Show Me The Money
Alternatives to Political Systems, Economics, People Systems, Society — by George Monbiot October 18, 2011
We have a democratic right to know who is funding public advocacy.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
Since the late 19th Century, the very rich have been paying people to demand less government. The work of Herbert Spencer, for example, was sponsored by Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller and Thomas Edison(1). Spencer believed that society changed according to evolutionary laws. Humans were evolving towards perfection, but this process was inhibited by interference from the state. By protecting people from the consequences of their own actions (or their own bad luck), it stopped the winnowing process which would otherwise result in the survival of the fittest.
Social security, publicly-funded education, compulsory vaccination, laws enforcing safety at work all interrupted social evolution. But a self-regulated free market would swiftly ensure that those who were best-adapted would survive and triumph. It’s not hard to see why the millionaires loved him. They saw themselves as winners of the evolutionary race, taking their rightful place at the pinnacle of the social order. Any attempt to limit their freedoms would prevent society from achieving perfection.
Comments (3)Roads to Ruin
Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society, peak oil — by George Monbiot October 13, 2011
A new road-building programme will drain money from essential services.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
The money has run out, or so we keep being told. There are no funds left for any but essential projects: the frontline services and the capital spending which cannot be deferred. Councils in particular are desperate for cash: so desperate that they are having to cut everything from libraries to residential care homes, Sure Start centres to Citizens’ Advice Bureaux. Every month they have to make horrible decisions whose consequences will damage people’s lives.
So why are these same cash-strapped councils now intending, alongside central government, to spend £897m on new roads, some of which were first proposed decades ago, but which were deemed unnecessary even when cash was abundant? And why is the government minded to approve this spending?
Comments OffSounding the Deeps
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, Financial Management, People Systems, Society, peak oil — by George Monbiot October 11, 2011
If this analysis is correct, a Great Depression is all but inevitable.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
I stumbled out into the autumn sunshine, figures ricocheting around in my head, still trying to absorb what I had heard. I felt as if I had just attended a funeral: a funeral at which all of us got buried. I cannot claim to have understood everything in the lecture: Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu Theory and the 41-line differential equation were approximately 15.8 metres over my head(1). But the points I grasped were clear enough. We’re stuffed: stuffed to a degree that scarcely anyone yet appreciates.
Think of a Tank
Alternatives to Political Systems, Economics, Society, Village Development — by George Monbiot September 29, 2011
The “free market thinktanks” and their secret funders are a threat to democracy.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
Nadine Dorries won’t answer it. Lord Lawson won’t answer it. Michael Gove won’t answer it. But it’s a simple question, and if they don’t know it’s because they don’t want to. Where does the money come from? All are connected to groups whose purpose is to change the direction of public life. None will reveal who funds them.
When she attempted to restrict abortion counselling, Nadine Dorries MP was supported by a group called Right to Know. When other MPs asked her who funds it, she claimed she didn’t know(1,2). Lord Lawson is chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which casts doubt on climate science. It demands “openness and transparency” from scientists(3). Yet he refuses to say who pays, on the grounds that the donors “do not wish to be publicly engaged in controversy.”(4) Michael Gove was chairman of Policy Exchange, an influential conservative thinktank. When I asked who funded Policy Exchange when he ran it, his office told me “he doesn’t have that information and he won’t be able to help you.”(5)
Comments OffArrested Development
Biodiversity — by George Monbiot September 27, 2011
The wild boar cull should be halted, and we should stop confusing conservation with gardening.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
Is the United Kingdom the most zoophobic nation in Europe? Do we, in other words, have an unusually intense fear of wild animals?
We’ve certainly been less successful than other nations at protecting large mammals. Norway and Finland, for example, have lost none of their large, post-glacial land mammal species. But, until recently, our native species numbered just two: roe deer and red deer. As David Hetherington of the Cairngorms Wildcat Project pointed out at a meeting in London Zoo last year, the UK is “the largest country in Europe and almost the whole world” which no longer possesses any of its big carnivores. Other countries as densely populated and industrialised as ours have managed to hang on to theirs.
Comments OffBalloon Debate
Global Warming/Climate Change — by George Monbiot September 7, 2011
Why is the government spending £1.6m on a geo-engineering experiment whose results can never be used?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
It’s atmospheric liposuction: a retrospective fix for planetary over-indulgence. Geo-engineering, which means either sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere or trying to shield the planet from the sun’s heat, is an admission of failure, a failure to get to grips with climate change. Is it time to admit defeat and check ourselves into the clinic?
Comments (1)Shale Fail
Energy Systems, Global Warming/Climate Change, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by George Monbiot September 2, 2011
It looks as if the UK government is allowing shale gas fracking companies to regulate themselves.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
Before the government approves a new industrial process in the UK it must have ensured that it won’t harm either people or the environment. Mustn’t it? That’s what any sane person would expect. Any sane person would be wrong.
One year ago, a company called Cuadrilla Resources began drilling exploratory shafts into the rock at Preese Hall near Blackpool, in north-west England, to begin the UK’s first experiments with extracting gas trapped in formations of shale. The process – called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking – involves pumping a mixture of water, sand and drilling fluids at high pressure into the rock, to split it apart and release the natural gas it contains. In June Cuadrilla temporarily suspended its operations as a result of two small earthquakes in the area, which might have been caused by the fracking. The experiment is likely to resume soon. Cuadrilla has also started exploratory drilling at two other sites in the region.
Comments (6)Mutually Assured Depletion
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Economics, Fish — by George Monbiot August 9, 2011
The EU, Norway, Iceland and the Faroes all blame each other for smashing the last great fish stock. All are wrong.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a year, after which no one will ever eat fish again. Almost everywhere, fish stocks are collapsing through catastrophic mismanagement. But no one in the rich world has managed them as badly as the European Union.
So when the EU tells Iceland and the Faroes that they should engage in “responsible, modern fisheries management”(1), it’s like being lectured by Atilla the Hun on human rights. They could be forgiven for telling us to sod off until we’ve cleaned up our own mess. Unfortunately, this is just what they’ve done, with catastrophic results.
Comments (5)How the Billionaires Broke the System
Alternatives to Political Systems, Economics, Society — by George Monbiot August 2, 2011
The US deficit reduction plan makes no sense – until you remember who’s behind the Tea Party movement.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
There are two ways of cutting a deficit: raising taxes or reducing spending. Raising taxes means taking money from the rich. Cutting spending means taking money from the poor. Not in all cases of course: some taxation is regressive; some state spending takes money from ordinary citizens and gives it to banks, arms companies, oil barons and farmers. But in most cases the state transfers wealth from rich to poor, while tax cuts shift it from poor to rich.
Comments (17)An Underground National Park
Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, peak oil — by George Monbiot July 20, 2011
To prevent climate breakdown, we need to declare most of the fossil fuels in the earth’s crust off-limits.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
Rejoice, the boom is back! After a drought of investment, last week BP announced that it was spending £3bn to redevelop fields in the deep waters to the west of Shetland. The government was delighted: this shows, it says, that its policies are working. It promised to “continue to work alongside oil and gas companies to support growth and jobs in the UK.”(1)
Great. But hold on a minute, didn’t the government tell us, just two days before, that its priority is to decarbonise the economy?(2) Well it depends who you’re talking to, and at which point in the cycle of crashing contradictions you catch them.
Comments (4)Has-Beans
Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by George Monbiot July 19, 2011
The government and the industry promised that they had dealt with aminopyralid poisoning. They haven’t.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom. Pictures and captions from John Mason.
This image shows sunflowers that began life at the same time. On the right,
a bed which was free of this particular manure; on the left,
a bed which had the manure added.
Growing food, for reasons I haven’t quite got to the bottom of, is an intensely emotional process. The satisfaction I get from harvesting a good crop bears no relationship to any value that crop possesses. I take more pride in my fruit and vegetables than in any of the work I do. When the slugs mow down my seedlings, or my watering system fails, or blight knackers my tomatoes, it throws me into a depression which sometimes last for days.
Comments (13)Jellyfish Rule
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Economics, Fish, Food Shortages — by George Monbiot July 12, 2011
Click for larger view
Courtesy: Marc Roberts
Have I just witnessed the beginning of the end of vertebrate ecology?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Last year I began to wonder, this year doubt is seeping away, to be replaced with a rising fear. Could they really have done it? Could the fishing industry have achieved the remarkable feat of destroying the last great stock?
Comments (14)Atro-City
Building, Consumerism, Economics, Population, Society, Village Development — by George Monbiot July 1, 2011
As Sydney residents are being paid to leave the city, the case for compact, high-density settlement becomes clearer than ever.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
For at least a century, governments have tried to urbanise their nations. Communist states sought to drag people out of what Marx and Engels called their “rural idiocy”. Capitalist governments – Mahatir Mohammed’s administration in Malaysia is a good example – tried to persuade and bully indigenous people into leaving the land (which then became available for exploitation) and move to the cities to join the consumer economy. Urbanisation was equated with progress and modernity.
Comments (6)An Answer to the Meaning of Life
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, People Systems, Society — by George Monbiot June 9, 2011
The well-intentioned dolts putting a price on nature are delivering it into the hands of business.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Love, economists have discovered, is depreciating rapidly. On current trends, it is expected to fall by £1.78 per passion-hour between now and 2030. The opportunity cost of a kiss foregone has declined by £0.36 since 1988. By 2050 the net present value of a night under the stars could be as little as £56.13. This reduction in the true value of love, they warn, could inflict serious economic damage.
None of that is true, but it’s not far off. Love is one of the few natural blessings which has yet to be fully costed and commodified. They’re probably working on it now.
Under the last government, the Department for Transport announced that it had discovered “the real value of time”. Here’s the surreal sentence in which this bombshell was dropped: “Forecast growth in the real value of time is shown in Table 3.”(1) Last week the Department for Environment announced the results of its National Ecosystem Assessment, a massive exercise involving 500 experts. The assessment, it tells us, establishes “the true value of nature … for the very first time.”(2) If you thought the true value of nature was the wonder and delight it invoked, you’re wrong. It turns out that it’s a figure with a pound sign on the front. All that remains is for the Cabinet Office to tell us the true value of love and the price of society, and we’ll have a single figure for the meaning of life.
Comments (104)Underground Movement
Consumerism, Economics, Energy Systems, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society, peak oil — by George Monbiot June 1, 2011
The public reaction to new power lines could kill renewable energy: they must be buried.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Why do those who oppose wind power insist on spoiling their case with gibberish? In his column on Friday, Simon Jenkins claimed that onshore wind farms were being planned “with no concern for cost.”(1) But the only reason for building them is a concern for cost. If it weren’t for this issue, they would be the last option governments would choose – God knows they cause enough trouble.
As the government’s Committee on Climate Change reports, large onshore wind farms are “already close to competitive” with burning natural gas, and are likely to get there by 2020(2). They are the cheapest renewable sources in this country by a long way. Offshore wind costs roughly twice as much, and its costs have been escalating. After attacking the high cost of wind power, Simon argued that we should instead invest in “sun and waves”. The committee shows that while the expected price of electricity from onshore wind in 2030 is between 7 and 8.5 pence per kilowatt hour, solar power is expected to come in at between 11 and 25 pence, and wave between 15 and 31(3). Talk about no concern for cost!
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