Rupert's Read

These two dramatic developments in recent days [see links below], especially that at Nagoya, seem to offer great hope. But are they really as good news as they appear? As argued in my paper in THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GREEN ECONOMICS a couple of years ago ( http://www.rupertread.fastmail.co.uk/Economics_is_philosophy%20full%20length.doc  ), I am deeply concerned that the sudden move to accepting the financial valuation of ecosystem services (1) embraces a brand of anthropocentrism that in fact aims stand opposed to ecocentrism (because the financial numbers are all based on capitalist economics, which attributes no real value to nature, only to human wants), (2) delegitimises moves to value nature on other grounds (once we have a number attached to nature, won't people who say that it is priceless be told not just that they are merely sentimentalising, but that they are factually mistaken?), (3) is incoherent and so vulnerable to attack (because nature - and ourse...

Do read this, if you are interested in understanding how even Scotland would benefit from the clocks not going back tonight: http://www.psi.org.uk/pdf/2010/SCOTLAND_DAYLIGHT_FINAL_v4.pdf

This very thoughtful post http://bit.ly/cHTPZu  carefully makes the argument that those opposing serious action on dangerous climate-change eerily echo the arguments of those who opposed serious action to stop slavery. It points out for example the striking parallels that exist between the arguments of the capitalists who called for only voluntary action to reduce the negative impact of slavery, and the arguments of the capitalists who call now for only voluntary action to reduce the negative impact of manmade climate change.     But the parallels can be taken one stage further:     Global over-heating is happening because of our burning of ever more fossil fuels. This burning gives us access to a vast energy glut, compared to which almost all the preceding existence of human beings has been extraordinarily low energy. But Peak Oil and the soon-to-follow Peak Gas mean that this glut will be temporary. In future, people will not have acce...

This is very important good news. Geoengineering puts our ecosystems at dire risk (and distracts from actually fixing the climate - which is why Newt Gingrich loves it). ...Major victory for common sense as hacking of planetary ecosystems is premature until such time as all other options are exhausted; and until there are global protocols, consensus and a sound scientific basis for any geoengineering that may or may not occur. October 29, 2010 From Earth's Newsdesk and Climate Ark, projects of Ecological Internet (EI) http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/ | http://www.climateark.org/ NAGOYA, Japan - Ecological Internet welcomes reports that the 193-member UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will close its tenth biennial meeting with a de facto moratorium on geoengineering projects and experiments. This is a tremendous victory for the ETC Group's "Hands Off Mother Earth" campaign [1], which has carefully researched and presented the case for such a ...

Following the Government's announcement yesterday that there is as yet no funding for a Northern Distributor Road, Green Party councillors havecalled for the Greater Norwich Development Partnership (GNDP) to withdraw the Joint Core Strategy (JCS).       Councillor Phil Hardy said 'This announcement makes it clear that there is no funding for an NDR before a further review in December 2011.   This removes any case that the JCS plan can be implemented based around the NDR.   This news simply makes the JCS plan unsound and it should now be withdrawn immediately.   This would be good news for many people who oppose the housing allocations and the high carbon transport strategy.   Now is the time for the GNDP to go back to the drawing board and develop a Plan B that is low carbon, public transport led with more realistic housing allocations.     Green Party councillors are also calling for the NDR to be abandoned...

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/26/barnet-no-frills-council-overspends This serves as a warning to the Tories (and ConDems) that if we cut too quickly we'll end up spending more .  

http://www.shapingnorfolksfuture.org.uk/content/rail/ : I'm broadly supportive of this campaign, though not particularly of the 'Norwich in 90' component thereof! FAR more important than time-reductions on the timetable is improving the reliability of train services, and working to reduce or eliminate the weekend repair schedule which devastate weekend rail travel in our Region. Surveys show this again and again: people don't mind much about 10 minutes on a timetable; what they mind about is hours of uncertainty or delay in real life.   As for the changes that the government are proposing to make to rail franchises: It is all very well to extend the franchise to 12 or 15 years, but what would be better would be to extend the franchise to permanency - while taking it back 'in house'! I.e. Renationalise the railways. That is the only cure to a balkanized rail system which has resulted in obscenely vast private profits at public expense without a...

Have a listen to my talk on 'Love or justice?' at a recent Conference in Australia, that I joined by audiolink (very very early in the morning, while still in my pajamas).   You have to listen closely, but its worth it! ;-) http://arts.monash.edu.au/ecps/assets/podcasts/2010-09-01t1432-read-care-love-and-our-responsibility-to-the-future-utopias-conference.mp3

http://modernhiddenhistory.blogspot.com/2010/10/racism-religion-and-american-and-uk_26.html  An important piece here on the vast crime of depleted uranium use by the UK/US forces in Iraq. I questioned Charles Clarke (then my MP) about this in the run-up to the criminal attack on Iraq in 2003. To my pleasant surprise, he insisted in reply that d.u. would not be used anywhere at all where it could harm civilians, in Iraq, and suggested to me that it was unlikely to be used at all by the British Armed Forces. To my unpleasant surprise since, these claims turned out to be entirely false. Roddy's article rightly speaks of Britain's involvement in nothing less than nuclear war in the Mid-East. Our government committed what is (according to the Nuremberg tribunal) the supreme international crime, a war of aggression, in 2003, on the basis of the lie that Iraq had WMDs. But Britain and the U.S. did have WMDs, nuclear weapons - and they used them. Depleted uranium - i.e. ...

I am giving a little talk (and a ‘practical’) as part of the upcoming UEA Wellbeing Week, under its ‘Mental Health & Philosophy’ rubric. The event will be at the Dean of Students' Office Meeting Room (on campus) running from 10am-11am on Monday 15 th November. The title of the event is: 'Meditation as an aid to mental health: A practical primer and some philosophical reflections'.

A FAIRER GREENER SOCIETY: NOT SAVAGE CUTS     We are about to witness the biggest spending review that this country has seen for a generation, with all of us being told to tighten our belts. No stone seems to be left unturned, as the coalition government seeks to balance the books that the bankers' irresponsibility has unbalanced: today the Armed forces and the BBC ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/20/spending-review-cuts-bbc ), tomorrow the rest of us: everyone is braced for the next round of cuts. The greatest long-term threat to the country, and to our planet, is environmental destruction, including of course manmade climate change, but this has been consistently ignored. The government is actually cutting its ecological spending, giving the lie to its one-time (and now utterly laughable) claim of aiming to be the greenest government ever: ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/18/green-campaigners-comprehensive-spending-review ) ...

  A campaign has just been launched to encourage more East of England people to consider becoming a local councillor. Quite right too!  Check it out:  Website :   http://beacouncillor.eelga.gov.uk/ Blog :   http://beacllreast.wordpress.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Be-a-Councillor-East/162224970460003 Twitter:   https://twitter.com/BeACllrEast   We in the Green Party are contributing by holding an event on Nov. 6 for anyone interested in becoming a Green Councillor here in the East. If you would like to take part, please get in touch with me ‘offblog’.  

It is important at every opportunity to speak of 'ecology' and 'ecosystems' rather than 'the environment'. The latter is too easily assimilable to neoclassical economics, to 'us vs them' thinking about nature, etc. . The future is ecosystems and their restoration (or bust). -- Rupert Read Green Party Councillor, Norwich. http://rupertread.net [If you have an urgent email for me while I am away from a regular computer, you may wish to try contacting me instead on rupertread+mob AT gmail.com ] WHY NOT FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER?: twitter.com/GreenRupertRead

What is crucial in this [below] is the link between economy and ecosystem. This is where the GP's position is distinctive: Our Party believes in one planet living! Other Parties presumably think that in a moment or two we'll be off mining in space etc - pure fantasy... __________________________________________________________________ WWF has launched the 2010 edition of the Living Planet Report http://nl.panda.org/inxmail?i4710vmfk0e0bdiubqbwqx3a528 . The report is published every 2 years and is considered to be the world's leading, science-based analysis about the impact of human activity on the health of our planet. This is a big deal for us and we wanted to share it with you, our supporter, straight away. It's key finding: humanity's demands exceed our planet's capacity to sustain us. That is, we ask for more than what we have. Why does this happen? How can we change this and guarantee a healthy future for human kind? You'll find some answers below: == L...

Quite right, for the 100th object in R4's series to be a solar light and charger (with, as I understand it, a mobile phone also that can be charged up from the solar charger?). Solar is the future. If we are to have a future: solar is absolutely key. So this takes us from history to the future. Good decision...

 Nice to have some good news, for a change!:   Scientists Call for Axe to Fall on Nuclear Weapons Research Press Release: Wednesday 13 October 2010. 36 science professors have today written to the Prime Minister calling on him to protect core scientific research by cutting investment in developing new nuclear weapons. The scientists, who include ex-Royal Society head, Sir Michael Atiyah and Nobel Prize winner, Sir Harold Kroto, highlight how £2bn a year, over 25% of the government's total scientific research and development budget, is currently spent by the Ministry of Defence (1). Their objections focus on government funding of a multi-billion pound research programme at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, aimed at developing new nuclear warheads. This year this science programme received an additional £1bn of government funding, and this level of 'additional investment' is set to continue until 2013 (2). These funds have ena...

Consumer confidence and people's confidence in their own financial futures has fallen to a new low. Bad news for the govt. And rightly so. But: let's not forget that there are bigger issues at stake. Pessimism about one's FINANCIAL future does not equate to pessimism about one's future full-stop. Speaking for myself, I am neither pessimistic nor optimistic about my own financial future; but I am pessimistic about my future , if we don't change the direction of our society soon. By the time I am old, there will be food shortages and possibly even warlordism, unless we manage as a species to rein in dangerous climate change, fast.  There are much more serious threats out there than low financial consumer confidence. And it is time we got these things into comparative perspective. We badly need to think longer-term than we are used to doing.  The cuts, economic downturn etc. will in retrospect seem small beer, compared to the vast ecological crisis that ...

  An important action to support, from my friends over at No Shock:   http://bit.ly/protectconsumers Do it, and then pass it on.    

In the last two days, I've helped in Witham (Essex) in the Council byelection there, and in Kentish Town (London) with the byelection campaign there.   I'll be going down to help in Bury (Suffolk) in early November. But if you can go before then, Greens, then please do!:                                                                                                                  The Greens have selected local resident Pippa Judd ...

I recommend this meeting; It seems very fitting, that it is on the same day as government cuts are being announced.  Andrew is a confident and easy speaker, so it should be a good meeting.  A chance to have a thorough discussion of a vital topic!: A talk by Andrew Rising (of Cromer Farm Shop, Cromer) titled - "Global Banking - GlobaliSation or GlobaliZation? or How Wall Street Killed Main Street"  At the Community Centre, Garden Street, Cromer  on Wednesday, 20 October, 2010 at 7.30 p.m. The title of this talk refers to the way in which the banking system, and governments, are geared to the corporization of the world, rather than a straightforward globalisation of trade. It echoes the older expression "Wall Street Killed Main Street", i.e. the High Street. Andrew Rising is well known in Cromer for supporting local producers in his Cromer Farm Shop. However his earlier career was in global banking. He saw the crisis coming and is well placed to expl...

'Love Me, I'm a Liberal'...by Phil Ochs I cried when they shot Medgar Evers Tears ran down my spine I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy As though I'd lost a father of mine But Malcolm X got what was coming He got what he asked for this time So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal I go to civil rights rallies And I put down the old D.A.R. I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy I hope every colored boy becomes a star But don't talk about revolution That's going a little bit too far So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal I cheered when Humphrey was chosen My faith in the system restored I'm glad the commies were thrown out of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board I love Puerto Ricans and Negros as long as they don't move next door So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal The people of old Mississippi Should all hang their heads in shame I can't understand how their minds work What's the matter don't they watch L...

(My new piece in Liberal Conspiracy) The Tories right now are laughing all the way to the ballot box. Whether they intended it as such or not, this cut in child benefit for the richer is proving a political masterstroke. That sounds an extraordinary thing to say, given the sustained attacks they are suffering over it, and the apologies that they are being forced to make. But consider the following three points: 1) As they deal with these attacks from the Mail et al, and are forced over and over again to respond to criticisms from broadcast journalists, what do the top Tory brass say? Over and over, they say: ‘Look; with this deficit we have to make tough choices; and it is only fair that the richest 15% give up this benefit in order that there is more money to go around.” It enables Tories to identifying themselves with fairness and remove the impression that they are all about helping the rich. If they have to suffer a few days’ media discomfort in order to rebrand themselves in this ...

All are welcome at these upcoming events...especially the one on 18th Oct! (click to enlarge)

I just read an interesting piece in the NEW YORKER about Obama’s failure to secure climate-legislation. But it fails to consider the terrifying possibility that it may be a GOOD thing that the legislation in question, ‘Kerry-Lieberman’, failed, just as it was a good thing, given the deals that were on offer, that Copenhagen failed ( see http://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/12/07/copenhagen-does-not-go-far-enough/ ) One key to why can be found in the New Yorker article, if one reads carefully. For instance, here:   Obama, in a February, 2009, address to Congress, said, “To truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy. So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a   market-based   cap on carbon pollution.” In March of 2009, a senior White House official outlined a strategy for a ...

Here's why: The problem with taking away child benefit from the rich is that the more you remove universal benefits, the less stake the rich have in the welfare state. Some people already say to me on the doorstep: 'Why should I pay all these taxes? I don't benefit from the tax-take!' This problem will only worsen, if you start in effect means-testing even more benefits (Because that is what removing these benefits from the rich actually amounts to - a 'kinder, gentler' means-testing.). So: this ConDem move will delegitimise the welfare state. Actually, when you put it like this, it isn't so hard to figure out why the Tories are happy to do this... Because many of them WANT to delegitimise the welfare state! So this move, that seems so 'reasonable' and sensible - the Radio 4 reporters are all saying things like 'Yes, surely rich people don't NEED winter fuel allowance / child benefit, etc.', is actually a very clever politi...

To put it bluntly: The 10.10 vid is just kinda dumb: If it were about the bloody deaths that will come from unchecked climate chaos, that would be OK (There is nothing intrinsically wrong with violent ads). But it isn't! It distracts us from the real issue. The underlying message of the 10.10 debacle, I  think, is: If you want to get folk thinking about how we need a concerted campaign to stop climate change from destroying our lives and killing people, then you shouldn't have designed a 'lite' and voluntaristic campaign in the first place... We will not stop climate chaos without concert ed political action and serious awareness of how manmade climate change is killing. 10.10 contributes to neither of these goals. In other words: I think that the underlying problem is not one ad rather than another. It's that 10.10 is a wrongly-conceived campaign in the first place . It enters a 'liberal' space where there is no room for genuine caring ...