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.