Day 34 of UK lock down: distressed billionaires

The queue for financial bailouts from the lock-down is getting longer, with not only Richard Branson, Victoria Beckham, and various owners of huge grouse-slaughtering estates in Scotland seeking support from the UK government (aka UK tax payers), but also the Trump Organisation . Yes, that Trump, the sarcastic one, because seemingly his loss-making golf courses are now making even bigger losses. Not that losses from golf courses are his biggest problem just now. See NY Times analysis here

Christiana Figueres pointed out, in the recent BBC radio programme Fallout, that there are some important parallels in dealing with Corona virus and with the climate & ecological emergency. In particular, those countries which understood the science and the need to give speedy attention to areas of high probability &, high impact risk, are those which have done much better in mitigating the problems. Those countries led by idiots or sociopaths not so much.

When it comes to giving public funding to help prop up business affected by the pandemic, the choice seems very clear – we can follow the clamour from the greedy rich, and return to an unsustainable “normal” which created the environmental mayhem in the first place, or we can take the opportunity to support those businesses which help us move towards a sustainable and regenerative way of being.

Day 30 of UK lock down: we don't have to be led by any kind of donkeys

Covid-19 travel restrictions and slowing down of business & industry have led to a dramatic drop in demand for oil, and an equally dramatic drop in oil price, and oil producers are now racing to reduce production. The US was too slow off the mark, and over-production there, coupled with full reserves, led to negative pricing for the first time ever, which is a revealing indication of the power of market demand over these allegedly unstoppable Molochs.

Blaming the oil companies for what they do is like blaming lions for eating antelope, which is not a solution. Move the antelope elsewhere, and the lions will go away.

We have a huge opportunity here to seize the moment and push for a swift transition to renewable energy, and for a radical review of our underlying energy demand. We can change, and this is the moment to do it.

Report on oil price response to reduced demand

Day 28 of UK lock down: Ecology begins at home

After Munch, via Ise & Conaglen Estate

The pandemic is showing the need for all of us to be responsible custodians of our environment, and not just the pretty, cuddly or tasty bits but the whole biome.

Custodianship means guardianship – ie looking after something, nurturing it, and keeping it safe. What it doesn’t mean, in the case of land, is creating a barren wasteland, whether in pursuit of some biocidal ideal of “garden tidiness”, “sport”, or industrialised monoculture. Nor does it mean disrupting delicately balanced ecosystems for commercial gain.

If we ignore the biodiversity in our own backyards and gardens, it’s an easy step to ignoring the entire ecosystem, and to being prepared to trash it in pursuit of commodity and easy gratification. Conversely, if we engage with and respect that local diversity, so it becomes easier to apply the same perspective to the whole planet at a societal level as well as individual.

Regardless of what our title deeds say, we don’t own the land we occupy, any more than we own air, water or sunlight. We simply have a legally enshrined right of access, and what we need to move towards is an equally enshrined legal obligation to protect and regenerate.

A common dispute is between governments claiming that an action is the responsibility of individuals, and individuals claiming that the same action is the responsibility of the government, in an endless circle of us-ing and them-ing. What we should be learning from this pandemic is that there isn't a them, just an us, and the responsibility is shared by  all.

Day 19 of UK lock down: hedging their bets

Recently there have been some heart-chilling reports of how hedge funds are making massive profits out of this global crisis.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-8112273/Millionaire-hedge-fund-bosses-Sir-Paul-Marshall-Ian-Wace-make-50m-coronavirus-crash.html

https://www.9news.com.au/world/bill-ackman-hedge-fund-bet-coronavirus-economy-collapse-pershing-square-capital-management-finance-news/aa519075-202d-4bbb-a853-432240d6bcac

For those of us who normally try not to think too much about the murky world of big finance, this raises the question of what the hell is a hedge fund anyway ?

Seemingly, the hedge bit means a barrier, to prevent losses whether the market is expanding or contracting, so investors will profit either way.

And one of the most dodgy aspects of these dodgy funds is the concept of short selling. Investors look for stock whose worth is likely to drop in the short term, before bouncing back. For instance, budget airlines in a time of global immobility which, despite the hopes of anyone who gives a stuff about the environment, are likely to come back with gusto as soon as the lock downs are lifted, regardless of whether they manage to wheedle some publicly funded bailout from the governments.

So, essentially, hedge funds are a means by which the richest 10% of the global population, who already own 85% of global wealth, can get even richer by betting on the outcome of catastrophes.

Day 18 of UK lock down: the future we choose

The pandemic has put much of the world into a kind of limbo of inactivity, as we wait for the virus to run its course, or to come under our control. This stasis brings an abundance of both problems and benefits. Problems in terms of the personal, social and economic cost of lockdown which, as ever, are likely to impact most severely on the poorest in our global society. Benefits in terms of the immediately positive environmental consequences, and the timely reminder that governments are well able to instigate structural & systemic changes when they deem them necessary.

Tempting though it is to indulge in a snark-fest about the latest outrage from Westminster or the White House, and there is certainly no shortage of opportunities, a better use of our time might be to think about what happens next.

The economic cost of the lock down is massive, both in lost revenue and in the burden of loans carried forward by businesses. Whilst governments have been pouring money in to stop the system from falling apart, the longer term payback could easily cause a worldwide depression similar to that of the 1930s. Big corporations and hedge fund managers will already be working on their survival strategies. In such a context the transition to a system which is revolves around respect for the global biome, instead of around exponentially increasing consumption of resources and short term profiteering, just got harder. Harder, but not impossible, if we stay focused.

In their excellent book, The Future We Choose; Surviving The Climate Crisis, Christiana Figueres & Tom Rivett-Carnac put forward the concept of stubborn optimism. If ever there was a time for stubborn optimism, it’s now.

https://globaloptimism.com/the-future-we-choose-book/

Day 17 of UK lockdown

Covid-19 continues to cause global devastation, both by the direct impact of the illness, and by the consequential societal disruption. Johnson is still in intensive care, and Britain is effectively leaderless. As the full impact of the government’s slow response to the unfolding pandemic becomes clearer, second under-donkey Gove adroitly heaps praise on the Civil Service for the fantastic job they’ve been doing in managing this crisis. Whether that is simply praise where it is truly due or cynically strategic stepping away from prospective blame is, as yet, unclear. 

What is clear however is the inappropriateness of the language of war and battle in describing our collective and individual engagement with the situation.  And of the constant focus, particularly by the British government & press, on how we’re doing compared to other countries. This is not a competition, let alone a war. This is an opportunistic virus which has spread rapidly though our globalised networks of trade and recreation, paying no heed to GDP or political persuasion. 

If anything, this is a time to be reflecting on the value of all the people who normally keep our systems working, not measured in terms of their salaries but in terms of their vital social function. Their value, not their worth. This is a time to recognise that we’re all in this together, not only in responding to a global pandemic, but even more importantly through the unavoidable interconnectedness of our entire global community.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/08/national-defence-corona-pandemic-fighter-jets

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/07/horror-coronavirus-real-imaginary-war-britain

Day 15 of UK lock down - designated survivor

Johnson remains in hospital. Probably almost everyone in the UK is wishing him a speedy recovery.

Day 14 of UK lockdown

Johnson & his cronies continue to work to the Brexit play book of jingoistic & dishonest sound bites, with help from the Titanic School of Risk Assessment.  Today the Queen is being wheeled out to add her praise of our plucky and world-leading Britishness, maybe because the incidence graph is now outstripping Italy’s much lamented performance at an equivalent stage of the viral spread.

However, the graph simply reflects tested cases,  & hospitalised deaths from within those cases. As a result of catastrophic mismanagement, the current rate of testing has only reached 0.03% of the UK population, so these statistics are virtually meaningless.

Day 11 of UK lockdown

Known global cases of Covid-19 nearing 1 million. Recorded deaths 44,000.

Continuing saturation coverage by the news media of rising numbers of confirmed cases and fatalities, of the day’s current version of what the newly re-respected experts are saying is the best way to manage the situation, and of the latest failures in the supply of essential protective & testing equipment. After all, it’s not as if pandemics have been recorded in history since the Plague of Athens in 430 BC, or that there’s been a recent cluster of zoonotic respiratory diseases to give us all a heads-up, otherwise we‘d have to conclude that all that expensive Eton & Oxford education in the current government is worth fuck-all in the real world.

With Prime Minister Winston de Pfeffel Johnson on a sickie, the daily parrot-of-spin slot has been passed to a sequence of swivelling underdonkeys - Raab, Govey, Sharma, to spout the current waffle about how all the zig-zagging and u-turns of Britain’s War Against Corona have been part of a meticulous forward-thinking strategy, just like the long term fragmentation and underfunding of the NHS & devaluing of essential service workers.

To put the fatality statistics into context, according to the World Health Organisation, 3.8 million premature deaths annually are attributed to ambient air pollution – mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, and 6 million children die of malnutrition each year. That’s not to diminish for one moment the catastrophe and tragedies unfolding around us but merely to reflect on the viral obliviousness to what lies behind our affluence in the so-called developed world.