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The failed ideology of Davos
This week, Davos, Switzerland is hosting a networking event themed around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 ambitious UN targets around poverty, health, education, governance and environment. The event is associated with ‘The World Economic Forum’ (WEF) which says it is ‘committed to improving the state of the world’. And it is true that some good things can come out of Davos. When I attended on behalf of Extinction Rebellion to seek to catalyse real change, in 2020, it was clear that some of the super privileged were buckling under the pressure exerted by us and (especially) by Greta and the school climate strikers. This year, an…
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Why I’ll be giving poems as presents this Christmas
I’m no Clement Clarke Moore (“Twas the night before Christmas…”) but I’d like to think when my family and friends read my Christmas offerings to them, they will get the same warm, cosy feeling evoked by that much loved poem. It’s a true gift from the heart, not just because I have spent time thinking about that person and what they mean to me but also because I’ve spent time thinking about the planet and what it means to all of us. Whatever else you can say about 2021, it has opened the eyes of many more people that the Earth (and everything on it) is in big trouble –…
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No bailouts except ‘green’ bailouts
Aviation co-created the global corona pandemic. And it is destroying our climate too. The government is currently working out the finer details of an airline rescue package. In practice, this likely means throwing billions of pounds at the industry in the form of loans and tax breaks. Ministers are hoping that this bailout will ensure that the UK still has a functioning airline sector after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides. It is worth considering the bitter irony of the UK heavily spending to save an industry that has played such a detrimental role in spreading this virus. After all, it is mass air travel that has enabled the virus to infect…
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What is actually wrong with WTO rules?: Why they are significantly worse than the EU
For the first time in 40 years, the UK has to re-consider its trading policy. At the moment, there is plenty of talk about “falling back” onto World Trading Organisation (WTO) rules in the event of a no-deal Brexit, an outcome which Theresa May’s giant game of ‘chicken’ makes dangerously likely. And indeed, if this is what happens, the UK will find itself solely under the minimalist rules-based trading system of the WTO. As this remains the legal default position, in the event of a no-deal Brexit we will find ourselves in a position in which tariff-free trade between the UK and the EU ceases and the agreements held in…
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This Civilisation is Finished: Conversations on the end of Empire – and what lies beyond
This Civilisation is Finished is a book co-authored by Rupert Read and Samuel Alexander. It is published by the Simplicity Institute. Industrial civilisation has no future. It requires limitless economic growth on a finite planet. The reckless combustion of fossil fuels means that Earth’s climate is changing disastrously, in ways that cannot be resolved by piecemeal reform or technological innovation. Sooner rather than later this global capitalist system will come to an end, destroyed by its own ecological contradictions. Unless humanity does something beautiful and unprecedented, the ending of industrial civilisation will take the form of collapse, which could mean a harrowing die-off of billions of people. This book is…
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Ideas for a Radical Green Manifesto
Introduction: the big picture Green politics starts from the realities we now find ourselves in. Human beings are changing the planet in fundamental ways – altering the atmosphere and climate, reducing biodiversity and trashing ecosystems. This is the Anthropocene, and human impacts are going beyond the boundaries that have maintained the planet in a relatively stable state. At the centre of human pressures on the planet are two forms of growth – economic growth and population growth. Both are powerful and complex forces. Economic growth has lifted billions of people out of poverty and poor health conditions, but at the same time it is having devastating effects on the natural…
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Alternative Brexit? Could this be the change the Greens have been waiting for?
The triggering of Article 50 earlier this week starts a new phase in the arguments about Brexit. The various negotiations that are now going to take place will in a big way determine what sort of country the UK becomes – and even whether it continues to exist at all. Several different types of future are possible. The ones already on the political agenda are easy to outline: The UK does a deal with Trump’s America to become effectively the 51st state – lowering environmental, labour, and corporate standards in order to get a deal done. The UK pursues the fantasy of ‘Empire 2.0′ but finds that Australia, Canada, India,…
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We must localise the EU and curb corporate power – but does that mean in or out?
Most voices in favour of Brexit seem to offer little more than narrow nationalism, xenophobia and racism. Such associations make it feel impossible for most Greens and progressive thinkers on the left to vote Leave in the upcoming UK referendum. And that settles it in the minds of some: one ‘has’ to vote Remain. Anything else feels ‘unprogressive’, reactionary, even downright dangerous. However, there are powerful arguments against the European Economic Union. In all five Nordic countries: Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, we have had a very powerful critique of the EU from an ecological, cultural, global solidarity and democratic perspective. A large proportion of the population realised that…
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Death to 'austerity'. Long live sustainable abundance!
The ‘austerity’ issue is very much in the news. In last weekend’s Observer, for example, it popped up in several articles. On the front page a number of economists are quoted as supporting Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-austerity politics. Inside there is an opinion piece by economics correspondent William Keegan who credits Corbyn for foregrounding the issue and challenging orthodox arguments for government spending cutbacks. On another page, a young Labour supporter explains why she supports Corbyn because of his stance on Tory austerity. Elsewhere in the paper, a feature reports on the growing unpopularity of the President of Brazil, the Workers’ Party’s Dilma Rouseff, partly due to her acceptance of ‘austerity’…
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Corbyn is great – but the Greens are different!
Like many Greens, I’m a huge fan of Jeremy Corbyn. I’m hoping that he wins the Labour Leadership election – and the latest polling suggests that he will. At the same time, I’m a Green, and without one shred of doubt I’m going to stay a Green. For Corbyn – for all his many virtues – is no Green. For he does not have an ecologistic approach. What the Green Party should do, in the face of the ‘Corbyn surge’, is very simple. It should stay Green. It should make clear how the case of the Green Party is as strong as ever, even in the face of a Labour…