Letter to Princess Anne - following her trip to Greece

Dear Anne,

I watched with little interest your trip to Greece to bring back the “Olympic” flame. Unfortunately, there was not much I could do at the time to avoid it. It was covered in all the newspapers, all the television stations and most of the standard web sites such as Yahoo. All the well-paid editors of these organisations told us what a great and important job you were doing and how we should all be so grateful for your efforts.

I ask you to consider the absurdity of your actions and in future to show sensitivity to the minority of people in this nation that have pressing concerns about climate change. Not everyone is bowled over by consumerist propaganda, and some are quite distressed by it. Unfortunately, I can only assume that the privilege you enjoy prevents you understanding we have exceeded all the worst-case predictions on climate change. As a direct consequence, we face the inevitability of our civilisation collapsing by the end of this century, or worse the extinction of all virtually all life on our beautiful planet.

It is therefore totally unacceptable to see you flying all the way to Greece to pick up the tiniest little flame. Your flight would have contributed about 50 tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere. There is the certain irony of the flames in the jet engines sustaining your flight dwarfing the pathetically flickering ember you brought back with you.

Like it or not, you and David Beckham, are amongst the top excess consumers in our society. Relatively simple maths shows that the top 5% of our society are responsible for about 30% of the global CO2 emissions. This group of top consumers are antisocial and destructive. As a key member of this group, you maintain your position in it through a symbiotic relationship with the same big corporations that are threatening us with further unsustainable growth. In case you did not notice, the airline that flew you was BA. While it tries to demonstrate egalitarianism with your outing, it simultaneously subverts the government’s attempts to cut the aviation industry’s carbon emissions. Its sponsorship of the Olympics is merely another element of an ongoing propaganda onslaught to make us believe that ignoring environmental responsibilities is the normality we should all accept.

As well as your own reckless excess consumption, there is also the question of your parenting ability and the morality that you instil in your children. Unfortunately, I could not avoid the reports of your daughter parading the Olympic torch around Cheltenham on her pet horse. Did you suggest at any time to your daughter that perhaps supporting one of the biggest propaganda exercises since the 1936 Nazi Olympics is not the best thing that someone in her position should be doing? I put it to you that encouraging your daughter to support consumption to excess just because the privilege of her birth allows her to do so is no better than someone at the bottom of society joining the riots in the city centres last year to enjoy the same pleasures of unbridled consumption. 

What further irony that as you flew all the way to Greece to get your little spark, and rubbed your privilege into the wounds of Europe’s first failed state, the Home Secretary was putting in place plans to stop waves of Greek economic migrants flooding our country. Her plans will be supported by force if necessary. The sad fact is that your actions support the absurdity of our country happily waving nationalistic Union Jacks as we firmly shut our borders to the desperate and disposed, while allowing the privileged and powerful of the Olympics to indulge themselves at our expense.

In these increasingly troubled times, we should not be surprised if we see a resurgence of extreme right wing nationalism. Nationalism is after all, what the institutions of this country put above everything else and what they are there to support. It seems that with Royal Weddings, Golden Jubilees and Olympics, they have never been so busy getting the masses ready for the forthcoming crises.

I am sure that you must be delighted to be playing your part.

From a citizen of the world, and a subject to no one,

Kevin Lister

Why Gloucestershire should not welcome the Olympic Torch

Sent to all editors of Gloucestershire news papers

Dear Editor,

We are approaching the big day when the Olympic torch will be paraded through Gloucestershire.  It will, no doubt, be accompanied by headlines of how the people of Gloucestershire welcome its arrival and how we are all so grateful to support such an event. Hopefully, before the good people of Gloucestershire jump on the bandwagon, many will at least stop, pause and think what this has come to represent.

It is useful to recall the tradition of the Olympic torch. Adolf Hitler started it for the 1936 games. He also is famous for going on to start the Second World War, gassing the Jews and trying to implement a scorched earth policy. Since 1936, the Olympics and politics are inseparable. It gives odious nations and destructive corporations the opportunity cleanse their image to the world.  The Olympic movement has shown that it is not too bothered which organisation capitalises on this opportunity, so long as the money rolls in.

In a clear demonstration of Olympic amorality, this year they have seen fit to award BP the title of its “sustainability partner.” This is greenwashing on a monumental scale. BP is the company that virtually destroyed the Gulf of Mexico, is destroying the Canadian Forests through their tar sands projects and now threatens to destroy the Arctic with deep sea drilling. They are one of the most polluting and destructive organisations on the planet. Their actions are leading us to disastrous runaway climate change. They are joined by fellow sponsors such as BAA which is arm twisting the government to expand the carbon intensive aviation industry and Dow Chemicals who are yet to adequately compensate the victims the Bophal disaster.

We should be under no illusions how bad the environmental catastrophe is that these large corporations are seducing us towards. Every single measurement of climate change is either at or exceeding the worst-case scenario of the 2007 IPCC report. We have been put firmly on the path to extinction.

To put it in perspective, today’s corporate sponsors of the Olympics are succeeding where their predecessor Adolf Hitler failed. They are successfully implementing a scorched earth policy by maximising carbon emissions and triggering runaway climate change. They are knowingly gassing the planet for today’s young people with critically dangerous levels of greenhouse gasses. By comparison Hitler limited his gassing mainly to the Jews. The directors of these corporations know what they are doing is wrong and immoral, but they choose to continue and hide behind propaganda.  They should take note that the defence of only carrying out orders and pleading ignorance failed at Nuremberg.

As well as the corporate sponsors, we should also be looking at the countries that come to play at the Olympics. Why do we let Bahrain and Saudi Arabia come when they are abusing human rights so violently at home? Why do we let India, Pakistan and Israel come when they have refused to abide by the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and are leading the world closer than ever to nuclear war? Why do we let Russian and China come when they concern us so much we are about to impoverish our country by spending £100billion on replacing Trident? Why do we let America come when its corporations have lobbied so hard to stop climate change agreements?

We do this because it is more important the interests of the corporations and governments who profiteer from the Olympic movement are protected than the people they endanger.

The real problem is that our survival relies on us collectively facing up to enormous challenges. It has been said many times that we cannot continue with business as usual. Unfortunately, the message from the Olympics is that we should carry on with business as usual; we should look the other way when we know we should not and we should believe the unsustainable can be sustained.

The sad reality is that the Olympics are an anachronism from another time that we cannot return to.  The people of Gloucestershire should not welcome the Olympic torch.

References:

 E-mail to board of BP directors 

Copenhagen Diagnosis report

Indian violation of the NPT

Protesting the Olympics and Met Police Support

Dear Theresa May,

What a strange story on the news tonight. You are reported as doing all you can to stop protest at the Olympics, yet the assistant commissioner of the Met Police, Bob Broadbent speaks out in favour of protecting the right to protest.

The Olympics is about the politics of power. It always has been and it always will be. The London 2012 Olympics has as its sponsors powerful mega-companies such as Shell, BP, BA, BAA amongst others. These are the very companies who have done everything to delay agreements on climate change and will continue to do so. Their business plans rely on continuing environmental destruction despite overwhelming evidence on climate change.  They are deliberately and knowingly pursuing a scorched earth policy.

The last organisation that ran the Olympics and attempted to implement a scorched earth policy was the Nazi party. Today’s corporations use the Olympics to justify their hold on power in exactly the same way.  Fortunately for this generation, the Nazi’s were not successful. Unfortunately for the next generation, the companies using this event to legitimise their business plans are on track to be totally successful with their scorched earth policies. 

Bob Broadbent speaking out so publicly on the right to protest is hugely significant. So far, the mega-corporations have had protection from the monopoly of legitimate violence that nation states use to impose laws that are pro-growth and pro-environmental destruction. Perhaps Bob Broadbent recognises preservation of the status quo is not in his interest or in the interest of the men and women under his command. Once the people who implement the violence of the state become repulsed with the recognition their mission is to support its destructive corporations then we will get genuine action on climate change.

Yours sincerely,

Kevin Lister

Response to DECC - urgent proposals needed for Durban Platform

Dear Hadiza

Thank you for your email, reference TO2011/23141 in response to my letter linking the failure to achieve nuclear disarmament and the failure to agree climate change agreements.

Your letter confirms the worst fears.  We should prepare for the worst possible future of global heating, nuclear war and economic collapse. 

To address your points:

The Durban platform is flawed. It is premised on starting CO₂ reductions in 2020, we cannot wait this long. Atmospheric emissions are currently rising faster than the worst-case scenario of the IPCC report. Section 4 of the Durban platform suggests a review of the IPCC report is carried out over 2013-2015.  A two-year review is unnecessary and time wasting. Basic maths that is within the capabilities of a secondary school student shows the worst case scenario is already being significantly exceeded.

In 2010 the biggest ever atmospheric greenhouse gas increase of 6% was recorded.  If this trend continues annual emissions will have increased by 69% in 2020. We are not witnessing a mere increase in greenhouse gases. We are witnessing an explosion.

The situation is so severe that even cutting emissions to zero today would not guarantee that global heating can be kept below 2 deg C. By contrast, a downward reduction starting at 2020 following the exponential increase that we expect over the coming years makes planetary survival impossible.

In these circumstances it is absolutely incredible to hear that time continues to be wasted with debate on what to do with unused carbon credits from the first period.

It is hard to see how you can be so positive that the Durban Platform sends a signal to industry and business to invest in low carbon technology. There are no targets, other than to acknowledge that the existing targets will not keep the planet's temperature rise below the 2 deg C threshold and the leisurely timescale allows them 10 years of unfettered growth.

By contrast, restoration of economic growth remains the objective of all nations along with increasing greenhouse gas output. In the UK we are seeing proposals being put forward for an additional airport in the Thames, an energy consuming high-speed rail network and support for virtually every other high carbon industry. This country is no different from any other country in the world. There is absolutely no evidence of any substantive behavioural change since the Durban COP. Instead, there is increasing effort to preserve the business as usual scenario, despite it being manifestly more impossible and immoral to sustain. The current efforts by USA and China to overturn aviation's incorporation into the EU ETS further highlights how little the Durban COP has impacted actual behaviour.

This failure to see significant change in behaviour is in contrast to the opening sentence of the Durban Platform which acknowledges, “that the global nature of climate change calls for the widest possible cooperation.” However, the nation-state system that forms the basis of the COP compels nations to compete economically and militarily. Failure to achieve success in either sphere results in national collapse. The cooperation that is needed is therefore impossible in a competitive environment and it becomes impossible to transform to a zero carbon economy.

The epitome of this competition is the possession of nuclear weapon systems such as Trident. They require huge resources to build and huge economies to raise enough taxes.  The maximum cost estimate quoted in your response of £17billion for the platform and warhead is impossibly low. It takes no account of cost growth, which is likely to be high given the technological risks involved. It does not include operational costs, or the costs to defend Trident. Greenpeace’s well-prepared report suggested a more likely figure would be £100billion for the entire through life cost. Even their report does not include the cost for the eventual decommissioning of the submarine and disposal of the nuclear waste from both the reactors and the warheads.  Once the decision is made to pursue Trident, it becomes impossible to build a zero carbon economy, as consumption must be kept high to raise the taxes and a high carbon industry must be kept in place and operational to build it. Trident massively increases the stakes in a competitive environment.

What makes this expenditure totally inappropriate is that it is impossible to foresee any time when Trident could be used. Your letter correctly suggests, “We face a more dangerous situation now than we have for several decades. There are substantial risks to our security from emerging nuclear weapons states and state sponsored terrorism.”  If deterrence is credible we must be prepared to pre-emptively destroy cities such as Tehran in the event of a nuclear threat from Iran and before they strike our cities. It is hardly surprising they feel the need to build their own nuclear weapons. Likewise if a terrorist group such as Al Qaeda obtains nuclear weapons, which is not affiliated to a state, though gets state support such as from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, are we proposing to destroy Islamabad or Riyadh? It is better by far to focus on the dirty work of stopping nuclear weapons proliferation.

Given the strategic failure of Trident in the face of climate change, it is hugely disturbing that the initial gate document states a primary objective of the decision to proceed with a Trident replacement is 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.”  This objective will be shared by our competing nations who also must continue to build nuclear submarines to keep their submarine building capability intact. This is the ultimate paradox; the thing that is meant to protect us has become our biggest threat. The nation states have become more concerned about the preservation of their arms industries than the security of their people. Both the UK security review of 2008 and the American Centre for Naval Assessment concluded that their biggest threat was climate change.

As a further disconnect from reality, the initial gate document states that the Trident replacement will “deliver our minimum credible nuclear deterrent out until the 2060s.” This is beyond 2050, when the planet is not expected to be habitable through global heating. If Trident is successful in preventing nuclear war, then the last survivors on the planet will be the crews of the Trident submarines and their equivalent submarines from other countries. If for no other reason, this is the strongest reason for not proceeding with replacement. There will be no intact economy able to safely decommission the submarines and these will pose too big a risk to the few survivors.

Section 8 of the Durban Platform states “Parties and observer organizations to submit by 28 February 2012 their views on options and ways for further increasing the level of ambition.”  As a party to this I would ask that by this date you raise the linkage between nuclear disarmament and action on climate change.

I would therefore ask that you submit the following proposals for submission by the above date:

1.       There is a global agreement to stop further building of strategic nuclear forces.

2.       The existing strategic forces are put under a multinational command and any country committed to greenhouse gas reductions can join this grouping and seek protection from it.  

3.       That an alternative economic system is introduced based on personal carbon rations and these are tradable within the countries committed to carbon reductions.

If you are not able to advance these ideas, then please advise what alternatives you propose that will allow the international co-operation needed to avoid disaster.

This correspondence will be made public on my blog http://kevsclimatecolumn.blogspot.com/

Yours sincerely,

Kevin Lister

BA Advert 2011, To Fly. To Serve

Is it a mere coincidence that BA launches the "To Fly,  To Serve" advert slap bang in the middle of the government's sustainable aviation consultation process?

We offer an alternative take: