I was cleaning the front room and switched on the TV for a few minutes to reduce the boredom; the BBC News Channel was relaying some grainy, greenish-tinged footage of Barack Obama speaking to a large crowd in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. Just another diplomatic speech, I thought, but I listened all the same. Clearly what I was listening to was the meat of the speech as, based on the White House release, I had missed the preamble.

But this was no mere diplomatic feel-good spiel; there was considerable substance, and menace, in these words:

America can also do more to promote trade and investment. Wealthy nations must open our doors to goods and services from Africa in a meaningful way. And where there is good governance, we can broaden prosperity through public-private partnerships that invest in better roads and electricity; capacity-building that trains people to grow a business; and financial services that reach poor and rural areas. This is also in our own interest – for if people are lifted out of poverty and wealth is created in Africa, new markets will open for our own goods.

Say that again?

“we can broaden prosperity through public-private partnerships that invest in better roads and electricity”

Where have I heard that before? These were not the words of a caring, socially-responsible man: they were the words of the World Bank; an American-led organisation that exists primarily to lend money to governments in exchange for granting private companies the rights to operate and profit from public services. Companies like Bechtel, the largest private engineering firm in the world.

“If people are lifted out of poverty and wealth is created in Africa, new markets will open for our own goods.”

Oh, my goodness — I thought — he’s talking about Imperialism! This is essentially the same attitude that the British Government had when ably assisting the British East India Company for nearly 200 years during the most brutal periods of colonialism; using government policies to increase the wealth of corporations. The markets were opened, the people and resources were exploited, and the promised wealth for the people never materialised.

There is no need to read deeply into the speech to tease out this agenda; a section that followed shortly afterwards was enough to seal my suspicions:

One area that holds out both undeniable peril and extraordinary promise is energy. Africa gives off less greenhouse gas than any other part of the world, but it is the most threatened by climate change. A warming planet will spread disease, shrink water resources and deplete crops, creating conditions that produce more famine and conflict. All of us – particularly the developed world – have a responsibility to slow these trends – through mitigation, and by changing the way that we use energy. But we can also work with Africans to turn this crisis into opportunity.

Together, we can partner on behalf of our planet and prosperity and help countries increase access to power while skipping the dirtier phase of development. Across Africa, there is bountiful wind and solar power; geothermal energy and bio-fuels. From the Rift Valley to the North African deserts; from the Western coast to South Africa’s crops – Africa’s boundless natural gifts can generate its own power, while exporting profitable, clean energy abroad.

And who, I may ask, will be running these giant engineering projects, and benefiting most from “Africa’s boundless natural gifts”? Certainly no large companies in Africa have the necessary expertise to set up a global trading system for energy; there are experts across the water who are straining at the leash to get out there. The spectre of biofuels hangs over that last paragraph too; relegated to the end, but the baby of corporations like Cargill, there is massive opportunity for profit from crops.

You don’t have to be terribly creative to suggest other massive “opportunities” for American companies, deified by Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr. and now Obama: there is timber, gold, gas, sugar, cocoa, constant war and disease-ridden populations, all lined up for the onslaught of corporate America. A brave new colonial future: but instead of being ruled by European nations, Africa ends up being ruled by corporations.

You wouldn’t expect a political leader to set out such an agenda in the clear, but with the words above, Obama has said enough to start the ball rolling. While millions of Africans remain in thrall of Obama’s “message of hope”; the real agenda setters are planning their next moves.

Excuse the partial reposting of my own article, but because there is a big chunk about Greenwashing, and also that Climate Change Denial is one of the major manifestations of environmental hypocrisy, the article is extremely relevant to The Unsuitablog.

And I also put an awful lot of work into it, so why not?

If someone doesn’t want to believe something then what can you do to change their mind? Trust me, it’s more difficult than you think: it isn’t just the simple case of someone not believing something, the key word is “want” – if they don’t want to believe then there is almost nothing you can do about it. Even if all the evidence is against them.

I see this all the time: on the TV news, in the printed media, on blogs and discussion boards, and in the streets; this constant battle between two entrenched positions – be it over religious idealism, abortion, vaccinations or anything else that invokes emotional involvement – is almost unbearable to witness. For the most part, this battle will grind on and on until the various parties give up trying to convince the other side, through lack of energy, lack of time, illness and even death. People have died for their beliefs, in their millions – but there are always others to take their place.

The battle between the two sides over climate change, or anthropogenic global warming (AGW), won’t be ending any time soon; and there will be blood, mark my words. This is more than a battle for intellectual superiority – it is battle over an idealistic principle, and that principle is…actually, let’s come back to that. First of all, given the title of this essay, I think we need to consider the words “denial” and “denier”.

Put simply, denial is an unwillingness to accept a position: I deny that white people are racially superior to black people, which to most of us is a reasonable position to take. The opposing position is less common, but nonetheless can be couched in similar terms; the denial that black people are racially equal to white people. Go back less than 100 years, though, and the second position would stand you in pretty good stead as a European or American citizen wanting to get ahead in the civilized world.

A denier is someone who adopts a denial position. For instance, I deny that economic growth is a necessary characteristic of human society, which places me very much in the minority of people in the civilized world. I’ve discussed the reason for this elsewhere, needless to say the opposing position – that economic growth is a necessity – is far more cultural than based on an absolute body of factual evidence. That is important, because it helps understand why denial positions are so difficult to deal with: if someone is deeply inculcated with a particular belief, such as economic growth being a necessity, then no matter how much contrary physical evidence is presented to them, they are highly unlikely to change their position. If that physical evidence is overwhelmingly contrary to their belief system then we say they are “in denial of the facts”.

That, of course, often only serves to inflame things.


The Danger Of Denial

I make no bones about my belief in anthropogenic global warming, for various reasons, and not just the scientific evidence; so if you are reading this and thinking about clicking somewhere else because you don’t agree with me, then click away – this essay is aimed at those people who more or less have the same mindset as myself, and are in the all-too-common situation of feeling they have to defend that position. To you, dear reader, I offer the following words: you are in danger of losing your sanity.

As we have seen, and probably realised from experience, arguing with a Climate Change Denier is like wrestling in a deep, muddy pit: it can be filthy, exhausting and, worst of all, there seems to be no way out. Personal issues aside, the wider danger is that the other side might get their way – and that person, or group, or business, or government, will then be able to spread their own beliefs in the knowledge that there is no-one willing to take the opposing position. The many people who are wavering, or even understand that AGW is fact, can then be easily tipped into denial. This is what happens in totalitarian states: the ruler’s position becomes the de facto belief.

In ecological terms, this would be disastrous should it happen against AGW, for there would not even be enough dissenters to restart the process of change, let alone carry it through. It’s strange in a way – all the time it has seemed like an endless game of factual table tennis, it has in fact been a battle for the future of humanity, played out in a million places across the globe.

You can read the rest of this article at The Earth Blog.

A new campaign was launched a few days ago, with the blessing of the United Nations: it’s called Hopenhagen. There is clearly a huge level of creative genius behind the name (ok, I’m being sarcastic), as you can tell it is a portmanteau word, consisting of “hope” and “copenhagen”, and indeed it is intended to be the start of a massive advertising push to provide “a platform for individuals around the world to participate and have a say in the future of the world.”

That last bit was extracted from the Hopenhagen press release, as issued by IAA Global:

(June 23, 2009 – Cannes, France) The United Nations, together with the International Advertising Association and a coalition of the world’s leading advertising, marketing and media agencies today launched Hopenhagen – a movement that empowers global citizens to engage in the December United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen – at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Hopenhagen is a global marketing and communications initiative that will inspire and generate mass activation around the world.

“Climate change is one of the epic challenges facing this and future generations. World leaders will come together for the Copenhagen climate change conference in December and every citizen of the world has a stake in the outcome. It is time to seal a deal. We need a global movement that mobilizes real change,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Hopenhagen is about more than hope. “It is about global action for a global climate treaty and a better future for humankind,” Ban added.

Delegates from 192 nations will meet in December in Copenhagen to ratify a new international global climate treaty, which will take effect when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Recognizing the tremendous role that communications will play leading up to and during the Conference, the United Nations engaged the global advertising and media industry through the International Advertising Association (IAA) to develop a comprehensive communications program to drive public awareness and generate action. Hopenhagen will complement the UN’s “Seal the Deal!” campaign, which calls on world leaders to “unite to find a solution to climate change that is fair, balanced, effective and science-based.”

“Climate change is a universal challenge, and we believe the world’s citizens are ready to act – they are just seeking the right platform,” said IAA Executive Director Michael Lee. “The strategy and stunning creative concept for the Hopenhagen idea came from WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather team, digital framework and direction were developed by MDC Partner’s Colle+McVoy, and the global PR and messaging plans spearheaded by Omnicom’s Ketchum. The collaboration that has taken place among the world’s leading agencies to develop this campaign for the United Nations is unprecedented and a testament to the significance the industry places on the need for action to address climate change.”

This raises a hell of a lot of questions: not least that if Hopenhagen is the brainchild of an industry that depends on continuous consumer spending for its existence, how could it be sustainable in any way? More worrying, though, that the advertising industry seems to have the support of the United Nations.

While on the surface Hopenhagen appears to have United Nations approval, there is actually nothing on the press release that links the two organisations (IAA and UN) directly. Have they used authority by association? It turns out that the UN are actually a big part of this. A United Nations press release from 2008, says:

SECRETARY-GENERAL LAUNCHES PUBLIC AWARENESS PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN UNITED NATIONS,

ADVERTISING LEADERS FOR NEW GLOBAL AGREEMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE IN COPENHAGEN

A new public awareness partnership to support United Nations-led efforts to promote a new global agreement on climate change in Copenhagen next December was launched today by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and more than 20 advertising industry leaders of the international advertising community.

Initiated by the International Advertising Association (UN-IAA), and timed to coincide with the opening of the sixty-third United Nations General Assembly and the fifth annual Advertising Week in New York, the new partnership marks a milestone in private sector support for action on climate change. The partnership builds on the International Advertising Association’s social responsibility programmes with the United Nations, a desire by the organizers of Advertising Week to galvanize the forces of the advertising community for a common, larger good, and support from the most powerful leaders of the global communications industry to come up with strategic solutions to one of the most important issues facing the planet today.

Michael Lee, Executive Director of the International Advertising Association, said, “It has become increasingly clear that the complexities of climate change issues present a communications challenge with both policymakers and the general public. The global ad community can make a significant contribution to help change consumer behaviour, influence public policy, and help the UN make further progress on this issue. The ultimate selling proposition might just be saving the planet.”

Mr. Ban stated, “We need action on climate change, and I applaud the determination of the advertising industry to help. As climate change affects everyone, everywhere, the UN needs partners in the private sector and in civil society to mobilize and spur action. Now is the time for action, and we welcome this assistance from the advertising community, which will bolster our present capacities.”

So has the advertising industry decided to abandon its work ensuring infinite economic growth and stop working with corporations; has the United Nations gone corporate and made the 2009 Copenhagen Summit a front for business as usual; or has the IAA stymied the UN entirely, leaving the UN thinking (with its collective mind) this is a really good idea for the planet?

The first question is easy to address — go to the IAA Global website, and straight away you see who the big players are in the organisation:

I also know, from various experiments carried out, that any anti-corporate messages on the laughable “global community” message page are deleted from the message list (that doesn’t mean I don’t encourage you to try and ruin the database). After getting the message total up to 90,000 — with the help of a few good friends — the counter was reset overnight, and the list became moderated. In fact, I suspect that now the only reason the counter is going up is because members of IAA are adding their own messages. Clearly any dissenting views will not be tolerated: we can Hope for change, but it won’t happen through Hopenhagen.

Which means that either the UN is a corporate body; or they have been greenwashed.

It would be tempting, if not satisfying, to think the latter — surely the United Nations wouldn’t take the corporate shilling in place of standing up for the planet in general, would they?

But they would. As I showed in this article about the Climate Group (“businesses and civil society are all discovering that the move towards a low-carbon economy, far from costing the Earth, can actually save money and invigorate growth“), Ban Ki-Moon doesn’t miss an opportunity to mention economic growth in his speeches — listen for yourself, next time he speaks. But here’s the real clincher: the UN’s own Seal The Deal campaign (basically a petition) which was mentioned in the Hopenhagen press release above is, above all, an attempt to ensure the global economy can continue growing (my emphasis below):

On December 7, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to respond to one of the greatest challenges facing humanity: climate change and sustainable economic growth. But how to protect the planet and create a green economy that will lead to long-term prosperity? The negotiations in Copenhagen will need to answer this question. Our existence depends on it.

Reaching a deal by the time the meeting ends on December 18 will depend not only on political negotiations but also on public pressure from around the globe. Public support must be galvanized. To do this, the United Nations has launched “Seal the Deal”, a campaign that encourages users to sign an online, global petition which will be presented to world leaders. The petition will serve as a reminder that world leaders must negotiate a fair, balanced and effective agreement in Copenhagen, and that they must seal a deal to power green growth, protect our planet and build a more sustainable, prosperous global economy that will benefit all nations and all people.

If you know what “green growth” means then please tell me, but as is very clear indeed; economic growth is what has caused the global environmental situation we see now. As I wrote in a recent Earth Blog article:

“The rich and powerful have no intention of changing; they want things to carry on as they have done since Industrial Civilization was first created. For them, the worst thing that can happen is for the Economy that has fed their – and our – dreams to power down and fail. For the planet, and every single natural habitat, food web and species on it, the best thing that can happen is for that destructive thing called Economic Growth to be turned on its head, and buried for good.”

As for this horrible little, advertising driven campaign known as Hopenhagen: it’s greenwashing, and nothing more.

If you own an island in the middle of an ocean then you will shortly (assuming you are a nation, ravenous for oil and gas from the sea bed) have an awful lot of ocean floor in your clutches. The Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) is not just a couple of dots in the Atlantic, it is a fairly sizeable, if treacherous and inhospitable, pair of islands with a land area of just under 5,000 square miles. Up to now, the potential claim for oil and gas resources at the ocean floor was in the region of 125,000 square nautical miles. With the introduction of the new United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, this extends to a maximum of 380,000 square miles. Argentina will do everything it can to prevent the UK from making such a claim; it wants the ocean bed as much as the British Government.

If you fought for the UK during the two month-long Falklands War and were injured, then you must understand that the only “freedom” you were really injured for, was the freedom to suck hydrocarbons from the ocean bed: the UK Government knew this; as did the Argentine Junta, whose invasion was almost certainly predicated on the same mineral claims.

If a relative or friend of yours was among the 900 people who died in that war, then you should know that they died for oil and gas. Across the world, throughout the history of Industrial Civilization, thousands of people died thinking they were fighting for freedom, when they were really fighting for oil. It is on this basis that the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is soaked in blood.

A vast tract of the south Atlantic seabed – rich in oil and minerals – was formally claimed by the United Kingdom yesterday in defiance of Argentinian opposition.

The submission to the United Nations’ Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (UNCLCS) has been issued two weeks after the government in Buenos Aires lodged its application to extend control over an almost identical area of underwater territory.

The British claim is contained in a 63 page document that will be posted on the UN’s website. It defines the precise limits of the extended continental shelf area around the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

The islands are all British overseas territories, although ownership is disputed by Argentina. This is the fourth detailed, continental claim lodged with UN. The others concern the Ascension Islands, Rockall and the Bay of Biscay.

The Foreign Office minister, Lord Malloch-Brown, said: “Successful completion of this process will confirm the boundaries of the UK’s jurisdiction over its continental shelf, thus ensuring our sovereign rights to manage the shelf for future generations.”

The UK document deals concisely with the Argentinian counter-claim, stating: “The UK has no doubt about its sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime area.”

The submission is one of an avalanche of last-minute claims for millions of square kilometres of the ocean floor pouring into the UN’s New York office in advance of an international deadline – on 13 May – for demarcating possession of extended continental shelves.

In the past two weeks Ghana, Pakistan, Norway, South Africa, Iceland, Denmark, France, Vietnam, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Kenya and others have delivered boxes of documents to the UN in the hope of securing valuable oil, gas and mineral resources around the world.

The hefty files of detailed paperwork – one Australian submission ran to 80 volumes – are the culmination of years of underwater exploration by each state, plotting submarine contours that mark the outer edges of the continental shelf.

The complex rules of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea permit states to extend their control and exploitation of the seabed beyond the traditional 200 nautical mile limit and up to 350 nautical miles offshore.

The precise extent of each claim frequently involves establishing the foot of an underwater continental slope, thousands of feet down in the chilly, dark oceans – and then measuring 60 miles outward.

Some claims, usually the legacies of unresolved international conflicts, are mutually exclusive, generating fresh diplomatic unease along the fissure lines of ancient boundary disputes. In the case of overlapping claims, the UN freezes the claims and asks the parties to reconsider.

As well as the overlapping claims for the Falklands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic, a dispute has emerged between France and Canada over claims to be presented for the seabed surrounding St Pierre and Miquelon, a small archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland. The French have also raised hackles by claiming the seabed near their Pacific island territories.

The 13 May deadline applies only to those states that were signatories of the original treaty 10 years ago. Other states, which signed at a later date, have more time left to submit their claims.

The United States has still not ratified the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, but the prospect of neighbouring countries such as Canada and Russia carving up the seabed for exploration is rapidly shifting opinion in Washington.

(reproduced from The Guardian)

_____

Update: I have not, at any point, stated who should be the rightful “owner” of the Falklands, although the British claim has only existed since 1833 so is hardly water-tight. The idea that the British government would continue paying to defend the Falklands without any commercial potential, either material or strategic, is ludicrous — the commenter (who will not appear here due to offensive remarks) who implied the British Task Force was mobilised for altruistic reasons really needs to read his history books.

Try this: http://nebuchadnezzarwoollyd.blogspot.com/2007/03/oil-dominates-25th-falklands-war.html

Watch this video, especially if you live in the UK, although it probably applies in many other legal frameworks. Do your homework and find out – this is a VERY POWERFUL TOOL for undermining the system, and the many fictional entities that have statutary power over you.

N.B. Violence and peaceful when mentioned are relative to Common Law, NOT STATUTE. You can LEGALLY use force against anything not backed by Common Law.

Life imitates art in the most absurd way imaginable; or could it be headline writers desperate to find a “green” angle on anything; or perhaps this is a genuine case of the writer cocking a snook at the amount of greenwashing going on.

Here’s the article, from The Independent:

You could, perhaps, call it the “military-ecological complex”. For the world’s most powerful armies are going green, trying to kickstart an environmental-technological revolution in civvy street in the process. Nearly half a century after the outgoing US president, former general Dwight Eisenhower, warned that a proliferating “military-industrial complex” threatened to drive the world towards destruction, defence establishments are beginning to try to help to save it instead. And they have found that green initiatives can preserve lives on the battlefield too.

The Pentagon – which gave the world the gas-guzzling, 68 ton M1 Abrams tank, which does just over half a mile to the gallon – is leading the charge. But Britain’s own Ministry of Defence, responsible for 70 per cent of all the government’s carbon dioxide emissions, is not far behind. And the prestigious Royal United Services Institute is to hold a conference this year on what other Nato countries are doing.

The US military – the country’s largest single energy consumer – has embarked on a drive to save fuel, and thus lives. Half of its wartime casualties are sustained by convoys, which are mostly carrying fuel and are a favoured target for enemies. It estimates that every 1 per cent of fuel saved means 6,444 soldiers do not have to travel in a vulnerable convoy.

One simple innovation – insulating tents in Iraq and Afghanistan with a layer of hard foam, reducing the need to heat and cool them – has saved 100,000 gallons of fuel a day. The Pentagon aims to get a quarter of its energy from renewable sources by 2025. It is to buy 4,000 electric cars (the world’s largest single order) for use on its bases, and is developing hybrid armoured vehicles for the battlefield.

It has saved fuel by cutting the weight of aircraft – removing floor mats, redundant tools, loading thick manuals on to laptops, and using lighter paint – and within seven years plans to fly them on a 50/50 blend of ordinary fuel and biofuel, probably made from algae.

Killing to save the planet!

Of course, The Onion got there first…

In The Know: How Can We Make The War In Iraq More Eco-Friendly?

I really don’t want to say “I was right”, this being about things that really matter, but considering how much I and, I am sure, you know about the way the Culture of Maximum Harm operates, it comes as no surprise at all that just three months into his presidency, Barack Obama is showing every sign of being crushed between the cogs of The Machine.

Here’s what I wrote back in November:

I’m going to make a prediction, and you can hold me to this: within a year of taking office, Barack Obama will seem like just another President of the United States. I feel sorry for him because — having an instinct for these things — I think he really does want to make change happen, at least in a social context, yet he has but one choice: toe the line or face the consequences…the President operates within a context of continuing to expand Industrial Civilization. The President has no choice but to work with the system. The President will do the bidding of the system because he represents the system, in all its toxic glory.

That is why Barack Obama will become a greenwasher — it’s his job, whether he likes it or not.

Notice the italicised phrase above – it seems even I was being too optimistic:

Barack Obama may be forced to delay signing up to a new international agreement on climate change in Copenhagen at the end of the year because of the scale of opposition in the US Congress, it emerged today.

Senior figures in the Obama administration have been warning Labour counterparts that the president may need at least another six months to win domestic support for any proposal.

Such a delay could derail the securing of a tough global agreement in time for countries and markets to adopt it before the Kyoto treaty runs out in 2012.

American officials would prefer to have the approval of Congress for any international agreement and fear that if the US signed up without it there would be a serious domestic backlash.

He still talks the talk: of the 80% cut by 2050 (abjectly useless, based on current predictions of atmospheric carbon growth); of a Cap and Trade scheme (using money to mask a lack of real reductions) and of a “New Kyoto” (as though the old one had any impact). Talking the talk of the machine, and walking the walk like a puppy on a lead.

How apt that his first “action” upon entering the White House was to discuss getting a family pet. Time to take a look in the mirror, Mr Obama, and see who is behind you.

I cannot say this enough: Governments and Business have no part to play in the solution to the environmental crisis. This is part of the “Eco Meme” in Time’s Up! for a very good reason – the primary role of government is to grow the economy, regardless of the consequences. This is exemplified perfectly in an article from todays Guardian, which I will reprint in full, given that it is such an indictment of the political system.

You will notice that Greenpeace have done something good: they have performed an undermining activity in exposing the machinations of the corrupt system, thus working against one of the Tools Of Disconnection – namely “Seven: Lie To Us”. For this they must be congratulated – they are using their high profile to get this information out to the widest possible audience: this is the kind of thing groups like Greenpeace should be concentrating on.

Bear in mind, anyone can file a Freedom of Information request, where the relevant laws exist; alternatively, if you are in a privileged position, or know someone who is, then you can bypass this bureaucratic system and simply leak the information…

Department for Transport civil servants repeatedly met aviation industry chiefs in advance of the decision to back a third runway at Heathrow, even though they told environmental groups that there was a blanket ban on meetings with any external bodies.

The disclosure comes in documents the civil service was directed to release to Greenpeace by the information commissioner after nearly nine months of stonewalling by civil servants.

The documents, in the form of a risk register produced by the DfT last year, also disclose that the communications directorate at the department saw it as its job to “monitor protest groups continuously and brief staff and police accordingly”.

The risk register is a document listing everything that could go wrong with the project, the likelihood of something going wrong and how much of a problem such an event would be.

Ministers regarded losing the economic and environmental arguments as “high” impact and “medium” likelihood, combining to give a “high” exposure to risk for the government. The threat of disruption was seen as one of the highest risk threats to the third runway.

The documents also disclose that at one point the department thought it would only be able to meet the noise reduction demands by introducing a congestion charge for the area.

Civil servants also advised that they continue high-level and frequent engagement with industry stakeholders, including at ministerial level, as necessary to keep abreast of developments and strategies.

At the same time an environmental organisation was being emailed by transport department civil servants: “In advance of the meeting I would like to make clear that discussion of Heathrow expansion will not be possible. This is for reasons of propriety as the consultation has now closed and ministers are considering the submissions that have been made.

“This condition applies to all meetings that the secretary of state is holding with external groups. Wider issues around aviation and the environment may, of course, be discussed with the ministers.”

The document also shows that civil servants thought it right to contact the Competition Commission so it did not create “uncertainty over BAA capacity/drive to take forward LHR expansion”.

Meanwhile, the government has indicated that BAA cannot lodge a planning application for a third runway before the next general election – an admission that ensures a Conservative government could block a new landing strip at the airport.

According to a presentation by the DfT, seen by the Guardian, BAA is not expected to seek planning permission for a third runway until 2012. The last possible date for a general election is 3 June 2010. Executives at the airport group have conceded that it will be impossible to compile the plans and data necessary by that date.

(from http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/27/heathrow-third-runway-civil-service)

You have to hand it to the UK Government; time after time they have pretended to care about greenhouse gas emissions, world peace, deforestation, toxic dumping, overfishing, human right abuses and all sorts of other things that a truly “caring government” would normally do positive things about (ok, some of you will have spotted the contradiction in terms), and time after time they have been exposed as brutal hypocrites, slavishly obeying the wishes of their corporate masters. Yet they keep coming back with ever more extraordinary claims about how they are just doing things because “it’s the right thing to do”.

Top of the list at the moment is carbon capture and storage, which is a way of ensuring we can keep burning coal — feeding the machine we have to remain tied to — while pretending all the emissions are going to be safely locked away and really won’t ever escape, no they won’t, no way, honest.

Coming up close on the heels of CCS is the unremitting desire to get genetically modified organisms into the food chain, thus satisfying the demands of many of the largest corporations on Earth: Cargill, BASF, Syngenta, Dow Chemicals and Monsanto — to name a few. The Canadian and US governments rolled over long ago, and the power of these corporations has ensured that South America is awash with GMOs, making it difficult to ensure that the food we eat isn’t contaminated in some way (Hint: grow your own). And that’s where The Independent takes up the story:

Jane Kennedy, the minister for Farming and the Environment, told The Independent yesterday that the [world food study] group’s work would include the potential for GM crops and food.

She said that she was “cautious” about allowing GM products in Britain, but added: “My own opinion is less important than what John Beddington might come up with. When the public are deeply concerned and hold strong views, they tend not to listen when ministers express a view. But they will listen to those who have the experience and knowledge to be able to offer solid advice.”

Ms Kennedy said that she would welcome GM crop trials in Britain. None is currently taking place because all projects have been vandalised by opponents but the Government may fund an experiment at a “secure” location.

The minister said another reason why the issue had to be addressed was that animal feed, such as soya, was increasingly made using GM products. “The options for those countries which want to stay GM-free are reducing, therefore the price of non-GM animal feed is going up. If that trend continues, it means meat products in countries which choose not to use GM becoming more and more expensive. There are clear implications for the UK,” she said.

Let’s get this right: the reason that the UK (and, by implication, every other nation that currently debarrs GMO growing) should embrace genetically modified crops is because it is too difficult and too expensive to avoid it. Which is like saying that the reason factories should continue to pour toxic chemicals into rivers is because it costs money to do something else with the toxins, and therefore the price of the factory’s goods would go up! Notice that she is referring only to meat, because animal feed production is by far the most profitable and powerful sector of the agricultural farming system, and to suggest we should not eat meat to reduce global food demand would be to defy her owners.

So she speaks from the mouth of the machine, like all good politicians.

Over the past few years my views on renewable energy have been cooling, as the planet warms: I used to be an enthusiastic supporter of renewable energy, obviously in the face of the growing emissions from non-renewable sources, but also in that I actually liked (and still do like) the sight of lots of wind turbines. My views were somewhat tempered a couple of years ago by the fact that most of the largest investors in renewable energy (for the sake of clarity, I do mean “electricity” when I talk about energy here) were and still are the large construction and energy corporations, and so I wrote about it.

In the last year or so I have realised that almost all of the talk about large scale renewable energy is a smokescreen. When politicians refer to the need for an increased amount of renewable energy they are (a) reacting to public opinion in order to look better, (b) reacting to international agreements that are forcing their hands somewhat, but most of all they are (c) ensuring that demand for energy can continue to rise, so long as the percentage of energy produced by renewable means also goes up. This is all about economics, and its the only reason that corporations invest in renewable energy and why, for instance, Shell pulled out of the project for the largest wind farm on Earth and pumped their money (and our natural gas and water) into the Athabasca Tar Sands instead. The oil price has dropped since the Summer of 2008, so you can bet that they and the other oil companies are starting to see wind, solar and (OH!) tidal energy as the latest cash cow.

So it’s the politicians riding the wave of corporate irresponsibility that ensures that energy policy is driven by the market; and it’s here that the Severn Barrage comes in.

The Severn Tidal Barrage is a scheme, or set of schemes, that have been designed to produce electricity out of tidal energy. The River Severn, which also marks part of the political boundary between England and Wales, has one of the largest tidal flows in the world, funnelling huge amounts of oceanic tidal energy into a gently narrowing and shallowing estuary. You can read all the technical details here; but the point is that if that energy could be captured, it would be able to generate an awful lot of electricity.

It also so happens that the Severn Estuary is one of the most important wetland habitats in Europe and, to state the obvious, is part of a living river ecosystem that initially rises in the Cambrian Mountains, and is then joined by myriad tributaries and other rivers stretching halfway across England and deeply into Wales before emptying into the Bristol Channel and finally the Atlantic Ocean. This is not just a stretch of energy rich water – it is not just anything, for rivers are the source of a countless variety of natural ecosystems and habitats, yet are probably the single most abused geographic elements on Earth.

When, in January 2008, the UK Government announced that it had shortlisted five proposals to go forwards to the next stage of a tidal energy study for the Severn Estuary. Not utilising this source of energy was not an option; after all the UK’s consumption of electricity has remained pretty static over the last 5 years, despite the obvious need to dramatically reduce energy consumption, and all but one of the UK’s nuclear power stations is due to be decommissioned in the next 10 years or so. Notice that static figure: despite all of the posturing about the UK Government being at the forefront of reducing carbon emissions, the amount of electricity being used isn’t going down. The reason?

It does not make economic sense to reduce energy consumption.

Remember that. Now, the favoured project, according to the UK Government, is the huge concrete barrage, stretching for 10 miles across the estuary. Observant readers will notice that on the press release the wording is skewed towards the larger Cardiff-Weston scheme, using such phrases as: “twice that of the UK’s largest fossil fuel power plant” and “it could generate nearly 5% of UK electricity.” Not exactly neutral wording, I think you would agree.

And of course it’s not neutral, because the construction of this project will require huge amounts of capital, huge amounts of energy, huge amounts of materials, huge amounts of backhanders…sorry, how did that last one slip in? I think it might also have something to do with the nature of the consortium proposing this scheme: The Severn Tidal Power Group. This organisation comprises the following members:

Balfour Beatty
Taylor Woodrow
Sir Robert McAlpine
Alstom

Four of the largest engineering and construction corporations in Europe. For the last 10 years, and probably more, the construction industry has been effectively setting UK Government planning policy; most starkly illustrated by the presence of lucrative PPI schemes in major infrastructure projects. Patrick Kron, the Chairman of Alstom holds the Légion d’Honneur; effectively a knighthood. The group, as of 1999, also included Rolls Royce and Tarmac Construction. This a group that has serious influence on government policy.

Notice also that on the Severn Barrage Proposal analysis report, the funding for the study came not from English Nature, the Department for the Environment or any other body that might have objections: it came from “The Department of Trade and Investment, the Welsh Assembly
Government, the South West Regional Development Agency, the Scottish Executive and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Northern Ireland.” All offices whose interest is most effectively served by ramping up economic growth and the promotion of economic investment.

Don’t be fooled that a consultation is taking place: it has already taken place, in secret, and the only things stopping a huge barrage from being constructed are either a complete lack of money to build the damned thing, or (and this is down to you) ripping apart the links between the way the UK is run, and the financial interests of those who currently have the real power. Somehow I don’t thing wading birds cut any ice when it’s all about the money.