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Imagine

Imagine if the land and housing in Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Essex, the East Riding of Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Cumbria, and Durham was entirely wiped out by flooding.*

That’s what Pakistan is dealing with, 1/5th of it, “ravaged by floods

“The water was up to my neck, then my nose, I only survived because our men took me by the arm and lifted me up,” she told me. “We walked for two hours like this. Ever since the running away my belly has hurt all over. I don’t know if the baby inside me is alive or dead.” Saeed Bibi from the Punjab

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Meanwhile the hottest weather on record in Russia has wiped out ONE THIRD of their grain crops.

They’ve had to impose a ban on grain exports, which will raise prices across the world, hitting the poorest, hardest.

That previously linked article comes with a handy explanation on how both are caused by a shift in the jet stream, the instability of which has been linked to climate change:

“The World Meteorological Organization says this “unprecedented sequence of extreme weather events … matches IPCC projections of more frequent and more intense extreme weather events due to global warming.”  NASA says July 2010 is “What Global Warming Looks Like.” ” (source)

Even the DAILY FREAKING MAIL has changed it’s stance to ‘global warming is happening, and it is our fault

Donate to Pakistan relief efforts, because you should. Donate, because you can. Donate, because this will soon be us. Donate because Western lifestyles have contributed directly to this. For whatever reason, whatever you believe, please, reach out, £5, whatever you can. Donate.

And all this comes as the so-called ‘green’ Coalition government are side-stepping their promises on climate change action, including an incredibly damaging broken promise RE power provision, and the mooted selling off of our conservation land and country side. Not only will reneging on green policies like this mean being hit severely by EU penalties, if the coalition government carries on like this a greater cost will soon be at their feet. The sooner and better we act, the lower the human and monetary cost the world is hit with. The later and more half heartedly they act, the greater the risk that  it’s not long before we won’t have to do any imagining.

*that’s one fifth of England, mind, I don’t know how many counties there are in the UK. Also, it’s 1/5 of counties, not of land, I did try to pick coastal ones, as we’re more likely to be affected by storm surges and sea level rises. They’re also mostly low-lying. But I will freely admit this may not be exactly 1/5 of land or population. I hope you accept it as a quick way of making a point, if not, feel free to do the maths and I’ll happily amend it.

[images off the BBC, via the linked articles, I always try to use CC images, hopefully these will be seen as ‘fair use’ as quoting the referenced articles, however I will take them down if wished]

Posted on 21 Comments

Don’t Let Them Get Away With It

I'M SO POOR I CAN'T EVEN PAY ATTENTION

Image shared on Flickr via a CC licence by Russell Higgs

Edit: I also recorded a slightly abridged version of this blog (with pretty moving pictures) which you can listen to on Youtube, click here.

This is just a quick blog post, I’m not sure what difference, if any, it’s going to make, but I have to say this, if at the very least to have somewhere to point people so I don’t have to keep on repeating myself.  Warning: may contain anger.

The Tories are going to break our economy. They’re going to dismantle all that is admirable about our state in the false name of saving money.

The Tories, aided by the centre right Lib Dems, are going to tear the heart out of our country. Because they have never needed one, because they can’t conceive (for the most part) what it’s like to be anything but supremely privileged.

And they’re going to do so whilst skipping along to the tune they have a lazy, complicit, right wing media parroting ad nauseum; ‘this is Labour’s fault’ ‘in the current climate’…

Since when was applying market values to education and health provision ever a good idea? How is that working out for the US? We need expertise, and we need efficient, competent services. Market capitalism brings us to bust, or it provides us with a service at the lowest cost. How much is your health, how much are your children worth?

When did we all forget that this was a global financial crisis? Or did I hear wrong, did it not hit the US (well known for their incredibly profligate education and health provision) just as badly as us, and everyone else? When did we forget that it was Cameron and Osborne’s pals the de-regulated (hello Thatcher) bankers that got us here? When did we forget that the NHS was founded in the largest period of national debt our country has ever known?

Fallacy number 1:

‘This is down to years of Labour’s Profligacy’

Did you know that public spending (as a % of national income) in 1999-2000 was the lowest since 1957-58?

Public spending 1950-2010Source (PDF)

There was pretty much a similar degree of fluctuation over Labour’s terms in power as have been going on since 1950, notably with a large injection of cash following 2007 in order to stop the bottom falling out of our little capitalist world. So, y’know, probably forgivable.

And you know what? I am happy for public spending to rise.

“Estimates from the Office for National Statistics suggest that public services have improved considerably over the period from 1997 to 2007 with measured outputs suggesting a one- third increase in the quantity and quality of public services” Source (PDF)

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