The gap widens

Another beautiful morning for a 25 minute run through the woods. Sunny, but green, moist & mild. Unlike sub-Saharan Africa, where drought is increasing in frequency and severity as a result of global warming. The situation is compounded by land-grabbing, as richer nations (and individuals) buy up massive areas of the most fertile parts of these drought-threatened countries to export food back to their own populations (ref). Moreover, as the lovely World Bank discovered and suppressed, production of biofuels, driven by demand from the EU & US, has pushed up global food prices by 75%. 

Consequently, in drought conditions, as well as being deprived of water, many more people can neither grow basic food nor afford to buy it, which is precisely the situation now arising in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia & Uganda. 

Meanwhile, as the global situation continues to take its relatively modest toll in the UK, and hundreds of thousands of people come out on strike against the government’s policies of reducing pay & pensions, at least one person must be feeling secure and well fed. Our very own publicly-funded heir to the throne, Prince Charles, has increased his annual income by 5% to nearly £20 million (ref & ref). To put that into context, it is equivalent to the average annual income of 46,000 Ethiopians.

Banks again

Another fine summer morning, a gentle 30 minute run, and more economic Sturm und Drang.

Whilst talking up its environmental agenda, the UK government continues to contribute £2bn per year (approx 1/3 of its total foreign aid budget) to the World Bank, according to a report in today's Guardian.

That’s the same World Bank which is still encouraging coal-fired power stations in developing countries, locking those countries into high carbon emissions for decades to come. 

The same World Bank from which an indebted country can’t borrow money without having a domestic policy of privatising domestic water supplies – ie putting water into the hands of profiteers at a time when it is becoming more & more scarce.

The same World Bank which suppressed its own report which found that biofuels had driven food prices up 75%, so as not to embarrass the US government. (ref).

Sometimes it feels as if there are at least two alternative realities operating on this planet, which will simply never converge.

Supply & demand

A small duathalon this sunny morning, with a 20 minute run followed by a 10 mile cycle trip to the dentist, so plenty of time to mull over some basic principles of economics.

David Cameron has agreed with Premier Wen Jiabao of China that the UK will supply some expensive consumer flim-flam to meet the demands of the burgeoning Chinese bourgeoisie. At the same time, in response to the demand that he doesn’t make a fuss about human rights, Cameron was supplied with 2 giant pandas.

Meanwhile, a report in today’s Independent shows that for every job vacancy in the UK for university graduates there are, on average, 83 applicants. Simultaneously, amongst the smoke & mirrors of the government’s re-modelling of universities, is another stage in their mission to privatise the entire UK society - the introduction of degree courses run by private companies. No doubt Tesco and Ikea are already working at it. A future of “3 degrees for the price of 2” and flat-pack DIY doctorates awaits us, if not to help the graduates to find employment, then at least to give them value for money in the new marketised world.

Weeds ?

Another moist and verdant morning and an enjoyable 25 minutes running through the woods and undergrowth.

Last night we watched a documentary about so-called weeds, which are plants in conflict with human activities. Plants, like animals & humans, simply exist to survive as species by replication. Generally, over time, an equilibrium is reached between different species until an environmental trauma occurs, or one species begins to dominate, and then a new equilibrium has to be established, in a naturally dialectic process. The troubling underlying conceit is that, even now in the allegedly environmentally aware 21^st century, the human goal seems to be to control these plants eugenically, rather than to learn to live in harmony with them. Our survival plan is essentially to feed our own unfettered replication by sucking the environment dry, rather than by adjusting our demand to suit what is naturally & harmoniously available. In that way we have a great deal in common with Japanese Knotweed.

Emperor's new clothes

A humid and muddy morning back in Glasgow, and a good 25 minute run.

Afterwards we cycled to the newly opened Riverside Museum - the first major UK commission by global architectural celebrity Zaha Hadid. From a distance, and in carefully edited photos, the building is sculpturally stunning. Up close and internally it is a massive disappointment, failing to deliver on almost every count. Glasgow would have been better spending the £74 million on a simple shed of twice the size and half the pretension. What we have instead is a grandiose architectural metaphor for short-term superficial consumerism, cluttered, confused & confusing, and lacking in humanity, and a lamentably missed opportunity to be a showpiece of sustainability. The only saving grace is the collection of objects which, despite the inchoherent display and egocentric building, are for the most part fascinating and sometimes beautiful.

The parson's egg

A beautiful morning, and a lovely 25 minute run. And what's more, the news headlines, whilst not positively good, are not entirely bad either.

Obama has announced a large scale troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is a bit of a damned if you do & damned if you don't situation. By making the only sensible decision, to withdraw, he also puts the spotlight on what, if anything, has been achieved in the last 10 years apart from a very expensive manhunt.

Ai Weiwei has finally been released by the Chinese, albeit on bail following charges of alleged tax evasion, and unlike the thousands of other political prisoners who haven't proved to be such an embarrassment to the Chinese government..

And the UK government is allegedly considering giving each member of the electorate shares in the Royal Bank of Scotland, since we own 83% of it anyway, to "reduce mistrust in the banking system". Now, given what the banks have done and are still doing despite massive exposure of corruption, bad judgement and pure greed, it will probably take more than a bribe of £770 to restore our trust, or even restore the popularity of Nick Clegg, who is fronting the plan, but it will be entertaining to see how the government wriggle out of actually doing it.

Midsummer reflection

A beautiful morning and a fine 30 minute run to celebrate the summer solstice before returning to scan the news, where there is precious little to celebrate.

A panel of 27 marine scientists have reported that the damage facing the world’s oceans, from global warming, pollution, over-fishing, & acidification is directly comparable to the five great mass extinctions in the geological record, during each of which much of the world's life died out (ref). And that the oceans may already have passed breaking point. There’s a strong argument that humans deserve what’s coming, but it seems a tough break for the other millions of species who were getting on fine until we came along.

Getting into deeper water

No run today – tree planting instead.

A piece of good news from Edinburgh – the Scottish Government has given the Edinburgh Centre on Climate Change £1.6 million to create over 80 new jobs at the Centre. The value of the ECCC will be judged by its results, but this is an encouraging step forward.

And some bad news. Cairn Energy, an Edinburgh based oil company, have been taking expensive and punitive legal action to block efforts by Greenpeace to force them to reveal their oil spill disaster plan, as they carry out deep sea drilling in the Arctic only 12 months after one of the world’s worst oil spill disasters at the Deepwater Horizon rig brought all such disaster plans into serious doubt. Instead, Cairn have declared reassuringly that "Wherever it is active, it seeks to operate in a safe and prudent manner”. 

Oh right...... that’s fine then............we can all stop worrying about a Klondike-like oil rush putting grotesque profiteering before environmental responsibility, as "one of Europe's largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies" (sic) exercises its inalienable right to risk destroying another sector of the planet in order to feed our climate-wrecking oil addiction, whilst making shed-loads of money in the process .

The following passage is taken from the website of People & Planet via the excellent Unsuitablog :
RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland)* arranged the finance allowing the Scottish oil company Cairn Energy to forge ahead with oil exploration in pristine parts of Greenland’s Arctic. In March 2009, following the Treasury’s bail out of the bank with public money, RBS acted as joint arranger with Merrill Lynch, placing shares worth £116 million for “accelerated drilling” in Greenland by Cairn Energy.
Determined to tap into potential oil reserves within this untouched region, Cairn Energy are keen to lead the rush into Arctic drilling, describing Greenland as ‘a true frontier country’. It has already gained licences covering 72,000 square kilometres off Greenland’s west coast, an area half the size of England. Cairn Energy have suggested that these are just the beginning and that it hopes to expand further. The US Geological Survey has estimated that over 16 billion barrels of oil and gas could lie off Greenland’s coast. 
Safety and prudence are clearly foremost in the minds of both Cairn and RBS !
*Yes, that's the same RBS known for its obscene bonus payments and other dirty investments (ref)

Vote for totalitarianism

Another beautiful morning, and a 30 minute running reminder that back muscles take longer to heal as you get older. The tidal loch was unusually high, but this is probably due to the effect of the full moon, rather than melting ice caps.

One of the big problems with democratically elected governments is that they are too afraid to make radical and unpopular decisions, preferring to cater for what they think the majority of voters want to hear, and generally prostituting themselves in the hope of re-election.

The world as a whole is faced with a series of radical and unpopular choices if we are to break the destructive cycle of international capitalism, consumerism, and environmental despoliation.

Therefore the solution is simple – we need to vote for fair and honest totalitarian governments.

Apologies to rabbits

A beautiful silvery morning and a fine 28 minute run.

In the run up to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Lima on 20 June, rather than trying to address the causes of global warming, geo-engineers have been asked to look at ways of reducing the consequences by changing the biosphere (ref). Not being a geo-engineer, some of the ideas sound hugely risky to me – such as dumping huge quantities of iron filings, or lime, into the ocean, or putting sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight. Some of the others are just wacky.

On the other hand, given our collective inability to make large scale voluntary changes to the way in which we are wrecking the planet, just maybe it is slightly better than standing by helplessly as we consume our way to extinction. However the parallels with stomach stapling and gastric banding are sadly unavoidable.

Talking of human greed, a couple of posts ago I drew a parallel between rabbits and the political Right. On reflection, that was a careless and gross insult to rabbits, and I withdraw the comment unreservedly.

Striking back

Strikes planned for 30 June could bring 750,000 people out onto the streets of the UK in protest against the unfairness of the “austerity cuts” as, predictably, the poor are hit proportionately harder (ref) in the pan-european orgy of opportunistic disaster capitalism that has followed the financial collapse. The UK government response is to threaten to tighten the laws against industrial action to a level more restrictive even than that introduced by Generalissimo Thatcher, rather than to resolve the financial crisis  more fairly by eliminating corporate and individual tax-avoidance and by reducing the grotesque military budget to a level appropriate to a small over-populated country in a state of chronic industrial decline.
On the other hand, people may just stay in out of the rain and watch the tennis at Wimbledon instead.

The problem with politics

I’m not sure if the problem with left-wing and liberal politics is the politicians or our own willingness to be let down time and time again. The slick of right-wing governments currently spreading across Europe are, like rabbits, at least reasonably transparent in their greed.

Maybe people outside the UK didn’t really notice the surge of hope that followed Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg in the last general election, nor the corresponding surge of dismay as he has seemingly sacrificed every principle in order to remain attached to the coat tails of D Cameron. The transformation of Tony Blair from saviour of the Left into war-mongering capitalist lickspittle was perhaps more noticeable. And Barack Obama’s slow turning away from his election promises is a world-class disappointment. Failure to close Guantanamo Bay (ref), collusion in the appalling treatment of Bradley Manning (ref), concessions and delays in the limiting of carbon emissions (ref)……………

On reflection, the problem is probably more to do with the so-called democratic system by which politicians feel the need to seduce the electorate, instead of standing or falling by sincerely held principles. Maybe we expect too much !

Cycle for a better world

No running for a few days, for convalescent reasons.

Three days ago it was World Naked Bike Ride Day, in protest against our oil-dependent culture. As with Earth Hour a few months ago, the event is probably useful as an indicator of some popular support for an alternative path, but maybe not quite enough to force governments to change course away from their profiteering & collusion with the oil companies. That would take a World Naked Overthrow The Government Day.

Meanwhile, the UK government is being advised to remove climate change from the school curriculum, in a move reminiscent of the Creationists in the US. 

Power companies, including Scottish Power, are front-loading their tariffs so that consumers are effectively encouraged to use more energy in order to qualify for the cheaper rate.

More seriously in Syria, the government continues its brutal and murderous suppression of rebellion, in the freedom that seems to come if a country no longer has significant oil reserves.(ref)
We really don't deserve to be the dominant species !!

Simple Sunday

At last a warm sunny morning and a fine 70 minute run with my new son-in-law & the dogs along the forestry path, marred only by a pulled back muscle from shifting too many rocks last week.
Not seen the news for 2 days.

Putting out the fire with gasolene

Back to the Highlands for a wet 25 minute run.

In Yemen, according to the NY Times, the US is taking the opportunity of a power vacuum to bomb militant “suspects”. No doubt this will be justified in terms of the rules of the war on terror, rather than as the unilateral action of a supremely arrogant military super-power with apparently little concern for collateral damage. Maybe it will be further justified as a show of strength at a time when the US is particularly concerned by the re-emergence of a unified Palestinian state (Independent) as well as by the potential threat to oil supplies. Nevertheless, as tension and instability increases across the Middle East, such bombing seems much more likely to inflame extremism than to extinguish it. 

I'm already struggling to find something positive with which to balance the deluge of bad and worrying news. But it is very peaceful up here in the Highlands, and the frogs are enjoying the weather, unconcerned by the mess we humans are making.

Yin & yang

A fine cool morning, as Scotland's weather continues it's brave bid for independence from the rest of the UK, and another enjoyable 25 minute run. As an experiment, from now on I will try to balance negative & critical comments in this blog with something more positive.

That global bastion of responsible & in-depth journalism, the BBC, has asked the critical question: Why are the French not interested in the sex lives of the powerful?, as the UK media strive to justify their prurient obsession with the sexual activities of the rich & famous on the grounds of serving the public interest. Yada yada. The argument would be a bit more convincing if they were equally enthusiastic about exposing the greed & tax-avoidance stratagems of the rich & famous, or their views on environmental responsibility, or any of the issues that actually matter. 

Meanwhile back in Hamburg it seems that bean sprouts are the latest suspect in the e-coli outbreak, or more precisely, some careless fertilising of bean sprouts. Hopefully the sprouts themselves won't be generally victimised as a food. In the 1940s Clive McCay, professor of nutrition at Cornell University, described soya bean sprouts as an almost perfect food - ‘A vegetable which will grow in any climate, will rival meat in nutritive value, will mature in three to five days, may be planted any day of the year, will require neither soil nor sunshine, will rival tomatoes in Vitamin C, will be free of waste in preparation and can be cooked with little fuel…’. We need foods like that !

Complexity & contradiction

Overcast, slightly chilly 25 minute run, reflecting mainly on the excellent 1953 film, Tokyo Story.

More people now live in cities than not. Tokyo has a population of over 13 million. Shanghai has 18 million, and there are 32 million people living in and around the city of Chongqing in SW China – that’s over half the population of the UK, or the entire population of Canada. 

Cities vie with each other to have the tallest building, or the most fashionable architecture, as they seem to have done for thousands of years, as they peddle an endless narrative of material “success”. Behind that narrative though, all cities are vast & complex organisms in a constant state of growth and decay, which could and probably should be seen as some type of primitive, self-replicating life form. And as with people, the full story is an overlaid and interwoven combination of many many narratives, light and dark.

Truth and attachment

A beautiful blue-sky day and a very enjoyable run.

An Hindu cleric quoted the Bhagavad Gita on the radio this morning to suggest that important decisions should be made in a state of calm and clear-sighted attachment to the truth, rather than in one of blind attachment to our own self-centred agenda. This is a lesson to be heeded by western governments as popular uprisings continue to spread in the Middle East, and as military intervention in Libya slowly creeps away from the initial UN resolution into a bloody and apparently endless mess like the conflict in Afghanistan – where there are now  faint but hopeful signs of a 3^rd way to finding a solution without appeasing the Taliban or being subject to western imperialism, as the National Movement (Besij e Melli) gains momentum, apparently inspired by those same popular uprisings in the Middle East (BBC).

Murky waters

A grey but very warm morning, and a swift 25 minute run.
More news this morning about agri-expansionism (1) and multi-national corruption (2).
As the global commodity profiteers rampage across the planet, leaving a trail of exhausted & despoiled environments, it's very easy (and on the whole, very appropriate) to rail against them and blame them for the damage they cause. At the same time the picture is more complicated, since a large part of the profiteering motivation is to satisfy the shareholders and from that starting point the chain of responsibility leads, proportionately but swiftly, through the murky financial waters to all of us who benefit from share investments, directly or indirectly, personally or civically. Oops.

Energy matters

A brisk and refreshing 25 minute run this morning, before returning for a quick scan of the news.

Continuing the theme of yesterday's post, the UK is seemingly leading the world again, this time in the rush to procure viable agricultural land in developing countries for the production of biofuel, rather than food for the people in those countries. According to a report in today’s Guardian, over half of the 3.2 million hectares of identified biofuel land in Africa has been linked to UK companies.

Meanwhile Germany has made an admirable move to phase out all nuclear power generation by 2022 (Spiegel).  An interesting additional step, and one which could be followed and improved on by the whole of the developed world, is the commitment to reduce energy consumption by 10%. To put that into context, the world's most profligate energy consumer, Qatar, uses 132 times more energy per person than the least, Bangladesh. The US uses 48 times more than Bangladesh, and Germany a mere 26 times. So there is a long way to go before we reach the moral high ground !