Rupert's Read

Charles Clarke is making national headlines today warning that Labour may lose the next general election. His concerns about Labour's prospects may be linked to last year's local election results in his own Norwich South constituency, where the Green Party came in first with 30% of the vote… And Norwich Greens have a strong chance of further gains at this year's local elections on 1st May. By 2010, which is when Clarke predicts there will be an election, we will be very strong indeed... Charles Clarke knows full well that his constituency is one of the strongest prospects for a Green MP -- and that, we in Norwich Green Party believe, is why he is running scared. Norwich South, btw, is one of three national Parliamentary target seats for the Green Party at the next General Election. [Clarke's comments have been making headlines all day today on Radio 4. They have so far to my knowledge hit the Daily Mail: here , The Guardian, here and the BBC: here T...

Dear readers of Rupert's Read; One thing I am pleased about about this blog is that when we have had debates or disagreements here, they have virtually always been good-tempered. Because the norm out there in the blogosphere is often not like that. Take 'Comment is Free', for example, on the Guardian Unlimited site: the level of debate on CIF is pretty awful, frankly, in terms of civility. It is a very unpleasant place to take part in any debate, generally, unless perhaps (as most commenters do) one hides behind the veil of anonymity (which 'ain't allowed' here). And the truth is, in case any fellow commenters reading this don't realise it, that there are many many people who get put off even reading (let alone posting to) CIF because of the volume of plain nasty comments that they risk getting, when they do. I am slightly singling out CIF here, because I believe that this is actually one of the worst places on the blogosphere in terms of this kind of ...

I am fed up with reading in the papers about 'terrorists' doing this and that. Anyone remember Nelson Mandela being called a 'terrorist'? Well, he was, over and over, for many years. Someone using the word "terrorist" is a fairly reliable symptom of an attempt to stop their readers thinking, and simply to scare and repel them from the people under discussion. It is quite similar in that regard to the use of words such as "nigger", "kike", "towel-head", etc. [For detail, I recommend a perusal of Steven Poole's fine book 'Unspeak'.] And before I get flamed, let me remark that I myself am a convinced believer in and practitioner of non-violence. I don't condone asymmetric warfare. But neither do I condone lazy and 'violent' communication.

Many streets in my ward are highly residential areas where, unfortunately, a small number of drivers drive TOO FAST. For safety's sake, we need 20mph speed limits. Furthermore: 'Modal shift' (to less polluting transport modes: bus, bike, foot) is the key to reducing carbon emissions. Cars driving too fast is the key reason why people do not shift to bike and foot. Ergo: reducing speed limits is the key to reducing carbon emissions. 20mph limits are green .

Well, yes, in a way we are ... the single issue is: all political issues, combined into one, wholistically. Because you cannot have (e.g.) a transport policy which is not simultaneously also a crime policy, an economic policy, an ecological policy, en education policy, a food and farming policy.... We are the only Party that truly believes in joined-up government. We look at things wholistically , unlike the other Parties. If that is being a 'single issue party', then I plead guilty! Another way of putting it would be... the single issue is: saving the human race, and making life wonderful.

OK, so let's get this straight: Low interest rates and easy money in the States (and Britain, and almost everywhere) led to a crisis in the 'sub-prime' mortgage market, which has brought on fears of a recession in the States (and everywhere). The Fed's response, as Wall Street cottons on to the danger of recession, and tumbles? Lower interest rates by three quarters of a percent, a week early! Are these people complete imbeciles? Let's get the next part of the story straight (i.e. what will happen over the next several months/years): Eased credit in the States leads to a further bubble in the 'sub-prime' mortgage market (and probably also a sudden surge of inflation), which in due course will lead to a still worse crisis, and thus to a real recession... The U.S. and U.K. nowadays are debt-ridden -- debt-sodden, debt-addicted -- countries, mortgaged to the hilt. The Fed has just redoubled that. It truly does beggar belief. We are living beyond our means. It...

Even conventional economists nowadays acknowledge that market ‘externalities’ should be paid for, to ‘internalise’ their costs: so, for instance, both the nuclear industry and the fossil fuel industry should be forced – wherever, whenever, and however feasible -- to pay the full (including the future) costs of the safe disposal of their wastes. The implications of this simple and obvious statement are colossal. In the case of the nuclear industry, there is good reason to believe that it would finish the industry off: with uranium supplies fast-depleting, there is now a real question as to whether there is even enough usable nuclear energy left in the world to clean up the mess of the nuclear industry, past, present and future (for back-up for this claim, see www.theleaneconomyconnection.net/nuclear/Nuclear.pdf ) . The British government for one is at least pretending that in future the nuclear industry will have to include the cost of dealing with its waste within its business model...

[I have been writing the _Guardian_ and other papers, to try to get them to stop calling nuclear a 'low' or 'zero' (!) carbon source of energy. I encourage readers to do the same! They aren't publishing my letters, perhaps because they don't appreciate the criticism. But how can I help but criticise, when they are so wrong on this? Here is my most recent letter:] Why does the _Guardian_ keep publishing articles that propagate the myth that nuclear is 'low-carbon'? (The latest is Mark Milner and David Gow, writing on Monday Jan. 26, including nuclear alongside renewables in their article on the EU's efforts to incentivise green energy.) It surprises me that so many _Guardian_ environment correspondents have swallowed this uber-myth of the nuclear PR industry. Once one factors in the very substantial amount of energy needed for mining, transporting and processing uranium, for building nuclear power plants, for protecting them and their fuel from s...

As I write, the terrible blockade on Gaza, which the world is barely noticing, is easing slightly. But it is truly terrible, that Israel is collectively-punishing the population of this 'open-air prison': http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CC981B4C-A277-4F1F-B9FB-ADD6BCBB67E5.htm . They are literally killing the civilian people of this stateless place: http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=27093 My partner Juliette wrote about this brewing crisis in our newspaper column, 9 days ago: http://oneworldcolumn.org/192.html Shame on the world indeed, for ignoring this desperate crisis...

I've been asked to put together the links to my arguments against nuclear. Here are the main ones: http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2008/01/my-on-air-destruction-of-nuclear.html http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.net/2008/01/09/our-short-termist-polity-was-always-going-to-go-nuclear/ http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.net/2008/01/03/the-year-ahead-green-milestones-and-nuclear-millstones/ Plus this letter just sent to some papers in Eastern Region: Dear Sir, The Labour Government has decided to back more nuclear power stations. However, the Greens believe the arguments for nuclear power to be based on a series of misleading and false assumptions and are pledging to fight any new nuclear build in East Anglia . It is expected that Sizewell in Suffolk and Bradwell in Essex will be likely sites for the new stations. The Government is also legislating to change the planning system, making it harder for local communities to have any real say in major infrastructure projects. Their...

People sometimes ask me why I am not keen on biofuels (except for small local re-used vegetable oil etc. biofuels, which are great.). Let me sketch a parallel. One day, nuclear fusion might be great -- but not for a long time. In the meantime, vast funds are poured into nuclear research, whereas those funds are needed NOW for tidal, wave, etc. The biofuels-craze is damaging our planet seriously NOW -- rainforests are being destroyed by the biofuels mania. Yes, there may be _relatively_ undamaging biofuels to come. But in the meantime Greens have to speak up to say that the current generation of biofuels is doing real damage -- now. I was one of the founders of the East Anglian organisation 'Large Scale Biofuel Concern', which has since been absorbed into the excellent 'Biofuelwatch'. Biofuels on a large-scale are a 'techno-fix', and at present a very damaging one. They are NOT an ecological solution. Biofuels give people the illusion that they can car...

http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/rss/default.aspx?id=edpOneWorld Sign up here for the RSS feed for my regular group newspaper column in the _EDP_, East Anglia's leading daily. It only takes one click, once you go to this page!

I am feeling depressed about the government's appalling embrace of nuclear power, fully backed by the Tories. As David Fleming's chilling report ( www.theleaneconomyconnection.net/nuclear/Nuclear.pdf ) makes clear, the real question now is whether nuclear power even has enough energy left to contribute, from its fast-depleting uranium, to clean up its own wastes, let alone to contribute anything to our energy needs beyond that. Do read this report! Everyone ought to know what it says.

Here's a real beauty, from Cllr. Eve Collishaw (Con.), at yesterday's Joint Highways Agency Committee meeting, on which I also sit: "The public never understand transport schemes." And another, a few minutes later, to 'explain' what she meant: "If you have public meetings about transport schemes, you'll just waste a load of time and money, and it is nothing to do with democracy: Officers understand these schemes, ordinary people just don't." How charmingly frank! If this is representative of the level of 'respect' which Norwich Tory Councillors have for the intelligence of their voters, then perhaps those voters will particularly enjoy the chance to be equally 'frank' with Norwich's Conservatives, when democratically voting, this May 1st...

Goto http://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/local_radio/index.shtml , and then to 'Listen Again'. I am on 'Breakfast with Bumfrey', on Thurs Jan. 10, periodically from fairly soon after the start of the programme at 7a.m., until about 8.20. [I set out my stall against nuclear from about 7.10 til 7.15, and we come back to it periodically after that. From about 7.40 til 8.20, there is some particular interesting _debate_ between myself and various pro-nuclear people phoning into Radio Norfolk.]

NUCLEAR IS NOT LOW-CARBON: The failure of our political system to see through the nuclear spin So, the Cabinet has (yesterday) spinelessly given the unanimous go-ahead for our kingdom to ‘go nuclear’ once again ( http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=arArd6CQxfXk&refer=uk ). The formal Parliamentary announcement that New Labour is taking the nuclear (power) option will come tomorrow. But we have known for years a few years now that this was a fait accompli, the consultation(s) a sham ( http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/greenpeace-formal-complaint-to-mrsc-over-nuclear-power-consultation ). What made it a fait accompli ? The excuse that nuclear power is ‘low-carbon’, at a time when the government is desperately trying to present itself as serious about manmade climate change. The government is busy bribing local communities to mortgage their futures to take in what will be a huge tranche of new nuclear waste under their roofs ( http://news.independent...

If say just 10kg of coal were burned each hour for two hundred thousand years, in order to look after a given nuclear waste dump, then that adds up to about 20 million kg, or 20000 tonnes of coal. Now multiply that by say 2500, to represent the rough number of nuclear plants that would be needed across the world to satisfy current electricity demand alone: = 50 million tonnes. Now take into account the functional working lifetime of a nuclear plant: say 30 years. So, in 200,000 years, if we were running on nuclear, we would need to repeat the exercise about 6,000 times. Then the rough figure that one comes out with is that, for dealing with nuclear waste alone (ignoring entirely the other factors, such as for instance the increasing costs (in both cash and energy terms) of mining uranium, as it starts to run out), is that one would have to burn about 300 billion tonnes of coal , over a 200,000 years period. For dealing with nuclear waste alone . That is about one third of the total c...

Technorati Profile

I say that it is a lie that nuclear is low-carbon, let alone carbon-free...: Once one factors in the very substantial amount of energy needed for mining, transporting and processing uranium, for building nuclear power plants, for protecting them and their fuel from sabotage and accident, etc etc., and once one includes the vast amount of energy needed to decommission, monitor and protect nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years, then nuclear ends up with a stupendously huge carbon footprint. It is simply not true -- it is the grossest most misleading spin imaginable -- for advocates of nuclear power to claim that nuclear is a low-carbon source of enegy. The only true low-carbon sources of energy are renewables energy sources such as solar, wind and wave. Renewable energy can save us from dangerous climate change. Nuclear power cannot. And furthermore, it is a lie that nuclear is low-cost...: The government has secretly given the go-ahead for plans to collect a ...

I have blogged several times over the past few months to suggest that the UK's CO2 emissions are rising not falling (see e.g. http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2007/12/britains-co2-emissions-in-reality-are.html and especially http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2007/10/who-will-lead-on-combatting-dangerous.html ). Now, sadly, it appears that there is strong academic confirmation of what I have been saying: UK carbon emissions risen not fallen – new paper: A paper has just been published by Angela Druckman et al of Surrey University (Druckman A, Bradley P, Papathanasopoulou E, Jackson T. (2007) 'Measuring progress towards carbon reduction in the UK', latest issue of Ecological Economics ). The paper shows that that the accounting convention chosen for reporting carbon emissions radically changes the conclusions that may be drawn about UK's progress towards its carbon reduction targets. According to the UNFCCC reporting convention, carbon emissions fell by 5.6% between 1990...

So, we receive final confirmation today of what I predicted on this blog nearly 4 months ago [ http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2007/10/northern-lots-of-unwanted-new.html ]: that the government does indeed firmly believe that the decision of Norfolk County Council to award the contract to build the NDR (Northern Distributor Road) to their ‘colleagues’ at May Gurney was “legally unsound” [ See today’s EVENING NEWS: http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=NewsSplash&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=NewsSplash&itemid=NOED07%20Jan%202008%2009%3A11%3A43%3A067 ]. This dreadful mistake by the County Council – a mistake which was totally predictable, and which was in fact predicted (the prediction in fact first appears in the public record in some comments made by my colleague Green Party County Councillor Andrew Boswell (see below), way back in July), and yet which, remarkably, officers and Tories on Norfolk County Council are still defend...

2008 is the year that will decide the dimensions of the new Norwich unitary authority decided. The area currently proposed for the greater Norwich unitary authority is FAR TOO LARGE. ...Norwich Green Party wants the full Norwich urban area to be included in the new Norwich unitary authority. It is is a nonsense for places like Sprowston and Hellesdon to be 'outside Norwich', when they are plainly part of Norwich -- it makes proper planning in andof the city impossible. ...But we will _oppose_ the move to a unitary authority, in the final analysis, if the Boundary Commission decides to include swathes of rural Norfolk including villages or even possibly surrounding market towns in the area of 'Norwich'. (See "Greens launch 'middle way' campaign on boundaries of unitary Norwich", at http://www.norwichgreenparty.org/default.aspx?url=http://www.norwichgreenparty.org/archive_news.html for details).

My latest piece on 'OK': "Green milestones and nuclear millstones". Why not read the post, and make a comment there, joining the debate? http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.net/2008/01/03/the-year-ahead-green-milestones-and-nuclear-millstones/