Durban Summit List of Shame: Day 3

• Poland: for promoting coal in preference to cleaner fuels.
• Canada (yet again !!!): for denying that that those who did the most to cause this problem should act first and fastest to clean up the mess they made.

Between the devil and the deep blue sea

A cold, wet run beside the loch this morning, as the snow line creeps down from the hilltops.

The UK news is dominated by today’s national strike by an estimated 2 million public sector workers over planned changes to pensions. Whilst few people could dispute the need for some change, the proposals include what is in effect a pay reduction, which will have a serious impact on the many workers in the sector already receiving low levels of pay. Our affluent and privileged government leaders seem to relish the prospect of the strike as a distraction from their vicious and clumsy handling of the economic crisis and, more crucially, as justification for further dismantling of the nation’s public services. Polly Toynbee provides an excellent and succinct summary in today's Guardian (ref).

Durban Summit List of Shame: Day 2

• Canada (again): for procrastinating.
• USA: for trying to use smoke & mirrors to conceal its own culpability.

It's come to this !

After a night of incessant and loud rain on the cold tin roof,  today is deemed a no-run day.

Meanwhile, as the world cracks and crumbles, and as a billion people face starvation, we have reached a new landmark in our 200,000 year evolution – the world’s first urine controlled games console and advertising space for men (ref). Someone has apparently calculated that the average man spends 9 months of his life standing in front of a urinal, staring fixedly at the wall in front of him. As a fairly average man I would dispute the 9 months bit, but what do I know ? Anyway, this hitherto unproductive time has been targeted for advertising purposes and, to engage the man’s attention, he is invited to direct the stream of urine as a “joystick” to interact with the “gaming console” as he pees. Ye gods !

Durban Summit List of Shame: Day 1

• Canada: for formally withdrawing from Kyoto protocol, and for proposing to play "hardball" with developing countries.
• UK: for the "greenest government ever" lobbying the EU to reduce restrictions on oil from Canadian tar sands.

(Ref)

Job vacancy

A good blustery run through the woods before returning to the Highlands.

In Spiegel Online last week, veteran philosopher Jürgen Habermas spoke of his anger at our politicians who have long been incapable of aspiring to anything whatsoever other than being re-elected. They have no political substance whatsoever, no conviction (ref). These same politicians are now simultaneously meddling with two of the consequences of decades of short-sighted selfishness - financial insecurity in an unsustainable capitalist culture, and escalating carbon emissions in a warming climate. So much for democracy. Does anyone know a really smart and benign dictator ?

Freedom and responsibility

Briefly back to the gale-swept city, and an invigorating run through the muddy woods.

Last night we watched a short debate about the Leveson Inquiry into the role and behaviour of the UK press (ref). Much of the UK press seems for a long time to have been internationally famous for its invasive prurience and obsession with class, privilege, & celebrity. And now for its illegal methods of procuring, or inventing, information. The consensus of the debate was that the law should be firmly upheld with regard to those illegal methods, but that trying to legislate against being obsessed with the private lives of celebrities and victims is neither feasible nor desirable. The solution lies with us, the UK public. After all, the media reflect their audience, and for as long as there is a demand for this loathsome tittle tattle in place of actual news, then so will there be a supply.

We're the 1% too.

A chilly morning, with snow on the hill tops, and a fast run by the loch during a brief break in the rain.

Next Monday the international conference on climate change opens in Durban, and promises to be quite lively. Climate change, when manifested in rising sea levels and droughts, has a particular impact on poorer countries in Asia, Africa & South America – ie those countries that don’t count for much in a world driven by corporate trading. In a predictable but shameful pre-emptive move last week (ref) most of the world’s wealthier countries have agreed to delay any binding treaties on the reduction of carbon emissions until at least 2020, despite the potentially disastrous environmental consequences, in order to protect their economic “recovery”. Outraged by this lack of urgency, the poorer countries are contemplating taking direct action along the lines of Occupy Wall Street (ref), and quite right too.

Something positive

A pre-dawn loch-side run in a partially successful race against incoming rain.

The “debate” about human contribution to global warming, reduction of energy consumption, and sustainable  energy sources is rife with corporate vested interests, prejudice, mis-information, and inconsistency. So, nothing new there then. However, in a sincere and generous attempt to clarify at least the issues regarding sustainable energy, David MacKay, Professor of Natural Philosophy at Cambridge University, has written, and made available online, an excellent and wide-ranging analysis, Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air. Whilst his data is mainly focussed on the UK, many of the conclusions appear to be more widely applicable, and should make interesting reading for anyone who cares about the future of the planet.

Health matters

Back to the Highlands again for a very wet loch-side run. In fact we might as well have been running in the loch, rather than beside it.

The National Health Service in the UK was established in 1948 to deliver health care to all, funded by taxation, rather than paid for at the point of use. In other words delivered according to need, and paid for according to means. This was a remarkable achievement of fairness, good sense and practical socialism. Inevitably, with the shifting political culture of the last 25 years, this service has been steadily privatised and eroded, covertly and overtly, in the name of “efficiency savings”, to the point where the current government are presiding over a service which is so efficient it is deemed to be breaching the human rights of elderly people being cared for (ref).

Ironically, 1948 was also the year in which George Orwell wrote his brilliant dystopian novel 1984. The recent bizarre introduction of a continuous video loop of Health Secretary Lansley asking patients to thank their nursing staff for their care (unless they pay £5 to turn it off) would have fitted seamlessly into Orwell’s vision (ref).

To be fair, many aspects of the NHS remain excellent, despite the predations of financial managers and market-driven politicians, but the prognosis is not good. 

A tiger ate my husband

Another brisk pre-dawn run through the murky woods.

There is almost certainly nothing new about the salacious, carrion-seeking tendency of the media in the UK, as they pursue gobbets of extreme feeling, of the how upset were you when the tiger ate your husband ? variety, as a substitute for actual news.  What is relatively new is the endless repetition, throughout the day and even, for people with particularly short concentration spans, within each bulletin. When the story is actually about the impact of media intrusion into private matters, such as News International’s phone hacking (ref), the outcome can escalate beyond the ironic into the surreal, but not in a good way.

Brief reflections

A brisk run through the dark woods, partly reflecting on my diminishing speed and competitiveness, compared to a few years ago, and partly on the weekend’s rather more important events in Tahrir Square.

The courage and resilience of the revolutionaries in Egypt and Syria, as well as that of individuals such as Aung San Suu Kyi seems genuinely humbling and inspiring. They also provide a stark reminder of how pampered, selfish and decadent so many of us have become in the last few decades.

Party games

A fine & muddy woodland run. There is great joy to be had in splashing through puddles.

In Britain there is a children’s party game called Pass the Parcel, in which a parcel is handed from one child to another, with a layer of wrapping being removed by each child. Western governments seem to be engaged in a variation called Pass the Blame Parcel with regard to their financial difficulties. In this game the parcel is transferred from the Lehman brothers to the wider US financial markets to the European banks, to the Euro, to Iceland, Spain, Greece, Germany, Britain, China, etc etc. All the while it seems that the real issue is being overlooked – that, by aggressive policies of privatisation, successive governments have acceded the real power to market-driven corporations who represent their shareholders, not the electorate. In the space of about 25 years, Western democracy has become a farce, with even more politicians reduced to the level of ventriloquist’s dummies.  Which is precisely why the Occupy protests are so important and mustn’t be allowed to evaporate.

PS The UK faction of Blame Game is nicely described in today's Observer (ref).

Peace in our time

A damp but enjoyable run through the woods this morning.

Someone has been arrested after an amateurish attempt to shoot Barak Obama. Whilst Obama has certainly been a big disappointment, that’s maybe taking criticism a bit too far. However, as recipient of a rather premature Nobel Peace Prize, he may like to reflect on the futile war in Afghanistan having so far cost the US $460 billion (ref), whilst  some 2.5 million Afghanis are currently facing serious food shortage as a result of drought, failed crops and, critically, unaffordable food prices (ref). 

Oh BBC, what are you doing ?

A good early woodland run in the dawn moonlight.

To continue the chilly theme, the lack of economic growth is giving many Western governments and their corporate puppet masters the opportunity to let global warming become a lesser priority. And it’s not just governments. The BBC is currently broadcasting an excellent series of documentary programmes, Frozen Planet, about life in the Arctic & Antarctic. The series is due to culminate with an episode about the human contribution to climate change but, in a shameless piece of unprincipled profiteering worthy of David “Snake Oil” Cameron, the BBC has apparently been selling the series to other countries with that last episode as an optional extra, in order to improve sales (ref). Which, as Greenpeace said, would be rather like screening a film about the Titanic but missing out the bit with the iceberg.

Keeping warm in winter

A fine loch-side run yesterday morning and this morning, back in the city, a good frosty run through the woods.

The Occupy movement is reaching a challenging time. Sixty days after occupying Zuccotti Park in New York, the protestors have now been banned from erecting tents or staying over night. In London, similar legal proceedings have been restarted. The challenge will be to keep the focus of the protest on capitalist greed and the global wealth gap, rather than letting it shift to a debate about camping. A quick scan of today’s headlines suggests there is no shortage of fuel to keep the anger burning:

Guardian: vulture funds

Spiegel Online: speculators bet against Spain, Belgium & France

Independent: Cameron trying to block financial transaction tax 

21st century imperialism

Briefly back in the Highlands, and a beautiful dawn run along the loch-side.

Less beautifully, the leading story in this morning’s Independent is a shocking report of big Western pharmaceutical companies ( AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Merck) carrying out their drug tests on people in countries such as China, Thailand, Indonesia and, particularly, India, where safety regulations and ethical restrictions are much less onerous than in the West, and the profit margins therefore much greater. In India alone, since 2005, over 150,000 people have been involved in some 1,600 clinical trials, often without those people understanding what they have signed up for. Exploitative, neo-colonial, capitalism doesn’t  get much more blatant & shameless than this.

Doublespeak 2

Re-reading yesterday's post, its conclusion now seems pompous bollox, and that the BBC's warning was just a ludicrous example of British prudishness after all.

Doublespeak

Back in the city, with a fine clear morning and a good run through the woods.

Last night we watched the movie The Name of the Rose on the BBC. For anyone unfamiliar with it, this is a complex story set in a 14^th century Italian abbey, featuring graphic portrayals of violent murder, torture, insanity, depravity, sadism, burning at the stake and religious zealotry. And a brief interlude of very poignant love making between two young people. The BBC felt it necessary to warn parents of young children about this last interlude, but not about the other activities which are apparently legitimate entertainment. Now, obviously, this could be written off as just another instance of British prudishness about sexual matters but, looking around at current world conflicts, somehow it seems to have a wider significance as a metaphor for moral inconsistency.

Small is still beautiful

A fine breezy morning and a brisk run by the loch.

Perhaps it was just me, but the 1970s seemed a decade of contradictory ideas, with style vying with substance in a confusing tangle. As a student of architecture this was made manifest in a curriculum which tried to combine the grandiose, the mechanistic, the mass-produced, and the modest & hand-knitted, in an incoherent stew with occasional highlights of excellence, such as E F Schumacher’s prophetic book.

Thirty five years later, the Occupy protests are re-setting the agenda of challenging global and corporate capitalism in all its de-humanising forms, and it is good to see the book in the spotlight again (ref). Maybe this time more people will listen. 

Bastards and whores

A cool grey morning but a fast and heated run. One of the penalties of following the news on a regular basis is the number of times there is reason to be depressed or angry, and today is angry’s turn.

For several years, despite an otherwise bellicose foreign policy, the UK has been active in supporting a global ban of cluster bombs. Until, that is, the current government under the leadership of the Right Honourable David Cameron who, in a characteristically shameful lickspittle u-turn, is now supporting the inexplicable US bid to allow them, so long as they were manufactured in the last 30 years (ref). The age of the bombs which indiscriminately kill & maim civilians on an industrial scale being, apparently, key to their humanitarian qualities and overall acceptability. Why, Obama, why ?

And that’s not all. Within  2 weeks of Muammar Gaddafi  being tortured and executed, that same honourable UK government is already planning to renew weapon sales to Libya – not so much to show support for a democratic and peaceful new regime in its precarious and volatile early stages, but more in the indecent rush to get their money back after the vainglorious and expensive bombing campaign (ref). 

Thank you Lord Sugar

A good early run along the still dark loch-side

In an oddly mesmerising reality TV series, Young Apprentice, the BBC are showing 12 of Britain’s allegedly “brightest and best young entrepreneurs” as they compete for the patronage of a rich lord. Yes, it is the 21^st century, but remember that parts of Britain are still locked into the Middle Ages. Anyway, at a time when the ethics of corporate business are finally being challenged, the sight of psychotically competitive 16 year olds being criticised because they only looked for a 100% profit margin when selling a bunch of hot-house flowers, instead of a possible 200%, seems comprehensively to sum up what is wrong with capitalism.

To believe the right wing press in the UK is to believe that the BBC is a cauldron of crypto-socialism, so possibly they are being deliberately subversive here, but more likely just cynically exploiting their audience’s appetite for watching people being nasty to each other.

The one percent

A frosty and beautiful run along the loch-side this morning, as the stars faded in the early light.

Yesterday the Guardian carried an excellent essay by George Monbiot in which he highlights the clinically psychopathic characteristics of senior managers and chief executives, and the feudal way in which they claim their rewards, reminiscent of medieval dukes. He also quotes Daniel Kahneman’s study of Wall Street fund managers, which found that their massively renumerated performance was “no better than that of a chimpanzee flipping a coin”. And meanwhile, over the last 30 years, the gap between the richest and poorest has been increasing, keeping pace with the ever-greater trashing of the planet in the name of economic growth. World leaders have failed spectacularly to make a difference, so maybe it's time to try the chimpanzees.

Destruction Incorporated

A clear calm morning and a good run along the loch-side, as a late skein of geese head for their winter haven.

Two inter-linked and very gloomy reports stand out from this morning’s papers. The first is that global CO2 rose by 6% last year, despite or perhaps because of the economic slump. The UK, with its self-proclaimed “greenest government ever”, bravely contributed to this with the first increase in emissions since 1996, lagging behind only Brazil and Saudi Arabia as the dirtiest G20 economy, but obviously nowhere near the two main villains, US & China.. The second is about an estimate that by the end of this century, 50% of all animal species will have been rendered extinct by our environmental carnage, as we accelerate towards what is only the sixth great extinction event in the history of the planet.  No doubt extinction-deniers will soon be as well resourced and orchestrated as climate change-deniers.

All relative

Again back to the Highlands, a fine cold morning and a welcome run along the forestry track. 

As the eyes of the West watch anxiously the operatic tribulations and dramas within the Eurozone, and as the global population passes 7 billion, the Independent is carrying a small report about daily life in Burkina Faso. In common with many sub-Saharan African countries, the population growth is outstripping their natural resources, forests are being decimated for use as fuel for cooking, and consequentially the land eroded and made even less productive, sketching out a future of famine, disease, and war. All of which is a timely reminder of the relativity of problems.

Alternative reality

A good fast woodland run yesterday and this morning.

On the radio Bob Diamond, CEO of Barclays Bank & allegedly the highest paid UK bank executive, was smoothly, confidently, & utterly predictably, reiterating the mantra that economic growth is good and is the way out of the current difficulties. What was more interesting though was his use of the term “compensation”. In my naïve way I have always thought of compensation as a payment to make amends following some kind of personal damage, whereas if you do a job you get paid for it or, if you are lucky, you receive a salary. However, on Planet Bank & Planet Big Business, apparently the top executives are compensated for doing their job (however badly, in most cases) with massive salary & bonus packages, which is a little ironic since it’s the rest of us who should be compensated for what they have been doing.

A poem instead

A fine fast run through the woods this morning and then back for a respite from the endless carousel of the news media. So, instead, a poem & a wee drawing:

Going without Saying

(i.m. Joe Flynn)

by Bernard O’Donoghue

It is a great pity we don’t know

When the dead are going to die

So that, over a companionable

Drink, we could tell them

How much we liked them.

Happy the man who, dying, can 

place his hand on his heart and say:

“At least I didn’t forget to tell

The thrush how beautifully she sings”

Thanks, Donald.

Ubuntu

A fine clear morning an a good long run through the woods.

To continue the theme of the protest camps, two clergymen on the radio this morning were highlighting that one of the essential differences between these protests and many others is the peaceful co-operativeness & respect with which they are being conducted. This is possibly the strongest message to all the cynics who are missing the point by scorning the lack of clear manifestos amongst the protesters. A link on the Occupy Glasgow Facebook page points to the African philosophy of Ubuntu, which has been translated as "I am what I am because of who we all are." (ref) and which articulates beautifully a long established alternative to  capitalism and greed predicated on the Western model of individualism and ego-centricity.