ALB
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I suppose we should say something about what everybody else is talking about — the 585 page document on Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. I’ve not read it myself of course but listening to some politicians you would think it was the final trade agreement with the EU. In fact the provisions regarding trading are only temporary till the end of 2020. During this period the UK, while no longer in the EU, will still be in the customs union and single market while a longer-term permanent trading deal is negotiated. Boris and the others cry “vassal state” but this temporary transition period was agreed months ago while he was still Foreign Secretary. Even the famous Northern Ireland backstop would only come into being if no trading agreement is concluded by the end of 2020.
So, from a capitalist point of view, all the options are still open. During the transition period the brexiteers’ Canada-style free trade agreement could be negotiated as could a Norway-style arrangement. The transition period can even be extended (once) for a given period.
If they play their hand right the government should be able to convince the politicians to go along with it.
If the document goes through it’s not going to make much difference to ordinary people. As one of the panellists said on Loose Women on ITV yesterday (as I said everyone’s discussing it, but don’t ask me how I came to be watching it), that on 31 March next year, which is the day after Britain formally withdraws from the EU’s political institutions, it will be the same as the day before: people will still go to work as usual and still go shopping in supermarkets as usual. Nobody will notice any difference, so why get worked up about it.
Having said that, our fellow workers from other EU countries will know that they are not going to be kicked out or lose what legal entitlements they now have, including the right to vote in local elections (need to check that with the 585 page document).
Of course if the document is rejected daily life will be disrupted for a while but what are the chances of that? I suppose that depends on whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist.
The other valid point that came up, one already made by Richard Dawkins in relation to the previous referendum, is how can you expect people to vote on a 585 page document. This of course is the general case against referendums for deciding matters even in socialism since there’s rarely a yes or a no answer but always something in between.
Is Soros actually a practitioner of Judaism, the religion? If not, I think we should be careful about calling him “Jewish”, otherwise we would be going along with a definition of being Jewish whose implications we wouldn’t agree with. I would hate to be called a Christian just because that’s my family’s religious background.
Sussex wrote:
I love coming in here! I think to myself I’ve had a bad day, then I come here and read Alan’s posts on climate change, dog food and the looming crash and I feel better!
In view of the unremitting diet of pessimism that Alan serves every day, I propose that the title of this thread be changed to the Daily Gloom. But I suppose that we should be grateful that it doesn’t need to be changed to the Daily Panic or the Daily Doom.
You could be right, Alan, since it’s such a crackpot concept the term “zero carbon economy” is probably bad editing or subediting by the BBC reporter or maybe he simply quoted it from the Extinction Rebellion people being reported on.
Not all greenhouse gas emissions are harmful of course. Just the opposite:
Without greenhouse gases, the average temperature of Earth’s surface would be about −18 °C, rather than the present average of 15 °C.
So, let’s not overdo it or we’ll end up with the “nuclear winter” people used to be scared of in the 1980s.
But experts say achieving a zero-emissions economy by 2025 isn’t in any scenario. It would need a revolution in transport, home insulation, energy efficiency, agriculture and more.
Who are these so-called “experts” who are entertaining the impossible aim of “a zero-emissions economy”?
That would mean that no electricity at all would be generated by burning any fossil fuel or any wood, and that no cars, trains, ships or planes would be powered by burning any. And that’s only zero emissions of CO2, but there are also the other greenhouse gases as methane, water vapour, ozone and nitrous oxide. Common sense suggests that it would be impossible to produce the wealth needed to feed, clothe, house, etc the world’s population without emitting ANY green house gas.
It is not necessary to go that far to deal with the problem anyway (even in socialism), only to cut emissions fairly substantially. In fact, is it even desirable? A “zero-emissions economy” that is.
The idea of capturing Co2 and burying is a load of bollocks when you look into it.
Yes, it does seem an odd thing to do. Isn’t there anything else that can be done with CO2? And of course we don’t want to completely eliminate CO2 emissions, otherwise what would plants “breathe” in? To do that we would have to suppress us and other animals as that is what we emit, i.e. breathe out. Just need to keep it down to a level that’s not going to lead to a too rapid global warming, i.e to a level that the rest of Nature can absorb.
Yes, there does seem to be an attempt to get a bandwagon rolling that nuclear power is the obvious immediate alternative to burning fossil fuels so as to reduce CO2 emissions. There’s an article in the latest issue (November/December) of the Skeptical Inquirer on the “ecomodernists”, a group which argues that embracing, not criticising, modern technology is the way to deal with the threat of too rapid global warming.
The article says of Germany:
In 2011, Germany made the rash political decision to phase out its seventeen emission-free nuclear power plants, which at the time accounted for 25 percent of the country’s electricity generation, In doing so, Germany has remained strongly dependent on some of the dirtiest coal power plants in the world for more than 40 percent of its electricity.
If true, this would mean that the Greens, who were at the forefront of the anti-nuclear campaign, would have made things worse.
Of the US, it says that fracking
lowered the cost of generating electricity from cleaner burning natural gas power plants, putting many dirtier and more expensive coal power plants out of business.
So generating electricity from burning natural gas from fracking is a “lesser evil” than generating it from burning coal. Nuclear power is a “lesser evil” than burning natural gas, but
A glut of cheap natural gas also threatens the country’s 100 emission-free nuclear power stations, which generate 20 percent of U.S. electricity.
This shows once again that, since what method is adopted to generate electricity is a matter of changing, relative prices, capitalism is incapable of implementing a rational energy policy.
For the record, what the “ecomodernists” advocate is a combination of nuclear and natural gas (but whose plants have effective means of capturing CO2 and burying it instead of releasing it into the atmosphere — not sure that this technolog exists yet, does it?) See: http://www.ecomodernism.org for their manifesto.
I note that one of the signatories is Mark Lynas who in 2007 published Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet which raised the rather alarmist prospect of Earth ending up like Venus, i.e the extinction of all life. It was reviewed in the August 2007 <i>Socialist Standard</i> (scroll down):
Perhaps he has scared himself into supporting nuclear as the only alternative.
It seems that “Anglo-Saxons” are not so keen to train to be hired killers and/or cannon fodder and that more of those General Sir Nick presumably considers “lesser races” are to be recruited from the “colonies”. The racist bonehead himself is one himself — a “settler” from Kenya.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/foreign-legion-join-british-army-13535813
Here’s what the Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, told the Sun in an interview yesterday:
General Sir Nick also warned history may be repeating itself – drawing parallels today with the beginning of last century – when powerful nations vied for supremacy. He added: “It’s particularly important in the world in which we live today where we have this return to what I call great power competition. That is very similar I would suggest to the first decade of the last century and it’s pretty important therefore that people understand what war is about and why it needs to be avoided at all costs.”
Fortunately, “we” are prepared for war:
he said today’s generation of troops still boast the “fighting spirit” of their comrades of a century ago, who the nation will silently remember tomorrow. He said: “We’re Anglo-Saxons, and Anglo-Saxons stand up and are counted for what they believe in. If people can see the value in the cause then I think that Anglo-Saxon desire to do the right thing and to fight if you have to fight is still there and will always be there.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7706217/stop-treating-veterans-like-victims/
Actually, the current inability, compared with the old version, to copy the whole of a message (without trimming it) when replying to or commenting on it, is an advantage. It means that we don’t have to read bird shit twice. So, please don’t re-introduce that facility !
That illustrates my point perfectly about the impossibility of adopting a rational energy policy under capitalism, let alone a rational approach to the threat of global warming.
Given that there is such a threat and that there’s an urgent need to drastically cut back on generating energy from other sources than burning fossil fuels, the only technologically feasible quick replacement (even in socialism) capable of producing a steady flow of electricity on the scale required would seem to be nuclear power. Yet, because it is currently more expensive than burning some fossil fuel, nuclear power stations are being closed down and new ones not being built.
I know nuclear power has its own dangers and Greens don’t like it either, but in the circumstances might it not be the lesser evil?
Alan, I don’t know why you are drawing my attention to the “benefits” of global warming. I only asked about the effect on other parts of the world than sub-Saharan Africa. I was not welcoming global warming because it would bring benefits to people living in the northern part of the northern hemisphere (or parts of Chile and Argentina in the southern hemisphere) !
Having said that, the problem is not so much a rise in average global temperature but the speed at which it is happening and that it is happening under capitalism (which drags its feet over taking steps to slow it down and won’t be able to cope with the consequences such as mass migrations). A warmer world, brought about slowly over centuries, would or should in theory make it easier to grow more food. But that’s not on the agenda.
This recent headline shows why it is impossible to adopt a rational energy policy under capitalism — what is used to generate electricity depends on the relative prices of he alternative methods:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/old-king-coal-is-back-as-gas-costs-rise-g2zvhclxd
Capitalism will only stop or drastically cut back generating electricity from burning fossil fuels (whether coal, oil or gas) when the cost of this exceeds the cost of using other sources (nuclear, renewables). This hasn’t happened yet and probably won’t for a number of years.
One at least of the voters’ initiatives (referendums initiated by a minimum number of electors) had a positive result. People in Florida voted to potentially increase the electorate there by 1.4 million or 10%:
https://www.wral.com/florida-passes-amendment-to-restore-felons-voting-rights/17978574/
Just finished reading this book. I am afraid it’s no good. Apart from 6 pages where he outlines and defends the view (and does it quite well, actually) that
I think getting rid of money and markets entirely is not only a necessary condition for getting rid of capitalism but also desirable in its own right. I think that many utopians have been quite right to imagine worlds without money. I reject all programs that propose to transcend capitalism but retain money and markets as supposedly efficient methods of allocating resources in a new and better society – whether they be of socialist or anarchist or libertarian inspiration.
But then, as I expected he would, he goes on to outline various ways in which the use of money can be gradually “restricted” and “marginalized” under capitalism. These are common or garden reforms such as free and subsidised services, price and rent controls, lower taxes on consumer goods, limits on interest on consumer credit, etc, a whole programme of reforms identical to what the traditional Left have always proposed but to be achieved not through parliament but by “autonomous” working class action.
Still, in agreeing that getting rid of capitalism involves getting rid entirely on money and markets, this is shifting the debate back from one about ends to one about the means to get there. Which must make our task easier.
