Is engineered global dimming an acceptable or workable solution to global warming?
I was quite bewildered by comments made by Tim Flannery that it might actually be a good idea to pollute the atmosphere in order to reduce global warming:
I was quite bewildered by comments made by Tim Flannery that it might actually be a good idea to pollute the atmosphere in order to reduce global warming:
At the elections of 15 March pro-developer councils were trounced in Redland City and on the Sunshine Coast, but this popular rejection of over-development means little to the State Labor Government of Anna Bligh and the property developers she serves.
On Thursday 5 June the Bligh Government announced its intention to push aside objections from the Redland and Sunshine Coast Councils in order to fast track developments in 17 South East Queensland sites purportedly to “improve housing affordability”. Of course, the obvious measure of selling land directly to the public in order to spare them the cost of extravagant developers' margins, as suggested by at least one correspondent to the Courier Mail recently, has not been taken up.
On 9 June Anna Bligh announced further measures to clear impediments to housing development in South East Queensland. The Courier Mail article Green Space Land Grab reported:
The Bligh Government is set to take the brakes off urban sprawl by making it easier for developers to build on South East Queensland's precious open green space.
Just three years after the Beattie government put protections in place to control rampant development in the region, a review of those controls is now flagging big changes.
Among them is a proposed expansion of the so-called “urban footprint” in a move that would allow new housing and commercial developments to sprawl beyond the existing boundaries.
Against previous undertakings to allow local communities plenty of chances to have their say on future planning, it was announced that discussion of the expansion of SEQ's urban footprint into surrounding green spaces would be kept secret until the release of a draft plan in December, supposedly because this knowledge is “commercially sensitive”.
The office of Urban Management, which was set up with the stated goal of keeping rampant development in check, has been abolished. (The link to www.oum.qld.gov.au returned with the Google search term "Office of Urban Management" is now redirected to www.dip.qld.gov.au/seq.)
This accelerated development is proceeding well ahead of infrastructure upgrades necessary to accommodate the extra population. Earlier on 5 June it was reported in the Bayside Bulletin story Transport projects “too far away” that Redland City Council had raised concerns over the long wait for public transport and road upgrades which could be 10 to 20 years away. On 2 June the Bayside Bulletin story Call to upgrade roads reported growing traffic congestion in the Redlands area and increasingly long travel times along the major routes to Brisbane.
On 5 June, on hearing of the new state Government mandated developments in the Redlands area, a local taxi driver in a post to the Bayside Bulletin wrote:
Our state government has learnt absolutely nothing about infrastructure being in place before known growth - pushing for SE Thornlands development 11 years before an upgrade of the Cleveland-Redland Bay Road in 2019 is absolute stupidity. Redlands voters will have much to remember, none of it good, at the next state election.
Sunshine Coast Mayor Bob Abbot said it was “madness” to turn big areas of land into housing estates when proper transport links had not been established.
The expansion of the urban footprint was made in spite of assurances only two years ago that there was already enough land within the existing urban footprint to acommodate growth.
Bligh claimed that the fast tracking of the review was prompted by the new population forecasts showing that the region was likely to be home to an extra 1.5 million people within 18 years.
The ‘new population forecasts’ undoubtedly were the direct result of Federal Immigration Minister Chris Evans' announcement on 14 May of a massive increase of the annual immigration to 300,000. Both the Queensland Government and the pro-population-growth Courier Mail have been curiously silent on the increased immigration rates. As one example, for a whole week following from Friday 16 May, when a single opinion piece in favour of Pacific Island guest workers was published, there was a news blackout in the Courier Mail as its pages were full of stories about the chaos caused by existing population growth. This was in marked contrast to the reporting in The Australian (the national newspaper) which, like the Courier Mail, is owned by US citizen Rupert Murdoch. All along The Australian has stridently pushed the pro-immigration barrow.
It's as if both the Queensland Government and the Courier Mail don't want the Queensland public to draw the link between high international immigration into Australia and the resultant inter-state immigration which Bligh insists makes her trampling over the rights of Queensland communities necessary.
See also: More chickens of population growth come home to roost in Queensland of 14 May 08, How to end the Queensland economy's addiction to population growth? of 26 Apr 08, Courier-Mail beats up on public for complaining about cost of 'progress' of 14 Apr 08, The Australian laments outcome of Queensland local government elections of 30 Mar 08.
It is time we ask ourselves: Has this ”progress“ called ”Economic Growth“ (of which population growth is the main factor) really made our lives better? Politicians say it improves our lives. The CBC's host of ”The Sunday Edition“ Michael Enright said on his June 7, 2008 radio show that we need immigration-driven population growth in order to ”prosper“.
I would like to know what his definition of ”prosper“ is. Does Enright think that prospering means converting hundreds of thousands of hectares of Canadian land from biodiverse ecosystems into new roads, subdivisions, clearcuts, malls, parking lots, and open-pit mines to accommodate about 250,000 additional immigrants every year? Does that make life better for the average Canadian? Has real wealth per Canadian increased?
When I was born in 1980 there were only 24 million people in Canada. 28 years later, would a middle class person be able to afford more quality and quantity of real resources now than in 1980? I don't think so. In 1980, a middle class person could easily afford a 40 hectare hobby farm where the climate is mild such as Southern Ontario. Today, you'd have to be upper class to have that.
The lesson: ”Economic Growth“, or increasing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) does so by increasing the population, which explains why it results in less real wealth per person. More people means less space and resources per person. No wonder ”progress“ has made life worse for the average Canadian
.
Brishen Hoff, President of Biodiversity First
(biodiversityfirst.googlepages.com/index.htm)
See also: Living standards and our material prosperity 6 Sep 08 concerning the quality of life in Australia
In a Submission to the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on the Impact of Peak Oil on South Australia
Summary, the South Australian Farmers Federation has stated that, and I quote, "The rise in 'Peak Oil prices' has had a significant affect on the farmers and rural communities in this state."
They explain that the effects have been experienced as:
"• Higher costs of farming and using machinery
• Higher costs of farm inputs as a result of petroleum products used in their production, for instance fertilizers
• Higher freight costs
• Supermarket Duopoly forcing farm gate prices down
• Higher transport costs affecting rural families for basic social activities for sport and relaxation
• Drop in volunteer labour due to travel costs
In their executive summary they state:
"Unless something is done quickly to address this situation there is a danger of farmers leaving the land and food production dropping. Recently the UN stated that lower production in developed countries and rising demand for food could cause serious global problems due to food shortages.
It seems incongruous to the SAFF that given the world wide situation that our farmers are finding it so hard to make even a reasonable living, when market forces should be driving the price they receive for produce up, not holding it down at a level below the increase in costs.
The South Australian and Australian markets need to be reviewed as a matter of urgency to ensure that fair market forces are allowed to operate in the state so that producers can earn a fair return for their effort and ensure their future viability."
The submission-writers recommend "that the South Australian Government:
• Review the fuel excise system with a view to reducing the excise levied on fuel
• Invest in research into viable alternative fuel sources.
• Create a system that ensures the supply of fuel to the state in general and to farmers in particular at crucial harvest / sale times
• Review the current system of moving freight, looking for an innovative new approach that can benefit all industries in the state
• Undertake a program to improve the ability of rural people to travel to basic family activities such as sport and recreation as well as other necessary travel
• Ensure the elderly in rural areas are supported to reduce the cost of travel to essential appointments
• Volunteers are supported."
Full submission is available here.
(illustration by Sheila Newman)
In “Population grows at record rate", an article by Tim Colebatch, The Age, June 6, 2008, an Australian journalist has once again been given license by the Fairfax Press to frame Australia’s overpopulation problem as some kind of triumph.
In an article akin to the spin used to sell large bags of potato crisps and sugar, caffeine and phenelalanine-laden soft drinks to adolescents, Tim Colebatch sells overpopulation to Age readers.
Whilst relating the latest ABS statistics, the journalist chooses resoundingly positive terms for this undemocratic and frightening complex phenomenon:
Australia “turned the corner” into 2007 by having ‘almost 21.2 million people'.
In Victoria, the state’s population grew by a “record” 82,430 people. Tasmania “reached a milestone” and is ‘now “on track” to reach 500,000 residents’
Portraying this bizarre engineered growth as some kind of race for supremacy, Colbatch comments that Victoria “lost slightly” ‘in net migration flows to other states.’ ‘Queensland (+25,647) was the “big winner” from interstate migration, as usual, while NSW (-24,028) was again the “big loser”.’
The article concludes with some of the costs of population growth in Australia, but without portraying them as costs. In contrast to the hyped up descriptors for the growing numbers, journalist Colbatch leaves right for the end a peculiarly unemotional account of some of the suffering involved:
“The rapid population growth is driven by business recruiting ready-trained skilled workers from poorer countries rather than training Australians. In the six months to April, almost 100,000 temporary workers arrived, while the Government has just increased the quota for permanent skilled migration from 102,500 to 133,500. Critics point out that there has been no increase in housing supply, so the arrivals are intensifying the housing shortage and helping to drive up rents.”
There is no warning of how the extra people will affect the chances of Australians to weather oil, soil and water depletion.
The statistical news is actually unrelievedly awful, especially as related with ghastly flourishes like these for Victoria:
‘VICTORIA's population has “soared” to more than 5.2 million, with the Brumby Government "claiming the biggest growth in 35 years”' and ‘Treasurer John Lenders said the figures were "an endorsement of our Government's record investment in making Victoria the best place to live, work and raise a family"’.
No mention at all of the growth in groups all over Victoria and the rest of the country protesting at the loss of democracy and control over their environments. This is not reporting. This is propaganda, pure and simple.
Please circulate this article to help to counteract mainstream-media propaganda for population growth.
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society media release, 5 Jun 08
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society today issued the following official appeal to Greenpeace for cooperation on the issue of Japanese whaling in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary.
An Appeal for Cooperation from Captain Paul Watson
Okay, here we go again, but nothing ventured and nothing gained.
This is the official 2008 Sea Shepherd Conservation Society request to the Greenpeace Foundation to work in cooperation with each other to defend the whales of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary for the 2008 and 2009 Antarctic summer.
The targeted whales need all the help they can get when the Japanese whaling fleet returns to illegally slaughter endangered whales in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary in December 2008.
During the last season we stopped them for 50% of the time and cut their quota by 50%. If only we had two ships and sufficient funding we could stop them up to 80% percent and perhaps to 100%. But we are a small organization with only one fast ship to deploy and we need to raise funds to finance the campaign.
But there is a solution. If both the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and the Greenpeace Foundation could cooperate in a joint coordinated effort to oppose the Japanese whaling interests we could stop the pirate whalers cold in Antarctica.
Every year Sea Shepherd has supplied Greenpeace with the Japanese coordinates when we have found the fleet although Greenpeace has refused to return the favor. And yes there have indeed been harsh words between Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace over the years but the word Greenpeace does include the word “peace” and therefore I am appealing to Greenpeace once again in the name of peaceful cooperation to work with Sea Shepherd to protect the whales.
Let the past stay in the past and let’s deal with the present with a focus on a constructive future. There really is no practical reason why Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd cannot work together.
After all, I am an original Greenpeacer and a co-founder, not just of the Greenpeace Foundation in 1972 but also of Greenpeace International in 1979.
Both Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace work towards our goals in a non-violent manner although our definition of non-violence is not harming sentient life. As Martin Luther King once wrote, “violence cannot be committed upon a non-sentient object.”
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has never caused a single physical injury to a single person in our entire 31 years of operations. Nor have we ever had any crew convicted of a felony crime anywhere in the world. And we have never been sued.
The Dalai Lama is a Sea Shepherd supporter and he describes the Sea Shepherd approach as being consistent with the spirit of Hayagriva or the compassionate aspect of Buddha’s wrath meaning that we should never injure anyone but sometimes we need to be intimidating to intervene against violence.
I don’t believe our tactics are really the reason for the refusal by Greenpeace to cooperate with Sea Shepherd. After all Greenpeace has worked cooperatively with Earth First! whose tactics against property are far more extreme than Sea Shepherd.
Sea Shepherd is even willing to accept and forgive the violence of Greenpeace that causes harm, suffering and death to sentient beings that the crew consume on the Greenpeace ships as food.
Our ships are vegan vessels and thus we have fully embraced Ahimsa in our tactics whereas unfortunately Greenpeace has not. We do not however judge Greenpeace for this and request only that Greenpeace not judge us in return for our destruction of machinery utilized in the illegal slaughter and exploitation of sentient life.
I have asked this before and I will ask it again but how can Greenpeace ever hope to promote peace between nations and between humanity and nature when Greenpeace refuses to embrace peace within its own family?
This ridiculous animosity between Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd has lasted for three decades, longer than most wars between nations. In fact no one seems to remember just what the reason for the animosity is. The hostility seems to have become institutionalized. Sea Shepherd would like to see an end to this disharmony to allow both organizations to work together.
It has never been my intention to destroy Greenpeace. I am responsible in many ways for the birth and rise of Greenpeace originally, and why would I want to destroy such an achievement?
It is of interest that Greenpeace incorporated the word “foundation” in 1972 because of the book Foundation by Isaac Asimov. In that story there are two foundations, the large one and the more flexible smaller one – the Second Foundation. The role of the Second Foundation was to keep the Foundation on track and that involves strategies that include some that are tough. I have criticized Greenpeace in the past because Greenpeace needed to be criticized and that was not a negative thing although a negative response to criticism can escalate into a feud.
But feuds can be ended and I have attempted to end our feud many times over the years. But ending a feud takes both parties and unfortunately the offers have never been received and accepted and Sea Shepherd, and in particular I, have become objects of scorn and derision amongst some in Greenpeace.
But we should agree that our petty human squabbles are trite and trivial in comparison to the violence assaulting the defenseless species of the planet. Strength lies in diversity and it also lies in unity. A movement that is both diverse and united is the most powerful of social movements.
Our ships all fly the same flag – the flag of the Netherlands. Some of my crew have served on Greenpeace ships and some Greenpeace crew have also served as Sea Shepherd crew. I myself served as 1st Officer on Greenpeace voyages between 1971 and 1977. Many of the original founders of Greenpeace like Robert Hunter, Lyle Thurston, John Cormack, David Garrick, and Rod Marining have sailed with Sea Shepherd.
So how about it Greenpeace? Together we can keep the Japanese fleet on the run. Let’s trade coordinates and relieve each other as the other ship refuels. Let’s deploy our crew and our tactics together in a united front on common ground.
You are not my enemy and I am not your enemy. The whalers and those who seek to destroy ecological harmony on this planet are our common enemy. We make them stronger when we are divided and we make them weaker when we unite.
This year presents us with a renewed opportunity to unite against the outlaw whalers of the Southern Ocean. Shall we do it? Shall we work together in cooperation with each other? Shall we both contribute to a stronger effort and a stronger movement? Shall we fly the Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd flags side by side as we point our bows southward?
I hope for the sake of the whales and for this planet that we can and that we will.
I think it would be amazing if Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace could host a joint media conference in Santiago, Chile at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission to announce a working cooperative alliance to oppose the outlaw whalers.
My fellow Greenpeacers, (I am a lifetime member) I await your reply.
Sincerely in the Spirit of Cooperation to Defend the Whales,
Captain Paul Watson
Founder and President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
Co-Founder of the Greenpeace Foundation (1972) and Greenpeace International (1979)
Sea Shepherd ship the Steve Irwin on patrol in the southern oceans February 2008 |
Humpback whales in the southern oceans |
See also: No peace with Greenpeace it seems of 18 Jun 08
Sea Shepherd prepares to mount a major offensive against whaling of 12 Jun 08
There is something very rotten in Denmark of 10 Jun 08
Queensland to give green light to shark extermination of 1 Jun 08
Is Greenland’s “subsistence” whaling a profit making scam? of Jun 08
A global map of human impact to the marine ecosystems of 15 Feb 08
What you can do: Donate to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Nearly all funds go to saving whales and other endangered marine species and little is spent on bureaucracy.
India: Oil prices to increase by 11%
Diezel goes up by 9%
Cooking gas goes up by 17%
The Indian Government is reported to fear that the price of oil may cost it the next election#main-fn1">1.
Such are the politics of petroleum. There is nothing it does not touch.
The 'rich countries' appear to have much more of a buffer than most of India, but their road transport and agriculture industries are already in trouble. It is well-known that starvation is never far away for many people in the tropical Asian countries, but less well-known is the large class of people living in precarity elsewhere, especially in the Anglophone countries.
In London around 10,000 finance workers have lost their jobs this year and it is anticipated that perhaps up to 40,000 will lose their jobs in the current months. (France2 8pm News, 21 May).
In "Job loss a sure road to skid row"#main-fn2">2 in the Herald Sun of Tuesday May 27, 2008, it was reported that a Citibank survey showed that, in Australia, "one in two workers would face financial ruin within four weeks of losing their jobs;… almost 20 per cent of workers would not last a week. Only one in four workers would be able to survive more than three months."
Some 'rich countries' don't know when to stop and part of their population is sliding ever so quickly into third world status. For instance, the Australian government has become a 'banana republic' massively endebted and engaged in energy-intensive infrastructure expansion programs everywhere. Under the behest of the Australian academy of Technology and Engineering Sciences, the Property Council of Australia, The Australian Population Institute, and its own state governments, all heavily peopled by big development lobbyists, Australia is trying to double its population as soon as possible, planning new megacities. For these 'programs' of infrastructure building and population increase, worker, business and family reunion immigration have been stepped up, and families receive baby bonuses for having children, just as though the days of cheap oil were just beginning, instead of in their twilight. Yet, as in the USA, evictions and personal debt are sky rocketing.
And really, what is three months security in a century of oil depletion? Who is safe? We all need more solidarity. France, so far, shows the best example.
#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ Rhys Blakely, "India concedes in battle to keep oil price down", The Times, 6 Jun 08
#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">2. #main-fn2-txt">↑ Craig Binnie, "Job loss a sure road to skid row" in the Victorian Herald Sun(Australia) of 27 May 08
The following letter was sent to me by Julianne Bell, Secretary of the Protectors of Public Lands - James
Dear Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. members and supporters,
Many thanks, firstly, for your support at our mini protest - "No Tunnels" - outside the Town Hall at 6 pm on Tuesday last. (Kevin Chamberlin our spokesperson was interviewed by Channel 7. The Age only had a short piece on the Planning Committee meeting see below. The Melbourne Times might feature it.)
Thanks also for your attendance at the Planning Committee hearing which followed at 6:30 pm. The agenda included the recommendations made previously by the City of Melbourne on the Eddington Report on the "East-West Link Needs Assessment" including support for extension of the Eastern Freeway in road tunnels through the inner city, Royal Park and Holland Park, Kensington.
Several hundred people attended one of the most extraordinary meetings ever witnessed at Melbourne Town Hall. Speakers mostly representing community groups from the inner suburbs were passionately opposed to the Eddington Report recommendations relating to construction of road tunnels. The crowd was very vocal in expressing its opposition. As Convenor of the Royal Park Protection Group I made a submission and asked that "Council review its support for the Eddington Road Tunnel and strenuously oppose the road tunnel, advocating instead expanded funding on public transport". See attached my submission which was of necessity short as we only had 3 minutes. (I have not attached the photos and aerial map with computer graphics by traffic expert, Dr Jan Scheurer, as they are probably too big to send out.) I am also attaching the letter submitted by Brian Walters SC, President of PPL VIC .
In a stunning turnaround Councillors unanimously rejected their earlier recommendation and voted against road tunnels. See below the resolution passed by the Planning Committee.
The resolution in relation to Agenda Item 5.2, "City of Melbourne Submissions to State Government on the East West Link Needs Assessment (EWLNA) Recommendations", is as follows.
1. | That the Planning Committee recommends that Council resolve to: |
1.1. | abandon Council's support for an East West Road Tunnel; |
1.2. | oppose the use of parks for any works associated with an East West Road Tunnel; |
1.3. | a redrafted submission to the EWLNA being presented to the next Council meeting to reflect this change along with the prioritisation of all public transport initiatives including the Doncaster Rail; |
1.4. | request a further report to the Planning Committee on redrafting its Transport Policy to reflect these changes; and |
1.5. | state its strongest possible objection to any use of Holland Park or Royal Park or any other Park for the purposes of any road works or associated activities. |
Refer to the minutes of the meeting for more information - these are available from Council's website www.melbourne.vic.gov.au.
PPL VIC and individual organisations such as RPPG will be making formal submissions to the State Government about the road tunnels. Keep watching for notice of further action and events.
Regards,
Julianne Bell
Secretary
Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.
PO Box 197
Parkville 3052
98184114 or 0408022408
France will soon become President of the European Union.
The French Parliament is scheduled to vote on the first of a new set of environmental laws, springing from an environmental summit - La Grenelle - profoundly reviewing the state of the Environment, before mid July 2008.
During the French presidential elections, which Sarkozy won, he promised to hold an important environmental summit founded on an historic 1968 one, Les accords de la Grenelle. The 1968 Grenelle (Summit) is remembered for having led to a 25% increase in social security benefits, marking the beginning of the famous “social dialogue” in France.
On France2 Public News of Thursday June 5, Nicolas Hulot, film-maker, t.v. star, and ecological militant, head of the Nicolas Hulot Foundation for Nature and Man, was asked to comment on progress made since the recent French summit on environmental law, which his Foundation provided much of the impetus for. Hulot said that the proposed laws were, “too little and too slow,” and he commented on the amount of resistance and lobbying.
He said that he must be careful not to disrupt a good dynamic. “In France’s summit we got a sum of objectives and measures that we have never had before and we are in a position that no country has been in before ; the country has come together and is readying itself for action, so I have to be objective.” He added, however, that France still has to look at things as they are and not kid herself.
“At the moment every environmental indicator shows that the situation is accelerating, so that, whatever becomes of the summit objectives, anything we achieve will be a catch-up.”
“A number of things agreed to in the Summit have lost ground, for example carbon taxes have been delayed … And, renovation of old buildings - because new construction is only 9% of the building stock - the rest is all old - renovation of old buildings was supposed to become the standard. And green wedges; there were supposed to be connections between all the ecological zones; this was supposed to be put in place, but it hasn’t happened. These things could be brought up the list again by the members of Parliament (les deputés).”
Hulot said that he hoped that Members of Parliament would not descend into the depths they did over Genetically modified crops law, and instead will vote responsibly together by unanimously voting the Environment summit law (la loi Grenelle)… and perhaps bring some things forward, because so much has been scheduled too far ahead, to 2015, 2020 etc.
Hulot was asked by the announcer on the French News: “It’s true that the context of things has changed, the process has accelerated. Take for example, the cost of petroleum, would you accede to the demands of the occupations that are angry about this… by softening the taxes to reduce the amount they pay?”
Hulot: “Of course not, although that is easy to say if one is not specifically suffering. The point is that everyone needs to get real. We are now in food crisis, energy crisis, crisis of natural resources and primary resources, all combined with the economic crisis, bringing us to one of the greatest crises that the world has ever known. So, what do we do? Do we wait until we run into dead-ends everywhere, or do we take strong measures? France cannot all by herself be virtuous.”
She could, however, improve the situation by leading the European community.
“France could do it with La Grenelle… correcting and enriching a number of provisions. She could find legitimacy at the moment when she enters the Presidency of the European Union to lead our partners into still more structured measures…more radical…”
Asked to talk about petroleum in this context, Hulot, exclaimed, “Excuse me, but on Petrol, we still don’t have a Plan B. Petrol has still not hit bottom. We cannot take short term measures permanently. Petrol is going to become rarer and rarer and therefore more and more expensive. Therefore, for example, in a number of sectors regulation will become necessary, and probably reconversion.”
The announcer asked, “So there is no point in trying to soften the pain of high prices in petrol…?”
Using the French metaphor, ‘Reculer pour mieux sauter’, Hulot said that, “We have to step back in order to be able to advance all together. To move in a united way.”
He was then asked, “But what should we say to the occupations that are hardest hit?”
Hulot: “Well, in the first place you have to look at their problems case by case, for instance, in fishing, 3 or 4% of the sector is responsible for the greatest draw-down on oil … this can be discussed…For road transports, we need to look at the overall transport situation …We cannot only look at road transport alone. All cannot be as it was before. If people think that everything can go on as it has done, and we react constantly in crisis mode, we are going to finish up in a massive recession. We know that those who will be hit hardest are those who are already in difficulty. For example, the fishing industry, agriculturalists, and truckies..”
“Now we need a real Marshall Plan, at the level of France and Europe, to orientate massively our investments in our economies for this transition, and for solidarity (mutual cooperation).”
(re-edited 7 June for clarity.)
Source: France2 8pm television news of 5 June 2008; "Grenelle de l'Environnement: Nicolas Hulot veut que le projet de loi de programmation soit "amendé à la hausse"", AP, 05.06.2008, 12:57 and "Le Grenelle de l’environnement, mode d’emploi", http://www.biodiversite2012.org/spip.php?article228, 12 February, 2008
Journalist and Translator: Sheila Newman
Workplace Authority Director Barbara Bennett promises to clear the backlog of 121,324 of Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) in five-to-six months.
Between February-to-June, the clearance rate averaged 4,169 weekly. At this rate, it would take 7.5 months to clear the backlog.
Achieving the five-to-six month commitment requires increased productivity of 20%-45%, clearing 860-1,870 weekly, 170-375 daily. An increase that should have been provided in September 2007, when the backlog was virtually the same as it is now.
Some of the AU$137-million spent advertising WorkChoices should have been invested in its proper administration versus political propaganda.
The hundred-thousand-plus workers still awaiting their Aussie “fair go” are doin’ it tough, especially those who will learn their AWAs are unfair. And the Rudd Government is left holding the bill, yet again
.
Judy Bamberger,
O'Connor ACT
Full contact information
Judy Bamberger +61-2-6247-6220 (phone, fax)
Process Solutions +61-2-6247-4746 (home)
O'Connor ACT 2602 AUSTRALIA bamberg[AT]eaglet.rain.com
Greater Brisbane — Darren Godwell BHMS MHK currently serves as an Advisor to the World Bank on community development and lives in South Brisbane. For the first time in history, the majority of the world's population is living in cities. The challenges of city living have been with us for thousands of years but obviously we’re finding ways to deal with them.
In 1924 the Queensland parliament amalgamated the cities of Brisbane and South Brisbane plus a slew of other towns and shires to create the City of Greater Brisbane. Brisbane has usually been behind the eight ball when confronted with the pressures of population growth. In its first decades Council couldn't find enough money to pave streets, source sufficient water or sewer our suburbs. Clem Jones' election in 1961 came with a promise of the city's first town plan, paving the roads & laying sewers.
Today, the pressures of population growth again push the City of Greater Brisbane. How are the city's residents and ratepayers responding this time around? Unlike the 1960s, Brisbane is awash with plans. Politicians crafted the SEQ Regional Plan with its prescriptive Local Growth Management Plans. Every year City Hall employs hundreds of staff and spends millions of dollars to draft, consult, engage, write and implement plans. However, the modern City of Greater Brisbane demands more than bitumen and flushing toilets. People only choose to live in cities when they offer something better. Last century's civic preoccupation with roads, rates and rubbish was required but its not sufficient for our future.
Greater Brisbane will have to harbour a resilient city economy, protect a unique Brisbane lifestyle and sustain lives that are better for living in this city versus Barcelona, or any other city that competes to retain the most talented, creative, hard-working residents. This competition to offer something better is the civic challenge of the today.
Our new circumstances demand new ways of seeing the challenges of living in cities. Traffic congestion isn't a problem, the failure to have regular, reliable commuter solutions is our problem. The drought isn't a problem, the failure to have water management that befits the planet's driest continent is the problem. The skyrocketing price of petrol isn't a problem, the failure to unhitch our city economy from car dependency is the problem. Increased population density is not a problem. The problems come when we ignore the principle of local leadership over local development.
The closer to people's immediate lives we can empower residents the better off our streets, neighbourhoods and Greater Brisbane will be. The evolution of Brisbane's civic development will take us out of city hall redtape and towards greater responsibility for local development initiated by locals. Vibrant neighbourhoods and safe streets are created by ordinary people living their lives in the homes they love. Everything we do as a city must make these lives better for being lived in Brisbane.
It’s time to take the next steps towards making the city of Brisbane greater.
“The time for talk is past,’ said Stop the Hale Street Bridge Alliance spokesman David Bratchford, “Now it’s time for action.”
“The opposition of local communities on both sides of the river to the Lord Mayor’s ill conceived toll bridge proposal has been clearly and repeatedly expressed, most forcefully in thousands of public submissions during the now notorious project consultation process.”
“And yet Campbell Newman says he will proceed with his pet project ‘regardless of cost’, without a viable business case, without final contracts, without state government approval, and despite the overwhelming opposition of local communities on both sides of the river.”
“We’ve tried to play by the rules,” said Mr Bratchford, “but we’ve seen Newman throw the rule book out of the window.”
“It’s clear that Newman’s game is fixed, that it’s a foregone conclusion that he intends to proceed with this project despite its lack of merit, financial viability or community support.”
“So now it’s time to play a new game, by the community’s rules this time.”
Mr Bratchford’s statement signaled a new, direct action, phase in the community campaign against Lord Mayor Campbell Newman’s controversial and discredited Hale Street Link toll bridge project, as Alliance volunteers with paintbrushes and spray cans descended on the south bank HSL construction site to express their continued opposition to the project. Their ‘community graffiti-in’ at the site saw them painting banners and spraying slogans on panels, covering the hoardings surrounding the construction site with messages to Lord Mayor Campbell Newman and Premier and local MP Anna Bligh.
“Newman’s defiance of the state government, community wishes and basic economic and business principles demonstrates his irresponsibility and recklessness,” said Mr Bratchford.
“This irresponsibility and recklessness has created a lot of anger in the community.”
“Community members are now taking direct action because the wishes of local communities are being overridden.”
“Civil disobedience may be the only way to remind the state government and local MP and Premier Anna Bligh of their responsibility to protect the community.”
“Community members are prepared to risk arrest or prison to stop this bad project.”
For more comment and information: David Bratchford – 0403 339 777
The following was sent to me on 5 June 2008 by the UK group Hands Off Iraqi Oil (www.handsoffiraqioil.org) which opposes the privatisation of Iraq’s oil assets.
Leader of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions Hassan Jumaa Awad has sent the following message urging action against the decision of the Iraqi Oil Minister to transfer 8 union activists - a move which has been defined as ‘a human rights crime’. This marks an escalation in repression against the Union which is a potent anti-occupation and anti-privatisation force in Iraq. This comes at a time when serious military, economic and political pressure is being exerted by occupying powers for the ratification of the Oil Law. More moves such as this can be expected and must therefore be resisted now.
US Labor Against War have written a model letter (see below). US and UK embassy details are below and a press release from Naftana, the UK support committee for the union in the UK is to follow soon. Please forward this email and contact your union branches and local anti-war groups to pass urgent motions of solidarity. Copies of emails sent to the embassy and of support for the union in the UK should be sent to: naftana[AT]naftana.org
From Hassan Jumaa Awad:
The Iraqi Oil Minister, Hussein Al-Shahirstani, has ordered the transfer of eight Oil Union activists. They used to work at the oil refineries in the south. This act reflects the minister’s anti-union policy, and lack of respect for unions and union activists in the oil sector. Those activists, through their hard work, are well known for fighting corruption and corrupt-ministry gangs in the oil sector.
They have been transferred to Baghdad Al-Dorah neighborhood (known for worsening security situation, and high level of sectarian killings). In the context of Iraqi security situation, such a transfer is rightfully regarded as human rights crime.
We call upon all people of good will in the world to take a stand to denounce these despicable and criminal acts by the Iraqi Oil Ministry against trade unions and their activists. The trade unions have been reestablished and revitalized through the hard work of union activists without any protection from the state, which keeps bragging about democracy. [The Maliki government, taking its lead from the U.S. Occupation Authority, continues to enforce the 1987 Saddam Hussein labor code that prohibits unions and bargaining for workers in the oil sector and all other public enterprises, which constitute 80% of all Iraqi jobs.]
This act is a clear evidence that the Iraqi state seeks to liquidate trade unions in this important Iraqi economic sector, oil. It is important to note that the south is the main source of oil in Iraq. The oil sector there employs more than 39,000 workers. The Iraqi state has no intention of allowing an Oil Trade Union in that sector because it represents a threat to its authority.
We call upon you from all parts of the world to stand with us, for the sake of labor and workers interests.
Respectfully,
Hassan Juma Awad, President
Iraq Federation of Oil Unions
Iraqi Embassy in the UK:
- E-mail: lonemb[AT]iraqmofamail.net
- Telephone: +44 207 602 8456
- Fax: +44 207 371 1652
Iraqi Umbassy in the US:
- Post: Samir Sumaida’ie, Ambassador, Embassy of the Republic of Iraq, 1801
P Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036
- Phone: 202-483-7500
- Fax: 202-462-8813 // 202-462-5066
- Email: wasemb[AT]iraqmofa.net
- URL: www.iraqiembassy.us
- To assure that your message is received, please send it to both fax
numbers and in or attached to an email message.
- Please send a copy to USLAW, 1718 M Street NW, #153, Washington, DC 20036
// info[AT]uslaboragainstwar.org.
Mr. Ambassador:
We have been informed that Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein Al-Shahirstani has ordered the transfer of eight leaders and activists of the Iraq Federation of Oil Unions from their long-standing assignments at the South Oil Company in Basra to work in the Al-Dorah neighborhood of Baghdad, known for its worsening security situation and high level of sectarian killings. In doing so, the Minister knowingly exposes these trade unionists to a heightened risk of injury or even death. As such, this decision constitutes a grave violation of these workers’ human rights, as well as an assault on their labor rights and the rights of all those workers who they represent in their capacity as IFOU leaders.
This action escalates the Iraqi government’s continuing, repeated and blatant violations of internationally recognized labor rights as enshrined in the Conventions of the International Labour Organization of the United Nations, including those to which Iraq is a signatory. Iraq continues to enforce the dictatorship era labor codes that ban unions and collective bargaining for public sector and public enterprise employees in clear violation of ILO conventions. Iraq has failed to adopt a basic labor law (as called for by its own Constitution) to protect the rights of all workers to free association, to form unions of their own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of their labor, and to strike when necessary in defense of their interests.
We soundly and most strongly condemn these gross violations of labor and human rights. No democracy can ever be established in Iraq unless and until its workers enjoy the full range of core labor rights recognized by the ILO. No democracy can ever be sustained in Iraq without its workers and their unions being free of government intervention in their internal affairs.
Iraq must completely erase all vestiges of its authoritarian and repressive past if it is to earn the respect of the world community. We demand that your government immediately rescind the transfer order for these workers, cease harassing unions and union activists, and that it recognize and respect the rights of all Iraqi workers to form unions of their own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment, and to act collectively in defense of their own interests.
We intend to monitor this situation closely to learn what actions you have taken to remedy these gross violations of labor and human rights.
Yours truly,
…
Australian Greens climate change spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, today rejected Prime Minister Rudd's extraordinary claim to have done all he can on fuel prices, highlighting five decisions his Government has made that have a negative impact and should be reversed.
Senator Milne said, “Prime Minister Rudd's claim to have done all he can on fuel prices is a blinkered view which completely ignores the need to plan urgently for peak oil and wean Australia off our oil addiction fast.
“In his first Budget, last week, Mr Rudd made absolutely no effort to put Australia on a path to prepare for peak oil, instead continuing the love affair Australian governments have had for too long with inefficient cars and bigger roads.
“The most glaring failure is that, of total spending on transport in the coming year, a full 80% of the $4.2 billion goes to more roads, while only 4% goes to rail infrastructure. Roads get $3.4 billion next to a measly $187 million for rail. What is worse, over the coming years, the proportion to roads is set to increase, while rail funding will dry up to almost nothing - only $6 million by 2011-12. These priorities should be reversed to give Australians an alternative to paying through the nose for fuel.
“The Government also failed to take the easy and obvious step of removing the Fringe Benefits tax concession for private car use, a subsidy which directly encourages people to drive more to get more off their tax. This nonsense policy should have been scrapped years ago and could be scrapped tomorrow, easing pressure on prices.
“The $78 million for metropolitan transport, only some of which is allocated to mass transit, is a drop in the ocean when we need to be re-designing and rebuilding our cities for mass transit, walkways, cycle paths and urban villages. This needs serious Commonwealth funding to make it happen.
“The decision to establish Infrastructure Australia and the Building Australia Fund without any obligation to consider climate change or peak oil is foolish and must be reversed. If the 12 eminent Australians who have been given carriage of this work are instructed to plan for peak oil and climate change, we may see some innovative thinking to help ease the pressure on Australians.
“Finally, what possible reason can there be for pushing the start of the much-vaunted Green Car Fund out to 2011, when the Government could today introduce stringent mandatory vehicle fuel efficiency standards? The Government could tie subsidies to car manufacturers to meeting fuel efficiency standards and get efficient cars on the road within months, instead of waiting until after the next election.
“This vital issue needs serious action. What we see from the Rudd Government is nothing more than spin.”
For More Information:
Tim Hollo
Email: tim.hollo[AT]aph.gov.au
Phone: 0437 587 562
Why no mention of increased immigration intake? Whilst Senator Christine Milne's media release shows a much better grasp than that displayed by the major parties of the grave implications that the end of cheap petroleum has for Australian society, it has a glaring omission, that is, that it completely disregards population and Immigration Minister Chris Evans' announced increase of Australia's net annual immigration intake to 300,000. No media release which obviously questions this decision is to be found on their media releases web page. This single factor will surely compound the petrol more than any other. Even if the Greens' measures are adopted in full, which is unlikely, they could not negate the effects of 300,000 more people dependent upon oil imports each year. The Green's failure to address population, which is the major driver of the world's environmental claims seriously calls into question its claim to be pro-environment. Much has been written of this flaw shared by most of the world's Green Parties by Canadian Tim Murray in his article Which is the most idiotic Green Party in the world? of 2 Feb 08.
Public Transport is not the complete solution either Even public transport consumes large amounts of energy. Whilst public transport is generally preferable to the private motor vehicle in large crowded cities, the real solution must lie in relocalisation, so that regular travel is not a necessity. Cities must be planned so that most people can either walk or cycle to work and to all of their essential amenities. Steps must be taken to locate more people closer to where they live. The Queensland Government Education Department's recently announced initiative to encourage teachers to work in schools closer to where they live is one example that should be emulated.
I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Canada’s social democrats have not experienced an ideological epiphany in the past seven months. One might recall that New Democratic party (NDP) premier Lorne Calvert in calling an election for November 7th declared that growth was a good thing so long as its “benefits” were shared.
This revolutionary statement was made to distinguish social democrats from the growthists on the right who simply promised that growth’s benefits would “trickle down” to the less fortunate without state intervention. But between them was complete unanimity that growth should proceed. The boreal forest would continue to be clear cut no matter how timber royalties were spent, potential farmland would be sold for housing, wetlands would be cleared for development and uranium mined.
In a speech given 22 May 08 to the Shepherds of Good Hope, NDP leader Jack Layton revealed that his party had not changed its attitude to growth:
“As a country, we have a responsibility to ensure that no member of our society is denied the essentials of life. But today, we are seeing a very disturbing trend in Canada: the growing gap between the rich and everyone else. More wealth (sic) is being generated than ever before—but that does not mean that everyone is better off. In fact, the opposite is true. The reason is pretty clear―the benefits of economic growth (sic) are not being shared equally among all Canadians.”
Oh Jack. So that’s what’s wrong with economic growth? Just that its benefits are not being shared equally among all Canadians. Well they certainly weren’t shared equally in NDP British Columbia, NDP Saskatchewan and NDP Manitoba. All three provinces recorded the worst child poverty rates in the country. And homeless people were out on the street in force in the latter half of the nineties in BC too, during the NDP reign. The growing gap between top and bottom income levels also rose during their tenure. Analysts even on the left also report that the gap between social classes or at least regionally between north and south actually grew under Tony Blair’s centre-left government. Clearly there is a gap between the rhetoric of social equality and its delivery. And just as clearly, economic growth is not the mechanism of that delivery.
But I thought what was wrong with economic growth was what it did while it was “growing”. Eating into natural capital and destroying real wealth in creating the “wealth” that Mr. Layton defines as such. For what is “wealth”? Is it the toys we accumulate with all this economic activity? The consumer goods, the cars, the furniture, the sparkling new housing units? What is it? Seldom factored in as wealth are the 33 trillion dollars worth of biodiversity services that the planet provides free of charge to support human life. Services which are daily being destroyed by relentless economic growth. Clean water, unpolluted air, healthy vibrant fish stocks in our lakes and streams, viable microorganisms―these constitute the real wealth of the nation that are not to be “shared” and parceled out like tax rebates to Jack Layton’s low income constituency or offered to the developers’ greed. When are we going to a measuring stick that reflects this fact and replaces GDP and the statistics politicians are using to test reality?
To seal the deal Layton was asked by veteran parliamentary reporter Mike Duffy if his plan to tax the worst corporate polluters might impede economic growth. Layton quickly reassured him, “Oh, no, look at Germany. Thegovernment forced penalties on the car manufacturers and revenue went to the development of wind turbines. There is more economic growth now than before.” Layton’s plan is in opposition to the Liberal-Green plan to introduce carbon taxes. He apparently has not heard the news that the Royal Academy of Sciences concluded that ALL economic growth must end if we are to stop short of raising global temperatures by that critical 2 degree tipping point.
Tim Murray, 1 Jun 08
See also: Growth is OK if it is shared? of 12 Oct 07.
The Australian government will do anything to save this little fellow except stopping developers from building over his habitat.
You would think that the Federal and ACT government really cared that his species is nearly extinct to read how far they are prepared to go to make other species pay for what some leaders of our species are responsible for doing.
In the wake of the Belconnen kangaroo massacre, some of us thought that the government was drawing a very long bow to expect the public to take seriously the implication that 400 odd Belconnen kangaroos were mercilessly purged from nature in order to protect the earless dragon, charming though he is. Just between friends, we still aren't convinced.
Yet, in Peter Robertson & Murray Evanshttp, "Draft National Recovery Plan for the Grassland Earless Dragon Tympanocryptis pinguicoll, "native grazers" as well as "introduced grazers" have been newly included as threats to Tympanocryptis pinquicoll. "Native grazers" is zoo-speak for kangaroos and any other indigenous wildlife that eats grasses.
In fact, the draft paper reveals an absurd situation and we need someone like Alice to tell the government it is nothing but a pack of cards. How wildlife officers and zoologists can stand working in these arcane conditions is beyond me. According to the government's own sources, in the paper,
"The main factors involved in the decline of the Grassland Earless Dragon are thought to be loss and fragmentation of habitat due to urban, industrial or agricultural development, and these processes still threaten extant populations."
"... development at the Canberra Airport does not require the approval of the Minister for the Environment (under Section 160 of the EPBC Act) and proposals both underway and in planning at that site have resulted in the loss of known habitat and threaten further areas of occupied habitat."
Yet kangaroos have to wear all the blame! We also know that the Belconnen site is to be surrounded by new developments and there are rumours that the site itself is to be developed. So, between the airport and the developments at Belconnen, what hope is there for the earless dragon? What hope is there for kangaroos?
The problem is clearly not kangaroos, but the government's obdurate, undemocratic and unsafe insistence on growing Australia's population at the behest of developers. (See "Scanlon report underpins threat to Australian democracy"). This in the face of an expected indefinite world wide depression associated with oil decline. And they are building a new airport when the future of cheap air-travel is doomed by the lack of replacements for petroleum-based jet-fuel. It's not just kangaroos and dragons who should fear our government; it's us!
Actually, this situation where humans are blaming kangaroos for their own actions reminds me of the case that biologist, Farley Mowatt made for wolves in his 1963 book, Never Cry Wolf. He went to work as a government biologist in the Arctic on a project to find out why caribou herds were diminishing. The government thought they were probably being eaten by wolves (although both species had co-existed for millenia). After living adjacent to the wolves for months, Mowat reported that the wolves lived on a diet of field mice supplemented by the occasional elderly or sick caribou. The local trappers in the area were killing all the caribou to eat and to feed to their dogs. Mowatt's book, Never Cry Wolf, is a classic and it is said that it led to the Soviet Union banning the killing of wolves.
Join Independent State Member for Maryborough, Chris Foley and others at a rally at Parliament House, George St, Brisbane on Friday June 6 at 11am.
That Friday is the final sitting day of Parliament of Budget Week, and 11am will be halfway through Question Time. Join in and make some noise to show the Government we mean business!
Need more info?
Phone: 07 4122 2277
Fax: 07 4122 1980
Email: maryborough[AT]parliament.qld.gov.au
Website: www.chrisfoley.com.au
See also: www.savethemaryriver.com
I present myself describing the situation in another land (Italy and Switzerland) and later on trying to give news from other parts of Europe which I know a little of. In the meantime, I shall offer some opinions, and even some suggestions….
I live in Switzerland (Lausanne) but was born in Italy (Gorizia) and I possess two nationalities. (very useful).
I have founded the Assisi Nature Council, an organisation in Italy (Assisi), at the time when it was à la mode (sorry: like AGW ! ah ah!) the figure of its most beloved Saint Francis as a symbol of Christian environmental conservation.
Times have changed, demographical growth and not conservation is the main problem, as conservation can only be obtained by less people and less of everything that too many people do.
My attention to the problem of overpopulation started rather earlier on, when I collected figures and statistics and news articles and so on. I made links with many major environmental organisations in the States and Italy and here’s a limited account of some of the feedback:
I approached a well known TV programme in Rome, but no success.
With Academy, no support, but some hostility. A University Professor from Perugia (Italy) asked me if I was a racist — and I didn’t even mention the immigration problem!
This resumé to tell you how overpopulation is not a respectable subject.
Lately, I have joined a group, which is related to the Radical Party, a Party of libertarian leanings, which hasn’t much representation in Parliament. Better than nothing, because the group I joined, called Rientrodolce, is the only political lobby I know in Italy, whose objective is to diminish the population. By non-violent methods (dolce) of course. No China solution, then. No other political or economic force in Italy seems aware of the existence of such a problem, though exists a number of online sites that talk about it, but their material is mostly a translation from English documents. The opinion makers in the media who refer often to overpopulation are a few, very good and informed, but they are called Cassandras (actually Cassandra was telling always the truth but nobody wanted to believe her, for the obvious reasons: she was a purveyor of Bad News!)
I get along very well with my group, we discuss lots of issues related to population, like the oil and food crisis, but there’s one blind spot in their vision.
It is called immigration.
Now, I do not understand that someone can be worried about population growth and not see that, in our western countries, it is fuelled by the relentless invasion of people from less affluent countries.
These people have found the solution to their fertility by sending the surplus to us.
This way, there will be no possibility for them to limit their population, if they have the economic incentive to emigrate.
The refusal to talk about Immigration has more than one cause.
In the case of Rientrodolce group, the philosophy behind it is libertarian, plus a complex sense of guilt towards the Third World.
This sense of guilt pressures seems to be widespread in our societies, whose ethos has been influenced by excessive left-wing rhetoric. We feel obliged to repair a perceived damage that our civilisation might have done and relish the occasion to demonstrate solidarity towards the hordes of suffering humanity rejects.
Though these sentiments, if genuine, might be laudable, they are suspiciously based on a leftist ideology (our sin is to be richer than they; we have robbed their resources through capitalism, etc.) and so are the solution we propose : quasi open borders, free circulation of goods, services and humans, solidarity, hospitality, tolerance and all that utopian vocabulary, which rests on the principle that what is desirable is also possible, and that “all you need is Love ”.
For the sake of the Third World’s problems it would be certainly better to find ways to help them there, and specifically to tie up any financial help to a serious antinatalist programme, which would really decrease their fertility while at the same time bring more wealth.
But this solution doesn’t appeal to the idealists, who prefer to enslave — which is what they really do — a foreign labour force to serve the basic necessities of a relatively wealthy civilisation. This is not piety, it is exploitation.
The Italian situation has been getting steadily worse under the previous governments that have maintained a lax attitude towards the problem of immigration, while at the same time encouraging couples to have more children.
You have probably come across news of the Italian coasts being inundated by hundreds of illegal immigrants month by month, so that nobody is now sure how many are around and what the hell are they doing: drugs or prostitution, underpaid employment without insurance, small crime or a life of misery? The incredible thing is that this kind of life costs them a lot of money, that they pay to unscrupulous exploiters: because commerce of humans is a very lucrative business and it should be stopped.
But any discussion on this subject wakes up a sort of Pavlovian reaction. If you mention immigration in the wrong crowd, accusations of racism, xenophobia, or fascism are thrown immediately at you.
This is why most people who rationally, as opposed to racially, object to illegal immigration, are very careful in expressing themselves. They do not want to be part of wild testosterone-filled young hooligans who go around bashing anybody who happens to be or look a stranger, No doubt, these gangs are made up by the less intelligent members of society, youths without jobs or proper education, who would be violent even if the foreigners didn’t exist, it is a pretext to let out frustration.
Lately though, the general public is waking up to the dangers posed by immigrants who commit violent crimes. Berlusconi, so much criticised by The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times, the Bibles of liberal culture, has won the last election because promised a stricter policy in immigration. This new policy has given rise to loud protests from radical left quarters, but the recognition of the force of a popular vote is stronger.
Anyway, regarding immigration, Italians (as Americans, I hear) have a schizophrenic approach. It is well known that the economy would not function without immigration. Here in Switzerland, where I was treated in a clinic, more than half of the medical personnel was from abroad.
Families employ baby sitters and home help from the Philippine, South America, Ukraine, … They are the same people who cry against immigration . It is not sufficient to berate the local workforce which doesn’t want to do certain jobs which are then taken up by foreigners, it is a matter worth of deep and open investigation.
Moreover, the immigration issue is also a responsibility of the Catholic Church.
Italy is the country in Europe mostly influenced by the Church. Though Italians obviously do not respect the ban on contraception, the Church’s influence is felt in the political arena and in the media. No days pass by that some declaration of a Bishop isn’t printed in the media or publicised on TV. At the moment the Church is worried about the “culle vuote” (empty cradles) phenomenon and it is urging the government to offer more incentives for the Italians to procreate.
Similarly, every newspaper of the land is in favour of such government policies, and perfectly in tune with the fear of “birth dearth” and consequent pensions crisis, that is sweeping the European Union (EU).
These fears, while totally in accord with the Christian doctrine (of grow and multiply: the Providence will… well, provide, it is its job), they are very foolish coming from a secular presumably rational body.
I shall shortly post some anti-Malthusian articles by Vatican-approved sites, that explain this point of view. Interesting.
Immigration is justified also by the Church in the name of the “accoglienza” (welcome) to the needy, which is the charitable Christian doctrine: in fact, the Church is doing its job.
But government policies shouldn’t be dominated by external pressures.
But in this matter, the government is listening not to the Church but to rather other influent lobbies, mainly the powerful industries.
Especially the manufactures of the North East and the construction industry. This last body is the most obnoxious polluter and destroyer of what is left of a beautiful country. It makes me cry, when travelling along the Adriatic coast I see kilometres of disgraceful secondary homes hastily arranged in front of a once pristine beach, and all this is done with the help of some poor Albanians and Romanians, who, when the bonanza is finished, as it will soon (see Spain and France’s housing crisis) be without work. And the Italians, the ones who didn’t want to take such a lowly jobs, will also remain without hope of even those lowly jobs.
Further information: with the Italian group Rientrodolce, we are trying to influence policies, pushing for a recognition of overpopulation together with the concomitant issues of energy depletion and food crisis. Unfortunately at the moment I am not allowed to explain the dangers of immigration, but you cannot have everything….
I would like to do something similar through this groups which I have just joined, to propagate the message of overpopulation and, where possible, the madness of unlimited immigration, in the public arena. We must not only talk to each other , but find a way to be visible and authoritative.
I do not know yet how, but we will come up with some ideas, OK?
See you soon
Marisa
Original media release from greens.org.au/media/releases
NSW Treasurer Michael Costa's budget to be delivered this afternoon proves that the electricity industry sell-off is unnecessary and bad for the economy, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.
Commenting on the pre-release announcement of a $58 billion spend on infrastructure, Dr Kaye said: "The Iemma government's budget is based on the sensible idea that borrowing for infrastructure is a healthy investment in the state's future.
"It is time for the same logic to be applied to the electricity industry
"Treasurer Costa has belatedly joined the big borrowers brigade, recognising that the state needs to invest in transport, health and education to secure the economic future of NSW.
"Exactly the same argument can be applied to the state's energy system.
"Borrowing for investment in new clean energy supply capacity would not only help the state cope with increasing pressure on greenhouse gas emissions.
"It would also earn a healthy return, which would pay off the debt.
"There would be no effect on the state's credit rating.
"If Treasurer Costa could see beyond his ideological commitment to privatisation, he would understand that maintaining public ownership of the electricity industry would help ease the debt burden.
"The generators and retailers currently put $1.1 billion to the state's budget each year.
"That's a very healthy return on assets that are probably worth less than $7 billion on the open market," Dr Kaye said.
For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455
One hundred years ago today (as I write this in late May), sulfur fumes permeated the air at Masjid-i-Suleiman. A good sign indeed for an experienced oil hand like Reynolds. At 4 am, the drill reached 360 metres under the desert sand, and struck oil. A gusher, 25 metres high, shot into the air. Arabian oil was born.
The site was so remote that it took five days before D'Arcy got word by telegram in England. "If this is true," he replied, "all our troubles are over." It was indeed true, and more rigs hit oil elsewhere in Persia, including another huge one in September.
How things have changed. Whatever happened to telegrams? Whatever happened to the oil?
The 20th Century will undoubtedly be remembered for the explosion of technology, steam, then oil, then nuclear and solar powered technology. I stress, powered technology. Most people confuse technology with energy, and unfortunately, they are not interchangable, something fast becoming obvious as we approach the 21st Century era of Peak Energy and limits to growth.
There is so much nonsense in the media today about the reasons why petrol (and diesel of course) is so expensive, it's mind boggling. Surfing the media's web blogs' tailing articles on petrol prices quickly exposes the man in the street's ignorance of the truth. Not that we can point the finger at 'people', the media (outside of publications like this one) is doing very little to educate or inform their readers or viewers.
So, when I prophesise that within as little as four or five years we may not be able to buy any fuel at all, at any price, people of course think I'm a complete nut case. I can understand this. The government is hardly showing signs of any such concerns, when they propose to build new freeways and tunnels to the airport!
Peak Oil is often misconstrued as 'running out' of oil. In fact, it's 'only' the point at which roughly half the oil has been extracted. This has been thoroughly documented in the USA which was by far the largest oil producer until after WWII. That nation peaked in 1971, and even though the largest oil field in all of North America (Prudhoe Bay) was put into service shortly thereafter, the US' oil production never recovered, inexorably decreasing to its current level, slightly less than 50% of peak. Peak Oil is no theory, the American experience proves this beyond any doubt.
So what of Australia? The news, I'm afraid, is grim indeed. Australia's oil production peaked in 2000. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) has, for reasons known only unto itself, consistently mispredicted our future oil production. This is most baffling. Just who are they trying to kid? Do they pick figures out of thin air? Senator Milne and Ian Dunlop, formerly an international oil, gas and coal industry executive, now also challenge our resources peak body for misleading everyone, not just once, but at least five years running. This, in my opinion at least, borders on criminal negligence. One has to realise that very important decisions are made on the back of these predictions, like enlarging airport runways.
When a nation's oil production peaks, it must then rely on importing from somewhere else. The US imports oil from Canada, Mexico (now collapsing), and Venezuela, with some top up from the Saudis and Africa. We in Australia, you may be surprised to find out, import oil from Vietnam, PNG, the United Arab Emirate, Malaysia, Brunei, and, as a further surprise, New Zealand. We actually get more oil from NZ than we do from Saudi Arabia. http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3657
There is a problem with importing oil from less developed nations. They want what we have, and are developing at an accelerating pace. Since Vietnam is our biggest single supplier (currently 28% of all imports), let's analyse their situation.
Vietnam's oil production, which did not start until 1986, steadily rose to a peak of just over 400,000 barrels/day in 2004. It has been in decline ever since. Its domestic oil consumption, also rose very quickly and in unison to 275,000 barrels/day (in 2006) as that country's economy grew at a mighty 7.1% annually, a doubling of GDP (and by definition, consumption) every ten years. By now, production is probably down to 300,000 barrels/day, and consumption is up to about........ 300,000 barrels/day!
Data for the above from http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/country_energy_data.cfm?fips=VM
So where's our oil going to come from now? And how dare they use it all up! Vietnam's nett oil export is now in virtual freefall from 175,000 barrels to 90,000 barrels/day in a matter of just five years. At the time of writing (I do not have current figures) it might be possible that like Indonesia (which has just left OPEC - remember, OPEC is for Oil Exporting Countries!) Vietnam has become a nett oil importer, just like us. Martin Ferguson worries about a deepening trade deficit of some 25 billion dollars from importing oil, but I worry about there being none at all left to buy.
There is not the room here to analyse what is happening to the other nations we import from, but I can tell you that apart from the UAE (representing just 12.5% of our imports), the picture is similar everywhere, including Saudi Arabia. Oil exporting nations are falling like dominoes, and soon there will be none to turn to. Within five years from now, unless another Bass Straight is found, Australia will be left with a mere 10% of the oil we now take for granted, and it might in fact be less.
Now we might find another Bass Straight, but you have to understand that even if another 250,000 barrels/day of Australian oil comes on line over the next five years, we would still only have about one third of what we currently take for granted.
This is not the time to build new freeways and tunnels to airports (which may even be quasi abandoned within five years as airlines all over the world go belly up), what we need is a major effort to build new rail infrastructure, and other associated public transport. I see no other option but to start rationing fuel, and fairly soon, allowing essential services like farming, medicine, fire brigade and so on to continue operating. Time is short, we must act now. We need visionary leadership.
Suggested reading:
http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3657
http://www.futurescenarios.org/
http://www.peakoil.org.au
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/roeoz/
http://permaculturenoosa.com.au/
http://austlii.law.uts.edu.au/au/legis/cth/bill_em/lfeab2007303/memo_0.html
Mike Stasse is a Sustainable Housing and Energy Efficiency consultant and an accredited BERS energy rating technician. He lives with his wife in the Noosa hinterland at Cooran in their Award Winning eco solar house.
No-one with their eyes and ears open could miss the fact that economic and material prognostics are all pointing downwards for the world economy. Some may turn to fortune tellers and stock-market analysts, or even listen to politicians, at these times, but do any objective measures actually exist? A study in 2003 seems very pertinent today.
What do thermometers and spygmanometers actually measure when a physician uses them to test one person's health? They actually measure outward signs of microstates in the human body in thermodynamic terms of temperature and pressure. The measurements only mean something when compared to a range of averages over a wide number of bodies.
Taking a similar approach, but applying it to entire species, marine ecologists, Charles Fowler and Larry Hobbs, worked out a series of tests to assess the health and prognosis of our species and others in, "Is Humanity Sustainable?"
They wrote, "Avoiding abnormal or pathological conditions has long been standard practice in medicine. In recent decades, this has become recognized as a critically important tenet of management at all levels of biological organization. That is, management and restoration have the objective of keeping components of complex systems (e.g. individuals, species, ecosystems and the biosphere) within their normal range of natural variation in much the same way we do medically with body temperature, body mass, pulse or blood pressure for the individual human."
Objective assessment requires, of course, that humans be considered as "part of ecosystems and the biosphere, subject to the same natural laws and benefiting from the same supporting services as other species."
Does Homo sapiens fall "within the spectrum of variation observed among species"? Fowler and Hobbs tried to test whether the human species falls within the normal range for comparable species, using a range of measures that are also applicable to other species.
This scientific study proposed that the "principles and tenets of [good] management require action to avoid sustained abnormal/pathological conditions. For the sustainability of interactive systems, each system should fall within its normal range of natural variation."
"This applies to individuals (as for fevers and hypertension, in medicine), populations (e.g. outbreaks of crop pests in agriculture), species (e.g. the rarity of endangerment in conservation) and ecosystems (e.g. abnormally low productivity or diversity in 'ecosystem-based management')."
Almost every test showed that the human species was not ecologically normal. Tendencies in the human species usually varied way beyond the safe range.
The authors wrote, "For example, our population size, CO2 production, energy use, biomass consumption and geographical range size differ from those of other species by orders of magnitude."
These differences must have practical consequences, but these are not well known.
The full study may be downloaded at http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/cnvwhur9u2crk6le/fulltext.pdf
It is amazing that so many of us accept that it is our lot to work for others and to pay rent. Was it always so or did this come about through sophistry?
Whilst in part a review of aspects of Ellen Meiksins Wood's stimulating book,
The Origin of Capitalism, a longer view, Verso, London and New York, 2002, this article features a passage from that book. The passage analyses how John Locke's philosophy of the Law of Property characterises capitalism and documents changes to property law in England which created a massive landless labour force by facilitating dispossession on the pretext of efficiency.
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John Locke's work on property goes back to the end of the 17th century. To many it will seem eerily familiar because we hear constantly its echo in arguments about efficiency and enclosure. In Orwellian Waterworks: big-agribusiness and Victorian Government, the reader of this article may recognise that the same excuses are still being made for new enclosures of land. It is false to believe that these are the good old days and that our society protects us from legally sanctioned predation. For instance, it is no wonder that the people of the Riverina have scheduled a demonstration in front of Parliament in June 3 at 12.30pm. What is happening close by in country Victoria is of utmost seriousness.
In her book, Ellen Meiksins Wood sets out to find the origins of capitalism. Personally I think they go back further, but she is on the right trail and you won't find her work disappointing. Woods agrees that capitalism originated in England and recognises that things were and still are different in continental Europe, albeit she also recognises that capitalism culminates in the globalisation movement.
Half the book consists of a very thorough literature review where she disputes a number of well-known theories, both Marxist and ‘liberal’, on the grounds that they all wrongly assume that capitalism sort of emerged organically from simpler societies. This is in fact the deadening ideology preached daily by the world's syndicated Anglophone media and Anglophone governments. In jingles and visual noise more invasive than the muezzin, we constantly hear that "Capitalism is the culmination, the natural way, the only way, and we must overcome all its problems by being more productive in order to have endless growth. To go 'backwards' is to perish etc."
Yes, Wood also disputes the widespread inference that capitalism was an inevitable kind of human social progress. She disagrees with the idea that capitalism confers overwhelming benefits. Whilst many theories identify capitalism with cities, she sees capitalism as being born in rural agricultural society.
She describes capitalism as a special arrangement of capital, labour and market. She sees both the owners of capital and those who work for them as subservient to the market. In her view, the market is something that developed from the separation of power and economy.
She constructs an original and useful thesis that the commercial market in capitalism has developed a life of its own. The market now controls people rather than their controlling it and that it is a source of much unhappiness. Whilst she concedes that those who own the capital benefit from this situation for longer than those whom they oppress, no-one will escape in the end. At the bottom of it all is the elevation of profit above all other things, which means we cannot protect anything if destroying it will make someone a big enough profit.
At no time does she display an awareness of the role of fossil fuels in capitalism, but those of us who are aware of this, can supply the gaps. What she has done is create a framework.
Wood correctly identifies dispossession as fundamental to the emergence of capitalism in England. She locates the “first major wave of socially disruptive enclosure” as having occurred in the 16th C. (Some have placed it earlier but she does not mention this. Neither does she identify the mechanism which first permitted private property.)
She does, however, also correctly identify English society as different from societies on the European continent, with France typifying continental societies. She acknowledges that Dutch society was also different from other continental societies, but still dissimilar to England. She does not explain how Holland came to be different from the continental roman societies.
She does identify changes in the law as an important part of capitalism. The changeover from traditional (oral) and customary (mutual, often inherited, obligations) is known to be a fulcrum of abuse which permitted and still permits land-owners who were educated in written law to take advantage of peasants and hunter-gatherers who were and are not. She notes that written laws replaced tradition in passing, without dating the phenomenon or otherwise particularising it in relation to her theory. She stresses, however, a change in philosophy of property law, of which she does date some documents and events. These are, notably,
Document: Thomas Moore’s Utopia (1516)
Event: The Expropriation of Ireland (1610)
Document: Locke’s Theory of Property. (1690s)
John Locke
John Locke,, (1690s), cited by Ellen Meiksins Wood, pp110-115:
“Lock begins with the proposition that God ‘hath given the world to men in common’ (II.26), but he goes on to show how, nevertheless, individuals come to have property in particular things. In fact, he writes, such private, individual property is a God-given natural right. Men (and in his argument, it is always men) own their own persons, and the labour that they do with their hands and bodies is therefore their property too. So, he argues, a natural right of property is established when a man ‘mixes his labour’ with something, when, that is, by means of his labour he removes it from its natural state or changes its natural condition.
"Locke was certainly not the first thinker to propose that unoccupied land could be claimed by those who would render it fruitful, but, as he developed his labour theory of property, he introduced some enormously significant innovations. We shall consider some of their implications more closely in Chapter 7, in connection with the ideology of imperialism. For now, the central point is that Locke’s whole argument on property turns on the notion of ‘improvement’.
"The theme running throughout his discussion is that the earth is there to be made productive and profitable, and that this is why private property, which emanates from labour, trumps common possession. Locke repeatedly insists that most of the value inherent in land comes not from nature but from labour and improvement:
"‘tis labour indeed that puts the difference of value on everything’ (11.40).
"He even offers specific calculations of value contributed by labour as against nature. He suggests, for example, ‘it will be but a very modest Computation to say, that of the Products of the Earth useful to the Life of Man, 9/10 are the effects of labour,’ and then immediately corrects himself: it would be more accurate to say that 99/100 should be attributed to labour rather than to nature (II.40).
"Locke also makes it clear that the value he has in mind is not simply use value but exchange value. Money and commerce are the motivation for improvement; and an acre of land in unimproved America, which may be as naturally fertile as an acre in England, is not worth 1/1000 of the English acre, if we calculate ‘all the Profit an Indian received from it were it valued and sold here’ (II.43).
"Locke’s point, which not coincidentally drips with colonialist contempt, is that unimproved land is waste, so that any man who takes it out of common ownership and appropriates it to himself – he who removes land from the common and encloses it – in order to improve it has given something to humanity, not taken it away.
"There is, of course, something attractive about Locke’s idea that labour is the source of value and the basis of property, but soon becomes clear that there is something odd about it too. For one thing, it turns out that there is no direct correspondence between labour and property, because one man can appropriate the labour of another. He can acquire a right of property in something by ‘mixing’ with it not his own labour but the labour of someone else whom he employs. It appears that the issue for Locke has less to do with the activity of labour as such than with its profitable use. In calculating the value of the acre in America, for instance, he talks not about the Indian’s expenditure of effort, labour, but about the Indian’s failure to realize a profit. The issue, in other words, is not the labour of a human being but the productivity of property, its exchange value and its application to commercial profit.
"This emphasis on the creation of exchange value as the basis of property is a critical move in the theorization of capitalist property. Locke certainly was not the first to claim that people have a right to take possession of unoccupied and unused land, if they are able and willing to render it fruitful. His idea that property derives from labour is not so distant from that traditional notion. What makes his thesis truly distinctive is the association of ‘labour’ with the creation of exchange value, and the derivation of property from the creation of exchange value. This had implications not only for domestic property relations but also, as we shall see, for the justification of colonial expropriation. It could be used to defend the enclosure of ‘unprofitable’ land at home, as well as territory in the colonies that was not being put to commercially profitable use by indigenous populations.
"In a famous and much debated passage, Locke writes that ‘the Grass my Horse has bit; the Turs my Servant has cut; and the Ore I have digg’d in any place where I have a right to them in common with others, become my Property …’ (II.28). Much ink has been spilled on this passage and what it tells us about, for example, Locke’s views on wage labour (the labour of the servant who cuts the turfs). But what is truly striking about the passage is that Locke treats ‘the Turfs my Servant has cut’ as equivalent to ‘the Ore I have digg’d’. This means not only that I, the master, have appropriated the labour of my servant, but also that this appropriation is in principle no different from the servant’s labouring activity itself. My own digging is, for all intents and purposes, the same as my appropriating the fruits of my servant’s cutting. But Locke is not interested in simply passive appropriation. The point is rather that the landlord who puts his land to productive use, who improves it, even if it is by means of someone else’s labour, is being industrious, no less – and perhaps more – than the labouring servant.
"That’s a point worth dwelling on. One way of understanding what Locke is driving at is to consider common usage today. When the financial pages of the daily newspaper speak of ‘producers’, they do not normally mean workers. In fact, they are likely to talk about conflicts, for example, between automobile ‘producer’s and auto workers or their unions. The employers of labour, in other words, are being credited with ‘production’. We have become so accustomed to this usage that we fail to see tis implications, but it is important to keep in mind that certain very specific historical conditions were required to make it possible.
"Traditional ruling classes in pre-capitalist society, passively appropriating rents from dependent peasants, would never think for themselves as ‘producers’. The kind of appropriation that can be called ‘productive’ is distinctively capitalist. It implies that property is used actively, not for conspicuous consumption but for investment and increasing profit. Wealth is acquired not simply by using coercive force to extract more surplus labour from direct producers, in the manner of rentier aristocrats, nor by buying cheap and selling dear like pre-capitalist merchants, but by increasing labour-productivity (output per unity of work).
"By conflating labour with the production of profit, Locke becomes perhaps the first thinker to construct a systematic theory of property based on something like these capitalist principles. He is certainly not a theorist of a mature, industrial capitalism. But his view of property, with its emphasis on productivity and exchange value created in production, already sets him apart from his predecessors. His idea that value is actively created in production is already vastly different from traditional views that focus simply on the process of exchange, the ‘sphere of circulation’. Only William Petty, often called the founder of political economy, had suggested anything like a ‘labour theory of value’ in the seventeenth century, and that too in the context of agrarian capitalism – a theory he tested as a colonial agent in Ireland, where he served as Cromwell’s Surveyor General, just as Locke and his mentor, the first Earl of Shaftesbury, looked upon the American colonies as a laboratory of improvement.
"Locke in his economic works is critical of those landed aristocrats who sit back and collect rents without improving their land, and he is equally critical of merchants who simply act as middlemen, buying cheap in one market and selling at a higher price in another, or hoarding goods to raise their price, or cornering a market to increase the profits of sale. Both types of proprietor are, in his view, parasitic. Yet his attack on proprietors of this kind should not be misread as a defence of working people against the dominant classes. He certainly has good things to say about industrious artisans and tradesmen, but his idea seems to be the great improving landlord, whom he regards as the ultimate source of wealth in the community, what he calls, significantly, the ‘first producer’ – a man like Shaftesbury, capitalist landlord and investor in colonial trade, a man who is not only ‘industrious’ but whose vast property contributes greatly to the wealth of the community.
"Locke’s view of property is very well suited to the conditions of England in the early days of agrarian capitalism. It clearly reflects a condition in which highly concentrated landownership and large holdings were associated with a highly productive agriculture (again, productive in the sense not just of total output but also of output per unit of work). His language of improvement echoes the scientific literature devoted to the techniques of agriculture that flourished uniquely in England at this time – especially emanating from the Royal Society and the groups of learned men with whom Locke and Shaftesbury were closely connected. More particularly, his constant references to common land as waste and his praise for the removal of land from the common, and indeed for enclosure, had very powerful resonances in that time and place.
"We need to be reminded that the definition of property was in Locke’s day not just a philosophical issue but a very immediate practical one. As we have seen, a new, capitalist definition of property was in the process of establishing itself, challenging traditional forms not just in theory but also in practice. The idea of overlapping use rights to the same piece of land was giving way in England to exclusive ownership. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, there were constant disputes over common and customary rights. Increasingly, the principle of improvement for profitable exchange was taking precedence over other principles and other claims to property, whether those claims were based on custom or on some fundamental right of subsistence. Enhancing productivity itself became a reason for excluding other rights.
"What better argument than Locke’s could be found to support the landlord seeking to extinguish the customary rights of commoners, to exclude them from common land, and to turn common land into exclusive private property by means of enclosure? What better argument than that enclosure, exclusion, and improvement enhanced the wealth of the community and added more to the ‘common stock’ than it subtracted? And indeed, there were in the seventeenth century already examples of legal decisions in conflicts over land where judges invoked principles very much like those outlined by Locke, in order to give exclusive property precedence over common and customary rights. In the eighteenth century, when enclosure would accelerate rapidly with the active involvement of Parliament, reasons of ‘improvement’ would be cited systematically as the basis of title to property and as grounds for extinguishing traditional rights.
"This is not the only way in which Locke’s theory of property supported the interests of landlords like Shaftesbury. Against the background of his emphatic pronouncement that all men were free and equal in the state of nature, he nevertheless, like others before him, justified slavery. More particularly, as we shall see in Chapter 7, his views on improvement could easily be mobilized to justify colonial expansion and the expropriation of indigenous peoples, as his remark on the American Indian makes painfully obvious. If the unimproved lands of the Americas represented nothing but ‘waste’, it was a divinely ordained duty for Europeans to enclose and improve them, just as ‘industrious’ and ‘rational’ men had done in the original state of nature."
For any student of capitalism, Wood has produced a key book.
(Anna Bligh portrait by Sheila N.)
Sea Shepherd News media release, 16 May 08
Just when we were thinking it was becoming safe for sharks to be in Australian waters, the Queensland government in an incredible display of ecological insensitivity has proposed a shark fin fishery in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and in marine parks in Queensland waters.
The practice of shark finning is the most nonsensical, ecologically destructive, and unethical fishery in the world.
Australia is supposed to be one of the most ecologically aware and proactive nations in the world. What are Queensland politicians thinking?
Over 90% of the world’s sharks have already been eradicated from our oceans and this bodes ill for the ecological integrity of marine eco-systems.
Queensland wants to issue licenses to take an unlimited number of sharks in what amounts to an extermination policy against these essential and magnificent creatures.
This announcement has come just as Rob Stewart’s award winning film Sharkwater opens in Australia. This film which features the Sea Shepherd efforts to stop shark finning is raising awareness of the plight of sharks worldwide.
Recently Rob Stewart met and spoke with Andrew McNamara, the Queensland Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change. It was a promising sign that Mr. McNamara attended the Brisbane premiere of Sharkwater.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been defending sharks in the Galapagos, Ecuador, Cocos Island, Costa Rica and Malpelo Island off Colombia. The last place we thought we would need to intervene to protect sharks would be Australia.
Recently the media has been sensationalizing shark attacks despite the fact that on average less than 5 people die each year as a result of interactions with sharks whereas ostriches are responsible for killing an average of one hundred people a year making the ostrich twenty times more dangerous than the shark.
Yet as our media screams out that that humans are victims, we slaughter between 70 and 100 million sharks each year and we are presently waging a war of extermination on an apex marine predator that has existed on this planet for 450 million years.
Is a bowl of sharkfin soup worth the irreparable ecological damage we are doing to the world’s oceans?
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is urging all Australians who care about the future of our seas to e-mail Anna Bligh MP Premier of Queensland ThePremier[AT]premiers.qld.gov.au to demand that this legislation be quashed.
Also send an e-mail to Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett at: Peter.Garrett.MP[AT]aph.gov.au
Please click on the following link to sign the petition to oppose the new shark fishing in the Great Barrier Reef: www.sharksavers.org/content/view/260/36/
And we urge all Australians to go see the movie Sharkwater. It is the first film to tell the truth about sharks and it is a film that is going a long way towards protecting this wondrous and unique family of animals.
See also: Greens call for protection of shark stocks of 4 Jun 08.
Contact: goldcoast[AT]seashepherd.org
The headline in the Corriere della Sera, Friday 30 May 2008, was "A million empty houses; an unusual Spanish crisis".
Cement chokes Spain's economy. The Spanish growth rate at 2.2% was one of the "most envied" in Europe, where the Eurozone median was "only 1.7%".
Due, however, to land speculation, Spain has overshot demand. According to a study by the University of Barcelona, housing prices in major cities of Spain have collapsed to 20% less than in 2006. Spain is for the first time in the grip of the unusual problem of having more houses than it needs.
Source:Maria Luisa Cohen in Europe.
Two days ago we wrote about the collapse of the French housing market. Everyone knows about the US housing market collapse. How soon before the Australian one hits bottom?
The fact is that construction is very heavily dependent on oil and banks are very dependent on construction.
With peak oil prices this cannot go on.
(Source: Sheila Newman, "Land and housing prices, land-use planning and housing systems in Australia and elsewhere (pdf file); the impact of globalisation, the internet, trends in natural increase, households and immigration: Submission to the Productivity Inquiry on First Home Ownership", page 36.)
Even during the civil war Franco was concerned about social housing. In 1957 the position of Minister for housing was created and publicly funded housing went from 100,000 dwellings in 1957 to 397,000 in 1973. By 1970 64% of the Spanish were homeowners. The 1973 oil shock saw massive cutbacks in public and private sector construction but rationalisation of the industry and renovation of older stock has given Spain the highest rate of homeownership in Europe.
About 70% of the Spanish are homeowners. There are few real-estate agencies in Spain because notaries and solicitors handle most sales.
Debt and price hikes up to 85% in 8 years had not yet resulted in a slowing market activity in 2003. Demographic changes, structurally low real-estate taxes and the large proportion of homeowners had all contributed to the high prices. Similarly to Thatcher's Britain, public housing was sold off to individual purchasers, many of whom then resold, causing a speculative boom which coincided with the wider global housing bubble.
See also: French housing market collapses of 29 May 08, Sydney's housing crisis - a different view of 27 May 08, No right to housing in the USA - Americans start to revolt of 26 May 08, Homeless may now sue state in France & Europe: Test Case of 26 May 08, European Union condemns Spain over 'disastrous' over-building of 21 June 07, In Spain, Water Is a New Battleground in the New York Times of 3 Jun 08
(Original much larger photo by Ray Drew)
These healthy kangaroos, relaxed, uncrowded, in lush surroundings are all dead - order of ACT Australian government.
Housing estates due to go up around the area. (Does anyone know which developers?) The human species here is simply blind, absurd, and ridiculous to pretend that kangaroos are overpopulating when they are trapped and surrounded by expanding human populations, brought in to fill housing estates. Developers and government should be put on trial for causing enormous and needless suffering. They make Australians ashamed.
[Photograph by Marcus Fillinger, marcus[at]emulsion[dot]com[au].]
Some animals saved, after being ear-tagged, for fertility experiments and sterilisation.This animal is ‘darted’ with anaesthetic, then collared, and blindfolded to minimise stimulation, prior to contraceptive implant or sterilisation. Wildlife experts say it was all unnecessary.
Read on:
Much of the detail in the next nine paragraphs below comes from www.kangaroolives.com
In May 2007 the media exposed a covert plan by the Department of Defence and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government to shoot to kill up to 3,200 Kangaroos at two Defence sites in the ACT.
The reasons given at the time: to ‘save’ the kangaroos from starving and to prevent them from competing with certain endangered grassland species reported to be on these sites: the golden sun moth, a legless lizard, and the earless dragon.
Around 500 of these kangaroos are trapped by a 2.5 metre high fence on a 116 hectare parcel of land at the former Belconnen Naval Transmission Station (BNTS). Of these, the plan was for 400 to be killed and have the remaining kangaroos forcefully sterilised. Somewhat extreme and barbaric measures to protect a moth, and unlikely to be the real reason why the ACT Government is so keen to clear this site, as the area around it is earmarked for housing development.
Following an immediate public outcry and subsequent consultations between Defence and a range of interest groups, Defence agreed to consult more widely. Members of Wildcare, a local volunteer wildlife rescue organisation with over 15 years of hands-on experience rescuing and rehabilitating kangaroos, submitted a proposal to Defence recommending a whole-of-ecosystem approach to the kangaroo issue. This preliminary proposal also detailed a workable strategy for the translocation of kangaroos.
Finally in September 2007, after consultations with Wildcare and a panel of experts, Defence announced that it would implement a kangaroo management plan in the ACT designed to promote sound ecological management and a responsible approach to animal welfare. The plan was to use a mix of translocation, fertility control and – “only where necessary" – euthanasia to bring the kangaroo population into balance with the ecosystem at the BNTS site. The contract to the successful to implement this strategy was awarded in early 2008.
Suddenly on 29 February, the ACT Government announced that it would block any application for a permit to allow the ‘export’ of kangaroos from the BNTS site. Not coincidentally, the ACT’s official kangaroo ‘culling season’ (killing season) recommenced the very next day.
Defence went back on their word, and the slaughter of these kangaroos on the site began on 19 May 2008. It was to continue over the next few days, with a target of over 400 animals.
These kangaroos were healthy and there was currently ample grass on the site following good rains over summer, and higher than average rain predicted over the coming months. There was no need for this slaughter to proceed.
Viable alternatives were available, including translocation, but Defence has ruled this out as being too expensive. A number of suitable properties in NSW were proposed. The ACT Government chose instead to order the killing of the kangaroos. Kangaroos are Australia’s most important native species.
Photos of the cull can be viewed at www.kangaroolives.comand a video news report can be viewed here.
Although many animals have been killed, there is still a petition to sign. There are many signatures but more may help, even after the fact.
According to the writer at www.canberraroos.com/p8.html, there was a promise "that there would be an official count of kangaroo numbers at the BNTS site before any animal was harmed," but that this did not happen.
Some unofficial observers think that the full ‘quota’ may not have been met and wonder if the total number or roos in the Belconnen area had been exaggerated, since there don’t seem to be many left. IF the numbers were exaggerated then this would COMPLETELY undermine the rationale for killing them. It would show severely inaccurate counting, destroy the argument of overcrowding based on estimated numbers, and bolster the argument that these animals could not be overcrowded since they were in beautiful condition and appeared relaxed and comfortable.
www.canberraroos.com write: “Forget the attempts by Jon Stanhope, Maxine Cooper and their heavily funded experts to convince you this is the only humane option. Forget the words they use like ‘culling’ and ‘euthanasia’, these are only an attempt to trick the public into thinking that this whole operation is ‘humane’. These kangaroos will be herded into a pen and slaughtered, then tossed into a pit and buried.”
“Australia: a culture of violence toward its native animals.” (written by Ray Drew and published with photographs.) “The government has claimed that moving the animals is too expensive. It has also claimed (reasons vary from month to month) they overcrowd the site, that they are endangering vulnerable species, or they are starving and they must be killed for ‘humane’ reasons! The protesters say all these accusations are false, and the real reason is that the animals must be got rid of to make way for urban development. It is a fact that the local government intends to build housing on the grasslands outside the base fence, and probably inside as well when they take possession of the base within 18 months. No mention has been made of danger to rare species in the grasslands that extend outside the base fence. Do vulnerable species cease to exist a metre from the boundary wire? Astoundingly, the government allows cattle to graze there. The truth is that the ACT government has a policy of never translocating kangaroos ― killing is its traditional solution to animals that get in the way of development or sheep or cattle farmers. Within Australia, kangaroo lives are almost valueless, other than as a source of meat or hide. Comparatively few Australians admire their beauty and sensitivity - those that do love them do so with great passion. Otherwise, the gentle animals appear to arouse an unreasoning hatred among sectors of the population. Whenever the government announces a ‘cull’ (kill) thousands do NOT flock to protest the slaughter. In contrast, visitors to the country adore them and cannot understand the mass slaughter, which amounts to 3.6 million or more a year. That amounts to 10,000 killed every night.”
If you are disgusted by the way these animals are being treated, please contact those below to make your feelings known. Australia is not a real democracy, but we might get it back if we all react strongly enough and keep exposing this kind of behaviour.
See also: Australian Political Hypocrites Order "Final Solution" on Kangaroos on 20 May 08 by Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Kangaroo cull: necessary evil and the greater good of 27 May 08 by Adam Henry on Online Opinion with comments.
The Hon Kevin Rudd
Tel: 6277 7700
Fax: 6273 4100
Queensland numbers (His office is at Morningside):
Tel: 07 3899 4031
Fax: 07 3899 5755
The Hon Joel Fitzgibbon
Tel: 02 6277 7800
Fax: 6273 4118
The Hon Peter Garrett
Tel: 02 6277 7640
Fax: 02 6273 6101
The Hon Julia Gillard – as Minister for Education – what message are we giving our children about values and ethics?
Tel: 02 6277 7320
Fax: 02 6273 4115
The Hon Dr Michael Kelly AM - Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support
Tel: 02 6277 4840
Fax: 02 6277 8556
Jon Stanhope Chief Minister ACT
Tel: 02 6205 0104
Fax: 02 6205 0433
RSPCA ACT
Cruelty complaints: 1(300)477722
Injured wildlife 02 6287 8113
Fax: 02 6288 3184
Sources: The material above was based on information exchanged between activists, but most was adapted or taken directly from:
Brett Clifton’s petition preamble at www.canberraroos.com
and Ray Drew’s work at www.kangaroolives.com
The photographs were by Ray Drew. The video was from www.canberraroos.com.
This doesn't mean the same thing in France as it would in the US or Australia. France has no major dependency on the housing market. It is not an economy geared to growth in population and rapid turnover. Land speculation is severely taxed and so are inheritances outside direct family. In Paris there are unclaimed buildings because those who would inherit them do not want to pay accumulated taxes. This is a far better system than the one that the Anglophone countries share versions of.
Nonetheless, the news is that sales are down by 27.9% this year and that lots of new investors are unable to find renters. Prices are predicted to decline another 4% this year and then another 6% next year.
The first time there was a housing bubble in France was between about 1989 and 1999. Something like 12,000 realtors went out of business when it crashed.
Graph: "Index of price of dwelling in ratio to disposable Income, using 1965 francs."
Source: L'Observateur de l'Immobilier, No. 43, paris, 1999. The original data source is "Marché immobilier des notaires" (Notaries' property market) and INSEE Annuaire statistique de la France, ed. 2001
This graph was photocopied in black and white so the colour distinctions have disappeared. The top line, indicating higher prices, is always for Paris. The second line is for other French urban centres, and the lowest line, "Province" is for Other Areas, including non-urban.
The graph shows the ratio of disposable income to domestic property prices per square meter from 1979 to the year 2000. Affordability was highest in 1981. Between 1987 and 1996, however, France, mainly Paris, was affected by the same period of global property speculation that affected Australia.
In 2001 I wrote the following in Chapter 8 of my thesis (The Growth Lobby and its Absence) under the heading, "Dwelling Prices and Affordability in France":
"This was the first time France had undergone such a phenomenon [as a housing bubble]. In contrast to Australia, however, the prices returned to the level preceding the speculation bubble. We can observe here that dwelling prices in France, according to this measure of affordability, have risen and fallen quite steeply, but there appears to have been an overall stability, since 1965, when they stopped rising in real terms."
I am not surprised to see that, even though a second bubble followed quickly on the first, prices have come right down again.
Because professional property development speculators do not have much control over the French market, it is actually possible for ordinary citizens to simply hold off buying until prices fall. In contrast, in the US, Canada, Australia, England, where property moguls and their upstream and downstream dependents lobby successfully for high immigration, it doesn't matter if locals stop buying, because the governments will bring in more people. This is totally inimical for civil order and our governments should be covered in shame and thrown out for promoting this horror. Unfortunately, as we often mention on candobetter.org the media control information in the anglophone countries and they also control the global real-estate market to a large extent and they control perception of government and, I fear, government perception. So it is really hard for the public (a) to realise what is happening (b) to organise against it.
In France, although it is possible for foreigners to purchase property, they only obtain work permits if they are Europeans, except in very rare circumstances. So there is not much point in zillions of people jumping in planes and coming over to buy cheap houses and live in France. They would not survive.
Of EU countries, the United Kingdom has terribly costly housing and the English do tend to come and buy cheaper land and housing in France and other EU countries, driving the prices up there. So do some other countries with higher housing prices, such as the Dutch. However these migrants cannot have nearly the same impact as they have, for instance, in Australia. Foreign property buyers find that they also cannot leave their properties to anyone except their children unless they are prepared to be very heavily taxed, so spouses cannot gold-dig so successfully. And, after your first house, you have to wait years to purchase another if you want to avoid the speculative taxes.
Sheila Newman
"Jeunes agriculteurs" (Young Farmers) are demanding tax free petrol for agriculture and for the government to control distribution of petroleum in France.
Other Jeunes agriculteurs blockaded the petroleum depot in Frontignan, France, where about 100 farmers engaged with 50 riot police (la Compagnie républicaine de sécurité, CRS). One member of the CRS and one young farmer were injured. The blockaders had barricaded the road leading to the depot with burning tyres, palates and plastic rubbish. The farmers came from all over the Languedoc-Roussillon region and were responding to calls from the Regional Centre of Young Farmers (Centre regional des jeunes agriculteurs - CRJA)
"Fishermen, farmers, it's the same battle", said Xavier Fabre, Vice-President of the Launguedoc-Roussillon region of the CRJA. "We also use gasoline. One year ago we were paying 40 to 50 centimes a litre and today we pay one euro the litre. [That's about $2.00 Australian or US] It is costing us 50 euros a day to run a tractor.
(Fishermen protesting oil prices continue to be active in France. On Wednesday they were giving out pamphlets in Sète, France, to educate people about their problems. And fishermen from Grau-du-Roi in Gard caused traffic jams for 11 km on the A9 freeway near Monpellier.)
In Toulouse a large group of Young Farmers successfully blocked deliveries to and from the local petroleum depot. They have said that they will continue their blockade until tomorrow and that if the government fails to accede to their demands, they will go further in their actions.
The rise in petroleum prices, for farmers, also entails the costs of fertiliser, which is made mostly from petroleum gas.
In France, to fertilise 100,000 ha the costs have risen by 15,000 euros (approx 30,000AUD/USD).
In Britanny on the road to Bordeaux, there was an operation escargot - (operation snail), i.e. a slow drive to make the point about hardship and petroleum prices, with truckies joining farmers in a convoy of slowly driving vehicles, blowing their horns.
In Bulgaria there were similar protests. In Taiwan queues formed on the roads to gas stations after the government announced that the prices were going up. Thousands of drivers queued up all night to fill their tanks.
Without the cheap fertiliser that comes from plentiful petroleum, most of the enormous gains in production made in the last 50 years, which have permitted human economies to support enormous populations, will disappear. We can see signs of this whole economic structure fraying in the food riots in poor countries, the profiteering over state-subsidised 'biofuel' production in the US (fatal for soils, which are everyone's greatest wealth), the organised protests in France, and, most arcanely, the ridiculous and pathetic arguments over minor tax relief at the bowser in Australia. Question to all: Does Australia have even stupider politicians than the USA?
Sheila Newman
Sources: France2 Infos, 20hs, 28-5-08 and Romandie News, "Dépôt pétrolier de Frontignan: les CRS délogent agriculteurs et pêcheurs"
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