ALB
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Relevant article in today’s Grauniad about why even some “immigrants” voted to Leave (alongside others who wanted to kick them out too) but who have since regretted it:
I see. Fair enough but they might be contributing to something being done so that the worst case scenario of the collapsologists won’t be reached (even if the capitalist authorities might not need prompting as they are not going to do nothing either).
I agree that a better socialist approach might be to record, not the predictions of doom, but technological developments which bring out that there are known technological solutions that could be applied in socialism but which are not being applied (or not quickly enough) under capitalism. The main one that is awaited is an efficient system of electrical storage as this would allow energy generated by renewables such as solar power and wind energy to be stored when there’s no sun shining or winds blowing. Arthur C. Clarke in his 1962 book Profiles of the Future imagined “efficient electrical storage” being achieved some time in the 1980s. Progress has, and is being made, but we are not there yet but could be achieved quicker if resources were thrown at it as a socialist society could.
Good stuff about Capitalocene, but what do you mean by this:
But isn’t part of the problem is that even those who actively campaign against climate change can be charged with a form of climate change denialism yet another depressing fact and evidence that collapsology has a strong element of reality within it.
Do you mean that because they deny that capitalism has caused the problem they are contributing to the problem not being solved?
Just followed up a link in that article I gave attacking collapsology. It says that the name of the present/coming geological age should not be Anthropocene (age of human influence on climate and environment) but Capitalocene (age of capitalism’s influence). That’s more like it.
https://en.unesco.org/courier/2018-2/view-dominica-anthropocene-capitalocene
(c) Report of the Election Committee (27 December)
OutdatedThe Election Committee’s report raised three points, only one of which — a council by-election in Lambeth — was outdated by February (because the EC had deferred consideration of the report at its January meeting). The other two — a possible general election and the UK having to organise elections to the European Parliament — are by no means outdated, both because of Brexit uncertainty.
The EC did discuss later in the meeting the possibility of a general election in noting that South Wales branch were prepared to contest a seat in Cardiff in that event.
If Brexit is delayed beyond June then there would have to be European elections in the UK in May. Nobody knows whether or not this will happen but it can’t be ruled out as “outdated”.
Apparently, Alan, you’re like the poet who didn’t know and are a collapsologiste without knowing it:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/french-braced-for-the-end-of-the-world-b68zktcqb
More on collapsology here.
I remember reading something about the Orinoco Valley in something August Bebel wrote. I did, and have found it again here. Writing in 1910 he refuted Malthus by referring to something the American economist Henry Carey had written 40 years previously:
Carey maintained forty years ago that the 360-mile long Orinoco valley alone could supply sufficient food to feed the whole human race.
If this is true the fact that anyone is starving in Venezuela today is to be blamed on capitalism and its production for profit rather than to directly satisfy people’s needs.
Where you referring to this:
This week’s revelations of a catastrophic collapse in insect populations, jeopardising all terrestrial life
🙂
Apart from that, he does have a point. It would be interesting to know who is behind this campaign for no deal.
She makes some shrewd observations but her conclusion (“wars will break out, the planet will heat up, species will die out, but how many, how hot and what survives depends on whether we act.” reflects the current reformist approach — that capitalism is the only game in town, all we can do is try to stop things getting worse. If you rule out socialism, this is true but what a miserable perspective and what a change from their previous one of gradually making things better. Neither capitalism nor reformism has anything to offer.
Maduro has a point that, insofar as there is a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, imposing sanctions on the government is counterproductive as it makes things worse. It is always ordinary people who suffer from sanctions not the ruling elite. The calculation of Trump and the states he has in tow is that by making the situation in Venezuela worse people will turn to support their puppet replacement as president. Completely cynical without concern for the suffering people they feign to be concerned about. All they want is regime change and are prepared to play politics with people’s lives to get it. Nothing new there, then. Capitalist diplomacy as usual.
I was not arguing against the findings of the research (that insect extinction has been proceeding at a rate of 2.5% per year over the past 25-30 years) or that this does not present a problem. What I was arguing was the way in which it was presented, in particular this:
The 2.5% rate of annual loss over the last 25-30 years is “shocking”, Sánchez-Bayo told the Guardian: “It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none.”
It’s the use of the word “will”, especially as, here, the “if” or the “unless” part is missing. “Could” doesn’t cut it either as anything not logically possible could occur, e.g. socialism could be established tomorrow, or feudalism for that matter, in fact all insects could become extinct tomorrow. “Might” would be better, as that brings in the question of how probable something is. As would “would”.
Also, apparently, the survey does not actually say that all insect species “will” be extinct by 2119. That’s just common sense. You don’t have to be a entomologist to dismiss as absurd the idea that all the species of insect on the planet, including the millions in the untouched jungles of the Amazon, the Congo and Indonesia, “will” go extinct by 2119, not even if nothing is done to try to counter species going extinct.
By coincidence, the difference is neatly illustrated by the front page headline in today’s Times: TORIES WOULD WIN MAJORITY IF ELECTION HELD TODAY. If it had read ‘TORIES WILL WIN MAJORITY IF ELECTION HELD TODAY’ the meaning would be quite different (even if a pessimist might prefer it expressed the second way).
Saying “there is a problem, but it’s being exaggerated” is not the same as saying “there isn’t a problem”. All I am calling for is a bit of critical thinking when faced with sensational or tententious headlines.
Yes, re sending that warship to the South China Sea, there was some talk of Britain joining the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42549541
Doesn’t really sense. Perhaps Rees-Mogg will be in favour as a protection for his financial interests in Hong Kong, though, on the other hand, provoking China doesn’t seem a good way of doing this. In fact, Mrs May doesn’t seem very happy with her boy War Minister — she wants to trade with China rather than rattle sabres at them:
More from speech:
Speaking in London at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, Williamson said Western allies must be prepared to “use hard power to support our interests”, and failing to intervene against aggressive foreign powers “risks our nation being seen as little more than a paper tiger.”
He is echoing here the realpolitik views of another militarist, the Chief of Defence Staff, General Carter, already discussed here. Thanks, anyway, to the both of them for revealing why there are wars under capitalism and always will be as states take military action as a last resort when the vital economic interest of their capitalist class (as over sources of raw materials, trade routes, etc) is at stake
At least one minister, someone called Williamson, who imagines he’s Minister of War (as in fact he is, “Minister of Defence” is Orwell’s Newspeak), thinks that Brexit provides a chance for a return the good old days of the British Empire:
“Brexit has brought us to a great moment in our history. A moment when we must strengthen our global presence, enhance our lethality and increase our mass.” The Cabinet minister will say that Brexit offers Britain the chance “to consider how we not only project but maximise our influence around the world in the months and years to come”.
He seems to have miscalculated as his speech is being widely seen as ridiculous. Nobody except him believes that the loss of economic clout in trade deals that Brexit will mean for the capitalist class can be replaced by military might (or “lethality” as he calls it). Another example of how the capitalist class’s interests are being looked after by incompetent non-entities.
Marx gives a good example of the fallacy of extrapolating existing trends to their “logical” conclusion in Chapter 24 of Volume 3 of Capital when discussing “the fabulous fancies of Dr. Price, which outdo by far the fantasies of the alchemists”:
“Money bearing compound interest increases at first slowly. But, the rate of increase being continually accelerated, it becomes in some time so rapid, as to mock all the powers of the imagination. One penny, put out at our Saviour’s birth to 5 per cent compound interest, would, before this time, have increased to a greater sum, than would be contained in a hundred and fifty millions of earths, all solid gold. (…)
His fancy flies still higher in his Observations on Reversionary Payments, etc., London, 1772. There we read:
“A shilling put out to 6% compound interest at our Saviour’s birth” (presumably in the Temple of Jerusalem) “would … have increased to a greater sum than the whole solar system could hold, supposing it a sphere equal in diameter to the diameter of Saturn’s orbit.”The claim that all insect life “will” be extinct in a hundred years falls into the same category of fanciful (“would be if the existing rate of extinction were to be maintained” would be more acceptable, but then that wouldn’t attract the same headlines).
Apologies. I don’t read that thread any more. Hoping it dies a death. Perhaps because he’s not a native English-speaker that he can’t tell the difference between “would” and “will” especially after “if” but then Spanish does have a subjunctive to express conditionality.
