Environment

The politics of Cranks: a follow-up

As I said in my last blog post, after I sent an email to the Cranks mailing list we discussed the politics of Cranks in one of our bi-weekly meetings. I haven't been able to post these thoughts up sooner because I have been offline for a month building a roundhouse with Tony Wrench in South West Wales. More on that later, but for now..

The politics of Cranks

(Source)

I have been helping out in Cranks, a community bike workshop in Brighton, since last September. A few days ago I sent the email below to our mailing list about the politics of Cranks. I thought I'd put it online because it reflects some of my current thinking as well as giving an insiders view of Cranks. Yesterday we discussed some of the points in the email in a group meeting. I'll be posting in a few days some of the outcomes from the meeting and my thoughts on them.

A short history of co-operatives in the UK by Molly Scott Cato

As you can see from my last blog post I am very interested in alternatives to capitalism. Co-operativism is one such alternative. Below is a short history of the English co-operative movement from Molly Scott-Cato in her book Market, Schmarket: Building the Post-Capitalist Economy (which I have put on my list of favourite books of all time). If people are interested in alternatives to capitalism, then I would recommend reading the extract below from chapter 3 below as well as the rest of her book.

Posted in Co-operatives | Environment | Politics ed's blog | read more | 186 reads
Submitted by ed on Wed, 2008-03-05 17:54.

Co-operatives UK Congress 2007

Anyone who reads this blog will know about my obsession with co-operatives (especially workers' co-ops). Therefore, it was amazing to attend the national co-operative congress over the last 3 days. I emailed the organisers a few weeks ago telling them that I definitely could not afford the £500 they were asking for attendance by non-member delegates and pleaded with them to let me come for a reduced rate or for nothing (see my email to them at the bottom of this blog). After a multitude of phone calls, the event organiser told me the day before the congress started that it was fine for me to come for free.

Real alternatives to capitalism? A talk by Derek Wall

Below are my notes from a talk I recently went to at Sussex University by Derek Wall, Principal Speaker of the Green Party, on 'Real Alternatives to Capitalism'. The talk was very thought provoking although I do wish he had expanded on the politics and power of introducing some of the alternatives he suggested (for example, how the hell do you get from an 'exchange value' system to a 'use value' system?)

Before you read it, please note that Derek expands on the points he made in the talk in his blog post on Real Alternatives to Capitalism as well as in his book BABYLON AND BEYOND: The Economics of Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Globalist and Radical Green Movements

A middle way: the possibility of a Life Cycle Assessment tax within the current WTO framework?

(Source: here - a picture of the protests between November 29, 1999 and December 3, 1999 when the World Trade Organization (WTO) held its ministerial meeting in Seattle)

Below is my paper on the possibility of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tax within the current World Trade Organization (WTO) framework (you can also read it as a Word Document or a pdf). The first section is semi-plagiarised from one of my other papers on 'The negative development impacts of a "food miles" approach to agriculture' (I had to write two extremely complicated 5000 word papers in one month and needed to self-plagiarise), but the rest is new. I ended up getting an A- grade for the paper. The comments that I received from the two professors who were marking it are at the bottom of the page.

Posted in Environment | Politics ed's blog | read more | 1017 reads
Submitted by ed on Mon, 2007-05-07 18:08.

What do I want to do with my life? 4 potential directions

"Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer." - Henry David Thoreau

"We think of self-control as something that limits freedom, but in fact it’s just the opposite: the true freedom of the sailor is taking the helm of his boat and sailing in the direction he wants to go, thus being the master of his destiny." - Matthieu Ricard

I have been unsure for quite a while about what I should do with my life when my course finishes in September. I am especially worried about where I will work and live. To try and bring clarity to my mind, I have written down four potential directions that my life could take and the reasons for each one. Some of the options are not mutually exclusive, and hopefully I will be able to find some form of synergy between them, for example by working part-time within an agricultural workers' co-operative. As always, suggestions, criticisms and life lessons are welcome from anyone who comes across this:

Notes from Climate Change Conference

(Source: Dr Esteve Corbera's slides - see below)

I never got around to putting up the rest of the slides and papers from the climate change conference on the 18th November 2006 at Sussex University. So, for everyones benefit, here they are:

Slides by Dr. Jim Watson (from SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex) on Micro-generation: generating energy in the home

Posted in Environment | Politics ed's blog | read more | 490 reads
Submitted by ed on Wed, 2007-01-31 20:32.

Relocalisation and deindustrialisation literature

Please find below the notes on the relocalisation and deindustrialisation of agriculture from my recent term paper. In the end, I had to cut few thousand words of arguments surrounding the potential positive impacts of relocalisation from the paper. Therefore, I have put them below. I must warn you that not only are they in note form but that almost all of the points made below are extremely contested within their respective literatures. I have not presented the arguments from the other sides here.

Introduction

There is a vast literature that states that a relocalisation and deindustrialisation of agriculture is needed to reduce carbon emissions. For the purposes of this blog, I will touch briefly on the work of Dr. Vandana Shiva, Jules Pretty, Via Campesina, Tim Lang, Caroline Lucas and Mike Woodin. I will also outline some of the authors other arguments used, many of which are similar, for a relocalisation and deindustrialisation of agriculture. I will only be able to mention a few different areas which these authors cover: environment, concentration of power and ownership (and the importance of local communities), output efficiency of smaller farms, protection against fluctuating global prices, domestic food security and reconnecting people with land and nature.

Posted in Environment | Politics ed's blog | read more | 1695 reads
Submitted by ed on Sat, 2007-01-27 14:38.

The negative development impacts of a "food miles" approach to agriculture

UPDATE: I am putting the feedback from my two examiners near the bottom of this page. In the end, one professor gave me an A for the paper while another gave me a C! They couldn't agree on what mark it should get and so it then went to an external examiner who gave me a B+. I definitely agree with one of the professors who said that the paper could have been more academically concise and rigorous. To be honest, I didn't have time to polish it. However, many of the key ideas and concepts are in the paper. I might rewrite it at some point in the future if I have the time.

I have also added some text immediately below to expand on some of the points I make introducing the paper.

Posted in Environment | Politics ed's blog | read more | 5172 reads
Submitted by ed on Sat, 2007-01-27 14:20.

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