alanjjohnstone
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Its a matter of horses for courses, what is the most appropriate and fitting for the conditions.
Across the continent only 10% of individuals have access to the electrical grid, and of those, 75% come from the richest two quintiles in overall income. Less than 2% of the rural populations of Malawi, Ethiopia, Niger, and Chad have access to electrical power. Electrical provisioning in Africa has generally only reached wealthy, urban middle class, and commercial sectors, bypassing the region’s large rural populations and urban poor. According to recent trends, over 60% of Sub-Saharan Africans will still lack access to electricity by 2020. Even in the areas covered by the electrical grid, power is often unreliable: the manufacturing sector loses power on average 56 days out of the year
So that is the background over-view that has to be tackled.
I don’t think anybody is suggesting that we pull down the existing pylons and not make use of the electric grid that already exists. Nor even not to expand them. For example, South African coal power could be replaced with hydroelectric imported from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (when it is politically stable, that is) could save 40 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
But we need not duplicate the past to supply the energy needs of those who do not possess or have erratic intermittent access.
There are two alternatives – mini-grids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-grids
and stand-alone house-hold systems
Both are quick solutions
When a centralised grid eventually arrives, they merely tap into what is already there.
Running scared of being victims to another witch-hunt all the Labour Party candidates for the leadership have accepted the Jewish Board of Directors ten pledges (the new Ten Commandments)
Some though have pushed against this
DJP, China isn’t shifting substantially away from fossil fuels despite claims and increased application of renewables. Its coal consumption is predicted to continue to rise. Coal’s slice of the pie might be shrinking, but the pie is still getting bigger. It also plays a major role in growing coal demand abroad. Its financing new coal power plants in its foreign investments.
But I get the point. Africa, for example, should not be aiming to build giant dams and central power stations with energy transmitted by a grid network but should be concentrating on more efficient off-the-grid solar and wind sources.
However I felt the article wasn’t taking a denialist stance but highlighting that there are serious concerns that many environmentalists are calling for the end of growth…demanding even degrowth…totally ignoring that the vast majority of the world have still not got a secure comfortable decent life.
They expect the poor to stay poor for the sake of their relative rich privileges. Why should a Mumbai shanty town dweller remain without proper housing or sanitation so that a Miami beach-side residence remains above water?
In his articles advocating a socialist steady-state economy Pieter Lawrence acknowledges that there will be an initial rise in production and out-puts (hopefully off-set by the elimination of wasteful non-socially useful production) so that we remove slums, end inequality, end the poverty. That will take re-directing more resources into fixing the disparity.
It’s what those who promote de-growth either ignore or even object to.
Perhaps, though, I was reading into the article,those points and it was as you say, another form of denialism.
An interesting take on the climate crisis.
“…Climate-change activists have made carbon dioxide public enemy No1. But CO2 emissions are really just a proxy for industrial development. The fact that African countries produce less CO2 is indicative of their lower levels of development than the West – and the dreadful poverty this entails for many of their inhabitants…”
While we make take issue that industrialisation and the proletarisation of rural workers is development, it is true that environmentalists by default aim at the continuation of inequality in developing and undeveloped nations.
Netanyahu accuses Iran of being anti-Semitic
“I am concerned that we have yet to see a unified and resolute stance against the most anti-Semitic regime on the planet – a regime that openly seeks to develop nuclear weapons and annihilate the one and only Jewish state,” Netanyahu said.
US VP parrots the same message
Iran was the one country “that denies the Holocaust as a matter of state policy and threatens to wipe Israel off the map”.
And these allegations go unchallenged by the media
https://countercurrents.org/2020/01/zionisms-mass-psychosis-is-not-israels-private-affair
“Zionism thrives only as long as antisemitism, the disease it allegedly was created to fight, thrives. It claims to be the antidote to European racial-nationalism and ethnic cleansing, but its singular goal is a state founded on ethnic nationalism, cleansing, and subjugation…Zionism’s security requires Jewish insecurity; its political objectives demand Jewish tribalism…”
It shows that, on average, every person on Earth uses more than 13 tonnes of materials per year.
The amount of material consumed by humanity has passed 100bn tonnes every year, a report has revealed, but the proportion being recycled is falling. The climate and wildlife emergencies are driven by the unsustainable extraction of fossil fuels, metals, building materials and trees. The report’s authors warn that treating the world’s resources as limitless is leading towards global disaster. The materials used by the global economy have quadrupled since 1970, far faster than the population, which has doubled. In the last two years, consumption has jumped by more than 8% but the reuse of resources has fallen from 9.1% to 8.6%.
And out of all the data, I note one glaring omission – no figure for resources devoted to military and armaments. No figures for the wasted resources expended in the destruction of wars and the necessity to reconstruct.
I know he didn’t mean what we mean but nevertheless
Janez Potočnik, a former European environment commissioner and the co-chair of the UN Environment Programme international resource panel, said the world needed to replace ownership with sharing, as is increasingly being seen with cars.
Is this offer an international one?
Asking because wondering whether to promote it on our African Banner blog
The BBC and Chris Packham – over-population is the problem
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dl6q
ALB “I think we are to an extent but the lesson would be that we should concentrate on saying how horrible capitalism is rather than how nice socialism would be.”
I have suggested the latter but was reminded that we are not going to offer a blueprint of socialism. I don’t think people require reminding of the horrors of capitalism. What they need to know is that there is an alternative.
When does the broad brush strokes of depicting general feature of socialist society cross over to describing a utopian ideal and presenting the cook-book Marx cautioned against?
We are ageing, Rod, and young members are urgently required if we are to continue as a viable political organisation. Age brings infirmity and the days where some members can take an active part in campaigns such as leafletting is passing.
But many are well able to use social media at a personal level yet decline to make political use of it.
Age also brings cynicism and feelings of ennui…you know a wearisome about after years of involvement producing little or no effect so why bother any more. That is what we can reverse if Robbo’s initiatives are encourage.
We can be armchair revolutionaries with the laptop and mobile phone as our weapons. After all it is a battle of ideas and the manner that we present ours is vital.
Yet another survey, this time a worldwide one.
56 percent of respondents said they agree with statement, “Capitalism as it exists today does more harm than good in the world.”
That belief was expressed by a majority across age group, gender, and income level divides.
In Australia, Canada, the U.S., South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan, the majority disagreed
48 percent of respondents believe the system is failing them, while just 18 percent believe it is working for them.
78 percent agree that “elites are getting richer while regular people struggle to pay their bills.”
15 out of 28 , the majority are pessimistic about their financial future, with most believing they will not be better off in five years’ time than they are today.
In the U.S., this represents a seven-point drop in optimism since 2019.
We have a wide potential receptive audience.
Why are we not resonating with them?
It is the Daily Mail and the source is the Times which is behind a paywall so I cannot verify the context but Roger Hallam has called for a ‘World War Two mobilisation’ of society, [similar to the GND being on par with FDR] with rationing and the confiscation of private property and Nuremberg-style trials.
He added that ‘maybe we should put a bullet in the head’ as punishment.
If accurately reported then he has fully justified XR being placed on the list of extremists
“…In addition, the high-profile actions of Extinction Rebellion, which centred around non-violent disobedience, results in some disruption in the City, with the potential for the event to be hijacked or infiltrated by more extremist groups.”
Under that criteria, any protest or demonstration whatsoever could be considered a threat.
Sanctions for some – exemptions for others
Chevron receives its fourth waiver granted since sanctions were imposed upon Venezuela.
