Being Red and Green

  I had known about yesterday’s event at Westminster Hall having received requests from the Zero Hour campaign to contact my MP to attend .My MP is Jon Pearce who recently gave up his role as Chair of Labour Friends of Israel to become a Private Parliamentary Secretary to Keir Starmer )He responded to my request by saying be would if he could. I have no idea whether he did. All Parliamentarians were invited to attend the event and no list has yet been published of those who did. Zack was on Radio 4 yesterday evening ( Thursday) and made (very)brief reference to being at the event, having been invited as a London Assembly Member. I assume our 4 MPs were there.  Brothers Simon and Nick Oldridge , described on the events website as  ‘climate funders and communicators, with a background in business’ set up the event, which was supported by a range of organisations, including the National Trust,  the RSPB and the National Education Union. The purpose of the event was to p...

  The privilege of being cared for in an NHS Hospital, a mint service with a hole in the middle.   For the last week I have been under the care of an NHS hospital as an inpatient. Due to my bad luck and/or my own negligence I fell from a great height whilst walking with a good friend and three thirty somethings from his own family to celebrate his 70th birthday,. My experience this week should give hope to  us all   I landed conscious and was lucky enough to be caught by a tree/shrub (the week has had its  Humorous moments and perhaps the first was my reflection on the fact that my T Shirt had the increasingly well known ‘May the Forest be With You ‘ phrase on it)   My companions immediately rose to the task. Two came down to be with me whilst the others rang 999. It was agreed to send an Air Ambulance whilst a clear and categorical instruction was given that under no circumstances was I allowed to move. My head was held in position and my legs supported fr...

 I’m astonished that the world’s business and political leaders, who have been to school, don’t just say f*** off to the White House fool

  Rachel Reeves appears to be trying to persuade Ed Miliband and others that Heathrow expansion should be allowed on the basis that there will be a dramatic increase in the use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). Critics point out that widespread use of SAF is itself ‘unsustainable’. Half of the agricultural land in the UK would have to be given over to growing biofuels in order to create enough SAF to support current levels of flying.    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/23/rachel-reevess-bid-to-expand-heathrow-could-add-40-to-airline-ticket?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other     Going back a few years the ‘Director of Downstream‘(!) at Shell Oil set the ambition of producing 2 million tons of SAF by 2025.    https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/09/aviation-flight-path-to-net-zero-future/   A recent report by the IATA (the airline industry trade body) advised that the total amount of SAF produced in 2024 was less than 1 million tons, and points o...

The ‘Thin as Ice’ document is an important contribution from Compass and a welcome response to Labour Together’s triumphalism about the success of their ‘Red Wall focussed’ election strategy. This may have won Labour a huge majority, but it was with a low proportion of the vote and of the electorate and at the expense of losing supporters on its left.   Disappointingly lacking in ‘Thin as Ice ‘ is sufficient recognition of the growing severity of the Global Climate Emergency, which threatens to consume us all and is likely to be a central issue in the next General Election. There is also a lack of a strategy for achieving the ‘progressive coalition’, committed to electoral reform, which Compass correctly advocates.  In my opinion the climate crisis provides an opportunity to create such a coalition, possibly one which can last for two or three election cycles and certainly until proportional representation is implemented. The General Election of 2029 or late 2028 is onl...

A positive outcome from this election, along with the Tories getting thrown out of office and (hopefully) the election of a handful of Green MPs, is likely to be that the demand for electoral reform becomes unstoppable. This poll of polls probably understates support for Reform, which is ( sadly) almost certainly growing. It might end up winning nearly 20% of the votes but still only win less than a handful of seats. Labour on the other hand are likely to win a huge majority with a little over 40% of the vote, with the Tories holding on to more than a hundred seats with barely more than half of that. Electoral reform can’t come soon enough and may even contribute to building the coalition for serious action on climate change that we so desperately need.

https://youtu.be/Gy4NT6K4TUY

  WE NEED GLOBAL GREENS TO HELP LEAD A MOVEMENT FOR GLOBAL ACTION IN RESPONSE TO THE CLIMATE AND ECOLOGICAL EMERGENCY The outcome of COP28 was as unsatisfactory as we all expected. Although there was agreement (at last !) to transition from fossil fuels this only applies to energy generation. There remains no firm commitment to stop using fossil fuels for transportation, construction, food production or anything else, and no commitment even to encourage people to move away from  a meat-based diet. Time is fast running out. In the meantime, Greens in the UK and elsewhere continue to focus on electoral advancement, based largely on a commitment to mitigate the worst effects of the Climate and Ecological Emergency on their own localities, regions and nation states. Such an approach is an unsatisfactory response to the scale of the emergency and imminent global catastrophe. We would like to see greens leading governments across the planet. Realistically we know this isn’t going to...

The author begins her clear and concise book with a stark warning.  “People are finally beginning to face up to the climate emergency. However, while nations rally to reduce their carbon emissions, and try to adapt at-risk places to hotter conditions, there is an elephant in the room: for large portions of the world, local conditions are becoming too extreme and there is no way to adapt”.  She then offers a solution which also addresses an increasingly toxic issue in politics, and in doing so provides hope rather than despair.  Vince  summarises the current reality of run-away climate change as others have done, and agrees with the need for economies and lifestyles to change in order to limit the extent of the coming catastrophe. She concludes however that even with maximum mitigation – renewable energy, changes to transportation and to the way food is produced and buildings constructed – the most realistic scenario is that global temperatures will rise by 3-4 degree...

 See here. My Back Pages

There is a housing crisis in the UK,which has various components.  There is clearly a need to provide adequate temporary accommodation to all those who need it. At present local authorities only have a duty to accommodate those considered to be in ‘priority need’, which usually means they have dependent children, are fleeing violence or who have significant disabilities or health problem. As if being homeless wasn’t priority enough !   Beyond the agreed need to provide adequate ‘ emergency’ accommodation there is a need to substantially increase the supply of ‘ social housing’, provided by local councils and housing associations, and offering relatively secure tenancies at reasonable rents. The significant decline in the quantity of social housing since Thatcher’s Right to Buy legislation in the 1980’s has meant that more and more people, including families with young children, have to rent from private landlords, with no security of tenure and little protection from poo...

In todays Observer here

‘the heatwave should alarm us all. Though it may have been less punitive to experience than last summer’s record temperatures, which led to thousands of deaths, it has spread across many more countries. “We can regard this as the most extreme event in European history,” said one climatologist.’ here

John Kerry, who leads on climate change issues for the Biden administration, appears to recognise that the global response to the climate and ecological emergency needs to recognise historical injustices and do something about them. He is also right to say that there is a need to co-operate with China and the Middle Eastern fossil fuel producers, however unsavoury the nature of the ruling dictatorships might be. If he had won the US Presidential election in 2004 ( he narrowly lost to George W Bush) would we be any further forward in dealing with this existential threat ? Read Guardian article here

The following comment from Dr Sharma of the BMA is damming in the extreme and should be recalled during the next general election campaign “For staff working in the NHS or any patients desperately trying to access care, No 10’s refusal to admit that the NHS is in crisis will seem simply delusional. To try to reassure us that ministers are confident the NHS has all the funding it needs, at a time when families are seeing relatives left in pain at home or on trolleys in hospital, is taking the public for fools. “Moreover, the attempt to portray this winter’s crisis as the result of the pandemic and not the result of more than a decade of political choices to reduce investment in the NHS and its workforce is little more than an attempt to rewrite history,” full article here >

Five 40 minute programmes ( two already broadcast with the rest to follow this week ) discussing how the world should be addressing the Climate and Ecological Emergency. The lament by the climate activist/ academic from Bangladesh about the need for a truly global response ( he wants a global government ! ) and the lack of the prospect of one was perhaps the most pertinent and depressing comment in the discussion so far https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001gk5d?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

From an article by John Harris in today's Guardian “If you don’t want politics flooded with betrayal myths and conspiracy theories – which have a much greaterpurchase on public opinion than anyone in politics and the media currently seems to realise – then do not ignore uncomfortable facts. When mainstream politicians indulge in denial, demagogues often make hay" Read the full article here

In a generally uncontroversial discussion between esteemed BBC journalists about how 2023 was likely to turn out and what was going to be important , the failure of anyone of them to focus on the global climate and ecological emergency was both disappointing and alarming At least The Guardian gave the issue attention when reviewing the year https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/30/environmental-review-of-2022-another-mile-on-the-highway-to-climate-hell

        One of Boris Johnson’s biggest lies was his claim at the start of COP26 in Glasgow last November that , with him in charge, the UK would lead the world towards a zero carbon future,    “not with panicked, short-term or self-destructive measures as some have urged. Instead we will unleash the unique creative power of capitalism to drive the innovation that will bring down the costs of going green, so we make net zero a net win for people, for industry, for the UK and for the planet.”    Like most of what he said this was just hot air. New Prime Minister Sunak, perhaps embarrassed by such a ridiculous claim, is choosing to stay away from COP 27, not regarding it as a priority, whilst charlatan Johnson is threatening to attend, no doubt as an opportunity for  further self promotion.    In the meantime the climate emergency accelerates and the need for effective action, at a global level, is ever more apparent. How important COP...

  https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2022/10/18/unlearning-economics-the-state-of-the-world/