Michael Meacher - Labour's Future

The latest scientific reports all continue to confirm not only that climate change (or more realistically climate chaos) is happening, but that it is happening significantly faster than previously predicted.

More intense storms and consequent floods, landslides, and tropical cyclones will become more frequent. Higher temperatures will cause sea water to expand and some ice cover, including most mountain glaciers and parts of the Greenland ice sheet, to melt. Rising sea levels will threaten many of the world’s most populated cities such as New York, London, Shanghai, Jakarta, Bangkok, Bombay, Manila and Buenos Aires. They would also threaten river delta areas, home to more than 1 billion people. And even a mere one-metre rise in sea-level would devastate as much as 30% of the world’s total cropland.

Higher temperatures and severe heat-waves will increase deaths from heat-stroke, particularly among the elderly and urban poor (as already happened in France and Britain 2 years ago). Hotter climates will cause many disease-carrying insects, most obviously the malarial mosquito, to multiply because they thrive in warm conditions. A recent report from the London School of Hygiene calculated that of ten of the world’s most dangerous vector-borne diseases – malaria, schistosomiasis, dengue fever, lymphatic filariasis, sleeping sickness, Guinea worm, leishmaniasis, river blindness, Chagas’ disease and yellow fever – all but one will increase and extend their range.

Global eco-systems are already threatened and will become more so. Given only a slight warming of tropical waters, coral reefs, which harbour two-thirds of marine fish species and which provide the very foundations of many nations’ diet, face disaster. The vegetation of a third of the world’s forests is expected to undergo major changes. By 2050, tropical forests are predicted to die back in many regions, most notably in the Amazon Basin. Similar trends will increase the occurrence of massive wildfires threatening several of the world’s temperate and coniferous forests.

All these processes are already well in hand. But by far the greatest danger for the future is the potential for sudden climate flips, where steady warming suddenly creates a tipping point where massive change abruptly occurs. There are several such possible triggers. One is the thawing of the Arctic permafrost, which could release a seventh of all the carbon stored in the world’s soils. Another is the release of the methane hydrates on the ocean bed which are thought to contain 10,000 billion tons of carbon, making them one of the largest reservoirs of fossil fuels in the world. A third is the risk to the Gulf Stream which provides northern Europe with its mild climate. The higher temperatures rise, the greater the risk that the Gulf Stream will shut down, which would make the northern European winter climate comparable to Siberia. If the thermohaline circulation which supports our present climate did in fact close down, as it could well do later this century, it would be impossible to feed and sustain current population levels.

The effects on human societies, even without these runaway feedback effects, will be drastic. The Red Cross estimates that a million people have been killed by extreme disasters such as droughts, cyclones and floods over the last decade. Hundreds of millions more will in future be displaced by drought, crop failure, flooding and sea-level rise, and become environmental refugees – perhaps six times or more than today. Scientists from Southampton University recently estimated that climate change will lead to an additional 170 million people living in severely water-stressed areas by 2050, with very serious consequences for human health and survival.

Three sectors within the global economy will be particularly devastated as climate change steadily progresses. Tourist activity around beaches and resorts will be hard hit by rising sea-levels, fresh water shortages, salt water intrusion, increased storms, unbearable summer heat, and the arrival of new deadly diseases such as malaria and even by locust swarms. Commercial forestry will be severely affected by increased forest fires, and commercial fisheries by increasing acidification of the oceans. But the industry with the most to lose from climate change is insurance. A couple of massive storms in the wrong place – for example major cities on the US mainland – could wipe out the world reinsurance pool of $200-300bn, and because insurance companies are major investors in corporate stocks worldwide, the effects on the global economy could be devastating.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 07:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

There is a new mood in the parliamentary Labour party. Following last week's government defeat, a great deal more has changed than just the terrorism bill. It isn't only that the marketisation of health and education services cannot now be carried through parliament in its present form because of resistance far beyond the usual suspects. It is also clear that, on the party and union side, the multiple defeats of the platform at Labour's annual conference and the rejection of the leadership's candidate for general secretary betoken a new spirit of independence.

Tony Blair last month told the PLP he wanted a downgrading of union voting rights at the party conference from 50% to 30% (15% has now been trailed) - after the leadership had been defeated on housing, employment rights, health service privatisation, solidarity action and pensions. So the view was taken: if you get the wrong results under the current rules, change the rules. The fact that these votes might be seen as a legitimate expression of disquiet does not seem to have been seriously considered. In fact, the clash between two utterly different, and probably irreconcilable, concepts of governance is coming to a head. Tony Blair thinks his role as prime minister is to come to his own decision on the big controversial issues and then pass this down the line as instructions for others to follow. His colleagues, supporters and voters think they should be listened to first - and the sign of being listened to is that policy changes are sometimes made - so that the final decisio n can carry within their ranks. This clash will dominate the rest of the Blairite era.

It touches every aspect of the political scene. Nearly a fifth of the PLP did not support the government in the recent vote because the backbenches had made it clear that the definition of terrorism was drawn far too loosely and that the case for 90-day internment without charge had never been made and would be counterproductive in discouraging the Muslim community from coming forward with the crucial intelligence. But their protests were swept aside.

This failure of consultation is most notable in the highly idiosyncratic line now being taken over health and education. New Labour's idea of health service reform has been to expose an integrated public service to the business-marketplace model. The private finance initiative has been vigorously promoted even though it has proved far more expensive. Foundation hospitals have been introduced to enable NHS hospitals and primary care trusts to operate like commercial companies. Independent treatment centres are now cream-skimming standard low-risk surgery. And commissioning of services is now being transferred to GP fundholders, re-introducing the Tory internal market that was abolished seven years ago. Strong objections to all of this from backbenchers and a host of NHS professionals have not been listened to at all.

The same pattern is manifest in the new education white paper. This is set to re-introduce selection because there will be no requirement on popular schools to allocate places randomly or to admit balanced numbers of children of differing abilities, and will re-introduce in another form the pre-1960s secondary moderns. Trust schools will be run in conjunction with businesses, charities and private schools, outside any local authority supervision balancing up provision between schools, and before the new city academies have had a chance to show if this private-sector involvement works. Blair has decided that, as with previous consultations (such as over GM food), near-universal public resistance is no reason not to go ahead.

It is particularly sad when he breaches the criteria he himself uses to justify repudiation of party policy - that it is outcomes, not whether it is public or private sector, that matter. That's fine for him when extending private-sector encroachment into health, education, pensions and criminal justice. But when that involves embracing the public sector - restoring the railways to public ownership because the performance is better, or giving local authority tenants the same rights to housing repairs and improvements as tenants hived off into the private sector - he vetoes it. Again he puts his personal ideology before very clear public and party preferences.

Two issues take this pattern further. Despite the energy white paper that proposed no new nuclear build, Blair has himself reneged on his own government's policy of two years ago by proclaiming a return to civil nuclear power. It is also widely believed that he has taken the decision to replace Trident, though it is highly questionable whether a non-independent British nuclear weapon still serves any useful purpose, and no parliamentary debate has so far been allowed on this.

There is an element of Greek tragedy in this. It is not that Tony Blair is being obstinate - rather, he is an authoritarian by instinct and believes that his will should prevail at all times. Nor are opponents seeking to pick a fight - they simply demand to be properly consulted. The room for real dialogue is now becoming dangerously small.

Posted by Michael Meacher at 07:02 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)