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| Newsletter | May 2001 |
The most important conflict of the twenty-first century will be the battle between corporations and democracy. -- George Monbiot
Climate Chaos Roadshow - the eco-event of the year in the Blackwater Valley.
The Climate Chaos Roadshow will be touring Britain during May and early June. They will be coming to town to inform and empower on global warming and to make the link between global warming, aviation and globalisation.
You will have the opportunity to have fun, learn, and plot future strategies to reduce greenhose gases. Doing nothing is not an option.
Aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. Business aviation with only a handful of occupants per plane is obscene. The operation at Farnborough is a key component of globalisation.
Rising Tide who are campaigning on climate change are bringing their Climate Chaos Roadshow to Farnborough on Tuesday 8 May 2001. During the day there will be street theatre and other entertainment in Farnborough town centre, then in the evening at the Tumbledown Dick the chance to chill out, chat and unwind over a drink, possibly the opportunity to watch videos and listen to speakers. Both locations are within a few minutes walk of Farnborough Station. 01252 653144 / 020 779 25023 climatechaos@yahoo.com
Tune in on the day to Rising Tide FM, 87.7FM (broadcast between midday and 4pm on the day of the 'show'), for up to date news and views.
The next big climate event will be in Bonn (21 July 2001). Contact Julie for more info and an account of last year's action at The Hague. 01252 510424 julie@bvfoe.freeserve.co.uk
The next big event in the locality will be the Green Ambient Picnic by the river in Guildford (7 July 2001).
We have a major energy crisis ... We have a choice in this country of having lights on, or at least in the short run, having more CO2 ... We need more refineries, we need more power plants, we need more pipelines. -- Lawrence Lindsey, White House chief economic adviser
Last month we asked you to e-mail George W Bush with your concerns over the US failure to ratify Kyoto (BVEJ newsletter #0011 April 2001). This has now been taken up worldwide. At one point Bush was receiving an e-mail every second with 1,000 e-mails a day causing the White House mail servers to crash. By Sunday evening (April 8) over 70,000 e-mails had been sent to the White House. The media across the world is picking up the story.
If you have not yet bush-whacked Bush please do and ask your friends to do the same. If you have not been able to get through just keep on trying. If you don't get a reply, keep on sending those e-mails. If you don't like the reply, fire off another e-mail.
A consumer boycott of American products and services is also gaining momentum. Coca-Cola gave $1 million to the Bush election campaign.
You don't have to burn books now, you just press the delete key. -- Ian Thomas
Ian Thomas is a mapmaker, by all accounts a bloody good mapmaker. On the 7th of March Ian put a map he had drawn of Alaska on the net. Within days he had been sacked from his job at the US Geological Survey.
The mistake Ian made was to draw a map of Alaska of the very area, Area 1002, that the US oil companies and BP Amoco, wish to see opened up for oil exploration. The second mistake Ian made was to show it was an important breeding ground for caribou.
The message has gone out. The US Fisheries and Wildlife Service has hastily removed all offensive material from its web site, ie any material that shows the negative environmental impact of mineral extraction in protected and sensitive areas.
Ian is now working for WWF, his case of unfair dismissal has been taken up by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Defenders of Wildlife and a host of other pressure groups.
Alaska's Arctic Wildlife Refuge is one of the few unspoilt ecosystems left in the world. It's payback time. Bush's backers want to get their hands on the spoils by opening up the area for oil drilling.
Florida's economy is based upon tourism and other activities that depend on a clean and healthy environment. It is my hope that [the] interior will recognise that the entire eastern Gulf of Mexico planning area contains many sensitive marine and coastal resources, and not advance any new leasing in this area. -- Jeb Bush, Governor of Florida
I must consider our nation's energy needs and appropriate management of the American public's natural resources. -- Gale Norton, US Interior Secretary
It is not only the Alaska's Arctic Wildlife Refuge that is at risk from Bush's crass policies. Jeb Bush (the Bush that runs Florida) has appealed to George W Bush (the one that sits in the White House), not to grant oil exploration licences for the Gulf of Mexico, offshore from Florida.
Genghis Khan of the environment, US Interior Secretary Gale Norton, has rejected a call to not auction off 6 million acres (2.4 million hectares) of the seabed off Florida for oil exploration. The area is expected to yield 2 billion barrels of oil and billions of cubic metres of natural gas.
Bush, George W, has demonstrated that oil is thicker then water, especially when the oil is wanted by your paymasters.
Florida has another problem. Rising sea levels will wipe out most of the real estate in Florida.
They've won, they've won, they have got all the airtime. -- delegate pointing through the tear gas at the demonstrators
You can't have a trade summit these days without teargas; it would be like having a cheeseburger without cheese. -- US trade official
This year's season of anti-capital rallies kicked off with the Summit of the Americas. Another summit of 'democratic' leaders hiding behind barricades, whilst on the streets scenes of police brutality.
George W Bush offered Nafta as the way forward. Nafta has led to deteriorating wages, worsening employment conditions, a deteriorating environment. The only winners have been big business.
The next big street action will be May Day in London, followed by the Climate talks in Bonn in July.
With uncontrolled burning we do not know what is happening in the combustion process. -- Jim Bridges, professor of toxicology, Surrey University
The government has dithered and still not vaccinated. Compare this with the mass demo in The Hague for vaccination. The only reason the Dutch have not implemented widespread vaccination is because of EU directives.
Maff have made no arrangements to protect rare breeds. They could have been isolated or vaccinated. The loss of this genetic material far outweighs any downside.
People downwind of the funeral pyres are suffering chest problems. The dioxins released exceed the entire output from UK factories. There is no empirical evidence that the virus is destroyed. Prions from BSE infected cattle are highly unlikely to be destroyed.
It is rare for humans to suffer any problems from foot and mouth, animals suffer for a short period, then recover. The ill-thought out mass slaughter programme is causing far worse environmental and health problems - leachates from mass burial sites will contaminate water courses and drinking water, burning causes a deterioration of air quality (release of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, particulates, dioxins) and build up of dioxins in surrounding land.
There are plans to transport carcasses to Hampshire for final disposal. Hampshire currently does not have foot and mouth.
The slaughter program was implemented without any planning or forethought as to how the carcasses would be disposed of.
Wildlife has benefited from the foot and mouth outbreak. Foxes and hares are no longer being hunted, badger culling has stopped, the over grazing pressure has relaxed allowing plants to spring up.
Post foot and mouth we have opportunities that must not be squandered. Maff, which together with the NFU, agribusiness, EU and globalisation, is the root cause of our problems must be culled. Restocking must be at much lower levels. Replacing hill flocks is not as simple as bringing in new sheep. The existing hill sheep are culturally adapted to their land, they know the limit of their land, and graze in a particular method which is passed down through the generations.
Foot and mouth has highlighted the value of landscape, that most of the countryside value is tourism not food production. Farming helps to shape a landscape. Agricultural policy should be determined accordingly. Farmers should NOT be paid subsidies for food production. They should be paid subsidies for landscape and wildlife conservation, for ecological services provided, social services and the general well-being of the land and the people who live off the land.
Small, family farms should be encouraged as they have a vested interest in passing on a sustainable farm through the generations.
[BVEJ newsletter #0011 April 2001]
The heathland to the west of Farnborough Airport was destroyed under the MoD/TAG scorched earth policy (BVEJ newsletter #0010 March 2001). Parts of the former heathland have been overlain with 'hemp' matting to stabilise the slopes and prevent further soil erosion. By mid-April grass was starting to sprout indicating that the area beneath the matting had been seeded. It will be interesting to see with what grass seed, as the local garden centre does not supply heath grass seed. We believe the wrong seed has been used, only time will tell.
Further into the heathland, ie away from the Aldershot-Fleet road, lies further evidence of the massive deforestation. All the trees have gone, some timber is still awaiting extraction, leaving stumps. It remains to be seen if this will be scoured too. Left as it is, with the increase in light and no grazing, we will see heather, rapidly overtaken by birch and pine, leaving a legacy of dark, dank, impenetrable thicket. Examples of this can be seen on the heathland to the east of Mytchett where trees, mainly pine, have been clear-felled.
Curiously, the hill exactly on the centre line of the runway remains untouched.
English Nature has a statutory responsible to protect this area. Why is EN failing to act? FoE and Transport 2000 are to take legal action against Prescott to stop the Hastings Bypass. Why no action to stop this environmental destruction, why were they not asked to act by the local FoE group?
There are rumours circulating in the aviation industry and financial circles that TAG are in trouble, that they are being forced to severely cut their world-wide ambitions to concentrate on the UK and that their bankers are worried. Difficult to verify, as with the troubled Maxwell empire, everything is hidden behind remote bank accounts where excessive secrecy is the norm.
The Climate Chaos Roadshow coming to Farnborough on Tuesday 8 May 2001 will make the link between aviation and climate change. Aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases.
The decision by Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice to accept sponsorship, £6,500 blood money, from TAG for their concert in the park is causing widespread anger and disgust. A massive own goal for the hospice. We are asking everyone to boycott the concert - King George V Playing Fields, Farnborough, Sunday 1 July 2001.
This is the scenario that CPRE fears most for this tranquil piece of Waverley, overlooked by high ground, between the villages of Dunsfold, Ewhurst and Cranleigh. -- John Thorpe, CPRE
For 36 years and in more than 50 different planning proposals, Waverley Borough Council and its predecessors had steadfastly maintained the condition that once BAe ceased operations, all the buildings, runways, etc must be removed and all the land returned to agriculture. -- John Thorpe, CPRE
Last year in the High Court the villagers of Alfold and Dunsfold achieved a stunning victory over BAE Systems and Waverley Borough Council. That victory has now been reversed by the Appeal Court. [BVEJ newsletter #0008 January 2001]
For 50 years or more there was a legal agreement between BAE Systems and Waverley Borough Council (and their predecessors) that when Dunsfold Airfield was no longer required for aviation use it would be returned to farm land. When BAE Systems reneged on this agreement Waverley refused to enforce it. The local residents then took action through the High Court and won a stunning victory. But leave of appeal was granted to Waverley and BAE Systems. Waverley have appealed and have reversed the High Court decision. Local residents are now faced with a massive legal bill.
The Appeal Court has refused leave of appeal to the House of Lords.
Dunsfold is set amidst stunning Surrey countryside. It is not the place for a 500 acre industrial site.
Once again we have a local authority not acting in the interests of local people.
Several Green Party candidates are standing so for once we have the opportunity of real change.
Peter Barnett is standing against the present incumbent Pat Devereux (Cons) for a seat on Hampshire County Council. Pat Devereux has done nothing to oppose the airfield. Peter Barnett has been working very hard over several years to oppose the airfield. Here is the opportunity for a candidate who will act on behalf of local people.
Caroline Lucas has worked very hard at the European Parliament on our behalf. We now have the opportunity for the same at County level.
It goes without saying that Gerald Howarth MP (Cons) who has fallen over backwards to promote the airfield should be kicked out at the general election.
FoE launch of the Green X Code has left its friends confused and wringing their hands in despair, even the name is confusing.
FoE call for 50% recycling, BVEJ call for a minimum of 75%.
FoE call for a 20% cut in CO2, BVEJ call for a minimum of 60%.
FoE call for 20% of electricity to come from renewables, BVEJ call for appropriate energy supplies.
FoE call for liability on genetic pollution. A bit late by then. BVEJ call for a complete ban on GM crops and imports.
FoE call for companies to recognise their environmental and social responsibilities and to accept accountability. This would be unlawful under present company law where directors are accountable to their shareholders and have to act in the best interests of the shareholders. BVEJ are calling for corporate manslaughter, companies to be wound up if they are major offenders. This would run foul of WTO and GATS. BVEJ are calling for a halt on GATS negotiations and for WTO to be wound up.
Green X Code is vapid and is yet another sign that FoE has lost its way.
By all means ask your candidates' views on the Green X Code, but a more meaningful test of their green credentials would be to ask them to complete the Ecologist environmental survey and then see how their answers stack up with your own and the rest of the British public. [The Ecologist May 2001]
A web site has been launched to encourage tactical voting, the intention being to kick out a Tory. When the Tories were in power this made sense, but not when Labour has a huge majority, though we have no objections to seeing Gerald Howarth kicked out, but we would like to see a Green candidate elected, not the no-hopers put forward by Labour and the LibDems.
I never put those plants on my land, The question is; where do Monsanto's rights end and mine begin? -- Percy Schmeiser, Canadian farmer.
Imagine you're a farmer growing a crop and saving some seed to sow the following year. Now imagine that unbeknown to you, your crop gets contaminated with genetically engineered pollen, then you get taken to court and sued! Er, is this some kind of April fool?
Well, in Canada last month a judge ruled that a Canadian farmer, Percy Schmeiser, violated Monsanto's patent by 'unknowingly and unwillingly growing genetically modified (GM) oil seed rape.' He now faces a bill for $105,000 and after 40 years of saving seeds and developing his own strain has had to purchase new seed wasting a lifetime's work.
Under Canadian patent law, as in the US and many other industrialised countries, it is illegal for farmers to reuse patented seed, or to grow Monsanto's GM seed without signing a licensing agreement. If biotech bastards such as Monsanto get their way, every nation in the world will be forced to adopt patent laws that make seed saving illegal. The ruling against Schmeiser establishes an even more dangerous precedent, meaning that farmers can be forced to pay royalties on GM seeds found on their land, even if they didn't buy the seeds, or benefit from them.
The GM oil seed rape that drifted onto Schmeiser's farm was engineered to be resistant to Monsanto's weed killer, Roundup. He didn't use Roundup on his crop, because that would have killed the majority of his oil seed rape plants that were not genetically modified!. Schmeiser didn't take advantage of Monsanto's GM technology, but the court ruling says he's guilty of using the seed without a licensing agreement.
Monsanto are so zealous about protecting their fat profits that they send around 'gene police' stealing crops from random farms and then testing them to see if they contain Monsanto's gene to tolerate their own pesticides. Monsanto has threatened to 'vigorously prosecute' hundreds of seed saving farmers, but Schmeiser's was the first major case to reach the courts.
About the ruling Percy said: 'I was really alarmed at the fact that it said in the decision that it doesn't matter how it gets into a farmer's field - whether it blows in or cross-pollinates, or comes in on farm machinery - it doesn't belong to the farmer. It belongs to Monsanto.'
Percy is now considering an appeal and has filed a counter-suit against Monsanto, but his family faces enormous legal costs. Contributions to Schmeiser's legal defence may be sent to: Fight Genetically Altered Food Fund Inc, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, 603 Main St, Humboldt SK, Canada, SOK 2A0.
The verdict is being hailed as a landmark victory for Monsanto, but it may spark a biotech backlash. North American farmers grow three-quarters of the world's commercial GM crops, and now they're showing signs of biotech battle fatigue. Illegal traces of Aventis' StarLink maize (unapproved for human consumption) have disrupted grain markets and jeopardized exports. Unsold stockpiles of US maize are at their highest level since GM crops were commercialised. The US government announced last month that it would spend $20 million in taxpayer money to bail out the biotech industry, using money that would normally go to disaster relief for farmers!
Now American farmers are reluctant to plant GM crops, the chief executive of the American Corn Growers Foundation complaining 'Consumer resistance in Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Brazil and the growing resistance in the United States makes it unlikely that many market opportunities will be available for GM crops'.
[SchNEWS 300 Friday 6 April 2001, with a few minor corrections]
Thailand has taken the first step to protect Asia from the threat of genetic engineering. The message is clear: The only way to prevent genetic pollution from GE crops is never to plant them in the first place -- Auaiporn Suthonthanyakorn, Greenpeace GE campaigner for South East Asia
Thailand's biodiversity is unique and precious. It is our culture, our food and our future. Greenpeace congratulates this Government action to protect our food and fields from the dangers of genetic engineering and encourages other ASEAN governments to follow. We demand that Monsanto respects this decision and terminates their existing field trials. -- Dr Jiragorn Gajaseni, Executive Director of Greenpeace South East Asia.
Thailand has banned all GM crops. There was a ban in place on commercial GM crops, this has now been extended to GM crop trials. The decision marks the end of ongoing field trials on GE cotton and GE corn, conducted by Monsanto, the second largest seed provider in Thailand.
Thailand has taken the lead in Asia to protect its environment, biodiversity and farmers from genetic pollution. By taking this bold decision Thailand can avoid the environmental and economic problems already being experienced by those countries that have adopted GM crops.
In Canada, GM canola (oil seed rape) is developing into a major weed problem, which requires the use of conventional toxic herbicides for removal. In the US, over a billion dollars have been spent trying to recall a GM potentially allergenic Starlink corn, which contaminated 430 million bushels of harvest. Starlink was only intended for animal feed but it got into the human food chain (BVEJ newsletters passim).
Percy Schmeiser was mad as hell, and decided he wasn't going to take it. Schmeiser has been growing canola -- the yellow-blossomed oilseed that used to be known as rapeseed -- for 40 years, and he knows his stuff. He's been experimenting, developing his own varieties, using his own seed and generally prospering with canola, reaping the benefits derived from growing an increasingly popular crop. -- Dave Margoshes, Vancouver Sun
The experience of Percy Schmeiser whose crops have been contaminated with Monsatan's genetic shit beggars belief. Far from Percy being sued by Monsatan for patent infringement, it should be Percy suing Monsatan for genetic contamination.
Oil seed rape travels very easily. Walk along the North Downs early summer and you will be surprised at the number of rape plants you come across. A single plant can produce 4000 to 10,000 plants. Roundup kills everything, including oil seed rape, but not Monsatan's GM rape which is resistant to Roundup. Escaped plants thus pose a serious weed problem. It also means that farmers don't have to worry too much where they spray or how much because if the have Roundup resistant rape the crop will be damaged.
GM animal feed is still finding its way into our diet. The worst offender is Sainsbury.
Local events organised by the local community, for the local community are the most successful of events. Key ingredients are a few dedicated individuals, always volunteers, a slight alternative 'unlawful' aspect. Killers are the dead hand of officialdom, though a bit of dosh is always welcome so long as there are no strings attached.
Keith Leach, a local piss artist, organised the Jack the Green May Day festival in Hastings, a mix of beer and folk, now on the national calender.
The Guildford Ambient Picnic has grown in a only a few years to a major event that attracts people from London and across the South East. Last year it failed to happen because of local reactionaries who disapproved of the alternative life styles and the failure of Guildford Borough Council to come up with any cash. It will be taking place this year (7 July) and hopefully will now become a regular event.
The Climate Chaos Raodshow (touring the country May/June, Farnborough Tues 8 May 2001) falls into this category as though not strictly a local event it is run by dedicated volunteers (with local help), as does the anti-capital May Day events in London which the police and government have made certain has the right ingredient of illegality to ensure a good attendance, and if this year's Monopoly goes well is sure to turn into a regular event attracting tens of thousands of people.
Local events are examples of the local community reclaiming their community, reclaiming public space. A breath of fresh in a global community dominated by global corporate culture.
The New Economics Foundation has published a book, Low Flying Heroes, which looks at local events and how they contribute to a local community.
Naomi Klein discusses corporate culture and the successful attempts of communities to reclaim public space in No Logo (Flaming, 2000).
If you buy flowers from a supermarket, especially out-of-season flowers, and they are fresh, pristine and cheap, the chances are they have come from Kenya. A huge environmental and social price is paid for our convenience of fresh flowers.
Clustered around Lake Nabashu are flower farms forming the core of the Kenyan flower industry. The Lake is of Ramsar importance, with over 300 species of birds. The lake is being poisoned by run-off from the flower farms, the lake is also being drained by the excess water demand. The rate of extraction is such that in 10-15 years the lake will be nothing but a muddy little puddle.
Flowers are air-freighted to Europe, either direct to market or via auctions in Holland. The main markets are UK and Germany.
Workers in the flower industry fear talking to the media for fear of losing their jobs. For the same reason they dare not complain of their working conditions for fear of the sack. Working conditions described by one worker as slave labour. Wages are insufficient to live on. Regular exposure to dangerous chemicals is the norm, chest pains are common. The workers lack proper protective clothing, many of the chemicals used are banned. For every worker fired, there are at least 100 waiting at the gate to take the job.
Kenyan is in the grip of a three year drought. Shanty towns lack clean running water, children play in sewage.
Corruption is endemic in Kenya. A Ghanaian saying is that a fish rots from the head. In Kenya corruption starts with Moi and his henchmen and works its way downwards. Many NGOs will not work with the Kenyan government because of the rampant corruption. Transparency International rate Kenya as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. The endemic corruption means that whatever minimal standards are in force, they are not enforced.
The land used for growing flowers could be used to grow food.
Please do not buy flowers from Kenya.
For more on corruption in Kenya read John le Carre, The Constant Gardener, Hodder & Stoughton, 2001.
We must have been one of the few environmental groups that did not get over ecstatic with excitement over the government's recent announcement of offshore wind farms. It is not that we are agin wind farms per se or wind generation of electricity, it is that it is to miss the point entirely. Green energy supplies, or what Amory Lovins calls Soft Energy Paths, is to match supply to demand on the appropriate scale, where scale is defined in space and time and quality of energy.
A green or soft energy supply system, one that supplies appropriate energy in a sustainable way, is one that addresses the following questions (with due acknowledgement to Herman Daly):
Soft energy paths have the following features (with due acknowledgement to Amory Lovins):
A soft energy path benefits society. Soft energy paths are community scale. Community size projects can be controlled by the community. Hard energy paths are community unfriendly. Hard energy paths are controlled by global corporations. Hard energy paths siphon resources and money out of the community and destabilise the world economy, soft energy paths recycle resources and money within the community.
The most important energy measure we can put in place is conservation. Replace all domestic appliances with more efficient appliances, more efficient motors, and we would immediately make available far more electricity than if we covered the whole coast with wind farms.
Most of energy use is space heating and water heating. To meet that need through the generation of electricity, a high grade energy with consequential conversation losses, is bordering on insanity. We need electricity for our laptops, web sites, telecomms, lighting, but reserve it for high grade use and generate wherever possible locally.
To quote Amory Lovins, deciding upon the greenest supplier of electricity is 'somewhat like shopping for the best buy in brandy to burn in your car, or the best buy in antique furniture to burn in your stove. From the end-use point of view it is to ask the wrong question.' Unless electricity is the most appropriate form of energy for end use then it is not a green option.
Jeremy Leggett has amorphous silicon 'slates' on the roof of his house in Richmond. A local generator that has a surplus of around 20% which is returned to the grid. In the Dovey Valley in mid-Wales, local water turbines supply electricity. In rural Nottinghamshire, a small group of grass-covered houses rely upon passive solar heating to warm their houses. Electricity is supplied by a small community wind turbine.
The Dovey Valley had local water turbines up until the 1960s, only now are they starting to reappear, helped by the nearby Centre for Alternative Technology. Money not spent on electricity supplied from the grid is money not extracted from the valley, money that remains to be circulated within the valley. The houses in rural Nottinghamshire cost around œ90,000 (incl lake and reservoir, œ50,000 without). Waste water and sewage filters through the reed beds and into the lake. It takes about 100 days to reach the lake and by then exceeds EU bathing standards. It took five years to obtain planning permission for the wind turbine.
Schemes like these are often dismissed because they are small scale and unreliable, but that is to miss the point. The scale of generation matches the demand, generation is located at the site of demand. When the generators or energy sources are meeting demand that is energy NOT drawn from the grid. Surpluses can be returned to the grid. The grid acts as a huge reservoir smoothing out the peaks and troughs.
Read:
Amory B Lovins, Soft Energy Paths, Penguin, 1977
Paul Hawken, Amory B Lovins & L Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism, Earthscan, 1999
[see natural capitalism, localisation, making local spending go further, closing the loop, in BVEJ newsletter #0006 November 2000, soft energy paths in BVEJ newsletter #0005 October 2000]
With elections fast approaching we have to ask ourselves why bother voting? It is not only us who are asking the question, most of the electorate are asking too.
Reporting of the US Presidential focused on the too close to call difference between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, scant attention was paid to the fact that more than 90 million failed to vote. The last general election upon which Blair claimed a people's mandate was the lowest ever turnout, 69%. The forthcoming election is expected to be lower. In the last EU elections, less than half bothered to vote, in the UK less than a quarter. At the recent Leeds by-election the turnout was 19%.
To vote is to legitimise a corrupt system. Councillors, as we have seen in Rushmoor, can claim they represent the community, when everyone knows this not to be true. Each year the intake to Westminster gets worse. When Tony Benn goes one of the few remaining people of integrity will have left Westminster, though fortunately not politics.
When we vote we are no longer electing a representative of the people, we are electing a corporate representative with a different shade of party. It is not that there is no interest in politics. There is a growing interest and awareness the like of which we have not seen in recent years since the 1960s (BVEJ newsletter #0010 March 2001). People are turning to the streets. Last year's May Day protests, and we expect the same this year, the mass trashing of a GM site two years ago in Oxfordshire, and many other trashings that go largely unreported, the action against Huntingdon Death Sciences that have driven them to the verge of bankruptcy. Towards the end of last year WDM held a meeting on globalisation, over 1,000 turned up, at a similar meeting earlier in the year the venue was packed.
Many of the demos that take place, unless there is violence, go unreported. Meanwhile total trivia from Westminster is reported and analysed down to the nuances of every word. It wouldn't do for the media to report what is really going on as it might give too many people ideas of their own empowerment, that they can take matters into their own hands and force change, that they do not have to rely on a bunch of corrupt politicians whose only interest is their own self-interest and that of their corporate paymasters.
The interest in politics is there it us just that people are turning away from national and local politics as corrupt and increasingly irrelevant.
If a genuine and serious grievance arose, such as might result from a significant drop in the standard of living, all those who now dissipate their protest over a wide variety of causes might concentrate their efforts and produce a situation which was beyond the power of the police to handle. -- Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations
One Saturday morning last month, 200 police took part in a dawn raid on the Button Factory in Brixton. Cops claimed that the centre was 'A secret training centre for anarchists who are planning to bring chaos to London on May Day'. Apparently, 'Anarchists from across Europe were due to gather that weekend for riot training and planning.'
The raid was part of the hysteria leading up to the planned Monopoly May Day protests (BVEJ #0011 April 2001) with stories in the papers getting more and more ludicrous as the day approaches. The cops feed the media and the media feeds the cops until broken skulls and mass arrests are seen as essential to stop marauding anarchists from leaving the capital and city in ruins. Similar stories as last year are already being fed into the media, which they repeat with trimmings. It sets an atmosphere of war and people turn up looking for trouble.
The media being part of the global forces which are at the root cause of all our problems are only too happy to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, where police brutality and over-reaction is seen as necessary to bring under control an out-of-control situation.
A typical example of press hysteria was the article by Frank Kane and Arthur Neslen with a suitable lurid title: Police chiefs will lose jobs if they fail to stop May Day anarchy. This is the sort of garbage that was appearing in the Sunday Times last year, all the more surprising that it appeared in the Observer (Sunday 8 April 2001) who should know better. By contrast, the same issue of the Observer had a well-balanced article by Noreena Hertz, Why we must stay silent no longer, which analysed the problem of global capital, the failure of democracy and why people are becoming increasingly angry. We hope to have a review of her forthcoming book, The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy, in a later newsletter.
5,000 police are to be on the streets for May Day Monopoly.
The media hype we are seeing now is exactly what happened in the run up to MayDay 2000. The day was hyped, all but World War Three, the French Revolution and the storming of the Bastille rolled into one was to ignite in Parliament Square, police leave in the Capital was cancelled, surrounding forces on alert, the Army mobilised. The day was peaceful, by mid-afternoon riot police started to assemble and the atmosphere changed. As the tension rose it was the protesters who tried to keep the cool. Herded over Lambeth Bridge like cattle, there were mindless acts of violence on passing cars by a few anarchists thugs. It was the protesters who dragged them away, the police stood idly by. Later the situation degenerated, exactly what the state wanted, otherwise everyone would have had egg on their face. Yet further excuse to bring in ever more Draconian legislation.
But it's also part of a wider picture - in this country and across the world - of resistance and opposition to injustice, ecological destruction and poverty being criminalised. As campaigners against single issues like roads or genetics are increasingly cottoning on to the fact that it's the whole bloody capitalist system that needs to be overthrown, they're finding themselves being described as 'terrorists'. The stakes are thus being raised.
The British State is the most experienced in the world at quelling resistance. General Frank Kitson (who worked in Malaya, Ireland and then Britain in the early 80s) wrote the British state's handbook on dealing with 'subversion' Low Intensity Operations way back in 1971. In it he emphasises the importance of intelligence gathering using 'a large number of low grade sources', 'psychological operations' such as propaganda against opposition groups, use of the media to target individuals and the use of infiltrators. The aim of this activity is to divide and destroy the movement by encouraging ineffective opposition (voting for 'left-wing' MPs, marching from A to B, listening passively to public speakers at rallies, signing petitions...) at the same time as using the media, police, courts and prisons to destroy effective opposition. As Kitson puts it, the way to smash a movement is 'to associate as many prominent members of the population, especially those who may have engaged in non-violent action, with the government' and 'to discover and neutralise the genuine subversive element'.
Since May Day 2000 this strategy has been actively pursued in Britain. The police used May Day itself to gather an enormous amount of intelligence and get its mates in the media to portray such actions in the future as 'unacceptable' and those involved as 'criminal'. Alongside the arrests, raids and imprisonments, it was not long before 'prominent' people 'involved in non-violent action' were joining in the police attacks on the Mayday action and specifically on alleged organisers. These people were quickly used by groups uninvolved in direct action to promote some kind of third way between direct action and doing nothing - a sort of being annoyed at capitalism while tut-tutting people who do something about it. The prominent individuals proposing this sort of ineffectual opposition soon find themselves getting newspaper columns, appearing on chat shows and generally being promoted by those in control of the media. Unless they show support for effective opposition on the streets, that is - in which case they can kiss goodbye to their newspaper columns.
Any demo, no matter what, has police surveillance and monitoring, even the ineffective demos BVFoE had at the beginning of last year and last Autumn. This is intended to intimidate and put off as many people as possible from attending. Had this level of repressive surveillance taken place in Russia more than a decade ago, or Serbia now, it would have been used as part of a propaganda offensive. Even inoffensive and ineffective groups like BVFoE are monitored, infiltrated and subverted to neutralise them.
Kitson pointed out that it's no good just repressing opposition when people have genuine grievances - you must allow people to let off steam, but only in ways that don't have any effect. Our job is to make sure that our resistance isn't just about letting off steam, shouting at the telly and cheering people at rallies - but about taking effective action.
The brand spanking new Terrorism Act came into effect just two days after the UK and good ol' USA bombed Baghdad. We've mentioned the new law plenty of times (BVEJ newsletters passim), but going to the People's Global Action Conference in Milan we heard first hand from across the globe how different governments are dealing with the growing anti-capitalist movement. And hey what a surprise, it's a pretty standard formula: spread propaganda that these people will eat your babies and that the only way to stop them is more repressive laws.
But the fact remains, it isn't anti-capitalists, environmentalists or even those dastardly animal rights protesters who have been bombing Baghdad or Belgrade (yeah, we know - it was 'humanitarian' bombing with 'smart' bombs). It isn't protesters who welcomed with open arms Russia's President Putin after he'd bombed Chechnya back into the dark ages. It isn't protesters who sell Hawk jets to dictators, turn a blind eye to Turkish genocide against the Kurds, refuse AIDS drugs to Africans because they're poor, dump toxic chemicals in the poorest countries in the world. We could go on and on but read past newsletter before we get tedious.
Quite by chance however, one clause under the UK Terrorism Act states that it's OK to bomb Baghdad as 'nothing in this section imposes criminal liability on any person acting on behalf of, or holding office under, The Crown.' It's just when you protest against government policy that you become a terrorist. As the saying goes, 'you can't be a terrorist if you've got an air force'.
Read Zac Goldsmith's excellent editorial in the April 2001 issue of The Ecologist for how the Terrorism Act effects YOU.
The Button Factory was opened as a social centre late summer last year, and has been used for a variety of different benefit gigs, get-togethers and parties. But that's now all come to an end after the owner and his hired heavies used mechanical diggers to make the place uninhabitable. So let's get this straight - the police en masse raid an empty building and take 'materials' from it. The owners then smash up the building and make it uninhabitable. The police then keep the building guarded and under surveillance so anarchists don't try and meet there and make plans for er, smashing up buildings.
Read:
Tony Bunyan, The Political Police in Britain, Quartet Books, 1977
Mark Curtis, The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy Since 1945, Zed Books, 1995
John Pilger, Hidden Agendas, Vintage, 1998
Naomi Klein, No Logo, Flamingo, 2000
Noreena Hertz, The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy, Heinemann, to be published
[adapted from SchNEWS 300 Friday 6 April 2001]
Last month we reported on a Sussex farmer who pulled out of a farm scale trial of oil seed rape (BVEJ newsletter #0011 April 2001). The farmer had been visited by half-a-dozen protesters and asked to pull out of the trials. At the time he was out so they spoke to his wife.
As it turned out they were pushing at an open door. He had contacted the local press and said he was pulling out because of the possibility that the scientists conducting the tests could spread foot and mouth disease. There was at the time no foot and mouth in Sussex, though the fact that the parish council were against may have focused his mind.
When asked whether the protests against him had had an effect he said 'I'm not bothered about the antis. I enjoy a good debate'. Two hours later he changed his tune saying he pulled out 'due to the unbearable level of intimidation and threatening behaviour that has been targeted towards me and my family.' He also claimed his farm machinery had been trashed. So why the change of mind?
The new press release had the fax number for Aventis (the biotech company running the trials) at the top of the page!
Aventis' application for Chardon LL maize to be the first commercialized GM seeds to be approved for the UK National Seed List has been indefinitely postponed after it was discovered that French authorities had only tested the crop for one year, rather than the two required under EU law. The hearing brought up issues including the failure to test the GM maize on cows, and 'suspicious' higher death rates among GM-fed chickens during trials.
How comes the countryside remains closed to everyone except anyone involved in GM crops? Scientists from 5 institutions will be making regular visits to all of the trials, moving between farms and counties. The trials are non-essential and pose a serious risk of further spreading of the disease. And the government tells us that foot and mouth travels miles but that genetically altered crops somehow won't. Yeah right, try telling that to Percy Schmeiser!
In the UK 97% of the vegetable varieties available in 1903 were no longer available just eighty years later. Does it matter? - well the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) think so, and have set up the Heritage Seed Library, because as one of their gardeners pointed out 'genetic erosion is a mass extinction every bit as important as the loss of species from tropical rainforests.'
Every year seed companies decide not to register certain seeds, and because they aren't on the National Seed List they can't be sold. Plants that may have characteristics that might be useful in the future would be lost if it were not for the amazing work of the Library. You can join the Library and choose some outlawed vegetables and they'll 'lend' you a few seeds.
Just three corporations control a quarter of the world's entire seed market: Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta. The corporations that have been steadily buying all up all your favourite garden seed companies, are the very same bio-tech giants that are trying to get us all to eat our genetically modified greens. But as Bob Sherman from the HDRA points out, 'the risk of concentrating so much commercial power into the hands of one corporate empire is that we have become subject to the dreams and aspirations of a very few people. Do they care about bio-diversity? Not as much, I suspect, as they do about profit.' Heritage Seed Library 01203 303517
[SchNEWS 300 Friday 6 April 2001]
The HDRA organic gardens at their HQ at Ryton are under threat from a nearby GM test site. The first HDRA heard of the threat was through a local radio station.
Before Christmas, by Easter, at the very latest the end of May .... It now looks as though the rail network will not be up and running until next year at the earliest!
Having recently increased fares by a little under 10%, Virgin are now threatening further increases later in the year.
Passengers on the Waterloo-Alton line are threatening sit-ins if SWT do not improve the service. The Fat Engine Controller huffed and puffed when Virgin increased their fares. There is no restriction on fare increases in the 20-year franchise just awarded to SWT.
Plans for a Blackwater Valley tram service may have been quietly shelved, but there are plans for a monorail service for Guildford.
An ICM poll published in this month's Ecologist (May 2001), showed that over three-quarters of those questioned wanted the railways re-nationalised, with even two-thirds of Tory voters calling for re-nationalisation. The Tory party now admits that rail privatisation was a mistake, New Labour have reneged on past promises to re-nationalise. Of the three main parties Labour is now the most pro-privatisation, Tories and LibDems have opposed Tube and Nats privatisation. Only the Green Party is calling for re-nationalisation of the railways. New Labour claim re-nationalisation will cost too much, but New Labour are quite happy to pour billions of pounds of taxpayer's money into upgrading the system and bailing out Railtrack, whilst leaving private companies to rake in the profits.
Friends of the Earth and Transport 2000 are threatening the Fat Engine Controller with legal action should he go ahead with the Hastings Bypass. Some of the grounds on which the case will be based would be equally applicable for legal action re the destruction of heathland to the west of Farnborough Airport (and for the Airport itself), which begs the question why did BVFoE make no case to FoE? [BVEJ newsletters passim]
The Hastings Bypass is not the only threat to the Sussex countryside. The Weald Vale nestles between the North and South Downs, adjoining the High Weald of Kent and Sussex. It is an area of ancient woodlands, meadows, home to many wild flowers, bats and birds. The area is under threat by Horsham District Council who have earmarked the area for housing.
This is a picture of a public which cares a lot about issues which don't even appear on the radar screens of most politicians. -- Zac Goldsmith, editor, The Ecologist
The government ignores this poll at its peril. -- Charles Secrett, FoE
When Blair speaks our skin creeps at the saccharine lack of sincerity. The fools who surround him are little better. When Cook hectors Johnny foreigner on human rights our stomach churns and we want to throw up.
It seems we are not alone. A recent ICM poll in the Ecologist (May 2001) has shown that the British public are sick of Blair's cajoling and spin, and how out of touch New Labour is with public opinion.
72% of those surveyed do not trust the government on food safety.
65% believe the government has done nothing for the environment since coming into power.
Two-thirds believe there should be more research on organic farming and less on genetic engineering. The current imbalance is 13:1.
45% believe there should be ban on GM imports and GM crop testing.
Three-quarters believe the railways should be re-nationalised.
77% thought climate change contributed to last year's storms and flooding.
54% thought corporations should be banned from donating to political parties.
80% thought local communities should have more say in their own affairs.
87% wanted to see local producers protected from big business.
75% want to see referendum on key issues.
64% had no idea what GATS, the Treaty of Nice or Trips were. Only 14% had heard of the Treaty of Nice, 12% Gats, and 4% Trips.
68% of those questioned believe they are more concerned about the environment than the leaders of the three main political parties.
Four years in power, Blair has only twice spoken on the environment. This from a government that claims to put the environment 'at the heart of government'. [BVEJ newsletters #0006 November 2000 & #0011 April 2001]
If we are fit and healthy and have a healthy diet we don't need extra vitamins and minerals. It has always seemed odd to walk into a so-called health food shop (we much prefer a wholefood shop) and see one side lined with supposedly healthy foods and the other side lined with various pills and potions at exorbitant prices guaranteed (well almost) to keep you fit and healthy.
Various vitamins and minerals are essential our our well being and a normal diet provides them. We can get them via artificial means but they are never as good as the natural source, even if chemically they are apparently identical. We recognise after a period of illness or for a less than well balanced person or someone who does not eat a balanced diet (and if you gorge yourself at McVomit what do you expect). There is also the problem of fresh food and the decay of vitamins with transport and storage. It may thus be necessary at times to take extras. The ease with which we do this may soon change under an EU directive.
Vitamins and other supplements have RDAs (recommended daily allowances). The daily input for the average healthy person. As more is known RDAs change, the US FDA recently doubled the RDA for folic acid (a vitamin B found in citrus fruits).
An EU directive is set to affect the USL (upper safe limit). USL is a known dangerous daily intake, from which we subtract the natural daily input, the input from fortified foods, a further amount to be on the safe side. This will have the effect of limiting the dosage on sale or removing it all together and making it a prescription only drug.
The USL for B6 could be as low as 25mg (cf 100-200mg in the US). From this subtract that found naturally in food, that added to food, then some more for safety, and we could end up with a dosage as low as 5mg. Women suffering PMS who take 50-100mg a day would end up swallowing 10-20 pills a day to maintain current dosage.
Megadoses can have dire effects. Beta-carotene turns the skin yellow and leads to liver damage. Fat soluble inputs are retained. High doses of water soluble inputs generally pass through but can have short term effects. Vitamin C regulates iron intake and from low dosage, below 500mg, changes from an anti-oxidant to an oxidant. High doses of minerals can restrict intake of other minerals, eg high calcium restricts magnesium, iron and zinc intake.
The EU directive will also establish a positive list of those minerals and vitamins which may be sold. Any not on this list will not be available over the counter within the EU. Some newly discovered micro-nutrients, inositol, choline, MSM and glucosamine, and of course any not yet discovered, will be banned from sale.
The push for these restrictions is coming from the pharmas. If you can maintain health on relatively low cost inputs and supplements, or better still a healthy diet and exercise, what market for their hard drugs? We saw the same with the scare stories for St Johns Wort and the attempts to push it off the market. We expect the same for Aloe vera gels and creams which are excellent for minor cuts and abrasions and poor skin conditions.
Strange there is no information on this EU threat in at least one high street chain of health stores and their staff have been kept in the dark, especially when they make far more money peddling drugs than food. Hint, take a look at the ownership.
Read:
James Dillard, & Terra Ziporyn, Alternative Medicine for Dummies,IDG Books, 1998
Carol Ann Rinzler, Nutrition for Dummies, IDG Books
Lynne McTaggart, Just Say No to Drugs, The Ecologist, February 2001
They are exploiting the situation in the developing world, because they charge exorbitant prices. This is completely wrong and must be condemned. -- Nelson Mandela
39 of the world's largest drug companies took action in South Africa to prevent the manufacture and distribution of cheap generic drugs. The case was adjourned for six week, when the parties reassembled the case fell apart. The companies were forced to walk away with their tails between their legs.
The pharmas have scored a massive own goal. They have been exposed throughout the world as putting corporate greed before human need. The entire African market accounts for 1% of their profits.
Oxfam has been running a massive lobbying campaign against GlaxoSmithKline.
The door has now been opened for other Third World countries to follow the example of South Africa and turn to generic drugs.
Blair, true to form, supported the action of the pharmas.
The pharmas pursued this case for three years, blocking access to cheap generic drugs. Millions of South Africans cannot afford Aids drugs. The boss of GSK was recently awarded a bonus of œ1.2 million.
Following the collapse of the case, Trips is now a worthless document in the Third World. Trips should be torn up.
The legal battle ground is now likely to switch to Brazil. The pharmas have pushed the US to take a case against Brazil at the WTO.
Read The Constant Gardener by John le Carre (Hodder & Stoughton, 2001).
[BVEJ newsletter #0011 April 2001]
Motions at the BP AGM on human rights and the environment suffered heavy defeat. The loudest cheer was for a shareholder who demanded larger dividends.
Once again our sick greedy society has been exposed, but if nothing else the lies of BP's PR has been exposed.
We hope to make the transportation of this highly dangerous waste as expensive as possible so that the government will have to stop. -- Activist
At 00.30 on Thursday morning, a CASTOR trainload of nuclear waste finally arrived - over 24 hours late - at the rural German village of Gorleben. Filled with 60 tonnes of deadly waste, the Castor pulled out of Le Hague in France on Monday on its 375 mile journey. Despite the freezing weather and the massive police operation anti-nuclear protesters across Germany dogged the shipment every inch of the way. People blockaded, occupied, chained and cemented themselves to tracks; some even staged a volleyball tournament. More than 1,400 people have been arrested amid accounts of massive police brutality. So far, most have been released without charge.
On Tuesday morning, the train was forced to change route after a blockade in Goettingen where Greenpeace activists abseiled with chains connected to the track from Seerau bridge and succeeded in hanging in there for six hours. On Tuesday evening, the train got stuck for hours again, this time at Lueneburg - 50km from the destination. Why? Cos a 'cell train' full of people nicked from an earlier 1600-strong blockade got blocked in on the single-track line to Gorleben by other protesters. Nice one!
And for Babylon, it all went downhill from there. Plans to finish the journey went totally pear-shaped as over 15,000 people - including groups such as x-1000, Robin Wood, Greenpeace, a 'black bloc' of Autonomen anarchists and even local farmers - upped the number of 'delaying' actions, to the fury of over 20,000 tooled-up cops. At Sueschendorf, it took police 20 hours to remove five plucky Robin Wood activists who had chained and cemented themselves in between the tracks. Thousands of people had blocked the line along the final miles of the route and could only be moved by police using extreme force. Although the evil cargo eventually reached its destination, protesters are regarding the massive disruption as a huge success.
The police operation was the largest seen in post-war Germany. Around Dannenberg - the railhead for Gorleben - cops attacked and evicted temporary 'camps' set up in fields by protesters, dispersing people over the freezing countryside. Daft restrictions forbidding tents were brought in by the police, which meant everyone had to sleep out in sub-zero temperatures. Several protesters were badly injured when riot police charged camps at Nahrendorf and Dahlenberg, while others were nicked and then driven miles away and released - a ruse foiled by activists who quickly got together a 'shuttle bus' to get folk back to the barricades!
This was the first CASTOR (meaning Cask for Storage and Transport Of Radioactive waste) train to run since 1998, when clashes between protesters and cops saw a suspension of the noxious trade. German nuclear power stations are legally required to deal with their waste, and unless they can safely store this waste they cannot get a license to operate. The waste storage sites at Gorleben and Ahaus are the only approved sites for storing dodgy stuff after reprocessing at Sellafield in the UK or La Hague in France. So anti-nuclear activists see the storage sites as critical to the functioning of the whole unpleasant set-up, and there's been a long history of makin' trouble to stop the trains. In March - 7,000 people blocked Dannesburg rail terminal - where the containers are transferred to road trucks for the last few miles into the Gorleben site - cutting down railway power cables and setting light to barricades.
First Class Actions
[taken from SchNEWS 299 Friday 30 March 2001]
Germany is expected to restart nuclear shipments to the UK.
In response to the crap appearing in the mass media on May Day, we thought it only appropriate to publish the SchNEWS authoritative account (SchNEWS 301 Friday 20 April 2001).
As the temperature rises in the run up to this year's Mayday protests, the mainstream press have been printing such extravagant lies it's hard to know what's actually going on. Crusties yesterday revealed to SchNEWS their devastating new organic biological weapons, as they finally managed to split the pea. 'Why should the police have a monopoly on violence?' a spokesperson told us from the anarchists' new HQ, a squatted postbox in South London. Actions include:
The Real World Coalition (ed: Ian Christie & Diane Warburton), From Here to Sustainability: Politics in the Real World, Earthscan, 2001
How we get from our present degraded condition to a sustainable future is a problem that has vexed many minds. From Here to Sustainability is an attempt to map out the routes we could take.
Too many groups concentrate on their own little problems and fail to make the links to the bigger picture. Much of the opposition in Farnborough to the airport has degenerated into narrow parochial Nimbyism, failing to make the links with climate change and globalisation, even worse going so far as to suggest the airfield should be relocated elsewhere, rather than addressing the need for business aviation. Unless we make these links and change our life styles we are reduced to forever fighting the symptoms and not the root causes. Fortunately many groups are starting to make these links, are starting to work together on the global picture, whilst at the same time attacking problems in our own backyards. A few of these groups are the contributors to From Here to Sustainability.
A timely publication just in time for the elections. Don't waste your candidates' time with the worthless FoE Green X Code, instead dabble in this book and see how the candidates match up to some possible solutions.
A major criticism of the book itself is that it should have been published in a larger format. The primary typeface is too small, all subsidiary material is in a vanishingly small typeface which too many people are going to have difficulty reading.
@nti-copyright - information for education and action - copy and distribute