly declined since 1997, falling to fewer than 200,000 mostly inactive and elderly members. In 2007 Labour reported that it had 17,000 members in Scotland, a fall of almost 50 percent since 1997. In 14 Scottish constituencies the party has fewer than 200 members, of whom only a small fraction participate in local meetings and campaigns. Electorally, Labour has lost the support of those sections of the middle class who jumped ship from the Tories in the mid-1990s to give it the victories in the 1997 and 2001 general elections. In May, Labour lost a by-election in the safe seat of Crewe and Nantwich, in which its majority of over 7,000 was turned into a 7,680 lead for the Conservatives. More fundamentally, having alienated millions of working class voters with its right-wing policies, militarism and slavish subservience to big business, even the safest of Labour strongholds can no longer be counted on to return a Labour MP. See Also:
Glasgow East by-election: Stark social problems, poverty
[24 July 2008]
Britain: Scottish National Party steps up independence rhetoric
[18 June 2008]
Back to Trnopolje27 Jul 2008Ed Vulliamy is not going to tell you anything different. Of course it was a “concentration camp”, only slightly less “satanic” than Omarska and other such institutions. Of course the emaciated Fikret Alic, “behind the barbed wire”, “embodied the violence unleashed on Bosnia’s Muslim civilians at the orders of Radovan Karadzic”. And, as we recall, it was necessary to establish the facts of the matter, and what one might say about them, by prosecuting a tiny sectarian publication and driving it out of business. (Never mind what became of said sectarians – the principle established is that it was proper for the state to determine what amounts to truth in the public domain, and what may be censured.) The trouble is that, as Phillip Knightley wrote at the time, the imagery that Ed Vulliamy is citing as evidence in itself for what the newspapers dubbed “Belsen 92”, is a deception. Knightley pointed out to The Guardian in 1997 that the key symbols in the image, the ones that Vulliamy evokes here – the barbed wire and the emaciated condition – were inaccurate because a) the other prisoners were clearly not starved, and food could be brought to the prisoners by villagers (Alic’s own account of his condition appears to be that he was both poorly nourished and suffering from an untreated illness), and b) while Alic and others clearly were in fact imprisoned (others were not), what was imprisoning Alic was not barbed wire but armed guards. It was, in short, an image settled on to convey what could not be said openly – that these were Nazi-style concentration camps. Former ITN producer Bruce Whitehead wrote, in a trenchant review of ITN’s conduct, that “the report that aired gave the clear impression that these men were being forcibly starved behind barbed wire”. This was part of a context in which Roy Gutman won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on Serbian “death camps” with metal cages in which thousands of prisoners were being killed and their bodies cremated for animal feed (evidence for which is scarce). The French organisation Medicins Du Monde, set up by Bernard Kouchner as a split from Medicins Sans Frontieres in 1980, launched a mass campaign advertising death camps, comparing Milosevic with Hitler, inviting audiences to believe that the Nazi holocaust was taking place all over again. To linger with the obvious for a moment, there was in fact a system of camps intended as prisons for those deemed suspect by forces deputised by the Republika Srpska. They also functioned as deportation camps for those being driven out by those forces, as places where Bosnian men could be drafted to fight on the side of Republika Srpska, and as the basis for ‘prisoner transfers’ between the hostile forces. Many were closed down in 1992, with thousands of prisoners transferred to UN control. Trnopolje was a transit camp for detainees, although as Phillip Knightley elsewhere wrote (see below), it was also a place where refugees could go. These camps were promulgated in the context of a brutal, ethnicised civil war, which included the deliberate terrorising of civilian victims, and indiscriminate murders by all sides in the conflict. In those camps, murders, beatings and gang rapes took place. It is worth noting that, as Vulliamy points out, he and his journalistic confederates were able to report about these camps because Karadzic had enough bravado to challenge them to find atrocities during a bus-tour of the camps arranged by himself. Bosnian and Croatian forces were not so stupid as to invite journalists to inspect their detention camps, and I bet that most readers couldn’t even name one. You know of Omarska, Trnopolje and at a stretch Manja?a. The camp at Bugojno run by the Bosnian army is hard to find details about, and while there are extensive wikipedia articles and press discussions of those run by the Republika Srpska, there is nothing on wikipedia about this camp. Try finding out about the Ora?ac Camp, also run by the Bosnian army. One or two individuals have been brought before the ICTY in connection with acts committed in those camps, but I don’t think a single journalist ever thought to try to visit them, much less tell the world that they were death camps. A Lexis Nexis search discloses less than a dozen news stories specifically about the Ora?ac Camp, all from Croatian news sources. These pertain to investigations into the ritual beheadings, beatings and torture of Serb and Croatian detainees, among other things. Only a few sources outside Croatia can be found mentioning the Bugojno camp, belatedly, even though the area in which the detention camp was sited was frequently reported on during and after hostilities. No one cared, it seems. Journalists had effectively become co-belligerents with the Bosnian army and the their mujahideen auxiliaries, and anything that didn’t fit the script contrived by PR companies such as Ruder Finn, which was employed by both Croatian and Bosnian governments, or that of Washington and its allies, was out of the picture. At any rate, here is a passage from Knightley’s evidence intended for the ITN/LM trial: The most likely explanation is that Trnopolje was both a refugee camp and a detention camp—there were at least two different groups of people there—and that this is what has confused the issue. Refugees had come there of their own free will and could leave at any time. But there were also Bosnian Muslims like Fikret Alic who had been transferred there from other camps, who were awaiting identification and processing, and who were not free to leave. But even this group was not confined by barbed wire. The out-takes show them in the main camp, outside the agricultural compound, and the main camp was not surrounded with barbed wire, as the War Crimes Tribunal agrees, but by a low chain-mail fence to keep schoolchildren off the road. As well, the barbed wire fence was no deterrent to anyone determined to escape because it was poorly constructed with wide gaps. What confined the Bosnians at Trnopolje, the War Crimes Tribunal says, was the presence of armed Serbian guards. So ITN was right in that the men in the film were detained in Trnopolje, but the image used to illustrate that was misleading because it implied that they were detained by the barbed wire. The barbed wire turns out to be only symbolic. Were all the inmates starving? No. Fikret Alic was an exception. Even in Marshall’s report other men, apparently well-fed, can be seen, and the out-takes reveal at least one man with a paunch hanging over his belt. Phil Davison, a highly-respected correspondent who covered the war from both sides for The Independent says, “Things had gone slightly quiet. Suddenly there were these death camps/concentration camps stories. They were an exaggeration. I’m not excusing the Serbs but don’t forget that there was a blockade on Serbia at the time and there not a lot of food around for anyone, Serbs included.” It is a peculiar irony that just when reporters are most integrated into state propaganda (which is usually the case during a war), that is when they become the most arrogantly assured of their absolute, uncompromising integrity and intrepidity. The very fact of their presence at the scene of the crime, their ability to bear witness, even where their attention has been very carefully directed and framed in advance by assumptions elaborated by intelligence and PR agencies, is enough to make them think they are changing the course of history, humanitarian agents enacting la justice de Dieu. (Sometimes the reputation might be warranted. Apparently, the photographer and reporter Janet Schneider, who liked to stare down the “corridor of death” and coolly stated that she had endured rape “more than once” in the course of securing a story, was directly involved in assisting Fikret Alic after his escape from Trnopolje). The sheer irrational fury unleashed when their role is challenged is indicative of the intense narcissism that has been channelled into the enterprise. So, here we are, back to Trnopolje, the barbed wire, the body eaten by hunger and disease, and the spectre of Belsen. And though the montage is a crude specimen of revisionism in itself, it is of course those who do not assent to such vulgar redactions that are labelled revisionists.
EU Parliament Joins Stampede Away From Democracy27 Jul 2008The European Parliament changed its rules this month. Anyone still reading? Surely the European Parliament doesn’t have any real power anyway? Surely it’s just a talking shop where pompous windbags repeatedly stand up to demonstrate their “European” credentials while the rest of us get on with our lives? Well, not quite. Certainly the “pompous windbags” part is true, though it’s hardly fair to the minority of Euro-MPs who have tried to stand in the way as the European Union has trampled over our rights as citizens, workers, consumers, as human beings. The part about it not having any real power is nonsense, however. Increasingly, the European Parliament has what is known in EU circles as “co-decision power”, which means just what the phrase says. In a growing number of legislative areas, including virtually all environmental issues and most social and labour matters, the assembly is an equal partner with the Council of Ministers, the body which directly represents the twenty-seven member states. Its powers have grown with each successive treaty since Maastricht, in 1992. The “europhiles” would have us believe that this means that the EU’s famous “democratic deficit” is being closed, but this simply isn’t the case. The new powers granted to the European Parliament have not been at the expense of unelected centralised institutions but, on the contrary, they have been transferred from elected national parliaments and elected national governments. When I first worked as an assistant to a Labour Euro-MP 23 years ago, corporate lobbyists were thin on the ground. Now, you can’t move for the representatives of major corporations who use (sometimes quite literally) foot in the door techniques to get the attention of MEPs whose votes now exercise a huge influence on Europe-wide legislation. So the fact that the European Parliament has just voted to do away with its own democratic procedures should concern us. This is especially the case when you consider the response to the Irish people’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. Just a few days later, the leaders of the 27 held a meeting on the implementation of this same treaty. Their response to the Irish vote? It didn’t even appear on the agenda! The European Parliament’s rule change means that the two big political groups, the Tweedledum of the centre-right European People’s Party and the Tweedledee of Labour’s so-called Party of European Socialists, will now exercise complete control over business conducted in the assembly. Firstly, twenty-five members from seven countries instead of twenty from six will be required to form a political group. Two existing groups, the euro-sceptic Independence/Democracy Group (ID) and the rightwing Union for a Europe of the Nations (UEN) would fail one or the other test. The argument that the new rules will make it harder for fascists to form a group is a disgrace to anyone on the left that uses it. Fascists must be confronted politically in elected assembles as well as out on the streets, not by procedural trickery. A further rule will exclude MEPs from forming groups unless they hold similar political opinions. The ID group would also fall foul of this, containing as it does MEPs from the right, as well as some who hold quite progressive opinions. They are bound together by a belief in the primacy of national sovereignty, but it is unclear under the new rules whether this will be enough. Even the United Left Group could have problems with this rule. The full name of the group, which contains all MEPs to the left of social democratic and labour parties, is the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL). Its long-winded title reflects genuine tensions within the group to do with historic splits which go back to the range of attitudes to the Soviet Union found on the European anti-capitalist left. But it isn’t all history, and quite serious differences remain. The group is held together, however, by its commitment to burying those differences in order to combat neo-liberalism, but when it comes, for example, to reform of the EU’s agricultural policies, parties from north and south will often vote different ways. Hence the “confederal”. The individual national parties retain their autonomy. The Greens form a group with progressive regionalists, the Greens/EFA. The latter element, which includes Plaed Cymru and the Scottish Nationalists, organises as a group-within-a-group, as does the Nordic Green Left within the GUE/NGL. Once again, it is unclear whether this will continue to be acceptable. This aspect of the new rules will also make life harder for MEPs who are expelled from their groups for not toeing the line. As things stand, other groups will often invite them to join. Admittedly, this is largely out of self-interest. In the European Parliament, bigger means better. More money, more speaking time, more kudos. Yet there is another motive, which is a desire to see men and women who were, after all, elected by the people of their countries, allowed to continue to do their jobs. This is apparently of no concern to the two big groups. In another change, a totally undemocratic “filter system”, purportedly designed to eliminate “silly, irrelevant or offensive questions” was also installed. Who will decide which questions fall into these categories? The holder of the European Parliament presidency, a job carved out between the two big groups, of course. As the European Parliament acquires more and more power, it becomes ever more important to the antidemocratic forces now ruling Europe to keep it under control. The rule changes may not seem to be of that much importance when set against the blatant contempt for democracy shown in the EU establishment’s reaction to successive referendum defeats, but they are another small but significant indication that, unless we wake up to what is going on, democracy may turn out to have been a whim of the twentieth century. Steve McGiffen is editor of Spectrezine. From 1986 to 1999 he worked as an assistant to a Member of the European Parliament, and then spent five years as a member of the secretariat of the United European Left political group.
Trading away the Planet for Profits26 Jul 2008Climate Culprits During the climate talks in Bali last December, NASA scientist James Hansen presented new data showing that serious climate change impacts are already happening more rapidly and at lower global ttemperature rises than previously projected, indicating that the atmosphere is more ?sensitive? to greenhouse gases than previously assumed. (1) Based on this more rapid pace of change, eight million squares kilometres of ice sheet at the North Pole ? an area as large as Australia ? is likely to be entirely lost during the summer within five years. This may trigger the melting of the Greenland ice-sheet whose total disintegration would raise sea levels by seven metres. Hansen stated that we need to move towards a post-fossil fuel clean energy system and cool the planet. Unfortunately, these dire warnings are not being met by action by the G8 nations, which represent just 13 per cent of the world?s population but are responsible for 45 per cent of the world?s greenhouse gas emissions. These industrialised countries have caused this crisis while benefiting economically and accruing a climate debt to the South.(2) Yet they are continuing to push unfair free trade and reliance on carbon trade initiatives which could accelerate climate change and further exacerbate developing countries? vulnerability to its impacts. Those least responsible for creating the current crisis such as Indigenous Peoples, peasant farmers and fisher peoples will be hit hardest by climate change and also these dangerous, corporate-driven initiatives which are being perversely branded as climate solutions. To illustrate: Indigenous Peoples and forest-dwelling communities are among the first to face the direct consequences of climate change, owing to their dependence upon, and close relationship with the environment and its resources. Of the 350 million Indigenous People in the world, half live in tropical rainforests, which are known to harbour 80 per cent of our planet’s biological diversity. (3) Most of these rainforests are the traditional territories of Indigenous Peoples. Both the United Nations Declarations on Right to Development (4) and the Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples (5) assert Indigenous Peoples? sovereignty over their natural resources. However, Indigenous Peoples continue to be marginalised in international decision-making processes including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). (6) UNFCCC negotiations are now taking place on ways to reduce emissions of deforestation in developing countries (REDD) that will have direct impacts on the lives of millions of Indigenous Peoples. Member Parties nations that have ratified the UNFCCC have agreed that they will conserve and enhance forests, and also provide financial assistance to developing countries to achieve these obligations.(7) However, the UN definition of forests includes plantations and this poses major concerns as the expansion of monoculture plantations is a major driver of deforestation ? undermining Indigenous Peoples? land rights and damaging the environment through pesticides usage, water stress and biodiversity loss. In addition ? according to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) ? at the most, plantations store only one-fifth of carbon compared to untouched primary forests. There is conserted lobbying by both some governments and conservation-based NGOs for REDD mechanisms through the UNFCCC to implement carbon trading for forests, instead of a fund-based approach to community-based forest management, let alone other reliable non-money-based approaches such as strengthening land rights, leaving fossil fuels in the ground and bans on deforestation. The central idea of carbon trading for forests is that developing countries reduce their deforestation rates and this will allow them to sell the carbon stored in their forests to the North. This allows Northern countries and corporations to buy their way out of emission reductions and continue business-as-usual polluting. It is also based on a false premise that the inactive underground carbon cycles (coal, oil and gas in stable underground reservoirs) and the active land-based carbon cycles are the same. This false assumption enables the protection of one carbon cycle to offset the exploitation of the other. So at best this should theoretically lead to zero global emission reductions if it were not for the fact that the different carbon cycles vary hugely, making it impossible to actually verify whether or not emissions have actually been reduced. If our last remaining forests are to be included in carbon markets, the question naturally arises of who owns those trees and what happens to those forest-dwelling communities that have depended on them for generations? There are huge risks for a dramatic expansion of exclusionary models of forest conservation that violate Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities? customary and human rights on a global scale. The World Bank is at the helm in the trading of forest carbon credits and its portfolio is rapidly expanding with its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) which was launched amidst protests at climate talks in Bali last December. At the G8 in Japan, the Bank?s multi-bill
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