Mabinogogiblog

We can defeat Lansley's hated Health & Social Care Bill

2012-01-22T13:18:00.001Z

[open and play the Andrew Lansley greedy tosser rap in another tab will enhance your reading experience of this post]
Andrew Lansley's Health and Social Care Bill (the NHS Bill) can and must be stopped.

The latest blow to his ambitions to slice and dice the NHS and offer it to the corporate vultures as a carcass comes from the Health Select Committee of Parliament, which will report that Lansley's "reforms" will are interfering with the already demanding and damaging process of trying to make 4% annual efficiency savings.

This is in addition to the demands of all the major health workers organisations who are united in wanting the Coalition to drop the bill.

Core criticisms are:

It will cost £2-3 billion
It ends the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Health for the NHS.
It has no electoral mandate. It is not in the Conservative or LibDem manifestos or even the Coalition agreement.
It contains a clause that NHS hospitals can earn up to 49% of their income from private patients.
Giving full budgetary responsibility to GPs will distract from their attention to patients and break the vital bond of trust.
It opens up the NHS to marketization which will allow progressive infiltration by American private healthcare corporations who are desperate to grow now that they have finished growing in the USA.
An enormous array of informed health organisations oppose it.

These are just a few of the reasons to oppose the bill.

If it is not defeated, the British people will have let one of the best institutions in our country to die through ignorance, apathy and resignation.

It can be stopped. There is a Parliamentary ePetition that simply calls for MPs to debate a motion to Drop The Bill. It is here. Please sign it and ask your friends to sign it. It is has reached 34,000 today, and when it reaches 100,000 MPs will be obliged to debate dropping the bill. We will need to besiege Parliament on the day of the debate in order to focus the minds of the MPs.

Greens should think globally and also act globally

2012-01-03T12:42:00.001Z

"Think Global, Act Local" is the time-honoured Green slogan. It is a good slogan, but it has tended to blind us to the necessity of acting globally at the same time as acting locally.

Global action is necessary given that the world is ultimately a single system - an infinitely complex inter-relation of physical, biological, social and economic interacting parts. Each of the parts is local, but the localities summate into the single global system.

"Globalisation" is an ugly, cumbersome word to describe the ugly, cumbersome way the human economy on the planet has evolved into one single powerful marketplace. We Greens have rightly been critical of the way this single market has overridden the need for environmental and social protection, but our opposition has perhaps tended to put us off from grasping the opportunity to act at the global level. Which is a pity, because Greens have an annual Congress every three years. the next is to be in Dakar, Senegal this year, 29 March to 1 April.

I attended the last Congress in Sao Paolo Brazil in 2008. The resolutions we passed are here, and at the same time we set up a small international secretariat.

It is remarkable that with huge diversity of Green Parties from all over the world, (there were 75 parties in 2008) we should have been able to agree on so much. This year the need for us to have a global voice is even greater, not just on climate change, but also on human rights, dictatorships and the global economy.

In Sao Paolo the Global Greens adopted the Global Human Rights Index, which has a real bearing on the Arab Spring and similar movements against dictatorship and for democracy. The paragraph in the 2008 resolution reads: In order to lead the UN from a reactive to a pro-active stance on human rights, we will press for all countries’ human rights records to be expressed quantitatively, so that they can be published annually by the UN in ranked order, revealing the relative standing of each country, which will exert a continual persuasive force on all governments to improve their performance in the field of human rights. (source)

This year we need to build policy on a global tax framework to match the de facto economic globalisation that exists. Tax havens and tax loopholes create a race to the bottom, where countries compete to have the lowest tax rates in order to attract multinational corporations to their shores. This leads to a haemorrhage of wealth from the national economy into offshore bank accounts, as any skuleboy kno.

The Green Party in England and Wales is a latecomer to the Global Greens - I was the first delegate we sent - and this year we are sending Ricky Knight and Gina Dowding. We must hope that from the deliberations we get a clear message to save the ailing world economy from the debilitating effect of domination by self-interested multinational corporations.

Who will pay for the PIP silicone breast prosthesis clean-up?

2011-12-21T12:06:00.000Z

The current news about PIP, the now-defunct silicone breast implant manufacturer who came up with the brilliant wheeze to use cheap industrial silicone in its implants, raises interesting questions about the relationship between private and NHS medicine.

30,000 French women will have their balloons removed, but the DoH is reassuring UK recipients that there is nothing to worry about, even though it seems the PIP device is more prone to rupture, which will present the immune system with a challenge.

There is an association of 7-8 cancer cases with the PIP , including one rare Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma. It will take many more cases of cancer and illness to develop before the probabilities of a causative relationship becomes accepted by the academics. Studies of the carcinogenic potential of the contaminants will be needed, and all studies will cost much money. They should be funded by the insurance services of the private cosmetic surgery industry - but it would be naive to expect that will happen.

The French are using the precautionary principle, and the UK is using the HITS (Head in the Sand) principle.

In the end, I predict that it will be advised that all the PIP prostheses will be ordered to be removed.

But who will pick up the bill?

Removal costs are about £2000, and replacement £5000. Most were put in at private expense. Removal and replacement should therefore be at private expense. But one woman said: "I was constantly unwell and the implants lost shape," she said. "They looked deformed. I went back to the clinic but they told me I would have to get the NHS to clean up the mess."

This is clearly the line that the cosmetic surgery industry and their insurers will be lobbying for. The Tories, when they have finished being in denial, will probably agree to the NHS doing the remediation work free of charge, in line with their policy of dumping on the NHS while promoting and supporting private medicine.

See also: My book Bills of Health, which showed that about 20% of NHS clinical work is devoted to treating illness caused by unemployment, poverty, bad housing and pollution.

Resolving a World of Trouble with Green Ideology

2011-12-20T12:18:00.000Z

There is a world of trouble out there, global problems looking for global solutions.

We have:

Dictatorships in North Korea, China, Burma, Zimbabwe, Syria, Egypt, Bahrein, Saudi Arabia &c
Wars and conflicts
Global economic problems with debt, austerity and recession.
Rich Poor Gap within nations and between nations
Anthropogenic Global Warming and other man caused environmental degredation
Human Population Growth

and many other problems and difficulties.

All these problems are capable of being resolved by determined political and economic reforms based on logical reasoning from sound starting points.

Why are they not solved or even addressed with any realistic determination?

Because there are two sides to human nature - the competitive side and the co-operative side.

The competitive side is based on individualistic ideology. It is self-centred, self-seeking and self-serving.

The co-operative side is based on the knowledge that humans are a social species, and on the certainty that in many situations, collaboration to attain some common goal of benefit to all is better than a multiplicity of unrelated individual actions.

Both have evolutionary advantages, and both can be operated simultaneously in the same system.

The dominant ideology of our age is based on competition between individual persons (remember that corporations are legal persons). It is claimed that competition for profit gives people the motivation to work harder and produce more, and thereby create more wealth. That is the strength of the individualistic ideology, even though the final flourish, trickle down economics, is an illusion.

The weakness of socialist ideology is that in its fullest manifestation, after a socialist revolution or even a democratic socialist victory, there is a distinct tendency for a personality cult to form. We see this in North Korea and Robert Mugabe today, and in a long and ignoble list going back through Said Barre of Somalia, Kwame Nkruma of Ghana, to Stalin himself. It should be noted that the Communist Party is supporting the government of Bashar Assad of Syria.

This is not to say that socialism has a monopoly of dictatorship, because it certainly does not. Any long-lived period of rule by one person or one party tends to become controlling and self serving. That is why democratic elections, even in weak and imperfect democracies like the UK, are effective in holding back dictatorship simply by preventing any one person or party from staying in power for too long. Even if the change is from one party to an almost identical party (as from Republicans to Democrats in the USA, or Tories to New Labour in the UK), it is beneficial and salutary to be able to kick someone out of office.

This is a pitifully dismal consolation in view of the magnitude of problems that the world faces. The reason is that both of the main ideologies on offer - individualism and socialism - are both anthropocentric. Both aim to improve the lot of the class that identifies with the ideology. Individualism aligns with the plutocrats, and socialism aligns with the proletariat. Both have attained their goal when they have attained power. Power is the goal, and clinging to power by suppressing dissent and controlling thought becomes the main purpose of government.

That is why the Green approach is so transformative. It is not anthropocentric but eco-centric. It starts not by considering humans as some kind of self-existent being, whether as individuals or as societies, but by considering humans in their ecological context. We look at how the planetary environment sustains our existence, it looks at how our activities can undermine the security of our existence, and how we can change our ways so that we can achieve a sustainable global economy.

In short, instead of looking at one detail of the picture - the individual or the society - we look at the whole picture. This is a rational approach. In looking at the whole picture, we are able to resolve the differences and contradictions that arise from starting with a partial view. It is going to take both individual action and social action to achieve sustainability.

Given the strength of our intellectual position, the weakness of the Greens as a political force is somewhat surprising. True, green thinking is percolating slowly - too slowly - into mainstream thinking. True, we have been excluded from the public debate by an unholy alliance of the old philosophies. But some of it is due to our own cognitive errors.

The old Green slogan was "Think globally, act locally". This is a good slogan, but evidently not good enough. We also need to think globally and act globally.

As a global community the Green Parties of the world - and all other green and social movements - need to come together and agree the kind of reforms that need to be put in place.
We need to evolve ways and means of preventing dictatorships from forming, and of isolating and disempowering them wherever they are found.
We need to find ways of preventing Wars and conflicts, starting with the most common cause - separatism
We need to find ways of resolving global economic problem and reducing the inequalities within nations and between nations that cause so much misery.
We need to address Anthropogenic Global Warming and other man caused environmental degredation.
We need to address human population growth.

All of these problems are capable of resolution by rational thought, discussion, agreement and political will.

We seem a million miles from resolution because of selfishness, self interest and wilful blindness to the facts. It is the old clash between our cerebral cortex and more primitive parts of our brain. At present, the primitive part is in the ascendant. It seems that stupidity rules everywhere, and always will rule.

This is not necessarily so. Just as the political pendulum swings between Right and Left in a country's electoral history, so also the pendulum can swing between narrow self interest and enlightened rationality that looks at the whole picture.

It is easy to give way to despair and cynicism. But if we look to the greater picture, it is like looking at a map. We can see which way to start moving. And once we can see, we can start discussing and spreading the idea that mankind is not irredeemably stupid.

Debate with a Libertarian

2011-12-16T18:20:00.010Z

I have been discussing on Twitter with @V__Vendetta who seems to be a libertarian and a "small stater". These people intrigue me, as they can come on as real tory right winger authoritarians, which seems to contradict the idea of liberty. We began the debate on Twitter, but V came up using Twitlonger, and I copied it over here so we could debate in more than 140 characters.

V says:

Many people resent people "playing the benefits system" and it's destructive behaviour as it creates resentment against all and any benefit recipients regardless of their position. Most of us would wish to help people who are between jobs, layed off, unlucky, whatever but we don't like freeloaders. The state can only be indiscriminant about benefits (anyone with x income etc) whereas the people naturally have a greater concept of "deserving". We'd still not let someone die or fall ill, but we want to give less to one who doesn't help himself and give back. The state can't and doesn't do this and it causes problems.

We have talk of 'fat tax' or paying people to be slim - why? Because it's costing NHS (government) money, not because they 'care' else they would ban this and that rather than taxing it. But without the state giving "free" care in the first place, this mechanism would naturally exist in higher insurance premia for poor lifestyles and waistlines. Would we let the poor die? No, we'd pay a base voluntarily. By subsidising the supplier not the consumer in health we make a poor system which demotivates both sides. Supplier gets paid anyway so wait for months (and that's just for the phone to be answered) and consumer has no choice or fiduciary benefit. The poor lifestyles of others are socialised. Bailed out...

Pretty much any action taken by government causes problems - pick your favourite.

My response:

Benefits:

Sure, self-reliance and responsibility has been a Green meme for as long as I can remember.

But we object to the right-wing tabloids absurd obsession with daily exposure of freeloader cases. Benefit cheats cost the economy £1bn a year, but tax cheats and avoiders cost more like £100bn a year.
If only the tabloids would concentrate as strongly on the big cheats.

Families with a long history of unemployment will need re-education.

However, in the present recession, there is a scarcity of jobs, and the indigent will be the last to get a job when one becomes available.

Therefore it makes more sense to concentrate on providing jobs for them as wants one, namely through the Green Wage Subsidy.

The Fat Tax is a good thing, something I put in Bills of Health. It is an instance of Polluter Pays - in line with personal responsibility. You put a product on the market which harms people, you pay for the harm you cause. Need a Sugar Tax too.

V, are you sure you didn't get Supplier and consumer the wrong way round?

[Update] Coincidentally, the excellent Unlearning Economics website started writing about libertarianism at the same time as I started this. Theirs is much better. It is here.

Sympathy for Death

2011-12-14T14:39:00.001Z

To you
Whose head is red with stones
I bring you peace

To you
Whose lungs are filled with foetid water
I bring you peace

To you
Whose skin is licked with agonies of flame
I bring you peace

To you
Whose limbs and flesh are torn by energetic lead
I bring you peace

To you, small one,
Whose belly swells with lack of food
I bring you light and blessing.

To me
Met with a universal fear, there is no peace,
Just knowledge of the way things are.

By staying out, Cameron Gives a signal of no confidence in the Euro

2011-12-13T15:01:00.000Z

Further to my piece here on Cameron's isolation, it has to be said, to be fair, that it was a tough call for Cameron to join in the Euro ship at this point. Since the inception of the Euro as a single currency, everyone has been pointing out that a single currency only works if there is a single fiscal regime governing taxation and spending policies in all the participants. Commentators have pointed out that by being apart from the euro, we have ways of sorting out our financial problems which include the possibility of devaluing our currency, something that is not available to Ireland and Greece.

What Merkozy have been trying to do is to stop the euro horse, take it out of its harness, turn it round and re-couple it to the cart this time the right way round so that it is pulling the fiscal cart, not trying to push it. If you see what I mean.

For Cameron to have signed up with the 27 would still not have committed him to the Euro itself. He would be there with 10 others also not in the Euro - but at least he would have been in there. By staying out, he was giving a signal of no confidence in the Euro project. To have joined would have sent a confidence signal at a time when the markets are looking for exactly that.

The euro plunged in value after the euro summit, and some if not all of that plunge is down to Cameron's decision, because it signified that there is serious non-unanimity in the EU.

This may be seen as possibly the first ever case of a rat refusing to board a sinking ship. OK. But the fact remains that the rat is sitting in a small tender irrevocably tied to the good ship Euro, and if the ship goes down, it is going to drag the tender, complete with rat, down with it.

So it may have been a tough call, but by refusing to join up, for spurious City of London reasons, Cameron has chosen to be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Alchemy of Water & Wine By Rudolph Lewis

2011-12-13T12:51:00.000Z

Rudy runs the Nathaniel Turner website. He has kindly given me permission to print his poem here.

i mastery & security

Whose gold is this? challenge the poets

of the South, in that golden key that opens

the golden door to Paradise that fruitful

land closed to fairy tales of Science

& Time. Its hollow ridges, roaring cataracts.

No matter. Centuries, millennia are

behind us, a sloping mellow shade, a swarm

of fireflies. An alien, I’m moved to tears.

Her cheek was thin & pale, her eyes hung

mute. I fell upon my knees & kissed moments

of golden sands, the bugle horn sounded, glowing

hands smote chords of might, the spirit dawned

in dark hazel eyes. She Goddess of Water

flushed rosy red like the northern night, her

bosom shook with a storm of sighs by my

obeisance. She’s life, crimson as a robin

tender as fingers on a mother’s breast.

ii courage & forgetfulness

Stirring fanciful visions, the chord of

self trembles out of sight, touching gateways

of a barren shore. Come to me: kiss me: take

my hand, let’s roll in silent embrace. No

that is not it at all—only mad men sleep

with goddesses, these fancy fathoms of

tangled braids nourish grow coarse as clay

.We are better than Dog, dearer than Horse

wiser than Clown who drags down with novel

force, eyes glazed heavy with wine. Gold gilds.

Fool’s head whose heart is at the root of bitter

fruit, I pluck Traitor from my bosom. I die.

iii purification & fertility

My Beloved, better no trader boat ever

floated a European flag, yanked from

honest Nature’s rule. Would there be now

shallow hearts, puppets, servile tongues

preaching down a daughter’s heart, jingling

guineas of hurt snarling at heels. Thickets

whisper wants & lies that warp living truth

We scorn comfort for the poet’s song. This age

of tears have left me dry, the clanging discord

of crows flapping. Must we drug our memories

put to proof rain is on the roof? Dogs hunt us

in dreams. Staring at the wall, the lamp flickers

shadows rise & fall, tender voices cry. Hang of

the heavy-fruited tree, the spirit leaps within

iv slapstick & frolic

There’s no shame in love, whether the Beloved

is goddess or savage of burning mellow moons.

I will not hide from life; I will cling to lips

that drain trouble dry. I fear not my weakness

though a market of suitors overflow her

court. They fall & roll upon the ground.

I get sick & tired the way the world talks to

a supple jointed people about the magic

sails of common sense, the awe of nods

& winks, a world bounded more and more by

war drums. But that is no matter. Shouting

knots of stillness & rest, sunlight will yet leap

rainbows & brooks, shower a hungry people.

Cameron's isolation due to defective thinking about impact of EU FTT on City.

2011-12-11T18:47:00.002Z

Cameron's idiosyncratic decision to place being sent to Coventry at the heart of his European policy has two main motives, both based on party politics.

He had to appease his right wingers, but also he was obliged to obey the wishes of the City of London, which has bankrolled the Conservative Party to the tune of £42million (more than 50% of its income) since Dave has been leader.

Central to rationalisiation of his decision was the argument that the EU intended to bring in a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT, aka Robin Hood Tax, Tobin tax), and this would penalise the UK because of its realtively higher relaince on finance. The City provides 11% of the UK tax take, and is the biggest single contributer.

Camerons hypothesis is that this tiny tax on transactions would cause traders to use stock exchanges which do not have such a tax, which would harm the City, the UK economy, and above all, harm the Conservative Party.

The next few weeks will be an experiment that will test this hypothesis.

If there is no significant shift away from EU stock markets following introduction of the FTT, his hypothesis falls.
If loads of financial transactions come our way from Europe because they are cheaper here, then he will claim he was right.

But even if he was right, he was still wrong.
Wrong, because he may lose - wait for it - the custom of the multinationals as a result of his little flaunt.
Wrong, because he should have agreed to the FTT, on condition that the EU immediately took the lead in securing a Global Agreement on Taxation in the June 2012 Mexico G20 summit.

Admittedly, hhat would give the traders a few months to shop around, which may cost the EU stock markets a billion or two. Or not, as the case may be.

This would still be a good price to pay for a deal that could make the difference between global chaos and global stability.

The crucial point is that by putting the City on the line, he automatically becomes properly motivated to set up an effective a global reaction to the global economic crisis, a proper global tax framework to match the globalisation of trade.

If PM David Cameron had taken this course, he would have bestrode, or possibly bestridden, the financial world like a mighty David Colossus, leading the world into a sunny future where the financial services, the multinationals and the super rich make a fair contribution to the society they depend on.

Instead, he is sitting in the corner of a little party at Chequers, complete with paper hats and hooters, sucking his thumb and basking in a rare flutter of approval from the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party (prop. CityOfLondon).

If that's a good call, I'm a banana.

If Globalised Economy, then Globalised Tax Framework

2011-12-10T18:44:00.001Z

The whole world financial setup is in severe danger of sinking in a quicksand of debt.

Not surprising, given they way private financial corporations create money.

The global economy are in a very dangerous position, but there is a relatively simple solution: tax the rich.

Close off the channels that enable corporations to avoid tax, by requiring them to present their accounts in a transparent way.
Impose a Financial Transaction Tax.
Close the tax havens.

There is one main reason that these measures are not already in place.
The "I'm Off Then" threat.
The simple three-word phrase guaranteed to block any attempt to tax corporations.
Govt: We're going to tax you.
Corporation: I'm Off Then.

There is a simple counter to this: Global Taxation Framework for Multi-National (Trans-National) Corporations.

The economists have never ceased to sing the praises of the "Globalised Economy". How wonderful it is to create all that wealth for everyone. Well the Golbalised Economy is evidently in need of a Globalised Tax Framework.

"Framework" because there will be latitude for individual governments to pick which numbers to fill in on its demands. Local variability. But nevertheless, overall, a global regime is logical, just, and could be a good first step to bringing the world economy back to a stable state.

Which way should Investment go in future?

2011-12-08T22:28:00.001Z

The markets need to calm down for their own sake.

Mr Money Man, cool down, relax, and have a little think.

The world economy is a single, if highly complex, system. That means that every part of the global economy is interrelated to every other part of the global economy, to a greater or lesser degree.

Every part. That includes you, MMM.

The markets have to realise that they are an integral part of this economy. If the world economy crashes, they crash. Suicides went up during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but it was the stockbroker class who had the highest suicide rates. If countries go down the pan, the it will not be long before share indices go swirling down after them. It is true that money can move to other countries, but if the interwovenness of the situation means that other countries in turn are reduced to inactivity, the total amount of activity in the world will become less as the money available to becomes more. That way lies global inflation.

Do you want to watch your millions dwindle in front of your very eyes year after year, MMM?

The markets depend on flourishing national economies that can provide happy industrious workers and a stable environment, free from civil disorder, arson and bombings and allied unpleasantnesses.

Many would say that markets depend on flourishing national economies as wolves depend on flourishing herds of caribou, or viruses depend on a living host cell. But wolves do not kill the whole herd, and only dumb viruses kill their host.

However we choose to view it, the fact is that it is not in the markets interest for the world economy to collapse.

Of course, it is possible for an investor to pursue this strategy or that strategy to survive a big downturn, rather as a surfer might fantasise about surfing his way out of a tsunami. Some few traders might even succeed. But the fact remains that by definition, in a Depression, the total market value falls.

Mr Money Man - it is not in your interest to bring the palace in which you dine so splendidly crashing around your ears.

I know that you can talk forever about why it you are nervous of buying wobbly bonds. I know you have an infinite number of words to say, and I know you are very clever and confident in your own abilities, but the fact remains - if the world economy crashes, remember that you, Mr Money Man, you are on the passenger list too.

The market needs confidence. It needs something it can believe in.

Warren Buffet has found something. He has invested in $2,000,000,000 ( $two billion) in solar power.
As the link says, WB is not infallible. But he is not an idiot. He has understood that all the energy ever used by humankind (apart from an vanishingly small contribution from geothermal and nuclear power) comes from the sun - as wood, coal, food, wind, wave, hydro, and tide. All from the sun, with a bit of help from the moon in the case of tidal energy.

WB has made his move. The Money Men should top and think. Not only are they part of the economic system, they are also part of an ecological system too. Renewables are part of the green economy. What else forms part of the green economy?

Green means sustainable in the fullest possible way. Sustainability has become a bit of a two-dimensional buzz-word. Think of it as existence in your childrens' time.

Markets need confidence. They need to know which way things will go. At the same time, they influence the way things go.

Markets are strange, shadowy things, an aggregate of individual beliefs and actions. At present, the chief belief is that things could easily go very badly, and that helps to ensure that things go very badly. On the other hand, if they realise that there is a future for the world economy based on solar derived power systems, they may help to bring that about. If they have confidence in the capability for solar technologies and all the other activities offered by the green economy, they can help bring it about.

I'm not stupid by the way. I'm not saying this is going to happen tomorrow. I'm just saying that strong ideas are powerful, and the market is a place where ideas can spread virally. Traders are not all stupid. There are traders, just as in every other trade, who have understood the First Great Green Truth - that it is unwise to shit in your bed.

Lack of confidence causes anxiety, impulsiveness, and even misplaced anger, all of which can adversely affect decision making.

On the other hand, having a sense of purpose, a sense of direction, of being part of a great construction, this gives confidence.

So have a think, Mr Money Man. Think Sustainability.

Austerity or Stimulus?

2011-12-07T10:19:00.002Z

What is the best way to extract the global economy from the present serious debt crisis? This is the question posed by every news comment programme, and it is very clear that the experts do not have any answers.

Austerity is the orthodox prescription. It is a simple concept:

Government spending more than it is receiving in taxes?
Then Government must spend less.

This hits the poor, by reducing services and adding to the ranks of the unemployed, and it hits the economy by damaging private firms who service the public sector, and therefore reducing total tax take. By widening the rich poor gap, we compound the social problems and lay up more demonstrations, riots and strikes in the future.

So austerity is simple, but worse than useless.

It is like a mediaeval physician who tries to cure anaemia with a course of bloodletting.

So what is the alternative to austerity?

The first principle is Keynesian stimulus. In 2011 this means Green Keynesian stimulus, primarily centred on energy conservation and renewable energy. This has the attraction of taking people out of fuel poverty, securing our energy needs, blunting the malign effects of Peak Oil, and addressing climate change - a very attractive set of attractions.

But how can the stimulus be paid for? Conservatives argue very strongly that we cannot borrow our way out of debt.

There are three interlocking answers to this challenge.

First, Green Wage Subsidy is an ultra-low cost way of getting people off benefit and into good, constructive green work without any compulsion.

Second, getting the rich to pay their fair share of taxation will overcome the deficit and bring in enough to pay for any stimulus.

Third, by terminating the monopoly of private financial corporations on the creation of money, Government, acting in the interests of the people, can escape the ever deepening circle of debt, and can create money to provide the necessary stimulus.

Should Greens back the Merkozy Plan for Europe?

2011-12-05T18:17:00.001Z

As I see it (and I may be wrong, and certainly not telling the whole story) Merkozy are following an impeccable logic.

To preserve the Euro, while at the same time guaranteeing failing economies within the Eurozone (EZ), it is necesary to bring about fiscal union, as in common tax laws.

Failure to preserve the Euro would bring about the end of the world as we know it.

Therefore fiscal union it is.

That's the logic, like it or not.

We can confidently expect that the mighty Eurosceptic Right are not going to like it.
So in that case, they are just going to have to lump it, because the the alternative, as far as I know, is global economic malaise. Global recession. A Great Depression.

Maybe I'm being a wishy-washy bleeding heart soft headed liberal treehugger greenie here, but I think this is an outcome to be avoided.

Maybe we should welcome the downfall of Capitalism (whatever that is), and join Nigel Farage in calling for its immediate death through doing whatever we can to disrupt closer European Union as a response to the economic crisis.

Unfortunately, I see a big economic crash as causing huge pain, chiefly manifested as unemployent, but with risks of crime, conflict, social disquiet, riots, attempted revolutions, international quarrels, wars and even, God forbid, nuclear war.

This tips me personally towards trying to fix the present system, by rapid introduction of reforms, as follows:

Global Financial Transaction Tax Agreement
Global closure of tax havens
Trans-National corporations acounts transparency
Stimulus not Austerity as the way to renew broken economies

Austerity measures are toxic in a depression. It is necessary to stimulate the economy, but the block to this approach is that we are up to our necks in debt, so we need a very low cost approach to stimulus. It would ideally work equally for both public and private employers. It must be an investment in the future, since we have got to hand on something other than debt to our children.

That is a tough set of specifications. Hmm...Ah yes. The Green Wage Subsidy.

There are many other measure to be added, from controlling TNCs to living on a low income, but I can't cover everything in one posting.

So, on balance I reckon that we should back the Merkozy Plan, but insist that it is followed by radical reforms to terminate the haemorrhage of wealth from the pockets of the 99% into the accounts of the 1%.

I could be wrong, but it feels right to me.

That monetary reform debate

2011-12-05T12:11:00.000Z

I have been debating money creation for a few years now. I find that the most adamant opponents of any suggestion that banks create money through issuing loans are accountants and bankers. This is true both within the Green Party and in the real world too.

There is a distinct tendency for them to be pretty ad hominem in the debate, pouring scorn on the idea that money is not created by the Central Bank, and implying that since accountants are happy with the way things are, there is no debate to be had, and that anyone who disagrees needs to read economics.

This is like a doctor telling a patient who asks for a second opinion that the patient needs to study medicine first. This is not the case. It is possible for a patient to get accurate knowledge of his own case without studying the whole of medicine.

The problem with reading an economics textbook is - which one? Classical? Neo-classical? Marxian? Austrian? Chicago? Keynesian? Post Keynesian?

There are so many schools of economics that it is clear that it is not an objective science. It cannot be, since human judgements and human actions are an integral part of the field.

The key argument of the defenders of the status quo seems to be that money is created by the Money Multiplier, and so everything is OK.

This is a non-argument. The money multiplier simply states that if £100 is deposited in a bank with a Fractional Reserve (or equivalent) of 20%, £814 can be lent out. The 100 has turned into 814. £714 of money in circulation has been created by bank deposits and loans.

So the core argument of the accountants is the same as the core argument of the monetary reformers. Money is created in the process of banks making loans.

The second argument is that the money is created by the Central Banks. It is true that the central banks authorise the creation of money by the banks, allowing them to do so by setting reserve requirements and capital adequacy, but I challenge any accountant to identify the cash flows that indicate Bank of England ends each the day by creating the amount of money that banks have loaned out that day.

NHS. RIP. Thanks to Daily Mail type journalists

2011-12-02T11:09:00.001Z

In a mood of sadness and grief I went to see my MP John Penrose (Con, Tourism Minister) yesterday, about the NHS Bill.

I just told him about my life spent in service of the NHS , which for all its faults, is infinitely better and more efficient than the US system. Lansley's reforms are taking us rapidly towards that system. I told him how sad it made me feel that people are going to lose it.

The last regular option for us is to get 100k signatures on this e-petition which calls of the Government to drop the NHS Bill.
It has 14k signatures at the moment.
It could be done, with massive viral circulation, but it doesn't look hopeful.

There's a Drop the Bill website here with some good info.

But John Penrose told me it is all done and dusted, will come back from the Lords, and then get Royal Assent.

I'm going to try to find out what Royal Assent means in terms of procedure. Clearly the Queen has to sign it. Do they post it to her, or is the Bill taken to Buckingham Palace in a sedan chair or something?

If so, we could blockade Buckingham Palace with our bodies.

We could also write to the Queen and ask her to refuse to sign, or at least insist that Andrew Lansley personally holds her right forearm and moves it about to make a part-Royal squiggle that could be challenged in the courts.

Dreams of course. It is impossible that the British people, misinformed as they are by a corporate media, would bestir themselves to defend the NHS, turning out in numbers to block the loss of the best thing that the UK has ever done.

It is all very sad. I feel sad and angry - and the anger primarily has to be directed to the journalistic profession, who did not convey true information about the NHS Bill to their readers and listeners.

When people find out what has happened, in 2 or 3 years, they are going to be really angry. Really Angry. Which will probably mean that lots of people get hurt, and will have to wait for days in a dirty crowded A&E department waiting to be treated.

New wiki on low-income living

2011-11-29T19:48:00.000Z

Today was spent setting up a wiki on living on a low budget.
It is here.
I will be almost embarrassingly grateful if anyone comes over to look at it because I know peeps are shy of wikis.
They shouldn't be.

Banking crisis in 100 words

2011-11-28T13:35:00.000Z

The people are the ultimate source of power.

We delegate our power to Government to provide services for us.

Government delegates the power of money creation to banks, while guaranteeing banks if they foul up.

Which they do.

Fair enough, we're all human, anyone can make a mistake*. Though banks, unlike the rest of humans, escape adverse consequences.

But when the financial markets come back at Government saying:

"You've got too much debt, you must cut services to the people"

That is not a "fair enough" situation.
That is completely unacceptable.

So that is why I back the #Occupy movement.

Schmittner and Climate Sensitivity: no cheer for the sceptics

2011-11-25T11:01:00.001Z

A new paper in Science that looked at surface temperatures in the last Ice Age 21,000 years ago has concluded that climate sensitivity (CS) to doubled CO2 is 1.7-2.6*C, with a median of 2.3*C.

Regular readers of the Mabinogogiblog know better than most that climate sensitivity is the key to climate science. There is no reasonable doubt that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that it has increased due to human activity, and that the increase will commit the planet to around 1*C of warming. This is all textbook physics, and you have to be a fundamentalist of some sort to deny it.

The remaining uncertainty is over Climate Sensitivity - the degree to which the planetary system will warm in response to this 1*C.

I use the Three Sleeping Babies test to illustrate it.

Climate "sceptics" are desperate to get a low figure for CS, because without it their case is without merit. So they may be expected to trumpet Schmittner's work as the final final death blow to the last ever nail in climate sciences coffin.

In fact, it is not, and if anything, it is a further blow for the sceptics, who posit a CS value of about 0.5*C. Schmittner gives a median value of 2.3, with a range of 1.7 - 2.6.

The 1.7 is way beyond the needs of the sceptics, while the 2.6 has a comfortable overlap with the IPCC figure of 2 - 4.5.

Schmittner's work is tight, but there are necessary limitations on study of the planet at a remove of 21,000 years that mean his is not the last word on the subject. He was necessarily not able to study all the factors operating to long ago, and CS in a cold planet may not be the same as in todays warmer planet. And he has not yet been subject to critical scrutiny of his maths &c.

Given that the IPCC figure is confirmed by several independent lines of inquiry, the latest work serves to firm up certainty for CS, and serves also to stuff the climate sceptic position of 0.5*C further into the bin reserved for failed hypotheses.

If only journalists and commentators could get their heads around the scientific method and the issue of CS, we could move forward with protecting our children's lives.

OccupyBristol workshop reveals Dictator-friendly Communist Position

2011-11-21T11:01:00.000Z

I went to #OccupyBristol last Saturday for a workshop on the "Crisis of Capitalism".
There were about 12 people there, and it was led by a guy I think by the name of Eric, leading a group of 4-5 allies, (they were not occupiers per se) who gave a textbook old-school Communist analysis: Capitalism is totally evil, and must be replaced by the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Three or four of us put forward the view that the word "capitalism" needs to be defined, and that we are against crony-capitalism, greed capitalism, and free market fundamentalism. We are not against the liberty of an individual to use his or her own money to meet a genuine need in society, and to take a fair and reasonable profit from success. For instance, we are not against the freedom of individuals to use their redundancy money to set up a business in providing insulation for domestic property.

This was all overridden by the insistence that Capitalism itself is totally wrong and must be overthrown, by violence if necessary.

This black/white, right/wrong analysis is exactly what we find in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, which looks at the belief systems that underpin individual psychological dysfunction. People who carry these absolute distinctions end up with trouble relating to reality, because much of their psychic energy is taken up in reacting to perceived absolutes, either trying to live up to impossible standards, or in reacting to perceived absolutes found in every aspect of the established economic order.

Absolutism negates any single practical reform, or set of economic reforms. There are no policy changes to be requested; only a complete replacement of the whole system from top to bottom, and replacement by the dictatorship of the proletariat, will suffice.

It emerged that Eric approved of Stalin, Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad of Syria and AhmediNajad of Iran.
Four bloodstained dictators.

It is very clear that the entire global #Ocupy movement is against dictatorship. We may in the UK have one of the weakest forms of democracy going, where participation is limited to the use of an inefficient and unrepresentative FPTP electoral system every four years, to elect a government that will be substantially in thrall to the trans-national corporations. But even this defective system is better than outright political dictatorship, because it gives us the power to turn out one set of individuals every four years, even though it means replacing them with another set of individuals with substantially the same policies. The advantage is that if an individual or party is in power for too long, power goes to the head, distorting thinking, abolishing humility and care for anything other than the interests of the ruling party.

I know that the workshop was non-representative of the #Occupy movement as a whole, but it does show the problem posed by the designation by the media of Occupy an anti-capitalist movement, rather than an anti-inequality movement.

If we are to own the label "anti-capitalist", the term needs to be rigorously defined as free-market capitalism, neo-liberal or neo-conservative capitalism. We are not against individual freedom to trade and create work that benefits society and environment.

In particular, I think there is a need now for the influential eco-socialist group within the Green Party to build a clear firewall between their position and the position outlined above by Eric, by insisting that they are against all dictatorships, even dictatorships that may have taken up a position antagonistic to Western Mega-Capitalism.

Nuclear Subsidies EU challenge

2011-11-16T11:08:00.000Z

Pasted from an email:
LAWYERS SAY NUCLEAR SUBSIDIES MAY BE UNLAWFUL

Lawyers working with the campaigning group Energy Fair say that some existing and proposed new subsidies for nuclear power in the UK may be unlawful under EU laws designed to promote fair competition between businesses.

A formal complaint about those subsidies is now being prepared for submission to the European Commission.

Research by Energy Fair has shown that there are 11 existing or proposed new subsidies for the nuclear industry. Withdrawal of any one of them, via legal or political action, is likely to make new nuclear power plants uncompetitive.

“Our research is in line with what others have been saying” says Dr Gerry Wolff, Coordinator of the Energy Fair group. “MPs have already raised concerns about provisions in the recent Finance Act that will produce windfall profits for the nuclear industry. The Government itself says that the industry will benefit by £50 million per year, and calculations by WWF and Greenpeace show that the subsidy could be as much as £3.43 billion between 2013 and 2026”.

-----------------
NOTES

1 Contact: Dr Gerry Wolff PhD CEng, Coordinator, Energy Fair, nuclearsubsidies@gmail.com, +44 (0) 1248 712962, +44 (0) 7746 290775, www.energyfair.org.uk, 18 Penlon, Menai Bridge, Anglesey, LL59 5LR, UK.

2 Lawyer Dr Dörte Fouquet, with a lawyer colleague, is working with the Energy Fair group in preparing a formal complaint to the European Commission. She is senior partner in the law firm BBH (www.beckerbuettnerheld.de/en/) and Director of the European Renewable Energies Federation (EREF, www.eref-europe.org/).

3 The proposed action by Energy Fair, to make a formal complaint to the European Commission about subsidies for nuclear power, is endorsed by the following people and organisations: Tom Burke CBE, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Eurosolar, Jean Lambert MEP, Caroline Lucas MP, Nuclear Free Local Authorities, Michael Meacher MP, People Against Wylfa B (PAWB), Jonathon Porritt CBE, Solarcentury, Sortir du Nucléaire, Keith Taylor MEP, and Urgewald.

4 Reports about MPs’ concerns about subsidies for nuclear power include:

“Lib Dem MPs set to rebel against nuclear power 'subsidy'” (The Guardian, 2011-07-01, www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/01/lib-dem-rebel-nuclear-power-subsidy).
“MPs attack government's covert subsidies for nuclear industry” (The Guardian, 2011-05-16, www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/16/nuclear-energy-industry-select-committee).
“UK breaks promise on nuclear power subsidies, say MPs” (BBC News, 2011-05-16, www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13393732).

5 Research by the Energy Fair group has identified 11 existing or proposed subsidies for nuclear power. They are summarised in “Forms of support for nuclear power” (PDF, www.mng.org.uk/ns) and described more fully in the following two documents:

“Subsidies for nuclear power in the UK government’s proposals for electricity market reform” (PDF, www.mng.org.uk/emrdoc).
“Nuclear Subsidies” (PDF, www.mng.org.uk/nsubsidies).

6 With regard to the ‘carbon price floor’ (now part of the Finance Act 2011):

In Parliament, the then Economic Secretary, Justine Greening MP, said on the 9th of May 2011: “The existing nuclear sector is likely to benefit by an average of £50 million per annum to 2030 due to higher wholesale electricity prices.”

According to calculations by WWF and Greenpeace, the measure could result in windfall profits for existing nuclear generators of up to £3.43 billion between 2013 and 2026 (“Energy bills to rise as nuclear gets £3.43 billion for doing nothing”, WWF press release, 2011-02-14, www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/press_centre/?4629/Energy-bills-to-rise-as-nuclear-gets-343bn-for-doing-nothing).

Occupy Bristol and the Air Ambulance

2011-11-15T17:00:00.000Z

In view of the controversy about the Occupy Bristol protest on College Green,
I have emailed the Wings Aeromedical Group here, along these lines:

I would be grateful if you could let me know how many times College Green has been used for a landing site for an air ambulance in the last 10 years. Is it indeed a suitable site? Would it not be a good idea to adapt the roof of the BRI to act as a helipad?

We must accept that even if the answer is zero, there is still a finite chance that College Green could be required tomorrow. In that case, the tents could be removed in 3 minutes. In fact the downwash from the rotors would probably remove them automatically.

The Air Ambulance thing is another bullsh*t reason to be used against Occupy, like the faux Health and Safety arguments used at St Pauls and OccupyWallSt.

Funny how the Right rails against H&S, but is then prepared to use it when convenient.

What can we do to stop Assad?

2011-11-15T14:00:00.000Z

Eight months into the Syrian uprising, Bashar al-Assad has killed around 3-4000 of his opponents, using his army to fire live rounds. With agonising slowness, the international community has responded, the latest being his expulsion from the Arab League.

Criticism is piling in on him, with even bloodstained dictatorships like China and Bahrein voicing concerns.

Calls for him to step down are increasing, the latest and most significant coming from Jordan.

The USA has imposed sanctions, freezing some assets, and imposing a ban on some Syrian petroleum products. The EU has imposed a ban on Syrian oil imports, a travel ban on a few Syrian officials, and an arms embargo.

Eight months, thousands dead, and slowly the response comes in, piecemeal.

We have learned from Libya that armed intervention is not an appealing prospect. But on the other hand, we cannot just stand back and watch the mass murder continue.

We have learned from others that dictators cling to power, and even when they hard dead or gone, their regime tends to survive.

What can be done?

First, we need a framework of international law that identifies regimes that are in the process of developing into dictatorship. Kagame of Rwanda is a case in point, and the Commonwealth, to its shame, is in denial over him.

The Green Party's Global Index of Human Rights is an effective instrument to nudge rulers away from the dictatorship pathway, working on a continuous basis. But when we get to a situation where live rounds are being used on unarmed civilians, the response needs to be shifted up a gear. We need a legal, defined response based in international law.

The live round point should become the threshold of legitimacy. Once a regime has crossed this boundary, a set of responses need to be rolled out.

A legal case should be opened, which will probably lead to a trial in absentia.

Then specific measures will need to be put in place. These are from the Index Report:

We need therefore to move to a framework of international rules of governance that will help all dictators,

indeed all rulers, to learn that certain courses of actions will certainly lead to unwanted effects on their

own freedom to act for their own personal advancement. Specified forms of misconduct will be matched

with a tariff of penalties which are applied in a measured, stepwise and consistent basis, in order to avoid

the protection that they often obtain from allies in the UNSC.

There are a number of identifiable steps on the road to dictatorship. For example:
1. Banning critical newspapers and media
2. Banning opposition parties
3. Ignoring the result of a democratic election (e.g. Burma and Zimbabwe)
4. Intimidation at the polling booths
5. Lavish expenditure on palaces for the dictator
6. Disproportionate spending on arms

Each of these steps, and others not mentioned here, can be legally defined, and each could have a sanction attached to it. Of instance,
· Banning critical newspapers and media could be countered by sanctions on the import of the materials the Government itself needs to print its newspapers.
· Banning opposition parties could lead to financial support to opposition parties whose aims are judged to be helpful to the welfare of the people of the country.
· Ignoring the result of a democratic election could result in a ban in foreign travel for members of the regime.
· Intimidation at the polling booths could result in the regime being denied eligibility to serve on appropriate UN councils, for example, the Human Rights Council .
· Lavish expenditure on palaces for the dictator could result in freezing of appropriate assets of the regime.

If the regime takes action to retrace its steps, the sanctions will be promptly withdrawn.

This is based on sound psychology. It is well established that the best way to modify unwanted behaviour is to set a consistent and fair framework of punishments for unwanted behaviour and rewards for appropriate behaviour.

The central point is that these measures will be rolled out swiftly and uniformly, administered by the UN.
It is based on sound psychology, because behaviour can be modified in a clear, distinct and fair legal framework which is consistently applied. They need to understand that unwanted actions will meet with untoward consequences for them, and desired actions will be rewarded.

Finally, at all stages, the offer will be laid out for the regime to be able to go into exile and have charges against them dropped when they leave voluntarily. If they hang on to the bitter end, they will face justice. If they bail out, they will face comfortable exile.

These measures have a trade off between justice and pragmatism. It is distasteful to allow criminals to escape, but this is politics, and political criminals escape every day. The pragmatic result - saving thousands of lives, saving the economy and the society, is the desired end result.

Faced with a static situation of this arrangement, the leaders could sit tight for as long as they think they can get away with it. So to make it dynamic, the number of those under sanction and investigation should be raised every week. First the ruler, then his inner circle, then a widening circle of the regime's supporters will be implicated. This means that a growing number of the regime's officials and supporters will begin to murmur that they should recognise that the game is up.

There, in outline, is what we should do to about the likes of Assad. It's not going to be easy to get it accepted within the UN. But then, it's not easy to sit and watch mass murder take place every day.

Tobin Tax stalled by the Coalition: what now?

2011-11-11T14:20:00.000Z

To David Gauke
Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury
HM Treasury
1 Horse Guards Parade
London SW1A 2HQ

11.11.11

Dear David Gauke

Thank you for your letter of 21 October about tax avoidance.

I am pleased to learn that the Government is concerned about tax avoidance and evasion, and is strongly committed to increasing tax transparency. I welcome the call from the recent G20 for progress on non-cooperative jurisdictions and tax havens.

However, I am very concerned that the UK has opposed the installation of a Financial Transactions Tax within the EU on the grounds that the traders would (a) pass it on to the general economy, and would (b) move their operations to more lax jurisdictions.

It can be argued that this is an exaggeration of the actual risks.
But the Treasury's position makes a stronger argument for these measures to be brought in on a global basis.

In a globalised economy, it makes sense to have a globalised tax system.

The tax take from the FTT could then be used as Tobin intended it, as a fund for helping impoverished countries.

We are all painfully aware that there is a global financial crisis in operation. It makes absolutely no sense to impose austerity measures on country after country, measures that exacerbate low growth and/or recession, while vast amounts of national wealth are being siphoned out of national economies into tax havens.

In the UK, a full tax take on the richest 1% could neutralise the deficit, and the same would apply in countries like Greece, Italy and Spain.

You will be aware that several billionaires, starting with Warren Buffet, have put on record that some of their income streams are taxed at a lower rate than the average worker.

Global tax measures would be complex and difficult to bring in, but if the political will were present, it could be arranged to be ratified at the next G20. And the desperate global economic condition should supply that political will. It is a pity that the UK did not agree to the EU bringing in a FTT, since it would have motivated the UK to lead the world in bringing these tax measures in on a global basis.

I would be grateful if you would give this proposal serious examination, and hope that you will agree that it makes excellent economic sense.

Sincerely

Dr Richard Lawson
cc John Penrose MP

Organic farming is superior to chemical farming overall

2011-11-10T11:24:00.000Z

Here is a link to a serious report by the Rodale Institute in the USA which shows that organic farming not only increases soil health, water and nutrient retention, but also has higher yeilds and lower energy input than chemical based farming.

Occupy in One Word: ENOUGH!

2011-11-09T14:36:00.004Z

It's a great word, because it sums up the two sides of the #Occupy message.

Enough as in

No more.
We've had enough.
We've taken it up to here.
We want no more of the effluent that our rulers are throwing at us.
No more of the broken society, the lack of even handed justice, the ugliness
Enough of the news:
Enough of wars, of bad economics, of unemployment, poverty and homelessness
Enough of crime, of miscarriages of justice, of deaths covered up whether at Deepcut Barracks or elsewhere.
Enough of repressive policing.
Enough of the people taking the blame for the faults of the bankers.
Enough of the cuts, the student loans, and the 1001 cuts affecting women, children, poor and elderly
Enough of making ends meet while vast amounts of money are being hoovered out of the national economy into tax havens.

The economic system we live in is slowing up like a computer with a virus in it, a virus which is doing its own thing, taking up memory and processing power.

A virus which needs to be removed. A bit of software that needs to be identified and quarantined.

It is important for us to realise that our enemy is not the specific people in power, even though many of them will need to lose their jobs, and some of them will need to be put through the courts.

It's not specific human individuals, it's their delusional thinking that needs to be overcome.

The virus in the prevailing mindset will run any number of scripts, but here are a few such assumptions and memes to look for:

Money is more important than whether everyone has food on the table. (It isn't)
There is no such thing as society (Yes there is)
Individualism is a valid ideology. (No it isn't. We are social animals).
It is necessary to expand economically forever (Impossible)
If you try to change the system it will break (It's going to break anyway)
Inequality is not a problem. (Yes it is)
If you try to tax the rich, they will leave (Not if it is done globally)
Leave it to the people who know. They will sort it out. (We have. They haven't)
If you regulate the corporations, they will leave. (Not if it is done globally)
The News of the World is a little local difficulty (No it isn't)
Protest is useless (Not so. Most if not all of our rights and freedoms have come from protest, and if all the people who say "Protest doesn't work" would join the protest, it would succeed)

And so on.

Enough of the malfunctioning software.

But what's the remedy? How do we quarantine and/or neutralise this virus?

The solution can be put in the same word as the problem: Enough.
The concept of Enough, running like a piece of software in all of our heads, is what is needed.
We need to learn how to appreciate when we have had enough.

Enough to drink, enough to eat, enough to live on.
We need to know when there are enough humans in the world.
Enough noise
Enough toys
Enough stuff.

Now this changeover from the mania of 21st century consumerism is going to take a bit of work, we can't deny it.
In fact it is going to take a lot of work.
A lot.

Which is good, because we have loads of people out of work.
The Green Wage Subsidy will get us going on that work.

It will need a lot of thought, but there is no shortage of books and reports on society and economy.
Here's a 15-point starter.
We just need to make a synthesis of the many threads and proposals to bring about a more equal society.

And we need to create channels of communication between the people and our Government. Lobbying of MPs is OK, but it needs to be amplified, and we need to establish a regular, continuous conversation between the people and Government, where the debate and the information can be passed on directly.

There is a model for this in Neal Lawson's idea of a Peoples Jury.

There's much much more to be said about the changes taking place globally, but it's nice to know that they can be summed up in one word: Enough.

Global economy: definitely on the slide

2011-11-08T21:30:00.001Z

The markets are about to do a massive stinky whoopsie on the carpet, and we need to take a historical view of the global financial situation.

Doug Short has an interesting graph here, showing the trend of the stock markets for 150 years. The trend is clearly upwards, but performance shows a clear swing above and below the trend line.
We have been above the trend since 1990, way above.
It is reasonable to expect and plan for a deep and prolonged swing the other way - in other words, a depression.

Green Parties would be wise to put in contingencies for this. There is plenty to be done - setting up supportive local economies, and campaigning for the Green New Deal and Green Wage Subsidy, steadily advocating the necessary measures to alleviate the symptoms of depression.

Is Nuclear Power cheaper than renewable energy?

2011-11-08T10:21:00.000Z

This is a letter from the excellent Gerry Wolff in response to yet another claim that nuclear power is cheap, this time in the Sunday Times

THE HIGH COST OF NUCLEAR POWER

Contrary to the often-repeated claim that nuclear power is cheap (“Saving Britain's economy: ditch expensive wind farms”, 6 November), it is one of the most expensive ways of generating electricity. It only seems cheap if we make wildly optimistic estimates of the cost of building nuclear plants, or assume that capital costs have been paid off, and if we ignore the enormous subsidies enjoyed by the nuclear industry all around the world.

Connie Hedegaard, the EU climate change commissioner, says that nuclear power is more expensive than offshore wind power.

The Economist has written that "More than half of the subsidies (in real terms) ever lavished on energy by OECD governments have gone to the nuclear industry."

A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists says that "Government subsidies to the nuclear power industry over the past fifty years have been so large in proportion to the value of the energy produced that in some cases it would have cost taxpayers less to simply buy kilowatts on the open market and give them away."

A report by the Insurance Forum, Leipzig, a company specialising in actuarial calculations, shows that, if the nuclear industry was required to insure fully against the cost of accidents, the price of nuclear electricity would rise by a range of values—€ 0.14 per kWh up to € 2.36 per kWh—depending on assumptions made.

Reports by the Energy Fair group show that nuclear power in the UK today benefits from 7 main types of subsidy, and the Government is proposing more.

Around the world, the average annual growth of wind power in the last 5 years has been more than 27% and the annual growth in solar power has been about 30%. In 2010, the worldwide growth of solar power was a whopping 70%. There is now abundant evidence that renewables can provide robust and reliable supplies of power, they are cheaper than nuclear power, and they can be built very much more quickly than nuclear power.

Instead of clinging to a failed technology of the past, we should be grasping the huge opportunities opening up in the clean, green technologies of the future.

Sincerely,

Dr Gerry Wolff PhD CEng

Energy Fair

www.energyfair.org.uk,

How can Government create work given the budget deficit?

2011-11-05T17:38:00.000Z

There is a discussion running on a green party e-list about the Green Wage Subsidy - a plan to stimulate work in the green sector of the economy in order to tackle unemployment directly.

One disputant argues that it is not cost-free
My answer: GWS permits the claimant to take her benefit money into green work.
The money would be paid in any case, but on condition that the recipient /does no work/ (beyone the 16 hours allowed under Earnings Disregard).
Therefore there is no extra cost to the Benefits Agency.
I will repeat that, for avoidance of doubt:
The money would be paid in any case. there is no extra cost to the Benefits Agency in the short term.

In fact, in that the recipient will not be taking the time of the benefits agency employees in filling forms, having interviews and making futile applications for non-existent jobs, there would be a saving, but this would be offset by the cost of the tribunals. Depending on how these costs balance out, there might be a small net cost at this stage.

However, this net cost would be offset by the advantages to the economy from the GWS:

1. Increased tax revenue from the green operations that are benefiting
from GWS.
2. Increased money in the local economy resulting from extra spending
power of those provided with a job by GWS.
3. Increased money in the local economy resulting from extra spending
power families lifted out of fuel poverty by insulation projects
4. Balance of payments improvements arising from less imports of carbon
energy sources
5. Qualitative improvements in health and social well-being arising
from GWS - not least in improved visual amenity from community
tidy-ups, litter picking and street furniture decoration.

The truly significant cost of GWS would come at the end of the recession, when it would be expected that the dole queues would start to shrink and social security payments to fall.
At that point, conventional economists would argue for GWS to be withdrawn.
The Green Party on the other hand would argue for retention and extension of the scheme, since that is what Citizen's Income is. We would be arguing for retention of a scheme that is already in place (pole position in other words) and one that moreover is well regarded by citizens who have benefited directly and indirectly from GWS.

I am genuinely puzzled at the opposition from within the Green Party against a scheme that:

1. Saves people from the unpleasantness and poverty implicit in
unemployment
2. Provides a cost-free stimulus to drag people out of poverty
3. Stimulates the green sector of the economy
4. saves energy and CO2 emissions
5. prepares the ground for the introduction of a full CI
6. Gives our speakers a specific and uniquely green party policy to
introduce into the national debate, a policy that helps people and
directly addresses inequality, poverty, recession, and the #Occupy
movement's concern with the totally unacceptable levels of youth
unemployment.
7. Generates a feel-good feeling in our natural allies in the green
sector of the economy.

If anyone can clear up my puzzlement, I would be very grateful.

If you are reading this, and find yourself in agreement, please respond even if only to say "I agree", since these e-list discussions often give a platform to people who oppose specific proposals, while those who may be in agreement often say nowt.

Car air filters used to monitor Fukushima pollution

2011-11-04T11:42:00.001Z

Review of radioactive pollution from Fukushima Daichi.
This is pasted in from an email that drifted into my inbox this morning.
Here's the source

http://www.fairewinds.com/
http://vimeo.com/31370998
Scientist Marco Kaltofen Presents Data Confirming Fukushima Hot Particles in the USA
by Fairewinds Associates

From Arnie Gundersen from Fairewinds.

It is October 31st, 2011. This is a video that contains scientific information that we have been wanting to share with you for a long time. Today, in Washington D.C. at 8:30 in the morning, scientist Marco Kaltofen gave a presentation to some doctors who are part of the American Public Health Association. The paper is now on our website, next to this video.

To summarize the paper, citizens, some doctors and scientists, some bloggers, some farmers, around the world provided samples to Mr. Kaltofen who analyzed them for Fukushima radiation. An example of what he found is a slide that contains air filters from cars in Japan and in the United States. Cars in the United States hardly have any radiation in their air filters. Cars in Tokyo had quite a lot, way too much. Cars in Fukushima Prefecture were incredibly radioactive.

Now I think it is important because the nuclear industry will say, well everything is radioactive and therefore we should not worry. Well, the Seattle data shows that not everything is radioactive. And it shows that the people in Japan received enormous exposures of particles into their lungs and into their digestive systems, during the course of the accident.

Another piece of information is that Fairewinds viewers were able to send in children’s shoes from Japan. Mr. Kaltofen has data that clearly show that the concentration of cesium on the kid’s shoelaces was astronomically high, around 80 disintegrations per second. What does that mean? Kids tie their shoes, their hands get radioactive and it goes into their G.I. tract. If it is on the ground, it is in the dust in the playground and it is in their lungs. I think that between the two, the air filters and the children’s shoes, it shows that there is a severe personal health problem in Japan that will manifest itself in cancers over the next 10 or 20 years.

Now Mr. Kaltofen did not just look at Japan. He set up monitoring stations in the United States as well. Two of the three monitoring stations in the United States did show hot particles in the air in April. Since then, there have not been any hot particles. But in April, it is clear that, at the worst of the accident, hot particles were wafted across the Pacific and deposited in Seattle and in Boston at least. There is also data that indicates contamination on the ground in the Cascades, which are a mountain range right up against the Pacific Ocean.

So I think we have two problems here. In Japan, there is a personal health issue and what that means is that individuals have received enough radiation that there is going to be a statistically meaningful increase in cancers in Tokyo and especially in Fukushima Prefecture.

In the United States, it is a different story. It is a public health issue and not a personal health issue. What that means is that we will never know who is the individual who got cancer from Fukushima. But we can be sure that the radiation did reach here and that there will be an increase in cancers, especially on the West Coast where the Rocky Mountains stopped most of the radiation and deposited it on the ground.

So, this paper was given to the American Public Health Association. And here it is a public health issue. We cannot run and we cannot hide. But the radiation is up and down the West Coast and then also scattered about the rest of the United States.

In Japan, it is a different story. They need to aggressively go after the contamination that has been discovered. It is so obvious on these air filters and on children’s shoes. It takes a concerted national effort, not a haphazard effort of chasing hot spots, in order to reduce the amount of radioactivity that is on the soil and in the air in Japan right now.

And the last thing the paper shows is that it is wrong to have a 10 mile evacuation planning zone. Clearly, the damage can extend out as far as Tokyo. We need to look at emergency planning and evacuations well beyond the 10 miles that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission uses here and the 12 miles that the Japanese used during the accident. You may recall that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that Americans needed to evacuate 50 miles from Fukushima at the peak of the accident. Well, if it is good enough for Americans living in Japan, that same criteria should be good enough for Americans living in the United States.

The data in Mr. Kaltofen’s paper came from citizens. It came from farmers. It came from scientists. It came from bloggers. It was an effort by individuals and not government. I think if we had relied on the government to get us this information, we never would have gotten it. So it is an important achievement for all of us, to recognize that together, using the internet, we can all provide information for scientists to use, to come to rational decisions on public policy.

#Occupy and the Banksters: Abolition or Modification?

2011-11-02T09:22:00.000Z

"Apologies for Inconvenience" - @occupyLSX

There is a nice balance between abolition and modification that applies to both the Occupy camps and to their target, the City of London.

Generic "anti-capitalists" might demand the abolition of the whole bang shoot of the City and the money markets. This absolutist solution would be resisted absolutely by the plutocrats, and they would use their superior force (the met Police) to clear the camps and repress dissent. Result: much unpleasantness that could lead to violent demonstrations further down the road, which could even, in the worst case, result in a right wing coup.

The alternative is to modify the City and the money markets through a series of reforms designed to address the deficit by closing tax loopholes and havens globally. It would start by removing the special privileges of the City by making them just another local authority through a simple amendment to the Local Government Act 1972.

The same choice applies to the camps. The authorities can try to abolish the camps through violent policing, causing anger, resentment, and social disorder. (see above).

Alternatively, they could tolerate the camps, and set up continuous round-table talks between representatives of Parliament and representatives of the people. These speakers could be chosen by ballot or even by sortition, and could feed back to the people. Maybe we need to set up a People's Parliament to collect and prioritise the feelings and ideas of the people. The talks would be long-term and continuous, and entirely equal. No more the talking down from "experts" through the media. Recent history has shown the human failings of MPs, newspapers and bankers. It is clear that the authorities do not have a solution to what is going on in the world, and that their claim to "authority" is severely compromised. They actually need help from the people, who after all are the ultimate authority in a democracy.

So we have a clear choice: either both sides take an absolutist approach, which leads to violence and disaster, or a relativist approach, which leads to dialogue, reform and a peaceful solution.

It is clear which approach sensible people would prefer.

Those Occupy Demands in Full

2011-10-31T13:04:00.001Z

The media know - or should now - what the #Occupy movement is against: Poverty, cuts, inequality, the lack of opportunity, the scandalous bonuses and immunity from prosecution for the banksters who wrecked the economy, the overweening power of the corporations, environmental degradation and 1001 other gripes.

The media want to know what solutions the protest wants. The protesters say they are working on it. The media want answers now - despite the fact that it is blatantly obvious that the Governments do not have any answers.

I offer here my own solutions, derived mainly from Green Party policy. The Green Party has been working for the past 30 years on the precise problems that move the protesters.

So here are my personal solutions. I cannot claim to speak on behalf of the #Occupy movemnt, nor even fully for the Green Party, but believe that the measures here capture the aims and aspirations of both. They do not claim to be complete, but they are a reasonable start, and hopefully will form the nucleus of an emergent Manifesto for the Occupy movement.

The aim of these changes is (a) to fill the hole in the finances not just of the UK, but of all nations, (b) to pull the economy out of recession in a Green way, and (c) to bring about more equal and sustainably prosperous economic and social conditions.

1. Close all tax havens & loopholes, globally.

We live in a globalised economy, and if follows that therefore should be a global tax structure. This will not be uniform, to allow countries to adjust rates to suit local conditions, within set limits.

The aim here is to stop the perennial threat made by big corporations in response to taxation by one country to relocate to a country with a more lax tax regime.This will enable us to roll out change #2:

2. Tax the rich

The richest 1% are taxed at far lower rates than the lowest 99%. They siphon the wealth out of the nations in which they operate into tax havens and offshore accounts. Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK estimates that in the UK these total £120 billion lost from the economy, and the Compass report In Place of Cuts proposes specific changes that will net £40 million a year - enough to pay off the interest payments on the National Debt.

Greg Philo proposes a one-off 20% wealth tax on the richest UK citizens which could offset the National Debt entirely. Radical, but radical problems ask for radical solutions.

Note that taxing the rich solves two problems: the deficit and national Debt, and also inequality, which causes many expensive social problems, as shown in Spirit Level.

3. Future Quantitative Easing to go preferentially to the Green Bank.

QE is necessary when banks are failing to make loans, but the first two bouts of QE have been ineffective in their aim of getting banks to lend again, because they have been paid into the banks, who have used it to try to fill the enormous vacuum in their accounts caused by the credit crunch and sovereign debt crisis, and to pay themselves bonuses.

By directing QE to the green investment bank, the new money will stimulate energy conservation and renewable energy generation through the Green New Deal.

the effect will be:

job creation
taking households out of fuel poverty
reducing our energy imports, thus reducing the budget deficit
assist in achieving our CO2 reduction targets

4. Introduce a Green Wage Subsidy

This allows organisations operating in the green sector of the economy (i.e. those whose effect is to benefit society or environment) to take on new employees from the Job Centres without those new employees losing their benefit. It transforms the benefit into a subsidy for the green sector. This stimulus to the economy comes cost-free, because the benefits would have been paid in any case. It acts as a precursor to the introduction of Citizen's Income.

5 . End private banking's monopoly on issuing money through debt.

It is no wonder that the UK and the world is drowning in debt, since money is created through debt.

Positive Money has set out a plan to remove this monopoly from private corporations and make money creation work to the benefit of the people. They even provide a draft Parliamentary Bill to bring this about.

6. Rein in the multi-national corporations.

Multinationals have more economic pswer and influence than many countries. At present they have many privileges in law, including legal personhood and limited liability for shareholders. This post shows how their wings can be clipped.

7. Regulate the money markets.

The present crisis can be traced to the deregulation of the financial markets, and the growth of a totally unregulated and uncontrolled derivatives market, parts of which are nothing more than Ponzi schemes according to the economist Minsky.

The first change is to separate retail and investment banking.

A comprehensive review of the derivatives market is required.

8. Impose a Tobin Tax on financial transactions, and earmark it for poverty projects.

Tobin, Robin Hood, or Financial Transaction tax is a tiny levy on each currency transaction that will both put a brake on destabilising currency transactions, and also generate huge sums in revenue that should be directed to poverty reducing schemes.

9. Cap donations to political parties

Since it is by massive donations that wealthy corporations buy influence with political parties and distort the democratic process by having more influence on elected politicians than the people who elected them. Instead, parties whose aims are consistent with law and open democracy must be funded out of general taxation in respect of their service to democracy

10. Impose limits on salary ratio of lowest/highest remuneration.
This ratio represents an immediate measure of income inequality. It can be controlled, and the Coalition Government has taken steps to introduce it in the public, but not the private sector.

11 Reform the credit ratings agencies.

These tiny organisations have a disproportionate influence on the economy. They failed to spot the causes of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, and some of their operatives appear to have indulged in insider dealing during the US downgrade.

12. Cancel Trident and reduce military spending worldwide.
In a global economic recession, there is an increased risk of war, as happened in the Great Depression of the 1930's. At the same time, all governments need to reduce spending. There is a choice available to avoid the risk of war, and to save money.

13. Provide enough affordable housing
Housing is a basic human need, and in providing housing, the government is relieving stress and ill-health in a more cost-effective way than putting homeless families in temporary accomodation. In doing so, it will be stimulating the building industry.

14. Stimulate local economies and communities.
In practicing community living and co-operation, the #Occupy movement is pioneering local community living and - dare I say it - realising Cameron's Big Society. Many organisations, notably the Transition movement, are working to the same end.

15 Stimulate the formation of Co-operative enterprises.

I repeat that these 12 measures are not complete, nor can they ever be complete. But these are a few necessary changes to bring about a more healthy, happy and equitable society and economy.

What are the demands of the #Occupy Movement?

2011-10-28T12:16:00.001+01:00

Richard Wilkinson, co-author of Spirit Level, spoke at Bristol last Wednesday. His case is that the more unequal a society is, the more social problems it faces. There is a mass of evidence to back up this thesis, although as is to be expected, there is criticism from the usual quarters, the far right neo-con ideologists.

Hearing Richard again reawakened a question that has been gestating in my mind for many months - why should it be that we are happier and healthier in a more equal society?

The answer may lie in our history. Homo "Sapiens" emerged roughly 200,000 years ago. The earliest known urban civilisation dates back to around 12,000 years ago, and development in the Fertile Crescent, the cradle of civilisation can be traced back 5000 years before present.

However, apart from the rise and fall of the occasional city-state, the majority of non-urbanised humans lived as tribes, and indeed, many at present still do live in tribal and village settings. Homo "sapiens" has evolved to live in tribal groups. Only for about 2.5% of our time on earth have we built cities.

From Wikipedia;

Anthropologist Elman Service presented a system of classification for societies in all human cultures based on the evolution of social inequality and the role of the state. This system of classification contains four categories:

Gatherer-hunter bands, which are generally egalitarian.
Tribal societies in which there are some limited instances of social rank and prestige (see Chiefdom).
Stratified tribal societies led by chieftains.
Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments.

This has implications for human behaviour. Tribal living is radically different from urban living. Note that at the most basic level, the group is egalitarian. The tribe lives by co-operation: the men co-operate in hunting or fishing, the women co-operate in gathering and cooking, and the children co-operate in caring for younger children.

Now, a thought experiment: imagine a tribal group that is functioning well, food is plentiful, life is good. Now imagine that they look to the horizon, and see a far larger, more powerful people approaching. This is a threat situation; adrenaline is released, and efforts (hopeless efforts) may be made to fight. The village is taken over by the more powerful tribe, who now have second class status. They have low status, low self esteem, and low self-determination. They live in an unequal society and economy. It is a stressful stimulation, and they can be expected to display social and physiological symptoms of stress. Wilkinson and Pickett's research confirms this pattern.

So we have a plausible explanation for the case that inequality leads to social and even physiological dysfunction. We are social animals designed for functioning in small social groups. We can adapt to urban living, but if that urban living is marred by gross inequality, things will not go well.

Now let us put the Occupy movement into that framework.

What we are seeing is the emergence of a kind of tribal living in the centre of 1,000 cities worldwide, as a spontaneous movement of people who fundamentally disagree with the way our society and economy is being run.

The movement is focussed on forming these strange camps in the middle of cities. There are several reasons for this.
First, as the anti-Iraq War demonstrations proved, Government and media can choose to ignore large peaceful demonstrations which disperse at tea-time.
They find it more difficult to ignore violent demonstrations, but the police can fairly easily out-violence even the most violent demonstration, and media can deconstruct and demonise violent demonstrations fairly easily. The Occupy movement is solving this problem by having a non-violent demonstration that does not go away.

So they form camps. And what happens in camps is that people learn co-operative living again. This happened in Tahrir Square, where people soon evolved consensus decision making, with all the talking and negotiation that is involved with that. They evolved the leaderless structure that is being replicated worldwide. True, social media help to propagate the model, but it is reasonable to suppose that we are witnessing a spontaneous recrudescence of egalitarian tribalism in response to the grotesque inhumanity of the Behemoth of the modern Corporate State.

This would explain the common complaint of the media - "The protesters won't say what they want, they just say they don't like the way things are". Which is true to some extent. The formation camps, of functioning co-operative micro-economies in the centre of cities is to some extent a statement in practical terms of what the protesters want - a cooperative economy, the kind of society that humans are designed to live in.

As Marshall McLuhan said - The Medium is the Message.

The camps are in process of evolving an more detailed answer to the media's question - What do you want?

The camps are evolving a more detailed answer, but this will take time. There are not many economists in the camps, nor all that many academics, and it is unreasonable to expect people who spend much of their day deciding the best way of providing for their basic security to come up with an quick answer to the economic problems which are so baffling the world's top economists.

However, there is another group within the global society, the Green Parties of the world, who have been working on exactly the same problems of sustainability and equality for some thirty years. Greens cannot speak for the #Occupy movement - #OccupyWallStreet have made it very clear that they will resist any attempt to be co-opted - but the fact remains that the Green Party agenda is the answer that the journalists say they are so desperate to hear.

The Green Party in England and Wales has the distinction of being the party that has spent the longest time excluded from the political process, and we have used that time to develop a massive (too massive) body of reformational aspirations in exactly the same leaderless way that the Occupy movement is setting out to do.

To spare my readers the task of wading through the Policies for a Sustainable Society, here is a condensed list of reforms designed to bring about a more equal, and therefore more happy and healthy society. It is not a complete list, nor is it all endorsed by the Green Party, let alone the #Occupy movement, but it is a start:

Tax the rich.
Close all tax havens & loopholes, worldwide.
Quantitative Easing to go preferentially to the Green Bank.
End the private banks' monopoly on issuing money through debt.
Rein in the corporations.
Regulate the money markets.
Impose a Tobin Tax on financial transactions, and earmark it for poverty projects.
Question the credit ratings agencies.
Cap donations to political parties
Impose limits on salary ratio of lowest/highest remuneration.
Introduce a Green Wage Subsidy
Cancel Trident and reduce military spending worldwide.
Provide enough affordable housing
Facilitate the development of local economies

These demands are expanded here.

So there we have it. Unequal societies are unhappy societies. The #Occupy movement is a physical expression of dissent, and a symbolic affirmation of the virtues of a more equal society. There are a set of alternatives to the abuse of the economy by the rich which have been developed, among others, by the Greens. If the journalists sincerely want answers to their question of what the alternative is, they should look at the Green agenda.

Letter of protest to to St Paul's Cathedral

2011-10-27T15:44:00.001+01:00

I emailed reception@stpaulscathedral.org.uk today.
You can too:

Dear Christian

I view the closure of St Pauls in response to the protest against economic injustice outside as a self-inflicted injury. It has gained you publicity, but bad publicity. You cite your "independent" H&S/Fire advisors. I understand that the official authorities had no objection.

It is not too late for St Pauls to repent. We all make mistakes.

There is a choice ahead for humanity, between supremacy of mammon or supremacy of human values of care for the vulnerable, co-operation and sustainability.

As things stand, St Pauls appears to be siding with Mammon.

Sincerely

Dr Richard Lawson

Twitter censors hashtags - the evidence

2011-10-26T10:51:00.001+01:00

Twitter has a Trend list that is supposed to show the ten most frequent topics being tweeted.

Right now, (10:40am), Vince Cable is in 7th spot, on account of his tardy tax payments.

#OccupyOakland is a very busy hashtag, on account of the cowards in the Oakland Police attacking non-violent demonstrators with tear gas and rubber bullets.

I set up two tag pages alongside each other, both on Twitter, and set one going to collect #OccupyOakland tweets, and another to collect Vince Cable tweets.

Right now, ten minutes later, the #OccupyOakland tweets come in at 159, and Vince has 92 tweets.

Yet Vince is on the Twitter trending list, and #OccupyOakland is not.

I have run this test before with the same results: politically sensitive topics do not make it to the Twitter trend lists.

The question is, who censors Twitter? Is this a voluntary self-censorship, or does some Government agency visit them at their offices and sit on their desks?

Whatever the explanation, it stinks.

Today Libya, Tomorrow Wall Street

2011-10-20T11:37:00.002+01:00

Heartfelt congratulations to Libya's freedom fighters.

Lao Tsu said

Weapons are the tools of violence;
all decent men detest them.

Weapons are the tools of fear;
a decent man will avoid them
except in the direst necessity
and, if compelled, will use them
only with the utmost restraint.

Peace is his highest value.
If the peace has been shattered,
how can he be content?
His enemies are not demons,
but human beings like himself.

He doesn't wish them personal harm.
Nor does he rejoice in victory.
How could he rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?

He enters a battle gravely,
with sorrow and with great compassion,
as if he were attending a funeral.

(Tao te ching, 31)

Now the second time of difficulty begins. The last ten months have been physical, with death and injuries, grief and fear. Now there is a different challenge: the need for peace, reconciliation, forgiveness tolerance, and construction. The hardest part will be the politics, endless negotiations and compromises. And resisting the corporations, who are moving in like vultures to get their share.

The corporations seek profit. The people need food, water, sewerage, reafforestation and socio-economic justice.

The Arab Spring has taught the world a lesson in democracy; now it can lead us in developing green economics.

Lobby your MP on the NHS

2011-10-19T15:46:00.000+01:00

I'm booked in to lobby my MP about Lansley's deadly NHS reforms at on Friday 18th November, 10.30 in the morning at the Campus, in WSM, by Morrison's. Map.

John Penrose is a decent Tory who has emphasised his interest in the NHS during his election campaigns.

However, as a Tourism Minister he is uncritical of Lansley's plan to Americanise the NHS. It is going to take a lot of pressure to get him to vote against the Bill. But we can and should make it clear to him that NHS users in Weston are dead against what is planned.

I hope that others will book in slots to see him about it, and each time one of us in in with him, that there should be a crowd of pro-NHS voters outside the door, just standing there, discussing the situation with his minders, and even raising their voices to be heard through the door. Anything to show that the people are not happy with the proposed death of the NHS.

It is unlikely that there will be any more slots on Nov 18, but book other slots, (01934613841) and we will come and support you. If every one of his surgeries is taken up with NHS affairs, it may give him pause for thought.

So, any locals reading this - November 18, 1030am, Campus. Be there. Or get ill and die without free help.

Occupy Bristol - bridging the gap between the nitty-gritty and macroeconomics

2011-10-19T13:09:00.003+01:00

Just to give a flavour of the #OccupyBristol group meetings on Day 3 (Monday).

The meeting was very open and welcoming, but tended to be a bit unstructured, because most people (and that includes people who sleep in warm beds) do not know the difference between a decision-oriented meeting and a conversation, but I have been in more chaotic meetings in the NHS.

Most items discussed related to the nitty-gritty of setting up a camp in a city. Offers of water access from a local shopholder; site safety (random drunks had staggered on site in the middle of the previous night, causing trouble), how to protect the grass from turning to mud, whether to declare it an alcohol free site, what to do about people who wanted to play music all night, what to do about toilet and washing facilities; the usual, but interspersed with discussion of what message we could put out to those who asked what our agenda was.

Hurwitt - http://www.hurwittgraphics.com/homepage.htm

After the main meeting there was a sub-group on media. We asked people to say why they were there. A wide variety of expressions of what we felt was wrong came out, deeply held, and related to immediate personal experience:

Poverty, food and energy prices, being thrown on the scrapheap, people are not valued, mega-capitalism overriding democracy. We have had ENOUGH!

What are we for?
Fairness, honesty, justice, the right just to be, opportunity.

Reference was made to the statements of other occupations.Here is the #OccupyLSX statement.

Detractors major on the lack of precise political agenda. This is unjust criticism. The majority of protesters are ordinary people who have been struggling along until things have now gotten so bad they have said

ENOUGH!

In the main, they are not economists or academics or politicos. It is up to us who are to provide a clear, pragmatic political programme as an alternative to the disastrous economic policies being visited upon us by the Coalition Government.

It's not rocket science - just a bewilderingly diverse set of changes - ranging from high finance to community structure. It is in fact what the Green Party has been toiling over for the past three decades. The results of our labour is here, in the massive document that form Policies for a Sustainable Future.

But in answer to the question that the Paxmen will want to put, "OK, how specifically do you want to change the present system, given that we have a massive global financial crisis?", here are 10 changes that need to be carried out to get the economy working for people :

Tax the rich.
Close all tax havens & loopholes, worldwide.
Quantitative Easing to go preferentially to the Green Bank.
End the private banks' monopoly on issuing money through debt.
Rein in the corporations.
Regulate the money markets.
Impose a Tobin Tax on financial transactions, and earmark it for poverty projects.
Cap donations to political parties
Reform the credit ratings agencies.
Impose limits on salary ratio of lowest/highest remuneration.
Introduce a Green Wage Subsidy
Cancel Trident and reduce military spending worldwide.
Provide enough affordable housing

Of course, there are many other changes that need to be made at community level also. The answers to the one question branch out into many areas, but these are some of the central reforms necessary to get the world economy started again, down a new path where people matter more than profit.

What is an #Occupy site actually like? What's it about?

2011-10-18T22:33:00.001+01:00

Taken Monday 17th October

Welcome sign

Having been in to support the #OccupyBristol site on College Green today and yesterday, I can tell you.

It is tidy. No mud - yet. The people are very welcoming, and there is a good, purposeful buzz. These are early days - I was there for days three and four, to be exact. I brought stuff in, as per their wish list folding chairs, firewood, saws, pipe, and hazel poles. For a bender.

Au urban camp is a strange space. Here's the city of Bristol going about its frenetic rush from home to work to coffee shop eatery and back again, and here are a bunch of people who are camping, talking, and (sometimes) singing.

Why? What's the point? How is camping in the middle of the city going to change anything?

Exactly the same questions were being in Cairo asked eight months ago. How will a bunch of young people camping in Tahrir Square change anything? Do they seriously think that they will be able to topple Mubarak by occupying space in the city?

But they did succeed, because of their persistence, and the fact that they were physically expressing the rejection of the majority of the Egyptian people.

Now I have been on many demonstrations since 1969. I always try to talk to passers-by, and am used to finding only a minority of support. #Occupy is different.

People are walking in, bearing gifts of food.

Everyone is sick of politicians and banksters and corporations and the Daily Mail. Except not the Daily Mail. They're still buying that.

Which will probably lead to the Mail and Sun giving us a bad press. I heard today that the Bristol Evening Post belongs to Dacre and that he owns 50% of the local press. Please tell me its not true.

But I digress. As in Egypt, so throughout the world. Obviously Cameron is no Mubarak. We could topple Cameron, but would probably wake up to find Liam Fox. Our struggle is not with a single dictator, but with the multinationals who have bought our politicians.

It is a high mountain to climb. There are hardships ahead, right across the globe. And right across the globe, people of all types, shapes, sizes, ages, and colours are standing up and saying -

Enough! That's enough poverty and powerlessness for us, the 99%, when the 1% has so much wealth they do not know what to do with it.

These are ordinary people saying the system is broken. Back come the critics, asking what they offer to put in its place. And they laugh because these are not economists or politicians, but ordinary (or extraordinary) people. They are not economists or politicians. They just want (as one activist said) to be.

It is up to us, the bloggers and writers, to work out the changes necessary to fix the system.

It'll take a bit of work, but we owe it to our brothers and sisters sleeping (or not sleeping) when their canvas is shaken by rain, wind, or drunks. We, the bloggers and tweeters and writers and thinkers, owe it to the activists to draw up a clear, pragmatic programme designed to remedy our broken economic system.

There are many such operations in progress, right across the web, but if you feel like staying on this blog, there is a starter right here on the Ma'blog, so you don't have to go flying around all over the Web.

PS here's an account of a #Occupyakland, in the USA.

International War Crime Investigation into Liam Fox' Sri Lankan friends

2011-10-14T19:31:00.000+01:00

Liam Fox is no more, but the murderous Sri Lanka regime which he befriended is still in place.

Amnesty International has created a petition on the White House petition site today asking the U.S. to support an international war crimes investigation in Sri Lanka. We are asking all who understand this ongoing issue to please sign the petition by Oct. 29 (and encourage their friends and family to do so as well).

We need at least 5,000 signatures by Oct. 29. The petition can be found at: http://wh.gov/4oa

This comes from the excellent Tim Martin

Director Act Now

www.act-now.info

Unemployment is bad for everyone. And also unnecessary.

2011-10-12T16:25:00.004+01:00

Today, unemployment reaches its highest level since 1997.

8% of our citizens jobless, and for young people the figure is 23%.

2,570,000 people condemned to money worries, anxiety, depression, anger and alienation.

Unemployment brings mental and physical ill-health to individuals (leading to an increased burden on the NHS), poverty to their neighbourhoods, and last but not least, falling tax revenues to the Treasury, and rising costs on the Social Security bill.

You can see that the Coalition is worried, because Chris Grayling is saying it is all down to the international financial crisis. "Nothing to do wiv me, mate. I never touched it".

Sorry, Chris, unemployment is your responsibility. You said the private sector was going to come in and re-employ all the poor bastards you have kicked out of public sector jobs, and this has not happened. It has not happened because it is against your religion for Government to provide a stimulus in a recession.

The Government is going to have to do another U-turn, and provide a stimulus to get people back to work.

But how? Without making the dreaded Deficit even worst?

There is a way.

The Economist suggests seven general adjustments to economic policy to reduce unemployment including “incentives that cut the cost of hiring, particularly for extra new workers”.

This is where the Green Wage Subsidy comes in.

Serious problems require radical solutions. The Government should take the DWP reforms one step further than Ian Duncan Smith’s reforms, and transform benefits into a stimulus to the green sector of the economy.

It works like this:

First, local authorities will set up tribunals with a remit to judge whether any enterprise, public or private, is acting to benefit society or environment.

Organisations that are accredited by the tribunal will then be able to go to the local Job Centre and take on workers. These workers will be allowed to continue receiving all their benefits while working in the approved organisation. The employer will top the benefits up to match the going rate for the job. There would be a simple, in-built feedback mechanism to prevent employers from displacing existing employees with the new subsidised intake.

More details on the scheme here: Green Wage Subsidy (GWS), or Work Stimulus Scheme (proposal to the Department of Work and Pensions).

The GWS produces multiple wins:

individuals win by getting work that improves their finances,
businesses win from increased productivity and
the local community benefits from environmental and social services.
The national economy benefits from the increased tax take, decreased NHS and criminal justice costs and from improved social integration and national happiness.

In Bills of Health I estimated that 1-2 million new jobs could be created in the green sector of the economy.

Pride of place in receipt of accreditation from the tribunals would go to

energy conservation, especially insulating homes. This scheme has already been developed by the Green New Deal group. The effect of energy conservation is to take people out of fuel poverty, and to reduce imports of natural gas, which will help the UK balance of payments. It also helps to achieve the Government’s vital CO2 reduction targets.
Renewable energy technologies and manufacturers of energy efficient goods
pollution control technology,
waste minimisation
water management.
small and medium enterprises who carry out repair and recycling
sustainable agriculture
forestry
timber use
countryside management
traditional crafts such as coppicing, hedge-laying and thatching
housing industry. New building will benefit as well as repair and refurbishment of existing properties.
anything that results in improvements to the visual environment, such as painting street furniture since there is a great deal of evidence that this will result in improved general happiness.
public transport
education and training
counselling, caring and healing
community work, leisure and tourism
innovation, research and development

It must be emphasised that there is no element of compulsion in this scheme. Participation of both employers and employees will be voluntary. It is also a non-time limited scheme, at least for as long as the economic recession lasts. At that time we can have a mature national discussion on the merits of Citizen’s Income, which is very close in effect to the GWS, and from which it is derived.

The crowning glory of this scheme is that it comes at no cost to the Treasury. The benefits would be paid anyway, but grudgingly, as a dead dole paid on condition that the recipients spend their whole time in the dispiriting task of searching for jobs that do not exist.

With the Green Wage Subsidy, that same money is transformed into a stimulus for a vibrant and positive sector of the economy that benefits society and environment.

Unemployment is bad for people bad for society, bad for the economy, bad for Government, bad for everyone.

Unemployment is also unnecessary.

------

This is an update of my third Huffington Post blog, which can be viewed in all its glory here.

Liam Fox' successor: on your marks, get set - Lobby!

2011-10-12T10:25:00.001+01:00

Liam Fox will soon be clearing his desk and making way for a new Secretary of State for Defence.

Illogically, Fox, despite being a pro-lifer, was strongly in favour of Britain's WMD.

We should bring WMD pressure on his successor before his feet are under the table.

The WMD debate has been confused and emotive in the past.. Logic can be brought to bear on the situation.

Here is four step approach to solving the WMD problem:

If the consequences of the failure of a system would be infinitely destructive to a civilisation, it is reasonable for that civilisation to use that system if and only if the probability of its failure is zero.
The consequences of a failure of nuclear deterrence would be infinitely destructive to human civilisation.
The chances of failure of deterrence is greater than zero.
Therefore humans should abandon the nuclear deterrence system.

This argument is developed in more depth here.

Climate Sensitivity: the three babies test

2011-10-11T16:01:00.001+01:00

http://wallpaperfirm.blogspot.com/2011/02/three-sleeping-babies.html

Regular readers will know that I have been focusing on climate sensitivity (CS) for the last few weeks, since it is the core of the climate change debate, and the point on which climate sceptics must fall, since they have no substantial evidence to back their claim that the climate sensitivity is low, whereas there are a number of separate lines of inquiry that back the climate scientists' figure for CS.

The sceptic hypothesis is refutable.

However, I have failed to engage the attention of the masses. I suspect that it is because Climate Sensitivity sounds technical. Which, of course, it is.

So I tried to call it Climate Twitchiness. But no-one was interested.

So now, I offer this image: imagine three babies in a room.
Imagine you poke one until it cries.
Soon all three babies will be crying.

And there you have it. Poke one baby, and you get three crying babies.
Increase temperature on the planet by 1*C and you eventually get a 3*C rise in temperature.

That's climate sensitivity for you.
The sceptics reckon that only one baby will cry.

I hope this helps.

Liam Fox has a safe seat, cannot be voted out

2011-10-11T14:54:00.002+01:00

I have stood against Liam Fox in General Elections in 1997 and 2001. Fox has a safe seat in Woodspring: He regularly polls 44%, about 11% above the second runner, who is usually LibDem, although Labour came second in 2001.

Normally during General Elections candidates go out of their way to be civil and polite to each other.

I found Liam Fox not to be like that.

So I look forward to his soon-to-be-announced resignation from his post as Secretary of State for Defence, not least because Fox was keen to do business with members of the Sri Lanka Government who are under suspicion of committing war crimes against Tamils.

It is also karma for his support for the Young Britons Foundation, whose leader likes torture.

It is galling that because he has a safe seat, the Conservative voters of Woodspring will continue to vote him in come what may, while the Labour and LibDem candidates continue to fool their supporters into thinking that they really can oust him by voting Labour or LibDem.

OK, Wall St is occupied - Now for the 10 Point Plan

2011-10-04T13:53:00.001+01:00

Wall Street is occupied by protestors. After trying to ignore it for two weeks, the corporate media are forced to report on this fact. Police use mace on non-violent demonstrators, kettle and arrest them, possibly after enticing them into an arrestable position.

The protesters' basic position is that "We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%".

Critics of the protesters assert that they have no coherent program. This is only partially true.

The Declaration of the Occupation says:

that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members
that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors
a democratic government derives its just power from the people
corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth
no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.
corporations, place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality,
Corporations run our governments.
We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They go on to detail the many injustices of the economic system that exists in the US, and they end with this call:

Create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

The US protest is not alone. One year ago, the UK Coalition of Resistance was set up in response to the UK Government's austerity programme. You can sign their declaration here, and it sums up the basic injustice of the situation, where the banks foul up, and the people have to bail them out and then get punished because the nation is in debt.

The activists have a correct diagnosis on the problem; the system is rotten. It is unreasonable to expect them to have a detailed, definitive treatment plan. But we do need such a plan.

Indeed, George Soros is doing the same with his Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) which was created to "broaden and accelerate the development of new economic thinking that can lead to solutions for the great challenges of the 21st century".

The global economic system is manifestly sick. It is overburdened with debt.
There are several reasons for this.

Governments overspend on useless and destructive things like arms and wars, as well as necessary things like administration, health and welfare.
Even in necessary spending, Government tends to be inefficient. This can be addressed by the Suggestion Box* System.
Crucially, money is created through debt, so as money increases, debt must also increase. Bank loans are not the only way to create new money.
Wealth is haemorrhaging out of national economies as the rich 1% avoid tax by exploiting loopholes and using tax havens. This can and must be stopped on a global basis.

There are four headings for economic reformers to get their teeth into.

Clearly there are an endless numbers of other reforms that are necessary. The Green Party's Policies for a Sustainable Society has been in formation over the last 30 years, built essentially on crowd sourcing from a ordinary people united in the knowledge that our lives depend on ecology.

I hope that #Occupywallst does not settle down to trying to re-invent the wheel in exquisite detail. At this stage we need just the headlines, and clearly, these are:

Tax the rich.
Close all tax havens & loopholes, worldwide.
Quantitative Easing to go preferentially to the Green Bank.
End the private banks' monopoly on issuing money through debt.
Rein in the corporations.
Regulate the money markets.
Impose a Tobin Tax on financial transactions, and earmark it for poverty projects.
Question the credit ratings agencies.
Cap donations to political parties
Impose limits on salary ratio of lowest/highest remuneration.
Introduce a Green Wage Subsidy
Cancel Trident and reduce military spending worldwide.

There we have it - a coherent 10 point plan. Not difficult was it?

*workers at the sharp end can put forward suggestions to improve efficiency, said workers to be incentivised by receiving a percentage of the money saved by their improvement. This would increase their health too, asMarmot finds that disempowerment is the cause of much illness in his long-term study of the health of the civil service.

Can Roy Spencer account for Pinatubo with CS of 0.6*C?

2011-10-01T11:06:00.002+01:00

I have been on Roy Spencer's site, and asked the question pasted below.

I only mention it (a) because this question, and others related to the delayers' estimate for climate sensitivity, is of supreme importance for humanity, and (b) to remind myself to go back and see if it gets answered.

Dr Spencer

If your hypothesis is that climate sensitivity is 0.6*C for 2xCo2, what happens if you apply that figure to the calculation of the climate’s reaction to Pinatubo?

Thanks for your trouble in answering this question.

--------------

In response, a commenter has given a link to a paper by Douglass & Knox (DK) which purports to show a low sensitivity to Pinatubo.

A search shows that DK been refuted here by Robcock:

and here by Wigley:

It seems that DK overlooked thermal inertia of the oceans, and make other errors, including not understanding radiative forcing.

It seems therefore that the refutation is pretty robust, and a low climate sensitivity of ~0.5*C cannot explain the atmospheric response to Pinatubo.

Reducing Deforestation: if not REDD, then what?

2011-09-30T20:36:00.001+01:00

A twitter conversation pushes me to look up what I wrote on REDD. I found this buried in a long screed on Copenhagen, so I have pasted it here because it is important. In liking REDD, I am being a bit heretical it seems. I am prepared to reject REDD the moment someone comes up with a better idea.

And before you start, neither leaving it to the free market, nor smashing the state come into the category of better ideas.

REDD - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, is the proposal on the table.

There are already institutions set up to administer this scheme, among them the UN-REDD.

The logic of REDD is sound:

1. The forests must be preserved

2. Poor countries with large forests are at risk of selling the forests for logging.

3. If they are not to profit from logging, they must receive compensation.

4. Companies or countries supplying compensation that effectively preserves the forests are effectively reducing the amount of CO2 that would have been added to the atmosphere.

Verification of REDD can be ensured both by high technology (satellite surveillance) and traditional methods (granting sovereignty to forest dwellers for the care of their lands). The Global Greens should table this latter approach.

Note that protection of forests does not preclude the use and marketing of forest products, including timber. Extraction of a tree from a forest, and use of its timber in or high value wood artefacts is a form of carbon storage, and stimulates carbon uptake because new trees will spring up in the area previously shaded by the harvested tree. Individual tree harvesting can be sustainable; clear felling is not.

The REDD scheme has many detractors, but critics need to provide a feasible alternative. These criticisms from Wikipedia:

* The availability of a large supply of potentially cheap carbon
credits could provide an avenue for companies in the developed
world to simply purchase REDD credits without providing meaningful
emission reductions at home.

A: Since we are looking at a global problem, then CO2 emissions foregone are effective, even if carried out in a different part of the globe. The offsetting company will still be incentivised to reduce its emissions in order to reduce its payments.

* Large number of carbon credits could swamp developing carbon
markets...but could also facilitate ambitious emissions targets in
a post-Kyoto agreement.

A: This is a problem to be managed by restricting the issue of carbon credits. The ETS has clearly been over-issuing and therefore undervaluing the credits, and this can be addressed my issuing less.

* Putting a commercial value on forests neglects the spiritual value they hold for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

A: Illogical. The forests are being conserved by putting a protective monetary value on them.

* There is no consensus on a definition for forest degradation.

A: Ecologists can create an effective index of measurement.

* Fair distribution of REDD benefits will not be achieved without a
prior reform in forest governance and more secure tenure systems
in many countries.

A: Why does it have to be prior? This is to set the cart before the horse. The reforms will flow from the proper valuation of the forests.

I am aware that these views are contentious in our circles, but the key thing for the critics of REDD is to set out a feasible alternative, and of this, so far, I have seen nothing.

PS: At the same time, we should be pressing for reafforestation.

Reafforestation of earth’s desert areas could absorb 50 years’ worth of USA emissions. Increasing the density of wooded areas in the rest of the world could absorb a similar amount. There are climatic implications for full reafforestation of the deserts, but the project can start at the coasts, while the implications are worked out.

Afforestation must begin in coastal areas and extend inland from there, to utilise the moist air coming off the sea.

This reforestation effort must be ecologically diverse, and carried out by and for the benefit of local communities.

Greek economy: ease up on the blame, the prospects are not all that bad

2011-09-30T11:51:00.001+01:00

images

What have the Greeks ever done for us ? I mean apart from philosophy, democracy, humanism, mathematics, geometry, literature music and culture? Not to mention Greek hospitality, seafood, bazouki, dancing, retsina, sunset, song, laughter, dancing, friendship and warmth.

Greece is in a serious economic mess, for a variety of reasons.
But all is not lost, and for the above reasons we should be happy to help them out.

Here are a few relevant facts:

It is true that the previous Greek Government indulged in shifty accounting, and that the Greeks avoided taxation, a practice that many libertarians (yes, I'm looking at you, @OldHolborn and @Guido_Fawkes) would approve of.

However, there are other items in the equation, not least the fact that accession to the EU caused large capital inflows which were suddenly halted. So it is not just the fault of government profligacy in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland, there is an EU aspect too.

German taxpayers are understandably unhappy at bailing out the care-free Greeks. However, there is a moral obligation at work here, as there is a claim that Germany has not paid war reparations to Greece.

Greece, like the rest of us, needs to staunch the flow of wealth from the national economy by taxing the rich, and closing down tax havens and loopholes on a global basis.

The hysteria about unsustainable debt is unwarranted, given that money is created through debt, so as money supply increases, so also debt must increase.

The credit rating agencies which are sitting in judgment on sovereign debt, missed the signs of the 2009 credit crunch, and one of them, Standard & Poor, is under investigation by the US financial authorities for insider trading during the US downgrade.

Finally, and most contentiously, Greece has modest reserves of oil, and undersea exploration is underway. It must be significant, because Turkey is making growling noises over exploration near Cyprus.

Clearly, from a rational point of view, all oil deposits should be left in the ground, but given that politics and economics is not yet rational, the prospects for the Greek economy are not that bad.

Cloud cover decreases in a warming planet.

2011-09-26T18:56:00.005+01:00

I may have discovered something, or not. Probably not, but it is interesting anyway.

Cloud Cover in a Warming Earth

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now

And up and down, and still somehow

It’s clouds illusions I recall

I really don’t know clouds at all

- Joni Mitchell

Summary

The contribution of clouds to climate sensitivity is uncertain and difficult to evaluate. Consideration of the effect of rising temperature on cloud cover may help us to avoid and elucidate the uncertainties. It is very clear from observations that as air temperatures increase, the quantity of cloud cover decreases and its quality alters in the direction of providing a positive feedback. This has a paradoxical effect in terms of climate sensitivity, since if clouds were to be judged to have a net cooling effect, rising global temperatures determine that this feedback would diminish.

Climate Sensitivity

We know for sure that human activity has been adding greenhouse gases (GHGs) to the earth’s atmosphere, and that the climate will be committed eventually to increased temperatures of ~1.2°C arising from these GHGs if CO2 doubles. At present the CO2 has increased by some 40%.

Climate Sensitivity is the degree to which the earth climate will change in response to a doubling of CO2. It is generally considered that the impact of this increase on the global climate will be a further 3ºC, (+/– 1.5ºC), primarily through positive feedback effects on albedo and water vapour. However, the feedback effect of clouds remains difficult to ascertain, with man-made global warming (AGW) sceptics attempting to show that clouds have a negative feedback effect. They are at pains to show that there are several influences (cosmic rays, dimethyl sulphide and other particles) which will increase cloud formation in a warmer climate. Their aim is to show that clouds provide a natural negative feedback on global temperature increases, and therefore the additional greenhouse gases that the human economy is injecting into the atmosphere is not a cause for concern.

In scientific terms, the sceptic hypothesis is that climate sensitivity is low, and they depend heavily on clouds to try to sustain their case.

The Complex Effect of Clouds on Climate

Seen from below, clouds reflect infra-red radiation back to the surface, and have a warming effect. Seen from above, clouds reflect short wave radiation back into space, and have a cooling effect. This latter effect is called albedo. Cloud albedo can vary greatly with water drop size, liquid water content, ice content and thickness of the cloud.

Low clouds have a net cooling effect on the planet, while high clouds have a net warming effect. Polar clouds both warm the surface below them, and decrease moisture transfer to higher levels, resulting in a neutral effect.

So evaluating the precise effect of cloud at any point in time and place is a brutally complex and challenging task. However, evaluating their behaviour in time as temperature changes is far more simple and straightforward, and throws useful light on the complexities.

Method

On Climate4you (a website by a climate sceptic, although, refreshingly, it provides data rather than rhetoric) we find a page on climate + clouds which contains this figure:

Fig 1

The commentary on the figure, by the website author Ole Humlum reads (emphasis added):

Scatter diagram showing the total monthly global cloud cover plotted versus the monthly global surface air temperature, since July 1983. High values of global cloud cover is associated with low global temperatures, demonstrating the cooling effect of clouds. A simple linear fit model suggests that an increase in global cloud cover of 1 percent corresponds to a global temperature decrease of about 0.07^oC. From a simple statistical point of view, this model explains about 28 percent of observed spread of surface air temperature in the diagram. .... The association between low clouds and global temperature is almost similar, as can be seen by clicking here. Data sources: The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project and University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. (comment by site owner, Ole Humlum)

Ole's view that this demonstrates the cooling effect of clouds is too simplistic, as I will show below.

Discussion

As well as demonstrating the cooling effect of clouds, the figure demonstrates that cloud cover is inversely proportional to temperature: in a warmer climate, cloud cover is less. A 0.5ºC increase in temperature will reduce the amount of could cover by about 7%.

Which way does the causality lie? do more clouds cool the earth, or does a cooler earth mean more cloudiness? I looked closely at the peaks of temperature and cloudiness in Figure 2 below by drawing vertical lines. There seemed to be no significant lead or lag either way. This matters to the climate action delayers ("skeptics") because they claim that clouds must cause temperature variations.

It does not really matter from a long term point of view. What we learn from this relationship is that in a warming world there will be less cloud.

This relationship is borne out by this graph, again from Climate4you:

Fig 2

It is clear that the trends of cloud cover and temperature are opposed.

Therefore, as global temperatures rise, global cloud cover will decrease.

The composition of the clouds also change with rising temperatures, as is shown in Figure 3:

Fig 3

Figure 3 shows the trends since 1983 of different types of cloud. Confusingly, the position of low, middle and high clouds are reversed in the graph. Bearing in mind that the overall temperature trend since 1983 is upward, with a plateau since 2000, it is clear that low level clouds (which have a cooling effect) are decreasing as temperatures rise, and that middle level and high level clouds are increasing.

Therefore the net effect of increasing global temperatures is to bias clouds towards having a warming effect.

Putting together the effects of the changes in clouds in a warming planet, we find:

Total albedo will decrease > warming effect
Low cloud will decrease as % of total cloud > warming effect
High and middle cloud will increase as % do. > warming effect

This is support for the findings of Dr Andrew Dessler, who studied the transmission of radiation from clouds and concluded that for every degree C of warming, clouds trap 0.54 +or- 0.74 W/m2 of heat.

These effects will be moderated by the fact that the total cloud cover will be decreasing in a warmer planet.

There are other factors, such as thickness, roughness, and colour of clouds which could have an effect on the final outcome.

The interesting thing is that it is very difficult to determine what clouds are doing to climate sensitivity at any one point in time, and much effort has rightly gone in to sorting this out. However, looking at what happens over a period of time changes the situation subtly.

The Paradox

Consideration of the long term trends of cloud formation has a paradoxical effect on the debate within climate science about clouds.

The consensus view is that that clouds probably have a net positive feedback, so that clouds will tend to amplify any warming that takes place. As the planet warms, this positive feedback will tend to decrease cloud warming effect as total cloud cover decreases, although it will be compensated to some extent by a trend towards warming cloud. These conflicting trends will need to be entered into the models.

On the other hand, the new consideration has a severe impact on the way that opponents of anthropogenic climate change view clouds.

The hypothesis of AGW sceptics is that climate sensitivity is low. In order to support this view, they have focussed on the uncertainty surrounding clouds, and attempted to show that clouds will react to increases in temperature by damping down the increases, acting as negative feedbacks.

There have been two papers this year attempting to support this argument, one by Lindzen and Choi, and one by Spencer and Braswell. Both papers are criticised here.

Irrespective of the quality of their scientific work, the data given in this post refutes the sceptics’ hypothesis. If, for the sake of argument, clouds are given a negative feedback, as the observed temperature increases occur, cloud cover, and therefore the negative feedback, will diminish. At the same time the quality of the cloud moves from negative feedback towards positive feedback.

The conclusion is that the hypothesis that climate sensitivity is low cannot be sustained by arguing that clouds cover will increase to cool the planet.

George Monbiot agonises over Syria sanctions.

2011-09-21T12:21:00.000+01:00

George Monbiot is agonising over the question of whether to put sanctions on Assad, the butcher of Syria.

Agonising because the blanket sanctions against Iraq caused 500,000 Iraqi children to die. Since then, targeted sanctions have been developed, and some have already been applied to the Assad regime: the EU has applied travel bans, frozen assets of some members of the regime and imposed an embargo on Syrian oil imports, although unfortunately Blair's friend Sylvio Burlusconi has seen to it that this embargo will not be applied until Assad has found new markets.

An investment ban is under consideration.

The real problem is that sanctions are being applied piecemeal, and after an uncertain political process, which means delay and ineffectiveness.

George Monbiot should be aware of the Green Party's Global Index of Human Rights, which sets up a framework in the UN that encourages all states to improve human rights performance. Unfortunately, last year the Green Party Conference turned down an extension of that policy that would have precisely addressed the problem posed by Arab Spring: how can the international community bring down dictators and help democratic movements without resorting to violence?

Ironically, in the debate on the "Dealing with Dictators" motion (in which all the speakers called were against the motion) one "reason" put against the proposition was that it "was not necessary". This was five months before Arab Spring kicked off.

Anyway, the point is that the UN needs to set up a framework where once a threshold has been crossed (typically the use of deadly fire against a non-violent demonstration), the regime is declared illegitimate. Sanctions targeted against members of the regime - asset freezes, travel bans - are brought in across the board. Immediate arms and oil embargoes are imposed. The regime's access to broadcasts should be curtailed by any non-violent means possible.

This is what makes the difference - the totality, with sanctions coming almost automatically from within the UN, rather than toiling our way through a political process in which one or another permanent member of the UNSC is almost certain to cause delay.

I say "almost" automatic, because there would need to be a legal review of the situation before action is taken.

I have to stress that I am just giving an outline here. There are many other aspects to winkling out a dictator, not least offering a "carrot" of comfortable retirement and suspension of legal charges if he relinquishes power voluntarily.

So George's indecision on the question of whether or not to apply sanctions can be resolved. Targeted Sanctions are the answer, but they must be applied soon, consistently, and universally.

Piers Corbyn on Weather and Global Climate

2011-09-20T17:54:00.000+01:00

I have been engaged in a Twitter discussion with @PiersCorbyn, who claims accurate long-range weather forecasting based on solar activity. His methods are secret, and he sells his forecasts to farmers and others interested in weather. He claims 86% accuracy, based on assessments of some of his forecasts.

Piers Corbyn on Weather

I find Piers interesting as far as his forecasts are concerned. The next step in confirming or refuting his claims should be to assess his full forecast stream for accuracy, in order to avoid potential selection bias in the segments of his forecasts that have been examined.

He cannot claim scientific status for his methods because he keeps them secret. One of the characteristics of real science is that all the methods used must be laid out so that other workers can try to replicate the original results.

So there are two separate issues: his claim to be able to forecast extreme weather events based on solar activity, and his contention that the sun, not CO2, controls the global climate.

This argument is based on a common misconception, a belief that climate scientists give CO2 as the sole determinant of climate. They do not. They factor in solar intensity, particulates from volcanoes and industry, ocean currents, albedo and as many other factors as they can. They are open to including other factors as and when they become credible, and it is quite possible that an influence of cosmic rays (related to troughs in sunspot activity) could be factored in to the models in the future.

Piers Corbyn on Global Climate change

Piers puts his argument against CO2 having an influence on global climate here.
Overall, he is talking about very long time periods, and his graphs squeeze out the last 150 years, thus excluding any real consideration of anthropogenic climate change.
His graphs are sometimes unreadable, often they have no source, and rarely show confidence errors.
Being a Powerpoint presentation, they are not self-explanatory.

But here are his arguments, insofar as they can be gleaned, with answers from the excellent Skeptical Science site.

1 CO2 is a tiny fraction of the atmosphere.
True. Most of the atmosphere is nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%), which are not greenhouse gases.
Of these,
Water vapour contributes 36-72% of the greenhouse effect,
CO2, 9-26%
CH4, 4-9%
O3, 3-7%

Water vapour has a short residence time in the atmosphere, about 9 days, as opposed to about 5 years for CO2 which is why CO2 has more importance as a greenhouse gas, since it accumulates.

The natural cycle adds and removes CO2 to keep a balance; humans add extra CO2 without removing any.

2 Solar flares cause weather changes

As above, we can have an open mind on this. Weather is distinct from global climate.

3 Piers Corbyn predicts falling temperatures over the next 20 years
Based on his expectation that we are going to move into another solar minimum. I have written before about this possibility, and we should greatly welcome it, as solar cooling might save our sorry asses by offsetting our CO2 warming, and give us a chance to sort out our act.

4 Climategate means all climate science is to be distrusted.
This common point is answered here

5 Earth history going back 500 million years shows no relation between CO2 and temperature

Piers uses this common figure, below. He does not say where it comes from.

One interesting feature is the dip in CO2 levels during the Carboniferous, which is consistent with storage of atmospheric CO2 by vegetation into coal and oil. That process took about 100 million years, but we have moved a large part of that stored carbon back into the air in our 150 years of industrialisation.

The best way to understand Paleoclimatology is by watching this brilliant and entertaining video lecture by Richard Alley. He dives into this whole graph, showing what is happening at every point.

Paleoclimate is very complex, but key is that solar activity was far less in ancient times.

6 CO2 lags temperature

Alley addresses this point at 35:25 in the above link.
It is true that in the warming episodes that followed the Ice Ages, CO2 levels rise after temperature rises.

CO2 and temperature follow each other over the last 400 million years, but CO2 tends to lag behind temperatures by a few centuries. To be honest, there are some rises where CO2 clearly leads, and in most of the upswings CO2 and temperature are far closer than on the downswings, where CO2 fall as a distinct lag.

The Ice Age swings are caused by variations in earth's orbit, which cause slight warming. CO2 release from oceans in response to the initial warming leads to further rises in temperature. In other words, CO2 is acting as a positive feedback in response to solar forcing. The effect of the CO2 is to amplify the temperature swings resulting from solar changes.

In summary, Piers may or may not have an important contribution to add to weather forecasting, but his views on climate change are not convincing.

What Can Government Do About Unemployment?

2011-09-20T12:40:00.000+01:00

This is my third Huffington Post blog, which can be viewed in all its glory here. But without links. Here there be links.
If for any reason you feel moved to comment, please do it on the HuffPo site, because that will score points with HuffPo.
Sorry about the wobbly formatting in the middle. I tried to tidy it up but ran into HTML difficulties.

Unemployment is a serious social malady that must be addressed directly by Government. It has risen in the UK by 80,000 over three months, taking the total to 2.51 million, 7.9% of the workforce, with youth taking the worst hit. This is bad news not just for the jobless, for their families and communities, but for the whole of society. Unemployment brings mental and physical ill-health to individuals (leading to an increased burden on the NHS), poverty to their neighbourhoods, falling tax revenues to the Treasury, and the danger of alienation, crime and civil unrest to our nation.

The IPPR think-tank has said: "Promoting a speedy return to full employment in the UK should be a priority for the Government”.

The Economist suggests seven general adjustments to economic policy to reduce unemployment including “incentives that cut the cost of hiring, particularly for extra new workers”.

To be fair, Ian Duncan Smith’s reforms at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of the welfare system are trying to do this. It is well known that the present benefit system creates an unemployment trap, where low-skilled workers on benefits find themselves worse off when they take up work. IDS plans to taper off the sudden cut in benefits. Although sensible, his reforms are too slow to make a difference in the coming recession-blighted years.

Serious problems require radical solutions. The Government should take the DWP reforms one step further, and transform benefits into a stimulus to the green sector of the economy.

It is not difficult. First, local authorities will set up tribunals with a remit to judge whether any enterprise, public or private, is acting to benefit society or environment. Organisations that are accredited by the tribunal will then be able to go to the local Job Centre and take on workers. These workers will be allowed to continue receiving all their benefits while working in the approved organisation. The employer will top the benefits up to match the going rate for the job. There would be a simple, in-built feedback mechanism to prevent employers from displacing existing employees with the new subsidised intake.

This scheme is called the Green Wage Subsidy (GWS), or Work Stimulus Scheme.

The GWS produces multiple wins: individuals win by getting work that improves their finances, businesses win from increased productivity and the local community benefits from environmental and social services. The national economy benefits from the increased tax take, decreased NHS and criminal justice costs and from improved social integration and national happiness.

In Bills of Health I estimated that 1-2 million new jobs could be created in the green sector of the economy.

Pride of place would go to energy conservation, especially insulating homes.

This scheme has already been developed by the Green New Deal group.

The effect of energy conservation is to take people out of fuel poverty, and to reduce imports of natural gas, which will help the UK balance of payments. It also helps to achieve the Government’s vital CO2 reduction targets.

Renewable energy technologies and manufacturers of energy efficient goods will be able to benefit, along with pollution control technology, waste minimisation and water management.

Small and medium enterprises who carry out repair and recycling will be able to apply, as will those engaged in sustainable agriculture, forestry, timber use and countryside management. Traditional crafts such as coppicing, hedge-laying and thatching would flourish.

Then there is the housing industry. New building will benefit as well as repair and refurbishment of existing properties.

The deal will extend to anything that results in improvements to the visual environment, since there is a great deal of evidence that this will result in improved general happiness.

Public transport will prosper, and the list goes on: education and training, counselling, caring and healing, community work, leisure and tourism,
innovation, research and development.

With the Green Wage Subsidy, that same money is transformed into a stimulus for a vibrant and positive sector of the economy that benefits society and environment.

Extreme weather: is there a link with global warming?

2011-09-10T20:15:00.000+01:00

As Britons sit at the end of a dull summer bracing ourselves for high winds created by the tail end of Hurricane Katia, it is natural to question whether extreme the weather may be connected to ~~our driving habits~~ global warming.

I wrote a year ago about extreme weather events. Time for an update.
It is impossible to say at the moment whether a single particular event is down to global warming (though we can say that all extreme events are consistent with global warming theory.

We have to look for trends.

This is what we're finding:

Thanks to Meehl/NACR

In a recent report, Jerry Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research finds that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent. He also finds that record highs are trending ahead of record lows:

Meehl et al, 2009

Hurricanes must increase as sea surface temperatures increase.

And the record suggests that hurricanes are indeed increasing:

These figures and other interesting facts on this US Global Change Research Program page.

So a picture is emerging. This is not proof: regular readers of this blog (peace be upon them) will know that science does not do proof. But a picture is emerging.

Strange things are happening to the weather, as predicted by climate science.

The Norwegian Cicero Institute commissioned a report in 2002, titled Climate change and extreme weather events: Is there a connection? In it we find these words:

It’s hard to escape the perception that extreme weather events are increasing... However, extensive press coverage on extreme weather events may be prejudicing our perception of the issue.

Which is true.

Natural phenomena that might explain a possible increase in extreme weather events do exist. For example, El Niño and La Niña are known to precipitate extreme weather events.

This is also true.

However, warm El Nino events are on an increasing trend, again, consistent with climate science:

TransNational Corporation Conference Jan 27th, London Voluntary Resource Centre

Their conclusion:
No clear consensus exists linking the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events to changes in climate patterns, but it would be reckless to not expect that climate change will have some impact on extreme weather events.

That was in 2002. Nine years later, it seems, unfortunately, that we are slowly moving closer to a consensus.

Pielke Sr on Climate Sensitivity: Just Look Away!

2011-09-10T11:42:00.001+01:00

Obsessed as I am with climate sensitivity as the key to resolving the climate controversy, my attention is drawn to Roger Pielke Sr who has today put up a blog post titled So-Called “Climate-Sensitivity” – A Dance On The Head Of A Pin. Pielke Sr is one of the godfathers of the climate "sceptics"*.

His argument is that global average surface temperatures do not matter. What matters is that we adapt to whatever is coming, by looking to provision of water, food, energy and ecosystems at a regional level.

Now this latter is attractive to me since I have been arguing for years that these provisions are the basis of green economics. The difference is that greens can do both. PielkeSr is saying that it is an either-or situation.

His argument is basically "Cure is better than prevention. You can only focus on cure. Do not look at the causes of the problem. Don't worry, we can dig our way out of this hole. All we need is bigger spades."

And: above all, Pielke is saying "For Pete's sake do not look at climate sensitivity, because that is where the "skeptics" case is at its weakest".

Twin Towers: the poetry of hatred and revenge

2011-09-10T10:10:00.000+01:00

Source

September 11 2001

This footage beats the best of Hollywood
a sudden bloom of cancerous fire
and smoke, the beating of a million black wings

Obsessively we watch the symbol of the modern dream
collapse in stark fragility, a house of cards;
the highest order falls to fiery hate

And you my sister, brandishing that scarf
‘I’m here,’ balancing height and heat
until you chose the sheer sharp flight

We can not see the rush of startled souls
not hear the too long groans of pain and fear
until sweet sleeping death crept over them

Ah yes! you’ll be avenged! More sons
will die, more mothers scream and raise their hands
to an avenging God. We cannot stop the world.

It has to be like this. We’re only human after all.
This is reality - not film. Justice and reason -
that’s just a childish dream. Think what you’re told to think.

Adopting a Peer to lobby on Health and Social Care Bill

2011-09-09T12:12:00.001+01:00

I have adopted a Peer to lobby in the fight against the Health and Social Care Bill.
You can too. Click here. We get allocated a Lord (or Lady) at random, and can send a letter. Here's mine:

Health and Social Care Bill

As a retired General Practitioner, who have worked all my life in the NHS, I very much hope that you will do all you can to radically amend the HSCB, making sure that the worst aspects are removed. I paste here a list, generated by Dr Evan Harris, an ex-MP, highlighting the aspects that most need to be amended. You will probably recognise this as a LibDem amendment, but the NHS is a matter beyond party politics, (I am a Green), and this is a fuller version than other lists that are circulating.

1. the removal of all references to promoting competition whether directly or indirectly.
2. any duty to promote choice being made subsidiary to duties to promote fair access, equality of outcomes, and integrated services.
3. the removal of the facility for transferring NHS assets, including land, to third party providers.
4. retaining the cap on Private patient income by NHS Foundation trusts.
5. the restoration of the duty of the Secretary of State to provide or secure the provision of, healthcare services, and the reinstatement of the power of the Secretary of State to delegate his functions to NHS commissioners and to direct them as necessary.
6. the retention of the ability of the local authority overview and scrutiny function to refer significant services changes to the Secretary of State for adjudication.
7. providing that Health and Well-being Boards (HWBs) have a majority of elected members and are able refer unresolved disputes with local commissioners to the Secretary of State rather than to a national qango.
8. the explicit prohibition of the wholesale outsourcing of commissioning work to private companies.
9. guaranteeing that commissioning groups are fully co-terminous with social services local authorities, except where HWBs and local authorities agree otherwise, and are funded solely on the basis of the health needs of the population.
10.the removal of the power to pay financial incentives to practitioners as a means of influencing their referral behaviour.
11.rejection of any personal health budget scheme which allow users to spend NHS funds on private health insurance or as a top up towards private health care or to buy services or treatments judged too ineffective or inefficient for the NHS to buy.
12.the inclusion of a duty on all NHS bodies, when arranging with non-NHS bodies to provide services, to avoid any risk of essential NHS services (including teaching and research) being destabilised in an unplanned way through loss of income or case-load,
and
13.ensuring Directors of Public Health remain independent sources of expert advice.

I trust that you will put much effort into amending this Bill. The NHS is well loved by its users, and despite its deficiencies, is one of the most efficient health services in the world.

Thank you for working on this most important matter.

Sincerely

Debate on Climate Sensitivity

2011-09-08T11:42:00.000+01:00

I have been having extensive interchanges on Twitter with a couple of sceptics on Climate Sensitivity (CS). One, @TertiusIII, has posted a longer reply, the opening part of which I have pasted here.

Jim (TertiusIII) : CS is not directly measured empirically.

It is determined through use of complex mathematical models of our earth (ocean, land and atmosphere).

RL: Not so. It is true that models are one line of approach, and the models are more accurate than sceptics imagine, since they are tested against past observations, but there are other lines of approach, all of which converge remarkably on the value of 3*C +/- 1.5*C. Climate Sensitivity must be greater than zero, since otherwise we would not see the natural variations in climate that some/most/all sceptics believe is the sole cause of present observed warming.

We must always bear in mind that models usually only include fast-acting forcings such as water vapour, clouds, solar activity, lapse rates and ocean currents. Slow positive feedbacks like loss of snow cover and methane releases from tundra are not included, so the models are underestimating temperatures in decades to come.

Rahmsdorf explains (p39) how models are fed data with thousands of different data sets, and then run. Those run with a climate sensitivity of ~3*C are found to give the best match for observational data.

More here on models.

Observational basis for CS

1 Palaeoclimate.
In the Ice Ages, temperatures climbed some 6*C in the periods between ice maxima and minima. If there were no climate sensitivity, these increases would not have been possible. Using temperature, CO2, methane and dust,

2 Volcanoes
Wigley looked at the global temperature recovery times from cooling due to large volcanoes. He found that only a climate sensitivity in the range 1.5-4.5 would account for the observations.
Forster had similar results.

3 Seasonal Cycles
Temperature Variation between seasons gives more data for testing climate sensitivity models. This is a particularly challenging test due to the complexity of modelling the specific regional conditions that govern local climate.

4 Solar Cycles
Studies of solar cycles give values of 2.3-4.1.

5 Ocean temperature changes
Studies of temperature changes associated with oceans gave a lower limit of 1.6, a mode of 2.1 and a median of 6.

Jim, I'm going to pause here (I've kept back the rest of your posting for later).
I hope I have shown fairly that there is a wide observational basis for CS. It is not just generated by computer programmes.

Of course CS is not directly measured empirically, since it is a derived value.

Do you accept that there are many lines of evidence pointing to the range of 1-4 for CS ?

Seize the Day: High Hills Lament

2011-09-07T12:52:00.000+01:00

Seize the Day are a vibrant, melodic, harmonious, original, uncompromising, and tough folk band from Somerset. I believe some of their songs will enter the canon of English folk, and that future fold historians will shake their heads at the massive way they were underestimated by the Musick Industry. This is one of their slower songs, but I put it here because I am learning the words to sing to myself on solitary walks on Mendip.

You can hear it by clicking here. (Can't get the video to upload)

High Hills Lament

I dreamed I was going where tall trees are growing

Where nine rivers flowing roll down to the sea,

When I woke to hear crying lamenting and sighing,

Men in yellow arriving to fell the last tree.

High hills of our fathers, round hills of our mothers,

Green hills of my people that used to be free,

Scraped away to make room for some global consumer,

Whose growth like a tumour eats England and me.

I'm a lover of England, her wildlife and wisdom,

I have walked the land o'er and I've seen what's been done,

On those roads I have followed, through a land that's been swallowed,

Land tortured and hollowed for three pounds a ton.

And I'll hear no excuses for those whose abuses

Have put to such uses the land of their birth,

Till there's nothing grows off it but slag-heaps of profit

For some high-flyer not fit to live on this Earth.

Let their slaves justify it, they cannot deny it

- Though nightly they try it, and seem to succeed -

That our world has been wasted, skinned, skewered and basted

For a dream which, once tasted, consumed us with greed.

Are my people half dead then from a lie that's been fed them,

- Those bribes which have bled them of courage and power?

While our last open spaces, all those sweet special places,

Are forgotten like faces that used to be ours.

And I dreamed I was going where tall trees are growing,

Where nine rivers flowing roll down to the sea.

Tis the Isle of the Blessed there, but I'll never rest there,

Till there's no life oppressed there and my land is free!

Lindzen and Choi 2011: have they torpedoed AGW alarmism? Or not?

2011-09-05T16:22:00.001+01:00

I have been arguing that Climate Sensitivity is the key to resolving the controversy over global warming.

Climate Sensitivity (CS) is the degree to which the earth's climate changes to a given change, conventionally taken as a doubling of CO2. The CO2 which we have already added to the atmosphere will push the heat up by ~1*C. Multiple lines of evidence (modelling, palaeoclimate, observations of volcano effects, solar cycles, ocean changes, and probabilistic) all point to an additional 3*C (+or- 1.5*C) increase due to positive feedbacks.

Note that the models underestimate CS if anything, because they do not take into account long-term feedbacks such as loss of ice and vegetation.

There is a detailed treatment of CS here.

The convergence on the 3*C value from six different approaches to the problem is remarkable, and very robust.

Climate skeptics must try to find evidence that CS is less than 1*C in order to prevent any damage to the profit lines of oil and coal companies.

I have mentioned Singer's attempt to do this here.

Spencer and Braswell tried and failed this year.

One other attempt of the sceptics to support their hypothesis is Lindzen and Choi 2009. Their paper was strongly criticised , even from their own side, so they came up with a revision which they claim addresses the criticisms. It is published as Lindzen and Choi 2011.

Their paper estimates CS by comparing monthly 1985-2009 tropical sea surface temperatures with those at the top of the atmosphere. They conclude that climate models are exaggerating climate sensitivity. This conclusion was triumphantly seized on and amplified by the warming skeptic blogosphere and mainstream press.

I have been waiting for an expert systematic refutation to turn up. John Cook of the excellent Skeptical Science site is about to put one up, but yesterday I found the peer reviews of LC11 from when they (unsuccessfully) submitted the paper to the Proceeding of the National Academy of Science - the US equivalent of our Royal Society.

Here I summarise the criticisms made by the reviewers:

The paper gives insufficient detail of the methods to allow other workers to reproduce them. This is a grade A, fundamental scientific error.
The paper does not address criticisms of LC09 by Trenberth et al 2010, nor Dessler 2010.
The paper studies only tropical processes, (a term that it fails to define) and unsafely assumes that this can be extended to the whole globe.
They ignore changes that occur over land.
They confuse forcing and feedback. In other words, they assume clouds to be causes, and not effects, of surface changes, and make no attempt to justify this assumption.
Month-to-month variability of the tropics may have nothing to do with climate feedback processes.
Detailed analysis of the "lagged regressions" (which are beyond my ken) show deficiencies.
The authors chose time periods for the lags that suit their conclusions.
The claim to deal with equilibrium climate sensitivity is not substantiated.

These are damning criticisms.

I cannot say whether any of these peer review criticisms were turned into amendments of the paper. PNAS rejected it, and Lindzen took it to the Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, who published.

The overall point is that this flawed paper gets published, is reported as the end to AGW in the blogosphere and conservative papers, and when the scientific community gets its act together, it will receive next to no coverage, leaving the public with the mistaken impression that AGW is "controversial".

It is not. All valid evidence points to Climate Sensitivity being in the region of 3*C - a value that merits serious decarbonisation of the world economy.

In future blog posts, I will deal with Idso 1998 and Shaviv 2005, which are the only other attempts to establish low sensitivity that I am aware of.

More on this from the excellent skeptical Science site.

Citizen's Income, Land Value Tax, and Green Party Policy

2011-09-05T12:51:00.000+01:00

Dole Moors (in the distance) from Dolberrow

A green party member has been asking about the connection between ecological sustainability and Green Party policies like Citizen's Income (CI) and Land Value Tax (LVT).

CI can be developed from the idea that every human being has a right to eat.
In subsistence societies this translates into a share of the results of the communal hunting and gathering.
In pastoral societies, it translates into each family being given access to a section of land for growing food.

I live in Dolebury, near the Dole Moors, which take their name from the practice where sections of land were parceled out to the people.

Quick Google of Dole Moors yields:



There is a strange account in the Every Day Book of the annual apportion- ment of some commons, called Dole Moors, belonging to the parishes of Puxton, Wick St. Lawrence and Congresbury in Somersetshire.http://www.archive.org/stream/englandundernorm00morguoft/englandundernorm00morguoft_djvu.txt



1 The question as to the dimensions of the " hide " has been a fruitful subject of controversy. It was originally that measure of land which was considered to be sufficient for the support of one family, and its extent varied in every district according to the local custom and according to the qualit)'- 

of the soil. Bede (Hist. Eccl. i. 15) estimated the contents of the Isle of Thanet at 600 hides, which were afterwards found to contain nearly 70 " sulings," or Kentish ploughlands, each containing 210 acres according to the measure used in Thanet. In this instance the " hide " is shown to have contained less than 25 acres. In a poorer district it would contain much more. There was a later use of the word which made it equivalent to a "ploughland," or as much arable as a team of oxen could plough in a 

year: in this case the "hide" represents quantities varying, according to the district, from 100 acres to 210 acres, or even more. 





...in some cases been annual, and in others having originally been held once in three years but afterwards at longer intervals. It is true that there is hardly any documentary evidence to show that the arable in England was ever divided in this way. But the pastures, and notably the lot-meadows and dole-moors, were treated as common property : a primitive usage determined the division of 

the common-fields into strips and blocks, the rotation of  the crops, the erection of fences, and the use of the land after harvest bv the cattle of the whole community ; we see that the same usages prevailed in the German districts where the ownership was certainly collective ; and we are 

thus led to believe that the English farmers were at first joint-owners of all the arable land as well as of the pastures and waste-grounds in the township." 



There are many popular customs of which the origin must be attributed to a time when the villagers were united by the sentiment of partnership and the tradition of a common descent.



http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/charles-isaac-elton/origins-of-english-history-otl/page-33-origins-of-english-history-otl.shtml





In our post-pastoral times, the wealth of the land is represented in terms of money, and this can be represented as Citizens Income.

At the same time, this line of approach gives validity to the LVT - we rent the land which is our "personal property" from the community.

The perceived problem with CI is that it is perceived as impossibly expensive, and that it is nothing but a Ligger's Charter.

In spite of the best efforts of the Basic Income Earth Network, and the support of various economic thinkers, it has rarely surfaced in the UK public debate, (though Comhaontas Glas (?sp)the Irish Greens, did get a report on CI out of the Government which they participated in) and if it did it would undoubtedly be immediately rubbished on by conservatives in all the main parties as being prohibitively expensive, especially in these times of austerity.



Which is why I developed the Green Wage Subsidy proposal (presented to the DWP consultation process as Work Stimulus Scheme.

This has the merit of sidestepping the cost and Ligger's Charter objections.

It also converts benefits like JSA etc from being an administratively complex, dead, grudging dole given on condition that the recipient does no work (aside from a tiny Earnings Disregard) into a meaningful stimulus to the Green sector of the economy.

It is therefore of help in dealing with the coming recession, and when/if we emerge from recession, will enable a mature public debate on CI to take place, with a good chance of seeing it rolled out in its full form.



It is not full CI, but is a practical effective and attractive transition policy.

Defend the NHS or lose the NHS

2011-09-01T09:44:00.002+01:00

This below is from 38 Degrees, campaigning to keep the NHS.

Joni Mitchell said it: "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?"

I feel it is very much up to NHS users to defend it, not me. I did my bit, providing the service.

My vision is of a mass lobbying of MP surgeries, lobbies that spill out onto the streets, and escalate into Arab Spring type protests, only without the live ammunition provided by the Army...you get the idea.

As a retired GP, I am waiting for the patients to do it. It is probably the result of repressed resentment at thoughtless abuse of the NHS' free treatment. I was a kind, humane, friendly GP, but there is a degree of fecklessness, thoughtlessness and entitlement that goes on, and that produces resentment deep down in even the kindest health service worker.

So basically my repressed shadow self is saying, "If you whingeing sickly bastards want a free NHS, you've got to demonstrate in the streets. If you don't demonstrate, you're going to have to do without, the rich are going to have to pay, and the poor are going to have to die. Your bloody choice".

Irrational, I know. But humans are irrational beings. And if my anger prompts people to demonstrate, it will have been worth while.

38 Degrees members now have something our MPs don't - thorough, independent legal advice about what these changes really mean.

Our expert legal advice is sobering. Despite the "listening exercise", the government's changes to the NHS plans could still pave the way for a shift towards a US-style health system, where private companies profit at the expense of patient care.

Conservative MPs like yours are being told by their bosses these changes fit with party ideology. But many would be horrified to know that the NHS would be subject to European competition laws and front-line services could be held up with procurement red tape. Let's work together to show them the evidence right now!

If enough of us email now, it could tip the balance:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/email-your-conservative-mp

Our independent lawyers identified two major problems in the new legislation:

1 - The Secretary of State's legal duty to provide a health service will be scrapped. On top of that, a new "hands-off clause" removes the government's powers to oversee local consortia and guarantee the level of service wherever we live. We can expect increases in postcode lotteries - and less ways to hold the government to account if the service deteriorates.

2 - The NHS will almost certainly be subject to UK and EU competition law and the reach of procurement law rules will extend across all NHS commissioners. Private health companies will be able to take new NHS commissioning groups to court if they don't win contracts. Scarce public money could be tied up in legal wrangles instead of hospital beds. Meanwhile, the legislation lifts the cap on NHS hospitals filling beds with private patients.

So who are MPs going to listen to when casting their vote - you, or lobbyists from private health companies? This is our NHS, and it's up to us to defend it. Email your MP now:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/email-your-conservative-mp

It's pretty extraordinary what we've managed to achieve together already. Nearly half a million of us have signed the petition to save the NHS. And after Andrew Lansley announced the last round of changes, thousands of 38 Degrees members immediately chipped in to get top independent legal advice on the new plans.

Barrister Rebecca Haynes found that the government's plans could pave the way for private healthcare companies and their lawyers to benefit most from changes, not patients. Another barrister, Stephen Cragg, found that we were right to be worried that Andrew Lansley was planning to remove his duty to provide our NHS.

This is the conclusion of a top legal team paid to have no other interest at heart but yours.

MPs vote in just seven days. Seven days to not only get the evidence, but be convinced there's way too much public concern to ignore it. The good news is, with over 800,000 of us now armed with expert legal advice, we are just the people to speak up. Our message is clear: we have the facts, so politicians can't hide behind spin. Let's give MPs from all parties the mandate they need to think again and vote against these changes to the NHS.
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/email-your-conservative-mp

More:

Dr Ron Singer: "Andrew Lansley is wrong - GPs do not support this NHS bill"
Dr Clare Gerada: "The health bill should be amended again or withdrawn"
Sir Roger Boyle: "It is horrific that the NHS's future is threatened"
Max Pemberton: "The day they signed the death warrant for the NHS"
UNISON: "Five reasons to scrap the Health and Social Care Bill"

What now for Libya?

2011-08-31T14:22:00.001+01:00

Libya's agonising freedom struggle is almost over.
TV, radio and papers are stuffed with all-knowing pundits telling us what is going to happen next.

In fact, no-one knows what is going to happen, because what is going to happen is in the future, and nobody knows the future. It all depends on what choices the Libyan people make.

It is a massive choice, and there are many dangers: chaos, tribal warfare, and a replacement dictatorship are the bad outcomes, which most of the "experts" dwell on with the gloomy relish of the Fat Boy in Pickwick.

There is also the possibility of a good outcome, and few mention this. Which is bad.

The revolution has happened because the Libyan people were of one mind: Gaddafi Must Go. Being of one mind, the people won, which proves the basic ground truth of democracy: the people are the ultimate source of political power.

Now comes the tricky part: the people have to reconstruct their country and nation. This is where the politicking, the jostling, the disagreements and the problems start. From being of one mind, they become of many minds.

To succeed, they need a single idea to unite them. There is such an idea, a sound, robust and simple idea that overrides all sectional interests. It is the same idea that can unite all humanity. It is simple, easily grasped, but it it so simple and so obvious that nobody sees it.

It is like the Sun, that gives light and life to everything, although nobody can look directly at the Sun.

It is the idea of sustainability.

What the Libyan people need is the same as that which the whole human family needs:
water, food, housing, energy, and safe waste recycling - foundational economic needs.
When those needs are satisfied, humans need education, healthy environment, health services, justice, equality, music, dancing, art, conviviality and happiness.

To satisfy the foundational economic needs, we have to work. All governments would do well to remember that youth unemployment is one of the constant drivers of rebellion, not just in the Arab Spring, but also in the recent English Riots.
Two problems, one solution: the proper work of government is provide work in providing for basic ecological needs.

The Libyan revolution deserves a new economics, one where unemployment and poverty is a thing of the past, and everyone has access to good, satisfying, meaningful and well-remunerated work.

Insofar as the revolution is a response to unemployment, it is a rejection of conventional economics, which is based on market values, and uses unemployment as an instrument to keep wages down and profitability up.

This is a distortion of real, ecological economics, which demands that if there is a vital task to be done, it is the job of the government to ensure that the work gets done. Governments must therefore invest in broad, employment intensive infrastructure projects to secure access to water and food.

In creating a new sense of purpose, of everyone working together on projects that have an immediate benefit to society, the power of the people is focused on construction rather than crime, self-interest and destruction, the unity of the revolution is maintained, and a new social and economic order can emerge, not just in the Middle East, but around the world.

Libyans are intelligent, spirited and are riding high on the wave of victory over an oppressive dictatorship. If they can create a new economic model that provides good work, eliminates poverty and reduces inequality, they will be giving leadership not just to the new nations of the Arab Spring, but also to the whole world.

More:
Overview of the new economics
Water projects as channel of co-operation

Gang Culture: a cry for a rite of passage? aka work

2011-08-19T12:39:00.000+01:00

Yesterday my second blog post was published on Huffington Post UK. I have pasted it here, as it is buried out of sight in the huffPost blogs section, though I am hopeful that if my blogs there get loads of comments, they will gradually unbury them.

David Cameron has just declared all-out War on Gangs, which follows hard on the heels War on Terror and the War on Drugs, neither of which are famous for ending in glorious victory. We must hope that Dave is just breathing out sturm und drang to appease his tabloids, and that the policy that follows will be more intelligent.

A wise African proverb is doing the rounds at the moment: "If the young are not initiated into the village, they will burn it down just to feel its warmth". That pretty much sums up the riots of last week.

Initiation ceremonies are ubiquitous in tribal societies. As the child makes the transition into adulthood, the passage is marked by ceremonies, often painful, leaving permanent and visible scars. Following initiation, the child is rewarded with a place in the community. It is salutary to remember that teenagers in hunter-gatherer societies are the main hunters. Contrast the difference between the state of mind of a sixteen year old hunter returning to the village carrying a deer that he has killed, and that of a sixteen year old standing on the corner of a sink estate with no home, no hope, no opportunity.

Modified rites of passage persist in sub-sets of modern societies in a wide variety of forms that range from meek and mild confirmation services in Christian churches to ritual humiliations and bullying that happens in many places of work - and in gangs. Initiation into a gang often involves demonstrating toughness by being beaten ("beat in") by the gang or by performing a crime.

We have a situation where a young person, in the absence of any clear initiation into adult community, is offered, and accepts, a painful, degrading and even a criminal act in order to be included in his or her micro-society, the local gang. The gang provides comradeship, respect, and purpose. It may also profits from drug dealing. In the absence of vertical lines of inclusion into society, the gang member finds horizontal lines of inclusion into a gang.

It is not unreasonable to propose that society should offer young people in transition to adulthood some kind of rite of passage as an alternative to gang membership. But what would that be, given that ritual scarification is a non-starter?

National military service is often put forward as a solution, but the Forces are less than enthusiastic about the prospect of being handed a cohort of alienated youth every year, knowing as they do that one volunteer is worth 100 conscripts. There is also a question mark about the soundness of training potential gang members in the arts of war and destruction. The Army has expertise in training people for killing, but its record in preparing them for civilian life at the end of their service is not so good.

There is one excellent candidate for initiation of young people into membership of society. It is commonplace, happens every day, generates wealth, gives participants time structure, satisfaction, and self esteem. It has been shown to increase health and happiness. It has the potential to make even the most run down inner city estate clean, beautiful and secure.

It is called "work".

The problem is that in the economy as it is currently structured, work is in short supply. Youth unemployment has doubled over the last decade, with one million of our young people now jobless out of a total of 2.54 million unemployed.

The sheer magnitude of the riots demands a radical re-think of youth unemployment and the relationship between work and benefits. There is plenty of good work to be done. There is an abundance of people available for work. We simply cannot afford to condemn our young to a life sentence of unemployment, poverty and alienation.

There is a solution to unemployment: the Work Stimulus Scheme. It involves accrediting employers as providers of services that are of benefit to society or the environment. These employers can then go to the Job Centres and take on new labour. New hands bring their benefits into work with them, and the employer tops up their wage to the going rate for the job. The firm's productivity goes up, the unemployment register goes down. The local community benefits in having better local services and local environment, and less idle gangsters hanging out. The Social Security budget is unchanged since the benefit would be paid in any case. The measure transforms a dead dole, paid grudgingly to a humiliated sub-class, into a stimulating subsidy for good work that enhances the community and its environment.

Maybe, instead of being the opening shots of a new war, the riots represent a rite of passage for a modern economy that will enable our welfare system to grow into a useful servant of society.

How do we get rid of unemployment?

2011-08-18T11:11:00.003+01:00

Unemployment up at 2,500,000 in the UK. Nearly 8% for 16-64 age group, but scandalously, 20% of the 16-24 age group. This 16-24 age group numbered 7.4m in 2007
and 20% of 7.4m is nearly 1.4m.

Unemployment among 16 to 24 age group heads above one million barrier/a>

That's more than a million of our youth out of work, detached from the economy and community, short of cash in a culture where you are what you own.

And if a double dip recession develops, as now seems likely, things will get worse.

This situation is intolerable. It will lead to more theft and more riots. Unemployment causes ill health.

It is an insane situation, insane in the sense that the thinking behind unemployment, insofar as there is any thinking, is at odds with reality.

Unemployment represents market failure.

There is no place for unemployment in a green (that is, a real) economy.

When there is work to be done, and people around who are able to do work, it makes no sense to have people idle.

Here is a vignette of this problem in Mozambique.

This is how we can get people back into work, even (especially) in a recession.

1 Set up a tribunal in each Local Authority area with a remit to judge whether the work of an enterprise (public, private or voluntary) is beneficial to society or environment.
2 Enterprises which are accredited as meeting these criteria can take in labour from the Job Centers.
3 The new hands bring their benefit into work with them. That is, there is a 100% Earnings Disregard.
In other words, the benefit in this case behaves exactly as Citizen's Income would work.
4 The employer tops up the pay of the new worker to the going rate for the job.
5 The employer is not allowed to displace old workers with those under the new scheme.
6 There is no element of compulsion in the scheme.

The effect of this "Green Wage Subsidy" (GWS) or "Work Stimulus Scheme" is to provide new work in the green (i.e. constructive) sector. At the same time it increases productivity in the green sector. The work provided reduces poverty, stimulates the local economy, increases social cohesiveness and reduces crime and gang membership. All this comes at no extra cost to the State in the short term, since the benefits would be paid in any case. The GWS just converts benefits from being a dead dole into a stimulus for the green sector of the economy.

It is indeed just taking Ian Duncan Smith's welfare reforms a little further.

More detail on the scheme here.

Community Links is thinking along the same lines.

It is a method of introducing Citizen's Income (which is Green Party policy) in a gradual way.

Unlike having one in 10 people (1 in five of young people) unemployed, it makes sense.

See also: the Philosophy of Work
Scandal of Tesco's use of free labour.

English riots and Income Equality

2011-08-17T16:50:00.001+01:00

This is from the Equality Trust, giving evidence for inequality as one causal component of the recent riots:

* Levels of crime and violence are strongly linked to inequality – see our recent Research Digest # 1.

* The UK has very low levels of trust – barely 1 in 3 of us thinks that “most other people can be trusted”.

* Low levels of trust undermine community cohesion and produce low levels of social capital (social interaction) which is a breeding ground for mistrust, misunderstanding and antagonism.

* High levels of health and social problems, more common in poorer communities anyway, are further exacerbated by inequality leading to desperation in some people.

* According to UNICEF, the UK is one of the worst places in the developed world to be a child or teenager.

* Inequality encourages status competition and a “me first” approach to life which can be witnessed across society – from bankers to MPs to looters.

* Greater equality would improve the overall quality of social relations in the UK and reduce the chances of a repeat of the riots.

Is Homo Sapiens irredeemably stupid?

2011-08-17T12:30:00.001+01:00

Following on from yesterday's post about the loose cannon of anger, today I am entertaining the feeling that maybe mankind is irredeemably stupid, and that we are destined to destroy ourselves.

Look at the problems we face: Riots, savage sentencing, inequality, recession, unemployment (when there is so much good work that needs to be done), corruption, brainless tabloid manipulation of public opinion, dictatorships, torture, violence, conflict, war, nuclear proliferation and threat of nuclear war by accident, environmental degradation, climate change, resource depletion, debt crisis and the rest.

Humans have been equipped with reason which, applied scientifically, is enormously powerful in understanding and manipulating material and energetic processes right down to infinitesimal levels. We understand particles that are so tiny they hardly exist at all. We understand the physical processes that occurred within milliseconds of the Big Bang. We have a good understanding of biology, and a very reasonable understanding of medicine, although economic pressures bias the science even here.

But as soon as we begin to apply our understanding to matters that affect our own human behaviour, or more to the point, to the way our behaviour is ruled by the oligarchs, science comes up against the headwinds of denial.

Unemployment is damaging health of individuals & communities, when so much work needs to be done.
People are homeless when houses lie empty.
Climate science has been trashed by ignorant propagandists like Delingpole and Monckton.
Intensely important epidemiological insights from the Spirit Level are ignored.
The simple truth that if money is created out of debt, debt will inevitably increase, is also ignored.
The mathematics of exponential series shows that population increase is not sustainable, yet the subject remains taboo.

And so it goes on. Reason is trashed by self interest.
This situation produces the ineluctable progression of frustration to anger to hatred to violence to more anger.

Despair beckons. But by giving way to despair, we become part of the problem. By continuing to voice reasoned calm arguments, we can remain part of the solution.

Humanity can change.
We got rid of human sacrifice around the time of the Iron Age, about 1000BC.
We got rid of slavery in the 19th century.

Our present problem lies in identifying precisely what it is that we have to get rid of now.
Stupidity?
Selfishness?
Free Market Absolutism?
Oligarchy?
Plutocracy?

I would appreciate suggestions, because I find it difficult to capture all our problems in one word.

I can see clearly the key reform that we need to start with.

Tax the Rich.

This will solve our immediate economic problems of debt, giving us breathing space to rearrange our affairs in a rational way based on human ecology that works for the good of all, now and until our Sun turns into a red giant in 5 billion years' time.

I feel a bit better now. Hope you do too.

Anger is a loose cannon.

2011-08-16T16:30:00.000+01:00

Imagine you are aboard an old sailing man o'war in rough seas. A cannon breaks loose from its ropes. It rolls across the deck as the ship rolls, smashing everything in its path. The ship rolls to the other side. The cannon careers back to the other side, breaking more stuff, injuring people. The ship rolls again...

The ship is HMS UK. The cannon is called Anger. Anger born of alienation, of being poor in a society where you are what you own, of having no chance of a job, of living in s sink estate where everything is dirty, broken and ugly, where if you walk the streets, you are very likely to be stopped and searched by police. When someone in your community is shot by police, and the family of the dead man wait for hours, peacefully, outside the police station and are not given an explanation, the last tethering rope breaks.

Stored resentment against an alien society boils over, and crowd behaviour takes over. Three nights of smashing, looting, arson and murder follow, until it is suppressed by massive police deployments.

The the loose cannon of anger rolls the other way. Magistrates hand out prison sentences that will cost the taxpayer £30,000 to a boy that stole £3 worth of drink. A kid gets a lifetime criminal record for stealing chewing gum worth less than £1. A mother who stayed away from the rioting get 3 months prison for receiving a pair of stolen shorts. The cannon of anger is rolling to starboard.

People who view these savage sentences and remember that bankers who did far more damage to the economy than the rioters have got away scot-free, with bonuses even. The cannon of anger rolls to port again, this time entraining people who were never angry before.

More anger is not the answer. The answer is justice, equitableness, calmness, and rational provision of parenting skill training, youth clubs, community workers, good jobs, all provided by taxation of rich individuals and corporations who avoid taxation.

Newsnight, MacKenzie, second chance

2011-08-15T10:48:00.000+01:00

Dear Newsnight

I know that formal complaints are unpleasant for all concerned, so I am giving you a second chance to respond informally to this email. If not answered within a week, I will instigate formal complaint proceedings, which will hurt me more than it will hurt you. So be it.

I would like to make an informal complaint about Newsnight's use of Kelvin MacKenzie as a commentator. You will be aware from the Twitter stream which had him trending after his inclusion in the discussion on august 9th. He is not a popular figure. He said that there was no need to "understand" the root causes of the riots. Since your audience watches Newsnight in the (sometimes vain) hope of gaining some understanding of the issues in the news, this makes him an inappropriate guest.

I have heard him say on another occasion, possibly on Newsnight or maybe Question Time, that the intent of his journalism is to "make people angry". We are witnessing in the riots what happens when people are angry. It is a destructive emotion, not one to be cultivated, especially in these times, and certainly not on a programme that purports to carry serious debate and comment with a view to increasing understanding.

I am hoping for a simple straight assurance that MacKenzie will not be invited in again. If there is no reply to this email, I will convert it into a formal complaint.

This is your second chance.

Thank you

Richard Lawson
www.greenerblog.blogspot.com

Tories are to be understood and pitied, not condemned

2011-08-12T18:55:00.002+01:00

HT Owen Williams

Watching the news, in jaw-dropping horror, as the right wing politicians' mindless orgy of rage smashes at the fabric of society, punishing feckless mums for the sins of their offspring, threatening councils with massive bills for re-housing problem families in hotels after they have been driven out of their council houses, committing untold millions of tax-payers' hard-earned money in self-defeating schemes like withdrawing benefits from rioters, it is easy to feel angry and upset with them.

But we mustn't.

We must try to understand them.

Remember that your average Tory politician was first wet-nursed then controlled by a nanny, turfed out of his family home at the tender age of 7, packed off to a stinking boarding school to be abused physically and possibly sexually by elder children, equally emotionally deprived, made to "fag" for them, living in a self absorbed bubble, isolated from society...

Is it any wonder that Tories have no understanding of what is going on in the real world?

We must try to understand more and condemn less. They are to be pitied, not treated with contempt.

What we really need to do is to make sure that never again are their well-manicured soft hands allowed to get near to the levers of power.

Is it a good idea to withdraw benefits from convicted rioters?

2011-08-12T12:58:00.001+01:00

(This brochure came through the post today)

In response to the riots, the Government ePetitions site has had 141,028 votes for the proposition
"Convicted London rioters should loose (sic) all benefits".
Responsible department: Department for Work and Pensions
Any persons convicted of criminal acts during the current London riots should have all financial benefits removed. No tax payer should have to contribute to those who have destroyed property, stolen from their community and shown a disregard for the country that provides for them.

>100,000 signatures means that the proposition could be debated in Parliament.
Let's just think this through.

If a criminal has no job & no benefit, s/he has 3 options: starve, beg, or rob.

Being criminal, the latter (robbery) is most likely. Being caught also offers chance of prison, which is an attractive option to being homeless and starving.

Therefore cutting off benefits is going to incur the folllowing costs: NHS (if robbery victim is assaulted, and also for the resulting stress disorder in the victim), police time, court time, and prison time. These costs far exceed monies saved in benefit payments.

Cutting benefits is a very expensive option for us in times of austerity, and we can be sure that Gideon will block it. If he has any sense at all.

What has happened here is that the anger of the rioters has created anger in the tabloid reading public, and come up with a solution that would simply make things worse.

Galling though it is that rioters should continue to receive benefits, this is one place where it is reasonable to consider workfare: the convicted rioter (and other miscreants) could be required to work for their benefit, for a defined period of time.

The correct response to the riots is to remodel society and economy along Green lines.

How can we prevent a recurrence of the 2011 English riots?

2011-08-11T09:57:00.002+01:00

Phew.
The English Riots 2011 are over.
Sound the All Clear, and back to Business As Usual (BAU), now with added repression.

Economists love formulae. Here's one
BAU = RGRPCGTH
The rich get richer, and the poor can go to hell.

Or...call me naive if you wish, but I personally think it would be a good idea to bring in a few modest, cost effective reforms designed to reduce the probability of a recurrence of the rioting. They are based on this post on the causes of the riots.

Outline reforms to promote social cohesion in the UK

1 Provide parenting skills to parents that need help.

Effective counselling and education programmes are available. GPs, schools and other agencies could make referrals when they become aware of a child that is in danger of going out of control.

2 Provide for community leaders and community space in any neighbourhood that requests them.

The leaders can be drawn from the local community, or if appropriate, they could come from outside. The effectiveness of this provision has a sound evidence base. Go here, click on Impact of Social Conditions on Health, and scroll down to "Stimulating the sense of community)

3 Take action to limit the influence of gang culture

There are things that can be done.
Including the re-opening of Youth Clubs. Height of stupidity to close them as part of Osborne's cuts.

4 Stop the cuts in public services that make the lives of the poor more bearable

'Nuff said.

5 Faclilitate access of unemployed to good work

Let them take their benefit in to socially and environmentally useful work.

6 Tax the Rich

There is sound evidence to show that more unequal societies (i.e. those with larger divergence between rich and poor) have more social problems.

So, close tax avoidance loopholes, close tax havens on a global basis.

Globalisation of the economy clearly requires a global tax regime - not the same percentages for each country, but a regime that stops super-rich corporations and individuals from threatening to move their business away from any country that tries to tax them meaningfully.

It is claimed that corporations create wealth which then "trickles down" to the whole country. This trickle down is a prostatic dribble, insignificant in comparison to the Niagra-like roar of money being siphoned off into tax havens. By closing off this loss, national economies throughout the world (193 out of 198 countries are in debt) will be able to reduce/pay off their deficits.

Oh, and the increased tax revenues will provide funding for items 1-5 above.

As I say, call me naive if you wish.

PS: This post does not address the problem of policing, because it is a huge topic in its own right, covering shootings, dealing with complaints, the incomprehensible disjunction between their heavy handedness in dealing with peaceful demonstrators and soft touch with violent looters, &c.

Complaint to Newsnight about Kelvin MacKenzie

2011-08-10T10:20:00.000+01:00

to: newsnight@bbc.co.uk

Dear Newsnight

I would like to make an informal complaint about Newsnight's use of Kelvin MacKenzie as a commentator. You will be aware from the Twitter stream which had him trending last night, that he is not a popular figure. Yesterday he said that there was no need to "understand" the root causes of the riots. Since your audience watches Newsnight in the (sometimes vain) hope of gaining some understanding of the issues in the news, this makes him an inappropriate guest.

I have heard him say on another occasion that the intent of his journalism is to "make people angry". We are witnessing in the riots what happens when people are angry. It is a destructive emotion, not one to be cultivated, especially in these times, and on a programme that purports to carry serious debate and comment.

This is an informal complaint at the moment, as I do not wish to weigh you down with the work implied in a formal complaint. I am hoping for a simple straight assurance that MacKenzie will not be invited in again. If there is no reply to this email, I will convert it into a formal complaint.

Thank you