I have been trying for the last few days to discover a coherent logic towards my feelings on man’s relationship with his environment. This is proving not to be simple.
The process started when I heard on World Service radio a gentleman from the International Panel on Climate Change discussing their latest report. As you know, I tend to accept the established opinion on climate change, and rather take the view that if all our industrial activity were not affecting the atmosphere, that would be strange.
But what struck me was that the gentleman said that a pause in warming for the last fifteen years was not significant, as fifteen years was a blip in processes that last over millennia.
Well, that would certainly be very true if you are considering natural climate change. But we are not – we are considering man-made climate change. In terms of the period in which the scale of man’s industrial activity has been having a significant impact on the environment, surely fifteen years is a pretty important percentage of that period? Especially as you might naturally imagine the process to be cumulative – fifteen years at the start when nothing much happened would be more explicable.
Having tucked away that doubt, I started to try to think deeper. Man is, of course, himself a part of nature. Anything man does on this planet is natural to this planet. I do not take the view man should not change his environment – otherwise I should not be sitting in a house. The question is rather, are we inadvertently making changes to the environment to our own long term detriment?
That rejection of what you might call the Gaia principle – that the environmental status quo is an end in itself – has ramifications. It is hard to conceptualise our relationship with gases or soil, but easier in terms of animals. I am not a vegetarian – I am quite happy that we farm and eat cattle, for example – and you might argue that the cattle are pretty successful themselves, symbiotic survivors of a kind. Do I think other species have a value in themselves? Is there any harm in killing off a species of insect, other than the fact that biodiversity may be reduced in ways that remove potential future advantages to man, or there may be knock on consequences we know not of that damage man somehow? I am not quite sure, but in general I seem in practice to take the view that exploitation of other species and substantial distortion of prior ecological balance to suit men’s needs is fine, so presumably the odd extinction is fine too, unless it damages man long term.
I strongly disapprove of hurting animals for sport, and want to see them have the best quality of life possible, preferably wild. But I like to eat and wear them. I am not quite sure why it is OK to wear animal skin on our feet or carry it as a bag, but not to wear “fur”. What is the difference, other than that leather has had the hair systematically rubbed off as part of the process of making it? A trivial issue, but one that obviously relates to the deeper questions.
Yes I draw a distinction between animals which are intelligent and those which are not. I would not eat whale or dolphin. But this does not seem entirely logical – animal intelligence and sensibility is evidently a continuum. Many animals mourn, for example. The BBC World Service radio (my main contact with the outside world at present – I have just today found my very, very weak internet connection just about works if I try it at 5am) informed me a couple of days ago that orang-utans have the ability to think forward and tell others where they will be the next day. Why cattle and fish are daft enough to eat is hard to justify.
I quite appreciate the disbenefits to man of radically changing his environment, even if it could be done without long term risk to his existence – the loss of beauty, of connection to seasons and forms of behaviour with which we evolved. But I regard those as important only as losses to man, not because nature is important intrinsically. In short, if I thought higher seas, no polar bears and no glaciers would not hurt man particularly, I don’t suppose I would have much to say against it. I fear the potential repercussions are too dangerous to man. At base, I don’t actually care about a polar bear.
“Neither the purchasers nor the advertisers are paying enough to exercise influence over these newspapers. What other business would continue to operate under losses like these. Why do newspapers do so?”
Same as any other business, some make a profit, some make a loss. If you had read the rest of the article you would have seen that the Guardian made a loss due to the money they are investing in going digital no doubt in the belief they will at least survive in the future.
Did you think someone was spending huge sums of money keeping the Guardian afloat so they could publish the wikileaks?
“According to Jane’s Defense Weekly, Israel – the only nuclear power in the Middle East, has 100 to 300 nuclear warheads and their appropriate vectors ( ballistic and cruise missiles and fighter-bombers ). According to SIPRI estimates, Israel has produced 690-950 kg of plutonium, and continues to produce as much as necessary to make from 10 to 15 bombs of the Nagasaki type each year.
It also produces tritium, a radioactive gas with which neutron warheads are made, which cause minor radioactive contamination but higher lethality. According to various international reports, also quoted by the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, biological and chemical weapons are developed at the Institute for Biological Research, located in Ness- Ziona, near Tel Aviv. Officially, 160 scientists and 170 technicians are part of the staff, who for five decades have performed research in biology, chemistry, biochemistry, biotechnology, pharmacology, physics and other scientific disciplines. The Institute, along with the Dimona nuclear center , is “one of the most secretive institutions in Israel” under direct jurisdiction of the Prime Minister. The greatest secrecy surrounds research on biological weapons, bacteria and viruses that spread among the enemy and can trigger epidemics. Among them, the bacteria of the bubonic plague (the ” Black Death ” of the Middle Ages ) and the Ebola virus, contagious and lethal, for which no therapy is available.”
– See more at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/israels-secret-nuclear-biological-and-chemical-weapons-nbc/5352454#sthash.mx1Vsw8N.dpuf
The US and Russia have both signed and ratified the Treaty, but they still possess significant stores ordered destroyed by April 2012 according to the terms. But it’s all about Syria, isn’t it?
No. It’s about Israel.
Evgueni, belatedly so, but i have to acknowledge your couple of wise comments re: reserving judgment. good if you can comment more often to calm these Young Turks and cuckoo-calls.
Villager, you misunderstand. I was sad that it was a relief to find that one no longer had to wade through his comments (and the responses they deliberately set out to evoke, of course). Playing Thersites is a useful part in many ways, but as a central role, it becomes Iago.
Fookin’ hairy, and they don’t even mention Fukushima.
http://www.stateoftheocean.org/pdfs/IPSO-Summary-Oct13-FINAL.pdf
Yes TC i’m very impressed by your knowledge of mythology. Perhaps its a cover for your being pretty hollow yourself. Compared to Habby, the one you’re relieved about, i’d say so. You and Mary make good sisters-in-arms. Enjoy your sense of relief and Fedup’s company.
Er, literature, actually. But thanks. And, you know, if you scroll back a page to someone calling themselves ‘RedRobbo’ I think you’ll find that the argument master (“You lefties are pretty thick”) is alive and well and still spreading that love right here. Hurrah for free speech!
In the meantime, I second this question:
“which newspaper or other media outlet do you feel accurately reflects a politically neutral position? I’d like to know where the baseline (for all us maximally informed and highly questioning Sun readers out here) is supposed to be.”
“Er, literature, actually.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thersites
You’ve said nothing TC that makes me believe you are in the state called ‘love’. Just a leftover hippy, perhaps?
“In the meantime, I second this question:
“which newspaper or other media outlet do you feel accurately reflects a politically neutral position? I’d like to know where the baseline (for all us maximally informed and highly questioning Sun readers out here) is supposed to be.”
LOL. Thats part of your problem: you’re chasing “ideals”. Deal with “what is”, the reality.
Meantime, I repeat my question: “Where are your “blindingly persuasive arguments; the copper-bottomed research; the obvious expertise;..”
???
Shakespeare’s Thersites: hence the word ‘role’. Pwned! LOL!
(please God let my organic chicken pellets with added vitamins arrive soon)
TC congratulations! Hope you feel delivered!!
Why don’t you keep your powder dry for this fella:
” Fedup
30 Sep, 2013 – 8:38 pm
“Wheeeheeey, My! The waves of attack, sure as hell soon internet police will be upon us. First off, the not so colourful techni, who is too busy setting little markers down; here and there, picking up from the villageC and moaning about the bad language! That did not work out, then she hits on the “bully”, and now the den mothers are in unison, savaging me as bad as a dead sheep would.”
Then you could really cleanse this blog and we could all share your sense of relief?
Journalism’s role is not objectivity, in the sense that they must be sterile brokers of ‘He said this, then she said that’. They must look at what both have said in the past as contextual to the truth of their statements in the here and now. They must exercise perspective and analysis, which does not meet the textbook definition of ‘objectivity’.
This is what’s been wrong with Media for decades. Either they are obviously partisan and sectored in their reportage, or they fail to provide anything other than neutered and naive, as well as under-informed opinions about things they have but shallow understanding of. To be fair, we expect them to be experts in every discipline, but that is impossible, so they pretend expertise.
The most dangerous knowledge in the Media, is their partial education.
“(please God let my organic chicken pellets with added vitamins arrive soon)”
Hahaha so i was right about the chickens cackling in the barn, earlier! 🙂 LOL
Try Ayurveda — you might yet be saved!
“which newspaper or other media outlet do you feel accurately reflects a politically neutral position?”
Nobody can answer that question for you Technicolour, the least biassed newspaper is the one which most accurately reflects your politics. That is why it is important to have so many of them and that no extremist group takes control of all of them.
Ben: cheers, really liked that.
Fred: well, it was Komodo’s question, but thanks. Think Ben has answered it too, actually.
Villager: “Meantime, I repeat my question: “Where are your “blindingly persuasive arguments; the copper-bottomed research; the obvious expertise;..”
???
What do you want them on?
The least biased paper, were such a thing to exist, would question everything, including its own tenets. It would undertake a regular root cause analysis of its own financial motivations and assiduously avoid mixing socially with the power groups it is meant to be examining. It would believe in free speech, the ongoing expansion of liberty, the striving for a wide political education of the masses, and a permanent fight for human rights*.
* If anyone regards these as “biases” in the same context, that would admit to an embarrassing fact: that biases against education of the masses, or against improvements in human rights, exist in the media today. But that should not be surprising, since capitalism is at best ambivalent about them.
Ben Franklin, about the educational capacity of the media, I agree. The Glasgow Media Group have done a number of studies in this area about awareness of the Middle East conflict, and found that British people are in general woefully under-informed. For example, it was found that people were usually aware that Israel and Palestine are in conflict, but not that one of them was militarily occupying the other, nevermind which one was occupied. Some respondents believed that “The Occupied Territories” were part of Israel.
Where one assigns the blame for this state of affairs is difficult, of course; there is a point where people need to take responsibility for their own education. But, as Komodo says earlier, can we blame people for not knowing things if the information is hard to come by? The internet has the power to offer a much wider range of views, but an overwhelming percentage of views are still shaped by traditional (TV and print) media.
I have put a post on the Greenpeace thread. All the protesters have been charged with ‘piracy’ by the Russian authorities. Protests are being held in London and Edinburgh. One took place at a football match in Basel.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/oct/03/basel-greenpeace-protest-champions-league
Template for e-mail to Russian Ambassador – http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/
~~~~
Oddie is doing sterling work on the thread before that by posting updates on the aftermath of the attack on Westgate in Nairobi.
Many dead are not accounted for because of the fire.
Lloyds of London are facing a $75m claim.
http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20130930/NEWS09/130939994#
Fred 3 Oct, 2013 – 4:11 pm
I did read the rest of the article. I interpreted this piece …..
….. to mean that it will still be making a considerable loss at the end of its transformation programme.
Your second point would have been better made without the sarcasm, but I’ll answer it anyway since it is the point I have been trying to make all along. Annual losses of 10s of millions are cheap at the price when you can beat governments over the head with the newspaper to obtain tax breaks worth billions, war profits worth billions, bank bailings-out of trillions, etc, etc, etc.
To our own barmy army trolls:
Spurs fans could be arrested if they chant ‘Yid’ on Sunday
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/oct/03/spurs-fans-chant-yid-west-ham
How uptight can you get?
A ziofuckwit spews scorn
On goes the charade, and the mandatory tolerance of the intolerable! Clearly deferring to our “betters” is only too obvious.
The vile ziofuckwit farrago carries on unabated. Although it seems the den mother is getting it too, but hey that is part of the charms of baby sitting ziofuckwits isn’t it?
“Your second point would have been better made without the sarcasm, but I’ll answer it anyway since it is the point I have been trying to make all along. Annual losses of 10s of millions are cheap at the price when you can beat governments over the head with the newspaper to obtain tax breaks worth billions, war profits worth billions, bank bailings-out of trillions, etc, etc, etc.”
But didn’t the Guardian speak out against all those?
” a point where people need to take responsibility for their own education.”
Yes, Jon.
I think this is the basic problem. When infotainment drives the public’s viewing/reading direction, the Media still has the economic reality of ad rates and financial success to reckon with, and they tend to cater to the lack of curiosity and disinterest in matters outside the personal bubble
Strange, though, most people I’ve met, despite the media are completely au fait with the corporate/bankers/wars scam. They just don’t know what to do about it.
Fred 3 Oct, 2013 – 5:49 pm
The Guardian, like the rest of the media, attempts (successfully in your case) to preserve its credibility by using the same old trick – allowing occasional criticism of carefully selected minor aspects of what’s really going on while studiously ignoring the real story. e.g. days of outrage on Fred Goodwin’s RBS payoff while neutrally reporting the £37 billion bailout.
“The Guardian, like the rest of the media, attempts (successfully in your case) to preserve its credibility by using the same old trick – allowing occasional criticism of carefully selected minor aspects of what’s really going on while studiously ignoring the real story. e.g. days of outrage on Fred Goodwin’s RBS payoff while neutrally reporting the £37 billion bailout.”
So they did speak out against those things.
But you take the fact they spoke against them as evidence they were in favour of them.
I see.
If anyone has missed the ins and outs of the Mail/Miliband conflict, this is a good summary.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/176492/why-did-british-tabloid-call-ed-milibands-dad-evil-jewish-marxist-who-hated-britain