Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou....

I am returning to blogging a little earlier than planned in part because since my last post at the end of August, the Total Politics magazine and website has announced its blog awards for 2011. These are voted for by its readers and set out in a wide range of different political categories.

After just one year of proper blogging, I am chuffed and more than a little surprised that Viridis Lumen has done really well:

 -  3rd Place in Top Green Blogs category
 - 15th Place in Top Green Bloggers category
                                                       - 33rd Place in Top Leftwing Blogs category
                                                       - 64th Place in Top Leftwing Bloggers category

So I wanted to give my very profuse thanks to any and all who voted in any or all categories.

It was also cheering to see other good leftwing Green blogs doing well:

Derek Wall's Another Green World came 2nd in the Green Blogs and also Green Bloggers, and 27th in Leftwing Blogs; while Martin O'Beirne's The Ecosocialist came 13th in the Green Blogs and Martin himself came 49th in the top Leftwing Bloggers. Other left Greens like Jane Wilkinson also did well, while Bright Green Scotland and its writers featured across several categories.

Geographically closer to home for me, Kirklees Green Council Group leader Cllr Andrew Cooper saw his Greening Kirklees jump up a good few places (symbolised in his blog by a certain brand of soft drink): Andrew is one of a growing but still relatively small band of Greens who have exercised executive power in local government, having been a successful Cabinet member for housing. His blog is well worth a look at for its posts about a range of topics but with a focus on his work on Kirklees Council - where his efforts have been instrumental in implementing a number of practical and effective green initiatives, copied and claimed by others near and far - imitation is indeed the best form of flattery.

So thanks again to anyone who has voted, and thanks for reading. If you've not visited some of the other blogs listed above or in the right side panel, please take a look when you've some time - they give a wide range of progressive and green perspectives on politics, the world and life in general.

As for me...onwards... :)

FILM: A Shared Earth?

The Earth is our home, the only place we have. But, as the film "Home", which is presented in full below (93 minutes approx - please click through to Youtube), powerfully demonstrates, it is in deep peril because of our activities. As a result of our desperately wasteful use and destruction of our resources, our unfair distribution of the planet's wealth, and the global warming that is driven by our ludicrous release of massive quantities of carbon into the atmosphere, our only living environment is at serious risk of becoming uninhabitable.

"Home", directed by French photographer and environmentalist, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, is beautifully filmed. It is as fine an exposition as could be made of how our planet works, how life evolved and how human activities have severely damaged the delicate balance between air, water and life, to the point that our ability to survive socially and even biologically is now in imminent jeopardy.

Arthus-Bertrand's profession as an aerial photographer is evident throughout and the rich colours and sweeping visual panoramas give "Home" a stunning impact, reinforcing both the beauty of our Earth and the dangers it faces. Yet it merely hints at some of the real issues driving the problems - it notes that 20% of the population of the world use 80% of its resources; 2% of the population own over 50% of the wealth; and half of the world's poorest people live in resource rich countries - but it avoids any consideration of how or why these iniquities have come about. There is some sacrifice of accuracy for image too - for example, one scene on over-fishing shows African fishermen standing round a pile of fish, almost implying it is their fault - there is no mention of huge factory ships from industrialised nations that can take more fish in a single catch than some Pacific nations manage in an entire year (for more click here). "Home" touches on the need for greater sharing of resources, but it fails to explain how, nor does it examine or expose the system - capitalist free markets - that has driven us to where we are, the edge of our own extinction.

This is perhaps not entirely unsurprising - because in the very first frame, a range of corporate logos drift into view - Gucci, YSL, Puma and others - the subsidiaries of the conglomerate PPR, which financed the film. The logos twist and turn to form the film's title, a highly counter-productive intro which belies the powerful content of the production. Yet whatever their motive, it is to PPR's credit that they funded this movie, which goes far beyond the flaccid muddle that was Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth". But by ducking the key issue of how to transition to a sustainable society, it represents only the first steps on a much longer journey.

There is not the space to continue that journey in full here, but within the Green movement, more and more are arguing that environmental sustainability and social justice are inextricably linked - if the planet's limited resources are to be stewarded sustainably, they need to be shared fairly, and capitalism simply cannot deliver this. Please see the review of Derek Wall's "Rise of the Green Left" (here) for one treatise on potential ways forward. Both he and others increasingly coalesce around the ideals of ecosocialism.

This term remains very broadly defined, but essentially values the sharing of resources, emphasises greater economic equality, and shifts resource ownership towards co-operatives and mutuals. It prizes long-term planning so we think about the next several generations of people as opposed to the next few years of shares dividends. By advocating legislative and social action to change our economics, ecosocialism begins to move towards a situation where, rather than being forever pushed to strive for, buy and consume "more", people can be genuinely and happily content with "enough".

Here are some links to ecosocialist blogs, websites and videos.

Blog - The Ecosocialist

Blog - Another Green World

Video - Ian Angus on Ecosocialism and Climate Change

Video - Bill McKibben on economic and climate justice
Web - Green Left (Britain)
Web - Green Left Weekly (Australia)
Web - Nordic Green Left (English language site)
Web - Climate and Capitalism

Web - Ecosocialist International Network

Web - Ecosocialism Canada

And here is "Home", our planet Earth.

                     

Book Review: "The Rise of the Green Left" by Derek Wall

Derek Wall is a former Speaker of the Green Party of England & Wales and a key proponent of the growing ecosocialist movement which is the subject of his book, "The Rise of the Green Left". He teaches political economy, but this is no dry academic text riddled with political theory. Rather, it is a cri de coeur, with a vital analysis of the problems confronting the planet as untrammelled capitalism hungrily gobbles up our biosphere, spreading the poisonous profits it generates so unequally that billions either go hungry or compliantly join in the rape and destruction of our living space, buying into the lie that their hard work will eventually be rewarded.

Derek Wall contrasts the long term sustainability of the shared Commons, written about extensively by Elinor Ostrom, with the inherent need for capitalism to create goods which become obsolete sooner and sooner, either via technical breakdown or aspirational shifts in fashion. The corollary is the burgeoning waste of resources even at a time of rapidly increasing resource scarcity - something which does not alarm capitalism given that it thrives on scarcity.  Capitalism is driven by a mechanism that ignores morality - even superficially "green" initiatives such as growing biofuels for American and European cars in Colombia are shown to have involved armed gangs torturing and murdering local farmers into selling their lands so that traditional, sustainable pastures could be destroyed and replaced with alien, but profitable, biofuel crops. There are echoes here of Joel Bakan's psychological diagnosis of corporate capitalism as essentially psychopathic.

The Commons approach of sharing, in sharp comparison, reduces waste massively and conserves resources, encouraging a socio-economic system based on co-operation and sufficiency as opposed to competition and endless growth. Viewing people as part of Nature rather than either somehow apart from or in dominion over it, ecosocialism seeks to synthesise the most vital aspects of both ecology and socialism, with the inextricable symbiosis between social justice and environmental sustainability emphasised and illustrated again and again.

This is an important document for anyone interested in how green politics can deliver a truly different society and provide an answer to the claim that there is no alternative to capitalism. It challenges socialists to consider the need for sustainability in their thinking about social change. And it challenges the green movement, positing the need for a more coherent ideological narrative to underpin the authentic concerns of many of those involved. Greens who argue for individual or local action alone miss the point that, for example, even if every American citizen took every step argued for by Al Gore in his Inconvenient Truth film, this would achieve barely a third of the required reduction in US carbon emissions. "Lifestyle change is not enough; deeper structural change is needed."

Collective, worldwide action is vital - this timely, highly readable and usefully engaging tome sets out some of the paths we can take towards a far happier world. Tracing the thinking behind a sustainable and just human society back as far as Marx and Engels, the book charts the progress of ecosocialism to date. Latin America is a particular example to the world; but the book also looks at developments elsewhere, including the rise of ecosocialism within green and left political parties like Die Linke in Germany, and the establishment of the global Ecosocialist International Network. It highlights practical soldairty between movements in different parts of the world, such as combined action between Peruvian trade unions and British climate change activists following the Bagua massacre in 2009.

Derek Wall argues for an inclusive approach, embracing a diverse range of strategies and tactics and a wide range of thinking. The leap from where we are now to where we need to be is substantial, and so a welcome segment of the book covers possible transitional steps, such as progressive mutualisation of the economy, land reform and conversion of military production to peaceful and renewable purposes. He explicitly rejects the narrow dogmatic purity that so often stymies the Left, though equally cautions that political parties and individuals within them risk being seduced by power and so absorbed into the mainstream, neutralising their capacity to effect real change. Constant self-challenge and renewal within radical movements are important in order to effectively tackle wider societal issues.

With a global reach, it is an urgent but optimistic manifesto for positive ecosocialist change. The final chapter sets out a range of resources and channels, worldwide, providing a practical basis for ecosocialist action that can really work for planet and people. Essential reading for anyone who wants to work for a new world.

The Rise of the Green Left - Inside the Worldwide Ecosocialist Movement

Derek Wall ISBN: 9780745330365    Published by Pluto Press (link)

Planet of the Apes (The Hairless Capitalist Cut)

"Planet of the Apes" (1968) was a deeply satirical film about the decidedly non-Simian society that was the 1960s USA and, by extension, the western world at that time. While its liberalism was smuggled in under gorilla and chimpanzee masks to the ignorance (in more ways than one) of its lead actor, right-wing Republican Charlton Heston, its theatrical release brought a paean of praise for more than its groundbreaking special effects. Released at the height of the Vietnam war, both the original film and its first sequels ranged over a range of subjects including civil rights, nuclear war and religion. 

Planet of the Conservatives

At the core of the Apes mythology is as fine a demonstration as any celluloid production could capture of a deeply conservative society (the Apes) confronted by, but desperate to avoid, the truth of their origins. The leader of their Police State is the autocratic Dr Zaius, ironically titled Minister of Science & Religion, or, as Heston's character Taylor derides him, Guardian of the Terrible Secret. Taylor does not initially know what the Secret is, but it is clear throughout that the apes, however superior they are to the humans, fear homo sapiens as inherently destructive and threatening to their kind. An area of the planet known as the Forbidden Zone is a wasteland, but according to Zaius was once a paradise, ruined by humanity.

Now, a mere 43 years later, comes the prequel, "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", currently doing the rounds in cinemas. Again using state-of-the-art special effects - the Ape actors no longer wear masks but have their Simian appearances grafted on by virtue of CGI - there is more emphasis on adventure than the original, but the film does retain a significant chunk of the earlier films' commentary on human society, albeit less satirically. Set in a near-future San Francisco, the lead character is a genetic scientist seeking a cure for brain diseases like Alzheimer's by experimenting on apes. He is funded by a multinational corporation which repeatedly puts profits first and last, regardless of the consequences.

As with the original movie, the subservient place of animals in our thinking and actions is highlighted by the disposable approach taken to their welfare and lives in our human-centric world. This was evidenced strikingly enough in the original film by the topsy-turvy planet where the human astronauts found the tables turned on them - in the prequel, it is by necessity more blatantly exposed through the animal experiments in the genetics lab and then by the caged zoo apes that are liberated when the newly-empowered primates make a break for the woods.

Like much science fiction, the Apes series is at its best in its fictional observation of the real society and world we occupy. As highlighted elsewhere in this blog, we are harvesting our global resources to extinction - capitalist consumer society is putting immediate, short-term profit for the rich ahead of any need to conserve our biosphere; the manufactured needs of humanity - created and marketed by faceless corporations that function as if on an amoral, profiteering autopilot - drive all other considerations aside; and cash-driven science justifies all manner of cruel experiments on animals, including apes, in the name of human progress. 

In the midst of this hubristic attempt by humans to ape the gods, our environment is poisoned as carbon emissions continue to rise unabated; most humans live in dire poverty and, often silently, thousands upon thousands of species are driven to human-induced extinction at a rate unprecedented in history. Included in this destruction are the Great Apes themselves - the Mountain Gorillas in the Congo, caught in the midst of a human war zone are reduced to barely 700 in number; the orangutans in Indonesia are seeing their forest habitat destroyed for logging and to farm palm oil plantations for western cooking, energy and cosmetic products (Dove Products being among the worst offenders). With chimpanzees and bonobos hunted for bush meat, if any real Planet of the Apes were actually possible, it would be effectively knocked on the head by the likely extinction of apes, at least in their natural habitat, by their human relatives in the coming decades.

Perhaps the most galling thing though is that it does not need to be like this. Even with our growing population, humanity has the ability to live at peace with ourselves and our planet. There is enough to go round without destroying our own habitat (and ultimately ourselves) and those of other species. Our problem is not fundamentally with scarce resources, but rather how we use and distribute them, the gross inequality and the short-termism that infuse our socio-economic systems. If we challenge these and work for more co-operative, socially just societies, it will mean a radical change to how we live, but the world that emerged would be far happier for all the Earth's inhabitants - perhaps most especially for us. But until then, with our current rapacious ways, humanity faces little but a very bad press should any other intelligent species stoop to consider our legacy in the future.

The closing scene of the original Planet of the Apes is one of the iconic moments in cinema history; but in case you haven't seen it, there are no spoilers here other than that it neatly summarises all the moments of comment on the human condition that have gone before. Equally powerful though is the penultimate scene, where a captured Dr Zaius asks Chimpanzee scientist Cornelius (played by the late Roddy McDowell) to read a passage from the Apes' Sacred Scrolls to explain to the stranded astronaut Taylor why he has so long feared his coming. The passage begins, as this blog ends, "Beware the beast Man..."