Sometimes one just has to scratch one’s head and wonder about life!
I can’t recall when and where I first heard the muse as to why Planet Earth has not been visited by aliens, but I recall the answer: “Because alien passers-by have not found any signs of intelligent life!”
The reason that this comes to mind is that the damage that we are doing to our planet, nay to life on our planet, if we don’t embrace the reality of climate change is truly ‘gob-smacking’!
The evidence for this statement is over-powering. Just last Friday, I republished a recent essay from Tom Engelhardt under the title of ‘The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing.” Tom’s essay focused on the lack of any change that came out of the recent Presidential election. That essay closed, thus:
But stop waiting for change, “big” or otherwise, to come from Washington. It won’t. Don’t misunderstand me: as the residents of the Midwestern drought zone and the Jersey shore now know all too well, change is coming, like it or not. If, however, you want this country to be something other than its instigator and its victim, if you want the U.S. to engage a world of danger (and also of opportunity), you’d better call yourself and your friends and neighbors to the colors. Don’t wait for a Washington focused on its own well-being in 2014 or 2016. Mobilize yourself. It’s time to occupy this country before it’s blown away in a storm.
An inciteful comment from reader Jules was this:
“Don’t count on anyone doing the obvious: launching the sort of Apollo-style R&D program that once got us to the moon and might speed the U.S. and the planet toward an alternative energy economy, or investing real money in the sort of mitigation projects for the new weather paradigm that might prevent a coastal city like New York — or even Washington – from turning into an uninhabitable disaster zone in some not so distant future.”
A pity. Americans can do some things very well, the kind of stuff that merits some of the hyperbole of being the greatest nation, the ability to mobilise a nation and lead the world being one of them. We need heroes maybe it’s time for you lot to don that cape and be one.
Americans have such a potential for positive change – I just can’t imagine why this Nation isn’t leading the world to a more Earth-friendly environment.
The US military is one of the most important developers of new technologies leading them to a point where they can be released onto the market for public and private use. Currently the Department of Defense, led by the Navy, is attempting to reduce its dependence on oil by as much as 50% by 2020, by producing US-made biofuels.
and the author concluded:
Nicole Lederer, the co-founder of E2, despaired that, “the military often leads major economic transitions in our country. Yet right now in Washington, some shortsighted lawmakers are poised to block a potentially major transformation of our national energy supply – and also hold back the significant economic growth and job gains that would come with it.”
Russ Teal, founder of the biorefinery builder Biodico, warned that, “the military is the biggest driver of the biofuels industry right now. If Congress stops the military from doing what the military knows is best, Congress also could threaten the growth of the Made-in-America biofuels industry.”
By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com
Then more or less the same time as I read the piece above, in came the latest from 350.org, an essay by Naomi Klein.
Naomi Klein: Do The Math, The Fossil Fuel Industry Is Destroying Our Future
Naomi Klein was out in the shattered neighbourhood of Rockaway Park Queens last weekend, participating in the Occupy relief efforts there. In this interview she underscores the importance of both increasing local resilience as a response to our changing climate and addressing the fossil fuel industry’s business model directly. As 350.org’s Do The Math campaign makes clear, the fossil fuel industry’s business plan will destroy the planet. Bill McKibben reminded the “Do The Math”audience in Seattle this month that the global warming math is quite simple: we can burn 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide and stay below 2 degrees of warming. Anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. The only problem? Fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, 5Xs the safe amount. And they are planning to burn it all, unless we rise up & stop them.
So is there any hope? So easy to think not. But in terms of hope the answer is “Yes, yes and yes!” Because the decent peoples of the world are way ahead of their politicians. Take the transition movement. I used to live in the village of Harberton, just 3 miles from the town of Totnes, Devon, in the South-West of England.
126 official US initiatives 437 official initiatives worldwide 33 US states 34 countries 13 languages
One of the latest has just been formed in the city where Jean and I were living until just a few weeks ago, namely Payson, Arizona. Here’s a reflection from John Hurlburt in Payson, one of a group of committed citizens who, like so many millions of others around the world, just can’t wait for governments to ‘lead’ and was one of the founding members of Transition Town Payson.
Keep it Simple
We share a living planet as a living species. Corporate finance fuels political hate and denial. The divisiveness of global and national politics reflects an unprecedented escalating global crisis. We live in a world of constant sorrow.
Our stubborn ignorance is the greatest threat to the objectives of peace and well-being. We have become so entrenched in the ‘ruts’ of our conditioned opinions that any semblance of balanced responsibility is immediately numbed by the deliberate stupidity of well-paid spin-doctors across a global electronic media.
The recovery process is truly simple. Surrender to the scientific facts of our inclusive reality, clean house, and have compassion for each other. The good news is that a basic natural instinct of all life forms is to survive through adaptation.
John Hurlburt
So, on reflection, I was wrong to open with the degree of irony in my ‘voice’ that I had. This is now a world of wonderful and amazing communication channels, many of them directly ‘person to person’. The views of the world’s peoples are now so much louder than in previous times. I am confident that right, rather than might, will prevail.
The power of humour in reflecting life back at us!
It was such fun revisiting John Bird and John Fortune back in July, see That sub-prime crisis, that I found another one for your enjoyment. On the proposal for the privatisation of British Air Traffic Control. Goes back to 1996, I think, but clearly from Rory Bremner: Who else!
Hopefully, you were able to watch the Amory Lovins talk in yesterday’s post? If not, then do find time to watch how Professor Lovins sets out the powerful argument that the USA could soon, relatively speaking, be energy self-sufficient.
So on top of the Lovins presentation, I wanted to draw your attention to an item on Climate Crocks last October 5th.
One of the great stories untold in the American media is the ongoing revolution in one of the world’s most advanced economies – as Germany undertakes a bold and serious transition from powering a great engine of prosperity on fossil fuels, to plentiful and inexhaustible renewable energy.
Listening to Mitt Romney double and triple down on the bogus Fox/Fossil narrative about “clean coal” and failed renewables, it might be well to consider how one of our toughest manufacturing competitors is going all-in on the high stakes renewable energy revolution of the new century.
The article is a detailed analysis of how Germany is powering ahead, pardon the pun, in the provision of non carbon-based power, as this reference illustrates,
German use of coal to generate electricity has declined steadily from 1990 to 2011, according to readily available statistics on the German electricity system. The percentage of coal-fired electricity in German electricity generation has fallen from 56.7% in 1990 to 43.5% last year–a decrease of more than 10% despite a increase in total electricity generation during the same period of about 10%. At the same time the share of renewable energy in the electricity mix has increased from 3.6% to 19.9%, mostly due to the rapid development of wind energy and biomass.
Here is one for you- http://www.solarroadways.com/intro.shtml – the idea is totally leftfield, but it fulfils certain issues such as distribution, decentralisation of power and offers a recharge network for electric cars and it has received a big chunk of government funding. It is so out there that I wonder if it could possibly be the answer but you never know.
Very quickly one finds that Solar Roadways are involved in something VERY interesting, namely,
Years ago, when the phrase “Global Warming” began gaining popularity, we started batting around the idea of replacing asphalt and concrete surfaces with solar panels that could be driven upon. We thought of the “black box” on airplanes: We didn’t know what material that black box was made of, but it seemed to be able to protect sensitive electronics from the worst of airline crashes.
Suppose we made a section of road out of this material and housed solar cells to collect energy, which could pay for the cost of the panel, thereby creating a road that would pay for itself over time. What if we added LEDs to “paint” the road lines from beneath, lighting up the road for safer night time driving? What if we added a heating element in the surface (like the defrosting wire in the rear window of our cars) to prevent snow/ice accumulation in northern climates? The ideas and possibilities just continued to roll in and the Solar Roadway project was born.
Now watch this!
and then watch this, as nearly 1.5 million others have!
The Solar Roadways project is working to pave roads with solar panels that you can drive on. Co-founder Scott Brusaw has made some major steps forward since our first visit back in 2007, so we visited him again for an exclusive update on the project, including the first ever video recorded of the Solar Roadways prototype! For more information visit http://www.solarroadways.com . This Solar Roadway project is highlighted as one of many planet-friendly solutions in the feature film by YERT – Your Environmental Road Trip. To learn more about YERT, visit http://yert.com .
Mark Twain quotation after hearing that his obituary had been published in the New York Journal.
Mistaken publications of obituaries aren’t as rare as you might expect. A recent example is of Dave Swarbrick, the British folk/rock violinist, who was killed off mistakenly by the Daily Telegraph in April 1999 when they reported that his visit to hospital in Coventry had resulted in his death. He did at least get the opportunity to read a rather favourable account of his life, not something we all get to do, and to deliver the gag “It’s not the first time I have died in Coventry”.
So why have I opened with this quote from Mark Twain? Read on and I hope all will be clear.
Integrity is always about getting to the truth!
A little under a week ago I published a couple of posts that proposed that the United States of America is an empire in decline. The first was What goes up? and the second Might just come down! As a Brit I well know that aspect of British history!
However a recent conversation with a friend of many years back in England, who has also been a shrewd and wise entrepreneur for longer than I care to remember, argued that the evidence for the ‘end of the USA’ could be challenged.
He cited five reasons why he thought the USA would remain, more or less, in its dominant position. They were:
Spirit of innovation
Relaxed labour laws
The importance of Mexico
The uncertainty of China in terms of the next ’empire’
The likely energy self-sufficiency for the USA in the near-term.
So let me expand on each of those points.
Spirit of innovation
Let me quote from an article in TIME Magazine of the 5th June, 2011,
Innovation is as American as apple pie. It seems to accord with so many elements of our national character — ingenuity, freedom, flexibility, the willingness to question conventional wisdom and defy authority. But politicians are pinning their hopes on innovation for more urgent reasons. America’s future growth will have to come from new industries that create new products and processes. Older industries are under tremendous pressure. Technological change is making factories and offices far more efficient. The rise of low-wage manufacturing in China and low-wage services in India is moving jobs overseas. The only durable strength we have — the only one that can withstand these gale winds — is innovation.
Now there are plenty to argue both ways in terms of the future innovation potential for the USA, as a recent article in The Atlantic does, see American Innovation: It’s the Best of Times and the Worst of Times. But the spirit of innovation will be a powerful economic potential for the USA for many years to come.
Relaxed labour laws.
Definitely an area that I have little knowledge of except for the subjective notion that compared to many other nations, the laws in the USA are much less of a restraint on economic productivity than elsewhere.
The importance of Mexico.
Importance in the context of providing the USA with a source of cheaper manufacturing facilities. My English friend thought that this was a significant competitive advantage for the USA. Now, as it happens, we had a couple staying with us over the week-end of the 6th/7th October. The husband is a senior manager of Horst Engineering, an American firm based in Guaymas, Sonora County, Mexico. Here’s a picture from their website,
We are a contract manufacturer of precision machined components and assemblies for aerospace, medical, and other high technology industries. Our core processes include Swiss screw machining, turning, milling, thread rolling, centerless grinding, and assembly. Our extensive supply chain offers our customers a full service logistics solution for managing their precision product requirements. We are ISO9001:2008 and AS9100 registered and proud of our 66 year, three-generation legacy of quality and performance.
I was told that many American and British firms were using Mexico rather than China for a number of reasons. Not least because Chinese suppliers require full payment before shipment. Plus that taking into account that financial aspect together with shipping costs and other logistical issues, China wasn’t as ‘cheap’ over all. Here’s a recent announcement from Rolls Royce,
Rolls-Royce plans new Sonora hub
The burgeoning aerospace industry in Guaymas had its efforts validated recently when the venerable Rolls-Royce chose it as the site for its newest global purchasing office.
Surrounded by several of its aerospace manufacturing suppliers, London-based Rolls-Royce will move into a Guaymas industrial park owned by Tucson-based The Offshore Group to develop a supply hub for commercial jets and military aircraft around the globe.
“Rolls-Royce has very robust booking orders for the next 10 years,” said Joel Reuter, director of communications for Rolls-Royce in North America. “We need to double our production.”
Because a number of Rolls-Royce suppliers already operate in Guaymas, the city was a logical choice, Reuter said.
The uncertainty of China in terms of the next ’empire’
The point made in terms of China taking over ’empire’ status from the USA, as Simon Johnson argues over at Baseline Scenario, is countered by the fact that politically China is an unknown quantity. Until China endorses some form of democratic process, that unknowingness is not going to disappear.
The likely energy self-sufficiency for the USA in the near-term.
I can’t do better than to ask you to watch this video! Just 27-minutes long, it is a very interesting review of the energy future of the USA.
As the TED website suggests in terms of why you should listen to Amory Lovins,
Amory Lovins was worried (and writing) about energy long before global warming was making the front — or even back — page of newspapers. Since studying at Harvard and Oxford in the 1960s, he’s written dozens of books, and initiated ambitious projects — cofounding the influential, environment-focused Rocky Mountain Institute; prototyping the ultra-efficient Hypercar — to focus the world’s attention on alternative approaches to energy and transportation.
His critical thinking has driven people around the globe — from world leaders to the average Joe — to think differently about energy and its role in some of our biggest problems: climate change, oil dependency, national security, economic health, and depletion of natural resources.
So, don’t know about you, but I found those five points deeply convincing. How about you? Are the reports of the death of the USA greatly exaggerated? Do leave a comment.
I can’t recall who it was that mentioned this TED video which is a great shame as I really should pay credit to a wonderful examination of the business of being creative.
“Telling people how to be creative is easy – being creative is difficult.” John Marwood Cleese (born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, writer and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report.
In the late 1960s he became a member of Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python’s Flying Circus and the four Monty Python films: And Now for Something Completely Different, The Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life. In the mid 1970s, Cleese and his first wife, Connie Booth, co-wrote and starred in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. Later, he co-starred with Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis and former Python colleague Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures.
He also starred in Clockwise, and has appeared in many other films, including two James Bond films as Q, two Harry Potter films, and three Shrek films. With Yes Minister writer Antony Jay he co-founded Video Arts, a production company making entertaining training films. It was founded in 1972 by John Cleese, Sir Antony Jay, and a group of other television professionals. The videos feature well known British actors, and humorously explain business concepts. Productions include Meetings, Bloody Meetings and More Bloody Meetings, and have featured Cleese, Dawn French, Prunella Scales, Hugh Laurie, and Robert Hardy.
In December 1977, Cleese appeared as a guest star on The Muppet Show. Cleese was a fan of the show, and co-wrote much of the episode. He appears in a “Pigs in Space” segment as a pirate trying to hijack the spaceship Swinetrek, and also helps Gonzo restore his arms to “normal” size after Gonzo’s cannonball catching act goes wrong. During the show’s closing number, Cleese refuses to sing the famous show tune from Man of La Mancha, “The Impossible Dream”. Kermit the Frog apologises and the curtain re-opens with Cleese now costumed as a Viking trying some Wagnerian opera as part of a duet with Sweetums. Once again, Cleese protests to Kermit, and gives the frog one more chance. This time, he is costumed as a Mexican maraca soloist. He has finally had enough and protests that he is leaving the show, saying “You were supposed to be my host. How can you do this to me? Kermit — I am your guest!”. The cast joins in with their parody of “The Impossible Dream”, singing “This is your guest, to follow that star…”. During the crowd’s applause that follows the song, he pretends to strangle Kermit until he realises the crowd loves him and accepts the accolades. During the show’s finale, as Kermit thanks him, he shows up with a fictional album, his own new vocal record John Cleese: A Man & His Music, and encourages everyone to buy a copy. This would not be Cleese’s final appearance with the Muppets. In their 1981 film The Great Muppet Caper, Cleese does a cameo appearance as Neville, a local homeowner. As part of the appearance, Miss Piggy borrows his house as a way to impress Kermit the Frog. Cleese won the TV Times award for Funniest Man On TV — 1978-79.
Many people think you are either born with creativity or you aren’t. But John Cleese explains how to become creative and in the video, he talks about such thing as the unconscious mind.
Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder. Arnold J Toynbee
I’m not sure where to start but as a result of finishing a particular book, plus a recent essay on Tom Dispatch, then another recent essay from Simon Johnson of Baseline Scenario fame, there were so many thoughts bumping around this aged brain that I had no alternative than to offer them to you, dear reader. You should also be warned that this is going to be two posts, covering today and tomorrow.
So let’s start with the book: The United States of Fear by Tom Engelhardt. To be brutally honest, I purchased the book more as a gesture of support to Tom who has been very supportive of Learning from Dogs, in particular allowing me permission to reproduce any essays that were published on TomDispatch, as a number have so been. What an error of judgment! Tom’s book provided another one of those rare but inspirational occasions where you know the world will never look quite the same again!
The back cover page of the book sets out the theme, thus,
Published 2011
In 2008, when the US National Intelligence Council issued its latest report meant for the administration of newly elected President Barack Obama, it predicted that the planet’s “sole superpower” would suffer a modest decline and a soft landing fifteen years hence. In his new book The United States of Fear, Tom Engelhardt makes clear that Americans should don their crash helmets and buckle their seat belts, because the United States is on the path to a major decline at a startling speed. Engelhardt offers a savage anatomy of how successive administrations in Washington took the “Soviet path”—pouring American treasure into the military, war, and national security—and so helped drive their country off the nearest cliff.This is the startling tale of how fear was profitably shot into the national bloodstream, how the country—gripped by terror fantasies—was locked down, and how a brain-dead Washington elite fiddled (and profited) while America quietly burned.
Think of it as the story of how the Cold War really ended, with the triumphalist “sole superpower” of 1991 heading slowly for the same exit through which the Soviet Union left the stage twenty years earlier.
One of the fascinating aspects of the book is that it was put together from 32 essays previously published online by Tom; the complete list with titles and dates is on pps. 205 & 206. So giving you a real feel for the book is easy! I’m going to do that by linking to one of those essays available in the archives of TomDispatch here. That essay was called Washington’s Echo Chamber and appears in the book starting on page 170 under the sub-heading of Five Ways to Be Tone Deaf in Washington. Let me quote you a little,
So much of what Washington did imagine in these last years proved laughable, even before this moment swept it away. Just take any old phrase from the Bush years. How about “You’re either with us or against us”? What’s striking is how little it means today. Looking back on Washington’s desperately mistaken assumptions about how our globe works, this might seem like the perfect moment to show some humility in the face of what nobody could have predicted.
It would seem like a good moment for Washington — which, since September 12, 2001, has been remarkably clueless about real developments on this planet and repeatedly miscalculated the nature of global power — to step back and recalibrate.
As it happens, there’s no evidence it’s doing so. In fact, that may be beyond Washington’s present capabilities, no matter how many billions of dollars it pours into “intelligence.” And by “Washington,” I mean not just the Obama administration, or the Pentagon, or our military commanders, or the vast intelligence bureaucracy, but all those pundits and think-tankers who swarm the capital, and the media that reports on them all. It’s as if the cast of characters that makes up “Washington” now lives in some kind of echo chamber in which it can only hear itself talking.
As a result, Washington still seems remarkably determined to play out the string on an era that is all too swiftly passing into the history books. While many have noticed the Obama administration’s hapless struggle to catch up to events in the Middle East, even as it clings to a familiar coterie of grim autocrats and oil sheiks, let me illustrate this point in another area entirely — the largely forgotten war in Afghanistan. After all, hardly noticed, buried beneath 24/7 news from Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, and elsewhere in the Middle East, that war continues on its destructive, costly course with nary a blink.
That was published by Tom a little over 18 months ago! Seems as relevant today as then! Let me stay with perspectives from 2011.
Chomsky, visiting Vancouver, Canada in March 2004
On the 24th August 2011 Noam Chomsky wrote an essay entitled American Decline: Causes and Consequences. Chomsky, as Wikipedia relates, is Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Here is how that essay opens,
In the 2011 summer issue of the journal of the American Academy of Political Science, we read that it is “a common theme” that the United States, which “only a few years ago was hailed to stride the world as a colossus with unparalleled power and unmatched appeal — is in decline, ominously facing the prospect of its final decay.” It is indeed a common theme, widely believed, and with some reason. But an appraisal of US foreign policy and influence abroad and the strength of its domestic economy and political institutions at home suggests that a number of qualifications are in order. To begin with, the decline has in fact been proceeding since the high point of US power shortly after World War II, and the remarkable rhetoric of the several years of triumphalism in the 1990s was mostly self-delusion. Furthermore, the commonly drawn corollary — that power will shift to China and India — is highly dubious. They are poor countries with severe internal problems. The world is surely becoming more diverse, but despite America’s decline, in the foreseeable future there is no competitor for global hegemonic power.
So, according to Chomsky, it’s not as ‘black and white’ as Engelhardt sets out. But do read the full essay.
Nevertheless, the idea that the USA is ‘fiddling while Rome burns’ is supported in an essay published by Mattea Kramer on TomDispatch on the last day of September. I’m going to end Part One by republishing the essay in full. (Note that this is being published here after the first ‘debate’ had taken place.)
oooOOOooo
Tough Talk for America
A Guide to the Presidential Debates You Won’t Hear
By Mattea Kramer
Five big things will decide what this country looks like next year and in the 20 years to follow, but here’s a guarantee for you: you’re not going to hear about them in the upcoming presidential debates. Yes, there will be questions and answers focused on deficits, taxes, Medicare, the Pentagon, and education, to which you already more or less know the responses each candidate will offer. What you won’t get from either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama is a little genuine tough talk about the actual state of reality in these United States of ours. And yet, on those five subjects, a little reality would go a long way, while too little reality (as in the debates to come) is a surefire recipe for American decline.
So here’s a brief guide to what you won’t hear this Wednesday or in the other presidential and vice-presidential debates later in the month. Think of these as five hard truths that will determine the future of this country.
1. Immediate deficit reduction will wipe out any hope of economic recovery: These days, it’s fashionable for any candidate to talk about how quickly he’ll reduce the federal budget deficit, which will total around $1.2 trillion in fiscal 2012. And you’re going to hear talk about the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan and more like it on Wednesday. But the hard truth of the matter is that deep deficit reduction anytime soon will be a genuine disaster. Think of it this way: If you woke up tomorrow and learned that Washington had solved the deficit crisis and you’d lost your job, would you celebrate? Of course not. And yet, any move to immediately reduce the deficit does increase the likelihood that you will lose your job.
When the government cuts spending, it lays off workers and cancels orders for all sorts of goods and services that would generate income for companies in the private sector. Those companies, in turn, lay off workers, and the negative effects ripple through the economy. This isn’t atomic science. It’s pretty basic stuff, even if it’s evidently not suitable material for a presidential debate. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service predicted in a September report, for example, that any significant spending cuts in the near-term would contribute to an economic contraction. In other words, slashing deficits right now will send us ever deeper into the Great Recession from which, at best, we’ve scarcely emerged.
Champions of immediate deficit reduction are likely to point out that unsustainable deficits aren’t good for the economy. And that’s true — in the long run. Washington must indeed plan for smaller deficits in the future. That will, however, be a lot easier to accomplish when the economy is healthier, since government spending declines when fewer people qualify for assistance, and tax revenues expand when the jobless go back to work. So it makes sense to fix the economy first. The necessity for near-term recovery spending paired with long-term deficit reduction gets drowned out when candidates pack punchy slogans into flashes of primetime TV.
2. Taxes are at their lowest point in more than half a century, preventing investment in and the maintenance of America’s most basic resources: Hard to believe? It’s nonetheless a fact. By now, it’s a tradition for candidates to compete on just how much further they’d lower taxes and whether they’ll lower them for everyone or just everyone but the richest of the rich. That’s a super debate to listen to, if you’re into fairy tales. It’s not as thrilling if you consider that Americans now enjoy the lightest tax burden in more than five decades, and it happens to come with a hefty price tag on an item labeled “the future.” There is no way the U.S. can maintain a world-class infrastructure — we’re talking levees, highways, bridges, you name it — and a public education system that used to be the envy of the world, plus many other key domestic priorities, on the taxes we’re now paying.
Anti-tax advocates insist that we should cut taxes even more to boost a flagging economy — an argument that hits the news cycle nearly every hour and that will shape the coming TV “debate.” As the New York Times recently noted, however, tax cuts might have been effective in giving the economy a lift decades ago when tax rates were above 70%. (And no, that’s not a typo, that’s what your parents and grandparents paid without much grumbling.) With effective tax rates around 14% for Mitt Romney and many others, further cuts won’t hasten job creation, just the hollowing out of public investment in everything from infrastructure to education. Right now, the negative effects of tax increases on the most well-off would be small — read: not a disaster for “job creators” — and those higher rates would bring in desperately-needed revenue. Tax increases for middle-class Americans should arrive when the economy is stronger.
Right now, the situation is clear: we’re simply not paying enough to fund the basic ingredients of prosperity from highways and higher education to medical research and food safety. Without those funds, this country’s future won’t be pretty.
3. Neither the status quo nor a voucher system will protect Medicare (or any other kind of health care) in the long run: When it comes to Medicare, Mitt Romney has proposed a premium-support program that would allow seniors the option of buying private insurance. President Obama wants to keep Medicare more or less as it is for retirees. Meanwhile, the ceaseless rise in health-care costs is eating up the wages of regular Americans and the federal budget. Health care now accounts for a staggering 24% of all federal spending, up from 7% less than 40 years ago. Governor Romney’s plan would shift more of those costs onto retirees, according to David Cutler, a health economist at Harvard, while President Obama says the federal government will continue to pick up the tab. Neither of them addresses the underlying problem.
Here’s reality: Medicare could be significantly protected by cutting out waste. Our health system is riddled with unnecessary tests and procedures, as well as poorly coordinated care for complex health problems. This country spent $2.6 trillion on health care in 2010, and some estimates suggest that a staggering 30% of that is wasted. Right now, our health system rewards quantity, not quality, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead of paying for each test and procedure, Medicare could pay for performance and give medical professionals a strong incentive to provide more efficient and coordinated care. President Obama’s health law actually pilot tests such an initiative. But that’s another taboo topic this election season, so he scarcely mentions it. Introducing such change into Medicare and the rest of our health system would save the federal government tens of billions of dollars annually. It would truly preserve Medicare for future generations, and it would improve the affordability of health coverage for everyone under 65 as well. Too bad it’s not even up for discussion.
4. The U.S. military is outrageously expensive and yet poorly tailored to the actual threats to U.S. national security: Candidates from both parties pledge to protect the Pentagon from cuts, or even, in the case of the Romney team, to increase the already staggering military budget. But in a country desperate for infrastructure, education, and other funding, funneling endless resources to the Pentagon actually weakens “national security.” Defense spending is already mind-numbingly large: if all U.S. military and security spending were its own country, it would have the 19th largest economy in the world, ahead of Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Switzerland. Whether you’re counting aircraft carriers, weapons systems, or total destructive power, it’s absurdly overmatched against the armed forces of the rest of the world, individually or in combination. A couple of years ago, then-Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates gave a speech in which he detailed that overmatch. A highlight: “The U.S. operates 11 large carriers, all nuclear powered. In terms of size and striking power, no other country has even one comparable ship.” China recently acquired one carrier that won’t be fully functional for some time, if ever — while many elected officials in this country would gladly build a twelfth.
But you’ll hear none of this in the presidential debates. Perhaps the candidates will mention that obsolete, ineffective, and wildly expensive weapons systems could be cut, but that’s a no-brainer. The problem is: it wouldn’t put a real dent in national defense spending. Currently almost one-fifth of every dollar spent by the federal government goes to the military. On average, Americans, when polled, say that they would like to see military funding cut by 18%.
Instead, most elected officials vow to pour limitless resources into more weapons systems of questionable efficacy, and of which the U.S. already owns more than the rest of the world combined. Count on one thing: military spending will not go down as long as the U.S. is building up a massive force in the Persian Gulf, sending Marines to Darwin, Australia, and special ops units to Africa and the Middle East, running drones out of the Seychelles Islands, and “pivoting” to Asia. If the U.S. global mission doesn’t downsize, neither will the Pentagon budget — and that’s a hit on America’s future that no debate will take up this month.
5. The U.S. education system is what made this country prosperous in the twentieth century — but no longer: Perhaps no issue is more urgent than this, yet for all the talk of teacher’s unions and testing, real education programs, ideas that will matter, are nonexistent this election season. During the last century, the best education system in the world allowed this country to grow briskly and lift standards of living. Now, from kindergarten to college, public education is chronically underfunded. Scarcely 2% of the federal budget goes to education, and dwindling public investment means students pay higher tuitions and fall ever deeper into debt. Total student debt surpassed $1 trillion this year and it’s growing by the month, with the average debt burden for a college graduate over $24,000. That will leave many of those graduates on a treadmill of loan repayment for most or all of their adult lives.
Renewed public investment in education — from pre-kindergarten to university — would pay handsome dividends for generations. But you aren’t going to hear either candidate or their vice-presidential running mates proposing the equivalent of a GI Bill for the rest of us or even significant new investment in education. And yet that’s a recipe for and a guarantee of American decline.
Ironically, those in Washington arguing for urgent deficit reduction claim that we’ve got to do it “for the kids,” that we must stop saddling our grandchildren with mountains of federal debt. But if your child turns 18 and finds her government running a balanced budget in an America that’s hollowed out, an America where she has no chance of paying for a college education, will she celebrate? You don’t need an economist to answer that one.
“Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.” Longfellow.
Longfellow, the only American writer honored in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey.
Longfellow has been dead for 130 years, as of last March, but of his many wonderful words that have stayed with us over the last century and more, these must be some of the more familiar. (Or am I showing my appalling lack of literary knowledge?)
Following on from yesterday’s post about the scary mathematics of climate change, this really is the ONE thing that we have to learn from dogs; from nature. If we don’t live in harmony with our planet pretty damn soon, then this particular civilisation is not far from extinction. Let me remind you of a key paragraph from yesterday,
It’s simple math: we can burn 565 more gigatons of carbon and stay below 2°C of warming — anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. The only problem? Fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five times the safe amount. And they’re planning to burn it all — unless we rise up to stop them.
Ergo, we do not have endless time available to us!
Otherwise the footprints left on those sands of time will be nothing more than the next civilisation pondering from time to time why those Atlantacists that sunk beneath the waves were unable to do anything to save their world!
If you think I’m being a tad excitable, then see what Rob Hopkins wrote recently over at Transition Culture.
New Economics Foundation’s ’100 Months’ campaign today reaches its midway point. It was launched in August 2008 based on the understanding that the time that remains to us to avoid the likelihood of runaway climate change is limited, and based on the science at the time, there was a closing window of opportunity to do something meaningful about it.
Then adding,
“The question here is “what should we do differently?” The answer is “pretty much just about everything”. Nationally and internationally, while the scale and pace of climate change are accelerating, meaningful responses are dwindling. Part of our collective paralysis comes from the fact that we struggle to imagine a world with less energy, less consumerism, less annual GDP growth. What will it look like, sound like, feel like? Does it inevitably mean that you should start seeking out your cave on Dartmoor [Devon in South-West England, PH] as we speak, and developing a taste for slugs? Of course not.
Shortly before the 100 Months campaign began, I was part of initiating an experiment to see what a self-organised response to climate change might look like, one based on rebuilding community, on the belief that what is needed is people, everywhere, making their communities happier, healthier, lower-carbon, and more resilient, in a huge variety of ways.
Rob Hopkins was also asked to write a piece for the UK’s Guardian Newspaper in recognition that we are half-way through that 100-month campaign. Here’s how Rob concluded that piece,
Transition Bath set up an energy company which has raised £250,000 in shares from local people. Transition town Totnes’ Transition Streets programme has enabled almost 700 local householders to reduce their carbon emissions while rediscovering a sense of community on their streets. Bristol soon sees the launch of the Bristol Pound, the UK’s first citywide transition complementary currency. Transition Brixton’s Brixton Energy is installing community-owned renewables supported by local people. Check out transitionnetwork.org to get a sense of the amazing projects under way.
At its core, this is about the belief that our best way forward is for communities to build local resilience in order to be able to better face the shocks of the present and the uncertainties of the future, from economic crisis to climate change, seeing increased community resilience as economic development. It’s a process of plugging the leaks in our local economies, seeing every leak as a potential new business, new livelihood, new apprenticeship opportunity.
Of course we need government responses, and international responses, but all of those will struggle without a vibrant bottom-up movement of ordinary people showing what’s possible and how thrilled they are by those possibilities. So although the answer is “pretty much just about everything”, I would argue that seeing this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for entrepreneurship, vision and action is where our successful navigation of the next 50 months lies.
The origins of this saying seem to have disappeared in the mists of time but it’s a rare person that doesn’t write a list from time to time. But when it comes to critical processes, having a list, or better known as a ‘checklist’ is essential to completing the process correctly.
With that in mind, then let me introduce you to a story recently sent to me by old friend Dan Gomez.
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I’ve always done it this way!
This is an example of what happens when we do not pay attention to detail, and do not follow instructions and checklists!
A KC-135 Aircraft was being pressurized at ground level. The outflow valves which are used to regulate the pressure of the aircraft were capped off during a 5-year overhaul and never re-opened. The post-investigation revealed that a civilian depot technician who “had always done it that way” was using a homemade gauge, and no procedure.
Apparently, the technician’s gauge didn’t even have a max “peg” for the needle, so it was no surprise he missed it when the needle went around the gauge the first time.
As the technician continued to pressurize the aircraft with the needle on its second trip around the gauge there was a “boom”. One KC-135 went bang! Indeed, the rear hatch was blown over 70 yards away, through a blast fence!
An incident like this is never funny and is further regrettable when we consider that this mistake is one that we taxpayers will end up paying for. Fortunately, no one was reported as being injured.
This was a good “Lessons Learned” for making sure we have trained people, with the correct tools, and who are following detailed procedures. It should serve as a reminder that just because you’ve always done it that way, it does not make it the “right” way!
A lifting of the importance of integrity is the key to our survival.
Let me start by reflecting on the difference between ‘truth’ and ‘integrity’.
Here’s one of the definitions of Truth: conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement.
Here’s one of the definitions of Integrity: adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.
So while in yesterday’s article, I frequently referred to the word ‘truth‘, determining the ‘fact or reality‘ of a wide range of issues associated with anthropogenic climate change is not always straightforward. Many of us probably have a strong intuition of the ’cause and effect’ of man’s footprint on this planet but a strong intuition is not the same as truth.
Then let’s turn to the notion of integrity. This is a much bigger issue, to my mind, the appalling lack of integrity! Illustrated by one simple example. How many leading politicians from any number of countries have demonstrated soundness of moral character; honesty with regard to the changing climate, even offering something as simple as “I don’t know!”
There’s a saying that pilots use, “If there’s any doubt, there’s no doubt!” Come on, politicians and leaders, at the very least there is doubt!
OK, let me move on!
If integrity is partly defined as honesty, then while it’s easy to take a pot-shot at the world’s politicians maybe we need to look closer at home; ourselves. Are we as honest with our own self as we now need to be?
Here’s an example that supports that question.
A few days ago there was a report on the website The Daily Impact about the crash of US fisheries. Let me show you how that report opens,
Report: US Fisheries Crashing
We live in a country in which every household has two TV sets, most of them receiving hundreds of channels, and two cell phones, many of them “smart.” One of every two households has a computer connected to the Internet. This country is currently in the middle of a hotly contested presidential election. And yet among the things that have almost completely escaped public attention is this: last week the US government declared fisheries disasters on four coasts.
Reflect on that paragraph. Surely it’s a reflection about the lack of integrity, of honesty, about our society?
The report ends thus,
The disaster declaration covering all these dire situations makes them eligible for Congressional aid, along with drought-stricken farmers in the Midwest and Southwest, flooded-out homeowners in New Orleans and along the Gulf, the fire-ravaged states of the far West, and the derecho-pounded Northeast. Congress will no doubt be delighted by the opportunity to help.
We eat nearly five billion pounds of seafood every year — about 16 pounds for each of us — and 85 per cent of it is imported (according to NOAA). Yet in the wake of this grim assessment of a large proportion of the domestic industry, and the questions it raises about the future sources of seafood, there is no discussion of “fisheries independence” or “peak fish” in politics or the media. Only in such outposts as this website and Mother Jones will the dire warning from the Commerce Department be reported as what it is — a dire warning.
Then there was a recent article on the Australian Permaculture news website about the US food and dairy industry. Here’s how that opened,
Americans’ right to access fresh, healthy foods of their choice is under attack. Farmageddon tells the story of small, family farms that were providing safe, healthy foods to their communities and were forced to stop, sometimes through violent action, by agents of misguided government bureaucracies, and seeks to figure out why.
Filmmaker Kristin Canty’s quest to find healthy food for her four children turned into an educational journey to discover why access to these foods was being threatened. What she found were policies that favor agribusiness and factory farms over small family-operated farms selling fresh foods to their communities. Instead of focusing on the source of food safety problems — most often the industrial food chain — policymakers and regulators implement and enforce solutions that target and often drive out of business small farms that have proven themselves more than capable of producing safe, healthy food, but buckle under the crushing weight of government regulations and excessive enforcement actions.
I’m not going to insert that YouTube video into this post but you can link to both the full article and the film here. For anyone interested in the fate of the family farm in the USA, the film is a ‘must see’! Once again, the theme of integrity, of adherence to moral and ethical principles; honesty, comes to mind!
How I do want to close this rather personal reflection on present times (some may call it an indulgent reflection!) is by including a video from this seasons TED Talks. It was brought to my attention by Christine over at her excellent blog 350 or bust. The video is about resolving conflict,
William Ury, author of “Getting to Yes,” offers an elegant, simple (but not easy) way to create agreement in even the most difficult situations — from family conflict to, perhaps, the Middle East.
The reason why this seems like a very appropriate way to close this is because the way things are going at the moment, avoiding conflict could become rather important, rather soon!
While Learning from Dogs trawls around a wide variety of topics, the theme behind the writings is, as the banner says on the home page: Dogs are integrous animals. We have much to learn from them.
Integrity, defined more or less universally as the ‘adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.‘
Please trust me that this position is taken not from the perspective of the writer, I’m struggle with ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ as much as the next guy. No, this position is the result of one very simple and stark vision: If we don’t understand pretty damn soon what we, as in mankind, are doing to our planet, both directly and indirectly, then we are living through the era of the end of civilised man; these are the last times.
The relationship between man and the dog is ancient beyond contemplation. It is widely believed by scientists who study the history of man that, at the very least, dogs assisted man in evolving from hunter-gatherers to farmers. But some scientists believe that without the support of dogs, man never would had made the transition to farming. Either way the relationship goes back more than 10,000 years.
So what on earth does that have to do with integrity? Simply that alongside millions of us, dogs offer us the examples of loyalty, faith, meditation, patience, truth in love; an example of an adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.‘ In a single word: integrity!
OK, now that I have got that off my chest, to the topic of today’s post. For some months now I have subscribed to the blog run by The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia. It has much that will be useful for Jean and me when we move to Oregon in November. But also, not infrequently, the Institute highlights deeper, more fundamental, issues.
Thus it was that a few days ago, my attention was drawn to an item with the title of We Need Your Help to End the Era of Ecocide. It was about the work of English woman, Polly Higgins. I’m ashamed to say that I had not heard of her before! A very quick search came across the website Eradicating Ecocide, from which one quickly learns that Polly,
In March 2010 international barrister and award winning author Polly Higgins proposed to the United Nations that Ecocide be made the fifth Crime Against Peace. There are currently four Crimes Against Peace: genocide, war crimes, crimes of aggression and crimes against humanity. Ecocide is the missing fifth crime – it is a crime against humanity, against current and future generations, and against all life on Earth.
Wow, that makes sense. So what is ecocide? Again, Eradicating Ecocide offers the answer,
Back to the specific topic. This is a copy of what is the latest news item on the Eradicating Ecocide website and it is reproduced in full. I’ve included the Editor’s introduction from the Permaculture News website, as I couldn’t say it any better.
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We need your help to end this era of Ecocide
Editor’s Note: We’ve covered a little of Polly Higgin’s important work before (see here and here). If you’re not already familiar with Polly’s work, I would strongly encourage you to check out the web pages and videos linked to below, as well as our aforementioned pieces. Permaculturists dream of whole earth restoration, but our efforts, whilst essential, are, if I may, largely piecemeal. The reason for this is that for every positive step someone makes, an industry or government does, or allows, something significantly more destructive to take place that more than overshadows it. We will never break out of this destructive cycle unless we make environmental destruction illegal, and hold the people responsible accountable. As you are able, please support Polly’s work. If you cannot donate, please at least do what you can to share and circulate this page.
Polly Higgins
I have something I would like to share with you. Today myself and my team have reached zero. The pot is now bare and our funding resources are in urgent need of replenishing. In the past year your donations of over £200,000 funded my and my team’s work; we planted some incredible seeds in the run up to the Rio Earth Summit. Out of that we have had some wonderful successes; in the past year alone we have held a mock Ecocide Trial in the UK Supreme Court, the University of London launched their Ecocide Project, I have travelled to countries and spoken on many platforms, I launched my second book Earth is our Business, I have been awarded Overall Champion by the PEA awards, I have started a training programme for others to learn how to become a Voice for the Earth and I have submitted a concept paper, Closing the door to dangerous industrial activity to all government’s around the world. All this has been done with the help of your money and without it none of this would have been at all possible.
Yesterday we held an emergency meeting; despite the enormous efforts of our fundraiser over the past few months we have been unable to raise more than a few thousand pounds. We are looking squarely at the future and we see enormous opportunity to take forward all that I have already achieved; just think how close we are to making this law a reality.
Everything we do is governed by permaculture ethics; people care, earth care and fair share. Ecocides occur when we take far more than our fair share, which affects both our people and our Earth. To ensure we live within our planetary limits, a law of Ecocide creates a legal framework that can ensure we all live in peaceful enjoyment.
Please help me to continue to build upon all of this good work; now more than ever people care, earth care and fair share matters. Together we can end the era of Ecocide.
With love for the Earth,
Polly
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If you read this and want to share this Post, feel free to so do. If you want to do that and more, then:
Send a cheque to us at 6 Highbury Corner, Highbury Crescent, London N5 1RD. Please write your cheque out to our charity, The Earth Community Trust.
In the US you can donate via the Iris Arts and Education Group 1856 San Antonio Ave, Berkeley, California 94707. Please write your cheque out to our charity, The Earth Community Trust.
Please become one of our funding volunteers. We are seeking a team of people to help us fundraise. This can be done in a number of ways. If you think you can help, please email our intern Nina: nina (at) eradicatingecocide.com
We are seeking a volunteer for 2 weeks full time to come into our London office: please email Louise with your CV: louise (at) eradicatingecocide.com
And don’t forget to go to the Eradicating Ecocide website to become more aware and then take action! Speaking of becoming more aware, do watch this video.
Learning from Dogs 