alanjjohnstone
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Gabbard has in the past expressed anti-LGBTQ sentiments and work for an anti-LGBTQ group.
Gillibrand once advocated positions including closed borders and “expedited” deportations and, among other statements, said she was “firmly against providing amnesty to illegal immigrants”Is this about to be the next phase of the war – against Iranian troops invited into Syria
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-46941717
“We are fed up”
“Eating is political”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/20/35000-hit-streets-berlin-demand-agricultural-revolution
Does this represent the Russian view on Brexit?
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/449133-uk-brexit-democracy-eu-money/
“what they really love is chicken”
Especially when served in the shape and form that does not resemble a chicken in any way. But we prefer all our meat like that. I recall when butchers hung their produce from hooks and you saw them chopping and cutting. Long way from the supermarket plastic-wrap.
Of course we have to wonder why factory farms rarely permit visits from the public. I have been to a battery farm, not caged chickens, except when being transported to the slaughter factories. I asked why these over-loaded trucks drove so fast and it was for cooling and ventilation.
Members of my wife’s family worked at a chicken farm, or should that be chicken sheds since it was nothing like a farm. They regularly suffered outbreaks of disease that put them out of work for months at a time.
But my Labrador has a nasty habit of snatching free-range chickens from local farmyards.
But Gates recommends keeping chickens as a solution to poverty. Maybe, rabbits might be better , or guinea pigs for urban high-rise balconies
“Whatever the figure, there is a growing consensus that a drastic reduction in overall meat consumption is needed to maintain the health of the planet. What is not clear is how that will be achieved.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/19/could-flexitarianism-save-the-planet
“Excessive meat consumption, like other environmental crises, needs political solutions. Yet most discussion about whether to eat meat remains rooted in personal choice…But by just focusing on personal consumption, a paradoxical situation has emerged where the number of people who consider themselves vegetarian has risen, but so has overall meat consumption because the population of the world is increasing, and many people who do eat meat are eating more of it.”
“Dr Marco Springmann, who led the research group that published the report in Nature, says the stakes are too high for politicians to remain squeamish about regulation… [the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] were commenting that dietary change is a contentious topic and politicians don’t want to get close to that. We saw similar statements from some politicians after we released the report. I think they’re just so afraid of not being electable if it appears to be trying to prescribe what people eat. If there is not a substantial change within society first, politicians won’t lead the way because it’s too controversial…”
“Springmann says if we do not get over our squeamishness about making these changes quickly, things are going to get a lot worse. “If we continue with our current levels of meat consumption, it’s very likely that we will have more flooding, more hurricanes, extreme weather that is associated with exceeding the two-degree target for climate change … if nothing is done then those pressures could increase by 50 to 90% and by that time it will basically exceed all environmental limits or so-called planetary boundaries that define a safe operating space for humanity.”
According to a journalist, Bernie Sanders isn’t Jewish, he is Jew-ish because he is anti-Israel
To be a party of equals, Marcos, the SPGB has to adapt so that foreign based members can be fully involved in the decision-making process.
The all-party poll permits voting by email but what about submitting resolutions to conference and engaging in the debates plus taking up party-officer positions within the administration of the organization.
At one time we were investigating and experimenting with video participation of EC meetings. I think this has fallen by the wayside although Edinburgh Br is exploring a similar method for its branch meetings.
As for all the archives being transferred to the UK, this will handicap any future researcher into the history of the WSPUS. As I suggested, a local library or university might be the appropriate depository of archives.
Marcos, winding up the WSPUS is simple but what happens next is not so simple and requires much thought.
ZJW, I think I concur.
Rather than disbanding one other alternative is re-branding. No longer a political party but a Socialist Education Society/Marxist Study Group or whatever revamping a new website to fit the remit. Classic theoretical economic/history articles would not require updating. That would be a more realistic option than trying to resurrect the WSPUS from the dead.
But those isolated individuals what should become of them? A choice of membership of SPC or SPGB?
As you probably read elsewhere on the forum, I am frequently suggesting that we formally create a World Socialist Party.
As for archives, we should right now determine what it consists of and who is holding it. And have it freighted at the SPGB cost to be placed in Clapham. The SPC has no storage facilities. The other option is an American library or educational institution being presented with the archives
Professor Tim Lang, one of the authors from City, University of London, said. “We need a significant overhaul, changing the global food system on a scale not seen before in ways appropriate to each country’s circumstances.” Lang said feeding a growing population of 10 billion people by 2050 with a healthy, sustainable diet will be impossible without transforming eating habits, improving food production and reducing food waste. “We are in a catastrophic situation,” said Tim Lang,
The shift to sustainable food production requires food waste to be cut in half and no more additional land to be turned over to agriculture. To achieve this livestock and fishing subsidies would need to be abolished, with the expansion of marine conservation zones and changes to shopping habits in developed nations – as well as protections for low income groups.
Professor Johan Rockstrom, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany – who co-led the commission, said “There is no silver bullet for combating harmful food production practices, but by defining and quantifying a safe operating space for food systems, diets can be identified that will nurture human health and support environmental sustainability.”
And the industry response?
Alexander Anton, secretary general of the European Dairy Association, said: “The report goes to the extreme to create maximum attention.”
https://www.dw.com/en/pass-the-beans-hold-the-beef-to-save-yourself-and-the-planet/a-47113584
The Planetary Health Diet
Some may say all has been said that needs to be said. And anyway what we put on our plates is not a social decision but a choice we make as individuals. Most importantly, it is a question that the Party itself need not involve itself in. I still persist in challenging this view on this forum. What we eat is as important as how we organize production inside socialism and there are generalized assumptions that can be made which goes a long way to explaining how socialism will be a sustainable society.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46865204
“A diet has been developed that promises to save lives, feed 10 billion people and all without causing catastrophic damage to the planet. Scientists have been trying to figure out how we are going to feed billions more people in the decades to come. Their answer – “the planetary health diet” – does not completely banish meat and dairy. But it requires a big shift in what we put on to our plates and turning to foods that we barely eat.”
For red meat it is a burger a week or a large steak a month, a couple of portions of fish and the same of chicken a week, but plants are where the rest of the protein in the diet will come from.
The researchers are recommending nuts and a good helping of legumes (that’s beans, chickpeas and lentils) every day instead. There’s also a major push on all fruit and veg, which should be make up half of every plate of food we eat. Although there’s a cull on “starchy vegetables” such as the humble potato or cassava which is widely eaten in Africa.
This diet plan requires changes to diets in pretty much every corner of the world.
Europe and North America need to cut back massively on red meat, East Asia needs to cut back on fish, Africa on starchy vegetables. Globally, the diet requires red meat and sugar consumption to be cut by half, while vegetables, fruit, pulses and nuts must double. North Americans need to eat 84% less red meat but six times more beans and lentils. For Europeans, eating 77% less red meat and 15 times more nuts and seeds meets the guidelines.“Humanity has never attempted to change the food system at this scale and this speed,” says Line Gordon, an assistant professor at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. “Whether it’s a fantasy or not, a fantasy doesn’t have to bad… it’s time to dream of a good world,” she says.
The researchers, of course, remain constrained by the capitalist system. They look towards taxation to change eating behavior, seeing tobacco taxes as a success and expect red meat price increases to have similar result. Some truth in that as when meat was expensive in the past we ate less, mostly on Sundays and holidays. But industrialised livestock rearing brought those prices down.
The researchers say the diet will prevent around 11 million people dying each year. That number is largely down to cutting diseases related to unhealthy diets such as heart attacks, strokes and some cancers.
The researchers aim was to feed more people while:
minimising greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change
preventing any species going extinct
have no expansion of farmland
and preserve waterIn order to make the numbers add up, it also requires a halving of food waste and to increase the amount of food produced on current farmland.
Humanity now poses a threat to the stability of the planet,” said Prof Johan Rockström at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden, another author of the report. “This requires nothing less than a new global agricultural revolution.”
“The world’s diets must change dramatically,” said Walter Willett at Harvard University and one of the leaders of the commission convened by the Lancet medical journal and the Eat Forum NGO. “We are not talking about a deprivation diet here; we are talking about a way of eating that can be healthy, flavourful and enjoyable.”
“The planetary health diet is based on really hard epidemiological evidence, where researchers followed large cohorts of people for decades,” said Marco Springmann at Oxford University
Prof Guy Poppy, from the UK’s University of Southampton, and not part of the commission, said: “This ‘call to arms’ with its clear solutions is timely, comprehensively researched and deserves immediate attention.”
“This analysis is the most advanced ever conducted,” said Prof Alan Dangour, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and also not part of the team. “But there is a major question about the ability of populations to shift to such dietary recommendations and their wider public acceptability.”
The report acknowledges the radical change it advocates and the difficulty of achieving it: “Humanity has never aimed to change the global food system on the scale envisioned. Achieving this goal will require rapid adoption of numerous changes and unprecedented global collaboration and commitment: nothing less than a Great Food Transformation.”
Richard Horton and Tamara Lucas, editors at the Lancet, said in an editorial that global changes as set out by the planetary health diet were essential: “Civilisation is in crisis. We can no longer feed our population a healthy diet while balancing planetary resources. If we can eat in a way that works for our planet as well as our bodies, the natural balance will be restored.”
So do we as a Party for socialism adopt what can be describe as a denialist position akin to the climate change deniers and contrary to scientific opinion and be seen as condoning the lobbyists, such as Prof Nigel Scollan, at Queen’s University Belfast who is part of the industry-backed Meat Advisory Panel:
“This report tells us what we have known for millennia: an omnivorous diet is optimal. In the UK, encouraging people to eat less red meat and dairy will have little impact on the environment and is potentially damaging to people’s health.”
Well, he may talk of the UK but we talk for the world.
How important is the USA to climate change mitigation?
Trump nominated EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler “I would not call it the greatest crisis,” when asked if he believed the increasingly urgent warnings from scientists about the threats from global warming. Wheeler said he believed global warming is an important issue that needs to be addressed, but that far-reaching federal regulation forcing deep emissions cuts was the wrong approach and more faith should be put in the hands of states and private enterprise.
The links on this Libcom thread about the Holocaust makes provocative reading
The previous post centred on urgency being required but will this happen?
The Trump administration’s replacement for the Obama-era plan to combat climate change would increase greenhouse gas emissions in much of the US more than doing nothing at all, according to new research by Harvard University.
Emissions would “rebound” under the Trump policy, researchers found, as it delays the retirement of coal-fired power plants. Carbon dioxide emissions would be 8.7% higher in 18 states and Washington DC by 2030, compared with having no policy at all.
The plan was halted due to legal action, with the Trump administration intending to replace it with a watered-down alternative called the affordable clean energy rule. The new rule sets no pollution limits for states and merely advises them to make power plants more efficient. Harvard researchers found such upgrades would probably enable coal-fired power plants to run for longer, boosting output of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.
“This new plan essentially gives out a free pass for carbon pollution,” said Kathleen Lambert, an expert in climate change and public health at Harvard who coauthored the research. “It’s a recipe for increased carbon emissions. It will make it even harder for the US to meet its emissions targets under the Paris accord and sets us in exactly the opposite direction we need to go in.”
The EPA’s rollback “could make things even worse”, said Jonathan Buonocore, another coauthor of the Harvard report. “This will throw a wrench into the climate action plans for many states and cities.”
Carbon emissions at nearly a third of coal plants would escalate over the next decade compared with no policy at all, the research found, while 20 states would experience climbing levels of sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides, which can form harmful smog. The EPA’s own analysis has shown the new Trump administration plan would raise carbon emissions by 3.5% compared with the clean power plan.
“Putting a coal lobbyist like Andrew Wheeler in charge of the EPA is like giving a bank robber the keys to the vault,” said Matthew Gravatt, the associate legislative director of the Sierra Club. “Wheeler isn’t just friendly with corporate polluters, he’s been on their team for years.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/15/trump-replacement-obama-climate-plan
So we are all relying on a change of US policy that will take place when (if?) Trump loses the 2020 election and the new incoming Democrat president saves the world with immediate and instant action to catch up with lost time. Are we fucking mad to trust in this crazy gamble?
