Letters to the Editor
So What Now?
8th November 2024
I always believed holding conferences calling for reductions in Oil consumption in countries floating on the stuff was crazy, so when a conference on Biodiversity was to be held in the most diverse country in the World, surely this time it was going to go right ? Wrong!! Everyone wants Climate Change and Loss of Biodiversity to stop, but only if someone else pays for it.
“A Matter of Life or Death” was how the situation was described by Colombian President Petro at the start of the conference, speaking of the 73 percent decline in the planet’s Wildlife population in less than 50 years. Nor are the deaths reserved to wildlife, as a result of the nation’s efforts to curtail illegal logging there were 79 murders of indigenous wildlife defenders in Columbia last year, 40percent of cases worldwide. The biggest problem is the reluctance of the rich nations of the North to pay their share. A package of $20 billion promised by 2025 has so far raised a mere $163million, a drop in the ocean compared to the United Nations estimate of $700billion that will be required to properly manage Diversity and halt its present World destructive decline. Think that sounds a lot ? It’s actually less than the USA spends each year on military spending in support of actions like Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian arabs, in short the richest Nation of the Western World spends more on the murder of Mediteranean Arabs than preservation of the World’s essential Biodiversity.
But just because the USA is the largest player in the game does not make it the only one. Biodiversity is the variation in natural resources that creates the world conditions that all life relies on, and our blind assumption that it is someone or something else’s problem to provide it is no longer valid. It manufactures the air that we breath, it creates the conditions that supply the food that we rely on, the movement of the atmosphere carries water vapour to the places where for millennia we have been supplied with water to drink, it is a global phenomenon that has across the entire planet been the controlling feature creating the conditions for life in all its unbelievable variations to exist and interact. And for generations the human race has been altering those conditions and diluting that diversity for reasons that we believed were to our advantage, without really understanding the implications of what it was that we were doing, so we have now stretched the limits of that biodiversity to beyond its capacity to recover without drastic action to help that recovery. Recovery that has to be paid for, despite the reluctance of the World’s bankers to open their coffers to the World in the interests of mere survival, because survival is the end game of this present crisis, like it or not.
Whether Great Britain is any better than the rest of the Western nations we shall hear when we are given the reports of our Representatives at the COP, Environment Secretary Steve Reed and Nature Envoy Ruth Davis.
C.David Foulstone
Rotherham Green Party
Cop 16, Cali, Columbia.
1st november 2024
What should I do, when my dismantled soul
Gives unto God my character and worth?
If when He’s read the script, ask’s “This, the whole?”
“Away! Heaven is those who bettered Earth”
(William Dowsing. circa 1912.)
Starting last weekend, over 23000 pre-picked Delegates from most of the World’s countries descended for 2 weeks on the little town of Cali ,in Columbia, for the 16th COP.CBD, the 16th Conference on Biological Diversity. This meeting is really a continuation of the ground breaking 15th. conference in Montreal, and the presentation there of the Kumming-Monreal Global Diversity Framework containing the groundbreaking “30 by 30” pledge (30percent of the World’s Sea and Land areas to be protected for Nature by 2030). This COP was intended as a review of the progress made towards the implementation of the 2022 pledge, but the prognostication is not good, only 10 countries having so far presented their promised Action schedules.
This COP , unlike other broad scope of other COPs, focuses specifically on the “silent crisis” of biodiversity loss, the need to protect the natural world and halt the present destruction of critical ecosystems, and to do that we have to understand precisely what Biodiversity is.
Biodiversity refers to the variation of life on our Planet and the way it underpins the natural resources life is dependent on, the air we breath, the security of the food and water we rely on, the access to natural landscapes and the rich diversity of species on the planet we rely on for our continued existence. And all this diversity, including your own continued existence, is in critical danger. There has been an estimated 79 percent loss of species since the turn of the century,and even now we estimate a million species of plants and animals are in imminent danger of extinction, the largest loss of life since the dinosaurs. It is this diversity of species that keeps nature in balance, that is the natural defence against climate change,and it is significant that this years biodiversity COP is taking place in the country with the highest diversity on the entire planet, 55percent of this moderately sized country is forested, 300 species of animal, 1000 species of birds,400 orchids, distributed across a Nation with every form of environment and climate in the world, divided not by area but height, wth feet in both the Atlantic and the Pacific and its head in the 5000 metre high Andean peaks. And all this ripe for destruction by the World’s desecrators, the Oil cartels, mining companies, deforestation giants, and their enablers the financiers and world banks, already hovering like the vultures they are around the Nations resources.
Our representatives in this Jungle. Environment Secretary Steve Reed and newly appointed Nature Envoy Ruth Davis, have a massive job to do, let’s hope the tasks they have been given are the right ones and that they are equal to the task.
C.David Foulstone
Rotherham Green Party
Less than a Week to go
25th October 2024
It was only after reading my Diary yesterday that I realised how both Politically and Environmentally important this November is.
In less than a week from when the “Advertiser” reader buys this paper, we will have the Autumn Budget, the first real, definitive indication of whether we now have a real people’s Labour government, or a sham 2nd league Conservative one that has usurped the Labour title to gather a bundle of votes they didn’t deserve. Only when we have read it, and digested the small print that Chancellors use to sneak round what looks like good news in the headlines. will we know, and only time will tell us what this Government is really made of.
Already started on the 21st. October and running through to the 1st. November, the 16th U.N. Biodiversity Conference in Cali, Columbia. Although little advertised, this is almost certainly the conference upon which the survival of our planet depends. Scientists reckon there are 8.7 million species living on our earth, of which only a quarter are documented, and each one has a specific purpose in the planet’s survival, but as a direct result of our actions they are being lost at a rate of up to 10 thousand times their natural rate of extinction, so many that some ecologists are claiming it the start of the 6th.Mass Extinction crisis. Our one species is absorbing 25 percent more of the planet’s resources than it can replace, and this discrepancy Must be reversed if we are to survive. In a letter some 4 weeks ago Adam Laycock alleged that God had told him the Earth would end in 20 years from now. I know of people who agree, not because of any act of God but purely as a result of our own unrestrained actions.
The United States Presidential Election starts on the 5th. November ’24. Whatever opinion you have of what many call Donald Trump’s disastrous last term in office, or of the almost unknown outside the USA, Kamala Harris, there is no doubt that this is the closest Presidential campaign ever, and everyone predicting total mayhem after, with neither side conceding victory and both claiming vote rigging by the other. And this the most politically and militarily powerful nation in the world?
Lastly, from the 11th.November to the 22nd., in Baku, Azerbaijan ( another venue virtually floating on oil), the 29th.COP on Climate Change. At the last COP, delegates were outnumbered 2 to 1 by Fossil Fuel salesmen, and throughout the series the COPs have been dominated by representatives who gave stirring speeches on the need to curtail oil use and pollution, then went home and did precisely the opposite, but this time it’s different. Global warming is beginning to bite, and the World is really beginning to show that we are reaching the end of the line, So everyone please hope and pray that at last we have an international conference that performs as it should, and delegates that return home and live up to their Word.
Finally on a personal note, can anyone really tell me what “Wokeism” is? I know what “Woke” is, it’s US/African slang for being woken up to the world around you, and “being Woke” is obviously being awake, But “Wokeism” as a word just doesn’t work, unless of course it was just invented to be used as an insult by someone too ignorant or idle minded to think of a proper one. Never mind !
C.David Foulstone
Rotherham green party
Still Three Weeks to Budget Day, and the Jury’s on its way Back
4th October 2024
Our new Government’s apparent method of saving money by killing off us Geriatrics is gathering momentum even before the Budget, but as promised I’m still awaiting the final death knell before making further comment. However I have to register my extreme disappointment at the response of my new Rother Valley MP to the pensioners’ recent demonstration against the Fuel Allowance cuts outside his Constituency office.
My wife and I have lived in Rotherham for some 24 years now, during which time we have been represented by MPs from both ends of the political spectrum, and who have both during their tenure had to deal with active protesters, But this is the first time to my knowledge that any such protest or demonstration has been met by having the door slammed in their faces. If this is to be the attitude of our new Government to any future disagreement, then I fear instead of the change being the breath of fresh air we hoped for we have merely swapped one catastrophe for another.
C.David Foulstone
Rotherham Green Party
Ways to fill the Government’s financial “Black Hole”
27th September 2024
Thinking of ways to fill the Government’s financial “Black Hole”, besides robbing pensioners with incomes over the Universal Credit Limit of their fuel allowances, and using the Government’s figure of £1.3 billion saved by the cutting of the Winter fuel allowances, I’ve come up with a few ideas .
Let’s start with our Billionaires. A 2percent wealth tax on Jim Radclffe (sounds familiar?, think fracking and plastics) would raise £470 million, and on all our billionaires a total of £1.6 billion. We’ve exceeded our winter fuel saving cut already
Excess Profits tax on Energy Companies. A similar 2percent tax on Shell and BP alone could raise £1.4billion, not counting all the others.
Closer to home, our MPs have just been awarded a £5000 a year salary increase,( and that’s just the basic sum, those with the titles of Minister, Chancellor, Secretary or Chairperson get far more). A 50 percent reduction of that increase would save another £1.6 billion, and would hardly be noticed on top of the £86400 basic pay plus increments they were already getting.
Then of course we have Mp’s and Ministers Expenses. The list of outgoings claimable by MPs etc.as expenses, but regarded by us ordinary mortals (including pensioners) as day-to-day household and work outgoings, is legion, but just by way of an example our new Chancellor, Rachelle Reeves, the promoter of the pensioners allowance cuts, was in 2019 paid the sum of over £214000 in expenses, and in 2023 claimed the sum of £3700 for the heating of her house in London alone, rather more than the pensioners £300 allowance, and in those days she wasn’t even the Chancellor, just an MP and the chairperson of some obscure Parliamentary committee
Hang about, that’s just the elected members, what about the salaried professionals. Sally Gray, senior Aide and advisor to Sir Keir Starmer, has just been awarded the record salary of £170000, so she could afford a bob or two.
Mind you, her salary pales into nothing compared with that of Sarah Bentley, who recently resigned from Thames Water after it was revealed that under her leadership the reported leaks from the system had been the highest ever. Her salary including incentives and bonuses was reported to have been £3million.
As I wrote a few weeks ago, Britain is awash with money, it’s just all in the wrong places
C. David Foulstone
Rotherham Green Party
The Jurys still out, but not happy
20th September 2024
Keir Starmer’s new Labour Government is, I read, continuing his assault on pensioners. After winning the vote on restricting the Winter Fuel Allowance, albeit with a number of revolts and abstentions, they are now considering cancelling pensioners free Bus Passes and, a far more damaging assault on the over sixties right to life, pensioner’s Free Prescription Charges.
A greater threat to this nation’s wealth and survival is however their decision to join the Trans Pacific Trade Pact, the CPTPP. The same objections as when the last Government applied still stand, firstly that we already have better trade agreements with the Pacific nations with which we do business, secondly it is estimated that trade within this Pact will benefit Britain’s trade balance less than 1 tenth of 1 percent, but thirdly and most dangerously, it will be signed with the pact’s integral ISDS clause still valid, which means that any refusal by us to accept inferior imports to the detriment of this nation’s farming or manufacturing standards could be met by £multi billion enforceable damage claims from the Trade Pacts ISDS kangaroo courts. Whatever advantage membership of the CPTPP is to Keir Starmer’s Labour Government, I see no advantage to the ordinary British citizen, his business or his welfare.
C. David Foulstone
Rotherham Green Party