Pass the Parcel
Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change — by George Monbiot May 24, 2011
How will the UK achieve a 50% carbon cut by 2027? By getting someone else to make our stuff.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Not for the first time, the Prime Minister was happily promoting the irreconcilable. “By stepping up, showing leadership and competing with the world,” he announced last week, “the UK can prove that there need not be a tension between green and growth.”(1)
It could have been worse. After the Treasury and the business department tried to scupper the UK’s long-term carbon targets, David Cameron stepped in to rescue them. The government has now promised to cut greenhouse gases by 50% by 2027, which means that, with a following wind, the UK could meet its legally-binding target of 80% by 2050. For this we should be grateful. But the coalition has resolved the tension between green and growth in a less than convincing fashion: by dumping responsibility for the environmental impacts on someone else.
Comments (2)Britain’s Private Militias
Alternatives to Political Systems, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by George Monbiot April 21, 2011
The Ratcliffe miscarriage of justice shows that we need a sweeping reform of the police.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Here, so far, are the results of the undercover surveillance operation the police conducted against a group of climate change activists:
- one trial abandoned, after great expense
- 20 people subject to what looks like a miscarriage of justice, at even greater expense
- a further £1.75m squandered on an operation whose purpose remains inscrutable
- a number of women sexually exploited, apparently with the blessing of the state
- the life of at least one person (the undercover cop) irredeemably ruined.
All for what? To spy on a group described by the judge as “decent men and women with a genuine concern for others” who “acted with the highest possible motives.” They were prepared to be held to account for their actions and they offered no threat to life or limb.
Comments (4)Head-Banging for Britain
Consumerism, peak oil — by George Monbiot March 10, 2011
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Should we reduce the speed limit to cut oil consumption? Should we impose new taxes on the banks? Should we stop hawking weapons in the Middle East? The answer in all these cases is obvious, but none of these reforms will happen until we’ve brave enough to tackle vested interests.
Earlier this week, Spain reduced the speed limit on its motorways by 10kph. The British government should follow it, and then go further. Here’s why.
Comments (5)Robot Wars
Economics, Society — by George Monbiot February 26, 2011
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Every month more evidence piles up, suggesting that online comment threads and forums are being hijacked by people who aren’t what they seem to be. The anonymity of the web gives companies and governments golden opportunities to run astroturf operations: fake grassroots campaigns, which create the impression that large numbers of people are demanding or opposing particular policies. This deception is most likely to occur where the interests of companies or governments come into conflict with the interests of the public. For example, there’s a long history of tobacco companies creating astroturf groups to fight attempts to regulate them.
Comments (6)Stripped Bare
Alternatives to Political Systems, Economics, Financial Management — by George Monbiot February 19, 2011
Shocking new financial manouevres by the British government show who it’s really working for.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
You think you’ve seen the worst of it; you haven’t. Last week I wrote about how the British government, while imposing extra taxes and devastating cuts on ordinary mortals, has quietly engineered a new tax exemption for the banks and corporations, which also encourages these businesses to shift some of their operations overseas(1). I thought that was as bad as it got. I was wrong.
On the day I wrote that column, the Conservatives were doing something just as repulsive, and far more dangerous. On Wednesday George Osborne told the House of Commons that “we will make sure we learn every lesson that needs to be learnt – so that this [the financial crisis] never happens again”(2). Two days before, his government demonstrated that nothing has been learnt at all. Let me first explain the context.
Comments (6)A Corporate Coup d’Etat
Economics, Society — by George Monbiot February 8, 2011
You thought elections counted for something? Look at what wasn’t in the manifesto.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
“I would love to see tax reductions,” David Cameron told an interviewer at the weekend, “but when you’re borrowing 11 per cent of your GDP, it’s not possible to make significant net tax cuts. It just isn’t.”(1) Oh no? Then how come he’s planning the biggest and crudest corporate tax cut in living memory?
If you’ve heard nothing of it, you’re in good company. The obscure adjustments the government is planning to the tax acts of 1988 and 2009 have been missed by almost everyone(2,3). They are, anyway, almost impossible to understand without expert help. But as soon as you grasp the implications, you realise that a kind of corporate coup d’etat is taking place. Like the dismantling of the NHS and the sale of public forests, no one voted for these measures, as they weren’t in the manifestos. While Cameron insists that he occupies the centre ground of British politics, that he shares our burdens and feels our pain, he has quietly been plotting with banks and businesses to engineer the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle to the ultra-rich that this country has seen in a century. The latest heist has been explained to me by the former tax inspector, now a Private Eye journalist, Richard Brooks and current senior tax staff who can’t be named. Here’s how it works.
Comments (3)Forest Chumps
Alternatives to Political Systems, Deforestation, Economics, People Systems, Village Development — by George Monbiot February 2, 2011
The sale of England’s state forests is a chance to do something interesting. It’s being squandered.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
It took the previous Conservative government 13 years to propose a sell-off as unpopular as this one. The privatisation of the railways was opposed by 85% of British voters(1), and helped to derail John Major’s administration in 1997. Cameron’s plan to flog the public forest estate, presented to the nation after eight months in office, is opposed by 84% of the public(2). So much for his brilliant political instincts. And yet, stupid and destructive as this sell-off promises to be, it’s just a stone’s throw from something really interesting.
Power Trips
Society — by George Monbiot January 19, 2011
What could be sillier and more invidious than the Observer’s “eco-power list”?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Is there anything the Sunday papers can’t turn into a fatuous celeb-fest? Two days ago, the Observer published what it called its eco-power list. It’ll come as no surprise that it featured Brad Pitt – what list doesn’t? It was more surprising to find Jay Leno there, on the grounds that he has made the, er, 240 cars he runs “as green as possible”. And the CEO of Ford, because he has just unveiled an electric Ford Focus (sadly he didn’t simultaneously veil the gas guzzlers he continues to market). Much of the list was a catalogue of rich and powerful people who have now added green, or some nebulous semblance of green, to their portfolios.
But I’m less concerned about the contents of these lists than the principle. To me, eco and power occupy different spheres. The environmentalism I recognise is a challenge to power. It confronts a system which allows a handful of people to dominate our lives and capture our resources. The fame, the extreme wealth, the disproportionate influence celebrated by power lists stand in opposition to the values and principles green thinking espouses.
Comments (4)The Real Domestic Extremists
Society — by George Monbiot January 18, 2011
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Click for larger view
Courtesy: Marc Roberts
This is what the head of a police unit set up to monitor domestic extremism said in 2009. “I’ve never said – and we don’t see – that any environmentalist is going to or has committed any violent acts.”(1) That chimes with my experience. Two years ago I searched all the literature I could lay hands on, and couldn’t find a single proven instance of a planned attempt in the UK to harm people in the cause of defending the environment. (That’s in sharp contrast to animal rights campaigning, where there has been plenty of violence). No one has yet produced a factual challenge to that conclusion. Yet every year a shadowy body spends most of its £5m budget(2) on countering a non-existent threat that officers call eco-terrorism(3).
The National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) employed the undercover officer Mark Kennedy, who was embedded and bedded for seven years among peaceful green activists. Kennedy claims that it has supervised 15 other undercover agents on the same mission(4). But what is the mission? Sorry, can’t tell you. NPOIU is run by the Association of Chief Police Officers. As Simon Jenkins pointed out last week, ACPO is not a police force but a private limited company, beyond democratic scrutiny, not subject to freedom of information laws(5). While it receives much of its funding from the government, it is not accountable to the public. It looks to me like a state-sanctioned private militia, fighting public protest on behalf of corporations.
Comments (1)Home Rule
Consumerism, Economics, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by George Monbiot January 5, 2011
Here’s the remarkable, hidden truth about our housing crisis.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
There are two housing crises in Britain. One of them is obvious and familiar: the walloping shortfall in supply. Households are forming at roughly twice the rate at which new homes are being built(1). In England alone, 650,000 homes are classed as overcrowded(2). Many other people are desperate to move into their own places, but find themselves stuck. Yet the new homes the government says we need – 5.8m by 2033(3) – threaten to mash our landscapes and overload the environment.
The other crisis is scarcely mentioned. I stumbled across it while researching last week’s column, buried on page 33 of a government document about another issue(4). It’s growing even faster than the first crisis – at a rate that’s hard to comprehend. Yet you’ll seldom hear a squeak about it in the press, in parliament, in government departments or even in the voluntary sector. Given its political sensitivity, perhaps that’s not surprising.
Comments (14)Cold-Hearted
Alternatives to Political Systems, Community Projects, Economics, Ethical Investment, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by George Monbiot December 28, 2010
The level of excess winter deaths in the UK is higher than Siberia’s. This is why.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Were you to list the factors that distinguish civilisation from barbarism, this would come close to the top: that the elderly are not left to die of cold. By this measure, the United Kingdom is a cruel land. Although we usually have one of the smallest differences between winter and summer temperatures at these latitudes, we also have one of the highest levels of excess winter deaths. Roughly twice as many people, per capita, die here than in Scandanavia and other parts of northern Europe, though our winters are typically milder(1). Even Siberia has lower levels of excess winter deaths than we do(2). Between 25,000 and 30,000 people a year are hastened to the grave by the cold here(3) – this winter it could be much worse.
Why? Inequality. We have an economic elite untouched and unmoved by the ills afflicting other people. It survives all changes of government. Its need for profit outweighs other people’s need for survival. Here’s how our brutal system operates.
Comments (8)Cold Burn
Global Warming/Climate Change — by George Monbiot December 21, 2010
Yes, the extreme cold in the UK right now really could be a result of global warming.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
There were two silent calls, followed by a message left on my answerphone. She had a soft, gentle voice and a mid-Wales accent. “You are a liar Mr Monbiot. You and James Hansen and all your lying colleagues. I’m going to make you pay back the money my son gave to your causes. It’s minus 18 degrees and my pipes have frozen. You liar. Is this your global warming?”. She’s not going to like the answer, and nor are you. It may be yes.
There is now strong evidence to suggest that the unusually cold winters of the past two years in the UK are the result of heating elsewhere. With the help of the severe weather analyst John Mason and the Climate Science Rapid Response Team(1), I’ve been through as much of the scientific literature as I can lay hands on. (Please also see John Mason’s article, which explains the issue in more detail(2)). Here’s what seems to be happening.
Comments (47)Reclaim the Cyber-Commons
Economics, Society — by George Monbiot December 14, 2010
The internet is being captured by organised trolls. It’s time we fought back.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
They are the online equivalent of enclosure riots: the rick-burning, fence-toppling protests by English peasants losing their rights to the land. When MasterCard, Visa, Paypal and Amazon tried to shut WikiLeaks out of the cyber-commons, an army of hackers responded by trying to smash their way into these great estates and pull down their fences.
In the Wikileaks punch-up the commoners appear to have the upper hand. But it’s just one battle. There’s a wider cyberwar being fought, of which you hear much less. And in most cases the landlords, with the help of a mercenary army, are winning.
I’m not talking here about threats to net neutrality and the danger of a two-tier internet developing(1,2), though these are real. I’m talking about the daily attempts to control and influence content in the interests of the state and corporations: attempts in which money talks.
Comments (1)Impervious to Learning
Global Warming/Climate Change — by George Monbiot December 10, 2010
David Rose appears to have learnt nothing from his catastrophic mistakes before the Iraq war.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
You can divide people into two categories: those who learn from their mistakes and those who don’t. There is no third category: we all mess up from time to time.
Journalism is a mistake waiting to happen. With tight deadlines, big rewards for shock and awe and small rewards for methodical, less spectacular work, with an inverse relationship between volume and truth in public life, reporters tend to stumble from one accident to another.
The only hope journalists have of retaining any kind of self-respect is to question themselves repeatedly, ask whether they are being manipulated and whether they are seeing the whole story. So where does this leave David Rose?
Comments (1)The Great Ventriloquist
Deforestation, Global Warming/Climate Change — by George Monbiot December 4, 2010
Why is a former Greenpeace activist siding with Indonesia’s logging industry?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
 Patrick Moore |
I don’t often find myself praising Tesco, but – deep breath – here goes. This summer it did something brave and good. It de-listed a supplier: not on its usual commercial grounds but for ethical reasons. This was not an easy decision. The company in question is a huge concern, whose political and economic connections make Tesco look like a cornershop. Its produce is cheap. But Tesco made the right call. It seems to me that Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) could make a fair claim to be one of the most destructive companies on the planet.
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