Leaves caution behind

I was rather astonished recently when I read the Guardian’s notice of the death of Harry Patch, the last surviving British veteran of the First World War.

Astonished, because it contained this memorable – and very moving – disclosure about how he had lived and fought:

He was in the trenches at Ypres between June and September 1917, where he and his gang of five machine gunners made a pact not to kill an enemy soldier if they could help it: they would aim for the legs.

The same report quoted the chief of staff of the British Army, Richard Dannatt, saying: “… we give thanks for his life … for upholding the same values and freedom that we continue to cherish and fight for today.” I cannot held wondering whether Dannatt would really approve of contemporary soldiers undertaking pacts not to kill the enemy. Frankly, I doubt it very much.

Harry’s pact reminded me of an article I read in the New Yorker a few years ago, about the effects of the Iraq war on its veterans. That article, The Price of Valor, by Dan Baum (July 12, 2004), described an extraordinary and appalling turn in modern military history: the point at which a modern army realised that humanity is no asset in combat, and set out to kill it in its troops. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Stephen,

I refer to your latest column (Finweek, August 27, subscribers only, 700MB pdf), and wish to challenge some of your contentions.

“It’s beyond belief how many events and dangers can now be laid at the door of climate change brought on by man’s emissions of noxious fumes into the atmosphere.”

I would agree, but must assume from the context that what you in fact meant was, “It’s beyond belief how many events and dangers are being laid at the door of climate change brought on by man’s emissions of noxious fumes into the atmosphere.”

If the fumes we are emitting into the atmosphere, are indeed, as you say, “noxious”, surely that’s a good reason to stop emitting them?

“emissions by cattle are greater than those of all human activity”

a) Is keeping cattle not a human activity?
b) Do you have a reference from a peer-reviewed scientific journal for this fact? (I have seen reputable references (the FAO) to cattle producing 18% of human activity related greenhouse gases, but certainly not for cattle producing over 50% of these gases, as you suggest.)

“floods are natural”

Not necessarily. Not that this directly relates to whether or not global warming is real, or if so, caused by human activity, but floods are in fact very often Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a calculator for working out the impact of your flights on the planet.

According to this calculator, a flight between Cape Town and Johannesburg – a frequent Incite trip – produces approximately 120 kg of carbon dioxide. A return trip would use 240 kg. But you can’t calculate the impact of flying by the mass of CO2 produced alone. One has to account for radiative forcing, which increases the climate impact of aviation by a factor of 2.7, according to the IPCC.

Bear in mind that to be properly sustainable, we should all be producing little more than one tonne of carbon dioxide annually.

Though the South African per capita average is around 9 tonnes per person, middle class folks like us probably use something closer to the 18 to 20 tonnes per person of people in the US or Australia. It seems that a single return trip to Johannesburg consumes most of our annual capacity for sustainably trashing the climate.

Estimates on the impact of flying do vary wildly. One carbon calculator I looked at even suggested that the consumption of 120 kg of jet fuel could lead to the production of over 300 kg of carbon dioxide. Which rather defies the laws of physics. Climatecare allows you calculate your impact, and purchase offsets all at once.

So what’s your annual burden on the planet, in tons of aviation CO2, and how often do you buy offsets?

Despite the fact that the warnings raised by the science of climate change are unfortunately becoming more stark, and despite the fact that they’ll affect us more directly here in Africa and South Africa than in many developed countries, we have yet to see the issue make it onto our newspapers’ front pages in quite the way it has in the United Kingdom, thanks to these pioneering front pages from The Independent.

The humiliating thing about depression, when it shuts down your ability to work, is not being able to explain why you can’t work.

“It’s like there’s this glass wall between me and my computer.”

“It’s like trying to hold together the south poles of two strong magnets.”

“It’s like trying to commit suicide when you’ve forgotten to take off the bungee cord.” (Phew, that analogy came steaming out of the dark side.)

None of this would make sense, I suspect to many people. But then many people also do not understand that there is a huge difference between being depressed and being absolutely miserable. I rather enjoy being miserable Read the rest of this entry »

The ancients believed firmly in omens, a belief which need not be interpreted in supernatural terms. It is often said that animals flee in advance of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. In Australia last week, it seems animals reacted as distinctly to the extraordinary heat that heralded the country’s awful fires. Reason no. 762 to take climate change seriously: a love of small, furry creatures. From the Sydney Morning Herald: The end of climate certainty | smh.com.au

When hundreds of small, grey-headed flying foxes began falling from the sky at Yarra Bend in suburban Melbourne, for some it heralded the awful events that would later unfold. It was Wednesday, January 28, one day into the ferocious heatwave that would wax and wane before returning with terrible intensity last weekend.

That first day, calls began pouring into Wildlife Victoria. As the bats were dying en masse in the city, ringtail possums were falling out of trees in the bush and distressed kangaroos, too weak to jump, were baulking at fences.

Yesterday, the Guardian published a story describing how Jim Hansen, the renowned NASA climate scientist, has called on President-almost-post-elect Obama to take decisive action on climate change in the next four years, arguing that we have almost run out of time.

“We cannot afford to put off change any longer,” said Hansen. “We have to get on a new path within this new administration. We have only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take the lead.”

Hansen said current carbon levels in the atmosphere were already too high to prevent runaway greenhouse warming.* Yet the levels are still rising despite all the efforts of politicians and scientists.

A friend has noted that an overwhelming number of the commented responses to the Guardian article deny the existence of climate change, and wonders if the apparently high number of sceptics is reason for those of us who believe urgent action is necessary, to despair. But are there really that many climate sceptics out there?

What do you think? Are climate change denialists just a very noisy minority, or are opinion-leaders seriously out of touch with the feelings of ordinary people on this issue?

UPDATE Tuesday 20 Jan: My goodness, this post has been an interesting experiment. Looking at my stats, 90% of the clickthroughs arriving here have come from what we might call a, um, distinctly climate change sceptical website. Apologies, everyone, btw, I’m going to be offline till Sunday, so won’t be able approve comments till then.

* Runaway global warming refers to secondary warming processes set in play by the primary process of carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere. For example, higher temperatures can increase the number of forest fires, which in turn pour more CO2 into the atmosphere. Another example: the permafrost in the Arctic Circle is beginning to thaw, releasing locked-away CO2 and methane, which is a greenhouse (warming) gas many times more potent than CO2 itself.

I have in the last few days had an exchange of thoughts, impressions and views on the Gaza crisis with a Jewish friend in the UK. We’ve not actually seen each other in the flesh for over five years, so have taken special pains to avoid Read the rest of this entry »

The plan is for the flying car to descend on African villages and for the team to challenge the inhabitants to a game of football before flying out. “I cant wait to see their faces,” said Laughton.

So the days of imperialist gits eager to polish up their egos by boggling the natives with gadgets are not yet over. Wankers. I would say that I’m grateful at least that they’re not trying to deliver democracy and peace through the barrel of a gun. But since one of them is former SAS (UK special forces), he’s probably already had a go at that.

Sorry if this post disappoints anyone just hoping to end their commuter torments, but the persistence of attitudes that were supposedly dead with the ostensible passing of empires irritates me.

And now for something completely different.

Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, who has written in the Guardian of the effects of Israel’s policies and attacks on Gaza.

“I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line.”

“Gaza, however, is not simply a case of economic under-development but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods. The development of local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.”

“In Gaza, the Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land and the lion’s share of the scarce water resources.” Read the rest of this entry »