The Quiet Road

My favourite headline of the past few days, though I was rather disappointed that the actual content of the story wasn’t what I’d hoped for, is: Prince quits as head of Citigroup (Update: like so many news sites these days, the FT appears to revise published stories rather than publish a separate update, making illustrative links rather hit & miss. In this case, the headline has changed, but remains funny).

The former head of Citigroup chooses his successor

Sadly it appears that it’s not a story about The Artist Once Again Known as Prince stepping down from his position as chairman of one of the world’s largest financial conglomerates in order to spend more time touring.

€38,000 – a token amount of money

Meanwhile here in Ireland, recently re-elected Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has accepted a €38,000 pay rise. This represents an increase to his salary greater than the average working wage and brings his total income to €310,000 per annum. He defended this by pointing out that the body that sets his salary “is an independent organisation and its recommendations will be implemented by the Government”. One wonders just how independent the review board would remain had they recommended a significant pay cut for Bertie and his cronies, and whether or not the government would be so keen to implement that recommendation.

To add insult to injury, however, Bertie dismissed the furore that inevitably followed the announcement of his 14% pay hike. Apparently it would be “pure tokenism” for him to refuse the increase. Maybe it’s just me, but when the leader of the nation can describe the average national wage as “a token amount of money” then he’s clearly lost touch with reality. It’s also worth bearing in mind the fact that Bertie’s team recently dug their heels in, and watched the nurses vote for industrial action over their “unrealistic” demands for a 10% pay rise.

Still, in his defence, there are those who would argue that the Taoiseach’s pay-hike should be even bigger. After all, 38 thousand is the sort of paltry sum that Bertie simply wouldn’t remember ever having received.

It’s no sacrifice

Meanwhile we hear that despite massive increases in fuel prices, Ryanair’s profits are soaring on a 20% increase in passenger numbers. At the same time Thomson Travel Agents have started up a new low-cost flight service between the UK and Israel. All the while, pretty much every relevant agency and government that expresses an opinion tells us that the battle against climate change is “too little and too slow“. And whenever the public are polled they insist that stringent measures need to be taken and sacrifices need to be made.

My own view (which I’ve expressed on numerous occasions here) is that catastrophic climate change is an inevitability and that in tandem with resource depletion we will see the collapse of industrialised civilisation (and a consequent large loss of life) within the next couple of decades. The process has, I believe, already begun.

So while I don’t believe that being an active consumer of low-cost flights will make a practical difference at this point, I do believe that it’s an offensively tasteless activity to be involved in. Just like the ex-soldier who urinated on a dying woman in the street, his actions had no discernible effect on whether the woman lived or died, but he’s still a nasty scumbag and should be vilified as such (link via PDF).

For reasons I’m at a loss to explain, I absolutely love the fact that this exists.

This one is from a while ago, but I think the headline is a classic… Rich ‘can pay poor to cut carbon’. Because it’s the poor doing all the emitting, right? Like most soundbites though, it actually provides an inaccurate characterisation of what Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) had to say. On the surface it sounds like he’s implying that “wealthy nations” can buy their way out of their responsibility to cut their own emissions. But that’s not what he’s saying at all, though you only get a hint of that fact from the BBC article when they quote the vital line:

… So it actually becomes economically quite attractive for a company, for example in the UK, that has a target, to achieve this goal by reducing emissions in China.

Yvo de Boer | BBC News article

Note the important word… “company”. This proposal isn’t in the context of a national carbon trading scheme, but as part of a direct carbon tax on corporations. And this is a man who clearly understands the reality of the global manufacturing industry. He knows that the products being bought by American and European consumers come from factories in China and India and Mexico. So don’t force Nike to spend money cutting emissions in the United States when all their carbon emissions are happening in Vietnam. Especially… and here’s the killer point… since a dollar spent reducing the emissions at an American factory won’t go half as far in cutting emissions as that same dollar spent on a factory in a nation with laxer environmental regulations. And it’s all about cutting the global total; it matters little whether the carbon dioxide is released into US or Mexican skies.

It’s not Americans and Europeans paying the poorer nations to clean up their factories. It’s Americans and Europeans paying the poorer nations to clean up our factories. And so long as the proposal is within the context of a corporate levy rather than a trading scheme, then I say let’s just do the damn thing right now. A simple, blunt law introduced immediately and applying to the current financial year. It will do as a stop-gap while the politicians faff about for a wee bit longer, and can be replaced by whatever they eventually decide on (once the IPCC have judged it to be at least as effective in cutting total emissions in the short, medium and long term).

Proposal: Every company that wishes to continue trading in Europe in any capacity must spend 25% of all profits made in Europe directly on carbon reduction measures within their own organisation. If cleaning up their Indonesian manufacturing plants would get the best “carbon value for money” then that’s what they should do. But they will be audited, and failures to comply will result in crippling fines.

Do I hear a second?

25% is probably a tad low, but you’ve got to pick a realistic starting point, right? I mean if this genuinely is the most important problem facing our generation, then let’s get serious about it. 25% off the net profit. I’m not talking about plunging companies into losses here. Only readjusting things a bit. It just means that shareholders will get a bit less money and yes, R&D will slow down a bit, as will the economy. But that’s a small price to pay, right? Or are we too cheap for even that? To safeguard a future for our children and all of theirs? Holy crap, we are, aren’t we?

Note: companies and projects working in areas that directly contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions (renewable energy projects, for instance) would probably be exempt from the 25% corporate-carbon levy; both to allow them to maximise inward investment and R&D spend, but also to make them more attractive to investors.

Just a thought.

And on the subject of climate change, it appears that here in Ireland our climate is “hotting up twice as fast as anywhere else in the world. It’s official.” Hard to know which is worse; the news or the copywriting.

In other news: I am dismayed. Though utterly unsurprised.

And although I know how cruel it is, for some reason I find myself grinning at the images conjured by this story here.

Oh, and lest you think climate change is the only thing you should be depressed about; read this and weep.

The Irish Green Party have lost any shred of whatever credibility they once had. It’s possible they could still emerge with a political future if they pulled out of the coalition right now and admitted they’d made a huge mistake for which they would work ceaselessly in opposition to atone for. The longer they remain as part of this government, the less likely is that political future.

But that’s not what concerns me. The moment they gave their tacit support to the destruction of the Tara valley (a scheme they’d previously described as “an act of cultural and historic vandalism“) in clear defiance of their pre-election promises, was the moment they ceased being worthy of the electorate’s trust. It’s unlikely this Green Party will ever get my vote again (back to spoilt papers for me it appears), and frankly I hope they fade into bitter memory… as I hope does every politician who trades their principles and promises for a brief stint at the top table.

No, what worries me is that they will tarnish the entire environmental movement. By sending out the clear message that they’re just another bunch of career politicians willing to do almost anything for power, so they send out the message that the environment is just another political issue. It’s not life and death. It’s not something we urgently need to get right or we’ll end up damning future generations. It’s just another issue. Which means it’s negotiable. If there are more votes in addressing the crime problem, or building more schools, then that’s what will be done.

Which isn’t to say that we don’t need more and better schools. And it’s not to say that crime should be ignored. Simply that the environment is a different category of problem. If we don’t safeguard the environment, then zero crime and wonderful schools for every child are irrelevant. “Little Timmy got such a great education before he was killed in the water riots. Thank heavens for the Greens, eh?”

But it’s not just Tara. I gave the Greens my vote this time round because I read their manifesto and it was filled with positions that I felt desperately needed representation in The Dáil. But I was lied to. And those positions have no representation. When I voted for them, it was partly because they promised “When in government, the Green Party will introduce legislation to end blood sports” (paragraph 7.1). I mean, there’s very little room for interpretation on that one, right?

Wrong. As Minister for the Environment, Green Party leader John Gormley is responsible for issuing hunting licences. And he has gone ahead and issued a number of hare-coursing licences for this year. I can’t be the only person who sees this as a clear betrayal. Not only is a man who pledged to end blood-sports in Ireland issuing licences to those who organise blood-sports rather than taking a stand on an unambiguous manifesto promise, but by doing so he — and the other Greens — are ensuring that the anti-blood-sports position simply isn’t represented in The Dáil. No other party, or independent, made the same pledge. So a large number of people will have voted for the Greens on that issue.

They — like those who felt that the preservation of the Tara valley needed a voice in The Dáil — have been royally screwed over. When I vote, I vote for the policies and not the person. I vote because I want those policies represented at the highest possible level, even if that means the opposition benches. Paul Gogarty, my local Green TD, is supposed to be representing me. I voted for him based upon the beliefs he claimed to subscribe to in the manifesto. Abandoning those beliefs in exchange for a government job is sticking two fingers up to me and everyone else who gave him their voice. When the history of this age is told, I hope Paul Gogarty’s name — along with the other five Green TDs — is forever linked to that act of “cultural and historic vandalism” he is now party to.

Climate Change

The excuse. According to some in the media who claim to know about these things, John Gormley — as leader of the Greens — made a decision when Bertie approached him to be part of the coalition. Every Green policy was up for negotiation, for abandonment even, in return for a chance to shape policy on Climate Change.

Now, when I first heard that rumour it gave me pause for thought. Climate change may well be the most important single issue facing the planet, and it clearly requires urgent action. So perhaps there’s method to the Green madness. Perhaps all of these compromises can be justified. Perhaps Gormley’s decision to focus all of his party’s effort and expend all of their political capital on this single, vital issue, is a shrewd political move.

Except it isn’t.

Per capita, Ireland’s carbon emissions are extremely high. We’re up there at number 17 in the world and in Europe’s top five. And there’s no question that needs to be addressed.

But when it comes to overall total carbon emissions, we’re way down the list. We’re number 56. Between Serbia & Montenegro and Libya. That’s not to say that Ireland’s carbon emissions are irrelevant. That’s not the point I’m making. I’m just highlighting the cold, hard fact that no Irish Environment Minister can make a significant impact on solving this global problem, when the very best he or she could do would be to eliminate less than one fifth of one percent of global emissions.

That would be a great thing, don’t get me wrong, and we in Ireland should indeed be working towards that goal. But even if we succeed, we just don’t produce enough of the problematic carbon dioxide to make a significant impact on a global scale.

And that’s the reason Gormley’s decision isn’t a shrewd one. The Irish Green Party — even in opposition — have a degree of control over whether or not the Tara valley is vandalised in the name of the private car (looks like Peak Oil is going to be a half-decade too late for Ireland’s most important heritage site). They have a degree of control over blood-sports policy in Ireland. They have a degree of control over a number of significant issues… whether we expand Dublin airport, whether we invest more in public transport or road-building, how much we tax waste, how much we tax flights, and plenty more.

But the Greens have relinquished their control over these issues (not a single voice in Dáil Éireann opposed the granting of the hare-coursing licences) in return for a chance to shape policy on an issue they — realistically speaking — have no control over. Still, if nothing else, we can expect to see Ireland slide down those nationmaster lists. This year we are 17th in per capita carbon emissions and 56th overall. Let’s see how we stand next year, and the year after. I hope the Tara valley was worth it.

Today the Financial Times reports that BP has begun to significantly invest in biofuel technology, and this week alone has signed two deals to fund biofuel projects…

BP is to invest at least £32m in a joint venture with D1 Oils, the quoted UK based alternative fuels company, to develop the inedible oilseed Jatropha as a biodiesel.

The move is the latest escalation of BP’s move into alternative fuels, following its $400m investment in a joint bioethanol plant with Associated British Foods and DuPont announced earlier this week.

Andrew Jack | BP signs second biofuel deal in a week

Meanwhile Grain, an organisation representing poor farmers in developing countries, has devoted the entirety of the latest issue of their journal, Seedling, to savagely lambasting the biofuel industry and exposing the extreme destruction it’s causing. The issue can be downloaded (3.4MB PDF) and I urge anyone with an interest in this subject to do so. The editorial opens as follows…

We are devoting almost all of this edition to a single topic — the rapid expansion of biofuels across much of the globe. In the process of gathering material from colleagues and social movements around the world, we have discovered that the stampede into biofuels is causing enormous environmental and social damage, much more than we realised earlier. Precious ecosystems are being destroyed and hundreds of thousands of indigenous and peasant communities are being thrown off their land. We believe that the prefix bio, which comes from the Greek word for “life”, is entirely inappropriate for such anti-life devastation. So, following the lead of non-governmental organisations and social movements in Latin America, we shall not be talking about biofuels and green energy. Agrofuels is a much better term, we believe, to express what is really happening: agribusiness producing fuel from plants to sustain a wasteful, destructive and unjust global economy.

We begin with an introductory article that, among other things, looks at the mind-boggling numbers that are being bandied around: the Indian government is talking of planting 14 million hectares of land with jatropha; the Inter-American Development Bank says that Brazil has 120 million hectares that could be cultivated with agrofuel crops; and an agrofuel lobby is speaking of 379 million hectares being available in 15 African countries. We are talking about expropriation on an unprecedented scale.

Editorial | Seedling Magazine (3.4MB PDF)

But you don’t need to take the word of Grain. After all, they’re an organisation with the radical agenda of “promot[ing] the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people’s control over genetic resources and local knowledge”. Instead ask the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. They report that “basic food prices for poor countries are being pushed up by competition for land from biofuels” (BBC article). And this is an industry that’s only just getting going! It is absolutely imperative that it doesn’t get much further. Because if the plan is to replace any liquid fossil-fuel shortfall created by a peak in oil production with agrofuels (and certainly that seems to be BP’s plan), then it will almost certainly result in one of the most devastating famines in history. Millions will die. Because wealthy car owners in the USA, UK, Ireland or Japan are able, and willing, to pay more for a tank of jatropha-seed-oil than a Malawian or Ethiopian can afford to pay for a loaf of bread.

And it’s not even as if a switch to agrofuels would help address that other looming crisis — climate change. It will just make that situation worse too.

UPDATE: For lots more info, check out Biofuelwatch (http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/)

Mr Priamikov said the area was one of breathtaking natural beauty. It was much drier, colder and quieter than the western Arctic, he added. “I’ve been there many times. It’s an oasis for marine life,” he said. Asked whether it would be feasible to drill for oil, he said: “Yes”.

The shelf was 200 metres deep and oil and gas would be easy to extract, especially with ice melting because of global warming, he said.

Luke Harding | Kremlin lays claim to huge chunk of oil-rich North Pole

For me, food miles have become the single biggest factor when I do my weekly shop. They over-ride pretty much all other considerations these days. “Nothing from outside Europe” is the basic rule… broken only very rarely for certain tropical fruit. Usually in a fit of “Goddamn it! Mango is my favourite food! We’re all going to die someday and I’m denying myself my favourite food! It’s right there in front of me, for a price I can afford. I’m surrounded by people buying apples flown in from Chile despite the fact that they’re on a shelf next to some Irish ones and I’m denying myself a single mango. I’m a frakking hair-shirted weirdo! That’s it! I’m buying one!”

And yes, I do use that many exclamation marks when I’m thinking about it.

But by and large I spend time making sure that everything I buy is sourced from as close to me as is possible. I vividly recall standing in the supermarket one afternoon and pointing out to the woman next to me that she was buying Chilean apples rather than Irish ones. I’ll never forget the look of contempt I got… “I’ll buy what I want!” she insisted in brittle tones. There’s a part of me convinced that she now goes out of her way to buy food from the furthest flung corners of the earth just to spite me. She had that kind of look in her eyes and a terrible hiss in her voice.

It’s a little disheartening to say the least; the thought that my watchful attitude towards food miles is now merely balancing out the damage done by saying, “Excuse me, but did you realise that by choosing the Irish apples you’d be doing your part to combat Climate Change?” in as friendly a voice as serious ol’ me is capable.

Of course, it’s not quite as simple as “Buy homegrown. Save the planet. Everyone lives happily ever after.” Because nothing’s ever that simple. Well, almost nothing. In fact it’s questionable as to whether it’s even possible any more. Can Europe grow enough food to support its population? According to the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), for example, it most certainly can’t. They claim that Western Europe’s arable land is only capable of carrying approximately a third of our current population at “present lifestyle”. This number increases to two thirds if we reduce our levels of consumption to what OPT describes as a “modest lifestyle”.

You can download the Excel Spreadsheet containing detailed global numbers, but for a brief flavour of OPT’s calculations; with zero food imports, the UK has a ‘present lifestyle’ carrying capacity of less than one third its current population. Belgium and Luxembourg; one tenth. France; a half. Germany; a quarter. Holland; one eighth. And so on.

The only Western European nations that come even close to being able to support their own populations at current levels of consumption are Finland, Ireland and Sweden. If you reduce consumption to modest levels, you can add Norway and Denmark to that list. The implications are clear… unless Europe reduces its population significantly, it will need to continue to import large amounts of food from Africa and elsewhere just to prevent starvation (note: this is even if we restrict our consumption to sensible / modest levels).

And that’s not the end of the story either. Hypothetically, what if Western Europe was suddenly capable of supporting the current population? Would we find ourselves in the “Buy homegrown. Save the planet. Everyone lives happily ever after.” situation? Sadly not. As this post over at worldchanging (via Gyrus) makes clear, Western Europe’s voracious appetite has led to a large number of poorer nations retooling their entire economy to function as an extension of European arable land. Huge areas of Kenya, for instance, are devoted to growing salad vegetables for European tables. If that market disappears, it will result in significant problems for Kenyan farmers.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that’s a good enough reason for us to be flying mange-tout and sugar-snap peas up from the equator. Frankly when you realise that amongst the nations bordering Kenya are three (Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia) which suffer regular devastating famines, the fact that Kenya is growing baby corn for our salads instead of regular corn to prevent local starvation becomes rather sinister. We all know the old cliché that famine is not a result of food shortages, but is instead a consequence of inequitable distribution and political corruption. Nonetheless, how many of us are aware of our own culpability in this inequity when we buy Kenyan vegetables?

God bless the market, eh? We in Europe can currently pay more to a Kenyan farmer to airlift fresh salad on to our table than an Ethiopian can pay the same farmer — his or her neighbour — to put staple food items on to theirs. As Tim Worstall (blogging economist) so eloquently put it, “Making money from customers is what businesses do, it is the very reason for their existence.” Market capitalism ensures that agriculture is a business like any other. It does not exist to feed the hungry, it exists to generate profit. Market economists see this as a good thing.

I don’t, needless to say. But as I’ve already illustrated, there is no easy solution here. Europe simply cannot grow enough food to feed itself. We could reduce our consumption significantly and still not have enough land. That said, I would nonetheless urge Kenyan farmers to restructure their economy, accept the pay cut, and start to feed their neighbours. Our inability to feed ourselves is our problem, and leaving hundreds of thousands of nameless black people to starve half a world away is not an ethical solution to that problem*.

For now, I shall continue to support Irish farmers 100% (OK, 99.9%… I’ll still buy the occasional mango). And as transportation fuel becomes less abundant, driving the price of imported food ever upwards, it will become easier to do so. But Europe will soon need to face up to this problem of how we feed our massive population. And between peak oil and climate change, it seems unlikely that using Africa and South America as our personal gardens will be an option for very much longer.

This is a copy of a letter I’ve just emailed to one of my parliamentary representatives, Mr. Paul Gogarty TD. He’s a member of the Irish Green Party and my email was in response to a mail-shot on the subject of energy. Much of the leaflet was sound information on energy efficiency, renewables, grants for installing solar panels and heat pumps, a denunciation of nuclear energy… all good stuff. But the very first item is an article under the headline, “Biofuels can create new Irish jobs”. This piece heralds the worrying news that the EU has apparently set a target of almost 6% of transportation fuel to be sourced from biofuelstock by 2010.

I have a lot of time for The Greens, but am simultaneously irritated by their apparent desire not to rock the boat too much. If society decides to take the issue of Climate Change seriously, and in the face of a peak in oil and gas supply, then it will mean that individuals consume significantly less energy than they currently do. And although this may well provide long-term health and fulfillment benefits, it will be extremely uncomfortable, unpopular and maybe even unpleasant in the short to midterm.

Anyways… the letter…

Dear Paul,

I received your latest mail-out today (entitled €NERGY). With the exception of The Green Party, there is nobody in the political mainstream that comes even close to representing my views. Yet you seem to be doing your level-best to alienate even me, and turn my Green vote into a protest spoilt-ballot.

Your leaflet made some interesting points about energy efficiency, offered a rational dismissal of nuclear power and provided some useful information about renewable energy grants. But it also contained an extremely worrying recommendation of biofuels. You may as well have lauded China’s expansion of coal-power on the front page.

In fact, both your website and this latest mail-out trumpet “Biofuels” as a responsible alternative to fossil fuels. This is itself a wildly irresponsible position. The Chief economist at the UK’s Department for International Development recently estimated that “the grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year”. He may have been ’rounding-up’ the numbers for effect, but it still makes a mockery of biofuels as ‘ethical’ in a world where millions starve.
http://www.owen.org/blog/673

Even worse, George Monbiot’s excellent article, ‘Worse Than Fossil Fuel’, explains exactly why large scale biofuel projects have traditionally worked out as being even more carbon intensive than burning oil or gas!
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/12/06/worse-than-fossil-fuel/

We live at a time when global climate change is perhaps the largest issue faced by our civilisation, and at a time when oil and gas supply could well be peaking. Organisations like The Green Party need to be loudly and frequently emphasising the need to dramatically scale back our energy usage as a society.

Yet such calls, where they are made in your literature, are greatly outnumbered and overshadowed by the glowing promise of more jobs (“Biofuels can create new Irish jobs”) and shiny new technology. One of the physical definitions of energy is ‘the ability to do work’. Our economy (the sum total of the work carried out by society) is no less than a giant engine to convert energy into material wealth. By promising more jobs, you are merely promising to accelerate that process.

Anyone who genuinely seeks to reduce carbon emissions needs to accept that the primary method of doing so must be a scaling back of economic activity. To promise such a thing may well seem like political suicide, but it would be honest. And I’ll always vote for the honest man above the good politician.

Yours sincerely,

Jim… (name and address provided)

[UPDATE] A Reasonable Response

Rather to my shock, Paul Gogarty TD responded to my email within a couple of hours of my sending it. More than that, he responded in a reasonable and measured manner which made my initial letter seem a wee bit shouty. I should probably make it a rule in the future not to write letters to politicians immediately having written a blog entry. It’s one thing being a bit strident and righteous when proclaiming to an unseen audience of billions; it’s quite another in a letter to another person.

Paul comes across very well in his response. I was just about to email him and ask if it was OK to post it here, when he posted it himself in the comments below (hi Paul!) which is where I’ll add a few further comments when I’ve worked out exactly what they are.

While I was away struggling with the short days and the gloom, the rest of the world saw fit to continue doing it’s thing as though my participation were utterly irrelevant. I thought that was rather impolite of it, but figured I wouldn’t kick up a big fuss as everyone seemed to be having such a good time. And why let all that mulled wine go to waste, eh?

All the same, I think a quick recap of the news over the past few months is in order, with perhaps a brief comment from yours truly… the kind of comment that probably would have turned the tide of debate on the issue and brought about a swift and equitable resolution had I made it in a timely fashion. Now though, it’ll just seem like staggeringly obvious hindsight. But if staggeringly obvious hindsight isn’t what blogging is all about, then I for one don’t know what is!

Before I get onto that though, let me pass on a couple of links that have floated my way and which are particularly noteworthy. First up is the silly, wry and very funny short film, Pitch’n’Putt with Beckett and Joyce, which came via email from Gyrus. Favourite line: “No! Not a Milky Way! A Topic You Arse! (all fecund in its nuttiness)”. Go and watch it… you’ll understand.

Also via Gyrus (I think) is this; The World’s 12 Worst Ideas. I actually disagree with a couple of Fred Halliday’s points (for example, when people say “the world is speeding up”, I believe they are describing a very real phenomenon even if they have chosen a clumsy phrase to express it) but it’s nevertheless a very interesting and perceptive little piece.

Oh, and one other thing from Gyrus… this time his review of David W. Kidner’s Nature & Psyche: Radical Environmentalism and the Politics of Subjectivity. I’m just about to start reading this, and it looks absolutely excellent.

Recent Oniony goodness (usually via email from Mahalia) included Meth Addicts Demand Government Address Nation’s Growing Spider Menace, Kansas Outlaws Practice Of Evolution and the short but sweet White House Quietly Retracts Entire State Of The Union Address.

But what of world events and international shenanigans? What of them?

What indeed.

Looking for satellites

One thing that leapt out at me, though didn’t make as big a splash as perhaps it might have done, was the news that China has zapped an orbiting satellite with a ground-launched missile. I wonder if there was a West Wing moment in the the White House, where Dubya faced the Joint Chiefs and asked, “so what contingencies do we have to defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion without the use of satellite surveillance, communication or navigation?” and one by one the assembled brass all shook their heads and looked down at the desk in front of them.

You have to admit, it was a masterstroke by the Chinese. In one fell swoop it completely alters the military situation around Taiwan. I’ll bet there’s some very busy folks at the pentagon right now. I noticed some muted complaints coming from Washington. But not only is that all a bit pots and kettles… who really wants to piss off China?

Comin’ over here, stealin’ our jobs…

My eye was also caught by this – far smaller – story: Ecuadorean footballer rebuilds village. It’s about Ulises de la Cruz, a professional footballer playing for premiership side, Reading FC. Mr. de la Cruz is using his great success (premiership football is a goldmine) to help drag his home village out of poverty. He’s sending back the money to build homes, schools and community centres and the village of Piquiucho is benefiting marvellously from their famous son.

And good for them too! I’m just amused by the media… the fact that de la Cruz’s celebrity and wealth means that he’s celebrated for his “philanthropy”, whereas if he were a labourer on a building site sending half his paypacket home to his family in Piquiucho then he’d just be some bloody immigrant syphoning money out of the British economy.

Climate Change

Of course Climate Change has recently hit the headlines like never before. The combination of the extremely emphatic IPCC report and Al Gore’s lightweight but popular An Inconvenient Truth has really stirred things up. And about time too. Of course, Climate Change – like Peak Oil – is what James Kunstler describes as “a long emergency”. It’ll be difficult to keep people engaged with this issue when the climate doesn’t make some sudden, obvious change in a couple of months. That said, this emergency won’t be stretched over a long enough time so as to be unnoticeable. Millions of people are being, and will be, seriously affected by it. I’ve got a long piece in the works regarding the environmental policies of Ireland’s main energy supplier, Bord Gáis, so I’ll not say too much on the subject now. Except to point you at this excellent piece on the BBC website: The semantics of climate change. And – more importantly if you live in the UK – please read Merrick‘s excellent piece, How Green Is Green Electricity? and act accordingly.

Merrick (from his other blog) is also providing the soundtrack to these times. Go listen to the orchestral version of The The‘s wonderful Armageddon Days Are Here (Again). What a track!

I’m pissed off. Really really pissed off. Furious. And I have been for more than a week. I’m so pissed off in fact, that the dark cloud under which I’m living has been mentioned on the TV weather forecast… “and if we take a look at the satellite image, we can see that mad bastid in Rathcoole still hasn’t calmed down”…

Yet the world keeps turning. Funny that.

I’m not going to write about what’s pissing me off… it’s not the most interesting story to the neutral observer. Instead I’m going to cast an angry eye over recent events around the world. Because let’s face it; if there’s one way to mollify a dark and stormy mood, it’s reading the news. Right?

I’ve got a fairly long piece in the works about Israel and the rest of the Middle East, so I’ll not talk about that now… except to say: “Stop killing each other guys! It’s really not helping.” Sadly, as I try to explain in my article, that kind of advice is liable to fall on deaf ears. In my view, none of the major players in this crisis should be viewed as rational agents, and that’s a serious problem.

For now though, allow me to get distracted from the Middle East by a manufactured media frenzy close to home. Is it just me, or does this “airplane liquid bomb plot thingie” get anyone else’s disproportionate-response detector going? If they arrested the people planning to carry it out, why the need to shut down half the world’s air travel? (not that future generations won’t thank the Home Office for the brief respite in fossil fuel usage).

But is that what it takes to utterly banjax the transport infrastructure these days… getting caught planning to banjax it? Surely by that definition, our security services have guaranteed a 100% success rate for all such plans. Either you get caught and everything gets shut down. Or you don’t get caught and everything gets shut down.

I understand, of course, that from the point of view of the hypothetical victims there’s clearly a big difference… but the primary objective of the terrorist is to cause terror and disruption; the individual deaths are a byproduct. And getting caught seems to achieve the primary objective just fine. Does it strike anyone else as a weird way to wage a war… adopting a policy that guarantees your enemy succeeds in their main aims?

I think it goes without saying, though, that the ringleaders of this particular media circus are “Dr. John” Reid and the UK Home Office. Having so spectacularly ballsed-up the Forest Gate operation, a decision was taken to make the maximum public impact with the next significant anti-terrorist “success”. Fricking idiots.

I tell you what my British friends, you guys really need to organise a revolution soon. It’s just as obvious watching from outside as it was when I was huddled within.

As for you in America…? Don’t even get me started. It seems like things are going down the tubes over there faster than you can say “We have always been at war with Eurasia”. Has anyone else noticed this? Florida’s Fear of History: New Law Undermines Critical Thinking (Anyone apart from Gyrus, I mean, who sent it to me)

We don’t want knowledge. We want certainty.

I don’t know a whole lot about Florida (Plus point: Witty blogger, L. Minus points: Jeb Bush, Miami Vice). I read a few articles about the state back when everyone was talking about hanging chads, and it didn’t sound like my kind of place. But then, the USA in general isn’t my kind of place. Great to visit… but very difficult to deal with on a permanent basis.

And I guess when a state elects Jeb Bush as governor it says something about where its head’s at… i.e. roughly the same place as the nation in general. What with Dubya and The War Against Terror and all.

So, as part of an education bill signed into law by Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida has declared that “American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed.” That factual history, the law states, shall be viewed as “knowable, teachable, and testable.”

Florida’s lawmakers are not only prescribing a specific view of US history that must be taught (my favorite among the specific commands in the law is the one about instructing students on “the nature and importance of free enterprise to the United States economy”), but are trying to legislate out of existence any ideas to the contrary. They are not just saying that their history is the best history, but that it is beyond interpretation. In fact, the law attempts to suppress discussion of the very idea that history is interpretation.

Robert Jensen | Florida’s Fear of History

Jensen’s article does a great job of exposing the lunacy of this project, so I’ll not dwell upon it, merely point out that there’s two links to his piece, above. Use one.

Don’t mention the war

Sky News is the only news channel I get right now. Which is a bit of a pain in the arse obviously. I call it “news drink”. You know the way bottles of stuff called “juice drink” aren’t juice at all, but watered-down sugar-filled froth instead? As I say, news drink.

All the same, news drink can be informative at times. Rarely down to what’s said of course, but more how it’s said. A couple of days back I watched one of their rent-an-experts go off message and was bemused by the knots the stern anchor-woman tied herself in while trying to rubbish the man she’d introduced as an expert. “What we are seeing in Iraq right now is a civil war. The United Nations estimates that between 75 and 100 people are dying every day in the ongoing conflict…”

At which point she cut him off to remind the viewer that while Dr. Arabic Name may describe Iraq as being in a state of civil war, most experts (very much her emphasis, not mine) agree that it’s not nearly that simple. Most experts will tell you that large parts of the country are now completely stable. Of course we rarely get to hear about this…

At which point she posed a completely unrelated question to another (thankfully on-message) expert who’d just arrived on a screen over her shoulder. But it seemed to me as she trailed off that she was basically claiming that Iraq is not in a state of civil war. It may look that way, but that’s only because the news media is giving a misleading impression.

Oooops.

Sadly though, I don’t actually think it matters what we call it. The armies of Britain and the United States have rained death upon that country and plunged it into violent chaos. It’s the kind of thing that makes me understand precisely why humanity had to invent the concept of sin.

Guess what I’m gonna talk about now?

Ahem… well, on the subject of peak oil and the energy problems we face…

As you would expect, I have much to say. But not right now. Head on over to google news and search for peak oil. My analysis can come at a later date. But when the Financial Times directly ascribes a 1 percent reduction in British economic activity to “supply-side constraints within the energy sector” then you have to wonder about OPEC’s assurances that they’ve got enough excess capacity to handle any possible crisis. I believe a tipping point has been reached. As one financial analyst puts it… “Buy on the dips”.

As for climate change… well, I’m turning off my appliances and I’m being as energy-efficient as I know how to be without entering genuine self-denial. That’s naturally a phase I’m mentally preparing for, but I’ll be blunt… I’m not going there alone; I’ll start denying myself electrical luxuries like PC usage and listening to music the very moment I’m sure I’m part of something big enough to be significant. Until then, I’ll minimise my role in the problem, but I’ll still remain part of it. Yeah, that’s selfish, but there you go… One day I may not have the luxury of a piping hot shower every morning… so I’ll damn well take advantage of the opportunity now. But that doesn’t mean I’ll run the hot-water boiler 24/7.

Of course, having done so well to live a (relatively) low-energy lifestyle, I get the feeling that I’m going to blow all my good intentions out of the water with a flight or two later in the year. Once in a while I get the urge to fly somewhere hot and spend a week sitting at a beach-front café eating freshly made bread dipped in olive oil and parmesan while sipping chilled orange juice. I read a book and watch the world go by. Theoretically I could spend a week doing that here in Dublin. But for some reason it just doesn’t work unless you’re next to the mediterranean.

Despite getting that urge quite a bit, it’s been a fair few years since I’ve actually done it… just buggered off somewhere to eat nice food for a week or two. And something tells me that a couple of weeks in Italy would be exactly what the doctor ordered for late September 2006. A few days in Naples for the mediterranean vibe, then a train northwards and ten days of exploring the finest cheapest restaurants and cafés Italy has to offer (of which there are many).

Tattoo it on my forehead kids… I flew to Naples to eat nice food. It’s my fault.

Ah, don’t worry kids, there’s a good chance I’ll have guilted myself out of the idea before I ever get round to booking the ticket.

Anyways, that’s me for now. I’m off to listen to some music. I’m currently reminding myself just how amazing Peggy Suicide is… you always remember the singles of course, but tracks like If You Loved Me At All and Pristeen are amongst the best things Copey’s ever done. If you don’t know this album, you don’t know music.

In the comments to my last post, my old friend Philippe challenges the notion that carbon emissions / pollution from air travel is substantially worse than that generated by road travel (in this case, coach). Philippe used a website called Carbon Debt Calculator and came up with the following numbers…

Dublin – London 300miles
Driving emissions: 160kg CO2
Flying: 130kg
Train: 90kg

This flabbergasted me. It flew in the face of everything I’d been reading about the carbon emissions of air travel. Could it be true that flying 300 miles emits less CO2 than driving the same distance? This didn’t just fly in the face of everything I’d been reading, it flew in the face of common sense! How could it be, that the fuel consumed by picking up a 737 and hurling it into the air at 600kph to a height of 30,000 feet would be less than that consumed by rolling a far lighter vehicle the same distance along flat surfaces?

So I decided to do a little research. I couldn’t verify that Phil’s numbers are indeed the ones produced by the Carbon Debt Calculator (I can’t seem to get it to work… if I type 300 miles into the air travel box and hit ‘calculate’, it responds with “0 tons of CO2”). But based upon barely two hours of internet research and some excel spreadsheetery, I can confidently state that the Carbon Debt Calculator is a total bunch of arse should Philippe’s numbers be representative.

It’s just wrong.

First up: The Coach

The Dublin-London trip is complicated a little by a 70 mile stretch of water between the two. But in the interests of making this a more general (and therefore useful) comparison, let’s assume that both vehicles travel the same distance. In reality I suspect that the 70 mile “piggyback” that the coach receives from the predominantly freight-carrying ferry would reduce the total emissions generated by the journey.

OK… let’s work out the CO2 emitted by the coach on the 300 mile trip between Dublin and London. The vehicle was run by Bus Éireann who use Scania Irizar PB buses. According to the manufacturer, they get 8.15km per litre (let’s call it 7km to take account of potentially inflated claims by the manufacturer). Using a 1:0.62 conversion rate, that’s 4.3 miles / litre.

So the coach will consume approximately 70 litres of fuel during the trip. From here (PDF) we discover that the specific gravity of diesel is 0.88. That equates to a weight of 0.88 kg/litre. So the trip burns 61.6 kg of diesel oil. Remember…

When fuel oil is burned, it is converted to carbon dioxide and water vapour. Combustion of one kilogram of fuel oil yields 3.15 kilograms of carbon dioxide gas. Carbon dioxide emissions are therefore 3.15 times the mass of fuel burned.

Calculating the Environmental Impact of Aviation Emissions | An Oxford University Study (download PDF)

So the total CO2 generated by my 300 mile coach journey is roughly 194kg. Based on 85 passengers per coach, that’s 2.3 kg per traveller.

And now: The Plane

For this I’ll mostly be sourcing my data from the above-cited “Calculating the Environmental Impact of Aviation Emissions”. This is a fairly short report, but I recommend you download and read it. It’s interesting stuff.

With respect to our 300 mile journey, Table 1 of the report allows us to calculate the fuel consumed by a 737 between Dublin and London. Ryanair (they of the 99cent flights) have a fleet of Boeing 737s, so we’ll use them as our plane of choice. And according to that table, the 737 will consume approximately 2,200kg (2.2 tonnes) of fuel covering that distance.

Using the same factor of 1kg fuel = 3.15kg CO2, it appears that the 737 will emit 6,930kg of CO2 (almost 7 tonnes). Based on a capacity of 189 passengers, that results in 36 kg per traveller.

This is not a trivial difference… 2.3kg Vs. 36kg. It demonstrates that emissions generated by flying are a whole order of magnitude greater than covering the same distance by coach. What it doesn’t factor in, however, is the difference between emissions made at altitude and those made at ground level. The Oxford University report spends most of it’s time grappling with this issue and proposing a variety of metrics (multipliers) to take into account the altitude. For instance, it suggests that “the full climate impact of aviation is deemed to be between 2 and 4 times greater than CO2 alone”.

So best case scenario, you’re actually looking at 2.3kg Vs. 72kg per passenger.

Carbon offsetting: A bunch of arse

In the comments, it was also suggested that I could take the convenient and comfortable flight and then offset the carbon emitted either through a payment to a carbon-neutralising fund, or through “good works” of some kind.

Merrick‘s article “Carbon offsets are a fraud“ is a good place to start on this subject. The simple reality is this: Carbon offsetting is a fraud. See? Just like the title to Merrick’s article. The planet has two carbon cycles. One takes place over geological periods of time and includes the carbon locked in fossil fuels. The other takes place over far shorter periods – the life-cycles of plants and animals.

You cannot compensate for the burning of fossil fuels by planting trees. It’s as simple as that.

But even more fundamentally. And this is the kicker. I have a very serious moral problem with the attitude that carbon-offsetting engenders. The suggestion that flying to London is OK so long as I pay someone to plant the trees to capture 72kg of carbon per flight. It’s the whole notion of paying to pollute. Of placing a cash value on environmental damage. Quite aside from it being profoundly undemocratic, it’s just plain wrong.

We don’t own the environment, and we have an obligation – to those that follow us – to minimise the damage we do. One option is to do just that… take the obligation seriously… actively minimise the damage you do (2.3kg Vs. 72kg). The other option is to ignore how much damage you’re doing and hope that by giving someone some cash (based on absurd estimates generated by rose-tinted websites) that they’ll be able to fix the problem at a later date sometime maybe.

Sorry, but that option’s just not good enough.