Newsnight: 'Greens on Trial'

Just wanted to write a quick comment about Wednesday’s ‘Greens on Trial’ Newsnight special. It was a good insight into where we are.

Emily Maitlis kept calling Nuclear Power and GM Crops ‘solutions’ and accused environmentalists of being too stubborn to accept these ‘solutions’. The problem is that they are not necessarily ‘solutions’ and that was all Zac Goldsmith, Caroline Lucas et al were saying. Nuclear Power is merely a ‘response’ and not necessarily a sensible one right now. ‘It is uneconomic, unsafe and unnecessary, there are much cheaper and safer ways of generating electricity’ as the Green Party leader (Caroline Lucas) put it. Goldsmith agreed and pointed out that Nuclear cannot be up and running quickly enough and it would not be up and running at all if it wasn’t for bags of government subsidy. That money, if any exists to do anything meaningful on Climate Change, should be directed into areas of bigger priority and impact. John Sauven of Greenpeace called for this, the priority for him was CCS and Energy Efficiency.

These are excellent areas to prioritise in at the moment, but in the longer term, we need to invest in education to help people adjust to a changing world. In the next few decades oil prices are going to soar and with that the prices of just about everything else will soar. Whether we like it or not this is going to change the way we live, we need to prepare people for this and stop pretending that our current way of living can go on forever, it plainly can’t. We need to be skilling people up to build flourishing, enjoyable local economies. We need to be inspiring people and giving them the opportunity to enjoy their lives under the new conditions. The transition towns movement marks the beginnings of this, but it needs to go far beyond community gardening and plastic bag banning in small middle class towns. We need films, music, talks, books, magazines, websites, paintings, cartoons and plays that celebrate and inspire enjoyable fulfilling lives that are naturally low impact. We need to invest in these things and do them well.

Zac Goldsmith

Zac Goldsmith is on the verge of a new stage in his career, he is running for government. He also has a new book out about constant economies. He is poised to become the most influential environmentalist. On September 23rd he has a public meeting down near Wimbledon, here are the details:

23 September 2009
Public meeting Coombe Hill
Wednesday 23 September at 7.45, Coombe Hill Junior School, Coombe Lane West, KT2 7DD

Zac will be discussing:
Local Schools
Council Tax
Green spaces
Parking charges
Small Shops.. and any other issues you would like to raise, so please come along!

More details: www.zacgoldsmith.com

It should be interesting to hear what his audience there has to say. I'm going to try to go along!

PIG BUSINESS @ THE BARBICAN

Last night Emma and I shunned the Champions League final to watch a film about Pig farming. Pig Business is set to be shown on More 4 very soon. We were made to wait about 15 minutes for the film to start thanks to the company whose shocking practices were at the heart of it. Smithfield Foods are determined to stop this film going on widespread release, they have threatened the filmmaker, Tracy Worcester, with legal action over some of the claims in the film. Worcester is not phased by this and will not be intimidated by them so the screening went ahead and I hope Channel 4 are brave enough to show it too.

The film itself describes the shocking practice of factory farming that is going on in the poorer regions of the EU. The film is shot mainly in Poland where Smithfield have moved their operations after being forced out of the USA because of changes in animal welfare standards. The EU standards for animal welfare are lower than the ones we have here in the UK, yet supermarkets here are allowed to import pork from the EU, farmed by corporations like Smithfield in these horrendous factory farms. The film described the impacts that the factory farms have had on small scale, traditional farming communities: job losses, break up of community, empty fields and so on. The film has many interviews with people whose health is being effected by the gases coming out of the factories near their homes. There is one scene in which dead piglets are dragged out by trespassing protesters from a foul lagoon of pig excrement, it is not pleasant viewing. Unfortunatley, for libel reasons, Tracy Worcester was not even able to tell us in the Q&A, how it is thought that those piglets ended up there. I cannot imagine they got there legally.



There are wider implications of this film in that it exemplifies how large corporations are overpowering and destroying many ways of life. Small businesses cannot compete with the 'efficiency' of large corporations, proud people who would once have had the dignity of running thier own business are now low paid employees who have little choice but to work for corporations.

My main feeling on this issue is that the heart of the problems lies in the way we have been conditioned to expect cheap food. As was pointed out in the film and is also dicussed in Carl Honore's book 'Slow', people, fifty years ago, used to spend around 40% of their income on food, now that figure is down to around 10%. It would make more sense if it is was somewhere around 20-25%. Factory farmed pork comes cheaper than Farmer's market pork, the reason is that Factory Farms don't pay the full environmental and social costs attached to what they do. To buy non Smithfield, or non factory farmed pork, or any kind of non factory produced meat for that matter, costs more money. Being able to buy food (a basic material need) cheaply, frees up our wallets to spend a larger portion of our income on our wants, wants that have come to be perceived as needs... "I need a new top, I need some new shoes, I need Sky TV, I need that new CD etc, etc"... Buying food from farmer's markets is seen as a bit of a luxury pursuit (it shouldn't, the price differences are really quite small) that only the richer classes can indulge in.

I agree with Zac Goldsmith and the French here, I think the UK should ban imports of food that is produced using methods banned in the UK. The result would be an increase in the price of pork, a price that factors in true environmental and social costs and therefore a real price. If you then want Pork you need to make the decision whether to have an extra 4 pack of lager in the fridge or some very tasty bacon. The price of food produced in environmentally and socially sustainable ways is not too high, our expectations of how much of our income we should spend on food are too low.

Right, its lunchtime, I'm off to make a vegetarian pasta dish, because the easiest way to remove oneself from an industry that treats animals as nothing more than raw materials for processing is to not buy any of its products, ever.

Upcoming Film: PIG BUSINESS

This film looks like it might be worth watching:

Pig Business

A shocking exposé of how gruesome methods of factory farming are increasingly inflicting hidden long-term damage on public health and the environment, making a mockery of animal welfare and driving traditional, small-scale, humane farmers to the wall.

Pig Business is the result of more than four years’ fearless research across the US, Poland and the UK by passionate environmental activist Tracy Worcester, who has dedicated her life to opposing these harmful and profit-driven big business practices in food production.

Zac Goldsmith of The Ecologist will be doing a Q&A after the screening at The Barbican on May 27th, more details here:

http://www.barbican.org.uk/film/event-detail.asp?ID=8986

.....more reasons to be vegetarian.