RR in the _Guardian_ with the leadership result -- and its implications

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/rupert_read/2007/11/the_breakthrough_we_greens_nee.html

My piece today in the _Guardian_ on the leadership win.
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Green Party votes YES!!!!!

You heard it here first...:

The result of the referendum ballot inside the Green Party - to decide whether or not the party should have a recognisable Leadership team - has resulted in success for the ‘Yes’ message, with well over a 2/3rds majority.

The final result is 73% to 27%, with almost exactly half of the membership turning out to vote.

The members have spoken, in overwhelming numbers.

South-East Euro-MP Caroline Lucas, one of the party's two Principal Speakers, said:

"I'm delighted about this result. The party can now move forward together and onto the job in hand: we have an urgent green message to communicate, and many votes to win."

Green London Assembly member Darren Johnson and outgoing ‘Yes’ Campaign Manager commented from Brussels, "This is a fantastic day for the Green Party and will help ensure we have a party that is understandable, recognisable and effective. But we now need to demonstrate to all our members, regardless of which way they voted, that this is not about weakening our principles, it's about strengthening our effectiveness -- and that is what we'll do over the years ahead."

Some Conservatives are with and some are without brains -- official

City Council meeting this week was pretty lively. During the debate over congestion charging, I gently heckled Cllr. Antony Little of the Conservatives, who is vehemently opposed to congestion charging, pointing out to him that it was his own Party [at the County level] that was actually pushing congestion charging for Norwich. His response was most intriguing and amusing: “It may be my Party – but I’ve got a brain.”

Was he perhaps meaning: As opposed to his County colleagues (one of whom was sitting immediately on his left as he spoke), who by implication do not?...!

Advance statement on the referendum, ahead of tmrw's result

Only a day to go now, thank goodness, before we know the result of the Leadership referendum in the Green Party. Darren Johnson, on behalf of the Green Yes campaign, in advance of the referendum result, said the following:

Advance statement to the Party

“Turnout has been very high by Green Party standards, perhaps well over 40%, which shows the
interest our members have had in the future direction of the Party.

“Win or lose, we will respect the verdict of the members.

“We thank the supporters of the No Campaign for their help in
organising and attending meetings and for providing a stimulating
debate.”

Dear Shahrar...

The RED PEPPER debate is going strong...
Here is my second (and probably final) letter, replying to Shahrar's article, replying to my original article (see link at left, or go down below at http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2007/11/red-pepper-debate-on-green-leadership.html):

Dear Shahrar;

Thanks for your thoughtful letter. Obviously, there is much that we have in common. But I think we are still going to disagree about this one…

You doubt my claim that having a Leader and Deputy or Co-Leaders would enhance accountability. Perhaps then you would like to address the case of the Scots Green Party? See e.g. my letter in the _Guardian_ on this topic: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/comment/0,,2210036,00.html . Or see Mark Ballard’s and Patrick Harvie MSP’s comments, at http://www.greenyes.org/quotes.html . If the Scottish experience has been very clearly that formally-recognised Leadership enhances accountability, why should we doubt that it will in England and Wales too?

You say that “conventional politics has shown itself to be unfit for purpose”. A well-wrought phrase. But I haven’t noticed the electorate queueing up to endorse a Party presenting itself deliberately as unconventionally as it can, ‘led’ according to a quasi-anarchist model, just yet… The electorate, our potential voters, want us to get into make power and make changes. They don’t want us to have middle-class-sounding titles nor to seem to shy away from power as if from something dirty… They want us to relocalise our economy and polity, to renationalise the railways, to defend the NHS and to transform it into a National Wellness Service, to bring about an enormous investment in renewables, to stand firm against wars of aggression even while those wars are being launched and fought… they want us above all to lead the struggle against dangerous climate change (on this, see my blog, ‘Rupert’s read’: http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2007/11/green-leadership-last-thoughts.html ). When we say that we will not trust ourselves and our leading figures enough to elect a Leader from among our own, we unavoidably give the impression that we are uncomfortable in taking the risk of assuming that Leadership role.

Isn’t it striking that the Green Party has flourished in those places where an individual has stepped up to the plate and led it, organisationally and in the media and as a figurehead (e.g. Darren Johnson in Lewisham, Adrian Ramsay in Norwich, now both Leaders of large Green Party Council Groups)? Isn’t it striking that the clear majority of the most electorally-serious Green activists (e.g. over 75% of our Party’s Principal Authority Councillors, all three of our target Parliamentary candidates, both our MEPs) are voting Yes?

Shahrar, the choice facing us honestly is: to whistle for longer in the wilderness -- or to give ourselves a shot at bringing the green-left to power … before civilisation goes belly up…

Yours ever, Rupert.

Wikipedia

My new Wikipedia page is up and running! Take a look - any suggestions on how to add to it would be more than welcome.

New Books

I have two new books out this year, "Philosophy for Life" and "Applying Wittgenstein". For anyone who has read them already, please feel free to post comments. If you haven't taken a look yet but are interested, both books are available on Amazon.co.uk (just follow the above links from each book). Check out Continuum for a more thorough description of "Applying Wittgenstein".

For more details, or for an overview of other books I've published, visit my UEA website here.

Porritt on Radio 4 arguing for a Yes vote - do 'Listen again'!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_westminster_hour/7112259.stm

HERE IS LAST NIGHT'S 'WESTMINSTER HOUR' READY TO LISTEN AGAIN: This features Jonathon Porritt arguing in favour of 'Yes' vote!

The underlying cause of much bad driving and bad cycling

The fundamental problem, the underlying reason why we see more bad driving and bad cycling than we used to, is individualism (neo-liberalism, consumerism, materialism). People increasingly act selfishly unless they are forced to do otherwise, because our individualistic culture teaches them that it is acceptable to do so. This is the single biggest reason why many people cycle without lights, and on pavements, and why many drivers increasingly run red lights, block intersections, treat cyclists as scum, etc. Until we change the whole political and economic system, we will make limited progress in this matter.
This is yet another reason why a new Greener Britain is so desperately needed.

A thought about bad cycling

Cycling on the pavement ain't right. But even so, do ask yourself when was the last time that you heard of a cyclist causing serious injury or death to someone? Whereas speeding and irresponsible and drunk etc drivers cause serious injuries or death roughly twice a week, in Norwich, for example.

Cyclists should ride legally. But they should not be demonised when they do not do so -- because often they do not do so because of terrible road design, of feeling / being unsafe from cars, etc.; and because even when they do not do so they still pose very little risk of causing serious injury or death, compared to cars.
Once again: I don't in the least condone anti-social cycling. But whenever I hear someone demonising cyclists, I have the sneaking suspicion that maybe, just maybe, they are thereby making themselves feel better about doing something more dangerous, themselves: namely, driving a car...

My latest ONE WORLD column

http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/commentary/OneWorld.aspx

"'Climate change' or climate crisis?"

Do we Councillors get paid too much?

Norfolk County Councillors have just raised their allowances by 28%. I agree that it is fishy that the County Council increased their own allowances massively when they are about to be abolished -- but in general, Council allowances ought to be higher. If you compute the hourly rate of pay that most Councillors (the ones who work hard -- which is most of us -- and the rest can always be voted out!) earn from their Council work, it probably comes to below minimum wage. In my case it certainly does -- I reckon that I work in effect about 60 hours a month on Council business, averged out over the year, for which I get paid a little over £300. Hardly a handsome sum.
If Councillors' allowances are low, then the only people who do the job are pensioners, the rich, 'housewifes', etc. . Surely, we want our Councillors to represent the population at large, not just a fortunate minority?

Red Pepper debate on Green Leadership -- my article

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/article702.html
Me in RED PEPPER on why there is nothing remotely leftwing about being opposed to the Green Party having a Leader.

Green Leadership? - last thoughts...

Here is my final post advocating a 'Yes' vote...

Climate crisis is here [see my _Guardian_ piece on this, at http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/rupert_read/2007/11/emergency_talk.html ]. How to lead a way out of it?

If we had 500 years, maybe we could afford to move at the current
painfully-slow pace of political evolution. But we don’t have 500 years – we don’t even have 50. We must effect huge policy changes within the next decade.

So for green politicians just being different just ain’t good enough – we need to make a difference. A very big difference – and fast.

Global over-heat is of course a different sort of crisis – because its climax is in the future. Decisions now may create a better future -- but the full effects of those decisions, good or bad, won’t be known for a long time.

A measure of our success will precisely be that people never knew quite how terrifying -- how devastated -- things could become.

It’s a no-brainer that, in this situation, the Green Party is needed more than ever. We need to give people personal confidence that, as we all play our part in the big changes required to prevent climate catastrophe, and as the government regulates to make that possible, our lives will improve in the process: as we live more local, more secure, healthier, more sociable, less stressful existences. We need to show and embody the true and steady leadership that is missing from other political parties.

The Green Party needs to be much more visible itself to articulate this type of leadership.

Right now, the LibDems are getting lots of airtime as they look among their own ranks for a Leader to succeed Menzies Campbell. Campbell claimed that the LibDems are the “only Party” campaigning for a “fairer and greener Britain” [ http://politics.guardian.co.uk/libdems/story/0,,2191824,00.html ]. The Green Party needs to step up to the plate, to vigorously contest that claim, to make a serious case for why it is the Green Party, and not Clegg or Huhne, that deserves public trust in leading the fight for a fairer and greener Britain.

Meanwhile: a recent national opinion poll by YouGov [ http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/Green%20results.pdf ] shows that 5 out of every 6 people in the UK think the Green Party would do better to change its leadership structures. Of those offering a view, 84% answered “Yes” to the question "Do you think the Green Party should have a 'Leader' rather than the 'Principal Speakers' it has at the moment?". This proves what many have long suspected: That electing a Leader or co-Leaders will broaden our popular appeal, giving us a chance to compete on an equal footing with the LibDems and the other ‘mainstream’ Parties

-- and without violating any Green principles at all in the process. If I believed that making this presentational change would make the Green Party one scintilla less politically radical, I would quit the Green ‘Yes’ campaign immediately.

But what this change might just give us is: a shot at making the difference that will save the future.

Stopping catastrophic climate change is the biggest challenge this country – and human civilization itself -- have ever faced. If you need to do something very big very fast, you had better be organised to do it. You had better have a Leader.

In one week’s time, the Green Party leadership referendum will close. In other words, on the 1^st December, the Green Party will announce to the world what decision its members have made, on this key question. I urge all Greens out there who haven’t yet voted to seize this one chance that we have, to step up to the plate and offer Leadership, without reservation, at this critical moment in British politics – and in human history.

Green leadership referendum result 'too close to call'

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,,2215376,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=environment

For the latest, in the _Guardian_, on the leadership issue...
Just one week to go, now!

My new book, APPLYING WITTGENSTEIN, out today!

http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/id/Applying_Wittgenstein/9780826494504
[If you want an easier read, though, try my ‘Philosophy for Life’ in Local Links, below at left.]

RR on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=14529760141
For those of you on Facebook, here is my 'public figure' Facebook page, if you want to go to it.

_Guardian_ letter from me on Leader issue, and responses

My letter http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/comment/0,,2210036,00.html
Responses http://politics.guardian.co.uk/libdems/story/0,,2212602,00.html

Would a Green Leader be done in by the media?

One argument that the NO campaign have been making quite a bit in these last weeks of the referendum campaign is that they think that a good argument for not having a leader is that is that the media will FOCUS and pick on a leader like they would not pick on 'principal speakers'. This would concern their past conduct, current weaknesses, and if there any signs of inconsistency between what they say and how they actually conduct their life, etc. NO activists think that this would be more detrimental to the general situation than any bit of extra attention we would receive.
Now I think three things about this argument:

1) It is simply false. Yes, the media would focus in on our leader, and look for problems; but given that they wouldn't FIND so many problems (Caroline e.g. would never have a Lexus drive behind her as she cycles!), we will PROFIT out of this extra scrutiny.
2) Even those who suffer from intense media scrutiny (e.g. Cameron) also profit by it. Look how Cameron has transformed the Tories' prospects.
3) EVEN if for some reason you don't accept points 1 & 2, then this NO argument is still very weak. It basically says that we should be afraid and cower because of what the media might do to us. We in YES say: we should boldly step up to the plate, and take the calculated risk of getting ourselves a Leader. Because, at present, we are very small players indeed, nationwide.

Wouldn't it be something if our Party's fortunes were transformed, and we suddenly have a chance, the way that the Tories now do and the LibDems soon may?

Third and final post on why we should drop the term 'climate change'

A key reason why people stopped using the term ‘global warming’ is that ‘climate change’ is a ‘safe’ substitute for ‘global warming’, because of patchiness – the chaoticness, in fact… -- of the latter phenomenon. Because, for instance, as manmade climate change proceeds to over-heat the Earth, it will introduce some local cooling effects – most strikingly, if it yields Gulf Stream switch-off. That is of course no reason not to use the more humanly accurate terms (than ‘climate change’) that I propose in my posts below: climate chaos, climate emergency, etc. . But also, we need to recognise the other key reason, the reason detailed in Steven Poole’s book (see also http://www.newstatesman.com/200602200020 ), that I mention in my Guardian article [posted below]: that governmental pressure and business pressure impacted directly on IPCC, an intergovernmental body, not a group of scientists. It is naïve in the extreme – absurd, in fact -- to think that an intergovernmental group is immune to… political pressure! Check into the facts that Poole exposes – various powerful economic interests including Saudi and U.S. interests wanted the least emotive term possible used as the term of choice. In that desire, their interests coincided with those of anti-political climate scientists. And so even the pretty anodyne ‘global warming’ was sidelined in favour of the ultimate in soft-pedalling what is happening to our Earth as a liveable planet: namely, calling it simply ‘climate change’.

Why are people so reluctant to acknowledge that ‘climate change’ is the ultimate slow-burning manmade weapon of mass destruction? The bottom-line, literally, is that it is notoriously difficult for people to understand things that their salary depends on them not understanding. There are millions of people – hundreds of millions – whose prosperity in the current set-up depends on our continued decadent use of fossil fuels. It is so tempting to find ways of thinking that one doesn’t have to change anything – that the science is wrong, or that there will be a techno-fix, or that it is too late to do anything about it anyway, or that the best way to deal with it is simply to remain completely calm and cool and stick entirely and rigidly to what science tells us about what is happening…

To those more sympathetic with my cause who say that nevertheless we shouldn’t use overly ‘dramatic’ language, I say:

Should we then rename ‘nuclear holocaust’ as ‘nuclear change’? Or the disaster/catastrophe/cataclysm (the ‘Nakba’ http://www.alnakba.org/ ) that hit the Palestinians in 1948; perhaps that should be renamed the التغيير [that’s ‘Change’ in Arabic, according to Google]. If not, in your opinion, why not? Or, to put the question the other way around: Why should ‘climate change’ have an anodyne name, when it promises to deliver far far greater destruction and death than the Israelis or Palestinians – or even Herr Hitler himself -- ever experienced or even dreampt of?

Let’s not soft-pedal on the greatest threat that humankind has ever faced. Let’s not take refuge in euphemism. Our situation is comparable to that that we faced in the World Wars. …Only (potentially) worse… We are in the long (climate) emergency. As food rationing was needed in World War II, so carbon rationing is part of the answer now. Let’s not fool ourselves by using warm words such as ‘climate change’ or (indeed ‘global warming’, which still to my ears sounds pretty pleasant. I meet lots of people in my doorstep canvassing this time of year who say things like, “Yeah, we could use a little global warming around here!”).

In the emergency that we are in, let’s at least talk in a way that reminds us regularly that it IS an emergency.

More on why talk of 'climate change' is in denial

Scientists can teach us all there is to know about facts. They can tell us what we need to know about changes-in-themselves; but not about values. Not about why those changes _matter_. Science is silent for instance about catastrophes, in the human sense of that word.
If we are to take as a lesson from that that we ought not to talk at all using any value-laden terms, this would be a gross fallacy, a SCIENTISTIC error. Ought we to give up the term 'the _Holocaust_'? Ought we to refuse to speak of the fate of the Easter Islanders when their civilisation collapsed as _tragic_? Ought we to refuse to speak of the _chaos_ wrought by the Asian tsunami?
[One could go even further: a rigorously scientistic thinker might argue that to speak (for instance) of macular degeneration is to speak in an inappropriately value-laden way. Perhaps we should speak instead of 'macular change' (or at most of 'significant macular change leading to altered macular functioning')...]
From the point of view of the Universe, one might say, what's happening at present is climate change, or at most global warming. But from our point of view as humans, a point of view which cannot be done justice to in the language of science alone, it is incipient chaos, long emergency, potential catastrophe.
If some people find such terms unduly unsettling, then: be unsettled. Some find the term 'hate crime' unsettling, unduly provocative; is that a good reason to use the euphemism (say) 'serious-dislike crime', instead?
Calling what is happening 'climate change' is as anodyne as that, and far more dangerous: the wolf is at the door, with a thousand hurricanes in his lungs.
I am NOT saying, in my Guardian article, that ALL we should do is use accurate terms such as 'climate chaos' and 'climate emergency'! And I wholeheartedly agree with those who say that our main effort now has to be to persuade people to buy into the changes that we need to make to our economy and society in the understanding that these changes will by and large IMPROVE people's lives. On the latter point, see for instance Mark Lynas's excellent http://www.marklynas.org/2007/7/10/a-better-way-to-live . But what Mark Lynas has also done that is of immense value -- it has helped wake me up fully, and many other people who I know -- is to depict what the human future would be like, under six degrees of global heating (See his book, 'Six degrees').
Scaring people with a reality-check DOES work sometimes -- AS PART of a much broader strategy of change. It works to some extent, albeit mostly with unfortunate consequences, in the 'war on terrorism'. It worked around the ozone hole issue. What is crucial is that people see a WAY that they can actually succeed in averting the threatening future. So the 'liberals' are wrong: there is no individualised solution to the climate crisis. What then we ought to do, faced with potential catastrophe? The answer is: organise. Collectively. Get political. That is what I try to do: that is why I am in the Green Party.
The huge challenge of the current crisis is: it's hard to see how we can actually make the changes that are needed, much harder than it was in the case of the first huge limit to growth that we ran into the belly of: the ozone hole. This time, we need to make really big changes to our economic and political systems - and fast. We have to decarbonise much of the economy, and we have to reverse globalisation via localisation. The Green Party is the one Party that is trying to put together a political programme that stands some reasonable chance of doing this. It is of course worrying that we are still far from power, outside a few Councils. All the more reason to work harder -- and to join us.
For now, a good enough aim for our movement is human self-preservation. And: a better life. The wonderful thing about the changes needed to prevent climate catastrophe is that they mostly coincide with the changes needed to make us happier and healthier.

My first _Guardian_ online article: RR on the climate emergency

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/rupert_read/2007/11/emergency_talk.html

Sad to see the many comments below the article from those many who are in one way or another in denial... [Join the conversation? But if you do so, I would urge you to try to exercise some respect and restraint towards those you disagree with in the conversation, even where that respect has not been shown to me...] ...Anyway, don't worry: this messenger isn't for shooting... ...The very real danger -- the likelihood, unless we make something very big happen, very fast -- of climate catastrophe within the lifetime of many of us, means that the insults and ignorance of certain vocal commenters [some of whom are the usual suspects, who will be known to some of you from other unpleasant virtual encounters] is no more than water off one's back...

Here, for the keen, is the original unexpurgated article before it was edited down to standard Comment-is-free length by the _Guardian_ team:

To speak of ‘climate change’ is still to be in denial

Rupert Read; _Guardian_ online.

We are all all-too-familiar with the shrill voices of the ‘climate-change-deniers’. But with each passing year – indeed, each passing week – they become more and more irrelevant, as the evidence piles up of the risibility of their ‘scepticism’ about the reality of man-made climate change. They are, in a nutshell, in denial. The issue now is not whether or not we are certain that dangerous climate change is real, and indeed is happening – the issue is only how we are going to tackle it. Both in terms of policy-measures, and, crucially, in terms of how to get people to think about it, and relate to it. In short: how to motivate people appropriately with regard to this phenomenon. How to persuade people not to merely find refuge in psychological defence mechanisms (e.g. denial…) against this frightening reality.

In this connection, an increasing number of voices who are very far from being climate-change-deniers have been arguing that using graphic terms to scare people about man-made climate change is counter-productive. That it merely scares, or (worse) precipitates denial or ‘eco-fatigue’, and does not motivate effective action. One of the most intelligent of these voices is Leo Hickman, who in this newspaper (“Cry wolf, but gently”, Nov. 10) quotes with approval my colleague at the University of East Anglia, the eminent climate scientist Prof. Mike Hulme, warning us off using terms such as “catastrophe” in describing the potential future impacts of manmade climate change for just this reason. Some have gone further, lambasting the graphic description of what will happen if we do not act effectively to stop CO2 emissions from going through the roof as ‘climate porn’.

Now, I agree that it is absolutely not enough to scare people. I agree that one needs to emphasise how the socio-economic changes needed to stop man-made climate change are in themselves life-improving (e.g. that localising life rather than globalising everything will actually make us happier in itself, even leaving aside how crucial it is to reduce carbon emissions from travel and transport). And I agree that one needs to ensure that people don’t think that the mountain is too big to climb: people need to be given tools to see that preventing catastrophic climate change is doable. But, as my chosen wording of the previous sentence already implies, the burden of my argument here is that it is not wise of us to tone down our language, in response to this situation. I do not, that is, agree that we should leave aside talk of ‘catastrophe’. In fact, by sticking to talking of ‘climate change’ rather than of ‘climate chaos’ and ‘potential climate catastrophe’, one is in fact playing the same game as the more subtle and intelligent of the climate-change-deniers. One is talking their language. That ought to be enough to make anyone stop, think, and question what they are doing.

The Guardian’s own Steven Poole has shown this, in his important book ‘Unspeak’. Poole documents how the term ‘climate change’ became the term of choice for the Saudis, for the U.S. oil companies, for the Republicans, displacing even the fairly anodyne ‘global warming’. It is the very people who have wanted us to go on simply burning fossil fuels as if there was no tomorrow (sic.) who have insisted that the issue be described as one of ‘climate change’. Because, as leading Republican pollster Frank Luntz put it, in a secret document that was leaked (http://www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/001330.php#1330 ): “1) "Climate change" is less frightening than "global warming". As one focus group participant noted, climate change 'sounds like you're going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale.' While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge.”

A less emotional challenge… But shouldn’t we be willing to get a little ‘emotional’, over the potential destruction of our entire future as a civilization? Frank Luntz wants us all to stay cool-headed over ‘climate change’. A goal that he shares with Mike Hulme. Whereas I say that people ought to be scared, and angry, and itching to do something about it. There is a wolf coming, that over time will eat almost every last one of us unless we stop it…

There I go again, using scare tactics, dramatizing… But how might the total destruction of human civilisation outside a few outposts in Antarctica not constitute a “catastrophe”? Several billion deaths: since when is that not catastrophic? This is the scenario that the government’s Chief Scientist (Anthony King) described as a factually likely outcome, if no effective action is taken to prevent global over-heat.

This is not crying wolf. This is simply telling the truth. Runaway climate change could within a century or so collapse civilisation on lifeboat Earth entirely, just as (for example) civilisation and population levels on Easter Island collapsed over a much-shorter period.

My linguistic proposal is pretty straightforward. ‘Climate change’ is an Orwellian , and should be dropped. To use that term is to be complicit with the agendas of Exxon and Bush. It is, I believe, still to be in denial. It is a term used by those who at some level still hope that maybe this problem is going to go away, or that it isn’t too bad, or who at least prefer not to think about just how desperately bad things will be if effective action is not taken to stop it getting out of control. …We should speak honestly, instead. That is: we should speak of ‘climate chaos’, ‘climate crisis’, ‘global over-heating’, and the risk of ‘climate catastrophe’. To do so is to do no more than call attention directly to the utterly drastic consequences of untrammelled consumerism. It is, literally, truth-in-advertising.

Prof. Hulme wants to maintain scientific decorum. But it is not the job of climate scientists to tell us how to describe what the human consequences would be of us ignoring their predictions. That is rather the task of artists, activists, politicians and philosophers. It is they who will give us the wake-up call that we still evidently need, if anyone will.

Talking about averting “climate catastrophe” is not alarmism. It is simply calling things by their true names.

Britain responsible for up to 15% of world's CO2 emissions - official

I blogged several weeks ago [ http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2007/10/who-will-lead-on-combatting-dangerous.html ] on Britain's hidden dreadful record on CO2 emissions, including Britain's responsibility, indirectly, for much of the emissions from China, India etc. (through being their carbonemissions-heavy products, etc.). At the time, I had not picked up on the fact that Phil Woolas, Minister of Climate Change had in fact already admitted on 20^th September, in a speech, that things might be even slightly worse than I had claimed. Quoting now from Woolas: “we see that as much as 15% of world carbon emissions are a direct result of UK economic activity both at home and abroad. “

Full context:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/ministers/speeches/phil-woolas/pw070920.htm

‘Many people regard any action taken by the UK in decreasing carbon emissions as insignificant. Indeed, this is the case if we look arithmetically only at emissions within the UK. However it is important to look at the consequence of the UK’s environmental impact across the world. From this perspective we see that as much as 15% of world carbon emissions are a direct result of UK economic activity both at home and abroad.'

A sufficient response, I think, to those who try to allay fears that we in Britain have to actually take responsibility for our (huge) part in the huge problem of manmade climate change...

Time for a Leader -- the _Guardian_ says vote yes

Time for a leader

Leader article

Monday November 12, 2007

The Guardian

The tension between ideals and pragmatism is familiar to everyone with any experience of radical politics. The struggle to reconcile members' aspirations with the harsh demands of flawed reality has dominated the past of Labour and Liberal Democrats, and countless others around the world. Now, after nearly 10 years brewing, the Green party is finally to decide whether to abandon its brave experiment with a less hierarchical internal structure and bow to the conventional form of one party, one leader.

The supporters of the latter, led by the MEP Caroline Lucas, and Prince Charles's favourite Green, Jonathan Porritt, succinctly argued in a letter to this paper on Tuesday that a single identifiable leader who people recognise and trust is the best way of engaging the voters. The hierarchy-lite tendency, who responded in the letters page on Thursday, believe equally passionately in the empowerment of the party membership and of wider society in a joint effort to make change happen - because neither conventional politics nor conventional parties have the answers to looming global disaster. The party's 7,500 members have until the end of the month to decide which it should be.

Both sides can claim support from previous experience. Those who believe that only a single leader can lift the party's electoral standing cite Green support in opinion polls, which is hovering just above the statistically negligible. At the last election, they garnered 283,000 votes, just 3.4% for each candidate fielded. That it was their best-ever result in a general election indicates how far there is still to travel before the party can hope to be in a position to implement any policies at all. The other side can argue that under its novel dual leadership of two principal speakers, the party has won 92 local council seats, and has high-profile London Assembly members and MEPs. Most powerfully of all, they can point to the greening of the three main parties.

The Greens have a unique advantage. If few know quite how challenging their policies are in detail, their core message is brilliantly clear. Every vote is unarguably a vote for environmental sustainability. But it is an asset only for as long they are genuinely seeking power. That means conforming rather than conducting interesting field trials of new forms of organisation; those look dangerously like a way of avoiding the hard realities of daily politics.

If they want to contest elections within the existing system, if there is going to be a Green party, as opposed to a green pressure group, they have to act like players. And in a context of minimal voter attention and celebrity politics, that means the party's enviably simple message has to be put across by a single leader.

Why Labour Councillors pretend they're not

Interesting front page on yesterday's Norwich EVENING NEWS

. Ward Councillor Roy Blower blowing his top against the appalling 'government' decision to sell off the Blackdale School playing fields.

Funny thing was, you could read the whole article, and be forgiven for assuming that Cllr. Blower had nothing to do with the government... He didn't seem to want to show any awareness that it is HIS Party, HIS government that has sold off the playing fields -- and so so many more playing fields, all over the country...

The Green Party meanwhile successfully defended the Hewett School playing fields in our Town Close ward. There is one Party to trust at local and national level to stand firm against any loss of vital green spaces for our young people and for our environment... and its name doesn't begin with an 'L'...

What do Labour think of the Green Party leadership debate?

from Labourhome website:

"While it's perhaps a bit rude to intrude upon a private grief, I would like to make a couple of points. Firstly, I think Britain needs a Green Party and I think it needs one that can win seats on councils and at the European and devolved administration levels. We need one because the issues that the party focusses on are really important and mainstream parties need to grapple with them and offer convincing solutions. To be taken seriously, I do think the Greens should have a leader and I quite like the idea of that leader having to seek re-election every two years as is proposed. "

Porritt et al write in the _Guardian_ on the need for a Yes vote

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2205773,00.html

Link to timely letter printed in today's _Guardian_...
[Yes, I know that I am posting an awful lot on Green Leadership at the moment -- but these are the crucial days. Pretty soon, it [the referendum campaign] will all be over!]

Article in the Guardian today on the leadership issue

From the Guardian Unlimited, 5 Nov. 07:

'A poll released today by the Yes campaign shows that five out of six voters believe the Green party should replace its "male and female principal speakers" with a leader.

The party's fortunes are on the rise, with a higher tally of seats following this spring's local elections, and many within the party believe it is being held back because it lacks an identifiable face.

The YouGov poll of more than 2,000 adults shows that, of the two-thirds of respondents expressing an opinion, 84% believed the party should have a single leader and 16% disagreed. The Yes campaign argues that shows the change would improve its electoral fortunes.

Caroline Lucas, Green MEP, said: "It's about how we communicate more effectively with the public; our current structures are confusing. People relate to other people and I think it would be easier to get our ideas across if we had a figure the public was more familiar with and felt more able to recognise and trust.

"Our message is so urgent now that changing our structures seems a fairly small thing to do. It feels that there are a lot of opportunities out there.

"Parties dress themselves in green clothes and it's more important than ever to show we're there and say people may be speaking green but are not acting green. We need to be much more part of that debate to point out the inconsistencies and hypocrisies of other parties."

Caroline Lucas: 'it would be easier to get our ideas across if we had a figure the public was more familiar with.'

Ballot papers have been sent to about 7,000 Green members and must be returned by the end of the month.

What do the LibDems think of the Green leadership debate?

In answer, check out this remark, from a Lib Dem commenting on PoliticalBetting.com , last week:
"I wouldn’t like to fight a GE leaderless, I think that would lead to slaughter, and that a “permanent leaderless” state, as in the Green Party, does lose support."

Real empowerment requires power... Darren Johnson on the need for green leadership, in the _Guardian_

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/darren_johnson/2007/11/lets_follow_a_leader.html Check out Darren Johnson in the _Guardian_, on the leadership issue.

YouGov poll: 84% favour Greens electing a Leader!

If we had 500 years, maybe we could afford to move at the currentpainfully-slow pace of political evolution. But we don’t have 500 years – we don’t even have 50. We must effect huge policy changes within the next decade.
So for green politicians just being different just ain’t good enough – we need to make a difference. A very big difference – and fast.
Global over-heat is a different sort of crisis – because its climax is in the future. Decisions now may create a better future -- but the full effects of those decisions, good or bad, won’t be known for a long time.
A measure of our success will precisely be that people never knew quite how terrifying -- how devastated -- things could become.
It’s a no-brainer that, in this situation, the Green Party is needed more than ever. We need to give people personal confidence that, as we all play our part in the big changes required to prevent climate catastrophe, and as the government regulates to make that possible, our lives will improve in the process: as we live more local, more secure, healthier, more sociable, less stressful existences. We need to show and embody the true and steady leadership that is missing from other political parties.

The Green Party needs to be much more visible itself to articulate this type of leadership.

In the coming weeks, the LibDems will be getting lots of airtime as they look among their own ranks for a Leader to succeed Menzies Campbell. Campbell claimed that the LibDems are the “only Party” campaigning for a “fairer and greener Britain” [ http://politics.guardian.co.uk/libdems/story/0,,2191824,00.html ]. The Green Party needs to step up to the plate, to vigorously contest that claim, to make a serious case for why it is the Green Party that deserves public trust in leading the fight for a fairer and greener Britain.

I read Sky News reporting [ http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91211-1291083,00.html ] that "As leadership nominations closed [for the Libdem leadership contest] with just two hats in the ring, it emerged the party had signed up around 2000 new members since Sir Menzies Campbell quit just more than a fortnight ago. At least 64,000 members will receive ballot papers…although the party is expecting numbers to swell further as the leadership contest gathers pace."

What wouldn’t the Green Party give for a huge influx of members, at this critical juncture…

Meanwhile: a new national opinion poll by YouGov [ http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/Green%20results.pdf ] shows that 5 out of every 6 people in the UK think the Green Party would do better to change its leadership structures. Of those offering a view, 84% answered “Yes” to the question "Do you think the Green Party should have a 'Leader' rather than the 'Principal Speakers' it has at the moment?". This proves what many have long suspected: That electing a Leader or co-Leaders will broaden our popular appeal, and without violating any Green principles at all in the process. If I believed that making this presentational change would make the Green Party one scintilla less politically radical, I would quit the Green ‘Yes’ campaign immediately.

But this change might just give us a shot at making the difference that will save the future.

Stopping catastrophic climate change is the biggest challenge this country – and human civilization itself -- have ever faced. If you need to do something very big very fast, you had better be organised to do it. You had better have a Leader.

Leader = new members

An important quote from one of today's fairly big news stories:
"As leadership nominations closed yesterday evening with just two hats in the ring, it emerged the party had signed up around 2000 new members since Sir Menzies Campbell quit just more than a fortnight ago. At least 64,000 members will receive ballot papers when they are sent out on November 21, although the party is expecting numbers to swell further as the leadership contest gathers pace. The new leader will be announced the week before Christmas."
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.1800957.0.0.php
Please, Green Party people: do reflect on this. What wouldn't we give, for 2000+ new members!!