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| Newsletter | November 2000 |
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We are not ones to blow our own trumpet as we feel our time, energy and resources are put to better use in campaigning and drawing attention to the issues all around us. But we are pleased to note that in our short period of existence, especially in the last few weeks, with the help of our influential readership, we have seen coverage of the issues we have raised in a wide variety of local, national, and even international forums, including recent coverage of a couple of items in The Guardian and The Ecologist.
After we completed this piece the risks imposed by Farnborough Airport were featured on BBC Radio 4 (Broadcasting House) and the environmental destruction appeared in The Guardian. Well done guys! Rushmoor officials came across as complete prats.
The risk that Farnborough Airport poses to the local community was featured in an item on risk in the BBC Radio 4 current affairs programme Broadcasting House (Sunday 29 October 2000).
The Winter 2000/1 issue of Green World is a special aviation issue with a four page feature on Farnborough Airport - 'Farnborough Airport: A disaster in-waiting'.
Green World used to be available in local libraries but local Tories took offence and had it removed. Copies can be obtained from:
Green World
49 York Road
Aldershot
Hants GU11 3JQ
01252 653144 {tel/fax}
greenworld@ntlworld.com
Some days before the fateful planning decision that gave TAG the go-ahead, leading aviation expert John Sturgeon asked to address the meeting. His request was directed to council leader John Debenham, with a copy to head of planning Keith Holland. To everyone's surprise John Sturgeon was not called to speak. John Sturgeon subsequently asked Rushmoor chief executive Andrew Lloyd for an explanation. The reply was that no request had ever been made. Either Andrew Lloyd is singularly ill-informed or he is lying. [for reports of the planning meeting and events leading up to it see BVEJ newsletters passim]
The deforestation at the western end of the runway has already started. BVFoE managed to highlight this in the local press, but bad weather meant they got a low turnout, which is unfortunate for the important issue they were raising, ie lack of adequate protection for our countryside. [Farnborough News Friday 27 October 2000, Farnborough Mail Tuesday 31 November 2000]
The Guardian (Monday 6 November 2000) had an article by Paul Brown on Farnborough Airport. The accompanying picture showed a view looking westwards down the runway, in the background could be seen the hills in the Church Crookham area that have to be lopped.
Rushmoor have drawn up a legal agreement with TAG for use of the airfield. This is so badly drawn up that it allows TAG to fly an Airbus A3XX through it let alone a coach and horses.
TAG may have got planning approval from Rushmoor but it is not all plain sailing. They are unable to go ahead with all the tree clearance they require in residential Farnborough as several landowners have said no. This will force a Public Inquiry. TAG will find a public inquiry a very different proposition to the push-over they have had with Rushmoor. It is only a public inquiry that will expose the level of maladministration that surrounds this application.
Occupation of the hills to the west of the airfield will not only hold up the environmental destruction, it will also delay TAG's plans. Any delay pushes up TAG's costs. Any delay will make it more and more difficult for the claim to be made that the work is being carried out by the MoD to facilitate military flying. TAG would then be forced to apply for planning permission.
TAG may be putting a brave face on it but behind the scenes they are growing increasingly worried. Their operation should have been up and running by now. It is not. It is not likely to be up and running for at least another two years. Delays cost money and cause loss of face. The type of luxury operation TAG have hyped is all about image.
TAG are sufficiently worried that a secret committee has been formed of all the key players including senior Rushmoor people to counter the growing clout and influence of the airfield opposition.
TAG have repeatedly said their operation is 'safe', even though crash data says otherwise (BVEJ newsletters passim). During the recent bad storms, for TAG it was business as normal. TAG saw no reason to shut their operation down. Nearby Heathrow had restricted flying, up to a dozen aircraft were held in a stack until it was safe to land, boats at Dover chose not to dock until the storm died down as not safe. Singapore Airlines were criticised for taking off in a storm in Taiwan. Once again TAG have shown a cavalier attitude to safety and contempt for the local community. TAG is where private profit comes before public safety.
The recent bad weather, heavy rainfall and extensive flooding has exposed the foolishness and greed of building on flood plains. It has also exposed TAG's lie of 20,000 houses on the site of the airfield. The airfield is only just above the water table, the area is waterlogged and prone to flooding.
Following Prescott's decision not to even bother to look at the TAG application, a decision that is bound to come back to haunt him, local householders are finding it nigh impossible to sell their houses and that prices are plummeting. A situation that can only worsen as the number of flights increases and heavier planes use Farnborough. It is open to everyone in this situation to have blight notices served to try and recover their lost value.
Plans to construct a massive housing estate on the Old Queen Elisabeth Barracks at Church Crookham have come a cropper as the estate is likely to be within the PSZ for the expanding airport.
Beyond the barracks lies Wakeford Copse (Sandy Lane/B3013). This is the remnants of ancient woodland complete with a medieval woodbank. Ancient woodland is our most valuable habitat and should be protected at all cost. It is earmarked for development (including the destruction of many ancient oaks) as part of the Queen Elisabeth Barracks estate. [Karen Forest, letters, Farnborough News, 3 November 2000]
When will Slough Estates wake up the fact that their development is within the PSZ and they are going to have difficulty leasing a death trap?
In one of his worse examples of hypocrisy since taking office, Tony Blair claims to have gone green.
New Labour came to office on a platform of placing the environment at the heart of all decision making. Until Blair's speech last month before the CBI and a rag bag of environmentalists, not a whimper from Blair
We noticed how environmental issues were taken into account when John Prescott approved TAG's greed driven proposals for the development of Farnborough Airfield.
New Labour are committed to cutting greenhouse gases. An expanding airport cuts greenhouse gases? The gains we are seeing in other sectors will be wiped out by the expansion of aviation.
New Labour's commitment to greenhouse gas reductions was to bow to business pressure and not introduce a carbon tax.
During the fuel crisis, not a word from any New Labour minister on the need to cut fuel use (nor for that matter since), indeed Blair went so far as to berate Opec and call for increase in oil production. [BVEJ newsletter #0005 October 2000]
Blair has fallen over backwards to ingratiate himself with the biotech industry. Michael Meacher has talked of the need for 'scientific' GM trials. If GM crops are 'safe' let's go ahead with full scale farm production, if not safe, oh shit we have just polluted the countryside. Not that the flawed trials can go any way to establish safety, but then that was never what they were intended for. On instruction from Bill Clinton, Blair has done his best to sabotage EU protective measures on GM.
The Ilisu Dam project, which Blair has pushed hard for, and Stephen Byers is 'minded to approve', will be an act of genocide in Turkish occupied Kurdistan, will lead to widespread environmental destruction, and will destabilise an already unstable region. [BVEJ newsletters passim]
New Labour has announced plans for over 100 waste incinerators, plans that are meeting very strong local opposition. [BVEJ newsletters passim]
On coming to office New Labour reneged on a promise to scrap the privately funded Birmingham Northern Relief Road. New Labour has put into reverse the last government's moratorium on new road building.
New Labour have reneged on an election promise not to privatise the Tube, and an election promise not to privatise air traffic control. Having criticised Public Private Partnership whilst in opposition, New Labour have widely expanded the scheme, pushing it into areas the Tories would never have dared, and brought in business leaders to run it.
New Labour, at the behest of their big business paymasters, have been watering down and rendering ineffective environmental legislation and regulations. New Labour has back peddled on promoting countryside legislation and failed to support the Organic Targets Bill. Money for organic farm conversion has been woefully inadequate. [BVEJ newsletters passim]
The Terrorism Act is primarily aimed at environmental campaigners and activists. The Freedom of Information Bill is designed to restrict access to information. The RIP Act will be used to monitor environmentalists. [BVEJ newsletters passim]
The amount of money that Blair has allocated to this new 'green crusade' is pissing in the ocean. More in total, £500 million, has been grant aided to BAE Systems to develop the obscene A3XX Airbus. The amount that was allocated to renewables is less than the amount New Labour has already cut from renewables.
Blair is in hock to big business, in favour of the WTO, euro, EU. All of which are the antithesis of sustainable development.
Before Blair stood up to open his mouth we knew what the real agenda was as the spin merchants had been practising their sleazy art. Greens were dogmatic, they were against big business, against consumerism. As it so happens, yes we are, we are against big business and consumerism and proud to be, as these are the enemies of sustainable development.
A party that is in hock to big business can never have green credentials. The only green Blair understands is that of greed and dollar bills.
I will have failed if in five years time there are not many more people using public transport and far fewer journeys by car. It's a tall order, but I urge you to hold me to it. -- John Prescott, June 1997
I regard the excessive level of broken rails in two consecutive years, 952 in 1998/99 and 917 in 1999/2000 as prima facia evidence of a breach of condition seven of Railtrack's network licence. -- Tom Winsor, Rail Regulator, 4 August 2000
What masquerades as public transport in this country is a national disgrace.
Tuesday 17 October 2000, a high speed train (1210 GNER Kings Cross to Leeds) travelling from Kings Cross to Leeds at over 100 mph was derailed in Hertfordshire (1 mile south of Hatfield Stn). Four people were killed, dozens injured. There are on average 30 train derailments every year. This is the fourth major crash since the rail network was privatised. The Paddington Rail Crash Inquiry is still ongoing.
On hearing of the crash John Prescott showed his usual hypocrisy, he cancelled a trip to China and rushed back to take charge (or at least look like he was doing something). Four dead is four too many. Four dead and dozens injured is the minimum we can expect when a plane lands on Farnborough. Were a plane to land on the college we could be looking at hundreds, if not thousands, dead and injured. Prescott has said safety is his top priority, unless you happen to live under the flight path at Farnborough, in which case he doesn't give a damn. Write to Prescott and tell him that he is a bloody hypocrite. john_prescott@detr.gsi.gov.uk
The day following the crash Railtrack admitted the condition of the track was not good. In January an engineering inspection revealed the rails to have cracks. Engineering work was not scheduled to take place until early this month, no speed restrictions were in place. In 1998, with rail breakages running at 450 a year, Railtrack promised to do something about the problem. Rail breakages have since shot up to over 900 a year.
The night after the Hatfield crash senior Railtrack staff went on a piss-up.
Two days after the GNER train crash a Virgin cross-country service en-route from Birmingham to Manchester was derailed just outside Stafford Station.
Three days after the GNER rail crash HSE released an interim report. Rail failure was believed to be to blame, HSE noted that there was significant metal fatigue in the region of the derailment. HSE also released details of a letter they had sent to Railtrack in June warning of failures to maintain the track.
As proposed by Railtrack, a trade off between track maintenance and delays is not the answer, the trade off has to be between safety and profit, where safety takes priority. If safety were the priority that everyone in the industry claims it to be, then we would expect all share dividends, directors share options, bonuses and salary increases to be stopped until all safety problems are resolved. A more radical long-term solution would be to turn Railtrack into a non-profit company.
The proposal to reduce the myriad of companies running the rail network is a step in the right direction. We welcome the loss of the rail franchise to Connex South Central. We hope to see Stagecoach lose the South West Trains franchise.
£2 billion of public subsidies goes into the rail network. This is twice the level that British Rail received. It is reasonable for this to buy a share of the system in return for the public money.
The sudden closure by Railtrack of the West Coast main line, one week after the Hatfield crash, giving train companies only 2 hours notice, can only be seen as panic measures and crisis management. If Railtrack had discovered problems that needed urgent closure then understandable but panic inspections to make up for years of neglect is not an acceptable way to run a railway.
A week after the GNER crash at Hatfield the entire network was in chaos. Train operators could give no indication of what was running as there was effectively no timetable. Calls to the national Rail Inquiry line went unanswered. To add to the problems a South West Train was derailed at Virginia Water.
The weekend blitz on the rail network during the last weekend of October ground the entire network to a halt. This raises many questions. Was this work pending, in which case why had it not already been undertaken. If not, then did we have blind panic by Railtrack.
Railtrack will often claim massive investment, that they inherited a decrepit system. Railtrack's massive investment is in developing retail centres at their stations. Railtrack inherited well maintained track, that they have allowed to fall into disrepair.
Gerald Corbett, Railtrack chief executive, is not a railway man. Railtrack does not get its hands dirty. Track inspections are carried out by subcontracted firms, track maintenance and replacement is carried out by subcontracted firms. This is not a recipe for a well run strategic industry. One rail maintenance company instructed its staff to cut back on rail replacement wherever possible. The Hatfield area of track was subcontracted to and the responsibility of rogue company Balfour Beatty. Two weeks before the Hatfield crash Railtrack had written to Balfour Beatty warning them of their shoddy workmanship and unacceptable working practices. [for more on Balfour Beatty see BVEJ newsletters passim and company profile in BVEJ newsletter #0003 August 2000]
Once again we are calling for a charge of Corporate Manslaughter to be put on the Statute Book. Rogue companies like Balfour Beatty have to face heavy fines of millions of pounds, and if the offence is serious enough or the company is a repeat offender, the company has to be dissolved. Directors of rogue companies have to face realistic deterrent sentences of at least ten years.
GNER has refused to install ATP, nor do they have two drivers in the cab.
Travellers on the London Underground are packed in like sardines. Even close to midnight, the crush continues.
Trains to and from Farnborough are overcrowded and filthy. Trains close to midnight from Waterloo are overcrowded. At times we are down to three overcrowded coaches.
Train operators are not being penalised for their appalling service. A few months ago John Prescott announced what seemed to be a large amount of money to be spent on public transport. When adjusted for inflation it was no more than was spent under John Major. The Public Private Partnership announced for the London Underground is wanted by no one, least of all by those using the dilapidated system. The only people who will be welcoming PPP for the Tube are big business beneficiaries who will be taking money out of the system not as Prescott has tried to claim, putting money in.
Once the fuss over the Hatfield rail crash had died down, Railtrack showed their contempt for the rail travelling public in a way only they know how by announcing an increase in shareholders dividends.
The long awaited inquiry revealed a massive cover-up, the public mislead.
Scientists who worked for government had their results distorted by civil servants. The few independent scientists were intimidated into silence, careers were destroyed, jobs lost, funding cut.
This all festered in a Whitehall atmosphere of secrecy.
We can see little improvement. The Freedom of Information Bill being piloted by Jack Boot Straw will put the onus on those who desire the information to show that it is in the overwhelming public interest, ministers will have the power of veto. [BVEJ newsletters passim]
The public has the right to see policy information upon which government takes decisions. The public can then take their own action. The public, if the information had not be withheld, could have made their own choice not to eat beef. That one act, causing a collapse of the beef industry (which happened anyway) would have forced a change of government policy, it would also have saved lives. It is only through information that we can have a properly functioning democracy.
We have little faith in the Food Standards Agency under Sir John Krebs. He has already attacked organics as conferring no perceivable advantage (BVEJ newsletter #0005 October 2000). The FSA sat on information they had early in the year of GM-contaminated seed coming into the country. The FSA is allowing GMOs into the food chain via animal feed, according to Krebs this provides 'consumer choice'. When the FSA takes on the big food companies we may change our minds.
The BSE Inquiry shows us what we can expect with genetic engineering. If we look at how the GM issue is being handled we see no change in the Whitehall culture.
Science research is now in the hands of big business. Results are not published unless they show the sponsor in a favourable light. Results are fiddled to ensure more funding.
The case of Arpad Pusztai, a scientist of international renown, who highlighted the dangers to rats' immune system from eating genetically modified potatoes (and the need for long-term research on all genetically modified food) is well known. Betty Dong was prevented from publishing her research that showed that a Boots brand-name drug was no better than a generic equivalent. Nancy Olivieri and David Kern faced similar big business suppression of their research when it was not favourable to big business sponsors. In all cases the universities sided with big business. We only know of these cases because the individuals had the integrity to speak out. Too many just knuckle under.
Next time someone speaks on an issue, be it GM, mobile phones, influence of adverting, BSE or Farnborough Airport, look first at who pays their salary. Too many supposedly independent voices are little more than corporate whores.
Independent advisory bodies are nothing of the sort. They are packed with industry lackeys and to compound the problems are usually packed with people who don't know the science and even worse are not prepared to listen to alternative views.
We have in the past given the example of Somerset Farmer Mark Purdey who believes there is a link between BSE and the use of organophosphates (BVEJ newletter #0003 August 2000). His preliminary research has been dismissed out of hand. The BSE Inquiry has questioned accepted wisdom that cattle got BSE from digesting scrapie infected sheep and said we have to look again for the causes. [see Corporate Watch Autumn 2000 for excellent coverage of Mark Purdey]
BSE has broken out in France. The French are refusing to stop the practise of feeding bone meal to ruminants. For over a century sheep have had scrapie. This may be masking BSE. If so, the entire sheep population may have to be destroyed. Imports of French beef should be banned.
Eighty, mainly young people dead, a cost to farming in excess of £4 billion, yet no one to blame.
As an absolute minimum, we have to stop the cannibalistic practice of feeding animal remains to other animals. We also have to ban the practise of mechanical recovered meat. This is recovered as a disgusting greasy, grey, slimy slurry, then incorporated into cheap processed meals, sausages, pies etc.
Before any seed makes it into commercial use it has to be placed onto the National Seed list (an EU scam that due to high entry cost has lost a large number of traditional varieties and narrowed the genetic base). Normally this is a mere formality but this time as it was a GM seed (an Aventis herbicide resistant forage maize) it was challenged by FoE and a public inquiry held.
The GM seed has failed the minimum standards require of a seed to be placed on the list. Furthermore research has shown that an extraordinary number of chickens have died that have been fed the mutant maize. No tests have been carried out on cattle, the intended consumers.
Had there not been a public inquiry, a loophole the industry wish to see closed, none of this would have come out.
We would not wish it to become general knowledge that some of the inhabitants have lived on Diego Garcia for at least two generations and could, therefore, be regarded as 'belongers'. -- E J Emery, FO Pacific and India Department
I cannot see how the wholesale removal of people from a land where they belong can be said to conduce to the territory's peace, order and good governance. -- Lord Justice Laws
Diego Garcia is an American base in the Chagos Islands, an otherwise unspoilt archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
Diego Garcia is leased to the Americans by the British. Part of the shoddy back door deal was that Britain would get a cost reduction on Polaris. Another part of the shabby deal was that the Americans and British would fabricate a fiction that the islands were uninhabited. Secret FO memos described the islanders as 'a few Tarzans or Men Fridays'.
The island were inhabited, the inhabitants were forcibly removed and dumped in the slums of Mauritius and left to fend for themselves.
Early this month the islanders won a victory against the Foreign Office and were allowed to return.
Robin 'wots ethics' Cook displayed his usual hypocrisy. In the early 80s he argued the islanders had a moral right to return to their homeland. Twenty years later he backed a FO decision to challenge that return in the High Court.
An EU Intergovernmental Conference (IGC 2000) is due to take place in Nice next month (7-8 December 2000) to review the Amsterdam Treaty (the one after Maastricht). It will force through a number of controversial measures which will go much further than Maastricht in setting up a European superstate.
Measures we are likely to see are a European Army, relaxation of the veto in many policy areas, including the important area of taxation, an EU police force Europol, with the power of arrest in any EU country, the establishment of European parties that have to agree to the European ideal.
One of the items on the agenda is for the Commission to take over the right of negotiation in international affairs, matters that would normally be the prerogative of sovereign states. These matters will not be referred back to member governments let alone parliaments for ratification. If the Commission is successful, it will be the Commission, and not member states, who will determine policy in these areas.
In common with many NGOs we we wish to see the WTO abolished as we believe it is beyond reform. The EU wish to see it strengthened and are pushing for a new round post Seattle debacle. At Seattle the EU negotiators tried and failed to push through a position on GM that had not been agreed by member states. The areas over which the Commission is demanding sovereignty include investment, intellectual property rights and the trade in services (eg water, education and health). These three areas could have a devastating impact on third world countries.
As a sop, the EU will 'consult' the European Parliament. This will be no more than an exercise in pretend democracy (in reality a rubber stamping exercise), and is no substitute for proper scrutiny by the parliaments of member states.
Through organisations like the European Roundtable of Industrialists (an influential lobby group of around 45 European transnational companies) big business has unprecedented access to and influence over the Commission. ERT policy documents reappeared in different guises as the Maastricht Treaty, single currency and the trans-European transport infrastructure.
Investment, intellectual property rights and the trade in services, is effectively to push through the back door of WTO MAI Mk II. We said No to MAI, said No New Round at Seattle, we can say No again.
At a time when we wish to see both the WTO and the EU slowed in their tracks it is important that we say No. It is important that we convey this message to Trade Secretary Stephen Byers. It is vital that neither the EU nor the WTO with their lack of democracy and transparency are given further powers over our lives.
The Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP Secretary of State for Trade and Industry 1 Victoria Street LONDON SW1H 0ET
WDM have produced a standard letter to send to Stephen Byers.
Please send copies of your letters to your MP and MEP so that they know the level of objection to this transfer of sovereignty.
Contact Ecoropa for information on activities during IGC 2000:
+33 143383817 ecoropa@magic.fr
Background information:
Belen Balanya et al, Corporate Europe Inc, Pluto Press, 2000
Kevin Danaher & Roger Burbach (eds), Globalize This!: The Battle Against the World Trade Organization and Corporate Rule, Common Courage Press, 2000
The Battle of Seattle last year put the WTO and the dark forces of globalisation firmly onto the political agenda. The Prague Autumn and the meeting of the IMF and World Bank last September once again pushed globalisation and the dark forces to the top of the political agenda (BVEJ newsletter #0005 October 2000). The crass comments by politicians and commentators shows how far behind public opinion they lag.
A Mori Opinion Poll in The Ecologist this Spring showed that the WTO and globalisation does not have public support. Questions were not asked directly on the WTO and globalisation as too abstract, instead, questions were asked on the consequences of globalisation and WTO rulings.
Q1:
Thinking about trade between different countries, to what extent do you support or oppose national governments being able to protect the interest of companies in their countries, (for example by offering tax advantages or setting up import barriers) against those of multinational companies?
Support 55% Oppose 12% Don't know 33%
Q2:
The government has laws and regulations in place to protect a number of areas of society such as the environment, employment conditions and human health. If a conflict develops between the interest of multinational companies and these areas, what do you think, in principle, the government should do? Should it protect or not protect the following against the interest of multinational companies (that is, companies that operate widely in a number of countries):
The environment
Protect 90% Not protect 1% Don't know 9%
Employment conditions
Protect 89% Not protect 2% Don't know 9%
Human health
Protect 92% Not protect 1% Don't know 7%
Q3:
To what extent do you agree or disagree that governments should be allowed to restrict the import of goods which they believe may be damaging to the health of the population?
Agree 89% Disagree 5% Don't know 6%
The Ecologist poll (for more details see The Ecologist May 2000) gives the opportunity for some street action. Get out with a clipboard and armed with questions. You will need to question at least 100 people to have a statistically meaningful sample.
You may wish to break down your results: Male/Female; Age, 15-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55+.
Follow up the questions with leaflets and other material. Use the results of the poll to put a story in the local press. Compare your results with those in The Ecologist.
[Mori representative sample of 982 adults 15+ 17-21 February 2000]
The Ecologist Poll produced stunning results, and yet it got meagre press coverage (a few lines in the Grauniad). The ideal time to conduct your poll is the week beginning 18 November 2000, and release your results to coincide with the anniversary of the WTO/Seattle debacle (29 Nov to 3 Dec). This will guarantee maximum media exposure. Link in the local TAG/Farnborough Airport angle.
If possible, church groups, third world, fair trade, human rights, and environmental groups should all work together to show the breadth of opposition to globalisation.
Please e-mail results to:
bvej@hotmail.com chris.keene@which.net
The Green Party has produced globalisation leaflets and anti-euro leaflets. WDM has produced a globalisation campaign pack, as has the Green Party.
Farnborough has experienced the downside of globalisation at first hand with TAG steam-rolling an unwanted airport onto the town and the destruction and damage it will inflict on the local community and environment. The TAG operation will be for business aviation only. Corporate suits will use Farnborough Airport to control their global empires and wreak further havoc on the world. If they had no global empires to control there would be no demand for business flying at Farnborough.
Natural Capitalism is based on respecting and learning from the natural order of things rather than replacing nature with human cleverness. -- Satish Kumar
Natural systems are self-contained, self-reliant, self-sufficient natural Gaian feedback systems. -- Keith Parkins
One of the leading thinkers of our times is Amory Lovins, Director of the Rocky Mountain Institute which he co-founded. In the 70s Lovins developed the concept of Soft Energy Paths (BVEJ newsletter #0005 October 2000). For the new millennium Lovins has developed the concept of Natural Capitalism.
We are surrounded by natural Gaian feedback systems, they are what makes the world go round. Modern man in his arrogance not only ignores these systems, he destroys them. It was not always so.
Not so long ago man used to tap into natural energy flows with his windmills and water mills. Medieval man would leave a few selected trees standing in his coppice woodland. Year by year he would watch natural capital accrue.
Amazonian rainforest regulates the global climate. It bathes the British Isles in warm, wet westerlies. Because the resource is free, we fail to give it any value.
Amory Lovins is suggesting that once again we tap into the natural Gaian systems, that this should be the new business model. Not only is such a business model sustainable, it can also be highly profitable, though high profits should not be the driving force.
For example, Ray Anderson, Chairman of Interface Corporation, realized that people don't want to own a carpet in their office; they just want to walk on it and look at it. So he started to lease a floor-covering service. His company owns what's on your floor. They're responsible for keeping it always fresh by replacing one-square-metre carpet tiles in the worn spots, which are only one-fifth of the whole carpet area. Interface can thus provide a better service with lower cost, higher profit, and more employment. Now the firm has designed a new product called Solenium that uses 35% less material per square metre and lasts for twice as long. It is better in all respects for the customer, costs less to produce, has nothing toxic in it and can be completely remanufactured into an identical product. So when you combine that seven-fold reduction in material needs within the five-fold material-saving from the service leaser's replacing only the worn bits, you've got a 97% reduction in the flow of materials to maintain a superior floor-covering service at lower cost.
Lovins has developed four key principles of Natural Capitalism:
If we emulate natural Gaian feedback systems we use our resources efficiently, no waste or toxic materials comes out of our processes, what is left over can be reused, recycled or composted. If we have no waste, no toxic residues, we have no use, no need, for landfill, waste incinerators. Natural Capitalism is the only viable alternative we have, if we want a sustainable future.
We hope to have a review of Amory Lovins' co-authored book Natural Capitalism which develops the concept much further and gives many real world business examples in a future BVEJ newsletter.
Localisation has to be the route forward for a Europe that wants more jobs, better social conditions, and an improved environment, and at the same time a non-exploitative relationship with eastern Europe and the developing world. -- Caroline Lucas MEP
The arguments against globalisation are well known and well rehearsed, as is the need to fight those promoting globalisation, WTO, IMF, World Bank, and the multinationals who benefit from globalisation, McDonald's, Balfour Beatty, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, BAE Systems. [BVEJ newsletters passim]
We can fight the agents of globalisation and should continue to do so, but we have to do more. We have to offer an alternative. This was the criticism levelled at those on the streets of Seattle. We can offer an alternative, not the Big Idea, we have had too many of those already, Fascism, Communism, Globalisation, one hat fits all. What we need is Localisation, varied solutions suited to local needs.
We have to move away from a world dominated by big business and structured in the image of big business.
Globalisation is dominated by the neo-liberal idea of Free Trade, as though we can somehow measure our well-being by the volume of goods and services moving around the world. In the rush to dismantle all controls and barriers to Free Trade we are in a race to the bottom. A race where everything is determined by the lowest price. A price that does not reflect poor labour conditions, destruction of the soul, families and communities or environmental damage.
Localisation is to move to local self-sufficiency. Local self-sufficiency does not mean we produce everything locally, or that we move into a new round of protectionism. It means we produce most of what we need and are able to locally. Local is flexible in its definition. In can be the neighbourhood, town, region or country.
Localisation puts production back under democratic control. To this end we would introduce the right to a referendum for major planning decisions. Too often these are decided by a corrupt planning process and corrupt politicians. A referendum on TAG's plans for Farnborough would have sent TAG packing back to Luxembourg. [BVEJ newsletters passim]
It would no longer be permissible to bribe major corporations to relocate. Money would be available for local initiatives, small scale community projects and local businesses.
Corporations would be barred from donating to political parties. There would be a limit in place on the size of individual donations, all above a specified amount would be declared. Political parties would be limited as to what they are permitted to spend on election campaigns.
Citizens groups, like residents associations and NGOs, would be encouraged to take a more political role and help shape the local community for the benefit of the local community. Bioregional initiatives would be encouraged.
Local currencies would be introduced to decouple the local economy from international incidents (BVEJ newsletter #0004 September 2000). At the same time a Tobin Tax would be introduced to slow down large scale destabilising international currency flows (BVEJ newsletter #0005 October 2000).
Local food production and sale would be encouraged. More Farmers Markets would spring up. A monthly Farmers Market for North Camp is essential, otherwise try Guildford or Milford. Food production would be organic. Organic food production is more than stocking supermarket shelves with chemical free food, it's about the whole philosophy of how we produce our food, our relationship with the land. Organic farms should be small family or community farms. [BVEJ newsletters passim]
Production methods would be those of Natural Capitalism, where we emulate and integrate with natural Gaian life-cycles. Output would be useful and non-toxic. Unwanted elements or those products that reach the end of their life-cycle would be biodegradable or reusable.
When goods and services are sourced locally we have more say in what happens as we can see what is happening.
Energy would be sourced locally. Supply would match need in quality, scale and geographical location. The power grid would be used to smooth out temporal differences in electricity supply and demand. Localisation would remove the reliance upon long fragile supply chains. It would also minimise the use of carbon fuels. Localisation would depend on Soft Energy Paths not Hard Paths. [BVEJ newsletter #0005 October 2000]
Localisation would not rule out international trade as it would be perverse to attempt to produce locally what can be sourced elsewhere. The entire European Agricultural Policy is built on this perversion. Travel by train from North Camp to Gatwick. On the slopes of the North Downs what should be traditional sheep grazing and classic springy turf has through industrial inputs, capital equipment, EU subsidies and guaranteed prices been turned into unsuitable arable land. The white chalk can be seen poking through the thin, fragile soil.
The emphasis of international trade would not be on neo-liberal Free Trade, but on sustainable development Fair Trade. The flow of goods would benefit workers, communities and the environment, not as at present destroy.
Localisation requires a political realignment. New Labour and the Tories are in the pockets of big business. LibDems have a fetish about Europe. Only the Green Party has been able to see the need for a sustainable local economy.
Localisation is not Utopia, it is the only viable future we have.
[Adopted with permission from Localisation by Keith Parkins]
It's not how much money a community has - it's how much it circulates and recirculates locally that makes people wealthy. That is the idea behind a recent project set up by the New Economics Foundation that aims to measure the way in which money circulates in rural communities.
Plugging the Leaks is a two-year research programme funded by the Countryside Agency which aims to crack this elusive holy Grail of new economics. It will start with a series of pilot projects - in a food project, community business and market town - to measure the impact of regeneration spending. It will then move on to bigger pilots that will track the impact on communities of welfare money and spending on energy and fuel - money that is normally sucked out of the local economy to distant utilities.
The project uses the idea of a local 'multiplier effect' whereby money creates wealth because it is reused, rather than sucked away to rich areas.
Studies in the US of the impact Wal-Mart has on local economies have shown that money spent at Wal-Mart is money that is sucked straight out of the local economy, whereas money spent in local businesses circulates within the local economy. [BVEJ newsletter #0005 October 2000]
Localisation, the production of goods for local consumption helps to maintain local currency recycling, as does local energy production (BVEJ newsletter #0005 October 2000), as does local currency schemes (BVEJ newsletter #0004 September 2000).
In a small town in Vermont, local restaurants used to pay for the table and kitchen scraps to go to the local landfill, not any more.
For the same fee as used to be paid for landfill, Carl Hammer of Vermont Compost hauls the waste away with a mule and wagon. The food scraps are spread out on ground hardwood bark from a local Vermont sawmill. Chickens forage on the pile, leaving behind their droppings, the resultant mix turns into high-grade compost much in demand by local farmers and gardeners. The chickens lay eggs, which are sold back to the restaurants that supplied the scraps.
The eggs cannot be sold as organic as the restaurants as yet are not fully organic, but at $2/dozen command a premium over industrial farmed eggs.
What was a problem has been turned into an asset. There are are no other inputs to the chickens, feed no longer has to be trucked in from as far afield as the Midwest or Canada. Money is recycled within the local economy. Local soils are enriched. Eggs do not have to be trucked in. No demand for fossil fuels. No pollution. One half-time job created. The loop is closed. As if by magic a business has been created seemingly from nothing.
The demand for the eggs already exceeds supply. More restaurants are expected to join the scheme.
This excellent example of what can be achieved is taken from:
Helena Norberg-Hodge, Todd Merrifield & Steven Gorelick, Bringing the Food Economy Home: The social, ecological and economic benefits of local food, International Society for Ecology and Culture, October 2000
The growing problem of light pollution originally affected astronomers, it now affects all of us.
There are now few places on earth where we get a dark sky. This is not just a loss to astronomers, it is a cultural loss to all of us. One of the earliest mysteries ancient man had to wonder upon was the night sky and what lay beyond. Soon all we will see will be a sodium haze.
Supermarkets, street lights, stadiums, industrial estates, security lights, these are some of the worst offenders that turn night into day. Much of the light is not even serving its obvious objectives. It is not uncommon to find 5 kw of power being used to floodlight a monument, possibly of which at least half is shining uselessly out into space. Security floodlights are usually too bright, and often angled at a near horizontal angle, thus blinding passers by and passing motorists, an accident waiting to happen.
Shops have their interiors lit. Why? A dull interior light would be sufficient to highlight intruders, a dimmed window display would be more than sufficient for casual window shoppers. Residential houses stream light into the night. Why? Anyone outside can see who's within and what is worth stealing. Heavy drawn curtains not only keep the light in, they also keep the heat in.
All this unwanted artificial light amounts to at least two power stations.
Pilots, when passing over a sea of light, find it difficult to locate airfields and landing strips. Too often, they become lost and confused, and attempt to land on main roads, mistaking the road for a runway. A problem that is acute for Farnborough, passing over a lighted town to then, hopefully, hit the black spot that is the airfield.
We all operate on a circadian rhythm, at least that is what our bodies were designed for. Disrupted circadian rhythms is one reason why shift workers suffer ill-health. Constant 24-hour lighting disrupts our circadian rhythms. Work done with children has shown that the more light they are exposed to during sleeping hours, the more likely they are to suffer from poor eyesight. Women have a much increased chance of breast cancer if exposed to bright light at night.
Turn off the light!
The worst example of genocide last century was not Hitler's attempts to exterminate the Jews or Pol Pot's excesses in Cambodia, it was Turkey's virtual extermination of the population of Armenia (1915).
The US Congress may vote to urge Clinton to recognise this act of genocide. In retaliation the Turks are threatening to bar the Americans from the Incirlik air base.
The Incirlik air base is one of the largest American overseas bases. It is used by the Americans and British to patrol the no-fly zone over northern Iraq. From the same base, Turkey flies missions against the Kurds, using the same aircraft as the Americans (only the markings change).
Modern day Turkey has not changed, instead of Armenians, Turkey now wages genocide against the Kurds. With the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic, the only pariah state bordering on Europe is Turkey.
Whilst the myth of Turkey as a solid Nato ally, the bulwark against the manic Muslim hordes to the south continues, the West will continue to prop up the corrupt regime, pour in weapons and turn a convenient blind eye to human rights abuses.
After we completed this piece we learnt the bad news that the US Congress had backed down under pressure.
... if you come to me with an opinion poll and say 'do you want to join the euro today?', I would say no. -- Tony Blair speaking at a press conference in Seoul, 19 October 2000
You don't have to be a eurosceptic, a little Englander, anti-European or even a Tory to oppose the euro. Early last month an historic meeting took place at Conway Hall in London. A red/green progressive alliance was formed to oppose the euro and the European superstate. Those participating included Caroline Lucas MEP, Tony Benn MP, Ole Krarup MEP, Larry Elliot (Economics Editor, The Guardian) and Janet Bush (former Economics Editor, The Times).
Opposition to the euro is not a Left/Right issue, it is a fight to protect democracy. Every few years an election takes place to decide the government. A vote on the euro will decide who governs the UK for the rest of our lives.
The euro is fundamentally undemocratic. Only one country has been given the opportunity to vote on the euro. The Danes said No (BVEJ newsletter #0005 October 2000). No other country has been given the opportunity to decide whether or not they wish to join the euro.
Joining the euro is a one way process. Like joining the mafia it is membership for life and there is no way out.
Countries joining the euro lose control over their interest rate, a major lever of economic policy. Soon they will lose control over taxation policy. They find themselves in an economic strait jacket, one size fits all.
The eurozone is ruled by unelected, unaccountable Central Bankers. There is no mechanism to remove them once appointed. There is no way to influence them, indeed it is illegal under EU law to attempt to influence them.
The eurozone is not an optimal currency area. Even within the UK we find an interest rate that suits the south does not suit the north, one that suits the service sector does not suit the manufacturing sector. This problem is made much worse over the EU, an area of great cultural diversity, different laws, customs, economic performance.
Ireland is currently enjoying an economic boom. The economy is spiralling out of control. House prices in Dublin doubled in a year. Inflation, at 6.8%, is currently at a 16-year high, more than three times the official EU target of 2%. There is nothing the Irish can do, other than screw the workers in the hope that pegging wages will slow the growth. Last year 28,000 nurses went on strike for the first time in their history to demand better wages and more investment in the health service. Ireland is currently enjoying an unprecedented economic boom and yet it can't spend public money to improve the health service as that would be contrary to diktats from Europe.
The euro is not only about money or even economics, it is about politics, democracy, who runs the country. The Germans are already saying that the euro is merely a stepping stone to full political integration, to total control from Brussels.
The euro is one step on the road to the creation of a European authoritarian superstate.
If we want a sustainable future we have to have democratic control over our local economy. The euro is a step in the wrong direction.
At the end of last month, braving the storms and Railtrack, Trafalgar Square was packed for an anti-euro rally. The platform speakers ranged from John Redwood, Peter Shore, Morning Star, Irish MEP, Green Party, SNP, Bikers, Countryside Alliance. Not a word in the media, apart from what you are reading here.
After we had finished this piece the euro once again started to go into free fall. This time triggered by crass comments by Wim Duisenburg, President of European Central Bank. There is no mechanism to remove Duisenburg.
A community economy is not an economy in which well-placed persons can make a 'killing'. It is an economy whose aim is generosity and a well-distributed and safeguarded abundance. -- Wendell Berry
One of the leading proponents of localisation is Wendell Berry (1934- ), American poet, novelist, essayist, philosopher, farmer and former Professor of English at the University of Kentucky. Born, 5 August 1934, Henry County, Kentucky, where he still lives and farms on the family farm at Port Kentucky, alongside the Kentucky River, not far from where it flows into the Ohio.
Wendell Berry has put forward a series of bench-marks against which we should judge any proposed development to decide whether or not it benefits the local community. The underlying principles could be described as 'the preservation of ecological diversity and integrity, and the renewal, on sound cultural and ecological principles, of local economies and local communities':
Wendell Berry, Another Turn of the Crank, Counterpoint, 1995
We tend not to value our natural systems at all or when we do value them it is when we liberate their capital value, as when we clear cut a forest or when we build on a valuable habitat. What we rarely if ever do is value our natural systems for their current value, for the continuous ecological services they provide for our and the planet's wellbeing. What value do we place on the Amazon regulating global climate?
New York has, or had, high quality tap water (blind tests put it ahead of overpriced bottled water). With deteriorating quality, New Yorkers had a choice, either install expensive water treatment plants or reafforest the catchment area. Reafforestation was the preferred option.
In England, a few far-sighted water companies are paying farmers in their water catchment areas to go organic. This is a far cheaper option than expensive water treatment plant to remove nitrate leechates from fertilisers, pesticide residues and all the other toxic, carcinogenic mutagens with which industrial farming poisons our soil and water.
Rising inequalities pose a serious threat of a political backlash against globalisation, one that is as likely to come from the North as well as from the South ... The 1920s and 1930s provide a stark, and disturbing, reminder of just how quickly faith in in markets and economic openness can be overwhelmed by political events. -- UNCTAD
The sight of bulging corporate coffers co-existing with a continuous stagnation in Americans' living standards could become politically untenable. -- Business Week
Contrary to the claims made by the pink poodle of big business Tony Blair, globalisation is not inevitable. Journals like The Economist devoted to trumpeting the benefits of globalisation (a difficult job as we are not aware of any) are becoming increasingly worried that globalisation will be reversed and keep issuing ever starker warnings to the likes of Blair to show some resolve (somewhat difficult in the case of Blair).
Growing inequalities between North and South, between rich and poor, between the bulging coffers of big business and the growing insecurity of an increasingly impoverished temporary workforce are adding to the growing anti-globalisation movement.
Transnational corporations which control 33% of the world's productive assets account for only 5% of the world's direct employment. During the period 1990 to 1997, the total assets of the world's largest corporations increased by 288%, during the same period the number of people employed by the same companies increased by less than 9%. In the US in 1998, during a period of record economic growth, US corporations eliminated 677,000 permanent jobs.
Harris is a remote Scottish Island in the Outer Hebrides. A place of peace and tranquillity. But not if French multinational Lafarge had its way.
Lafarge had wished to quarry the mountain of Roineabhal and turn the mountain into a sea loch. 10 million tonnes of stone per annum was to be quarried, then shipped to England and Europe via a specially constructed sea port.
The planning inquiry reported:
The detrimental effect on the environment must be regarded as very significant. The quarry would create an area of massive disturbance, involving man made industrial features, heavy plant, and disruptive noise. Unless there are overriding reasons relating to national benefit, the acceptance of such an intrusive feature within such an important landscape would set a precedent that would undermine the continued successful operation of policy for national scenic areas.
And yet in spite of this conclusion the go-ahead was given for the quarry. Fortunately the recommendation has been overruled by Scottish Environment Minister Sam Galbraith who saw the national benefit to England not Scotland.
Does this set a precedence for Farnborough Airport? The local area bears all the disadvantages. There are no local benefits, all the benefits accrue to a foreign based Arab owned multinational.
Lafarge had used Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights to argue their 'human rights' had been violated. Lafarge are corporate members of 17 County Wildlife Trusts!
The demand for aggregates is declining. The imposition of an aggregate tax should hasten the decline. Read George Monbiot's Captive State for an account of how the aggregates business has dug its way into government under New Labour.
A Singapore Airlines Boeing 747 crashed on takeoff on Hallowe'en during a tropical storm in Taiwan. More than 80 people were killed. The pilot was on the wrong runway and hit a concrete barrier.
Transposed to Farnborough the crash would have occurred somewhere between the end of the runway and the technical college. A similar crash on the college or residential Farnborough would have resulted in far more than 80 dead.
A Boeing Business Jet carries the same fuel payload as a Boeing 747.
The Taiwan crash came exactly a year to the day when an Air Egypt plane en-route from New York to Cairo plunged into the Atlantic.
The last major crash on Taiwan was February 1998 when a China Airlines Airbus A300 crashed killing 202 people.
August of last year, a China Airlines MD-11 crashed at the new Hong Kong airport during a severe storm killing two people.
During the recent storms TAG refused to close down their operation at Farnborough. The convenience of pampered business executives and the profit of a foreign multinational was put before the safety of the local community.
The day after the Singapore Airlines crash, a Russian Antalov blew up in mid-air shortly after takeoff in Angola. Several days previously another Russian aircraft crashed, this time in Russia. Less than three weeks later a second Antalov crashed in Angola.
Those living beneath the flight path in Knellwood will recently have had a piece of unwanted waste paper masquerading as a Tory Newsletter pushed through their letterbox.
The Tories are still whinging at the loss of the Knellwood seat to Patrick Kirby which they somehow seem to think was theirs as of right, which only goes to show the contempt they have for the electorate.
The newsletter contains the usual attack on Kirby, but what can they find? The best that they are able to come away with is that Kirby abstained on the airfield vote at the planning meeting. What of course they do not go on to mention is the crude threats Kirby has had from the Borough Solicitor were he to vote on the airfield, even less to mention whose bidding the Borough Solicitor is acting upon. As we have previously mentioned, John Starling has also been silenced by the Borough Solicitor (BVEJ newsletters passim).
The newsletter goes on to state the college has not closed. We would have thought that even the local Tories have the brains to work out the college will not close immediately. As a result of the go-ahead for the airfield, a decision the local Tories pushed through, the college will die a slow death as students are not going to wish to study in a noisy death trap.
Indicating the contempt the local Tories have for their electorate the newsletter contains no apology to the residents of Knellwood for inflicting an airfield upon them.
When the inevitable crash occurs we will not hesitate to name the guilty men who put the profits of a foreign multinational (we wonder why) before the safety and wellbeing of their own constituents.
No one should be surprised that the British National Party has been recruiting locally, the surprise would be if they had not been recruiting as the local area is fertile ground for modern day fascism.
Fascism flourishes in a vacuum, when the electorate are disenfranchised. The best that can be said about our local government and local politicians are that they are incompetent and out of touch with the electorate, the worst that they are corrupt and in the pocket of Big Business.
With the honourable exception of Independent Councillor Patrick Kirby (who the Borough Solicitor has done his best to silence) not a single councillor has been acting on behalf of the local community. At the national level we have a local MP who seems to be doing his best to be regarded as the honourable member for MoD, BAE Systems and TAG. To find someone acting on our behalf we have to move to the European Parliament to find Caroline Lucas MEP who has been working very hard to act on behalf of the local community.
It is therefore no surprise that BNP are recruiting locally. The only surprise is that they have not appeared sooner.
BNP are planning to infiltrate the November fuel tax protest.
fuel prices - climate change - public transport
Is it not strange that no two of the above ever get mentioned in the same breath? Except of course by ourselves (see BVEJ newsletter #0005 October 2000 for extensive coverage).
13 November 2000 is an interesting date. It is when the deadline given by the fuel protesters expires, and it is also the date when the climate talks in The Hague begin.
The government is busy spreading rumours of intimidation (even though there was no evidence of intimidation at the time), and is itself acting in an intimidatory manner. Rather than enter into a constructive dialogue the government has threatened brute force as a method of resolving the fuel dispute, the army will be called in, armed troops will be on hand. A National State of Emergency in all but name will be called, martial law will be imposed. We are slipping ever closer to a Third World Country.
Hauliers and other fuel protesters have been shocked to discover the level of monitoring. A meeting that took place around the time of Brown's pre-budget statement found that they and all their vehicles were filmed. As the lorry convey wound its way south, police vehicles ran alongside filming the drivers, helicopters hovered overhead. London is to be sealed off and placed on a state of full alert that normally only applies at the height of an IRA bombing campaign.
People have been shocked at this level of harassment, but environmental campaigners are only too aware that this is the state of today's so-called democracy. We do not support the fuel supporters in their aims, at best they can be described as misguided and are missing the bigger picture, but we do support their right to protest free from intimidation.
What we are seeing is a symptom of globalisation. The hauliers are not well represented by their main body, members of which include all the main retailers. It was this body that pushed for bigger and heavier lorries. Farmers are not well represented by their main body the NFU (aka No Effing Use) which has been only too happy to see small farms go to the wall and massive subsidies go to the big boys.
Maybe one day the many small businesses who are complaining at high fuel prices will recognise that it is the cheap imported competition, which low haulage costs encourages, that is putting them out of business.
We are not calling for a fuel price decrease nor an increase, but we recognise with the extreme weather that we saw last month and the beginning of this, steps have to be taken to reduce fossil fuel usage. It may be getting increasingly costly to haul goods around the country, but that is an argument to stop hauling goods around the country not an excuse to lower the cost of fuel.
What price a few pence on a litre of fuel when we see the millions of pounds worth of damage caused by the storms at the end of last month and the beginning of this?
In his pre-budget statement Gordon Brown threw caution to the wind and decided to undercut the Tories offer of at least 3p off a litre of fuel and offered at least 4p.
Days before Brown's Commons statement we had New Labour ministers from Tony Blair downwards telling us that hard choices had to be made, we paid high fuel tax or we paid in cuts to education, pensions, mortgages would go up, hospitals would close, interest rates would rise, civilisation as we now know it would end, fill in the blanks for your own worst case scenario. No mention of global warming. In a cheap short-term fix Brown cut fuel taxes. In a sop to hauliers Brown also cut vehicle tax.
Low sulphur fuel is not a green fuel. It may reduce atmospheric pollution at the point of use, it does nothing for climate change. A green fuel is LPG or hydrogen.
Production of low sulphur fuels may be counter-productive as it is a dirty process upstream at the refinery. The reduction in fuel taxes has been estimated to generate a 1.5% increase in road traffic. If we wish to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions we have to drive traffic off the road.
At a time when we should be shifting goods off the roads we should not be cutting the costs of hauliers. Most hauliers will not even see these cuts. They will immediately be lost in cheaper prices for the movement of goods.
Brown is living in cloud cuckoo land. It is hard to believe that as Brown made his statement large areas of the country were under water.
Brown refused to restore the link between pensions and wages. As the value of the state pension deteriorates, more and more pensioners are going to be forced into the degrading position of dealing with DSS.
50,000 more old people die in the 3 months of winter than in the preceding or succeeding months. A similar pattern is not observed in Scandinavian countries.
A measure of a caring society is how it deals with its old folk.
We hear a lot of how high is fuel tax. What we hear a lot less of is how low is the tax for oil companies in the North Sea.
Oil companies in the North Sea pay 50% tax. Only Ireland levies a lower tax. In other countries 80% is the norm with some countries levying in excess of 90%.
One of the arguments for not moving tankers during the September fuel blockade was that of safety. An argument that strangely did not prevail during the Miners Strike, nor does it seem to prevail at today's refineries where deep staffing cuts and cost cutting has left safety balanced on a knife edge.
Neither the government nor the oil companies would have tolerated a handful of environmentalists protesting at global warming shutting down the oil refineries. The Terrorism Act would have been used, after all that is what it was passed for. Nor would workers in the industry protesting at de-unionisation and deteriorating conditions in the industry have been tolerated.
The oil companies may not have started last September's fuel protests but they were more than happy to sit back and reap the benefits.
Shell have announced third quarter profits of £2.2 billion, up 80% on the same period last year, the third successive quarter of record profits.
At the moment it is only wishful thinking.
Last month 65 Greenpeace activists shut down the incinerator at Edmonton (north London, one of the biggest in the country) for several days. They only gave up their protest when lack of food and water forced them to withdraw. The Greenpeace action had the full support of London Mayor Ken Livingstone.
The capacity of the Edmonton Incinerator is to be expanded by 50%, the number of incinerators in London to be expanded from two to six.
Opponents to the Slyfield Incinerator have to make it clear now to Thames Waste Management and Surrey County Council that if the application goes ahead direct action will not only shut the plant down, it will stop it from being built.
If you have not already registered your opposition to the Slyfield Incinerator (outskirts of Guildford) there is still time. Surrey are expected to reach a decision on Slyfield February or March of next year. [see BVEJ newsletter #0005 October 2000 and BVEJ briefing]
Guildford Anti-Incinerator Network have produced a standard letter of objection. They are also the first port of call for further information on the incinerator.
Guildford Anti-Incinerator Network The Vicarage 5 Orchard Road Burpham Guildford Surrey GU4 7JH www.geocities.com/burphamca Tony.Higgs@GCA-ITServices.co.uk
It is not all bad news. At Goole in Yorkshire residents have won a three year battle to prevent a waste incinerator being built at Glews Hollow. The local Communities Against Toxics (CAT) Group countered all the developer's arguments for an incinerator and even went to Italy to see a very successful composting facility there, giving them the ammunition they needed to show how short sighted the Council's plans for incineration were.
CAT are now offering advice to campaigners across the country:
CAT, PO Box 29 Ellesmere Port South Wirral L66 3TX ralph@recycle-it.org.uk tel/fax 0151 339 5473
Another bit of good news. The ludicrous grants to incinerators as recycling projects has been scrapped.
Every year 88 people die and 168 are admitted to hospital with lung-related illness due to the present 12 incinerators. The government wishes to see the number of incinerators increased to over 100. Building more incinerators is expected to cause the death toll to rise to well over 100, dioxins will shorten life expectancy. Displaying the same attitude that lead to the BSE crisis and was heavily criticised by the BSE Inquiry, civil servants are refusing to release data on the increased risks.
The only thing the World Bank is afraid of is publicity. These protesters are creating that. -- Chairman of the World Bank Inspection Panel
The protesters are right of course. We are just interested in the money. The World Bank and IMF are just helping people like us to cream it in. Isn't it great? -- Deutsche Bank employee from New York
The media focused on the pitched street battles. What they failed to mention was the thousands stopped at the Czech border, the brutal beatings by police, detention without charges etc.
One person's account of the police brutality:
I was arrested and taken into custody. As they led me down the stairs to the cells I noticed blood on the walls and heard cries from other cells. The police searched me and the others, putting all our possessions in one pile on the table in the room. They told us not to move - anyone who did was hit with truncheons across the back. The police were more violent than intelligent; they didn't know where anyone had been arrested, or what for. I was terrified, they did not allow access to a lawyer or a phone to let my friends know where I was - I didn't know what would happen. The people I was in the cells with will be friends for life.
30% of Czech police voted for the far right party at the last election.
[For detailed coverage of Prague see SchNEWS 277, Indymedia contains an open letter to President Vaclav Havel to protest at the police brutality]
In Amsterdam 100 activists invaded the local branch of Czech Airlines, 'official airline of the IMF conference' and insisted they publicise their demands - namely, the release of all Prague demo prisoners and compensation for those beaten up in the nick. When the staff refused, the activists seized control of the fax machine and did it themselves. Earlier the same day, World Bank President James Wolfensohn arrived in town to open a conference on 'Poverty reduction and the role of private capital'. He found the conference centre ringed by riot cops, watercannon and a bulldozer. Wolfensohn attempted to apologise to conference-goers for the racket outside, but members of the audience retorted that maybe the demonstrators had a point.
Missed out on the real thing at Prague, second best is a recently released video game.
The Financial Crimes web site has been closed down following action by FT's lawyers. Printed copies of the Financial Crimes are available (A4 SAE with 33p postage), details from: tellme@financialcrimes.com
This is a big mistake. It only takes one transmission from one baboon to one human to start an epidemic. There's no way you can make it safe. -- Jonathan Allen, virologist
Sheffield-based anti-vivisection group Uncaged were in the High Court last month seeking to overturn a gagging order preventing them publicising revelations about animal experiments carried out at Huntingdon Death Sciences near Cambridge. The hearing was adjourned, and so the revelations remain suppressed. The experiments are being carried out by Imutran (owned by genetics giant Novartis), and are part of ongoing research into xenotransplantation (the use of animal organs in human transplants).
Uncaged compiled a report, Diaries of Despair, based on the information provided by leaked documents, which reveal horrendous animal suffering and much 'falsification' of results. Imutran, who have used thousands of pigs, monkeys and baboons in their five years of research, claim to be on the verge of conquering the problem of 'organ rejection' - where the immune system sees the 'new' heart or liver as foreign, and attacks it. But the documents tell a different story. In one experiment, two baboons who suffered 'hyperacute' organ rejection and quickly died were left out of published results, which claimed success; in another, the animals were pumped full of immunosuppressant drugs to make sure their bodies didn't reject the 'new' parts. One monkey was documented in technicians' reports as spending the last days of its life clutching in pain the pus-oozing pigs' heart it had attached to the arteries in its neck.
Imutran have e-mailed all Uncaged's contacts, threatening them with contempt of court if they reproduce any of the documents they may have been forwarded.
If there is one technology that is even more dangerous than genetic engineering, it is its related offspring xenotransplantation. Apart from the abuse of animals that it entails, it is likely to release onto the world unknown viruses. The transplantation from one species to another carries across viruses that are often part of the genetic makeup. The viruses in turn may mutate. The recent outbreak of Ebola virus in Uganda is an indication of what to expect.
SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty) are working hard to shut down Huntingdon Death Sciences. Death Sciences are in serious financial trouble. Their third quarter showed pre-tax losses of £2.5 million. Death Sciences are desperately looking for a refinancing package. Pressure is now being applied on major Death Sciences customers such as SmithKline Beecham and major shareholders such as Merrill Lynch and Citibank.
Heathrow residents have set an important precedence. They have won the right for a case to be heard before the European Court of Human Rights that disturbance to their sleep by night flights is an infringement of their human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. [Ruth Hatton and others v UK, 36022/97]
This has importance to the residents of Farnborough as although we do not have night flights (yet), we are being subjected to noise, pollution, and unreasonable safety risks.
The Human Rights Act now makes the whole process easier as a human rights case can now be heard before a British court without first having to go the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. One of the first cases to be heard under the Human Rights Act will be one brought by the residents of Soho under Article 8, the Right to respect for private and family life. The residents feel their right is being breached by the noise and nuisance caused by the 24-hour sex industry.
If a motorist is involved in a hit and run he or she has committed a criminal offence. If a lorry drives through your house the lorry's insurer will be expected to cover the cost of the damage. Where aviation is concerned the situation is reversed. The pilot is under no obligation to report an accident, the hit and run culture is encouraged, especially for business aviation where the non-reporting of accidents is the norm (one reason why the air crash statistics are acknowledged as an underestimation of the real risk). If something drops from an aircraft, or your house is in some way damaged you will find it will be your insurer who has to pay, you may even find the aircraft operator carries no third party insurance as under no obligation to do so.
There does not have to be a crash for property damage to occur. Things fall from aircraft. Lumps of ice falling from aircraft average at 14 incidents a year. in the first four months of this year there has been 19 ice incidents.
November last year, a block of ice fell through the roof of Holy Trinity Church in East Sheen causing over £700 worth of damage. Luckily no one was injured or killed. Heathrow has refused to cough up for the damage or even accept liability.
If someone on their way to a pub causes damage it might be a bit tough to blame the pub. If on the other hand drunken yobs, who are only in that state and in the vicinity as a result of the pub, run riot, then it is reasonable to hold the pub to blame, and ultimately for the pub to lose its licence.
Since last November, there has been at least three incidents of ice falls in Richmond alone. One narrowly missed a member of the public whilst out walking near his home.
TAG have consistently said they accept no responsibility for damage caused by aircraft using their facilities at Farnborough. This is an untenable position. Rushmoor have the opportunity to address this imbalance when they draw up the legal agreement with TAG. As Rushmoor have to date shown no inclination to act for the local community we are not holding our breath.
Foreign aircraft using our airspace are not subjected to the same regulatory control as British aircraft. It is very rare for inspections to take place of foreign aircraft.
If an incident does take place the exact time and place should be noted. With this information it is possible to locate the aircraft from radar records. This information should be communicated to TAG, Rushmoor, the local residents association recently formed to oppose TAG, and the CAA Safety Regulation Group (tel 01293 567171 / fax 01293 573999).
The Safety Regulation Group is industry funded. Unlike similar bodies in other countries it does not receive government funding, which shows where the priorities lie. The situation can only be expected to worsen when air traffic control is privatised.
My objective ... is to implement the Trans-European Transport Networks, and their extensions in Central and Eastern Europe, as quickly as possible in order to ensure that we have a European transport system that can properly serve the European Single Market in a sustainable way. -- Neil Kinnock, European Transport Commissioner
Everything that we could say, we have said: that Europe needs a better infrastructure. A lot of that is being done. On the whole, we have transferred our interests to an organisation called ECIS ... They do a lot of good work. But a lot of this is now in detail. I think the issue in principle is there. The Channel Tunnel has been built, the high-speed trains are being built, the crossing from Scandinavia to Denmark is being built ... -- former ERT Secretary-general Keith Richardson
Road campaigners often find they are fighting a losing battle when they look out from their encampments and see two ends of a mega-highway with them in the middle. Clearly their little patch is part of a bigger picture. The picture is bigger than they think.
Glen of the Downs (County Wicklow, Ireland), is part of the Arklow-Dublin road, linking Larne with Paris. The development of a container port at Dibden Bay on the edge of the New Forest is part of a route which comes in through Europe and on through the Newbury Bypass.
All these schemes are part of the Trans-European Networks. With a budget of 400 billion euros TENs is the world's largest transport infrastructure project. It involves over 150 projects planned for completion by 2010 and includes the Channel Tunnel, a bridge linking Denmark and Sweden and tunnels to be blasted through the Pyrenees to open up the markets of Central and Eastern Europe.
Trans-European Networks are the brain child of ERT (European Roundtable of Industrialists) who see it as operating in parallel with the single currency to open up the European market to big business. ERT not only forced it onto the European agenda but got it written into the Maastricht Treaty and at the Amsterdam IGC ensured billions of euros were allocated as top priority.
ERT has a membership of around 45 European transnational companies. Some members have a more immediate interest in opening up a new European transport infrastructure, companies like: BP, Shell, Petrofina, Total, Fiat, Renault and Titan Cement.
Another group that has been heavily promoting TENs is the European construction industry who benefit directly from the contracts.
EU predicts a four to five fold increase in transport. This is clearly unsustainable. Between 1985 and 1995 transport generated CO2 grew by nearly one-third. Greenpeace Switzerland has estimated TENs will lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions of 15-18%.
It is is claimed by the EU that TENs means jobs, and they base their claim on data and studies from ECIS (European Centre for Infrastructure Studies, a front organisation set up by ERT). This has been refuted by the independent European Federation for Transport and the Environment, and even by the DETR. The authors of Europe Inc have pointed out that 'if the entire TENs budget were made available for investments in local public transport and housing in cities, towns and rural areas, and for work in the fields of health care and education, many more jobs would be created. At the same time, the environment would be spared and local economies would be strengthened.'
The areas identified to strengthen local economies are neglected. Instead we have a heavily subsidised long-distance transport infrastructure that benefits the global economy and disadvantages the local economy.
I picture the reality in which we live in terms of military occupation. We are occupied the way the French and the Norwegians were occupied by the Nazis during World War II, but this time by an army of marketeers. We have to reclaim our country from those who occupy it on behalf of their global masters. -- Ursula Franklin, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto
It's time to say Enough!
We are bombarded every day with messages urging us to consume, urging us to consume more - billboards, magazines, TV, radio, through our letterbox, even in our e-mail and on the internet. We are unable to escape. We are told our appearance will improve, our sex lives will be enhanced, these are the paths to happiness. Once it was religion that sold us this crap, now it is big business.
Too often we succumb. We go off on a shopping spree, and maybe for a brief moment our lives are superficially enhanced.
We have become brand name junkies. Most of what we consume is junk. Junk food, junk clothes, transients of the moment. It all costs money. We have to work longer hours, take McJobs and other shit jobs, just to find the money to pay for what we have been conned into buying.
The wider costs are to the environment and the exploited workers who produce the rubbish for our momentary gratification. The junk goes into landfill or an incinerator. Resources are depleted. Workers work long hours at low wages in inhumane conditions.
We can say no, we have to say no. We have to learn to say enough and consume less. Many of the things we think we need we don't need at all. What we do need we can buy from charity shops, what we no longer need we can give to friends or charity shops. When we buy we should buy to last. If we think twice before we buy and ask why do we need it, do we really need it, we can cut down on our consumption. If we cut down our consumption we can cut down on the money we need. If we don't need the money, maybe we don't need that shitty job after all, or we can afford to tell the boss where to stuff it. If we spend less time working we are less tired, stressed out, have more time to enjoy ourselves, more time to question what is going wrong around us, more time to do something about it.
We will have time to appreciate what is priceless - the natural world around us, our friends. How often do we tell our friends how much they mean to us, or even worse neglect them and exploit them for our own gratification?
During the period in which GDP in the US has doubled, happiness has gone down. Consumption, economic growth does not make us happier.
It is not only the food that is shit at McVomit, the working conditions are pretty shitty too, and on at least one occasion not only were the workers serving shitty food, they were doing so whilst standing in the brown stuff. Would you like that with fries sir?
McWorkers are starting to hit back and have formed the McDonald's Workers' Resistance. No members, no formal structure.
Methods include working to rule, sabotage, disobedience.
MWR are working hard to counter the corporate propaganda, the brainwashing of staff and customers. They are also ensuring that McWorkers throughout the empire are aware of their rights. A newsletter McSues has been produced.
MWR hope to have a PO Box for contacts at some time in the future, in the interim c/o McSpotlight.
Have a nice day.
The storms are caused by Man's arrogance towards Nature. -- Prince Charles
The recent floods we have seen in Sussex and Kent are not natural disasters these are man-made disasters. Only a few weeks earlier we had bad flooding in Portsmouth. The recent floods in Kent and Sussex are likely to be the most expensive in recent history. Those affected may care to reflect on the fact that Southern Water refused to release to householders in Kent, Sussex and Hampshire details of 700 homes at risk of flooding on the grounds that to do so would be scaremongering.
The last weekend of October saw a storm sweep across England and Wales causing massive damage. The following day there were no trains, roads were blocked and flooded. Selsey was hit by a Tornado. Only the day before, Bognor Regis had been hit by a tornado.
One year previous a cyclone swept through France destroying 10 million trees. Approaching the British Isles it swerved, narrowly missing the south coast by half a degree.
A week after the October storm, first weekend of November, the City of York came within inches of flooding and large areas of the Severn Valley were flooded. The following week saw further heavy rain.
By the first weekend of November the extent of the flooding was worse than that of 1947 when Bomber Command who had last seen active service bombing Germany was pressed back into service to drop food supplies over East Anglia and the Low Countries.
In the US we are now seeing with increasing frequency billion dollar 'freak' weather disasters.
The situation can only worsen. We are experiencing twice as many freak floods as a century ago. Over the next half century the number of incidents is expected to rise ten fold. The freak weather we have seen over the last month is likely to become the norm. The long term weather forecast for UK is warm wet winters with increased frequency of extreme incidents and long hot dry summers prone to drought conditions. A recent report by the Hadley Centre has warned that even deep cuts of 60% in CO2 emissions will not be sufficient and will at most lead to a slow down in global warming.
We have created the conditions for flooding. We drain farm land, drain marshes, canalise rivers, cut down woodland, build on flood plains. Greedy builders and developers, corrupt planners allow building to go ahead on flood plains. Marshes and natural vegetation help to absorb sudden deluges, then release the water slowly over time. We have lost this system capacity. Everything is designed to shoot the water as quickly down stream as possible - field drains, straightened rivers, acres of tarmac.
Global warming can only make the situation worse. What cost a few pence on fuel now? We are entering an era of warm wet winters, hot dry summers.
We have to start cutting carbon emissions now. Not tomorrow, not in a few years time, but now. We also have to start planning now as to how we spread the water load. Building more reservoirs is not the answer. Dealing with leaks has already saved a major phase of reservoir building. We have to do more to retain water where it falls, to recharge water tables, and to use water more sparingly. Often these measures go hand in hand.
Modern day water management is to move water away as rapidly as possible and where it might accumulate in undesirable quantities build barriers.
The run-off from a bare field is 10-100 times that of a field of grass. A native prairie soaks up eight times more water than a wheat field. A ploughed field has ruts which collect rainfall in puddles. The current practice of winter sowing, not spring sowing, where the previous monoculture is cleared chemically, lies at the heart of much of the problem.
York came close to flooding when the swollen Ouse which drains from the Pennines and North York Moors was at a 400 year high. Bogs are a natural sponge. In biodiversity bogs are the northern latitude equivalent of tropical rainforests. We destroy bogs, we dig them up, we drain them. All mining of bogs should be stopped, field drains should be plugged.
Lowland water meadows are another rare and rich habitat. They served to slow the downstream rush of water. We should increase the number and area of water meadows. Local examples can be seen in Guildford and they are still used to accommodate excess water in the Wey.
We can use more efficient shower heads to save water. Our homes can collect water. New homes should have cisterns to collect grey water and rain water. It would be to the advantage of the water authorities to pay for the additions to new houses and retrofits to old houses as it would save on capital investment and reduces peak water flows. Grey water (used water bar that from toilets (black water), sinks, baths, washing machines etc) can be used to flush toilets. Modern day sewage treatment plants can make use of a variety of hydro-ecoystems. A cascading series of ponds attached to a corporate buildings and new residential estates could be made compulsory as could the internal use of grey water. Gardens and landscaped areas can easily be designed to be water retentive, to slowly release the water to recharge depleted water tables.
The saving in water supply, water removal and water treatment should be encouraged by rebates on water bills. Every gallon not supplied, taken away or treated is a saving to the water company.
At the end of last month a rally for the Ilisu Dam was held in Parliament Square. Thanks to appalling bad weather and Railtrack not that many people were able to make it. But the informal atmosphere and the wide range of speakers, all very successfully compared by Mark Thomas, proved to be a huge success.
A sound system was disallowed. Apparently our guardians of democracy might have heard what was being said. In the absence of a sound system and stage, each speaker stood on a wall. The speakers ranged from Mark Thomas, two MEPs including Green MEP Jean Lambert and a LibDem, a member of the Greater London Assembly, an archaeologist, a handful of trade unionists, Kurdish human rights activists, a Kurdish politician, Martin from CAAT, Christine from the NUT, environmentalists. They each brought to the meeting a wide range of concerns.
Blair claims there is consultation. There is not even consultation in Farnborough as we have seen with airport expansion so can can we expect consultation under a brutal regime like Turkey? The Kurds in the region have said they are not being consulted, the message they convey to the outside world is that they do not want the dam. Those who raise their voices are beaten and tortured.
Another lie is that the people are free to go home. Villagers who have gone home and tried to rebuild their homes have been warned off by the security services. They then watch their homes being burnt to the ground for a second time.
One reason why Turkey is so keen to flood the area is to hide the evidence of human rights violations.
The region is already unstable. The dam and with it Turkey's ability to turn off the water to other countries will prove to be the flash point for the next Middle East war. It does not meet the standards we expect of a government that claims to have an ethical foreign policy.
There is no money in the UK for essential public services, no money to spend on the tube, but £200 million can be found for Balfour Beatty.
Balfour Beatty has a very bad reputation for exploitation in the Third World. In Lesotho, when the local workers went on strike, Balfour Beatty sent in the security forces who killed several people.
Balfour Beatty is one of the companies hoping to get a slice of the Tube. London Mayor Ken Livingstone does not waste a single opportunity to slam Balfour Beatty. The companies jostling Balfour Beatty for a slice of the Tube are little better.
Trade unions have sent out a call for any work for the Ilisu Dam to be blacked.
If £200 million is to be spent in Turkish occupied Kurdistan, that money would be better spent on primary education, to enable Kurdish children to be taught in their own language of Kurdish, not to be forced to learn in Turkish, the language of their oppressors.
Following the speeches the assembly moved on down Whitehall to hand in a petition to Downing Street. A small group then moved on to the Indian High Commission (en route a Balfour Beatty sign was subtly re-engineered) to hand in a protest letter on the Narmada Dam. The Indian Supreme Court has recently given the go-ahead for the Dam. [more on the Narmada Dam in a later issue, copies of protest letter from nobigdam@email.com]
Send a fax to the President of India to protest at the Narmada Dam:
In the evening a meeting was held in the Commons to highlight the deficiencies of export credit agencies, wrong projects to the wrong countries. Some of the points highlighted: immoral funding of arms trade, funding of coal-fired power stations and other greenhouse gas emitters, money going to pariah states (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia, China etc), lack of accountability and transparency, corporate welfare, little if any control of corruption. If money is to go in aid it should go to those countries in need for specific projects, eg renewable energy. Participants included: CAAT, WDM, FoE, Oxfam and many more. Special thanks to Jenny Tonge MP and Alan Simpson MP for hosting the meeting and Nicholas Hildyard (Corner house) for the organisation.
[for more on dams, Ilisu, Balfour Beatty, export credit agencies, see BVEJ newsletters passim, Ilisu Dam campaign have produced a standard letter to send to Balfour Beatty, Undercurrents filmed the day's events]
One of the consequences of the RIP Act (BVEJ newsletters passim) is that new regulations were introduced last month to make it legal for companies to monitor the electronic communications of their workforce - e-mail, telephone, internet access. Not that many employers had any reservations before. We can think of a college not a million miles from the flight path that does not hesitate to monitor the e-mail of staff and students.
Employers may find they have a problem. It may be legal under the RIP Act, it is contrary to new Data Protection Regulations and contrary to the new Human Rights Act. The Data Protection Regulations provide for unlimited fines.
If you are being monitored at the workplace, use the legislation available to protect yourself.
By next year all ISPs will have to have in place a 'black box' to grant MI5 instant access to all data.
This month sees the Climate Convention in The Hague, held to flesh out the details of Kyoto (see Diary). Kyoto was too little, too late.
There are two factors we have to consider, carbon sources and carbon sinks. Carbon sources are coal-fired power stations, internal combustion engines etc. Sinks are expanding biomass, such as rain forests, phytoplankton etc. We have to consider both, not one in isolation from the other. What other people are doing is important, direct action in The Hague is all well and good (see Diary), but what are we doing in our own backyard?
Farnborough Airport will lead to a major increase in greenhouse gases, along with other air pollutants. The aviation sector is the fastest growing contributor to greenhouse gases. It is in danger of wiping out gains in all other sectors. The road traffic to service the airport will be an additional emitter of greenhouse gases. The airport will accelerate globalisation, in itself a major environmental destroyer.
The Slough Estates project (RAE, Old Factory site) will generate a massive increase in traffic, thus a net greenhouse emitter. The same is true of the cinema complex planned for Farnborough.
The massive deforestation to facilitate the airport will remove a carbon sink. As the wood rots down, or is burnt, it will return carbon to the atmosphere.
We are not aware of anything that will counter these negators of Kyoto, let alone lead to a net decrease in carbon emissions - no improvement in public transport, no soft energy projects, no attempts to support local businesses.
We could not get away with something like that in Zimbabwe without the threat of sanctions ... Maybe Africans and others should send observers to help Americans deal with their democracy. -- Jonathan Moyo, Zimbabwe government spokesman
Didn't he do well? No we are not thinking of the final victor, we are thinking of Ralph Nader.
Nader may not have managed to achieve the magical 5% which guarantees federal funding but he still did well in a two party system that squeezes the life blood out of any third choice.
Nader's rallies with its green and anti-corporate message were like rock concerts attended by tens of thousands.
Al Gore may have pointed the finger at Nader and accused him of stealing votes but the finger has to be pointed back at Gore. Most of the supporters of Nader probably would not have voted at all, least of all for the two factions of big business. With a challenger as odious as George W Bush (look at his record in Texas of executing blacks for cheap votes, pandering to dirty business) Al Gore should have experienced a landslide. That he did not speaks volumes. Gore likes to paint himself green. The truth has a different story to tell when we look at his and Clinton's record on global warming.
It was Al Gore who fouled the ballot. His presence stole votes from Ralph Nader. Had Gore not stood, electors would have had a clear choice in a two horse race and Nader would have romped home.
The presidential candidates spent around $3 billion to get themselves elected. In the Senate race some wannabe senators were spending $30 million apiece. Winning candidates were outspending the losers by as much as 10:1. The people who spent are now going to want to get their money's worth.
The ballot rigging in Florida cried out for a rerun of the ballot. Had this happened in a Third World country world leaders would be calling for fresh elections and refusing to recognise the result.
The Lebanese paper al-Safir apologised for the premature announcement of Al Gore as the winner. They explained that in Arab countries the results are usually known before the poll.
Welcome to Florida, home of Disney World and the Mickey Mouse ballot.
Two excellent well written articles in the BVFoE Winter 2000 newsletter by Julie Kimber, one on organics the other on gender benders. For more on gender benders and how to avoid the risks see the November issue of Ethical Consumer.
The teenage yobs that hang around North Camp have managed to smash several shop fronts and demolish and set fire to a post box with a firework.
There are plans to open a night club in North Camp. Not satisfied with drugged and drunk teenage yobs on the street we will now have a night club to attract them from all over the area.
Do we really want an attraction for drunken squaddies in North Camp?
Everyone must make it clear to our toy town planners and councillors that this scheme which can only spell trouble for North Camp must be rejected. The Sailor Boy Charity shop in Camp Road has a petition which everyone is urged to sign.
The hoardings we predicted have now been erected over several shop fronts. They even come with their own inbuilt graffiti.
The effect has been as everyone expected. Another nail in the coffin for the few remaining local businesses. What little custom they get is to ask; 'When are you closing down?'
During school half term gangs of teenage yobs were hanging around intimidating shoppers. No attempt was made by security to clear them away.
We have criticised before the development that is earmarked for the town centre. The go-ahead was given early this month by the planning committee for an eyesore (see Farnborough News Friday 17 November 2000) to be built on the site of the old post office. This will extend into Queensmead, take up the open space alongside the Pizza Hut, tower over the adjacent properties denying them light and privacy and destroy the lives of the tenants living in these properties, steal public space alongside the recreation centre for private parking. [BVEJ newsletter #0003 August 2000]
Before the planning meeting the councillors were given a private presentation by the developers. The public were excluded.
The planning committee were, as usual, subjected to a one-sided presentation. A sequence of photos that showed the impact upon the adjacent properties were not shown. A request to show a scale model to the planning committee to enable them to fully appreciate the impact was denied. A few councillors suggested that the top storey be removed to make it accord with the rest of the street, this was rejected by planning official Darryl Phillips, as the developers would not like it as they would not be able to make enough money. Several councillors wanted a deferment, but the chairman John Marsh said this was not possible (much to the anger of several councillors). In an aside it was let slip that the plans had already been decided. Planning official Daryl Phillips asked what was he going to tell the developers. The meeting was told that it was important to keep the developers happy. Some councillors were only too keen to rush ahead with the development. Why?
relationship with 94 Westmead: ... unavoidable impact. However in this town centre location it is considered that on balance the proposed relationship is acceptable and that the wider benefits associated with a successful redevelopment of this important town centre site outweigh the disadvantages associated with the impact upon No 94.
There are a large number of empty residential properties above the shops. Most, included those in occupation, are in an appalling state of repair. To which Rushmoor turns a convenient blind eye, no doubt in the desire to keep the developers happy. There is no shortage of empty retail units. There is thus no wider benefit to the community in this development. The people living at No 94 are going to have their home and their lives destroyed. As with the development of the airfield, Rushmoor places the profit of a private developer before the needs of the local community.
Once again the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor have shown themselves to be in the pocket of developers, that profit comes before people. The manner in which this was handled is grounds for referral to the Ombudsman.
Local businesses having been driven to the verge of bankruptcy are now starting to fight back.
Wal-Mart has recently fired some students for refusing to work weekends. The attitude of Wal-Mart is that if you won't accept our conditions there are plenty out there who will.
The government has received a report on mobile phone masts with two key recommendations: local communities should decide the location of phone masts, precautionary principle should apply and sensitive areas be avoided (ie schools).
The response of the government has been to sit on the report and do nothing.
Which? has conducted further research on mobile phones. They have confirmed their previous findings that 'hands-free' adapters increase the radiation to the head (by up to 3 1/2 times). If you hang what is effectively an aerial onto the end of a mobile phone it would be a surprise if it did not increase radiation. The advice is to minimise the use of mobile phones.
A survey has been carried out of two primary schools in the North East, one has had a nearby mobile phone mast for three years, one has one planned. The school with the mast had a much higher incidence of ill health (skin problems, nose bleeds, headaches, lack of concentration) than the school without a mast.
Switzerland has very tight controls on the siting of mobile phone masts, why don't we?
More than 2/3 of teenagers now possess a mobile phone.
Anyone who as any lingering doubts about New Labour only has to look to the London Borough of Hackney. In Hackney New Labour are running the borough in coalition with the Tories. The opposition is formed of LibDems and the Green Party. Several of the LibDem councillors are defectors from Labour.
Hackney is one of the poorest and most deprived boroughs in the country. The right wing coalition are planning massive cuts. Flats have roofs collapsing but no sign of repairs. A recent attempt to close nursery schools met with strong resistance from kids and parents, they have occupied the buildings and are running the schools themselves. There are plans to close several schools. Support centres for Kurdish refugees are under threat. Housing benefit has been privatised leading to huge backlogs of payments for some of the borough's most vulnerable citizens. The chief executive of Hackney has a salary of £150,000.
At a recent rally to oppose cuts there were present Greens, LibDems, trade unionists, but not a single New Labour politician dared to show their face.
So worried are Hackney councillors at being lynched by the people they claim to represent, that at a recent council meeting the riot cops were out in force and marksman on the rooftops.
Money cannot be found to deal with deprivation in our capital city where in the City of London dealers get million pound bonuses, and yet £200 million can be found to enable Balfour Beatty to carry out a policy of ethnic cleansing (Ilisu Dam), money can be found to finance arms deals to some of the world's most repressive regimes.
David Kennedy (asst chief executive Bradford Council) has been trying to use bully-boy tactics to close down an internet site in the States that has been raising embarrassing questions as to how Bradford spends its multimillion pound 'regeneration' budget. Kennedy has written to LA-based Network 54 demanding the removal of the KDIS website (aka Bradford's alternative web-based magazine Knee Deep in Shit). KDIS subscribers have accused Kennedy, who is responsible for regeneration, of a 'heavy-handed' attitude that is 'so typical of this council and its bureaucracy, who appear obsessed with secrecy and control.' [Private Eye 1014]
Obviously Kennedy has not heard of the US First Amendment that guarantees free speech, or that a local authority cannot be libelled. He will have even less joy when the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights comes into effect, of which Article 11 Freedom of expression and information guarantees:
Al Norman, Slam-Dunking Wal-Mart, Raphel Marketing, 1999
There's one thing you can't find on any Wal-Mart shelf, and that's small town quality of life. But once you lose it, Wal-Mart can't sell it back to you at any price. -- Al Norman
Al Norman was just an ordinary guy until Wal-Mart tried to walk into town. He then became a vociferous critic of Wal-Mart, set up a web site and wrote this book.
Slam-Dunking Wal-Mart is in two parts, the first part is background to Wal-Mart and other large chains that are destroying small American towns, the other is a guide showing how you can effectively drive them out of town.
Although American in context, much can be generalised. Al Norman shows how long before we get a whisper of what is going on, Wal-Mart have already done the power circuit and brainwashed key players and decision makers. We have seen this in Farnborough where TAG did the circuits and got local business leaders and the council in their pockets long before the rest of us were aware of what was happening. The whole thing was cut and dried long before the planning process.
When a corporate juggernaut rolls into town its only interest in that town is exploitation and the amount of money it can appropriate from that town. Once the town has been bled dry it will often roll on, leaving behind a desolate wasteland.
The campaign organised in Greenfield makes our own efforts at opposing TAG look very amateurish. Placards on lawns, intensive letter writing campaigns filling the letters page of the local press week after week. Like here, the press and the local council were fully in favour of the out-of-town developers, the whole process was unfairly skewed against the local community. Al Norman and his campaigners did though have some advantages. Wal-Mart were forced to finance a supposedly independent economic study. The biggest advantage was the opportunity for a local vote on the issue. Were Farnborough to be allowed a vote on the issue of airfield expansion a whipped TAG would be crawling back to its Swiss hide away.