Writing on the Wall

Oxfam has recently put out a report to the UN High Comissioner on Human Rights, stating that Climate Change is a Justice and Human Rights issue, that needs to be dealt with within a justiciable framework.

Oxfam Press Release on their Report

I whole-heartedly agree with what they are saying, but when I read the report I am left with some questions in terms of the principles around which such a frame-work should be built.

Their report finally prompted me to get a piece I wrote a few months ago out into the public domain:

Why we need non-tradeable rights to basic goods in order to adapt to climate change.

New Orleans marked the end of the American half-century. Up till then it was possible to imagine the world run via an American-style of national and international governance. But with climate change in the news, it was suddenly clear that the American model was too flexible to deal adequately with a moderate-sized storm. How is such a model suitable for a world that faces the prospect of increasing environmental instability?

Read the rest of this entry »

The IPCC has come out with some fairly mixed messages about food security. The headline finding is that up to 3 degrees of warming, global food production will increase. Policy makers have so much else to worry about even as we approach 1.5 or 2 degrees, meaning that food security slips down the agenda.

But as I read the fourth assessment several things made me stop and think. For instance, the IPPC admits that its predictions do not take into account extreme weather events. This is very worrying: ask any farmer and they will tell you that it is not the 364 days of normal weather that scares them, but the one day of flash flooding.

Take the 2003 summer heat-wave in Europe, it reduced agricultural yields in affected countries by between 10 to 40% of the harvests for that year. This is exactly the kind of thing which is set to become much more frequent.
Read the rest of this entry »

The leaders of big oil companies should get behind the scheme of contraction and convergence, as it might be their only chance of avoiding nationalisation.
It should have been a wake up cry for big oil when UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon announced (1) that the tragedy of Darfur was caused by global warming. You would think that the horror of a country collapsing into civil war under environmental pressures would be enough. But I suspect that the really frightening thing for oil bosses is the techtonic shift in opinion that means a Secretary General will say this despite American disapproval. The world is changing,and so are the political dynamics that go with it. Indeed, on closer examination, the situation in Darfur reveals how profound these changes are.
Read the rest of this entry »

I have just been very entertained.

Allen, my new Taiwanese-Canadian web-friend asked me to go look at the film Zeitgeist (Z)

So I did the unthinkable and threw myself into a conspiracy theory film. And I have to say it was really good fun, I was thoroughly gripped and entertained throughout, and learned some very interesting things, although verifying them is entirely another matter.

So I want to do a sort of film review of this web film. It is a film that attempts a global vision, and that is distributed on a global media, and so is probably worth debating as a form of emerging global public debate.

It is interesting how constructing myths these days so often takes the form of debunking other myths. Z takes this form, part I attacking Christianity, Part II attacking the official account of 9-11, part three turning explanatory and discussing the history and power of the federal reserve and of the banking elite that are standing behind it. The synthesis is that these banking groups have been triggering wars for profit for donkey’s years, that they are happily dumbing down the American public, and that they hope to produce a world government, totalitarian in its application of accounting standards.

Read the rest of this entry »

Food is something we can no longer take for granted. The recent forth IPPC report on climate change, as well as pressure on land use from Bio-fuels, increased meat consumption and a growing freshwater crisis all point towards ongoing problems with food supply to the poor. Add to this the rising cost of oil, and the pressure on the price of oil-based inputs to agriculture, like most pesticides and fertilizers, and you can see that we need to think carefully about how to stabilize food supply, as well as protect farmers from price shocks.

One of the key issues impacting on the poor is that their right to food is being compromised by market mechanisms. The enormous purchasing power of the rich, for meat, bio-fuels as well as luxuries like sugar is being pitted against the pitiful purchasing power of the poor, who are being priced out of food markets, and thus out of existence. Thus there is a need to try and provide the poor with affordable food. One way to do this is for countries to subsidize food on a national level. But this does nothing for global justice…
Read the rest of this entry »

Keith Kahn-Harris points out that denial, the slasher flick baddie of Global warming debates, is related to the mind protecting itself from things it can’t cope with. So why not take the taboos, the worse case scenarios, and explore the positives in them? Surely that is a way to open up things a bit.

So yes, maybe it is a good thing if, over the next few hundred years, the vast majority of life on earth goes extinct. Just think, if humanity survives this crisis, and goes on to colonize other planets, what a problem that would be for those other planets,and those that live on them.

We don’t have a great track record, what with colonialism and environmental destruction, so maybe we will have saved the universe at large from a terrible fate. Besides, if you take a giant step back you can see it is all futile anyway: Lives will come and go, planets will live and die, and eventually stars, including our own, will burn out. The rest is just not worth getting too upset about, or is it?

Read the rest of this entry »

For a society that is so oriented to growth and progress, we seem remarkably immune to good news. We have a deep philosophical cynicism about such simple things as love and sympathy, even though there is evidence that these are forces with significant impact in our world. We are suspicious of ideas like happiness, even if they are central to our highest ethics, both freedom and progress. How can you be free if you are so unhappy you cannot enjoy your good fortune? How can there be progress where this becomes a general condition? Progress or Prozac?

Take the decline of violence in the world: There are fewer and smaller wars now than ever before. The depressing spectacle of embedded journalism, during the last attempt to make war work, had lying beneath it a very good piece of news. People so dislike seeing others blown to pieces, that wars must now be structured around the public not seeing this happen. The media has extended people’s senses, and with it their consciences, and this has shaped the geopolitical ‘realism’ of the most powerful players in the world.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jeremy Paxman’s is part of an old-guard in television journalism who don’t want to face up to a generational shift going in in the workings of the Fourth Estate. In his recent speech he bemoaned declining standards in TV news. He pointed out the importance of good content, and then dismissed the rise of digital technologies, clearly disliking the idea of the medium being the message.
For many, Paxman represents the best of the British critical media. The BBC’s head of News, Roger Mosey, cited him  (in an email exchange) as epitimising the BBCs role as par of a healthy critical Fourth estate. Paxman’s role as avatar of the critical media is so significant that the Guardian editorialised his speech: Comment is free: Televisions panic attack. But, however much we love Paxman, he probably represents the past rather than the future of the fourth estate, and here’s why…
Read the rest of this entry »

In response to Diane Coyle’s article on the open democracy site:

Economics, the soulful science Diane Coyle - openDemocracy
There is a history to Economics notoriety, and also to its attempted rehabilitiation since the 1980s.

The dominant form of economics globally is a particualr strand of “laissez faire” neo-liberal economics, overseen by Washington-based international institutions, set up to run the world, and marginalise the UN, during the post-war settlement.

There is a revolving door between US government particularly the treasury and staffing in these insitutions. These institutions, which are often seen as extensions of US foreign policy, have done immeasurable damage to developing countries, since their “structural adjustment policies have failed so spectacularly.

It is clear that this represents the dominant stream in economics, since the post 1980 shift in the profession coincided with these huge financial institutions finally caving in under the overwhelming evidence and criticisms mounting against their policies.

Read the rest of this entry »