I remember exactly where I was on 11th September 2001. I had taken a day off work and travelled to London with my friend Tim. We were just outside the ExCeL Centre, the exhibition space that was hosting DSEi, an arms fair. A particularly tough-looking set of riot police had lined up six deep shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the crowd we were with, most of us in white overalls. It was looking like it was about to turn ugly. 

The Copenhagen summit on climate change is drawing to a close, an exercise in legitimation for the world’s governments. The facts of climate change are but one strand to a wider problem that goes beyond any kind of agreement on the tricky issue of emissions. The root cause of the worsening state of the environment on which we depend is too many people consuming too much. It is in our nature to reproduce; it is in our nature to be ambitious and acquisitive beings. The debate stops abruptly at the point where those labelled as various stripes of green advocate a radical reorganisation of our entire global society and everyone else stays in denial, either by simply ignoring the problem or getting angry at what should by now be obvious. None of these people are helping.

The juggernaut of our collective manifest destiny that is lurching to this precipice for our species goes way, way back. Back before access to abundant energy in the form of oil caused our present population spike. Back as far as when we first began to spread across the planet and started to change the environment we inhabited to make survival a little easier, day-to-day and generation-to-generation, unable to have the foresight to understand that eventually this would have far-reaching consequences for the biosphere.

It has become a serious problem since the exploitation of abundant and accessible sources of energy in the 19th century was responsible for an explosion in human population numbers, a growth rate of such rapidity and enormity that 150 years later the species is left in what looks to be an increasingly precarious situation. We have an economic and political situation that is reliant on finite resources for growth, but encourages such growth in the face of irrefutable logic that counsels otherwise. The debate around the effects of human beings on their environment is pressing yet is at a level that seems absurdly myopic to the key feature of our predicament, one of too many people. It doesn’t matter whether we become more efficient at using what we have, or whether we develop new technology to deal with problems we’ve already caused. If the population keeps growing, or even if it stabilises at some future point, the consequences are still the same as we can expect the majority of people to desire ever higher standards of living in the form of the ability to overconsume.

Those who haven’t got past the primitive notions of religious tenets as a meme for tribal survival most frequently advocate unfettered expansion, an attitude that belies a hideous cruelty to those not fortunate to be born in the wealthier parts of the world. The crunch, when it comes, will be felt by those least able to afford it. But what of the more enlightened movements of our age? How do they perceive this problem?

One way to get a rough idea of the priority with which mainstream pressure groups view a particular topic is to perform a site restricted search on Google for the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘overpopulation’.

The keywords ‘climate change’ appear together over 27,000 times across these 8 sites. ‘Overpopulation’ in the context of human overpopulation is mentioned a total of 4 times. This looks like not so much a case of emphasising one issue over another but of deliberately ignoring a major issue that is seen as problematic to address. Government isn't interested and neither are human rights groups, despite population size being a significant pressure on resources.

Greenpeace: climate change (6,480) / overpopulation (0,001)
Oxfam: climate change (6,150) / overpopulation (0,000)
Friends of the Earth: climate change (4,490) / overpopulation (0,002)
WWF: climate change (4,130) / overpopulation (0,000)
defra: climate change (2,860) / overpopulation (0,001)
People and Planet: climate change (2,590) / overpopulation (0,000)
Amnesty International: climate change (633) / overpopulation (000)
Green Party: climate change (511) / overpopulation (000)

Greenpeace UK’s tagline is: “Providing solutions is just as important as identifying problems”. Except when the problem is so massive and unpalatable to a donation-funded pressure group they’d rather ignore it. The same goes for Friends of the Earth: “Making life better for people by inspiring solutions to environmental problems”. Friends of the Earth mention ‘overpopulation’ on their site four times, excluding forum mentions, with two mentions being directly relevant. One is a motion to the board from September 2008 from a local group calling for “the promotion of the stabilisation, and ultimately the reduction, of the human population; both within the UK and, via the Friends of the Earth International network, globally, in line with depleting natural resources”. The motion was denied. The reason for the denial was the same as given in the other mention which is part of their FAQs. The reason given is that they do “not believe that population growth is the main cause of environmental pollution. The richest 20% of people consume 86% of the Earth's resources and have the lowest birth rates”. Incredible. Their reasoning is therefore that we have to reduce consumption, which I would argue requires not only a complete change in the way global society presently operates but a complete change in human consciousness. I am not saying I don’t find this desirable; it is more that I think it highly unlikely to happen.

These groups would ask that you do not stick your head in the sand over the issues they care about yet are quite happy to ignore the size of the human population as having anything to do with the issues they supposedly wish to solve.

We can conclude that these groups will only push things so far. They are happy to accept financial support from their members to campaign on issues sufficiently abstract that it does not require change to the lifestyle or thinking of the general populace. Recommending actual solutions such as changing your diet or choosing not to have children will not be contemplated as a position that will prove acceptable to the continuing survival of the organisation. If this is the best we can expect from campaigning groups then the chances of most of the population alive today surviving and perpetuating themselves are vanishingly small. None of this is about ‘saving the planet’. It has always been about ‘saving ourselves from ourselves’. The Earth will endure even if we pass.

The human mind represents the pinnacle of evolved information processing ability in the universe; from the big bang to big brains. The destiny of such a feat of complexity does not lie in the drudge labour of hand-to-mouth survival or of a ghastly fate from preventable disease, nor should it fall prey to petty ideological squabbles or a poverty of imagination as to the path we travel through our days. The challenge we face in our time is to elevate our perception, not to raise the population. That necessity is obviously long gone, the aberration of our recent explosion in numbers would be horrifying if we could perceive it over a longer timeframe than the snapshot our threescore and ten grants us. Irony of ironies, the very act that once ensured the survival of the species now edges it closer to destruction.

Good post on Bristling Badger about the weasel words being used regarding attempts to reach some sort of agreement to manage climate change and the futility of such agreements under the present system:

"An economy based on growth will increase total consumption and so rapidly eat up any carbon savings from reducing 'carbon intensity'. Basing any agreements on carbon intensity is a guarantee that we will not reduce carbon emissions."

In other news oil is on the up-and-up and nearing $80 a barrel. A leak from 'whistleblowers' at the International Energy Agency say that their reassurances that global production can reach 105m barrels a day is impossible; in fact we're past peak and the ongoing fabrication is due to a desire not to trigger panic on the markets. The UK government bases its energy policy on figures from the IEA. In other words successive administrations would rather make believe the problem doesn't exist and pay this ever-growing elephant-in-the-room forward. You can download a report from the UK Energy Research Centre that says there is a significant risk of terminal decline in production before 2020.

Between climate change and our out-of-control use of energy use we're about to hit ever more interesting times. Preparedness will be essential in the years ahead.

Terrible article over on The Guardian about the recent protests in London. Not only is it poorly written it reveals the insulting contempt those in power have for the right to protest. No great surprise as any act of protest is, of course, a challenge to their 'legitimate' authority. So bad is this article I've actually had to pull it apart as there are too many points to easily roll into a neat flowing post.

"Untrained officers must never again be put in the frontline of policing public protests… some inexperienced officers, who were clearly quite scared, used ‘inappropriate force’."

Define 'untrained'. Untrained to do what? Deal with members of the public? Deal with a large crowd? This notion of inexperience is a get-out, pure and simple, to put the blame on an understandable human reaction such as fear to explain what were pre-determined police tactics to suppress dissent.

"Their inquiry also calls for the police to seriously consider whether they can continue with the use of tactics such as kettling and the controlled use of force against those who appear hostile..."

What the hell does "seriously consider" mean? Surely the police should be told that the use of kettling against citizens who are exercising their democratic rights is illegal as is the  meting out of pre-meditated beatings to anyone who is thought to deserve it. Unfortunately this segment is not a direct quote and demonstrates the problems with relying on a journalist's take on what has been said.

"... film footage of those incidents shocked the public and have the potential to undermine trust in the police... the ability of the public... to monitor every single action of the police through... mobile phones and video equipment means they have to take even greater care to ensure that all their actions are justifiable."

Here's the nub of the issue. Up until fairly recently it was common for the media to report on protests by quoting the police as saying one thing and the 'organisers' saying another, e.g. the often wildly differing accounts of the number of individuals involved in a demo. This makes it easy to obscure the truth of what went on under the weight of tit-for-tat claims. Video footage of stony-faced officers dressed in riot gear using the edges of their shields to smack people in the face who can't move due to the crush of the crowd doesn't need a few hundred words of copy from some paid hack to muddy the waters of what actually happened. That said, the ability of the public to watch the watchers shouldn't be the determining factor in ensuring that the police don't abuse their power.

"The MPs repeat their belief that there are no circumstances in which it is acceptable for police officers not to wear their identification numbers and urge those who consciously remove them to face the strongest disciplinary action."

So, how many investigations are in progress regarding such incidents? How many officers have ever been disciplined for removing their numbers? Is it a tactic that a blind-eye is turned towards or are certain officers advised to do so by their superiors? What does "consciously remove" mean anyway; is 'forgetting' to wear your numbers therefore an acceptable excuse? The language used in this article makes it sound suspiciously like this MPs inquiry has precisely no power to get the police to do much of anything.

"He (Commander Bob Broadhurst) said there were 2,500 officers who had only two days of public order training a year and the vast majority of whom had never faced a situation as violent as the G20 protest before."

Are we to simply accept without challenge his assessment that this was a violent situation and that such violence as occurred was not as a result of police tactics such as kettling? Apparently so.

"Denis O'Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary is considering whether to endorse a 'human rights-based' approach to policing advocated by Sir Hugh Orde, the incoming chief of the Association of Chief Police Officers."

This says it all. Yes, I would consider that the police, who are there to serve the public, should base their approach on the ways it is decent and proper to treat reasonable people who are going about their lawful business. The worst of it is that amid the death of one person and the beating of others the actual issue of that day doesn't even warrant a mention. Which is all very convenient for MPs who would rather not debate why it is thousands of people are out on the streets demonstrating.

Update: The article referred to above makes it pretty clear that the Police would like to blame  inexperience for their use of violence. This article says that:

"The officer under investigation over the death of Tomlinson was a constable with the force's Territorial Support Group (TSG), the specialist unit used at protests. The officer under investigation for assaulting two women at the protests, including protester Nicola Fisher, was a TSG sergeant."

Ah. So they weren't inexperienced, untrained officers who meted out the worst violence we heard about on the day then? They were in fact members of the Territorial Support Group, which, according to Wikipedia, replaced the Special Patrol Group, members of which allegedly beat an Anti-Nazi League protestor to death in 1979 during a demonstration. Some might say this an unfortunate parallel. I would say that this quote from the aforementioned Wikipedia article sums it up:

"One ex-Metropolitan Police officer suggested that TSG members, 'spend (their) days waiting for action and far too many officers join seeking excitement and physical confrontation'. Some officers are ex-military personnel and these are 'the worst bullies' as 'the laws of the battlefield are not appropriate to the streets of our capital'."

Surely this is one of those cases where actively wanting the job should disqualify you from getting to do it. Much like MPs in fact.

Apparently MPs knew this was coming down the pike for a good few years. If I was a third party who, in the public's eyes and apparently also in their own, don't stand a chance of getting into power I might have had the foresight to do the honourable thing and not claimed expenses en masse. Then when the two main parties impaled themselves on this issue I'd have made damn sure that being unimpeachable we'd have ridden this all the way to the next election. Jon Snow posts on his blog that:

"According to one of my well-informed sources, David Cameron’s greatest fear about this continuing crisis is that a credible group of people will come forward and form some sort of party that will contest the next election on the basis of campaigning for one term only, to clear out the current sleaze, institute wholesale parliamentary reform, and then leave the field."

A credible group of people... the Lib Dems should be kicking themselves that this group isn't them.  Nick Clegg's defence of Andrew George looked pretty weak as well it might from someone who was rinsing the system as much as possible.

The Guardian reported that the Metropolitan Police said protests on 1st April would be "very violent" and that they were:

"... up for it, and up to it."
Metropolitan Police, quoted in The Guardian, 27th March 2009

There I was thinking that their role was to protect the public, not to take on an antagonistic stance which could be argued leads to an attitude where you perceive the people you serve as 'the enemy'. When you give a person power with the knowledge they almost certainly won't have to answer for their actions, give them a club,  a mask and turn them loose on the streets there are likely to be terrible consequences. This video shows Ian Tomlinson being assaulted from behind by a police officer. He died minutes later.

Update: here is an excellent post that puts the above in the wider context of police tactics.

1 original comment:

Spot on Mark.
We have witnessed our human rights get stripped off of us in the last 20 years or so and up until Obama brought some sense into the US, our governments were routinely using so called evidence gathered during torture sessions to convict people behind closed doors and without access to legal representation.
The (Met) Police never seem to learn that we pay their salaries and hence they are ultimately answerable to we the People. Steven Lawrence & Ian Tomlinson RIP.
To end on a positive note: at least we live in a society where we can expose the underbelly of the Beast.
Comment by Ifraz — 23 April, 2009 @ 10:05 am