Of the human footprint

There's much being published nowadays on the subject of the individual's footprint on the earth - that is, the amount the individual living on the earth will consume. Most recently, a TV show had a piles of all the vegetables we'll eat in our lifetime, all the cars we'll use, etc.
Image being presented: Mother Earth being looted. The BBC magazine Radio Times gave us the lesson we're supposed to take away: the earth would be better off without us.
A bit of a misanthropic tone, perhaps? And a huge value judgement, too, that the earth without reasonably intelligent life on it would be "better".
It's also one-sided. Because one could also make a show illustrating how much we all produce during a lifetime. That would show the other side of the ledger - everthing we consume has been produced by someone too - otherwise we'd never buy it. Even "free" stuff like water, has to be purified and delivered to us.
An honest review would comment that some resources are being depleted, used up. But similarly, we are also adding to a long-lasting store of knowledge, which never runs out and can be used gain and again to invent ingenious solutions to our problems.

So let's not be pessimistic, shall we?

Capitalist rip-off

Compact fluorescent light bulbs !

Not normally associated with the above term. But there's more to the subject than just a better light bulb, which, like the proverbial improved mouse-trap, should have people queueing to buy it.
So why don't they? Several reasons:
The light is less clear, and not so good for reading.
The bulb takes a few seconds to light up with full brightness.
They are larger and less decorative for ambience.

But: they should last longer and save many times the cost during the lifetime.

And they are being recommended by teh EU, which will make them compulsory.

Now, when a good idea is made obligatory, arhter than letting the market decide, one must smell a rat.
Epecially when the product they are recommending is subject to a taxon imports. The government in Brussels wants us to buy itk, but not enough to lift the tax to make them cheap.

So why do they tax these bulbs? To keep out cheap Indian and Chinese bulbs.

Who benefits? The German company Siemens, who make them in Europe and now have a 450m market to itself.

England forever !

William Pitt: "I fear not for England. She will stand till the Day of Judgement".

It was St. George's Day. I celebrated by signing an online petition for an English Parliament.

Visible at: http://www.toque.co.uk/blog/archives/2007/04/vote_england_20.php

Numberwatch

Drawing your attention to the excellent blog "Numberwatch", dediceted to the misuse of statistics and science to scare the public.
See side bar for link.
The "Number of the Month" collects the latest insanities, errors and downright lies that infest the popular press.
This month he picks apart a fancy scheme to fly wind turbines in the upper atmosphere and produce electricity that way. (Briefly, the real problem is not flying it - it's getting the electricity down the cable).
Might also be a problem with conservation of energy too - if the wind is providing enough energy to lift it, can it also be providing a surplus too?

Worth a regular look.

Girl in the desert

Another in my occasional series of "Magic Moments".
This happened 30 years ago, but I never forgot it and I swear it is true in every detail.
Three of us were camping in the Sinai desert, on the coast near Dahab. This was long ago before the tourists got to it. A mixed group - one German, one Dutch, one English.
We got up early in the morning to make a hike off road into the desert ravines and sandtone hills around the oasis. After several hours in the parched, rocky wilderness, we made our way back towards the coast and ended up following a small dry wadi down to the gritty, gravelly beach.
As we reached the level ground, we came across someone else by the path. A youngish woman, though it is hard to tell the age of desert dwellers, sat on the ground by a small shelter, barely more than a windbreak. A tiny fire smouldered in front of her, a few possessions lay behind her.
She paid no attention to us - these foreign interlopers into her world. She sat impassive, in her black and dark blue robes, a head covering hanging loosely round her shoulders.
We did not pause long. But it was long enough for the complete "otherness" of the Bedouin woman to penetrate. I realised, without words, that she was utterly different from us. I felt, bizarrely, that she was not human like us, but had grown there, out of the ground.
And then - I promise this is true - the following words came to me:
"For God has made of one blood all nations of men . . . for we are all children of Adam".

We passed on, back to the Bedouin village and the primitive tourist site where we stayed. We will never know why she was there, away from the others. But I never forgot it either.

On Moses and John Newton

The brilliant site "Ship of Fools" (see sidebar) has both humourous and serious features. Today a brief one on the slave-trader John Newton, who converted, campaigned against the trade and lived to see it abolished thanks to the activities of Wilberforce. He also wrote the famous hymn, "Amazing Grace".


Nice story it is - just one teensy-bit of a problem. Read the feature.

http://ship-of-fools.com/Features/2007/john_newton.html

Newton converted during his time as a slave-trader. But he continued in the trade for six years, and only left on ground of ill-health. During the latter years he had been a "humane" slaver, who ensured very few died. Looked after them well, except that - well, they were still slaves.

This isn't to deny his role in the campaign - he wouldn't be the first to live with a dreadful system as part of the background of life. And he did eventually see the horror and turn against it.

I am reminded of the rabbinic story about Moses, based on the text "He saw their burdens" - that is, the slaves with their labour. Of course, the rabbis do not claim this happened exactly - it is a midrash, that is, it is a parable, on change in society.
The rabbis say that his first reaction was to help the person next to him.
His second reaction was to use his influence at court to lighten the tasks loaded onto the Hebrews.
The third and final reaction was - revolution, a complete overthrow and end to the slavery of his people.

So Newton had the same experience. First, he chose not to impose tortures on his slaves, then he developed a system so that his slaves survived the Middle Passage. Finally he realised that the whole system needed to be rejected utterly.

It's a timely reminder that the situations we grow up with can all too easily be seen as "inevitable" or "the way things are". And we must be ready, eventually, to change things completely if necessary.

Easter

The excellent Archbishop Cranmer at http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/ has thoughts on Easter, not surprisingly.
Notable is the quote from Lord Salisbury (quote of a quote of a quote, actually, but this is the internet) in which he says that you can't have the Christian ethic without the Christian theology. It does out within three generations.
Generally that's correct, the first generation has both the theology, the Christian "Identity" and the Christian ethic, the second generation has the identity and the ethic, the last one wants to keep the ethic but doesn't know why.
So then we have people paying lip service to the value of charity, forbearance, duty to family and neighbours, but not really knowing why they should suffer for that. The result is the ME-ME-ME generation and instant gratification of material desires.
This is found in Judaism too. One generation has the belief, the structure of faith and the ethic, three generations later there'll be nothing left, once the original belief has gone.

But: revival is possible, even inevitable. It just won't be the same old bottles into which the new wine is poured.

Surprising

Never thought I'd quote this guy in a favourable way.

So who said this?
"To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-ridden, regulated, penned up, indoctrinated, preached at, checked, appraised, seized, censured, and commanded by beings who have neither title, knowledge, nor virtue."

Proudhon, French anarchist and left-wing theorist, better known for the "property is theft" aphorism.
Still, you recognise truth when it's stated so accurately.

Hat tip to http://www.eureferendum.blogspot.com/ for the quote.

Gospel raiment

C. S. Lewis wrote in "The Screwtape letters" that the new Christian is likely to be put off by the appearance of the people at the local church. Irrational to be so, but then the new Christian isn't at his most rational. He knows he himself looks liike everyone else, but expects the others to look more spiritual. More biblical, perhaps. Sandals? Togas? Hollywood epics?

So I was sitting at the back of the church, on Easter Day, big day in the year. People greeting each other with the words "He is Risen !". So what do they look like?

I think there were four ties worn today, including mine. With two suits, two smart blazers.
The rest?
Football shirts.
Rugby shirts.
Sloppy sweatshirts.
Windbreaker jackets.
Saggy jeans (on boys)
Tight jeans (on girls)
Faded jeans
Combat trousers.
Skirts topped with home-made cardigans.
T-shirts with logos (e.g., JC/DC = Jesus Christ/Demon Crusher)
Dresses with bright patterns (on West Indians)
Smart trouser-suits (on Pakistani women)
One set of Goth hippy gear
Mini-skirts made out of what looks like old curtain material, over tights reaching six inches below the knee.
Wide leather belts with big buckles, and lots of metal studs.
One such - proving that the Spirit can sanctify anything - has the studs spelling out JESUS in capital letters across the girl's rear.

There's a reason it's called "Non-conformist" or "low church". The unity doesn't come from external appearance.

Capitalist rip-off

The first of an occasional series.

Fair trade coffee. Not what you'd expect to see so described. But it is when sold in a cup by Starbucks or any other major chain.
So you choose to pay (say) 10 cents extra in order to help the poor people of the world.
But the poor farmer only gets 2 cents of that. The other 8 cents go to the retailer. All other costs are identical.
Of course he does this knowingly. His aim is to split his customers into those who are price-driven, and pay the basic, and those for whom a different choice will be attractive - a flavour, or an ethical choice.
There's also a paradox. If the retailer realised this and chose not to mark-up the fair trade coffee, there would only be a 2 cents differential. Customers would sniff - not very generous, is it? The difference has to be enough for the customer to think he's helping. So the profit soars. The retailer increases both sales and his profit margin by increasing the price.
Of course it does help the poor farmer in Africa. But not by as much as it helps the coffee shop

Magic Moment

Some moments in one's life are so unique, so memorable, that they stick there forever. Here's one of mine; it occurred when I was travelling.
We had been working on a kibbutz for various reasons; some were travellers, some were not, some were Jewish, most were not, some were there to see a country in the news. We were staying at a youth hostel near the village of Beit Jalla, just outside Bethlehem.
We arrived in the evening, took to our beds (and some slept outside on the ground - we were like that then.) We were due to wake early for a hike in the Judean wilderness.
At first light were were awoken and called to the brow of the hill. We gathered, bleary-eyed and gritty, yawning and shivering in the chill of a desert morning.
We then stood motionless. For the sight that met our eyes was extraordinary.
The entire city of Jerusalem lay spread out before us, across its hills and valleys. We looked down on the city on a hill, from east to west. In the early dawn light, the street lights and windows were pale and silvery in the shades of grey, which eased to black in the deeper valleys.
To the east, the right, the sunrise was imminent. The sky there glowed with a palest lemon tint, shading to blue above and darkness still to the west. Stars there may have been, but I do not remember that. I remember the city.
It sprawled across the hills, the left broken into patches of new development but the right was concentrated to a focus, an area of darker shadow, which I knew to be the walled and crowded Old City. A patch of silver indicated the small dome of the Al-Aksa mosque, the southernmost point of the Temple Mount.
Why was this fascinating and rivetting? Did I guess then that I would later realise that this view of the city is one that pilgrims from three major faiths have longed for - the first glimpse of Jerusalem? This view has inspired the Moslem cavalrymen who rode out from the desert, the Crusaders who fought for their Holy Places, the Turks who came from the north, the Israeli paratroopers who fought across it in 1967.
It was three decades ago now. I wonder how many of us that day still remember that sight?

Politicians

One measure of political interest is the willingness of voters to volunteer to work for the cause.

In France, they have a presidential election. There are huge numbers of posters to be stuck up, for all the parties, paid for by the taxpayer.
The parties could not find volunteers to do this. nor could they find a French company to do it, though the profit margin is believed to run at 50%.
So an American company is to do the job. Including the posters for Le Pen, the three Trotsyite parties and the one to the left of the Communists.

Malt whisky

Why, when I drink Laphraoig whisky, can I not smell the smoke it was made with, but I can taste it instead?

Trade Unions

Subject: do trade unions hinder or benefit the workings of a liberal capitalist economy?
On the face of it, the usual right-wing answer is , they hinder it. They impose additional costs on management, they disrupt production with strikes, they prevent modernisation by objecting to new technology.
One must also note, though, that the most successful economies are those that have free trade unions. "Socialist" countries (those with the word in the name, that is) do not have free unions, and they also are very backward technologically in the processes of industry. Oligarchies such as the former Soviet union countries are also not exactly roaring ahead economically.
So I wonder, then, whether the answer is the exact opposite.

Consider.
Before unions, wages were adjusted by the management at will. In times of slow trade, staff were laid off at will, wages cut, in order to keep profit margins at the required level.
But when unions came along, it became much less easy to cut wages. Unions campaigned for protection of employment rights, so sackings without compensation were limited by law.
Management had to manage better. They had to invest in better procedures to control stock and produce better goods. Everyone gains from that - the customer, the management, the workers.
Before unions, the usual rate of expansion in the economy was barely 2% p.a. Since then, the long-term growth rate has been higher and sometimes at 5% for years. One can't credit unions with this - technological change was a major driver. But unions keep management on their toes, keep them honest, they punish incompetent companies by exposing weaknesses.
Adam Smith's "invisible hand" at work, perhaps?
One other thing, though. Unions did make it more costly to employ staff, by reducing the rights of management to sack people at will. So unemployment has, I believe, settled at a higher rate than would have been the case.
Another consequence has been raising of the barriers to entry to a trade. Businesses need more capital to start up nowadays. So to enable the necessary competition to flourish, there has to be the capacity to hire economical workers at the price set by the market.
This means that there should be no minimum wage.

Conclusion: unions good. Labour legislation good. Minimum wage bad.

Update:
Realised later that it can be said that trade unions wanted to create Democratic socialism. They got deomcratic capitalism as well.