Doing our bit for the Environment?

A much-awaited report has been published about the environment. Rightly it states that no one nation's efforts alone can reverse the race towards the greenhouse effect. We could all suffer extremes of climate like hurricanes, tornados, rising temperatures etc. Melting polar ice-caps could cause rising sea levels - drowning great tracts of land and leaving up to 200 million people homeless and hopeless. Whole countries could be literally washed away. Drought could become so extreme in some areas that new deserts are formed and hundreds of millions of people would have to either move away or die. The report goes on to say that the rising economies of countries like China and India go hand in hand with their increased carbon emissions and they must be brought on board in some new "Super-Kyoto"-type agreement on controlling climate change. New-found industries in the former Soviet bloc are also contributing more and more as their industrial clout strengthens.
Government ministers in the UK are talking of further restricting high carbon emissions by taxation. Tax gas-guzzling cars. Apply carbon taxes to every flight of every aircraft. Yes, I agree that this could possibly reduce the number of people who wanted to use these forms of transport or make them restrict their use of them. And, in an ideal world, the additional taxation revenues could be put towards helping Joe Public to become more energy efficient in his or her daily life.
I also heard on BBC Radio 4 a little anecdote which is worth recounting. In the months when fresh home-grown strawberries are not available we import them from various countries around the world. Spain, other Mediterranean countries - even from as far as New Zealand. Some poor geek had sat down and worked out some figures and came up with this one: the amount of carbon emissions generated to get one punnet (around 150 grammes) of strawberries in an assignment from New Zealand to the UK is the equivalent to 11 average school runs in a Chelsea Tractor. I should point out to my non-Brit readers that a school run is classed usually as an unnecessary journey to take a single child to school when the little tyke should have been encouraged to walk and that a Chelsea Tractor is a 4x4 MPV, usually with off-road capability which is never used, which uses much more fuel than an average family car.
Now Brits are congratulating themselves that they are more-or-less on target to meet their Kyoto obligations for cutting carbon emissions by 2010. It is stated that the Yanks create nearly 25% of all emissions while we contribute just 2.4%. Great - aren't we good little boys and girls!
Hang on a minute. The world population is about 6.5 billion. the population of the UK is about 60 million - less than 1 per cent. It does not take an Einstein to work out that each Brit is contributing more than twice the emissions of the world per capita average.
How about consuming more home-grown food? Not importing unnecessary goods which could be made at home (or done without). Turning out the lights. Not leaving the TV on standby. The list can go on . . .
In the DIY shop where I work we are running a save energy promotion, selling wind turbines, solar panel heating, more efficient heating boilers and radiators. In the next part of the store we have started selling this year's crop of Christmas lights. The slogan on the banners reads: "You can't have too many lights".
Nuff said.

America's Berlin Wall?

The US has sanctioned the building of a 1,100km fence along its border with Mexico. It says there are 12 million illegal immigrants in the country, mostly working in the black market (careful with that use of the word "black", we don't want to offend any ethnic minorities!). The idea is to keep all those unwanted Mexican and other South American immigrants away so that they don't sponge on the American Way Of Life. The BBC, reporting on it, called it America's Berlin Wall.
There is the US, one of the biggest powers in the world. A population made almost entirely of immigrants. Affluent to the extreme. Not caring much about the plight of others, spending useless money on even more useless projects. Making war, it seems, for the sake of it. People in poorer countries see the American way of life blasted over the media, in TV series, movies, internet, and it's no wonder that they see it as the land of milk and honey. Many poor, hard-working people must think to themselves that they could work less and have more if they went to such a place.
As such, America's success is its own downfall.
Perhaps they should lower the standard of living in the US. Ban multi-car families. Make air-conditioning illegal. Make it illegal for anyone to make more than 1% profit on any deal. Cut everyone's salary by 50% and raise taxes to at least 50%. Then, perhaps, Mexicans would not view the US as Shangri La. They would go about their daily lives happy that they were no worse off than their neighbours in the North.
Hang on - a thought occurs. If America did all those things, think of all the savings in fossil fuels that would be made. The reduction in CO2 emissions. The resultant improvement in the atmosphere and the lessened threat of global warming.
Perhaps it is a good thing to erect the fence. It may stop immigrants consuming too much.
I see it all now - the fence is the USA's contribution to cutting use of fossil fuels . . . ?
Nuff said.

Discrimination?

The young lady teaching assistant who refused to take off her veil when asked to work with a male colleague has lost her case for discrimination. She was awarded a token amount for the discomfort she has endured.
She claimed she was being discriminated against because of her Muslim beliefs.
Did she ever stop to think that, in her religious fervour, she was discriminating against her male colleague?
Is this reverse sex discrimination?
Nuff said . . .

Madonna and Child . . .

A little boy was flown into Heathrow from Malawi. His - for the time temporary - adoptive mother is a famous singing star. Over the last few years this purveyor of "music" has developed a conscience. So - she goes to Malawi and sees the starvation, poverty and degradation of the orphans there. She donates loadsamunny to an orphanage for children of AIDS victims and tries to adopt one of the children. Malawi law says that children may not be adopted by foreign carers. But several millions of dollars in charity donations speaks very loud. So the rules get "bent" so that she can have temporary custody of the child for 18 months while the application for adoption goes through. This could be long enough, if the government is corrupt enough, to change the law so that she can legally adopt the child.
If the child is adopted there is no doubt that he will live a completely different life to that which he would have had in Malawi. A large mansion to live in. Toys to play with. The best education money can buy. No worries for the future about finance. Everything we all dream of.
When the lad arrived in this country he was carried lovingly off the plane by - a nanny. Not the doting prospective mum - doubtless she was too busy making her next million.
This poses the question: will Madonna give the boy the most important thing a mother can give? Will he really feel loved and wanted? Or is he just to be another publicity stunt who, in time, will drift into obscurity?
Money doesn't necessarily buy happiness. Would it have been better if Madonna had given her money - and her time and energy - towards helping the Malawi people look after their own? Giving a better standard of living so that the locals felt more able to look after their own children and bring them up in the local culture and environment? Instead of singling out one child the efforts she has made could help hundreds, maybe thousands, of children to become more able to help themselves and thus - in the long run - help Malawi extract itself from the third-world poverty to which the Western powers have condemned it.
Madonna has done one good thing. She has highlighted the problems of the African nations in dealing with poverty. But has she gone about her help in a selfish way? Did she really want to help Africa or did she want to have praise for helping one child - a child who will more than likely be brought up by a nanny rather than the woman who wants to be his adoptive "mum".
Her money, I feel, could have been more productively spent in helping the Malawi people to help themselves.
Someone once said words to the effect that if you give someone food they eat for the day but if you give them seed and a plough they, and the generations after them, eat for ever.

Facing up . . .

So now there is a Muslim classroom assistant who has been suspended because she refused to take off her veil in the presence of male members of staff. She stated that she was quite happy to remove her niqab in front of the schoolchildren but insisted that if a male member of staff was in the room she should have the right to wear it.
The school in question is not a Muslim school. It is, in fact, a Church of England primary school which has both female and male teachers. When she was interviewed for the job - by a male governor - she did not wear her niqab. Now she is taking the local education authority to an industrial tribunal to retain her job. She admits that she did not reveal her need to wear the veil during her interview. Perhaps because she was afraid that such a disclosure would preclude her from the job - which entailed working with other members of the teaching staff in the classroom. If the school only used her in classes with women teachers it could mean disruption of the timetable and - worse still - disruption of the children's education.
This is a difficult enough decision for the industrial tribunal to resolve but it has been exacerbated by a junior education minister stating in a Sunday newspaper that she should be sacked. Whether or not you agree with him it is wrong for him to intervene while the case is still being dealt with. If it was in a court of law then the minister would be in contempt of the court and could be fined or even imprisoned for such an intervention. The minister should apply the same common sense and courtesy to the present proceedings. It could even be that because of his intervention the tribunal will feel obliged to rule in the lady's favour even if its instinct is to rule against her.
Then there is the case of British Airways who have disciplined an airport worker for wearing a small crucifix. They are saying that all such items should be worn discreetly under the uniform. At the same time they allow Muslim employees to wear scarves on their heads and Sikh employees can wear turbans and iron bangles - all very plainly to view.
Is there to be one rule for some and one rule for another? The company wants a corporate identity to be carried by the uniforms of its staff but it should either be totally uniform or allowance should be unconditionally made for the individual's beliefs to be discreetly displayed within the uniform.
Or should it?
Should the Muslim ladies wear a headscarf emblazoned with the BA insignia? Should the Sikh air steward have a red, white and blue turban made from a Union flag? Should this Christian lady have a crucifix with the BA logo stamped on it?
I work for B&Q, a large DIY chain. Everyone - from the trolley boy to the chairman of the company - wears an orange apron when they are on duty in the store. Each one has his forename written on the nameplate. So the supreme boss has "Ian" showing as his identity on his apron and should he be in a store and a customer approaches him then he does his best to help the customer even though he knows bugger-all about where things are in that particular establishment.
That is uniform - except that you can always tell when someone is from Head Office. Their aprons are always brand new and still have the creases in them from having been just taken from their wrappings. But the public don't know that. They just see an orange apron and know that guy should serve them.
Perhaps the B&Q way is not a bad example to follow. We have people of all faiths, colours, political and sexual persuasions in our ranks. So does the wider world. In B&Q you just look for an orange apron and know that he is a member of staff. It does not matter what else that person is wearing. It may be a headscarf, a turban or even just too much eye make-up. They are all there to do the job and in the eyes of the public they are all equally able to do it.
Have I made my point?
Nuff said . . .

Needle in a Haystack?

So Messrs Bush and Blair went looking for WMDs in Iraq. They were sure Saddam had them - or were they? Was it just an excuse to show some muscle in an oil-producing state? Or just to show some muscle - full stop! After killing thousands of innocent Iraqis and hundreds of allied soldiers it turned out that there were no weapons threatening us. But one gets the feeling that they knew that all the time and were just looking for excuses to throw their weight around and get rid of a government which was hostile to them. They are now embroiled in a protracted war "against terrorism" - another way of changing their reasons for going into Iraq in the first place. Bin Laden must have been hiding out there. But, hang on, if that's the case why did they invade Afghanistan? It is the stronghold of Bin Laden's merry men. Isn't it?
Meanwhile all the time the despots of North Korea have been developing a nuclear bomb - or have they? They announced that they had just tested a nuclear device. Seismic records show a blip around 3 to 4 on the Richter scale at the time. But many experts are now saying that this would be consistent with a 1,000 ton explosion of conventional explosives. So, was it a small nuclear device or an attempt at deception? Or was it really a nuclear dud? The North Koreans certainly wouldn't tell us if it was not successful.
The technology required to produce a one-kiloton nuclear device is far more advanced than that required to make a much larger bomb so there is some doubt that a true nuclear test took place. Some say that the explosion recorded could have been consistent with the explosion used to trigger a reaction in plutonium. If that's the case then the North Koreans have built themselves a dud but - rest assured - that will only redouble their determination to get it right next time.
There is sufficient concern about the consequences of a North Korean nuclear bomb for even China to ask the UN to take action. China is one of the few countries which have in the past supported and even propped up the North Korean regime.
Japan is worried. South Korea is even more worried - after all as the 53rd state of the US it puts nuclear capability right on Bush's doorstep.
I find it sad that yet another country has, or will, developed the capability to destroy the whole world. Some of those who have the bomb build it themselves - US, Russia, India, Pakistan, France - some of them, like UK and Israel etc, buy them from the US (usually at exorbitant cost).
The US doesn't mind proliferation - providing it is only to states friendly to it. But when will they learn that friendly states can turn. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan - all at some time have been friendly to the West only to turn when the US lost interest in their cause.
I think I might even join CND . . .

Face to Face?

Ok, I'm going to join the debate started by Jack Straw on the Muslim veil. Yes, it seems that it is important to some Muslim women to wear the veil and not just the head covering. This is their belief and their right, which I would defend in all circumstances. Just like their right to free speech, freedom of worship and freedom to live in this country unimpeded by extremists like the BNP and UKIP.
I listened to an interview with Jack Straw on BBC Radio 4 (God bless it) the other day where he explained his reasoning behind his statements and actions regarding the veil. Mr Straw represents a constituency with a fairly large Muslim population. As such many people who come to see him at constituency surgeries are Muslims. He recounted one such meeting where a husband and wife came to see him. The lady was wearing the full veil. While the husband stayed relatively mute the lady took the lead in the conversation with Mr Straw.
Jack Straw reported that, at the close of a quite constructive meeting, the lady said that it was good to talk to him "face to face". Apparently that was what started Jack Straw thinking. He had not had the benefit during the discussion of viewing the lady's facial expression, only hearing the words she said.
Now, I know from my job in dealing with the public at large that facial expression and body language can radically alter the meaning of the spoken word. I often use phrases and statements with my customers which, without them seeing the twinkle in my eye, would be considered at least in bad taste and at worst highly offensive. My customers, seeing my demeanour and facial expression, without fail join in with my jokes and give as good as they get back to me. They leave the store with a smile on their faces, often remarking that they have received good, cheerful service from me. I often end my conversations with them with the remark: "You get a better class of insult in this store", which usually raises another laugh from the customer. If I made such remarks from behind a veil I am very sure that many of my customers would take offence and it would not be long before I was sacked.
Communication is not just about words. It is about meanings communicated by the eyes, the face, the body. All these things contribute to our understanding of what is said.
I still uphold the right of anybody to wear the veil. It is their belief and to ban it - as the French have done in their schools - is to ride roughshod over the individual. But I totally understand Jack Straw's point. He states that he asks his female constituents if they would remove the veil. Some do so quite readily. Some refuse. Mr Straw accepts their answers and states that he continues the interviews with as much fervour for serving his constituents whatever they do. I hope that that is true because, whatever their beliefs, he represents them and is their conduit to justice and rights in this democracy.
Good that the lady had the right to wear the clothes she believed she must. Good, also that Jack Straw was able to state is reasons openly for finding it more difficult to communicate.

Justice . . . at last

Julie Hogg was killed in 1989. Her former boyfriend Billy Dunlop was accused of her murder soon afterwards but two juries failed to reach a verdict and he was acquitted.
Mr Dunlop was later jailed for other offences and, during his interment, admitted to a prison officer that he had killed Julie, knowing that he could not be tried again for the same crime under the 800-year-old double jeopardy law.
He reckoned without Julie's mum and her husband. They campaigned, along with many others, to have the law changed so that - should new compelling evidence be forthcoming - a person could be charged again on the same crime. The law was changed in 2003 and the Appeal Court ruled that Billy Dunlop should be tried again on the charge of murdering Julie Hogg.
Dunlop was sentenced to a minimum term of 17 years imprisonment - which coincidentally is the time it took from the original murder to his conviction. Julie's mum and her son - three years old when she was killed - have already served 17 years of pain and grief knowing that her killer was free. Now they can rest a little easier knowing that her killer has finally been made to pay a price for her killing.
Prison sentences will not right the wrong. Julie cannot be brought back from the dead. But at least we know that - at last - justice has been done.
There are other crimes - especially murders - where it has been obvious who the killers are but legal technicalities have led to acquittals. Let us hope that justice will prevail in these cases under the new law. I don't want "trial by tabloid" to lead to convictions but I would like to see real criminals brought to justice by legal means.

Kill the Planet to Save the Planet?

The DIY chain for which I work has just gone into selling alternative energy sources with domestic wind turbines and solar panels.
The wind turbines claim to "cut your electricity bills by up to one-third" with a pay-back time of 5-7 years. The solar panels will supply hot water - even in winter - and cut your heating bills by a large margin. Again the pay-back time is 5-7 years.
All very commendable. Save on fossil fuels. Cut emissions of greenhouse gases. Let's all go out and buy this technology and save the planet. The cost is not prohibitive, especially if you consider the "Pay-back" period.
Have you noticed where I'm heading? The emphasis is not so much on saving the environment- more save your pocket. The whole selling emphasis is "how much money can I save". Nobody is thinking "What can I do to help the environment?" because if they really did they would realise that the best way is not to try to continue your energy usage but to decrease it.
I wonder if the calculations made by the manufacturers on cutting emissions include the emissions created in the manufacture of this equipment? If this is factored in - and real savings for the future of the planet are the goal - how much overall gain, if any, is there?
Surely the only sure way to cut emissions in a truly meaningful way is to change our way of life.
The consumer society in which we live must change if we are to make a difference. Surely it is better to consume less energy - however it is produced.
Silly things like leaving the TV, DVD, hi-fi, PC - even the microwave - on standby instead of totally disconnecting make a substantial contribution to our energy consumption. In my own hypocritical fashion I'm wasting energy using my PC to create a blog which I know few - if any - will read. Even better - why not do without some of our power-hungry appliances? My wife has a dishwasher - me! I only emit greenhouse gases when I fart - which is not very often!
When I was a kid we did not have a refrigerator, an all-singing all-dancing washing machine, central heating, running hot water - many of the things which we take totally for granted nowadays. Water was heated only when needed. Clothes washing was done in a boiler and drying clothes started with a mangle and finished by hanging on a line in the garden or an airer in the kitchen. Milk was bought fresh and frequently from the local grocer in small amounts so that it would not go off. Meat was bought from the local butcher in quantities that would be used before it could go mouldy. The coming of hypermarkets has killed off the little corner shop where you could get small amounts as you needed them. They have also encouraged the use of gas-guzzling vehicles to go for the weekly shop.
Perhaps we didn't live such a bad life in the past. Maybe we should be thinking about combining the best bits of life from 50 years ago - including the community spirit that was part and parcel of it - with the energy-consciousness that we all should have today. Then we could do lots more to pass on a viable environment for our children - and their children - and theirs . . .