Platform for the Planet

We are often told that curtailing the freedom of business is coercive and undemocratic. But by what democratic principle should corporations and billionaires decide the fate of current and future generations? When a government releases them from regulation, it allows them to determine whether other people live or die. No one elected them to do so. 

Even businesses with apparently strong credentials cannot be trusted with this extraordinary power. Take Marks and Spencer, famous for its “Plan A” environmental standards. Its goal, it says, is “to be a zero waste business across all that we do …  we already send zero waste to landfill.” But a few days ago, it commissioned a wraparound ad in the Metro newspaper, in which a video screen was embedded, promoting Christmas jumpers. The screen, battery, electronics and casing were designed for a single use. 

It’s hard to think of a more profligate form of disposability. Marks and Spencer’s defence of this disgusting waste is that “the video screens can be recycled via electrical appliance collection points”. In other words, it’s up to the people who were handed the free paper to clear up the mess the company made (not that these complex materials can be fully recycled, anyway). I expect 99% of the screens went straight to landfill.

Read the piece by Guardian columnist, George Monbiot - “Platform for the Planet.”

We Can’t Keep Eating Like This

George Monbiot - we can't keep eating like this.

Brexit; the crushing of democracy by billionaires; the next financial crash; a rogue US president: none of them keeps me awake at night. This is not because I don’t care – I care very much. It’s only because I have a bigger question on my mind. Where is the food going to come from?

By mid-century there will be two or three billion more people on Earth. Any one of the issues I am about to list could help precipitate mass starvation. And this is before you consider how they might interact.

The trouble begins where everything begins: with soil. The UN’s famous projection that, at current rates of soil loss, the world has 60 years of harvests left, appears to be supported by a new set of figures. Partly as a result of soil degradation, yields are already declining on 20% of the world’s croplands.

Read the piece by Guardian columnist, George Monbiot - “We Can’t Keep Eating Like This.”

Finally, a breakthrough alternative to growth economics – the doughnut

So what are we going to do about it? This is the only question worth asking. But the answers appear elusive. Faced with a multifaceted crisis – the capture of governments by billionaires and their lobbyists, extreme inequality, the rise of demagogues, above all the collapse of the living world – those to whom we look for leadership appear stunned, voiceless, clueless. Even if they had the courage to act, they have no idea what to do.

 ‘Billions of people still live in the hole in the middle’:
a street boy collects stones in Dhaka, Bangladesh. 

The most they tend to offer is more economic growth: the fairy dust supposed to make all the bad stuff disappear. Never mind that it drives ecological destruction; that it has failed to relieve structural unemployment or soaring inequality; that, in some recent years, almost all the increment in incomes has been harvested by the top 1%. As values, principles and moral purpose are lost, the promise of growth is all that’s left.

Read the story by George Monbiot on The Guardian - “Finally, a breakthrough alternative to growth economics – the doughnut.”

Is Elon Musk's tweet the answer? Experts divided

Twitter bet ... Elon Musk and
Mike Cannon-Brookes. 

Has the answer to South Australia's energy future been found by two billionaires making a $100-million bet on Twitter? It mightn't be so simple.

Tesla founder Elon Musk has captured national attention with a promise his company could build a massive 100 megawatt/hour battery storage facility in blackout-plagued South Australia in less than 100 days, or at no charge.

Read James Robertson’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Is Elon Musk's tweet the answer? Experts divided.”