Monthly Archives: February 2012

Apple Ipods and deaths at Foxconn by Beth Tichborne

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Suicide nets installed at Foxconn factory

Suicide nets installed at Foxconn factory

The Foxconn sweatshop scandal goes far beyond Apple. Check the brand name of the device that you’re reading this on. Google it, chances are that some part of it has passed through the hands of the factory workers at Foxconn. Those same workers who have been driven to suicide in protest at their working conditions. So we can’t do the ethical-consumer side-step and avoid complicity just by buying electronics that are stamped with a different name: there is no such thing as a fairly traded computer or smart phone.

What of Apple’s own response? In my view they too are neatly dodging the real issue. When you hear that a problem, any problem, is going to be solved with an audit, be suspicious. It’s often the final response of a corporation found guilty of wrongdoing, but in reality it’s no more than a spit and a promise. When complete denial, passing the buck, and excuse-making have run their course, it’s the next step of minimal action a company can take. If you use the right words, you can make doing very little sound like a solution. In the case of Foxconn’s response to earlier employee suicides at their factory they brought in counsellors, offered a 24 hour helpline, and notoriously put up safety nets to catch any further embarrassing suicides. Anything short of the profit-denting measure of ending the exploitation of cheap labour of course.

Apple have their own internal auditing system, which they proudly describe on their website as “comprehensive” and “in-person”. However it is described, however many pages on their website are devoted to the process, however many people they employ to investigate, type up reports and spin them, it has clearly failed to protect basic human rights at one of their largest suppliers. Apple are also already a member of the Fair Labour Association [FLA], who have been brought in with such fanfare as an “independent group” to investigate conditions at Foxconn. Given the extent of the problems that have been revealed at Foxconn, over the last months and years, it seems odd that such a commitment to transparency has not already led to more in-depth enquiries. Well, it would seem odd, if you weren’t aware that the FLA are largely funded by the organisations that they monitor, and are seen by many of those in the know as being professional white-washers.

Working conditions improve when people can collectively bargain for a better deal on their own behalf. Shiny “Corporate Social Responsibility” brochures and a touch of well-advertised philanthropy on top has never, and will never, lift factory workers out of dead-end poverty and dependency. But it can often seem as workers in the Global South are stuck in the obscure mire of global supply chains that make the traditional forms of union organising inadequate. What’s the point of demanding better wages if your distant employer can just move production elsewhere in a matter of weeks and leave you in an even worse situation?

Luckily there are already promising models that can bring about real improvements. One of these is the Worker Rights Consortium, an initiative that has taken root in American universities and is now spreading to Britain. Currently only an option in the garment industry, this model sees large buyers, such as universities, demanding genuine transparency in return for their custom, which then allows workers abroad to organise without risk of silent factory closures or hidden repression. This is the upside of globalisation, the positive information-sharing and international solidarity, often talked up but little seen. At present there is no equivalent organisation providing the same service in the electronics industry, but if we refuse to be fobbed off by audits and excuses, then hopefully we’ll soon see progress here too.

The place of the Scottish Greens within the independence debate – by Joanna Wilson

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The Scottish Parliament

The Scottish Parliament

For anyone reading a newspaper, watching TV, or even walking down the street, the debate on Scottish Independence is hard to ignore. First Minister Alex Salmond has made his position on a referendum clear, even with debate over its legality. However, this comes at a time when Scottish patriotism is at a high, the haggis, whiskey and Addresses to Haggis’s clouding Scots’ minds. I’m sure as I write this (Burns’ birthday itself) the subject will be widely debated across the country. It is the Scottish Greens’ views on the matter which interest me.

Greens appear to agree with the idea that relations between Scotland and England would be better if they were equal partners and that small countries can be more dynamic and effective, Ireland being an example… There are various issues with these statements. While it may be true that there is the odd staunch Scotsmen who genuinely believe that all Englishmen are ‘posh twats’ this is hardly a nationwide idea. In fact, many people wouldn’t even think about the Scottish English divide. Even when watching films such as ‘Braveheart’, most of us are mature enough to realise that they Hollywood version isn’t exactly historically correct.

Even if Scotland is granted independence after a referendum looking more likely there are still many who are against the idea. Perhaps independence might not only further destroy Scottish English relations but there may be further enhance disagreements within the country.

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle

The SNP and Greens also believe that and that sole economic control in Edinburgh is a good thing. But where is the money for Scottish public spending coming from, in an independent state? Oil! It strikes me as odd that a party which campaigns for the environment, for renewables energies and for sustainable development can justify the route to this by exploiting the planet for its rapidly depleting supply of natural resources. Yes, the money may be poured back into making the country a leader in renewables energies. Yes this may create some new jobs (some estimate suggest this could be a grand total of 5000 for the whole of Scotland…). But does this make it right? And what will happen WHEN, not if, the oil runs out?

How will the loss of 100,000 jobs in the Scottish oil industry be balanced out by the mere 5000 created by the renewable sector and what effect will this have on the Scottish economy? As a great believer in the future of renewable energies these questions need to be answered by Scotland’s leading Green party.

Duty v Inspiration

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Spending 3 hours in a ‘suite’ of the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff could never be called exciting in itself: the sandwiches are pretty gross and you feel like you’re in the middle of an industrial warehouse. However, if, you were to find yourself there to take part in a consultation with the Welsh Government on their new Sustainable Development Duty Bill you might just exit feeling as excited as I did.

Yes, this is going to be about Wales.

And yes, it will be about Welsh Government.

BUT, it relates to all of us who are interested in issues of Sustainable Development (SD) all around the world because having a working example of what Government engagement and consultation on issues of SD is invaluable in lobbying other countries to do the same, to rise to the challenge.

Wales is now hailed as the only country with SD written into its constitution (surely this isn’t true?!), meaning, every member of Government has a basic duty to implement policies in full consideration of SD issues.

Ages ago the Government produced this strategy called ‘One Wales, One Planet’ which despite my initial nagging scepticism screaming GREENWASH at me, has actually proven to be a serious and comprehensive blueprint of how Wales aims to reduce its footprint on the planet. Amongst many measures which all come under the banner of SD it has included drastic planning changes to how new housing is built in Wales (all new housing stock must be zero carbon after 2015), it has made Wales the leader in waste disposal as 80% of homes in Wales are serviced with regular doorstep recycling and composting facilities, etc etc.

What is the point in creating an SD Duty?

Good question. And I suppose this was what today’s initial consultation was supposed to glean from those outside of government. So far a vision and an aim of the duty have been outlined by the Welsh Government, now it was our turn to contribute our thoughts on the definition of SD, the content of the legislation, the purpose of the duty, and the way in which it should be implemented.

According to the Government’s discussion paper:

“Sustainable development is our central organising principle. This means that our approach to Government is about:

• Taking decisions that are effective in the long run, and not just over the short term.

• Taking a joined-up approach to Government, ensuring that the economic, social and the environmental issues that enhance people’s quality of life are integrated into everything that we do.

  • Working in partnership with others, so that participation and engagement with people, communities, businesses, the third sector, and the public sector in Wales is central to how we make decisions.”

As you might expect there were many different ideas and interests; most people were of a consensus that it needs to be able to hold public sector bodies and businesses to account for breaking the duty, but most of all, it needs to be an incentiviser, a goal setter and the catalyst for dialogue.

The First Minister of Wales announced that the bill to further elaborate on the existing constitutional duty is

“…about defining the long term development path for our nation. It means healthy, productive people; vibrant, inclusive communities; a diverse and resilient environment and an advanced and innovative economy.”

The Welsh Government wants to attract business and investment into Wales that wants to be in Wales because of the SD Duty; it wants to create a positive obligation on the Welsh Assembly and the Government, rather than just restricting and regulating everything it does. The best way of putting this duty into practical terms would be to say that it seeks to create a positive mentality rather than a list of tasks and extra bureaucracy that everyone just ticks off but doesn’t engage with in any way.

That sounds good to me, but will it work?

I think the best I can offer is, you don’t know until you try. With most environmental law that isn’t regulatory, that is it contains substantive values, it is very new, and so no one can predict the effect accurately but you can at least try and learn from other areas of practice.

Has this ever been done before by a Government?

There’s a great bit of a speech by Welshman Phil Williams talking about Wales’ SD Constitutional Duty:

“In our euphoric moments we claim that we are the only parliament alongside the parliaments of Tasmania who have a constitutional duty to pursue sustainable development. It is a sophisticated Welsh device to always claim to be second or one of two. Anyone can claim to have a unique feature: all you need to do is fail to look anywhere else.” [speech found here]

One environmental lawyer recently said that legislation is needed to create legal duties and monitoring of Sustainable Development, instead of hotch potch good practice springing up here and there.

And there certainly are SD Duties of public bodies and councils etc, but not so much on the Constitutional level. Given the supposed longevity and difficulty in amending a country’s constitution, this is why such a fuss is being made.

In a different spin on the same issues, Bolivia has enacted laws which make Mother Earth Rights equal to those of human rights. That means that its mineral deposits and natural resources have been redefined as ‘blessings’. This is the spiritual, indigenous peoples version of a sustainable development duty which usually defines peoples, resources and the environment in a very anthropocentric way, this more holistic version considers all entities equal-humans, environment, animals, resources etc. These laws are projected to halt large infrastructure projects, restrict the mining that has created mammoth environmental pollution in Bolivia as well as empowering communities to be involved in decision making and challenging large corporations active in Bolivia. Framed differently this is how I would envisage an SD Duty working in this country.

The other aspect of the Welsh Government which could prove a great addition to an SD Duty is the position of ‘Commissioner for Sustainable Futures’.

SD easily slots into the mandate of a future generations commissioner because without SD future generations can expect a much depleted and dirtier future devoid of many things in the natural world that we take for granted today.

I would hesitantly say, that a legal duty that can be prescriptive and specific about how to meet certain requirements/regulations as well as inspire a positive and long term mentality and behavioural change in public institutions through the principles and aims it embodies,  will have more capacity to instill long term change than one person (even with their own commission behind them) ever could.

However, the value of having a commissioner on top of a duty is that it is everyones role to implement the duty (so half of the commissioner’s job is done) leaving the Commissioner free to check up on implementation and possibly seek enforcement actions where the body/person has breached their duty on behalf of future generations. So its time for Welsh youth to swing into action and make the most of this guy, after all he needs a mandate, so lets give him one!

Moving forward, beyond this initial consultation the Welsh Government will be conducting sectoral consultations (e.g forestry, business etc), and hopefully Dyfodol can secure one for young people.

As much as I was happy to be there, most young people would have felt that their quality of simply ‘being’ a young person was not enough to bring to the table. It is hard to stand your ground when the person next to you runs a big charity, or the person opposite used to be the Welsh Environment Minister. For a duty that is for the benefit of future generations, and the future of the current generation, there needs to be some creative brainstorming and some serious buy in by those of us whose future in Wales it will affect.

**Watch this space and if you’re interested in being involved in the youth consultations post a comment below or get in touch with Dyfodol**

[image sources: CackleTV, http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/2183 & IC Network]

Tar sands: Let’s not lose sight of the big, ugly picture…

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UK Tar Sands Network/Lush/People & Planet Valentines Day 'Oil Orgy' in Oxford

UK Tar Sands Network/Lush/People & Planet Valentines Day 'Oil Orgy' in Oxford

Who would’ve thought that EU transport legislation would be getting so many of us so worked-up this week?

As the EU prepares to vote on the Fuel Qualirty Directive (FQD) on Thursday, environmentalists around the UK are kicking up a fuss in support of a piece of legislation that has the potential to effectively ban tar sands oil imports from Europe, by classifying them as 23% more polluting than most conventional crudes.

Since People & Planet launched a letter-writing action last week, over 500 of you have let Under Secretary of State for Transport, Norman Baker, and his boss, Nick Clegg, know what you think of the UK’s plans to vote against the FQD.

We (and most of you who have written) have received a generic response from Clegg’s office. Like Baker’s replies (which we went on to debunk) when we launched an action to him last November, Clegg’s letter goes to great lengths to focus on technicalities. But first and foremost, Clegg’s reply avoids the bigger picture, which we want to make sure is not lost in the bickering.

  1. Tar sands are the dirtiest form of transport fuel in commercial production today. The oil industry is pushing hard to create markets for a product that will only ensure an unmanageable level of new carbon is released into the atmosphere, at a time when we must be drastically cutting back. If the EU doesn’t enact legislation that reflects this, Canada and its partners will exploit any loophole that will help lock us into a carbon intensive future, at a time where investment in renewable energy sources is desperately needed. Each day without EU legislation is a day that plans can continue to be made to create a new European market for dirty oil. Canada recently left the Kyoto Protocol, with its relatively modest targets for emissions reductions. In case we needed any clearer indications, this is not a regime that the ‘greenest government ever’ should be allying itself with, as we fight for the planet’s survival.
  2. The tar sands industry in Canada, beyond its immense environmental costs, is having devastating impacts on local indigenous peoples, wildlife, air and water in Northern Alberta. Keeping the EU’s doors open to tar sands is exactly the kind of market signal that will help justify the quadrupling of existing tar sands operations (which have been thrown into significant limbo since Obama vetoed the Keystone XL pipeline, with the US as the biggest beneficiary of current tar sands oil production). Indigenous peoples, like those from the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, with whom we have worked closely in the struggle against this devastating industry, are going to bear the brunt of the impact if expansion is deemed economically justified. Baker and Clegg have the potential to be a part of stopping this, if they choose to…

These are the kinds of questions that are being shied away from – the big issues that the government is pretending are either not their concern, or well outside of their powers.

Instead, they focus on:

  • A counter-proposal which they haven’t filed any of the necessary paperwork for, so is not actually an option for Thursday’s vote, and would thus take considerably longer to put into action as a result (even if it was a stronger alternative).
  • Current EU fuel usage being primarily conventional crudes, while ignoring the fact that these sources are becoming scarce and that much higher polluting unconventional fuels (like tar sands and shale gas) are the waiting in the wings to fill the quickly emerging gap, if not urgently legislated against.
  • The most polluting fuels the EU currently uses, which, even at their very worst, are barely on par with the most carbon efficient tar sands oil.
  • Canadian tar sands apparently being ‘singled out’ by the FQD, though the rules would apply to currently unexploited tar sands in Venezuela, Russia, Madagascar and elsewhere, as well. Further, shale gas is also included in the FQD, as carbon values associated with a range of the worst polluting ‘conventional’ fuels will be added by 2015. There is nothing in the phantom counter-proposal that indicates how not labelling tar sands now, would assist in labelling other high-pollutant fuels sooner.

So the response has been a typically big ‘P’ political combination of misplaced emphasis, denial of responsibility and deflection of the core questions at stake. And this criticism has been echoed by politicians across the political spectrum – from Labour’s Shadow Transpor Secretary, Maria Eagle, to Tory MP Zac Goldsmith, and fellow LibDem Chris Davies MEP – all seeing the government’s position as out of step with current realities and the seriousness of the issues at stake.

We would like to ask for more from our elected representatives on this critical issue.

Liam Barrington-Bush

Tar Sands-Free Campaign Manager, People & Planet

Come not-fly with me?

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I hadn’t realised that I had never written about my decision not to fly…so here it is.

The flying revolution, romanticised by the beautiful old airplanes and pilots with flying goggles and aviator jackets, and made doubly appealing by films like “Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines” (a classic for children), has been appealing from the outset.

How could it not be?

As it became safer, more commercialised and glossy it became more accessible to ordinary people who aren’t pilots, members of the armed forces or a celebrity.

Take a little bit of romance, add new opportunities to travel all around the world and the possibility for anyone to explore as much as they dare and you get an overview of the emotional power of flying. I even feel all of those things myself…

When I was 17 or 18 years old, 3 or 4 years ago, I decided to stop using airplanes. Before that, there was a period where our family would make about one flight a year, of varying distances; this period included a long-haul flight to Australasia, and flights to Turkey and Lapland, all great places. My last flight was made amidst great soul searching. I had been on the verge of making the decision but I had to go to Tobago for the wedding of my aunt and uncle. Because of emotional blackmail of friends and myself, I had no other choice but to make this final journey, so I know the unpleasant feeling and I agree that the whole process of check-in and take-off is exciting. It gives you the impression that you are on vacation. but since then, I have discovered a very different way of travelling.

Why would you decide not to fly?

There’s many a different argument why we shouldn’t. Here are some that I considered:

Carbon emissions:

For any environmentalist this is the big one!

  1. Flying uses 3 times as much energy per mile travelled (per passenger) than a train.
  2. The effect of emitting greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels is more potent at the height that a plane travels than at ground level. By EU standards (for planes) this means the same greenhouse gases released by an airplane are 2.5 – 2.7 times stronger than those released by a car at ground level.

Combined, these two effects mean that per mile you travel in a plane, you are causing 7.5 times as much environmental damage than if you travelled by train. And the difference is even bigger if you travel by coach or car because they emit less than trains. Furthermore, the shorter the plane journey, proportionally, the more harm you are causing because the plane’s emissions are highest at take off and landing. Eurostar has calculated that by taking the train from London to Paris instead of flying each passenger cuts their travelling emissions by 90%, a HUGE figure!

As a local community puts it on their website:

“Let’s try to put it into perspective:
We try to be reasonable in our car use, by for example not making unnecessary trips to the shops which are only a couple of miles away.

Maybe over the course of the year, by cycling, car sharing etc, we might save 100 trips, and therefore perhaps feel that we have done something positive for the environment.

But each car trip, of 4 miles, is the equivalent to just one passengers’ share of an airplane for just 11 seconds.”

And just for those who advocate “offsetting” when you fly, DON’T BOTHER. Please check out this fantastic little film about why carbon offsetting just does.not.work

Consumer power:

As a privileged individual from a developed country with enough money (or ability to make the money) to be able to afford to make decisions between means of transport (i.e I am not forced to fly to get anywhere) I should take my consumer power seriously. Those of us who have always had consumer power don’t even think about what we are spending our money on or who is getting the profit in the end. We just don’t.

Large companies with different product lines watch very closely where consumers spend their money and where they don’t, withdrawing lines that people aren’t taking up and coming up with different versions and ‘limited editions’ of lines that people do like. Airlines cannot afford to fly empty planes, so vote with your purse.

It’s time to take responsibility for where you spend your money, time to put my money where my mouth is in my case.

Quality of experience:

This is a less penalising justification for choosing public transport over flying!

Whilst this will depend on whether you mind sharing a room with strangers, or whether you are prepared to talk to someone sitting next to you, quality of experience means that when you travel by slower means you are likely to meet more people. Amazing people, annoying people, kind people, people you can’t communicate with through language, scary people. But that is the beauty of public transport travelling!

I have met an African Diamond dealer; a recently self-released hermit who had cleared bodies from the beach of the Boxing-Day Tsunami, set up an orphanage and hung out with the Malaysian Princess; Mongolian clothes smugglers; an old Dutch man who took disabled young people on train journeys around the world; a friend of the Prince of Monaco who paid for my train ticket, and many many more interesting characters.

Every single one of them added to my journey and memory of the trip. Some of them gave me great advice, I gave to some of them (great) advice too-I have still have the silver water bottled in a viagra dropper bottle that the hermit had brewed himself (believe it or not I did actually let him put some of his home-brewed silver water IN my eye….that was a little stupid though).

Then there’s the views. When you are high up in the atmosphere you have none for the majority of the journey. I always feel much more of a connection to where I’m going if I’ve been watching my progress.

The food is often much better on trains (not relevant on coaches) than on planes! On our train journey from the UK to Mongolia there was a Russian food cart going through Russia and Siberia, and then a Mongolian food cart when the train reached the Russian/Mongolian border. It was all far more interesting than vacuum-packed bread and fruit salad that disintegrates into compost in your mouth.

Culture Shock: Most simple of all: why do you think people get culture shock as soon as they step off a plane in Mumbai? Finding themselves surrounded by poverty and unfamiliar colours, smells and people for 5 minutes they turn right around and step right back onto the first plane heading straight back to London – this has happened.

There is no context for your arrival in Mumbai. Lifting off in London financial capital of wherever, a developed country blah blah blah, there has been no transition to the less developed country half way round the world, only an extraction from reality for however many hours it takes, and then you’re placed on the ground again, somewhere “a whole world away” from your own.

By public transport you see the changing landscape, you see the transition between countries, peoples and ways of life to an extent, even though you are travelling at 80mph. You have at the very least, an idea of what’s coming, and so the likelihood of culture shock is drastically reduced. When I arrived in Mongolia, at no point did I get one of those realisation moments “oh my god I am in Mongolia!”, no, every time I realised I hadn’t had one of those moments I just thought “I bloody well am in Mongolia because it took me 6 days to get here”.

Some other powerful arguments

Love miles: I’ve heard many a staunch environmentalist talk about their decision not to fly….and then happily qualify their decision with the ‘love miles’ argument. That is, “well I live in the UK but my daughter has permanently moved to India” so you excuse yourself with a return flight to India every few years, because you obviously love your daughter. This argument is such an emotive one. No one, when pushed, is willing to give up their familial relationships for the sake of their carbon emissions. Opening up the world brings its consequences, positive and negative, one of them being people’s unwillingness to just settle in the country where they were born, or for some, have more than one home on more than one continent. There is no easy answer to this one, but all of the weighing up I keep referring to should still be relevant…..blinded by love comes to mind…..

Expense: There’s a touch of the chicken and egg scenario in this one. Yes planes are often cheaper, yes you could argue you then have more money to spend in the local economy when you arrive if you flew more cheaply.

There needs to be the demand for the cost to go down as well as much better government investment in their public transport infrastructures. If there was an international commitment to streamline public transport networks similar to the way airlines can manage their flights, the travel times would also be streamlined as well as the cost.

In the meantime the argument I use for justifying spending more money on train travel than I do on clothes, food etc, is simply that travelling must be costly, why should we be able to transport ourselves around the world with as little cost to ourselves but maximum cost to the planet and those who rely on it? Public transport is a ‘good thing’ to put my money into I tell myself, and if I can’t afford the non-flying option this time around, I just don’t go, saving the money for one great trip when I do have sufficient funds, making it all the more worthwhile.

I will never be able to evade the fact that I come from a family who did have a holiday once a year, and so could afford to choose not to fly most of the time, so I cannot justify myself to those families who work all the year round to be able to afford one cheap flight for the family to go on holiday ever year/2 years, etc. But given that the majority of flights are either business or those families who fly on holiday at least twice a year, it is those people who I aim my argument at, because they make up the primary consumers of flights, when they needn’t.

The ‘Greater Cause’: Whatever your cause is, with the advent of the internet and globalisation it’s likely it will have an element of business/contact/actions outside of the country you live in. Amongst the environmental movement, rightly so in my opinion, there are many that battle with the conundrum of flying to spread the word, strategically working with people in other countries, attending conferences (e.g the UN Climate Negotiations) to try and affect change on a greater level (on an international and state level) which you could never achieve by yourself etc etc I could go on.

This one has a powerful draw for someone like myself who advocates both personal actions, national actions and international co-operation on an issue like climate change and sustainably. Every decision I make to travel (so far avoiding flying) has been painstakingly researched to look for alternative less carbon-heavy methods of travel, how I would be contributing once I got there, and the likelihood that I would actually be adding something that would be missing if I wasn’t there. In 2010 I made the decision to stay in the UK for the UN Climate Negotiations annual Conference of the Parties (COP16) in Cancun, Mexico; I knew that I could support a team of other people to do what I would have done, and they were already going, so there are often ways round conundrums, even if its a bit self-sacrificing.

When there just aren’t ways round it, I have heard powerful personal justifications of how seriously the decision was taken, and that within the current system of flawed non-flying transport infrastructure, it is still the quickest and most economical way to travel long-haul. As long as this attitude does not give way to apathy and taking the effects of your actions for granted, as long as it really means you fight for a better world when you get there, or, it makes you more able to fight for a better world (e.g soul food from love miles!) I might hesitatingly, and with a heavy heart make the decision to fly.

Ultimately I have to weigh up how much of a hypocrite I can bear to be, how much flying would compromise everything I am fighting for, and how much I need to go.

If only I had stayed ignorant, life would be so much easier!

Follow my blog at www.izzykb.wordpress.com and find me on twitter: @IBottoms

Do we care too much??? Maybe we should just accept our Brave Old World?

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no-shoesToday I decided I would support one of my crazy friends in his campaign for a change. My friend is doing “No Shoes November”, not wearing shoes for an entire month to raise money for Christian aid and has asked his friends to support him in doing so, to reach his goal of £1000. So today, along the cold dirty streets of Cardiff, I walked and cycled to my lectures, to the library and to the pub – explaining to the world my madness as i hobbled. I am an atheist yet ending poverty must be a hope every individual has and they would do what they can to achieve this goal. Right? Well thats what I thought….

Just like any activist, I have days where I lose hope. Today was one of them. After a weekend of meeting inspirational people at the student activist weekend of “Shared Planet”, I thought this week would be full of new momentum to make the world a better place.

At the moment I am involved with trying to organise environmentalist speakers for a society event, organising a sit-in to get my Uni to join the Workers Rights Consortium, working with the Occupy Cardiff movement so we can spread to the 99% v 1% message, working with Oxfam Cardiff on their “Climate Craftivism” event, working with lecturers to organise a teach-out for November 30th and today I took the opportunity to spread to word about poverty by going barefoot for the day.
I spoke to a few people, most didn’t look past the brave act of not wearing shoes and failed to look at the bigger picture.

Coming home with my weathered feet I learn how Occupy Wall Street is being torn apart, I hear how “Frozen Planet” is shown in many countries throughout the globe but as the latest episode discusses issues around climate change, it wont be shown in the majority of countries. At the pub quiz, when the answer that in 1989 the hole in the ozone layer was discovered, an ignorant loud mouth announced her misinformed view that it was a “myth”. I later switched on “Question Time” where I found people complaining about renewable energy and its appearance, followed by another show which asked whether “people power is getting in the way”. I was deflated.

As I let out steam on my wonderfully laid back housemates, I realised how much they accepted society, how much they were willing to just accept that these emergency issues of climate change, of poverty, of human rights abuses, of inequality, was just part of our world. I was asked why I worry about things that I cant do much about. That was what disappointed me most. Is that what the majority of the population thinks? Do they just accept that the world is not working in the favour of equality? And do they not care enough to even try?

In my anti-capitalist stream of thoughts, I begin to wonder whether individuals have been conditioned to behave in this way. It may not have been so clearly brutal as in Huxleys Brave New World, but the neo-liberal ideology has so powerfully convinced the general public of its consumer, hierarchal system of organisation that individuals don’t know any other way.

So Pessimism can be solved through
a) hedonism
b) activism

I am a poor student who can’t afford the middle class escapist lifestyle and thinks way too much, so activism will have to do. After all, at least Occupy St Pauls campaigners are still there. I will cling on to that ray of hope, and go to bed in peace.
Tomorrow is a new day. Anything can happen. And at least tomorrow I will be wearing shoes.

P.S. Please donate – http://www.justgiving.com/NoShoesNovember

New Years Resolutions

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Why conserve?

Why conserve?

For conservationists, scientists and wildlife enthusiasts alike, extinction is an alarming word. But it can be easy to forget that extinction is a completely natural process – during the estimated 3.8 billion years that life has existed upon planet Earth, the diversity of organisms has been in a constant flux, with natural extinctions being balanced by equally natural speciations.

There have been five documented mass extinctions during the history of life on Earth, the most well known of which was the KT (Cretaceous-Tertiary) Event, which culminated with the disappearance of dinosaurs and made way for the evolution of mammals. It is generally agreed among scientists to have been associated with a serious of dramatic extraterrestrial impacts, which had a devastating impact upon the diversity of life.

What may be well less known, however, is the general consensus among scientists that Earth is currently on the brink of a sixth mass extinction event. This sounds like an incredibly daunting prospect, especially if we consider the previous mass extinctions; the Permian-Triassic extinction event, for example, eliminated an approximated 57% of all families extant at that time. Clearly, this suggests we are on course for an enormous upheaval of life as we know it, should this prediction be true.

What I find pretty scary is that, despite this pending event, life for many of us seems to remain pretty constant. We may be bombarded with an increasing number of messages daily telling us that sea levels are rising, but this is yet to significantly influence the majority of people in the Western world. The truth of the matter is, this mass extinction is beginning to happen right underneath our noses. We can no longer plead ignorance. Indeed, it’s scientifically proven that global warming, pollution, poaching and deforestation are causing extinctions at a rate unparalleled by the previous mass extinction events.
Economic and scientific reasons for conservation aside, I wonder…why don’t we take more action to prevent these extinctions just because we should? We are members of the only species on Earth with the power to actively conserve and protect the species we share our planet with, yet we let this power go to waste. We all have the same right to be here, and I personally think we have a moral obligation to take more of an interest in the world around us, and the magnificent living things we share it with.

So, with 2012 barely under way, my resolution will be to think more carefully about how my day to day actions impact upon the environment, (even though I will probably never see them directly for myself), and make a conscious effort to consider the wonderful creatures who also call planet Earth their home.

For People & Planet’s environmental campaigns, see our Climate Change pages.

The History of SCOOP – York Student Food Co-op (and why it is the best thing since sliced bread) by Phoebe Cullingworth

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greatest-thing-since-sliced-bread1What is SCOOP?

SCOOP provides organic, exploitation free or local produce at cost price to all members of the community. The co-op is not-for-profit, is run entirely by volunteers and we have a shop in one of our campus colleges, open once a week from 10-6pm. Students can benefit from the direct experience of running and managing a social enterprise. However, SCOOP is not just a simple management exercise, but an attempt to engage in co-operative living (which is great!) We are mostly a group of people who love to talk about, eat and share good food. We have monthly “Meet and Eat’s” where we cook and share homemade dishes together, make recipe books and a blog as a group and participate in a monthly campus Farmer’s Market along with local producers to get to know the community.

How did it start?

SCOOP started out in 2009 as a seed of an idea in a York People & Planet meeting. One of our members had been to visit Leeds, whose food co-op has been running since the groovy seventies, and was inspired to start one here! The idea grew a little bit at a time, with a small group of people starting out by researching and organising suppliers, local farms and food deliveries and collections from someone’s house. Our student union were pretty unhelpful, seeing it as a complex feat with lots of health and safety issues, and so we developed our own strategies working with the wonderful charity, Sustain, for a bit of extra advice.

In order for the co-op to develop to the stage of a fully functioning shop the founding members worked hard to establish the basis for volunteers to work together to share their interest in good food. We had to determine whether there was a demand for such a service, research suppliers for our stock, run meetings to manage the day-to-day tasks, raise funds to start our orders, advertise for shop and volunteers to help run it as well as working out our legal and spatial position.

Once we had established ourselves as in demand and a workable project we approached the Senior Management Committee of our University with a portfolio of everything we had achieved and our aims for the future. After a bit of convincing they gave us the space we needed to open a shop and when we applied to the York Alumni Fund for a grant we were awarded £1260 as a start-up fund for jars, scales and shelving etc.! We are now open every Wednesday from 10-6pm and have weekly meetings to discuss the running of the shop as well as our overall goals for the future.

Where next for SCOOP?

The co-op is now a student society, which our members thought gave it some long-term security, and is so popular and supported that we aim to open twice a week in the near future and would like to move to a more central position on campus with a much bigger shop space. We would love the shop to be open every day during term time like it is in Leeds so that students always have a choice about where to exercise their buying power, in an ethical co-operative where their opinions are taken into account – or in an impersonal chain supermarket?

Why do people love SCOOP so much?

The co-operative is run entirely by its members and so each person’s opinion is highly valued and listened to. Any decision is made using consensus-decision making which is a powerful way of coming to a conclusion that is supported by everybody in the group. If one person disagrees about something then they can block the decision from going ahead and a discussion is had about how the idea could be improved. This idea of sharing skills, working together for a similar aim, coming together as a community and helping each other to develop valuable skills is something which takes into account how important every single person in a group is. And SCOOP provides the most yummy, ethically-sourced food around, and that is the best thing since sliced bread!

A ‘grown up’ debate about aviation.

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The idea of ‘Boris Island’, an airport in the Thames Estuary, has had a bit of a resurgence recently. On last week’s Question Time (19/1/12), the Conservative Party co-Chair, Baroness Warsi, said the issue requires a “serious and grown up” debate over the issues of aviation, climate change, and economic growth. She then suggested that any notion of the debate being ‘grown up’ was dependent on an acknowledgment that the aviation industry has to expand. (watch on iPlayer, from 48min).

To me, this seemed to imply that: (a) a ‘grown up debate’ is one in which you agree with Baroness Warsi; or (b) that while environmental issues are OK for the student-types, at the grown-up’s table the only things that matter are economics and the growth of business. It’s a view seemingly shared by her Chancellor:

“we shouldn’t price British business out of the world economy. If we burden them with endless social and environmental goals – however worthy in their own right – then not only will we not achieve those goals, but the businesses will fail, jobs will be lost, and our country will be poorer.” (The Chancellor’s Autumn Forecast Statement)

Now, I’d quite like to join in this debate, but I’m also terrified of a receiving a sharp, patronising rebuttal from the Baroness or one of her minions, so I’ve decided I should only engage on her terms, in the most ‘grown up’ way I can.

So first, what are the direct costs of aviation to the economy? It’s estimated that tax breaks to aviation come to about £10 billion a year. Aviation fuel is exempt from tax and air tickets and aircraft equipment are exempt from VAT.  In a 2005 report, Friends of the Earth calculated that this amounted to “an annual subsidy of £45,000 for each of the 200,000 jobs in the aviation industry”.

And what about the indirect costs? Attempts have been made by the UK National Ecosystem Assessment to place economic value on the natural environment in terms of the benefits provided to society and to continuing economic prosperity. It’s estimated that wetlands are worth £1.5bn a year, just in relation to the role they play in improving water quality. Probably something that should be taken into account when considering them as a location for a new airport. Similarly, it should be noted that there are huge economic costs associated with adapting to the effects of climate change – globally, the UNFCCC has said this will be in the region of £44bn-£63bn by 2030, although scientists argue it could easily reach £300bn.

Surely any ‘grown up’ debate has got to be influenced by such considerations. It’s patently obvious that our continued prosperity is intrinsically linked to the condition of our environment.  And it’s not just the bearded, lentil-eating tree-huggers saying this now; the hard-headed, suit-wearing economists have joined in as well. Environmental issues should be at the heart of any ‘sensible’ debate about the economy, not just an after-thought or postscript to appease a few pressure groups.

So should the aviation industry be encouraged to grow, despite the damage it causes to the environment (and the implications that has for the economy) and despite the fact that its growth is in part dependent upon support from the tax payer? Or should it be encouraged to pay its fair share and accept that its role in causing climate change puts a natural limit on its potential for growth?

We clearly can’t expect to prevent climate change with a continually growing aviation industry. If we want to seriously reduce carbon emissions, we also need to make sure airlines operate more efficiently at their current size. We could start by getting rid of the tax breaks currently afforded to them – this would increase their costs, and would surely make flying half-empty planes up and down the country on a daily basis economically unviable. Such a market-driven push for efficiency would seem to be straight out of George Osborne’s economic handbook – or at least it would if you replaced ‘carbon emissions’ with ‘public spending’, and ‘airlines’ with ‘public services’.

Fairer taxes on the aviation industry would mean an end to the cheap flights which have previously driven its growth, but this wouldn’t necessarily harm the economy as a whole. The Green Fiscal Commission has argued that the revenue from increased environmental taxes could create an extra 450,000 jobs over ten years. Also, people flying less doesn’t mean the reasons for travel no longer exist – businesses will still need to operate internationally, people will still want holidays, etc. Therefore, any reduction in demand for flights is likely to stimulate a growth in demand for video-conferencing, train travel, and domestic tourism – the very industries vital to the growth of a sustainable economy.

In her speech to the Conservative Party Conference last year, Baroness Warsi claimed one of the government’s main goals was “making sure this generation does not bankrupt the next”. I’d like to hope that one day she realises they’re passing on more than just an economy, and that its condition will be almost irrelevant if it’s not supported by a healthy environment.

Occupy: looking back & ahead

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Occupy in 2011 – how was it again that the sight of tent camps in the middle of cities stopped surprising us?

The entrance to the occupation on St James Park, Toronto, last autumn. Photo by Jori Jansen.

"Welcome to the Land of Possibility", at the entrance to the occupation in St James Park, Toronto. Photo: Jori Jansen.

First there was the Arab Spring, followed swiftly by the ‘Spanish Spring’ of the Indignados (the outraged) who took their tents to the squares in the midst of pending local and regional elections in May. Then came the online call-out from Adbusters, an international anti-consumerist magazine and network, to occupy Wall Street on the 17th of September, 2011. The ‘Global Day of Action’ occurred on the 15th of October; protests were staged and occupations began in almost 1000 cities in 82 countries.
As the weeks unfolded, Occupy camps became places of dialogue and experiment. Occupy Wall Street set up a People’s Kitchen feeding thousands of the homeless and its own campers, opened a People’s Library, provided free bedding, shelter and medical care to anyone who needed it, organised public talks, workshops and cultural events, inspiring Occupy groupings globally.

Characterised as a ‘democratic awakening’, the movement has challenged the narrative spun by the financial sector and governments that presented the economic crisis as the result of some mysterious mathematical failure in the financial market, a couple of greedy individuals and/or some irresponsible governments. Occupy, in turn, recast the crisis as the result of a system that persistently allows a few to accumulate wealth over the back of many. Rather than asking ‘how can we manage this system better in order to continue Business As Usual?’, they ask ‘how can we change social relations and tackling existing inequalities?’.

Answers to this question will shape the movement’s priorities for 2012. But of course there are as many answers as people involved: engaging a bigger percentage of ‘the 99%’; scrutinising current social problems and possible alternatives through educational activities; articulating demands against the powerful few in politics and business; creating autonomous institutions, like social centres, activist collectives, alternative media, credit unions and co-operatives in which different values and lifestyles can take shape.

For many, it’s the means of the movement that constitute the ends. Occupy tries to be a ‘movement’ in the very sense of the word: a reflexive experiment in communication, decision-making and collaboration in which new ideas, plans and solutions are continuously generated and another world is prefigured. When I celebrated New Year’s Eve with OWSI was surprised by how many times I heard people expressing the word ‘hope’. That night, people tore down the police fences put up around Zucotti Park after the eviction on the 14th of November. As people danced on the fences piled up in centre of the square, the night felt epic and revolutionary. At 2am this came to a sudden end when the police decided to assert their authority and evacuate the square with a force of hundreds.

Police try hard to ignore a breakdancing protestor after they forcefully evacuated the square. Photo by Jori Jansen

Police try hard to ignore a breakdancing protestor after they forcefully evacuated the square. Photo by Jori Jansen

2012 will be a new phase. In the midst of Burns’ Night festivities, Occupy Edinburgh packed up their tents at St. Andrews square after more than 3 months of occupying. But, ‘you can’t evict an idea’, the Occupy Edinburgh blog states. 5 days later, a new camp was pitched on the Meadows. At the same time, public brainstorm meetings are underway to roll out ‘Phase Two’. Ideas are floating around for flashmobs and ‘roaming occupations’ around the city focused on public engagement and education. OWS is taking a similar path by occupying Zucotti Park every day with ‘culture and ideas’. Eric Light, involved with organising these events: ‘It is with food, music, humor, games, political theatre, creative activities, think tanks and so on that we can continue to inspire and involve others’. OWS is simultaneously working on ‘pop-up’ occupations on squares all over New York. Occupy Glasgow, as well, decided to disband their camps in December and focus on outreach and direct action. The same course, in fact, has been chosen by many Occupy’s globally. But in London, Occupy LSX is still camping at St. Paul’s cathedral while fighting eviction before court. Their ‘Tent City University’ outside of St. Paul’s is a hub of activity. On the 30th of January, LSX’s ‘Bank of Ideas’ was forcefully evicted. Housed in an abandoned office block in Hackney, it was open to the public ‘for the non-monetary trade of ideas to help solve the pressing economic, social and environmental problems of our time’.

As the movement is running the risk of fragmentation, global action is in the pipeline. On the 25th of January, Adbusters called out for a ‘showdown’ this May in Chicago where the G8 and the NATO are holding a simultaneous summit. ‘With a bit of luck’, they wish to pull together the ‘biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen’. Here, the movement is set to depart from its current course and make more explicit political demands: a ‘Robin Hood Tax’ (on the financial sector), a binding climate change accord and a three-strikes-and-you’re-out-law for ‘corporate criminals’ are suggested in the Adbusters’ call-out. Other demands will be proposed through General Assemblies and a ‘global internet brainstorm’.  If these demands are not met, Adbusters writes that together they ‘…will shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe.’

Adbusters' call-out for coming May.

Adbusters' call-out for coming May.

Occupy thus plans to resort to more drastic tactics in 2012. American Politics professor Jason Adams has argued that occupying time would indeed be a better strategy than occupying space, since our economic system is foremost a matter of time, of delivering goods and services ‘in time’ and of ever-increasing production speed for lower labour costs and higher profits. Instead of a ‘disruption of space’, as the occupations were, a general strike is a ‘barricade in time’, Adams writes, following Paul Virilio. Then, Occupy might be able to lift the economic crisis from an issue dealt with only in closed-off international summits to a street-level emergency. An emergency demanding responses far more democratic than the current wave of austerity measures imposed in Europe, the US and other countries. Then, rather than going from bad to worse, things could change for the better.

Wikipedia still lists 2818 Occupy groupings on all continents, while some wither away and others spring up as you’re reading. Whether Occupy will indeed occupy 2012, we’ll have to wait and see. Or, better, we could join the dialogue, the decision-making and the action and help move this movement towards its open ends – as, in the end, we too are the 99%.