The consequences of global warming

What happens if we continue to pollute the atmophere?



The Great Energy Challenge

"The Exxon-Valez every four days"

The scale of the unnatural disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is a horror. The responsibility of BP in drilling this hole in the seabed and then not managing the risk so as to prevent destruction of sea life for generations and use excuses like "the sea is very large" when they made record profits last year in a time of international recession deserves more scrutiny.

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Is the UK Democratic?

The world's most democratic countries are not the United Kingdom or the United States of America. Both use outdated systems for democratic choice that do not grant equality to each vote, and allow entrenchment of a sitting government via the drawing of electoral boundaries.

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The Environment

The most serious issue facing the world today is more far reaching than the financial crises and worse than war. It is the serious threat we pose to ourselves through over-population and pollution of our environment.

The end days of the oil industry are brought into stark reality by the risk taken and inability to repair an oil well off the coast of America that threatens all sea life in the Gulf of Mexico. Rampant capitalism and growth entail mistakes and this one is huge. Failure to build into the cost of oil the risk it presents when drilling for it offshore results in "unexpected disaster".

The entire problem of messing with nature without taking adequate measures to protect the environment are illustrated in this catastrophe. It brings the viability of the entire oil industry with its wars and pollution, also un-costed, into question.

Possibly more severe is the mysterious disappearance of honey bees. Why are they abandoning their hives? Instead of coming up with answers, there seems to be a hope the problem is temporary and will resolve itself, but it is not. It is getting more severe with each passing year and it threatens the crops of the world. Our trusted little friends who pollenate flowers are dying and it is being caused by something we have not noticed?

The "most likely" theory is some disease or parasite is at work, but logic indicates that it is just as likely that we are to blame. If for example, it is our genetic modification of crops causing the bees to stop recognising them, and they therefore simply end up starving themselves as they can no longer gather the right ingredients or are unable to produce enough royal jelly to make queens, then they would die externally to the hive. In fact the genetic modification of plant may be messing with the bees ability to navigate home as ancient reliable signals now appear like a colour blindness test with flashing lights.

Suddenly their life cycle, interrupted, no longer works. Our failure since 2006 to properly establish what is causing this may cause the most horrible food crisis in much of the world, and is therefore a horror far worse than oil wars or even marine pollution.

See also:

• Bee hives collapse
  
• Oil Spill
  

Capitalism

The system we have lacks a genuine human philosophy. Capitalism is more of a mechanism to fund ventures than the best way for humanity to prosper. We ignore its horrible side effects.

We would do far better if banking was not such a highly rewarded pyramid scheme. Banks produce security. Politicians are remiss for backing fat horses.

Our present society lacks the heroic altruism and cooperation that carried us out of the wars, terrible epidemics and human crimes such as slavery.

Wealth is a pretence without genuine value. It is merely good fortune and it is a sadness that those who have it believe it motivates those who do not.

First UK Leadership Debate

The leaders of each political party gave their views on a leadership debate.

My reading is that David Cameron is not appealing to the Centre as well as he hopes, Gordon Brown only seems to appeal to the Centre, whereas Nick Clegg's appeals to the Left and Centre. Ring wing voters may have already made up their minds. But the Liberal Democrats may have secured their position as holding the balance of power.

The Guardian picked Nick Clegg as the winner of the debate. His theme of the old duality making and breaking the same old promises rang true.

UK Election: The Tory Trouble

Speaking during a visit to Cheam, in south London, Tory leader David Cameron said: "We should have a society where we back commitment and where we recognise marriage and civil partnerships in the tax system. Would it be a good thing if more people came together and stayed together and showed commitment? I think it would."

Brown said Labour's offer to voters would be credible rather than exciting. "It is about substance in the end," he said.

Clegg said he was "not campaigning for a hung parliament" but it would be preferable to rule by a party with a tiny majority based on a minority of votes. "Do I think politicians working together can be a good thing? Of course it can."

Quotes from Guardian.co.uk

The UK election offers several "choices". None of these seem at all democratic except for the dreaded "hung parliament". In the case of no absolute majority, the outdated First Past the Post system offers governments formed with less than a majority of the votes. With an electorate where not everyone votes and of those who do, the prospect of every Government based on a minority of voters is plainly undemocratic and Nick Cleggs forecast of social unrest is not only inevitable in this but in every election.

The current "government" is only based on 22% of the eligible vote. When you have two main parties who gravitate at the "centre" and a third party that is actually a centrist party - there is no real choice except the personalities involved. The policies and policy reputations of the parties are not to be relied upon. Whomever "wins" this election will have to take actions that make their political future very dim. A coalition is almost necessary to avoid any individual party being tainted, but that is certainly the wrong reason to go into coalition.

Democratic politics is not about the winning. It is about the representation. If all three parties went into coalition to implement their austerity measures, they would still be doing so with less than 50% actual support. Only the Lib Dems are coming out to say it and only because they have little hope of winning enough seats for the "absolute majority" that the first past the post system appears to offer. Based on less than a quarter of the will of the people it is bound to leave a bad taste in the mouths of the majority.

Proportional representation with all its problems is a far better way to evolve good government.

Give a damn

One of the last frontiers of equality is sexual preference. Those human beings who are differentiated by being gay, lesbian or bisexual are routinely discriminated against. Whether you are gay or not, this is as unacceptable as racist hatred and gender inequality.

Discrimination against homosexuality was outlawed in New Zealand in 1994 ten years after homosexual acts were no longer criminal. New Zealand has a healthy respect of racial, gender and sexual equality and this strengthens it as a society.

America still discriminates against "gays in the military". It is a violation of human rights to make people lie about those they love, their families and their choices. There is no longer any excuse for it.

Disturbing Trends gives a damn and supports the campaign to Give A Damn

Health Care

Barack Obama achieves the impossible and gets Health Care passed. This may signal the start of an America that is not only there to help those who help themselves. Indeed it may signal the beginning of the end of the age of greed.