Kagey

After a few weeks of soul searching and finger pointing by the media it’s clear that the nation is tainted by the slave trade.

From royalty and church to the benefactors of the industrial revolution we carry the guilt like a genetic trait. How we deal with the legacy of our genetics is the measure of our development, we can despise these historical lines within and without ourselves but what is done is done.

Today slavery is alive and well and permeates much of our lives. Modern slavery is under the wrappers of the cheap commodities we’re so addicted to. Next weekend for instance millions will devour tons of chocolate in the form of Easter eggs with much of it still contaminated by forced labour.

The best appolgy for the past is personal action today. Ask questions, buy fair trade, Resist Free Trade!

I’m not sure why but I hadn’t expected such wise words from Fidel Castro. I recommend you read his views on the meetings of minds between President Bush and the US motor industry and their plans to focus on bio fuels as the solution to future oil shortages. In a time when the global population is in expansion, climate change threatens crop production and water shortages are likely to create major instability it cannot be right to convert food into fuel. But I’m stealing Fidel’s thunder … Read on

Mr Finn the younger!

 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWpM6NDx8DU[/youtube]

 

More on his UK Shed site

I am not a Tony Blair

My guess is you are not George Bush, Saddam Hussein or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad either.

However the logic of nuclear warfare is that figures like the above will create the conditions for nuclear war that you may be required to pay for with your life.

This week Tony Blair forced through the renewal of Trident. I wholly oppose this decision and yet because of his determination to retain them it is possible that these weapons will be used to incinerate people who like me oppose the decisions of their government.

Listening to the arguments in favour of nuclear weapons in the recent weeks I was struck by the absolute stupidity of the justifications. In a radio debate I heard a woman keep saying that we have a ‘moral duty to protect our population.’ However it is the possession of nuclear weapons by the state that imposes a blanket responsibility on its population to accept total annihilation in the event of nuclear conflict.

Alliance forces are currently fighting and dying to ensure that the Iraqi people have the opportunity to elect a leader of their choice through the democratic process. Our leaders have said that their highest ideal is to create conditions for peace and stability; that the Iraqi people are to be protected from tyranny. However if Saddam Hussein had possessed nuclear weaponry and looked like using them the nuclear logic would have required the ordinary Iraqi people under his tyrannical rule to be vaporised in retaliation or even in a pre-emptive strike.

Were all Germans Nazi’s? Clearly not yet if Hitler had had a nuclear weapon it would have been the German populous who would have paid an even higher price for the evil of his regime. The citizens of Nagasaki were neither Emperor Hirohito or at the seat of Japanese military policy yet the American government dropped its bomb there anyway.

Declare yourself a Nuclear Free Zone!

OK so I slag the government off for not doing enough the day before they release their Climate Change Bill!

Well as far as it goes the new bill has to be aplauded but … as per my last blog they’ve got a job on their hands to meet the targets while they continue to bulid roads, runways and depend on economic growth to meet their policy plans.

Lobby your MP to make the their new climate bill fit for purpose!

The Climate Change Swindle seems to have wound people right up and I can understand why people feel so suspicious, i.e. it looks like Climate Concern is a government rouse to raise more taxes. It is exactly the above contradiction that feeds these doubts, if you apply taxes to apparently change one behaviour (frequent flying) but support the action (build more runways) it does indeed look like a neat fundraising opportunity.

Responses to the swindle

The Ecologist - George Monbiot – The Independent – The Guardian for C4

I’ve been avoiding my blog. It’s just every time I start to write I’m just too overwelmed by the stuff that goes round in my head to be able to put something down that isn’t a complete doom laden rant.

But I’m beginning to feel brighter. Apparently I don’t really have to worry about climate change after all. According to Channel 4 and “The Great Climate Change Swindle” it’s all a load of old tosh dreamed up by scientists to get their hands on juicy funding. Mind you Channel 4 seem to be on a bit of mission to find ways to raise funds themselves and what better way to boost ratings than a bit of climate controversy or minority bashing aka Jade Goody and her well chosen words on racial harmony.

But probably the best news is that the outlawing of incandescent light bulbs in favour of low energy bulbs is the key to cutting CO2 and saving the planet. It’s going to be a toughie and already there’s a row over light bulb subsidies but I’m sure we’re ready for the sacrifice.

I wonder then is that it? Is this the extent of our politician’s grasp of what is required to save the planet? No wonder things are moving apace on global agreement. Bio fuels and lightbulbs it is then; as long as we can get em cheap.

The one thing nobody inside government is talking about is zero growth. While taxes on air travel are being touted as a way to curb emissions no one is talking about abandoning airport expansion. Taxing motorists for road use is put forward as a way to raise green taxes and restrict the further growth of car journeys but the UK government is still wedded to a huge program of road building. Surely the easiest way to curb the growth in carbon producing journeys is to just not build any more runways or roads.

As I’ve said elsewhere on my blog the sums simply don’t add up for the environment and the things that live in it while we continue to avoid the simple truth that there isn’t enough planet to go round.

 

 

It was a moment to cheer the bringer of bad news, the consequences of Climate Change as judged by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was all over the news at the weekend. Any shred of dubious science for the sceptics to justify denial was blown away. From now on it’s a matter of ‘when not if’ and ‘actions not debate’ on climate change. Well sort of…
 
Just as the world’s scientists agree on the vital role the world’s remaining forest will have in moderating greenhouse gases the oil industry is bidding on the Amazon.

This weekend the BBC reported on the Peruvian government’s plans to grant oil exploration rights for an area the size of California.   (link)

The Peruvian economy has its problems and poverty has increased over recent years. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has persuaded the Peruvian government that free market rules are the way to promote growth and address poverty. No doubt selling oil licenses gets brownie points with the IMF.

Despite what the IMF say’s growth doesn’t cure poverty (link), furthermore economic growth is linked to climate change through increased burning of fossil fuels. It’s time we rewarded developing countries like Peru for protecting their forests rather than grabbing their natural resources on the cheap.

A little over 60 years ago in Eastern Europe the Nazi’s were experimenting with ways to achieve ‘The Final Solution.’

Their early attempts though crude were effective. Before moving on to industrial scale gassing and incineration in purpose built crematoria the ‘Solution’ entailed loading people into box vans, attaching a pipe to the exhaust which vented into an airtight and locked cargo hold and taking a ride. It was a neat and convenient process; load up live Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals, make the short journey to the disposal site and unload the now deceased undesirables. Exhaust emissions in service of the Reich and the holocaust.

Today the developed nations of the earth hold the ignition keys to another genocide in the making. Climate change created by the economic activity of the wealthy nations is set to wreak havoc upon the poor.

The Stern Report, a government sponsored review of the likely economic impacts of climate change spells out in no uncertain terms the disaster that awaits us if we fail to act. It appears certain that large tracks of Africa will be uninhabitable scorched earth, low lying countries like Bangladesh will disappear as sea levels rise. Food scarcity will increase by up to 60% and millions and millions of people will die.

Gordon Brown gave Nicholas Stern the job of finding out the cost of combating climate change; according to Stern it’s 3% of global GDP. The alternative is perhaps the end of civilization. The job he say’s must start now; there is no time to loose. Yet we are bogged down in a war in Iraq that makes for as much distraction as the war on terror. All the time the earth warms and the options shrink.

Our leaders must act on the big projects but the keys are in our hands too. Our life styles are so connected to the causes of climate change that every time we drive to the supermarket we might just as well be driving a gas filled hearse to dump African babies in a convenient grave.

See the Stern Report
The Ecologist Review of the Stern Report

 

This week Mr. Bush got his way and signed the new charter for torture, The Military Commissions Act of 2006. It will allow the CIA to explore new interrogation techniques without the fear of its operatives becoming war criminals.

I wonder as corporate business becomes more and more involved in ‘anti-terror’ activity whether there is not a new opportunity for them here? Every day animals from cats to primates are subjected to painful experiment for cosmetic houses and drug companies. Presumably there’s good money in the unreliable results of testing products for humans on animals. But if you really want to know what happens when you squirt hairspray in the eye repeatedly what better than a dark almond shaped human one? Why waste years on animal drug testing when you can jump straight to human trials?

What’s frightening is that the idea is not new. It’s been tried and tested by despotic regimes over the years. Inflicting pain and misery on human or animal for the purpose of extracting untrustworthy information must be wrong but our governments now count both safe legally.

Though there have undoubtedly been dirty marks on our histories from abuse of military personnel to ethnic groups our legal systems have never sanctioned such activities. The safeguards fought for and defended over generations have eventually prevailed. The decision taken by the US government this week will surely come to bear on the policies and laws of it’s allies until conformity of government is uniform in it’s disregard for it’s subjects – until punishment before trial and conviction is acceptable – until spiteful malice is standard practice in generating unreliable evidence – until we all become ‘tested.’

Keep speech free with irrepressible.info

 

A spokesperson for the White House commented that “here we have a lunatic with a nuclear bomb.” He was of course refering to Kim Jong-il leader of North Korea, not to the man who helped him get one. See above.

President Bush say’s, “The North Korean regime remains one of the world’s leading proliferator of missile technology, including transfers to Iran and Syria. The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable of the consequences of such action.”

I wonder if Mr Bush will be holding Mr Rumsfeld accountable for his proliferation of Nuclear Technology? In 2000 he was a director of ABB, a European engineering giant who supplied key components for nuclear reactors to the North Korean regime he now calls part of the Axis of Evil.

It is breathtaking that following Korea’s nuclear test Western governments are now calling for a ban on the sale of materials essential to Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Which does seem to imply that it’s been business as usual up until now. Talk about closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. What incredible ineptitude!

I’d like to remind you that these are the boys with their fingers on the buttons.