Global Green New Deals

Here's a nice summary of Global Green New Deals from FundStrategy:

The idea of the Green New Deal is not confined to America and Britain. On the contrary, it is being promoted by several national governments and influential international organisations.

Perhaps the best known global advocates of a Green New Deal are Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations (UN) and Al Gore, the environmental campaigner and former American vice president. In a joint article in the Financial Times on February 16 they argued: “we need to make ‘growing green’ our mantra”.

Within the UN system the director of the UN Environment Programme (Unep), Achim Steiner, has proved a tireless advocate. In October 2008 Unep launched an official Global Green New Deal initiative.

- South Korea has one of the most advanced Green New Deal programmes in the world. It is spending about 3% of its GDP on green measures and aims to create 956,000 jobs. Its low carbon projects include developing railways, fuel efficient vehicles, energy conservation and environmentally friendly buildings.

- Japan’s environment ministry is considering the possibility of a Green New Deal along American lines. It is studying such measures as energy saving electrical appliances and car-sharing schemes. It also plans to create up to one million jobs through measures includ"

George Osborne's economic threats. We need PR NOW!

Polly Toynbee summarises George Osborne's speech yesterday:
"The choice between Labour and Conservatives just got starker. Yesterday George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, laid out an economic policy that looks to any Keynesian like the perfect recipe for turning recession into deepest depression. It's Margaret Thatcher in 1980 all over again - cutting, sacking and reducing debt just when the state should expand.

Here's his programme: cut corporation tax and stamp duty on shares; abolish tax on savings; 'come off Labour's unrealistic spending plans' and 'bring national debt under control'; no investment in 'public works projects' but instead 'confront uncomfortable truths' - which means 'government can't just spend money on every worthy cause that comes knocking on the door'. Never mind what nice Mr Cameron says about 'capitalism with a conscience', it's the numbers in nasty Mr Osborne"

Osborne's speech is devastatingly superficial. I have already mentioned his lack of understanding of where money comes from.

A telling phrase, recycled from a speech he gave in September, is this:

"Our banking system is not separate from our economy, it is a reflection of it".

George, there is a fundamental difference between the real economy, based on provision of water, food, housing, low carbon energy and waste recycling, and the casino economy of the banksters and derivative peddlers. The one provides the materials of life; the other is a psychotic bubble, whose toxic assets threaten to bring the entire world economy to its knees.

George, to say that the one is a reflection of the other is a piece of total nonsense, and shows (a) that you do not understand what is going on, and (b) that a Conservative Government would constitute a real threat to economic recovery.

Osborne shows no consciousness of the destructive power of the Toxic Asset problem. He really does not get it. The self-proclaimed Tory grasp of financial matters has gone the way of the Norwegian Blue.

Yet it is pretty clear that the Conservatives are going to win the next election.

Allah knows that Labour are not behaving wisely with their quantitative easing, because they have so far been trying to shore up the banks with their money, rather than putting it into the real economy. We may see some better directed investment in the forthcoming budget (I heard Gordon Brown yesterday using the words "Green New Deal").

If the Tories win, and Osbornomics comes in to force, we will be in deep doo doo.

Polly Toynbee's response to this is to talk about getting Labour to put Proportional Representation into their next manifesto. Fat lot of good that. We need a Bill of Electoral Reform NOW, to become an Act before the next election. Yes, time is short, but it could be done, as part of an emergency reform package in response to the widespread popular demonstrations that are expected in the coming months.

We shall see.

Green Providers and Carbon Sinks

This is a first for the Mabinogogiblog - a guest article from Gary Robertshaw
of The Green Providers Directory which seems to be a useful all-in-one-place portal for buying green products.

I have a different take on Gary's message, and my critique is at the foot.


Science fiction and pragmatism



Reading through some scientific papers recently I was struck by the many, well-intentioned ideas for tackling climate change. These included solar arrays in space beaming back microwave energy to Earth, burying charcoal, pumping iron into the oceans and various ingenious devices designed to block out the sun’s rays.



Whilst not questioning the need to seek new and innovative ideas to halt climate change, I couldn’t help but think that they were missing a more fundamental point. That is, they assume that we can carry on as we are and that technology will somehow get us out of our self-created mess. The reality is that it can’t - it’s like trying to build a perpetual motion machine. The planet’s capacity to provide for an unsustainably large and growing population of increasingly consumptive people is inherently limited. Beyond this point no amount of technology can fix the problem. That’s not an opinion from a ‘green-minded’ person – it’s a statement of fact.



Ironically, the solutions are already at hand and require no complex science or new technology. However, like an alcoholic who wants to give up drinking, it firstly requires a recognition that a problem exists. Analogously, governments need to understand that our volatile, oil-dependent capitalist structures cannot survive in the longer-term. Depletion of fossil fuels, increasing consumption and competition for scarce resources will inevitably lead to conflict and market collapse at some point in the future. Whilst this may seem self-evident, it remains the case that our entire economic model and cherished economic growth are predicated on this unsustainable platform – increasing output from a limited source.



In contrast, a shift towards a more sustainable economy, greater energy efficiency and investment in renewable energy would not only introduce greater stability into the markets but would also create many new job opportunities in the ‘green’ sector and associated spin-off businesses.



However, this process of change needs to be accelerated with meaningful investment and genuine commitment as progress remains slow. To put that in perspective, today less than 2% of the UK ’s energy comes from renewable energy sources. We are jostling with Malta and Luxembourg for the accolade of being bottom of the EU league table. The UK has potentially the largest offshore wind resource in the world. Some estimates put this at enough to power the UK several times over (source: Friends of the Earth). Other relatively simple measures could potentially have a huge impact on energy consumption. For example, legislation to remove standby buttons on electrical devices, banning standard light bulbs and patio heaters, etc….



In parallel, the global population needs to be stabilised. The Earth simply cannot support over 10 billion people without something giving. Whilst populations in some European countries are actually declining, this is being offset by large increases in countries such as India and Nigeria . This is an often ignored and politically sensitive aspect of sustainability policy yet it is one of the most significant problems we face, requiring a co-ordinated, global approach to the problem. Unfortunately, population control has traditionally been regarded as a national or religious issue rather than a global issue; consequently assistance from developed nations in the areas of women’s education, empowerment and birth control has often been inadequate.



What we need is not more science fiction type technology but a sober, concerted effort to tackle the core issues in a pragmatic and effective manner.

In my view, it is not a choice between CO2 reduction OR CO2 sinks.
We have to go for CO2 reduction and CO2 sinks.If we magically cut our CO2 emissions to zero today, we would still need to stimulate Earth's ailing carbons sinks tomorrow, because we are at the stage now when positive feedback loops are already in play, which will cause accelerating global warming even at present CO2 levels.

Try this thought experiment: two households, both identical in numbers of persons, energy usage and both with optimal energy conservation measures. One gives about £150 per annum to plant trees in an ecologically and socially sensitive way; the other does not. Who does less damage, the one who plants, or the one who does not plant?

Clearly, trees have virtues of their own, irrespective of their carbon sink properties. The provide for biodiversity, they modify microclimate, they provide shelter, food and forage, and also a useful and beautiful building material, wherein their carbon is locked for as long as the wooden structure lasts - so the better the quality of the structure, the longer it lasts.

Lastly, forests nourish our spirits.

So we should cut our carbon footprint and stimulate carbon sinks.

George Osborne, Monetary Reformer? Or not.

George Osborne, the Tory Shadow Chancellor, has made a very interesting statement about debt.
"We need a new model of growth. We need to change from an economy built on debt to an economy powered by savings and real returns on effort".

Does he not realise that 97% of all the new money that flows into the UK economy is created by banks creating debt?
If he does not, this is evidence of massive ignorance about the fundamentals of the grey financial system.
If, on the other hand, he does, this is an exciting departure of the Conservative Party from the debt-interest system of money creation, and commits his party to Monetary Reform, with the Bank of England taking over responsibility for issue of new money. Conservatives in the Green Party have fought long and hard against green Monetary Reformers over the last 12 months. Now the real Conservatives seem to be joining the reformers.

Unless George is just in a bit of a muddle. Which is more likely.

AFPAK problem can and must be solved

Things are not looking good in AFPAK - the new word for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Everyone agrees that a purely military victory in Afghanistan is not a realistic option, but the Afghan state is drifting towards failure, with much of its territory in control of warlords, insurgents and Talaban. Pakistan is beginning to move in the direction of failure, with chunks of the North West frontier being effectively ceded to non-state actors, and active threats within Pakistan proper from Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The SAS officer who resigned over deaths of his men is not hopeful.

If things are not turned around, in a few years' time AFPAK could both end up in the horrific situation that obtains in Somalia.

It was a mistake to put Western forces into Afghanistan in the first place (Pakistan's offer to catch Osama bin Laden and hand him over to the US soon after 9/11 was turned down by Bush), but a swift withdrawal in the present circumstances could bring forward the Somalisation of AFPAK, with the Pakistani component in possession of nuclear weapons.

There are many things that need to be done to foster stability and good governance, but the single most important is to legitimise the Afghan Opium crop, buy it, and divert it to medical use in places like Africa, where millions die in agony each year from cancer without the benefit of opiate analgesics.

Click on "opium" below for more.

Civil Service "not fit for purpose"

BBC reports on the think-tank Reform's report on the Civil Service.

Giving ministers power to personally appoint senior civil servants would make officials more accountable and effective, a think tank has argued.

Reform said the civil service was "not fit for purpose" at the moment and its deficiencies harmed delivery of policy.

Reform themselves say:

The systemic weaknesses in Whitehall have built up over the years and are now of critical proportions. The Government’s own Capability Reviews into the performance of individual departments have revealed in the phrase that John Reid applied to the Home Office in 2006, that the Whitehall machine is not “fit for purpose”. The Home Office’s accounts have not been qualified for the last two years.

The reasons for this are entrenched – the culture and structure of Whitehall rewards risk avoidance and punishes innovation. One public sector consultant interviewed for this report said that the motto of the Civil Service should be “consent and evade”; others spoke of an absence of “moral courage”. Whitehall is not accountable – success or failure seems to have little or no consequence for departments. It displays inadequate performance management. It is weak at implementation.

At the last Green Party conference, we passed this motion (in the teeth of opposition from the Handbrake Tendency):

This policy aims to help the Civil Service to become responsible for its actions. As things stand, they can and do make recommendations that evade or distort the truth, and often their errors are paid for by Ministerial resignations, which insulates the civil service from responsibility. It also enshrines the principle of non-cooperation with undemocratic governments, in order to make coups and invasions less appealing as an option to anti-democratic actors.

add the following to the end of the Civil Service section of MfSS Public Administration and Government

PA803
Civil servants will be responsible for their actions. If an error arises due to actions a government officer, that officer will be professionally accountable, according to guidelines laid down to match the magnitude of the error, up to and including dismissal. A code of ethics will be made available to every government officer, which will include guidelines for when the officer has a duty to act as a whistleblower.

PA804
Civil servants will be given a code setting out circumstances where they are not to obey orders. This will include conditions of invasion, or of military or other coup. The effect of this will be to help to make the country ungovernable in the event of invasion or coup.

So there we have it. Green Party is ahead of the game. Click on the Civil Service label below for more grumbles about the Civil Service.

Gordon repeats his no-blame mantra in the US

Gordon Brown intones his mantra in Washington: "It is a global recession. It is a global recession".

The Guardian suggests that he will try to pin the tail of failure on the American donkephant: "Brown will not be keen to admit that the British government bears any responsibility for the crisis, insisting it is the result of banking failure caused by a lack of regulation in the US and the rise of sub-prime mortgages".

The fact is that capitalism in the UK and the US is more attached to free market fundamentalism than the versions of capitalism in the rest of the world. The Anglo-Saxon capitalism of Adam Smith and Margaret Thatcher is the Wahabi version of capitalism. The philosophy of individualism, which stands behind free market capitalism, is strongest in Anglo-Saxon cultures. Sure, the globalised economy means that the whole system crashes together, but the US and UK share joint responsibility for masterminding the present global woes.

Brown will repeat his warning of the dangers of protectionism, while Obama nods, and continues to plan for exactly that: the protection of US jobs.

Brown will probably imply once more that he is the leader of the world in terms of remediation of the recession. On this point, his increasingly worrying detachment from reality becomes more obvious. Obama, to his relative credit, has devoted 16% of his stimulus package to ecological measures such as energy conservation and renewables. Gordon has offered a pusillanimous 7% - one tenth of the proportion of the real world leader, South Korea.

Financial stimulus is the right way to go about it, the Keynsian way, but there is more to Keynes than simply shovelling money at an ever increasing rate into the furnace of the financial system. The money has to be sent to the right places, and the right place for money is the physical base of the real economy, not into the ether of an intoxicated financial system.

Energy, along with agriculture, water services, housing and waste management is the physical base of the economy,. To put money into energy conservation is a no-brainer: it saves money, and it cushions us against Peak Oil - the divergence between rising demand and falling suppply of oil. The Green New Deal is the way to go.

The financial system should not be given any more of the taxpayers' hard earned. The banksters are not grateful of it, they are not contrite, they do not realise that their collective Porsche has run out of road. What the financial system needs is a ring fence to be erected between the rotten core of the financial system and the real hard earned cash that people have entrusted to the banks.

Ah well. La lutte continua.

Xenz is The Man

This is Xenz' picture, "Dump", the centrepiece of his exhibition at the Forster Gallery that I went up to London to see.

Xenz set out as a street graffiti artist, and is evolving rapidly with influences from classic oriental art, without losing touch with the gritty reality of his roots. There is a painful tension between his love of the undeniable beauty that he finds in birds and flowers, and what he sees in front of him in our decaying cities. Even in our dumps he can find a kind of beauty. Other artists make a choice between an empty idea of beauty or an agonised scream of ugliness. Xenz is holding them together in one frame; the result is an unstated call for a radical change in the way we live our lives.

Better stop before I end up in Pseud's Corner.

I've been meaning to put this up ever since going to London. Better late than never.

Leaked NATO document: ISAF mission success depends on Poppy for Peace

What are the aims and objectives of the NATO mission in Afghanistan? Wikileaks has cracked the code of a NATO document on the web, and they can be downloaded here, but be quick in case the page is hacked.

Pasted below are a selection of paragraphs from NATOs 2008 mission document in Afghanistan - ISAF Afghanistan Theatre Strategic Communications Strategy, 25 Oct 2008.
I have added bold font to the parts relevant to the strategy of resolving the situation by purchasing the poppy crop and turning it into much needed medical painkillers.

Glossary:
ISAF: International Security Assistance Force (UN program)
GIRoA: Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
ANSF: Afghanistan National Security Forces
ANDS: Afghan National Development Strategy


Excerpt begins
2. Winning in Afghanistan is building Afghan capacity, competence and credibility to an end state of adequate security, stability and popular support for GIRoA. ISAF is committed to a comprehensive approach to winning through improving security, supporting the extension of Afghan governance, and supporting the social and economic development of Afghanistan.

3. Winning will not be achieved by defeating the enemies of Afghanistan in battle alone. Victory in the information war is as, and possibly more, important. ...

4. Afghan public support and confidence in government institutions is critical to a viable Afghan nation-state.... denial of support and freedom of action to our opponents are critical to undermining those who threaten Afghanistan’s stability.

7. Objectives. The objectives of ISAF StratCom are to:

• Build and strengthen public confidence in Afghan institutions.
• Maintain Afghan public support for ISAF.
• Improve commitment and responsiveness of GIRoA to Afghan public.
• Maintain and strengthen public support of contributing nations’ domestic audiences for the mission.
• Undermine support for the insurgency (and other threats to stability).
• Encourage acceptance and cooperation across the Afghan neighbourhood for the mission.

...

Effect 1 Insurgency Defeated
Effect 2 ANSF Provides a Secure Environment
Effect 3 ISAF Maintains Public Acceptance
Effect 4 Narcotics-Insurgency Nexus is Broken...
Effect 5 GIRoA Establishes and Upholds the Rule of Law
Effect 6 GIRoA Combats Government Corruption

excerpt ends

So there we have it. The aim is to:
Support the social and economic development of Afghanistan, winning will not be achieved by defeating the enemies of Afghanistan in battle alone, Afghan public support and confidence in government institutions is critical to a viable Afghan nation-state. NATO needs to deny support and freedom of action to its opponents, it needs to maintain Afghan public support for ISAF, to undermine support for the insurgency, encourage acceptance and cooperation across the Afghan neighbourhood for the mission.

And most importantly, NATO needs to see that the "Narcotics-Insurgency Nexus" is broken, and see to it that GIRoA Establishes and Upholds the Rule of Law and combats Government Corruption.

It is very clear indeed that the single most important means of achieving this objective is to legitimise the poppy crop, which has a value equivalent to 40% of the total Afghan economy. It is crystal clear that these objectives will not be achieved while the poppy remains in the hands of the Taleban.

More detail on the proposal is given elsewhere in this blog. Click on the labels for "opium" and "Afghanistan".

Lord Malloch Brown, the FCO minister, is defending the policy of keeping the poppy illicit. The arguments are the weakest I have ever met. The core objection is that the Afghan Governement is not competent to administer the scheme. But if it wished to do so, the scheme could be set up with UN and NATO help, and once set up, the GIRoA would then actually become competent, and the NATO objectives would be achievable.

Lord Clive Soley is also defending the policy on the web.

Note that there is evidence that Hamid Karzai's brother is involved in the drugs trade. Could it be that the stink of corruption is reaching right up into the rarefied air of international policy?

The Green Party is opposed to NATO membership, so it is ironic that we are proposing a policy that will help NATO to succeed, but ultimately all our policies are aimed peace, humanitarianism, international security and sound economics, so it is right and good that we should press for the Poppy crop to be legitimised and turned to good use.

Please write to your MP, or at least contribute (civilly) to the discussion with Clive Soley.


PS:

It is still not clear what mandate British troops will have to deal with interdicting drugs convoys, making arrests or getting involved with eradication of the poppy crop on the ground.

However there is no point in the British having a mandate in dealing with the drugs trade, if other Nato troops refuse to do the same job.

Even the Americans, who have been pushing Britain to get involved in dealing with drugs, do not allow their troops to get involved in either interdiction or eradication.

PPS: In public, NATO is demanding that all allies contribute their fair share to the ongoing effort in Afghanistan. But behind closed doors, a paper has been circulated that may provide the beginnings of an exit strategy. Germany is pushing the plan.

Marine Reserves Campaign

Marine Reserves: "The UK Marine Reserves Campaign aims to ensure that the UK Marine and Coastal Access Bill places a duty on the Secretary of State to establish by 2015 an ecologically coherent network of Highly Protected Marine Reserves covering at least 30% of UK seas out to 200 nautical miles."

Highly recommended. Clean, brief, clear and to the point.

Cabinet papers on Iraq withheld because...

...There was no Cabinet debate in run-up to war,' says Short as Government refuses to release minutes | Mail Online: "The Government is refusing to release minutes of Cabinet meetings before the Iraq War because they would reveal there was no discussion on the issue.

Details surrounding two crucial meetings on the eve of the conflict were laid bare for the first time yesterday when former Cabinet Minister Clare Short, who was present at both, gave a full account of what happened.

She told The Mail on Sunday the main reason for the ‘scandalous’ decision not to publish the minutes was not to protect confidential discussions about the war, but to cover up the fact there was no such discussion."

Ah. So there we have it. Vital national interests are at stake. If the people knew there was no Cabinet debate, they might lose the deep respect with which the Government is held in all our hearts.

Gaza poetry: Caught in the Crossfire

Caught In The Crossfire



Caught in the crossfire
crouching beside your father
behind the rubbish bin
until a slug untied the fragile knot
that held you in this dusty unkind world

you soared to paradise I'm sure
but paradise is often tainted
with anger dripped out from martyrs'
wounded souls

some scars don't heal

oh, we can give, and grieve
and hold each other
and hate, or block it out
or turn our minds to other things
but this is where we sit:

caught in the crossfire

Richard Lawson
Congresbury 2000

Perseus

You’ve set me, father of the Greeks,
grandfather of their eastern enemies,
here in the crackling sky,
frozen forever in the night,

pricked out in stars,
a join-the-dots cartoon,
unmoving, badly drawn, and yet at least
close to Andromeda, my wife.

You hardly know me,
but yesterday, by standards of the skies
I once was what you’d call
in all your ignorance, a Star.

A living man, more free than most,
son of the Father of the gods
but cruelly controlled by destiny
that framed my life.

Acrisius, no grandfather of mine
fearful of prophecies,
exiled his daughter and her child,
imprisoned us in wood, set us adrift.

Dictes of Seriphos
a fisherman, a man with heart,
found us sprawled on his beach
and took us both into his hut.

My mother, mother of all the Greeks
Drew out the values of the soul:
love from the fisher-man, and
lust from his brother king.

I had no horse to offer at the court,
and gave a promise in its stead.
King Polydectes smiled,
and called for my half-sister’s head.

This left me a young man
cast out into the world
searching I knew not where
to find a stony death.

The destiny that was my curse
gave me the blessings of the gods and nymphs.
Hermes the great gave me my brittle sword,
sharp as a crystal, shining like the sun,

Athena gave my silver shield, in which
the world existed inside out.
I practiced long and hard, learned how to fight
with arms in space, and mind within a dream.

From Hades came my will.

The Naiads gifts:
the helmet that closed off the world
so that, reflexively, the world could not see me.

My precious sandals
gave me the gift of flight,
the act and choice
of childhood dreams.

And last, they gave a carry bag,
a simple wallet
that could hide the foulest thing
the world contains.

Armed with these gifts
it was an easy step to find the Western Isles,
and ask directions of the maidens there
forever dancing in their apple groves.

They made me welcome.
Don’t ask me how I tore myself away
to fly from Paradise
to find embodiments of ugliness.

Only my will could grasp
that slimy, stinking eye
the Graeae shared.
Screaming, they told me where my sister lived.

You may condemn me
that I broke my word to them
and threw their filthy eyeball in the lake.
You were not there. And they were Ceto’s spawn.

I found the Gorgons’ cave,
and cut my sister’s head.
That’s all you need to know.
Invisible, I fled.

The consummation of my word;
Medusa with her writhing hair,
bumping at my side, hidden
within the wallet that the Naiads gave.


Successful, dancing on the wind,
I landed then in Ethiopia,
flooded and crushed by Poseidon
all for a self-regarding queen.

Driven by pity for the girl
and detestation of the alien and the foul,
I fought the mother of the burden
that I carried in my purse.

The blade of Hermes, and the will of Hell
gave me the strength to face
Ceto, the monster of the seas.
I was familiar with her ugliness.

Andromeda was my reward.
Should I have used the Head
on Phineus, my rival?
I did not care by then.

I wanted happiness,
happiness and home,
I wanted to fulfill my word,
return the trophy to the king.

He sat there with my mother, raped,
and my godfather Dictes nowhere to be seen.
Polydectes asked to see the Head.
That was the second death I caused.

And yes, by fate I killed my grandfather.
It was an accident, a touch, a glance.
I did not will him dead,
I did not take his throne.

It was a long, adventurous life
once famous, half forgotten now.
But if you speak of me at all,
remember this one thing:

The Head I gave back to Athena
with her shield, the Head of snakes,
the Head whose look caused immobility
Through Hades’ will,
I never glanced at it.

© Richard Lawson
March 17, 2008