Rupert's Read

http://globalpublicmedia.com/richard_heinbergs_museletter_peak_everything Dear Rupert's readers; have you read Richard Heinberg's 'Peak Everything' yet? Highly-recommended, if you want to be equipped for the true challenge of the 21st century. As you will probably gather from Heinberg's title (!), one thing he is onto is the point that the long crisis that we have entered into isn't just about carbon, or oil -- it is across the piste. So: we are going to need solutions (involving presumably some kind of rationing, in order to be fair to all while sustaining all) across the piste... I am working on this problem, in my philosophical research at present, and will offer highlights of my proposed solutions, in posts later this year.

Plastic bags are a serious environmental problem, chiefly because of their impact on our landscape and and upon the seas, where many of them end up. It breaks my heart to hear stories of birds choking to death on plastic bags or dying from internal bleeding because of bits of plastic that they have eaten. Especially, because this problem is so easily avoidable: Ireland has put a tax on plastic bags, and use of them has dropped by 90%; and a number of towns in England are now banning plastic bags outright (for example, Aylsham in Norfolk is considering doing so, which is excellent news). Moreover, the more plastic there is, there more pressure there is from the government to incinerate them -- and we in the Green Party are now joining with local residents across East Anglia to fight against incinerator proposals: in Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk. Every additional plastic bag means a little bit more pressure in favour of incineration; to stop incineration, we need to turn the ...

News: Green Party of England & Wales 22 February 2008 In the wake of the life sentence handed down today to the Suffolk strangler Steve Wright for the killing of 5 prostitutes in Ipswich, Green Party Norwich councillor and prospective MEP for the Eastern Region Dr. Rupert Read calls for the complete decriminalisation of sex work so that the focus of police efforts can be redirected to protecting the most basic human rights of prostitutes: their life and their health. Green Party policy called for the complete decriminalisation of prostitution on the "New Zealand model", so that the focus for sex workers moves from evading arrest to their safety and wellbeing. Dr. Read, a lecturer in moral philosopher at UEA, said: "The current system that criminalises prostitution just pushes street sex workers further into the twilight, further from traditional areas of relative safety and further into danger. "Decriminalisation could mean that instead of hearing about prostitu...

Written by SAM WILLIAMS Norwich Evening News 24 22 February 2008 Plans for a city-wide 20mph speed limit on residential roads have been made a priority for Norwich City Council for the coming year. Councillors from all four political parties at City Hall unanimously backed the motion, raised as an amendment by Rupert Read, Green party councillor for Wensum ward, at the budget meeting earlier this week. A feasibility study into the proposals are currently underway and while the findings will not be published until May the move has put the blanket limit as one of the council's key aims for 2008/09. Mr Read said the lower limit would improve safety and reduce pollution in the city. He said: “When you have people on safe streets they are far more likely to walk or cycle on those streets. This is a consensual item across the chamber. The vast majority of us have thought for a long time the 20mph limit across the city should be put into place. “I move that it should be put into place acr...

[I don't usually do this, but: this email brings such bad tidings of the true colours of our government, that I just had to publish it... . It is from Jason Torrance, of the excellent Campaign for Better Transport. SPREAD THE WORD!] Soon the Government could tell us exactly how much the survival of this bluebell wood is worth, in pounds and pence. Our rivers and hedgerows, our National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, all could be given price tags. British landscape under threat I think some things are priceless, so I find the Government proposal to assign a monetary value to our landscape hard to swallow. If you feel the same way, don't despair: Campaign for Better Transport is fighting to stop it from happening. The proposal comes out of the Government's review of the way it assesses whether transport schemes (such as new roads) should go ahead. The transport appraisal process is heavily biased towards roadbuilding, so we're glad it's being...

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1304367,00.html As well as locking up the Sufolk strangler Steve Wright for a long long time, today, so that he can never do any more harm, we need to change the law such that prostitutes are never again an easy target for a serial killer. Green Party policy would make it significantly less likely that there will be more Wrights in the future. The best memorial to all Wright’s victims would be to ensure that: Never Again. [Here is the full G.P. policy on prostitution, from the national Party website: Prostitution and the Sex Industry RR550 The Green Party believes that the law should not seek to regulate consensual sexual activities between adults where those do not affect others. Where there are such effects, a balance must be reached. Adults should be free to do as they wish with their own bodies, and to practice whatever form of sexual activity they wish by themselves or with each other by mutual consent. This includes the freed...

Story by David Bale in the Norwich Evening News - Click here to read.

[[This post is a 'sequel' to other recent posts, below, on Peak Oil and 'Transition Culture']] Peak Oil will lead to / is leading already to a reaching for other more carbon-intensive forms of energy. Let me put it this way: The strains that would be put upon our society by a rapid energy-descent are almost the least of our worries. If we as a society avoid/postpone those strains by means of dipping heavily into carbon-intensive alternatives to oil, then we will buy ourselves another decade or two of energy-obesity, at a terrible cost. For we will initiate then a climate cataclysm. It seems to me that this is highly-likely to happen, without enormous political will. It is highly-likely, in other words, that politicians will not face the challenge posed by Peak Oil head-on, soon enough... There will be a direly-strong temptation to soften the Transition: by burning the oil shales, the tar sands, the heavy oil, the vast reserves of coal, and half-hearted gestures at doin...

http://uea.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10140295199

I still feel very tired, after Party Conference and now back at work and a full Council meeting tonight... Life is NOT easy, for someone active in local, regional and national politics. The demands on my time are so overwhelming; and people don't tend to respect and appreciate people in party politics as much they do people in charities, NGOs etc. . Politicians are scum, the lowest of the low, as far as most people are concerned. Never mind that most politicians in most Parties are genuinely doing their best for the people, for the future, for precious little reward. But there's the rub: most politicians are genuinely doing their best, but their best is not good enough -- because most of what they are doing is counter-productive, because they are in fact working in the short-term service of growth, of big business, of the rich, etc. I decided not to try to spend all my life lobbying other people / lobbying industrial-growth-oriented Parties in order to vainly try to raise awar...

I am speaking tomorrow [see 'Capitalism and the Environment', above] on the relationship between capitalism and ecology. Lots to say, but for now I think the key thing I want to say is this: that the population issue HAS to be faced, because we have (b)reached the limits to growth. If one is serious about ecology and about localisation, one has to be serious about restraining population. It is not proven that this can be done entirely by voluntary means. We may have to think, e.g., about limits to family size, or at least about fiscal incentives for smaller families. What is not good enough is the standard old socialist mantra of open borders and procreative freedom. This mantra only works if one just doesn't care either way about ecological limits -- as old socialists, indeed, generally didn't care, preferring simply to maximise 'production'.

I am sometimes asked why we need to use the state to make the political changes that are needed in order to address the climate crisis; in order, for example, to make Transition Towns have the real-world impact that they deserve to have. The answer is straightforward: The state has to provide the caps that make a framework within which public goods (such as limits to pollution so that we stay within our ecological limits) are incentivised and public bads are disincentivised. The only fair way to do this is through carbon entitlements, etc. [See e.g. http://www.feasta.org/documents/energy/dtqsoct2003.htm ] That is why it is Green Party policy to introduce such a scheme. Without such a scheme, either one introduces regressive carbon taxes (which is what, inasmuch as their policies address the issue at all seriously the Conservative Party and the LibDem Party propose to do, in effect punishing the poor for the emissions of the rich); or one simply gives up the ambition to be serious about...

This is a photo-gallery from the Green Party Conference, which is coming to an end today, featuring among other things several pictures of Martin Bell at the major fringe meeting during the Conference chaired by Rupert Read. Click here to view!

I am back from Green Party Conference. The Conference blog continues here: http://greendespatches.blogspot.com The event that I chaired with Martin Bell (and that featured also Guardian Weekly journalist and Green Party Communications Officer Natalie Bennett) went really wonderfully well. Bell gave an inspiring speech, in which argued that our Party could and should be anti-war and pro-peace but also pro-soldier; he mentioned the 'remarkable' fact that all 165 Murdoch newspaper editors 'independently' decided to back the Iraq war...; he called upon the Green Party to cast itself as "the Party of honest politics", and suggested that this was a very plausible string to our bow beside our 'core' issues; he said (drawing upon his experience of having fought the Eastern Region Euro-elections last time -- this is the Region where I am now our Party's lead candidate) "Rupert has a very good chance of winning in 2009; You are a mainstream Party n...

We in the Green Party are highly critical of the EU where criticism is called for. For example, we find the Common Agricultural Policy as it is presently constituted a dangerous waste of money; we oppose joining the Euro; and we think that big business fat cats and lobbyists have an undue role in creating European laws. We are Euro-critical. But we are not outright Euro-sceptical – because it is obvious that Britain’s membership of the EU has in some respects conferred significant benefits on this country. For example by playing a key role in keeping the peace in Europe for most of the last sixty-three years, by ensuring human and political rights for all citizens (including equal rights for men and women), by giving rights of travel and employment throughout Europe (for plumbers, for painters and decorators, for British people who want to live and work elsewhere in Europe, for everyone). But, most significantly, it has taken action, where the British government has faile...

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/News/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=enonline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED14%20Feb%202008%2012%3A09%3A45%3A020 The Green Party is watching this EEDA initiative carefully -- is it going to be a great thing for carbon-reduction, or just a waste of resources?

1) Inasmuch as Peak Oil is upon us and oil is running out, recall that 'energy descent' involves not a complete giving up of any reliance upon oil / carbon-based energy, but a radical reduction . But this means that one still needs some : and so it is very important to the possibility of the Transition movement building genuine resilience that the remainder is not just guzzled. This is where politics comes in, to manage energy descent among everyone, including would-be ‘free-riders’. A Transition Town deprived of ANY oil at all is a 'Transition Town' in free-fall. 2) One needs to take in the terrifying truth mentioned in my article on Transition Towns ((see below)): that, unless we stop it politically, Peak Oil will result in the tar sands, the oil shales, heavy oil, coal including heavy-sulphur coal (and including the gasification and ‘petrolification’ of coal) being exploited far more heavily, so long as they yield a positive energy balance. This means that Peak Oil ...

I am now back from Green Party Conference. But: Why am I a Green? Why do I have very little hope for any of the 'main three' Parties delivering the needful changes, at this fateful point in history? The key reason why is that the 'Conservatives', the LibDems and New Labour are all thoroughgoingly committed to neo-liberal economics. This points in the OPPOSITE direction to the changes that are needed. As fast as their manifestos become 'environmentalistic', so their belief in 'making things easier for business', in building roads and airports and coal-fired and nuclear power stations etc. undermines any progress they make elsewhere. What we need is not environmentalism attached to an agenda which in other respects involves business as usual. What we need is ecologism (See e.g. Andrew Dobson's book, 'Green political thought'. http://www.andrewdobson.com/?page_id=14 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2465/is_4_30/ai_63699792 ) And, as I br...

[See the posts below, for explication of the context here. This is a reply to Rob Hopkins's critique of my column, here http://transitionculture.org/2008/02/12/rupert-read-misses-the-point-about-transition-initiatives/ ] >The first of [Rupert Read’]s specific arguments, the one that I am still scratching my head about days after reading his piece, goes as follows; ”The Transition Towns movement alone cannot save us because, within the existing economic system, some people reducing their use of fossil fuels is received by everyone else as a price signal that it is OK to use even more fossil fuels”. This seems like an astonishing argument from a member of the Green Party, to suggest that it is counter-productive to reduce fossil fuel consumption in one place because it will just increase it elsewhere. I sometimes hear the same argument from those who suggest that there is no point in our doing anything to lower our carbon emissions because China and India will nev...

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The Green Party Spring Conference 2008 is to be held at Reading Town Hall from 14th to 17th February. I will be heading down from Norwich tomorrow night. A good number of Eastern Region Green Councillors, campaigners and members will be attending ahead of what is expected to be another good set of local election results for us here in the East on May 1st. In my city, Norwich, the Greens are aiming to make history by becoming the first Green Group to be the largest opposition party on a principal authority. Greens are also working hard for gains in Waveney, Watford, Welwyn, St. Alban's, Cambridge and Colchester. In 1999 there were just 2 principal authority Green Councillors in Eastern Region. Now there are over 20 with more seats being won every year. It's an exciting time to be lead Euro-candidate for the Region for the Greens! The Reading conference will be considering an update of Green Party Energy policy - a vital area as a consequence of dangerous climate change b...

[Prefatory note: A shortened version of this opinion piece has just been published in GREEN WORLD magazine. Here is the full version -- I am publishing it now on my blog, to allay the misplaced fears [see http://transitionculture.org/2008/02/12/rupert-read-misses-the-point-about-transition-initiatives/#comment-54940 ; see also my comment, the second comment on the piece] of the excellent Rob Hopkins, founder of the 'Transition Towns' initiative, that I am somehow an enemy of Transition Towns. I hope that it is clearer from this than it may have been from the inevitably-compressed GW piece just what it is I am saying:] On the airwaves so far this year we’ve heard a lot from the nuclear lobby and its apologists. And they are gagging for a techno-fix to keep in place the current unsustainability of the energy-obese West. Meanwhile, there is a growing ripple of underground excitement about a remarkable idea for how to maybe reduce energy demand radically – in a manner th...

I won't be posting much on 'Rupert's read' for the next week: because I will be posting on the inaugural group-blog for Green Party national Conference: http://greendespatches.blogspot.com/ Do check me out there!

Rupert's read is behind Barack Obama in his bid for the Presidential nomination in the States. But this blog also wants to pay homage to the man (and his campaign) who more than anything else made Obama's bold bid possible. Howard Dean was the first mover, here. Obama would not be anywhere near where he is now, if it hadn't have been for Howard Dean. Dean led the way on anti-Iraq-war candidates being possible in the States; he led the way in an internet-based insurgency; he led the way in mass campaigning (via the internet and Move On, and on the ground -- I strongly recommend here the incredibly-inspiring book by his Campaign Manager: the genius, the new Carville, Joe Trippi, 'The revolution will not be televised'). Obama is probably narrowly going to beat Clinton (though watch out for some of those sleazy super-delegates), because of the size of his base and because (crucially) of the fund-raising base this gives him. As Trippi clearly describes, that was what the...

Exciting news, for those of you in the Norwich area with an interest in thinking about films that think!... LT3 on UEA campus has been booked from 9am-9.30pm for a film screening of all three LOTR films on Saturday 8th March! Each film will be preceded by a short talk from me. I am looking forward to this ‘ordeal’ (which is, admittedly, a less severe ordeal than that that faces Frodo…). This is happening btw because I am teaching these films on my 'Film as philosophy' unit. p.s. If you want to get a sense of how I believe that ‘Lord of the Rings’ fits our theme(s) this semester, a good place to start is with the relevant chapter in my new book PHILOSOPHY FOR LIFE, available in Waterstones and in the University Library and on Amazon, etc. - see under 'Local links', at left.

Our weather is changing. Sudden downpours and flash flooding are on the increase -- manmade climate chaos is of course the culprit. The ten-year forecast is for more and more floods. [I got utterly drenched by a freak rain-and-hail storm the other day, which is why I have been moved to write about this!] After last year's catastrophic floods, the government set up a review to identify the lessons that could be learnt. The interim findings have now been published, but the report pays little attention to avoiding floods. Of the report's 15 recommendations, 13 deal with emergency responses and the other two are about monitoring water levels and risks. Not one of the recommendations deal with steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of flooding! Surely we should be trying to prevent floods, not just thinking about how to mop up afterwards? This would save a lot of distress and would be more cost-effective. To prevent flood risks accelerating we must preserve flood pla...

This from the INDY on Sunday yesterday may interest readers of R's read; see also my posts on nuclear from January: 'Shambolic' Sellafield in crisis again after damning safety report http://www.independ ent.co.uk/ environment/ green-living/ shambolic- sellafield- in-crisis- again-after- damning-safety- report-777551. html Britain's most notorious nuclear installation was plunged into crisis last week, when vital equipment broke down just as it was recovering from an accident that shut it for two years. Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant has been closed again, while starting only its second job since the shutdown.