Rupert's Read

The American healthcare system will remain neither a system, nor about care, nor healthy, after Obama's reforms. This is why my support for Obama 2 years ago was so patchy and lukewarm. The warnings that I gave at the time have all unfortunately been realised. Read this excellent 'MediaLens' alert, to find out why:   ______________________________________________________________________   MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media March 30, 2010 MEDIA ALERT: VICTORY FOR THE OVERLORDS - OBAMA'S HEALTHCARE REFORM In November 2008, the "historic" importance of Barack Obama's presidential victory was a relentless theme across the media spectrum. Even the pretence of a mainstream commitment to balanced reporting vanished from sight in deference to the self-evident Truth. The Guardian led the way, gushing almost exactly as it had over Blair in 1997: "They did it. They really did it. So often crudely caricatured ...

Marmite ads to stage parallel election: http://bit.ly/ddh8SE  I like Marmite; but this is rather silly, and belittling.

Hello Rupert's Readers. Check out this image, and it will I think start to become clear to you why the DEB has to go... Not sure what I am talking about? You need to be. So read on... The UK Government has been pushing a piece of legislation through Parliament called the Digital Economy Bill (DEB), the main thrust of which is to set out how the UK manages its digital economy for the future. Clauses in the bill deal with such subjects as the broadband tax, which charges each household a fee so that all households can be brought up to a minimum connection speed, and controversial legislation allowing illicit file sharers to have their internet connections blocked. But buried deep within the bill are some clauses which far from protecting the rights of the creative industry, will actually leave almost no protection against infringement. Section 43 of the DEB deals with Orphan Works. Those are creative works (photos, illustrations, videos) which have become separated from their owners....

(Originally publish at www.leftfootforward.org ) Further to Left Foot Forward’s story here about the decision of the Advertising Standards Authority to ban two climate change ads, it is important for us all to be clear just why the ASA caved in to pressure and made this bizarre decision to ban the excellent “nursery rhyme” adverts on man-made climate change So, look at this link , not widely picked up last week; here are some of the things said at this notable location: “This development comes just six weeks after the BNP’s “Operation Fightback” urged supporters to lodge complaints with the ASA over misleading Government claims made in its ‘man-made’ global warming ‘Action on CO2’ television adverts. “These used the words ‘scientists agree’ in connection with disputed and in some cases, retracted, IPCC findings. “Specifically Operation Fightback pointed out that the use of the words “scientists agree” implied that all scientists agreed with the now largely debunked IPCC claims made f...

Check out my letter published in the latest issue of PROSPECT magazine:   http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/03/letters-8/ [Link only works if you are a subscriber] 26th February 2010 Roddy Campbell and David Goodhart’s calls for a “proper scepticism” towards global warming data is completely wrong. Even if the illegal hack at UEA had undermined the data set showing an alarming global temperature rise, there are other similar data sets to rely on. Nasa’s evidence shows just the same warming-trend. Campbell and Goodhart also ignore the most basic element of environmental safety: the precautionary principle. We do not require certainty for it to be rational to take “drastic” action to protect ourselves against the threat of global over-heat. If the risk proves to have been over-egged, we will merely have sacrificed some economic growth (and beneficially cushioned ourselves against the threat of peak oil). If we fail to act, and the di...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2010/mar/24/just-a-minute This is fun!: My JUST A MINUTE rule-change proposal makes headway -now in Grauniad !  :-) And in Torygraph : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/7505101/Rule-change-proposed-for-competitive-Radio-4s-Just-a-Minute.html

[This is a guest blog of mine that will appear shortly on the excellent ACTION AID website, as part of their very welcome 'biofuels action debate']   Let's start with this, from the agrofuels-mad U.S. of A.: http://environmentalresearchweb.org/blog/2010/03/the-smallprint-of-rfs2.html One remarkable detail that stands out in this (worrying) article is that the Environmental Protection Agency (sic.) analysis here accounts for the reduction in food consumption which is associated with using foodstuffs for fuel as a GHG benefit … Quick translation: Starving people is supposed to be good for the planet! That moment of madness tells you a lot about the rise of agrofuels, which is all about profit, and none about reducing GHG emissions, let along about being good for people.   The issue of land-use being altered away from food toward fuels is big in Europe right now too. Take this newspaper headline, again from just last week: " Four environmenta...

The link below offers further in-depth confirmation of what I have argued in this blog for years: that the Millibands et al have systematically betrayed the public trust in their presentation of UK CO2 emissions figures. Emissions from [i.e. due to the economy of and consumption of] Britain and other 'developed' countries have in reality shot up, over the last 20 years, and especially since 1997. http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/436374/eu_exporting_onethird_of_co2_emissions_to_poorer_countries.html

  http://www.tierramerica.info/nota.php?lang=eng&idnews=3337

There are important philosophical issues connected with the idea of ecology: e.g. What is an ecosystem? To what extent can ecology escape being merely anthropocentric (unlike biology)? Does the concept of 'Gaia' as employed in Lovelock's work make philosophical/conceptual sense? To what extent does it make sense to think of ourselves as stewards of the Earth / as the Earth's consciousness or conscience / as 'visitors' to the planet, only 'accidentally' dependent upon it? To what extent are any of these desirable stances to take? What would be the fundamental assumptions of an economics (or a politics - or a philosophy!) that took seriously that we are it seems utterly and inexorably dependent upon Earth systems? Are there inevitable clashes between animal rights and ecologism? Is there / could there be / should there be an ecological ideology or political philosophy to rival liberalism / Maxxism, etc? Must eco-philosophy be political? Is this...

I regularly ask people to be quiet in the Quiet Coach on trains [e.g. not to speak loudly on their mobiles]. An obvious thing to do. But so few of us do it. [English reserve - and fear - at its worst] When we do do it, then it keeps the Quiet Coach quiet - which is as it should be! To enable us to have some peace and quiet if we want it, to be able to concentrate; to avoid us all drowning in noise... Civility in this country is in decline. That is bad news for us all - we should all, as citizens, encourage people to be public-spirited and to care about others' experience. [Note: there suddenly seem to be a lot less Quiet Coaches on the train from Norwich to London. This is concerning me. Anyone else noticed this?]

This is encouraging: UNESCO considers a possible Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles in Relationship to Climate Change Following the initiative of UNESCO and COMEST to promote serious debate on the ethical stakes of climate change, regional expert consultation meetings will be held across the world between March and May with a view to assessing the advisability of a Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles in Relation to Climate Change. The outcomes of the regional expert meetings, along with other consultations, will feed into a report by the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST) that will be submitted to the Director-General of UNESCO in July 2010. Subsequently, the Executive Board of UNESCO, meeting in October 2010, will decide whether to request the Director-General to submit to the 36th General Conference in 2011 a draft declaration drawn up in consultation with the Member States. Organized by the Secret...

Justice Secretary Jack Straw inadvertently seemed to confirm (on TODAY just now, around 8.15) that the reason Venables has been recalled to prison IS for child porn offences. In answer to a question from Humphreys about whether he might say more later today about what offences were involved, Straw remarked that as the news had been getting out, the situation was changed. He then realised his mistake and refused to comment further; but this 'non-denial' appears fairly clear. It would now immensely surprise me if it turns out that the offences are not indeed child porn offences. Which really would underlie the appalling irony of this sad individual's ruined life. A child kills a younger child horrifically, in the public eye (that famous CCTV image). 17 years later, he is apparently engaged in sexual offences - involving images of children. Tragic, for all concerned. Straw's tacit admission is 10 minutes in: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8555000...

If we only think of our children, then we might think of nuclear power as a good thing; but if we think of more distant future people, then evidently nuclear waste is a horrific legacy to leave them, people who won't even get any benefit at all out of the waste in question having been produced.

I've just created a new Facebook group (my first ever!), on Eco-philosophy. If you agree and are a Facebooker and interested in this topic, then do join!: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=343908829035&ref=mf Phil Hutchinson and Tom Greaves co-created this group with me.  

A very interesting comment from a scientist on a thread I was on today on Facebook:   >I'll give my view as a scientist. I find it incredibly difficult to communicate the science at the right level without either dumbing down and being inaccurate or totally baffling and losing people. When I'm passionate and angry I scare people. But given the data and the evidence I have been terrified. When pushed as to why I am it is difficult to explain as there are so many overlapping theories and evidence an unless a lay person can grasp the basics then the rest is lost. In the cases of others I think there is a tendency to think that as the people doing the research they are already doing their bit for the planet when in fact every single one of us needs to a full review. So there you go. People have gotta understand that the time to change is now and we are all in this together. Peak oil, peak soil, peak phosphorus, is on us. Lets hope we don't end up in peak blo...

   My latest newspaper column, in today's EASTERN DAILY PRESS, on 'Future people': http://oneworldcolumn.blogspot.com/2010/03/future-people.html  See what you think; and let me know! [...if you like it, why not forward/share it?]

Brilliant news that the U.S. Congress has declared that what happened to the Armenians in 1915 WAS a genocidal crime. http://bit.ly/bLQFfA  Did they finally do so, however, in a number of cases at least, primarily to punish Turkey for its courageous strong line against Israel's war crimes in Gaza? That was my immediate first guess, and speculation along these lines does indeed turn out to be widespread. [Recommended, by the way, if you want to understand the Armenian genocide and its impact better: Atom Egoyan's astounding feature film, ARARAT.] We should never forget that Hitler said, in the mid-30s, as he began to plot the mind-boggling genocidal crime that was the Holocaust: "Who now remembers the Armenians?" We should remember them, remember what happened, and acknowledge all such true genocides.  

Culture and the Environment Seminar, Wednesday 10 March, 3pm, Blackdale Building 0.17 , UEA   Approaches to Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Debate Dr  Earl Gammon (PSI),  Prof Tim Lenton (ENV), Dr Grischa Perino (ECO) and Dr Rupert Read (PHI)   The ways in which we can think about and discuss issues related to culture and the environment are, as this seminar series has shown, related to the norms of our fields and the institutional and cultural divisions which often define academic work. This session aims to explore these divisions, by inviting colleagues from a number of Schools to talk about a key environmental issue: sustainability. Each speaker will give a 15-minute presentation on what sustainability means to them and their field, without knowing what the other speakers are going to include in their presentations. The floor will then be open for discussion and debate. What range of things can 'sustainabili...

Those councillors deserve Green medals:   News flash from Eastern Daily Press : Tesco loses Sheringham store wars The latest battle in Sheringham's store wars today saw councillors approve plans for the eco-friendly Greenhouse Community Project while once again throwing out proposals for a Tesco in the town. Wonderful news