Response to BASIC (British American Security Information Council)

Dear Sirs,

The concluding report on Trident has already met with much justified criticism (here and here) so the intent of this email is not to duplicate that which has already been made, but to extend the argument against Trident along an important direction which is avoided by politicians of all political parties in all nuclear weapon states. This relates to the nexus of nuclear weapons and climate change and there is a global silence on this.

To put this in the context of the commissioners report, climate change is only mentioned twice. Their discussion is limited to the statement,  "the effects of climate change and major damage to fragile ecosystems upon which we depend could all exacerbate pressures towards conflict and insecurity." As such the uncertainties of climate change are then used as justification for a Trident replacement. However, this highly superficial consideration of it avoids recognition of the timescales and the impacts that we face as a society, both nationally and globally.

The following three indisputable facts are absent from your consideration, yet they must form the framework for any decision on nuclear weapon deployments.

1. There is compelling evidence that atmospheric CO2 started increasing super exponentially from 2009. Given this increased rate, we will exceed 450 ppm some time between 2020 and 2030. At this level the worst nightmares of runaway climate change will be impossible to avoid. 
2. The resulting global heating will be so severe that a total economic collapse will occur long before 2050.
3. New evidence on the instability of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice sheets suggests that sea level rises well in excess of 20 feet will be experienced before the end of this century. This will wipe out the global economic base that has not already collapsed from severe global heating.  It is a statement of the obvious to say that along with this will go the submarines bases at Faslane and elsewhere in the world.

It is against this background of certain ecological and economic collapse by 2050, that the commissioners report attempts to justify the decision to procure Trident so we can maintain the ability to destroy the planet with nuclear weapons long after we have destroyed it through climate change.

In this context there are three fundamental questions that any democracy should be forced to collectively consider before proceeding with nuclear weapons deployment of any kind, these are:

1. Will climate change make nuclear disarmament more difficult?
2. As economies collapse from climate change will nuclear weapon states be able to afford to maintain their weapons systems safe from attack and accident?
3. On the assumption that nuclear weapons are not used, will they become an eternal liability for the survivors struggling to make ends meet in the new hostile and dystopian environment that climate change will bring?

To some extent your commissioners have answered the first question with their conclusion that the insecurity inherent with climate change makes the case for Trident. However, what they have not acknowledged is that climate change will continue to get much worse as time progress and will do so with increasing rapidity.  By their logic, it means that if  we do not have the courage to seize the slender opportunity in front of us today to rid ourselves of nuclear weapons it will not return in the future.  Time will expose their strategy of  a "glide path towards disarmament" to be little more than a set of complex words designed to sound plausible.

In respect to the second question, all the main economic blocks are already struggling with maintaining energy supplies. This is driving recognition of the fundamental impossibility of maintaining exponential growth in a constrained world. The banking crisis of 2008 warned the global economy was inherently fragile.  

Another similar collapse is inevitable within the lifetime of the next generation of nuclear submarines and there is far less prospect that an economic recovery will be engineered through  increased taxation and quantitative easing. In its aftermath, the things that we take for granted will disappear such as the conventional defence forces necessary to protect the only submarine we will have on patrol and a political system free of extreme right wing tendencies. The confluence of these could lead to an unpredictable set of events that may lead to a premature launch.

To answer the third question above, we need to consider the strategy that the world's nuclear weapons states are collectively, but silently, working towards. This is that the possession of nuclear weapons prevents war, but the planet is destroyed through the collective failure to make climate change agreements.  This "best case" of avoiding nuclear war is the Easter Island scenario where the few survivors of today's civilisation are left to wonder at the scale of the nuclear weapons systems left behind, especially the ballistic submarines, and the inherent madness of the building these in the face of the overwhelming evidence of economic and ecological collapse. The ballistic submarines thus replicate the history of Easter Island, where huge statues were built as statements of hubris and vanity in the face of collapse.  Those that are struggling to survive in a future roasting environment with little food, water or energy will also have to decommission nuclear submarines; a feat that today all the nuclear weapon states are struggling with in much kinder circumstances.

In a circular argument, where climate change forces difficult questions that make it impossible to pursue nuclear weapons, then nuclear weapons also make it impossible to achieve the climate change agreements that we need to avoid the worst nightmares of the future.

The fundamental dilemma all nuclear weapons states face is that to maintain a credible nuclear force, be it a force of one or one thousand nuclear warheads on deployment, a massive military industrial complex must be maintained. As well as building the actual nuclear weapon systems, it must also provide the conventional defence screen consisting of fighter jets, patrols planes, anti-submarine warfare technology etc. In an ultimate irony, the purpose of these becomes to defend the nuclear forces to ensure a second strike can be launched rather than to defend people, because there is no defence against a determined nuclear attack. The military industrial complex that delivers this equipment must be continually feed with new streams of contracts at increasing values otherwise the industrial complex collapses. Thus a key objective in the initial gate document which justified to parliament  the early procurement of material for Trident was that, "We must retain the capability to design, build and support nuclear submarines and meet the commitment for a successor to the Vanguard Class submarines." In other words, we build Tridents to continue building Tridents.

The enormous cost of this needs to be covered by taxes, and for this some £500 billion of additional excess economic activity is needed which requires energy from fossil fuels and is the antithesis of making the urgent cut backs we need to tackle the soaring greenhouse gas overburden.  Thus once the decision is made to proceed with Trident, it becomes impossible to make the climate change agreements to save the planet. In this context Trident is more dangerous than we ever first thought and it is the ultimate Faustian bargain.

Your commissioners have also failed to acknowledge in their report that the public spending that will be needed on Trident must be made at the same times as scarce public funds must be diverted to building a low carbon economy and mitigating the effects of climate change such as flooding and storm damage. This conflict will arise as tax receipts simultaneously drop through energy price rises.

The impossibility of meeting these conflicting challenges is the reason that much of the negotiations at climate change conferences takes place around the positions of the nuclear weapons states and their need to maintain large military industrial complexes and competitive and expanding economies to fund these.

The commissioners report has also failed to recognise the democratic deficit associated with the nuclear weapons. Virtually every opinion poll in the country shows an overwhelming majority is against the decision to replace Trident, yet all the main political parties support replacement, giving the people of this country about as much say in the decision as those in North Korea.  In these circumstances, it is not acceptable that small bands of experts cast judgement on the decision to proceed or not.

On a fundamental issue such as this, where the electorate is denied a say at the ballot box, then in the interests of democracy, it should be made by a referendum subject to public debate where the three main questions above can are debated in the open.

Ultimately our best defence against nuclear attack and nuclear blackmail is to demonstrate the total irrationality of pursuing these weapon systems in the face of economic and ecological collapse and to ensure that the subsequent debate is heard throughout the world. Instead, we have done the opposite and kept quiet on this painful issue, thus giving the green light for other nations to develop their nuclear arsenals in response.

As part of this new dialogue, we should be prepared to call the bluff of potential enemies. The government of Russia are as aware as us that the use nuclear weapons on any significant scale would be suicidal through either radioactive fall out, nuclear winter or economic collapse.

The alternative is to what we are doing. It is to build at huge expense a nuclear force whilst the nation is effectively bankrupt that will never provide secure protection from nuclear attack and merely encourage our competitors to reciprocate. It drives a race to the bottom where rational decisions on climate change can never taken.

This is of such importance, that a full public debate must be held, instead of the silence that is largely surrounding this issue today. I would challenge any member of BASIC's commission who has concluded we must pursue the Trident replacement to a public debate, and I am sure many people better than me would also be willing.

Yours sincerely,

Kevin Lister BSc, MBA, MSc

(Contributing author to "The World in Chains"  ISBN number:978-1-910021-03-3, Luath Press)

Extract from book - austerity driven nuclear war

The insanity of pursuing nuclear weapons in the face of economic collapse

(Extract from coming book The Vortex of Violence and why we are losing the battle against climate change)

Against the background of economic collapse within the operational life time of the next generation of nuclear submarines, the UK is about to place itself in the worst possible position of all nuclear weapons states. Its Trident programme distills down to concentrating all the nuclear eggs in a single basket as the plan of purchasing four submarines guarantees only one submarine on patrol at any one time as determined by the timetabling of refit, repair and crew rotations. In effect it means a £100bn of investment is locked into a single submarine on patrol. As austerity cuts deepen, maintaining the level of protection it needs will be increasingly difficult and the UK's single nuclear deterrent submarine will set sail into the unknown with little idea if a silent  Russian Akula attack submarine is sitting on its tail or not. If a conflict does occur, the UK's entire operational nuclear deterrence and the decades of investment attached to it can easily be wiped out in a single torpedo strike. This is a totally flawed and dangerous strategy. No other nuclear weapons nation has its deterrence dependent on a single weapon system as the UK does. It is beyond credulity that such a system is being developed today in a world made unstable by climate change, energy shortages and technology races. It also makes the UK's pretensions of being a credible nuclear armed nation nonsense, and a nonsense that will cost £100 billion to maintain.

The result of this combination of a dangerous military strategy and economic hardship is the entirely plausible scenario that in a world moving towards the edge of ecological collapse a Trident submarine could easily be forced into a premature launch decision. We can easily envisage this - a Trident submarine commander in doubt about the effectiveness of the weakened antisubmarine warfare capabilities that he needs to guarantee his security may believe correctly or incorrectly that an enemy submarine is on his tail. If his submarine is the only one on patrol, he knows that he is the custodian of the entire UK nuclear deterrence as all other submarines can be destroyed within seconds while in port, putting him under increasing pressure to act on any order. Having only one patrolling submarine could become an increasingly likely mode of operation as funding cuts eventually make in-roads on the finances of submarine operations. The commander would also be aware that his failure to fire if the order comes through when the country is under threat or under attack would render the concept of deterrence a failure and he and his crew have been drilled to fire without question for this very reason. But the order may not come through if his communication with headquarters has broken down. This could come from any one of a long list of possible causes that may emerge in the event of an economic melt down such as a wide spread power or equipment failure or if in the early stages of conflict a high altitude nuclear burst is fired to disable electronic systems with its electromagnetic pulse as part of what is intended to be a limited exchange. In the terrifying silence that he is plunged into, he would have to decide with his executive officer if he should fire. His dilemma is to fire and kill one hundred million people and precipitate a war that will end the world or don't fire and risk having the country's entire nuclear deterrent which is the apex of over one hundred years of development by the military industrial complex destroyed in seconds by a submarine that may or may not be on his tail. He will know that if he fires one missile, he must fire them all because one missile being fired will betray the location of his submarine. Fortunately for him, but less fortunate for the rest of humanity, his submarine is designed to allow continuous rapid fire of all missiles with only twenty seconds between each one. He may or may not know that if he fires his missiles, the fire storms he will start will be adequate to plunge the north hemisphere into a nuclear winter which will destroy any life that does not get killed in the initial nuclear exchange. He does not have the option to predetermine not to fire in a situation of ambiguity because that would render the concept of deterrence a failure. He will look at the sealed letter of last resort that every submarine captain has from the prime minister to be opened in the event of his or her death being perceived by the Trident captain. Though nobody knows what is in these letters, other than the prime ministers that have written them, it is unlikely that this will offer any categorical guidance not to fire, because the concept of deterrence requires the willingness to fire once total destruction has been delivered to the country. In the midst of this silence and surrounded by doubt, the captain would not have to remain waiting indefinitely for an electronic authentication command from government to launch because Trident is designed as a second strike weapon system; this means that the captain along with his executive officer must have launch authority to be able to fire at an aggressor following their attack on the UK even if it has destroyed the entire country. The result is nuclear war driven by spending cuts. It is not just the UK that could find itself instigating a budget driven war, but every other nuclear weapons nation can end up in the same situation. They must all accept the folly of putting so much destructive power in the hands of so few people and at the end of such a fragile communication channel, which is of course the essence of all nuclear forces. Likewise, they should accept the folly of forcing other nations to do the same.

The US Navy’s Congressional Liaison Office admitted that with the cooperation of only three other officers a Trident skipper could launch an unauthorized attack - an attack equal to 6,500 Hiroshimas. Given the confined environment and the morbid atmosphere that can dangerously distort reality on a nuclear submarines at the best of times, this situation can be made very much worse when it is operating in a sub optimal environment driven by economic collapse.

The technology race that characterises the strategic environment that attack and ballistic nuclear submarines operate within will drive exponentially increasing defence budgets as it is relatively feasible for a new aspect of stealth or sensor technology to be deployed by one side that totally negates the entire investment of the other. A UK submariner has already claimed that on one occasion a Trident submarine was unable to be put to sea because the track of a Russian attack submarine was lost in the Atlantic; thus for the next generation of Tridents to be a truly effective deterrent a massive increase in anti submarine warfare capability will be needed at a time that such cost increases would become increasingly impossible. Step changes in technology are so unpredictable that establishing any long term budget with meaningful accuracy is impossible. Thus Greenpeace’s £100bn estimate for the Trident programme could be a significant understatement in the event of a technological step change by any potential aggressor.

This forces recognition of another of the unpleasant disconnects from reality associated with nuclear weapons; the purpose of the defence forces of countries with nuclear weapons are not to protect the populations against a nuclear attack from an opponent, but to provide protection for their own nuclear forces so they can attack the enemy. The impossibility of providing any worthwhile protection against a nuclear weapon attack makes this unpalatable truth unavoidable. If Russia was determined to launch a nuclear attack on the west, it can do so at any time. Its triad of nuclear forces is as effective as NATOs in achieving this terrifying objective. Even if by some miracle all its nuclear ballistic submarines were sunk within minutes of hostilities breaking out, its aircraft and mobile strategic ballistic missile launchers can still rain down enough nuclear weapons to destroy the Western economy. Scale alone, combined with the target rich environment of a complex industrial society, ensures the objective of providing total destruction can always be met; out of the thousands of warheads at their disposal it takes only a few these to reach their targets to cause sufficient mass destruction to bring any opponent to the point of surrender. Likewise, NATO and the west can bring the same degree of destruction to Russia. The trillions of dollars that the two economic blocks have poured into "defensive" technologies such as interceptor aircraft, anti-submarine technology and missile defences will be wasted if only a few warheads gets through. At best all these will do is ensure that some nuclear forces on either side are preserved for a final retaliatory attack to ensure the ultimate extinction of all life. At worst the perceived threat they cause to their opponent, who will be stuggling to maintain nuclear parity with the economic collapse that climate change will drive, makes the likelihood of a premature launch more likely.

Of all the nuclear weapons states, the UK is probably in the worst possible position. The disproportionate impact that its small nuclear force will cause to the military industrial complex as it builds the defence forces and the submarines themselves will bleed the finances of the country at a time when the economy will also collapse as its oil and gas fields of the North Sea start depleting. When this is combined with the scenario above of putting all the nuclear eggs in a single basket, the law of unintended consequences potentially comes to the fore. But other unpalatable scenarios are equally easy to envisage when the money runs out. A terrorist attack is not beyond the realms of reality. In April 2014, protesters amazed themselves by discovering how easy it was to get onboard a nuclear attack submarine at Faslane and start destroying equipment. It is one thing to have people getting on board who are committed to peacefully challenging the legality of nuclear submarines, but if they can do so using little more than a couple of wire cutters then a disciplined band of terrorists armed with Kalshnikovs would be able to do much more and at times when security is breaking down the opportunities for their attacks escalate. The other scenario is the simple one of mechanical or human failure that are nearly always the eventual result of cost cutting programmes, or as managers and politicians like to call them, efficiency programmes. But worse, is that because all three of the scenarios considered here have the same root cause, they happen together in various and unpredictable ways which make the consequence of any one of them more serious.

Against the background, it is inconceivable to imagine that the costs of safely maintaining a nuclear weapon system from either accident or attack can be met such that a credible deterrent can be maintained over the planned operational life. The collapse when it comes, will come quickly and be severe. It means that it is more likely than not that within a timescale of a few weeks the affordability of safely operating nuclear submarines is lost. All this will happen while the nation's decent into economic collapse is simultaneously accelerated by the cost of maintaining nuclear parity.

Within all societies, the debate should be raging about the illogicality of pursuing nuclear weapon systems that will outlast the society they are supposed to be protecting. Like many things associated with nuclear weapons, it is a debate that no one really wants to have. However, the evidence to support a collapse during the operational life time of these submarines is overwhelming, on the contrary the evidence to support the idea that the economy can continue over this time is virtually zero.

300 words on why I stand again for the Green Party in the 2015 general election

This is the second time that I have stood in Cotswolds. In the previous election, I got 1.7% of the vote, well behind the 4.2% that the UKIP candidate obtained and even further behind the Geoffrey Clifton Brown's 53%.

Despite this, Skip Walker, the editor of the Gloucestershire Wilts and Standard, said of the debate that she chaired that I was by far the best and most credible candidate!

This caused me to question what is the point of standing and more fundamentally the point of democracy when populations vote for parties that either are not prepared to take action on climate change or, as with UKIP,  even believe it.

However, not to stand is to surrender to ignorance. The facts in front of us are dire. Atmospheric CO2 is increasing super exponentially; the Trident replacement is being progressed and despite a tax payer bail out that allowed the haves to take from the have-nots the financial system remains on the point of collapse.  Despite years of brave and peaceful protest where people have risked their liberty to stop these injustices, and in many cases their lives, the tide of progress in each of these areas is increasingly against that of  natural justice.

I stand not because I want power, but because I believe in the message of the Green Party. It is the only party that unequivocally acknowledges the crisis of climate change and ecological collapse, it is the only party that stands unequivocally against Trident, and it is the only party that offers an alternative to economic growth by supporting a carbon rationing scheme.

Not standing would be to forsake those who have made so much sacrifice for the causes they have fought. It would also forsake those in the future who will have to fight with far more fortitude that I could ever muster.

It is for these reasons that I put my name forward as the Green Candidate for the Cotswolds.

Swindon Think Slam - 3rd Round - Why education must preserve igonrance

In 1743 the MP Soames Jenyns said of education, "For those born to poverty and the drudgeries of life ignorance is an opiate capable of infusing insensibility. They should never be deprived of this by an ill-judged and improper education. Ignorance is the basis of all subordination, the support of society and by which means the labourers are fitted for their respective situations."

When I read this, I was teaching a young lady from the villages of Robert Mugabie's Zimbabwe.

She explained how their education system worked. The elders taught the youngsters everything they needed to know to survive, what plants to eat, which ones to avoid, which animals to hunt and how to raise livestock. Rich knowledge was passed on without OFSTED and without government set curriculums.

For her, ignorance was not an option; so on this measure is the Zimbabwian education system better than ours?

Their system must equip young people to survive in the natural world and to sustain it indefinitely. Ours must equip young people to compete in the artificial and temporary world of an industrialised society.

But our future will be dominated by climate change and ecological collapse. When today's cohort of primary school children graduate from university, atmospheric CO2 will be so high the worst nightmares of climate change will be impossible to stop. As their industrial society collapses, the education system will push all the students in its care to breaking point so that the best possible candidates can get the last remaining jobs.

Thus, preparation for an industrialised society must remain the primary objective of the education system and it must normalise a high carbon life style, despite the science on climate change.  So the education system will send students on high carbon educational trips abroad, set up relationships with high carbon industries and give careers advice to encourage students to get jobs in these areas. The Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment even organises “chain reaction” competitions for primary school children to help.

So should a responsible teacher step beyond the realm of political correctness and explain to their students this is wrong and the CO2 emissions from the society their education system is preparing them for means they will be fried, roasted, boiled and baked?

To subject impressionable young people to such conflicting messages is child abuse and a serious collective attempt to educate the young on climate change would undermine the competitive advantage this country will need as things go bad. So we don’t do it and we return to the wisdoms of Soames Jenyns; our education system must preserve ignorance. Without this, society will collapse. 150 years of free education has changed nothing and the Zimbabwean education system beats ours.

Swindon Think Slam - 2nd Round - Why the UN P5 Security council is racist and anti-democratic

In 1887, Lord Acton wrote, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." The same applies to nations; great nations are almost always bad nations.

The Permanent 5 Security Council members of the United Nations are the world's greatest nations. They are the USA, UK, France, Russia and China.

They are all bad nations with long lists of misdemeanours:

In 1946, fresh from fighting the fascists in Europe, America went to the Tropical paradise of Bikini Atoll and forcibly removed the entire population which had lived there for thousands of years, burnt their houses to the ground and then started a nuclear weapons test programme which created a scorched earth that even Hitler could not have envisaged. Nobody else even had a bomb.

In 1952 Britain continued the scorched earth tradition by irradiating the Aboriginal homelands in Australia with its atomic bomb tests. Not content with this, they went on to do the same to the Christmas Islands with H-bombs.

France resorted to terrorism to blow up Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior; Russia and China became repressive nuclear dictatorships and remain so today.

All five continue to violate the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty.

To become a member of this club, it was not enough to be on the winning side of the Second World War, a nation also had to be an industrialised power.

Because India, Africa and the Middle East were not industrialised at this time, they were not invited, despite suffering massive losses in a war that was not even of their making. Bringing them in today would deprive the P-5 group of its power, so they are kept out. 

There is also no representation from the global indigenous communities, despite always being in the vanguard of the fight on climate change, environmental destruction and human rights. To acknowledge their rights would be to curtail industrialisation and economic growth.

So the purpose of the P-5 group is to preserve the power in perpetuity of the most powerful nations in the world. This is fundamentally anti-democratic and racist.

This illegal group has also determined amongst itself that the possession of nuclear weapons by its members is legal. They are now embarking on a collective upgrade of these that is as big as anything seen in the Cold War.  To enable this, they each need a high carbon military industrial complex and so must either directly or mendaciously stop climate change agreements.

It means the P-5 cannot address the main security challenge of today which is climate change. On the contrary, its very existence normalises destructive industrialisation and blocks the progress we need. It encourages other nations who aspire to have an equal say in world politics to acquire nuclear weapons and is thus inherently proliferatory. It embeds racism and nationalism into the world's political system.

It is time to replace it with an elected chamber, where the world's people have an equal say in its membership and whose purpose is to govern in the interests of the survival of the people and the planet.

Swindon Think Slam - 1st round, why 16-21 years olds should be the only ones to vote.

If democracy is so important that we send our young to die in wars to defend it, why does any fool or crook have a vote?

Why should the selfish fool who flies a polluting private jet have the same vote as someone who sacrifices all to cut CO2 emissions?

Why should a top banker who receives a million pound bonus by virtue of tax payer bailouts have the same vote as a pensioner whose savings were destroyed in the banking collapse?

Why should a tax evading crook like Richard Branson even be allowed to vote?

Why should the vote of a Trident submarine captain whose job is to comply with a command to destroy the planet, without question, be the same as a gardener who job is to create beauty from nothing?

These people were not born bad, but became corrupted by a society which values individual success above societal enhancement.

But most of us have not risen to the great pinnacles of society and are simply struggling to survive. In the face of runaway climate change, we are forced to prostitute ourselves to industries we know are destroying our planet. Anyone working in the arms, oil, car or travel industries along with many others do so in the knowledge that their actions contribute to ecological collapse. To enhance their short term prospects of survival they must be silent on this and vote for governments that will maintain the status quo of destructive industrialisation.

The struggle for survival in an industrial world corrupts us all. In so doing, we parallel the Kapos in the German concentration camps. They were the jews that did the dirty work the SS would not do. They pushed their brethren into the gas chambers and took their dead bodies out. They did it knowing it was wrong, but it was the only way they could survive and they had no choice in the matter. They also had to hope for train loads of new victims to keep coming, because without these they too would be destroyed.

In these circumstances, giving the successful SS guards and the corrupted Kapos a vote in the running of these nihilistic camps would never legitimise them. Yet we, who have a similar struggle for survival, legitimise our government’s inaction on climate change with our votes. 

So for a government to hold legitimacy, it must have a mandate from the people who are not corrupted by either success or the struggles for survival.

These are our youngsters. They are the group of people that have their morals mostly intact and care for the future because they will inherit it. So, if we are serious about democracy, the only group of people that should be allowed to vote are the 16-21 year olds.

This would change everything. General elections can still be held every 5 years, but political parties would have to campaign on important long term issues such as climate change, not on short term political advantage. Nor would they be able to recklessly send our young people to war.

It means the youngsters today, who are suffering from a plague of mental health issues as they see their future prospects squandered by the powerful elder generation, are put in the driving seat where they deserve to be.

We might then, just, get governments that will act in the best interests of everyone and the planet.

Fraud Charges against David Cameron and George Osborne over Trident

Fraud Charges pressed against David Cameron and George Osborne

at Reading Police Station 8th Feb 2014, as part of Action AWE report a crime initiative. 

Fraud Charge in relation to Trident

This charge of fraud is being pressed against the following:

David Cameron:

Ref: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5407714.stm - “There is a price for progress in tackling climate change”

George Osborne: 

Ref: http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/uploadedFiles/Events/George%20Osborne.pdf - “That's why we are working hard with many of you in this room to ensure our green tax measures are well targeted on the environmental goals we set out to achieve.”

Background

Runaway climate change now threatens all life on the planet. CO2 emissions are rising catastrophically and basic mathematical analysis shows that the critical level of 450 ppm will be exceeded between 2020 and 2030. At this point ocean circulation stops and the oceans become stagnant and die. Huge plumes of hydrogen sulfide will be emitted from the stagnant oceans into the atmosphere turning the sky green and poisoning what has not died through heat exhaustion. Arctic methane releases will run out of control adding to the catastrophic heating. We are thus at a near term extinction event. 

Government policy is to tackle carbon emissions through a combination of carbon trading and increased energy costs to fund low carbon technologies, which is too little and too late. 

However, in the light of the decision to proceed with Trident these investments and initiatives are rendered worthless as the industrial infrastructure that is needed to support the Trident program will negate the carbon savings from renewable power. Not only is Trident hugely carbon intensive to build, but it needs the support of a large surface warfare fleet and naval aviation arm, all of which add significantly to the already unacceptable carbon footprint of the UK. In addition, it is hugely expensive. It requires a large proportion of the economy to be kept running merely to raise the taxation for Trident. This also adds to the carbon foot print of Trident. 

We have already asked the Department of Climate Change (DECC) to provide a carbon budget for Trident in accordance with the low carbon transition plan  that was agreed by all parties in the last parliament. Despite our repeated requests they were unprepared to do so. Instead we received anunjustified statement that, “The Government believes that the operation of Trident and the combating of climate change are consistent with each other.”  This is without foundation and a deliberate attempt to decieve

We are also aware that the initial gate document justified the early spend for Trident on the basis that “We must retain the capability to design, build and support nuclear submarines and meet the commitment for a successor to the Vanguard Class submarines.” Thus we build Trident merely to keep building Trident and supporting the arms manufacturers such as BAE Systems. 

Basis of Charge

1. The proposition that climate change can be tackled by carbon trading and increases in utility bills while allowing Trident to go ahead causes financial loss to the entire population of this country and that loss is most acutely felt by those on lower income. Simultaneously, it allows financial gain by the largest conglomerates within the military industrial complex such as BAE Systems and Rolls Royce. This is in violation of Section 5 of the Fraud Act, where gain and loss is in money.

2. The proposition that carbon trading and and green taxes on utility bills, along with the hardships that these will entail, will lead to significant cuts in carbon emissions while allowing large political vanity projects such as Trident to proceed is a deliberate attempt to falsely represent the benefits of these programmes. As such it is in violation of all sub clauses of Section 2 of the Fraud Act, i.e. dishonestly making a false claim and intending to make a gain to another or loss to another. 

3. We note that the science behind climate change is now so serious that by the time the new generation of Trident submarines are midway through their operational lives much of civilisation will have collapsed, leaving the last survivors as the crews of the submarines. This should be disclosed by government, in particular by those senior member of cabinet that are advocating its replacement. Their silence on these matters violates section 3 of the Fraud Act, failure to disclose information. 

4. We contend that the pursuit of Trident and the silence on its climate change implications is an abuse of power as defined in Section 4 of the Fraud act. We note that the primary responsibility of government and elected officials is to preserve the security and safety of the population. As the decision to build Trident makes climate change agreements impossible due to the competition it reinforces and the industrial infrastructure that needs to be preserved, then the fundamental trust people have in government to preserve their security is violated and is thus an abuse of power. 

The arguments above, put David Cameron,s statement “There is a price for progress in tackling climate change” into perspective - his words mean there is a price for some, but others such as the key conglomerates of the military industrial complex will not only be spared the cost, but will be actively subsidised by the rest of the population. Likewise with George Osborne's championing of green taxes, while at the same time as supporting the funding of Trident is fraud on the electorate. 

1st Video Message to Christiana Figueres during the COP talks at Warsaw

Gatwick's Chief Executive offers to fall on his sword

Dear Steve,

I note your brave and selfless decision to resign if Gatwick is unsuccessful in getting the second runway in London. It is so good to see leading British business men imbued with the tradition of the Japanese Samurai who preferred to fall on their swords rather than admit defeat. It was of course a pity that such testosterone charged courage would also lead them to attacking Pearl Harbor and the subsequent atomic bombing of their cities, but I am sure historical analogies like this will not interest you.

It is a pity that you cannot find the same courage to speak out against the unsustainable expansion of aviation in the face of runaway climate change.

The good thing, (if it is a good thing) is that the worst case scenarios are all happening far quicker than we expected. The Arctic Sea Ice is collapsing, methane releases have started, economies are collapsing, food shortages are starting, Australia is on fire again and I could go on and on - but as you clearly can't be bothered understanding what is going on there is no point in me going on at you.  So by the time your second runway is built, assuming that you have not already impaled yourself on your sword, no one will be flying anywhere. That is apart from the American Military who may be interested in using it to support the climate change wars they are already war gaming for.

Kevin Lister

Further letter to Sir Howard Davies

Further letter to Sir Howard Davies following his BBC Radio 4 interview were without any remorse or contrition he states that he is dropping his green concerns and will push for an addition runway. How do we reconcile this with our attempts to educate our young people to care for the environment and show altruism to each other?

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Dear Sir Howard,

After listening to you on Radio 4 this morning and having read and responded to your speech last night, it is hard not to feel total rage with your arrogance in the interview.

You said this morning that you are rejecting environmental concerns and “Turning it (your view that aviation can expand and meet climate change targets) up to see if anyone can knock down our argument, on the assumption that we continue to get fuel efficiency of new aircraft and also we see decarbonisation elsewhere in the economy.”

This is fundamentally wrong and an abuse of power. It is not for us to knock down your arguments on climate change. It is for you to demonstrate that your proposals are compatible with UK carbon targets and climate science in general, that aviation will make enormous efficiency improvements, that biofuels can be grown without destroying the environment and the rest of the economy will decarbonise painlessly. You are unable to prove a single one of these. Despite this failure you conclude new runways should be developed.

It beggars belief that you make this arrogant decision little more than a week after the IPCC report has highlighted the deadly state our climatic system is in. It is hard to understand how you can do this. Did you read this report? Are you so arrogant as to think it does not apply? Do you think some knight in shining white armour is going to solve climate change? Are you too frightened to make the right decision? If you can't answer any of these can you at least drop the word 'independent' from the title of your commission and prevent the charade of people thinking that it is worthwhile submitting evidence into it. 

Yours sincerely,

Kevin Lister 

Response to Sir Howard Davies speech on Airport Capacity

Dear Sir Howard,

Having read your speech today, firstly let me congratulate you on the in depth analysis that you have carried out and the range of view points that you have considered.

My observation on your comments (in italics) follow:

1. “We are grateful to all those who have responded and helped us in our work. Of course in some cases, at airports or in airlines, for example, one may argue that it is their job to do so. But many others, in local action groups or environmental organisations, have devoted much personal time to preparing well-considered responses to the many questions we have posed.”

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

After having devoted considerable time making submissions to this commission, its predecessor the sustainable aviation consultation and other parliamentary committees it is gratifying to see your acknowledgement of the efforts that concerned citizens have gone to.

I trust that with your comment you also appreciate that the dice is hugely loaded towards the large aviation corporations. From a purely logistical perspective, it is far easier for them to continue submitting to consultations such as this than it is for members of the public who have to balance the time for research and preparation with the normal day to day business of work and family life. It is also emotionally draining repeatedly explaining the severity and consequences of climate change.

But the loading of the dice is done in ways that are far more subtle and subversive towards supporting the goals of the industry. Many people are unable to comment on the climate change and environmental limitations that we inevitably face for fear of losing their job. No one in the aviation industry, oil industry, motor industry, travel industry and many others would have the courage to speak loudly against the aviation industry. To do so, would almost certainly invite dismissal.

Indeed even in education which should be the bastion of progressive thought, I have found myself in trouble with my organisation for stating the obvious in debates such as this.

The final loading of the dice against environmentalists is what they have to say is what nobody wants to hear. Government's are not elected on the basis of the closing down airports and tackling climate change, but ensuring that somehow the status quo of economic growth can be preserved despite this being impossible. For this, they have the full backing of the press. So on these matters, governments listen to industry and then conjure up large and plausible words to make it sound like they are taking climate change seriously and listening to environmentalists. I would suggest that despite your efforts, you will have taken more soundings from industry than from climate change scientists. It is hugely concerning that your speech makes no mention of the last IPCC report despite it only being published one week ago. It is equally concerning when in this country we have world leading expert centres such as the Tyndal Centre that you have not solicited information from. Prior to your next report, I would challenge your organisation to take soundings on this matter from Prof Kevin Anderson who has done considerable research on the impacts of aviation on climate change.

I trust also that you appreciate that many thinking people are now terrified about the emerging disaster of climate change, but feel powerless to act. Many of these concerned people would neither know that this commission is taking place nor feel adequately qualified to make a worthwhile submission – yet their fear of the future remains justified. This places a special onus on your commission to ensure environmental considerations are given their full weight, and not simply moved to one-side by the overwhelming response load that the aviation industry is able to muster.

2. “Official and industry forecasts of demand for air travel have been systematically over-optimistic. Successive Department of Transport forecasts have recently been reduced, since the financial crisis and associated recession. That is partly a function of lower GDP growth, which is a strong driver of demand, but also a result of higher oil prices, which have increased the cost of flying aeroplanes.”

In your demand forecasting paper you never acknowledged the interconnectivity of the different aspects of our economy. The financial crisis of 2008 had its roots in the rapidly increasing oil prices that burst the bubble of speculation that drives the economy. Since that date the global economy has remained on life support through a combination of quantitative easing, exceptionally low interest rates and inflation to transfer wealth from savers to borrowers. These solutions are not sustainable. Even these exceptional efforts have hardly boosted economic growth and compared with times past the recovery is moribund. The biggest message of the 2008 crisis is that the economic system we take for granted is fundamentally flawed and the same drivers that caused the crisis haunt us still today. This persistent overhead of uncertainty is leading the US economy to the unprecedented point of a default on their bonds. As an ex-financier, I am sure that I do not need to impress on you the severity of this with its potential to blow out the water demand forecasts and availability of capital for investment.

3. “While only 6% of UK carbon emissions today are associated with air travel, that proportion could rise sharply as other sectors reduce their emissions. If we allowed unlimited growth in air traffic, that would impose high costs on the rest of the economy if the overall target is to be met, for example, pushing up domestic heating bills as the energy sector has to decarbonise more quickly.”

This is an interesting choice of words. 6% is a big slice of the pie, and as you point out it is set to increase.

More significantly the government's plans to decarbonise the economy are not going well. I refer you to the Government's document, The Carbon Plan: Delivering our low carbon future. It is ironic that with respect to aviation it boldly states in section 35 that, “Emissions from aviation will be capped by being part of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) from 2012, ensuring that any increases in aviation emissions are offset by reductions elsewhere in the EU economy, or internationally.” As you are aware this will no longer be the case, but more importantly it sets the tone for repeated failures in this paper. It again boldly claims, “New low carbon power stations – a mix of carbon capture and storage, renewables and nuclear power – will be built in the 2020s.” Again, none of this is viable. After the Fukishima disaster has irradiated the entire Pacific, nuclear power is looking less and less of an option. None of the plausible words about carbon capture and storage have been able to overcome the thermodynamic limitations inherent with its operation and today we have exactly zero carbon capture and storage projects operational in the world. Not only is the aviation industry struggling to cuts its CO2 emissions, but so is every other industry. As a result global CO2 emissions are increasing super exponentially.

I have pointed out in past submissions the danger of this to social stability. The poorest in society will be priced out of staple energy and food due to peak oil and climate change. The proposal of the aviation industry is that they should be able to price this weakened majority from access to further resources so that the richest minority can continue flying. This is the only outcome from the carbon trading proposals that the industry is proposing, it is fundamentally an act of aggression against society’s weakest.

4. “But none of the submissions made to us have suggested that there are transformational gains to be had. It is true that larger aircraft, like the Airbus A380, could deliver some additional capacity in terms of passenger numbers. New aircraft in each market segment are likely to be a little larger than their predecessors (as well as being quieter and more fuel-efficient). But airline fleets change slowly and the direction for travel is not all one way (for example, some new Boeing 787s may replace larger 747s)”

This seems to be a misinterpretation of the competing strategies of the aviation industry. The A380 was built to enhance the existing the hub and spoke model of aviation by allowing higher density operation on the main routes. By contrast the initial market of the B787 was to support desire of airlines to move to a point-to-point business model. It should be noted that both of these significantly increase CO2 emissions. The A380 increases emissions by simple virtue of its size and the increased number of people that it allows in the aviation transport network, many of whom will be using connecting flights. The B787 however is potentially far worse. Its initial design was laid down in 2003/4 at a time of still relatively low oil prices. Boeing initially considered a higher speed subsonic plane but were persuaded by their customers to build an economical long haul plane suitable for point to point operations. Sustaining this mode of operation inherently requires a much bigger total fuel burn and a substantial increase in aviation business to support it. It was also a solution that the aviation industry saw to overcome potential capacity restrictions at hub airports.

Thus to say that B787 will replace B747s gives a limited picture of the strategic intent of the B787 and the potentially devastating environmental impact of moving to a point to point network.

The point to point model is much more difficult for environmental movements to counter as protests are needed at a wide range of airports. It thus incumbent for your commission to recognise that the B787 strategy is also effectively a route for the aviation industry to circumvent environment protest and to take a harder line with the point to point model.

5. “The best outcome [on climate change] would clearly be a global deal on aviation.”

The aviation industry have been unable to come up with anything even approaching a global deal, and given that it has failed every time it has tried, it is naivety to believe that it will suddenly start succeeding. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas and organisations with billions of pounds invested in capital equipment don't vote for contractions that will leave these idle, especially when they have huge interest payments to meet.

6. “Growth beyond that, unless current assumptions about fuel efficiency and the use of alternative fuels prove to have been overly pessimistic, would put great pressure on the rest of the economy to achieve further carbon reductions, which could be very costly.”

As I have argued in previous submissions, assumptions about fuel efficiency and alternative fuels are already provably wrong. As planes are now almost fully optimised in terms of aerodynamics, structures and thermodynamics any further improvements will be marginal and require huge investments. For this to be recouped, huge numbers of planes need to be sold and operated negating any environmental savings.

The other thrust of the aviation industry is that they can grow their own fuel in some carbon neutral nirvana where global food shortages don't exist and plants are not needed to sequestrate carbon from our polluted atmosphere.

Tesco also tried this approach in 2005. In our correspondence with them where we sought their environmental justifications. They eventually admitted, “When we decided to make biofuels available to customers in 2005, we did so in the belief that they could help customers to reduce their carbon impacts and reduce our dependency on oil as a source for petrol. Since then it has become clear that the impacts of biofuels are more complex” before dropping their entire biofuel marketing campaign. Since then, Terry Leahy went on to warn about the dangers biofuels impose to food security and in a talk on the issue he belatedly stated “we should think things through before acting, so that we do not suffer from unintended consequences.” It is therefore incredible that the aviation industry cannot be bothered to think through the consequences of their proposals, especially when the evidence is so clear all around the world.

It is a hubris that is probably more brutal than any that has gone before. Producing biofuels requires the conscious destruction of ecological resources such as tropical rainforests which are of immense value to the planet now and in the future for absolutely no scientific justification.

7. “Our work so far suggests that doing nothing to address the capacity constraints in our current airport system would not be the right approach. Its likely effect would be to restrict passengers’ choices and it could have unintended consequences for the efficiency and resilience of UK airports, as well as possibly leading to some flights and emissions being displaced to other countries.”

You make this comment immediately after your final summary about being receptive to the constraints of climate change and your well argued points that the best way to constrain aviation emissions is to constrain development of airports. It is quite remarkable. You have seen the evidence but your final adjudication ignores it. Perhaps you might want to explain why. It is setting a bad and dangerous omen for the future.

I thank you for your final request for comments on the analysis you have set out.

Yours sincerely,

Kevin Lister, Bsc (aero eng), MBA, MSC(mathematics)