two short pieces

1. IT’S WIN, WIN FOR SOME!

RUTH RICHARDSON looks at who’s making big money out of those privatisation deals

The departure of Emma Harrison, the Prime Minister’s former “family tsar”, amidst allegations of fraud, focused attention on the huge contracts being handed out to companies carrying out public works.

Emma Harrison’s firm A4E was responsible for implementing the now infamous “welfare-to-work” programme. The company headed by Emma and James Harrison earned around £11 million last year wholly from the provision of public services.

PRIVATE… BETTER?

The mindset that private profit-making firms perform better than the public sector in many areas is one that both New Labour and Conservative governments have adopted in recent years. Last year Oliver Letwin told a think tank that the public sector needed “fear and discipline” instilled into it.

Meanwhile, an article in the Observer last month focused on who were the big earners in five areas of public provision; welfare being one of them. Other areas were prisons, health, schools and higher education.

PRISONS:

The UK has a greater proportion of prisoners in private hands than anywhere else in the world. It will be no surprise to Clarion readers to learn that the firm G4S (formerly Group 4) leads the way, with its CEO, Nick Buckles, earning £1.4 million in 2010. Twelve prisons have been transferred to private hands in recent years, and a further nine are out to tender.

HEALTH:

The creeping privatisation of the health services has been the subject of a number of articles in the Clarion. The Observer article highlighted the transfer of Hinchinbrooke Hospital to a company called Circle Healthcare in February, making it the first private firm to deliver a full range of NHS hospital services. The deal was worth one billion pounds, and the company’s CEO, John Griffiths-Jones, took home £2.62 million in 2010.

EDUCATION:

In education, private firms routinely provide many services such as supply teachers, ICT, grounds maintenance and “enrichment courses”, often in music or the arts, where teachers lack the necessary expertise. Breckland Free School, opening in September, will be run by IES – a Swedish company. Parents are quickly realising that managing free schools needs a measure of professional input, and a number of companies are ready to jump aboard. One such company, Wey Education, is quoted as saying that it saw an opportunity created by “the deconstruction of the education function within local authorities”. Pearsons, publishers of the Financial Times also provides educational services including the exam board Edexel. Pearsons’ CEO, Marjorie Scardino, was paid a salary of £969,000 in 2010, plus a bonus of £1.6 million.

UNIVERSITIES:

In higher education, provision through the private sector is perceived as a very real threat. At present there are two private universities in the UK. One of them, BPP University College gained almost £2 million in Government loans. BPP is owned by an American company, Apollo Inc., and its CEO, Carl Lygo takes home a modest salary of £500,000. Meanwhile, our public universities have suffered an eighty per cent cut to teaching grants and have to look increasingly to the private sector for funding. Some academics fear that this may compromise their independence to run the courses they choose.

POLICE..??

At the beginning of March, the Guardian led with a worrying story that there were secret plans to privatise the police force. Already private security companies are taking on many duties once performed by the police. We await developments.

Of course Tory ideology says that private is good whilst public is bad. Is that because of principle or is it because it provides rich pickings for the “haves”, including the Government’s cronies? With private firms, of course, the bottom line is always profit. And never mind the quality. After all, where’s the profit in public service service provision?
RR

2.

This sporting life: THE OLYMPICS: A TARNISHED IMAGE?

When the Olympic Games were revived, towards the end of the 19th Century, the founders had a vision. The Olympics were to demonstrate that peace and fellowship could grow through sporting contests embracing athletes from across the globe.

So where did we go wrong? Why has nationalism, and big business, become embedded so deeply in the very soul of the movement?

It may well have started with the Berlin Olympics in the 1930s – which was staged as a showpiece for Nazi ideology. In 1948, in a war-battered London, the Games put on a very different face. They were labelled “the Austerity Olympics”. Once again, the original ideals of the movement was forced to the fore. Britain won few medals on that occasion – but that wasn’t the point. Those who flocked to the sporting events, or followed the occasion through newsreels, newspapers or the wireless, enjoyed every minute of it.

Now the Olympics are back in Britain again. We’re all being exhorted to support “TeamGB”. After all, it’s our patriotic duty. Sponsorships from inappropriate business corporations multiply – and the whole event will take place in conditions of top security. Demonstrations are to be banned, and precautions include talk of a possible missile intercepter.

A site in East London was chosen, on the grounds that it was an area of urban decay – and, it was claimed, the games would bring regeneration and prosperity to all. Never mind the fact that there was already a community there. The community fought back – but housing and local amenities that were seen as irrelevant were swept aside, to make way for the glitzy Olympics infrastructure.  425 tenants of a local housing co-op found their homes being compulsorarily purchased, and they were dispersed into alternative accomodation across London.

Just to share out the pickings, contracts and sponsorships have been dealt out to many who surely must have friends in high places. Otherwise why would the contract for printing tickets go to a company in the deep south of the USA? Don’t we have printshops of our own?

Other dubious sponsorships include those given to BP and Dow Chemicals. Dow Chemicals bought the firm Union Carbide in 2001 – the company responsible for a toxic gas leak at its plant in Bhopal, India, which led to massive contamination and the death of thousands. Whilst no-one is suggesting that Dow, the present company, was directly responsible, it still has a responsibility. As Amnesty International says “when Dow bought Union Carbide, it bought liability for the Bhopal disaster.”

Gimmicks such as the decision to have the Olympic torch carried across the country by a motley team drawn from across the country won’t save these tarnished games. Big business and politics have taken over, all neatly packaged in the Union Jack.

FOCUS ON IMMIGRATION

The Truth behind the headlines: 

RUTH RICHARDSON examines the rival claims on the impact of immigration on jobs,

On January 10, headlines in the “i” newspaper read “Immigration has no impact on employment”. The following day the Daily Express’s front page declared “Migrants do take British jobs.” Even allowing for the different political perspectives of the respective newspapers, this seems a contradiction too far.

What confused the issue was that there have been two recent reports on immigration that appear to be in conflict on whether there is an association between inward migration and rising unemployment. The report by MAC (the Migration Advisory Committee) seems to suggest such an association. But to quote MAC’s chair, David Metcalf, “there is some displacement but it isn’t huge, and it doesn’t happen in buoyant economic times.” Moreover, evidence of competition for jobs is confined to the skilled sectors, which suggests that immigration is not a factor in the recent rise in youth unemployment.

The other report, by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) concludes that immigration has had little or no impact on employment.

DIFFERENCE IN DATA:

So, why the difference? Mainly, says MRN (Migrant Rights Network), the two reports used different data sets. The MAC report used labour force survey material which extends across all eleven regions of the UK. The NIESR on the other hand used data from National Insurance number registrations, which provides more detailed material on people moving to the UK to work. This methodology enabled researchers to look in detail at smaller areas, giving their study more focus and accuracy.

The MAC report points out that there are many more aspects to immigration than the impact on the jobs market. In devising an immigration policy the Government needs to be clear on whose needs and interests are being prioritised. The well-being of the resident population in terms of public finances, housing and transport should be the focus, says MAC chair, David Metcalfe.

RESEARCH – AND BIAS:

Both the MAC and the NIESR are respectable research bodies which seek to present their findings accurately and without bias. However, in searching the internet for background to this story, I came across the website of Migration Watch. Set up about ten years ago, this organisation sees itself as a watchdog to guard against the UK being “swamped by immigrants”. Visitors to the website are invited to sign an e-petition to keep the UK population below 70 million. I found particularly unpleasant a section called “reports” which contains short news stories concerning anything that shows an immigrant in a poor light. Daily Express readers will find all their prejudices confirmed here!

Immigration Minister, Damien Green, says “this Government is working to reduce net migration… controlled immigration can bring benefits to the UK, but uncontrolled immigration can put pressure on public services, on infrastructures and on community relations.”

SAD:

Personally I find it sad that it is taken for granted that any immigration policy we devise should only be for the benefit of the UK. Surely as one of the richer countries in the world (even in these straitened times) we could see it as our duty as citizens of the world to welcome those who need a haven. Economic migrants are not evil. They simply want a better chance in life for their families. Don’t we all?

I found the stories behind the headlines of the Express and the “i”  quite complicated and the reports needed careful reading. But it was a salutory lesson in how facts can be plucked from their contexts to give credence to a pre-determined view.

STORIES FROM THE EAST END

Everything Happens in Cable Street, by Roger Mills (Five Leaves Publications, £8.99p IBSN 978-1-907869-19-8 )

As someone who had lived in East London all my working life, I was immediately drawn to Roger Mills’ excellent new book, Everything happens in Cable Street.

In most people’s minds the words “Cable Street” evoke that famous battle of 1936 when Mosley’s Blackshirts were turned back. Roger Mills includes the preamble to the battle, some interesting first hand accounts, and refers to the battle as the focus of a number of community events since that time. But the bulk of the book paints a picture of life and the changes wrought in Cable Street over the past fifty or so years.

“A HUNDRED CABLE STREETS”:

This is a kaleidoscope of a book, a procession of colourful characters and creative endeavour that have ebbed and flowed in Cable Street. Roger Mills writes, “it was as if there were a hundred Cable Streets, so different were the stories.” Included are a large number of transcripts of interviews made in 1979, 1986 and 2010.

Many of the earlier interviewees were first generation British and were Jewish, of eastern European descent. Others were Irish Catholics. The interviews depict a hard life, mostly in the 1920s and ’30s, but a life with a great sense of community.

Later interviews tell of changes that came post war. “In recent years evil and unscrupulous men have moved in with their all-night cafes and their brothels making life hell for for the decent people who have to bring up children in the midst of all these horrors,” wrote Joseph Williamson, a priest quoted by Roger Mills. Father Joe, as he was known, Edith Ramsay, a Labour councillor, and others did much to highlight the deplorable conditions in Cable Street in those years and gradually slum housing was demolished and the worst of the clubs and brothels were closed down.

A FLOWERING OF CREATIVITY:

Parallel but intertwined with the stories of people in Cable Street is the exploration of some of the creative endeavours in which the author was involved. The formation of the Basement Writers in 1973 was a springboard for creative writing of all kinds. Pamphlets, micro-books and comics were produced, and writing was shared at meetings in the basement of St. George’s Town Hall. An original group member wrote that they had a do-it-yourself aesthetic. The group began to expand and perform their work, featuring poetry, song and knockabout comedy.

The setting up of THAP (the Tower Hamlets Arts Project, involving Thames Television) was another scheme to encourage creativity in drama, photography, painting, film music writing and publishing. The scheme lasted a year, but it spawned a bookshop and publishing house which, through a couple of transformations, runs today as the “Brick Lane Bookshop”.

“Cable Street on Film” is another section of Roger Mills’ book. “To Sir With Love” is probably the best known film to be shot in Cable Street but a number of others are mentioned. “Tunde’s Film”, born of the Basement Film Project in 1973 was very much a community production. It was written by local boy Tunde Ikoh and co-directed with Maggie Pinhorn who brought professional expertise to the project. the author and actors were all taken by Maggie to the film’s showing at the Edinburgh Festival.

There’s more, much more, in this book. There’s the story of the mural of the  battle of Cable Street, the creation of the Community Gardens and a visit to Wilton’s Music hall, saved from demolition but held up with acro-props. And there are many other captivating stories.

For anyone who is interested in social history, and particularly in community involvement, Roger Mills’ fascinating book is a must. If you have a London connection, that will add an extra dimension to your enjoyment.

Reviewed by RUTH RICHARDSON

“HOME SWEET HOME”?

In a capitalist society, “markets” decide what kind of homes (if any) are available to us. Surely there must be a fairer way? RUTH RICHARDSON looks at the options.

We usually associate vast areas of tents with short-term solutions to natural disasters. But in the USA, where more than five million homes have been repossessed in the last five years, tent cities have sprung up around conurbations which house millions of homeless people.

An article in a recent issue of Red Pepper magazine by Stuart Hodkinson argues that in Britain “all the elements of a perfect storm are gathering in the wider housing system”. In the five years to 2009 repossessions in the UK had increased eight-fold, to 48,000. For many people, repossession of their home means a worsening credit rating, so that getting back on to the housing ladder is difficult. The Government’s homeowner support scheme (giving support for up to two years to those facing a loss of income) was closed down in April.

SLUMP IN NEW HOMES: Since 2006 house building completions have slumped to their lowest level in 90 years. Although house prices have fallen by 25 per cent in the last three years, for most first-time buyers on an average income, owning their own home remains an impossible

dream. The days of 100 per cent mortgages are well and truly over. The average house price (currently £226,648) would need a £60,000 deposit and a salary of £56,000 plus.

What about renting? The local authority waiting lists have doubled since 1997 to around five million. And increased demand for private rented accomodation has caused rents to rise considerably.

Stuart Hodkinson’s article gives a historical perspective to the current situation. Engels, 140 years ago, wrote that sub-standard housing for many with, periodically, a wider crisis is endemic to capitalism. Council house provision gained ground from the beginning of the last century. A mixed economy of public and private home-building (with priority given to council housing in the years immediately after the war) helped to mitigate the boom-bust cycles since the early 1970s . But the reluctant withdrawal of local authorities from house building has increased the instability of the housing market.

BURSTING THE BUBBLE: Thatcher’s policy of “popular capitalism” encouraged us all to aspire to home ownership. The combination of extravagant lending, speculation and most significantly the financial commodification of housing drove the market higher and higher. All this was sustainable only so long as house prises continued to rise. But finally the bubble has burst.

New Labour followed the privatisation agenda. At present, under Ed Miliband, the Labour Party is conducting a “housing policy review”, but this will most likely continue to promote home ownership and a market-dominated approach to the provision of affordable housing.

There is an urgent need for resistance to the coalition’s current housing policy. A number of pressure groups such as “Defend Council Housing” and “London Coalition Against Poverty” have been set up, but mobilising mass resistance is very difficult. An additional source of affordable housing might be co-operative housing schemes, particularly the establishment of community land trusts (CLTs). The CLT would own the freehold, and thus stop speculative and inflationary forces driving up property prices and rents. It’s doubtful though whether CLTs can make more than a marginal difference to the current situation.

RADICAL RE-THINK: Stuart Hodkinson calls for a radical re-think in our housing policy, including a moratorium on all repossessions, compulsory purchases and benefit cuts, stronger rent controls and the refurbishment of existing council house stock. Homeowners could be encouraged to sell their homes to a new housing co-op, swapping their mortgages for rents that build up an equity stake within the housing co-op.

Two core attributes might assure the success of such a movement, he suggests. Firstly, the movement would bring together public and private tenants, homeowners and the homeless, around a shared agenda – the provision of decent quality affordable housing for all. And people would gain a degree of security against eviction and repossession.

Significantly, Hodkinson sees these proposals as a step towards ending capitalism completely in our country. Some may think that a claim too far. It also seems to side-step the urgent (and perhaps immediate) need for a new generation of local authority homes providing security of tenure for tenants.

But events in the worlds of housing, finance and employment over recent years indicate the need for effective controls over the capitalist forces that dominate our lives.

The widening Gap: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer

The Clarion has on a number of occasions reported on the work of Michael Moore, the American film maker and author – and a continual thorn in the flesh of the US establishment.
 
In March, Moore delivered a hard-hitting speech to a massive protest in Madison, Wisconsin, days before measures were taken by the Republican administration to severely curtail bargaining rights for public sector workers.
 
NOT BROKE:
Moore declared that America is not broke. The country is awash with wealth and cash. Only that wealth is in the hands of the uber-rich. The staggering statistic that Moore quotes is that 400 Americans have as much in assets as 155 million Americans combined – half the population.
 
How, asks Moore, have we managed to let a small group “abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy”? The wealthy, contends Moore, have done two smart things. First they control the media, which promotes the idea of the “American Dream”. “You, too, might be rich one day, so be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man you might one day be.”
 
Second, the wealthy have created a “poison pill you will never want to take.” In 2008 as the economy threatened to collapse, Wall Street demanded trillions of dollars to avert the crash. The consequences of refusing to bail out the banks would have been too awful to contemplate: “Goodbye savings accounts, goodbye pensions, goodbye jobs and homes and future.”But within a few months bankers and board room executives were paying themselves huge bonuses.
 
Moore ends his speech on an upbeat note. We have one person, one vote, and there are more of us than there are of them, he declared.
 
The protest in Wisconsin where Moore’s speech was delivered was supported by hundreds of thousands, but sadly was not successful. Legislation banning public sector workers from trade unions was passed. A message on Moore’s website suggests that Wisconsin was selected as an object lesson.
 
PARALLELS IN BRITAIN:
Certainly there are parallels in the UK to the situation in the USA. Last month, the Sunday Times Rich List (into the thousand wealthiest UK multi-millionaires) was published. Philip Beresford wrote: “Britain’s super-rich… achieved an 18 per cent rise in their collective wealth over the past year.”
 
The Independent on Sunday quoted from a High Pay Commission report. In the ten years up to 2008 income at the top grew by 64 per cent, whilst that of the average earner increased by only seven per cent. Differentials are expected to increase further. CEOs earn about 145 times the average wage. By 2020 they will be paid 214 times the average.
 
SEPARATING MYTHS FROM FACTS:
The Independent debunked several myths that are commonly advanced in defence of these huge salaries and bonuses. Here are just three:
 
Myth: “Big money is needed to get the best CEOs.”
Fact: That assumes that most are brought in. But 59 per cent of CEOs in the FTSE 100 were already in the company for five or more years.
　
Myth: “Our high pay is in line with other leading countries.”
Fact: It is significantly higher than the rest of Europe. It is less than in the US, but 170 per cent higher than the rest of the world. 
 
Myth: “Top earnings have always risen faster than average wages.”
Fact: Until thirty years ago the gap had been decreasing. From 1949 to 1979 the proportion earned by the top 0.1 per cent decreased from 3.5 to 1.3 per cent.
 
When ordinary people here and in the USA are being called upon to make sacrifices as jobs disappear and prices rise, disquiet turns to anger as they read of bankers’ and CEOs’ obscene salaries and bonuses. David Cameron’s cry of “We’re all in this together” has a distinctly hollow ring.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/america-is-not-broke

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

The push towards “academy status” for schools. By RUTH RICHARDSON

The word “academy” has traditionally had a somewhat esoteric ring to it (as in the Royal Academy or the Academie Francaise). But these days, for teachers at least, it has a somewhat different connotation.

Pressure from the Government is mounting for local authorities to submit plans for improving schools, both secondary and primary, that are “performing unsatisfactorily”. They are being told that “the academy solution will be the most appropriate route to securing improvement.” Dr. Elizabeth Sidwell, the new Schools Commissioner, has said that she wants to “work with local authorities to come up with robust plans to tackle under-performance, brokering academy solutions and helping all schools to become excellent.”

NOT JUST ACADEMIES:

Academies, it should be remembered,were not the brainchild of the present Government. The architect of the academies’ programme was Lord Adonis under Tony Blair’s New Labour Government. But the push towards schools becoming academies has accelerated under Michael Gove. The idea that private companies or religious foundations might take over a school has been extended to include the concept of the “Free School”. Here, a group of parents might combine to start up a school to serve their area. “Isn’t this what the Big Society is all about?” you may ask. “Why should we be concerned?”

The concept behind academies and free schools is that each school should be autonomous.

The role of the local authority would be severely undermined. Control over planning pupil places would disappear and the provision of services such as SEN (Special Educational Needs) support, or support on building or legal issues would be under threat. Academies and free schools can implement their own admissions policies, and also devise criteria for excluding unruly pupils (at present exclusions are referred to the local authority who act as arbiters).

Surely, no school is an island; collaborative working supported by a central body is preferable to each school going its own way, and indeed competing with its neighbours.

HOW THE UNION SEES IT:

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) is recommending that members get together to pass resolutions against their particular school converting to academy status. Teachers’ pay and conditions would be under severe threat. They might be expected to work longer hours and even where assurances are given that the status quo will be maintained, there is no legal guarantee that these would be honoured once academy status is achieved.

FREE SCHOOLS:

Plans for thirty free schools have now been approved.

Free schools do not have to pay national rates or follow the national curriculum. They can employ non-qualified teachers and head teachers. Funding of up to £50 million has been set aside to meet the capital needs of free schools in the current financial year.

While seeking information about academies and free schools I found myself wondering why the present Government would want to go down this road. One reason no doubt is to further erode the power of the local authorities. Another is ideological – the belief that “private is good, public is bad”. But we should remember that any group, religious, big business or otherwise, that seeks to sponsor an academy will have an agenda. Either profit or influence will be a motive. That is the nature of the private sector.

HEALING A FRACTURED LIFE: “Refugee Boy”

by Benjamin Zephaniah
Reviewed by RUTH RICHARDSON

(Pub. Bloomsbury £5.99p ISBN 0-7475-5086-7)

Most people, if they have heard of Benjamin Zephaniah, think of him as a poet. And, indeed, he has had many of his collections of poems published since 1980. He has also, however, written five novels and it was one of these, Refugee Boy, that I came across recently.

It is the moving story of a 14-year-old boy of a mixed Ethiopean/Eritrean family, caught up in the war that broke out between those two countries in May 1998. The boy, Alem, is brought to England by his father, who then returns home believing that his action will secure the safety of his son.

PROCEDURES:

We follow Alem through the complicated procedures of social workers, a children’s home, foster parents and, crucially, the application to be allowed to stay in the UK. Alem is a thoughtful and stoical boy, and the story is told simply and directly. But we feel his pain when he is subjected to bullying and racism as he tries to fit in with his new life. Fortunately his foster parents are patient and understanding as they tread the difficult path between guiding him and giving him his own space.

Eventually Alem’s father arrives back in England, with the news that his mother has been killed. Father and son submit a joint application to stay in this country. It is rejected, prompt

ing a swelling of support for them from the local community. Sadly, before their appeal is heard, Alem’s father is shot dead – probably by an Ethiopean or Eritrean group. Subsequently Alem is given leave to remain in the UK and the book ends on a positive note.

“If good can come from bad, I’ll make it,” says Alem.

FROM THE HEART:

It’s a sentiment that no doubt comes from the heart for the author. Benjamin Zephaniah, I discovered, had a difficult childhood. His family was from Jamaica and he was born in Handsworth, where he spent some time in an approved school and was barely literate when he left. Coming to London at the age of 20, he joined a workers’ co-operative in Stratford and embarked on his career as a poet. He is a left wing activist and regards Tony Benn as his mentor. Much of Zephaniah’s work is with disadvantaged youngsters, and to them he can speak with an authoritative voice.

Although Refugee Boy turns out well for our protagonist, Alem, it reminds us of the many whose cases are rejected and who are sent back to face an uncertain future in their country of origin. Although the Ethiopian/Eritrean war officially ended in 2000, there are still tensions, and border disputes rumble on.

REVIEW: Silent Spring

A VOICE FROM THE PAST:

RUTH RICHARDSON re-visits Rachel Carson’s classic work, “Silent Spring”, first published in 1962, and re-printed many times since.

Seldom do we review a book that is almost fifty years old. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962, may well be familiar to some Clarion readers. It still has immense relevance for us in the 21st Century and remains the mainspring for the whole ecological movement.

It’s hard for us in these environmentally-conscious times to comprehend that in the first half of the 20th Century, those who raised doubts about our exploitation of the planet were, in the main, considered cranks.

POISONING THE EARTH: Rachel Carson’s chief concern is the over-use of pesticides, the consequent effect on wild life and, through the food chain, on humans. In fact, the risks of spraying chemicals, especially DDT, were already known. But it took Silent Spring, written with passion and in a style accessible to us all, to alert the public to what was happening on a vast scale.

The title, “Silent Spring”, is taken from “A Fable for Tomorrow”, Carson’s opening chapter in which she sketches a community “where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings”. Then “a strange blight crept over the area”. Crops and cattle sickened and died, and noticeably, “it was a Spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus… only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.” This is a fictional community but it might, writes Carson, have its counterparts anywhere in America or indeed the rest of the world.

Pesticides and herbicides, she writes, have both immediate and long term effects. Run-off from agricultural land brings these poisons into the rivers and ultimately the sea. Some chemicals are evident in soil as long as twelve years after their application.

A DEVASTATED LANDSCAPE: Carson quotes the story of widespread spraying of sage lands, as told in “My Wilderness: East to Katahdin”, by William O. Douglas. Cattlemen had wanted more grass land for grazing. The sage was eliminated, but so too were the willows that grew along the meandering streams in the area. Moose lived in the willow thickets, beavers built dams in the streams and waterfowl flourished. A year after the spraying it had all gone, leaving a devastated landscape.

Rachel Carson quotes many more examples of spraying which have led to widespread destruction. Separate chapters deal with the effects on insects, birds, birds, fish and plant life. She also explains how these poisons move up the food chain to reach the human population. In her chapter, “The Human Price”, there is a quite technical, though interesting, section on how the human body deals with these toxins. The cumulative effect of long-term exposure is not yet known.

Carson urges the use of biological methods of control, where the natural enemies of “pests” are introduced into a problem area. She cites several instances of the successful use of such methods – for example, in Florida, Vermont and Newfoundland. In Newfoundland it was the introduction of the masked shrew to reduce the population of saw flies that threatened the growth of evergreen trees. Reports suggest that this strategy has been successful.

When Silent Spring was published, the agro-chemical industry spent a quarter of a million dollars in an attempt to denigrate Carson’s science. Their efforts only brought the book and its message more publicity. Silent Spring achieved enormous popularity and broad public support. And it was largely instrumental in the banning of DDT and similar insecticides.

CHALLENGING TIMES: More fundamentally Silent Spring encouraged people not to accept at face value what they were told by governments or so-called experts, to challenge policies and to ask questions.

Sadly Rachel Carson died in 1964, only two years after Silent Spring was published, at the age of 56.

But her message lives on.

Jeffrey Leach writes: “Carson’s call for active involvement in our environment is still an absolute necessity today as the industrial system continues its rapid march across the landscape.”

THE SCRAMBLE FOR OIL:

What happens when the supplies run out?

BP’s debacle in the Gulf of Mexico has highlighted more than anything else what happens when once rich deposits of oil begin to run dry – and the oil companies are forced to try to tap in to more and more unsuitable and inaccessible reserves to satisfy our fuel hungry society.

It’s called “Peak Oil” – the time when demand for oil begins to outstrip the supplies of crude that can be exploited. And it’s happening now.

The big oil corporations are now being forced to drill further and further out to sea, to seek oil as much as a mile below the surface. In the Gulf of Mexico, BP has been portrayed as the big villain of the piece – and quite rightly so. But this company is not alone. All the big oil conglomerates are now scrambling to exploit what they can – and taking bigger risks all the time. Esso in Alaska, Shell in Nigeria – and BP wherever they can. They are taking risks with the environment – not to mention the lives of the people who live in the areas where oil exploration is taking place.

THE TAR SANDS:

The “tar sand” oil field in Northern Alberta, is a case in point. This is Canada’s “dirty oil”. The tar sands cover an area larger than England and Wales, and the environmental havoc being caused by the extraction and refining of the crude oil is enormous.

We highlighted the havoc being caused by the exploitation of the Albertan tar sands in the Clarion dated February/March 2008. Today the situation is even more dire.

America now imports the bulk of its oil from Canada. Apart from its own oil reserves, it had long relied on the Middle East to fuel its hunger for oil. But today it has turned to its northern neighbour – and American oilmen have a high profile in the Canadian tar sands. 65 per cent of the oil is exported to the USA. Incidentally, both BP and Shell also have interests in this massive project.

The tar sands have been described as the largest, most polluting industrial project in the world today. Extracting the oil from the tar sands gives off three times more greenhouse gas emissions than in conventional oil fields. It uses four times as much water and heat to fill one barrel of oil.

This is taking a terrible toll. The land, air, and water around the Athabasca River, and communities downstream from Fort McMurray (the centre of the oilfield) are now toxic, a process that is probably irreversible. Forests have been levelled, and millions of gallons of water a day taken from the Athabasca River that flows down into the Rocky Mountains.

What’s happening in northern Alberta naturally concerns Canadian environmentalists (but not, it seems, the Alberta provincial government that for years has ridden high on a wave of prosperity from the oil industry).

MORE TAR SAND EXPLOITATION:

The “success” of the exploitation of the Albertan tar sands has provoked a desire to exploit other potential oil mines. According to the Guardian in May this year , it “has triggered a rush by Shell and other oil companies to set up similar operations in Russia, Congo and even Madagasca”.

A number of other oil companies, including BP, seem eager to search for other tar sand sites to exploit. BP is interested in exploiting reserves in Venezuela, whilst other companies have their eyes on Morocco, Egypt, and even Jordan.

BP: THE AMERICAN WHIPPING BOY.

Currently, though, it’s been BP that has been gaining media attention, particularly in the USA, after millions of gallons of crude oil poured into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

With the help of US subcontractors, BP had been trying to extract crude from the below the sea bed. Thanks possibly to faulty equipment, the pipe line sprung a leak.

BP is, of course, identified by Americans as a “British” company, even though over a third of its shares are in American hands. Once upon a time, as British Petroleum, it had been owned by the UK Government – an arrangement favoured by Winston Churchill.

But Margaret Thatcher thought differently. She sold off all Government shares, and the company was floated on the international stock exchanges.

Now BP is little more than another multinational oil corporation with over a third of its shares in American hands. Indeed, for a while it promoted its initials as standing for “Better Petrol”.

As we entered the new millennium, BP tried to project a new, greener, image. It’s logo was changed to make it appear more environmentally friendly. It promised to move “Beyond Petroleum”, by seeking cleaner ways to produce fossil fuels, or indeed to invest in alternative energy sources.

GETTING ITS HANDS DIRTY:

But at the beginning of December 2007 it seemed to have abandoned its green image when it invested nearly £1.5 billion in the Alberta tar sands.

The Independent declared that such an investment committed it to “using methods which environmentalists say are part of the ‘biggest global warming crime’ in history. The multinational oil and gas producer, which last year made a profit of £11 billion, is facing a head-on confrontation with the green lobby in the pristine forests of North America….”

In a comment in the Independent, Mike Hudema, a campaigner for Greenpeace Canada, declared that “by 2020 the tar sands are expected to release more than 141 million tons of greenhouse gases annually…

“BP’s decision to enter this environmental nightmare strips away any credibility it may have had in being a good corporate citizen. Instead of trying to move “beyond petroleum” it has invested in the dirtiest oil project on the planet.”

But earlier this year, BP’s reputation took an even greater tumble with the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Whether the company will ever be able to recover from it remains to be seen. The cost of capping the leak, and the clean up, alone runs into hundreds of billions. Meanwhile, BP’s shares have tumbled, and its reputation is in tatters.

But there must be a number of other oil companies who breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t them.

Environmental Disaster Unfolding

Tar Sands: Dirty Oil & the future of a continent by Andrew Nikiforuk

Non-fiction/politics. Review by Ruth Richardson

A year ago the Clarion drew attention to the environmental disaster that is unfolding through the exploitation of the tar sands of northern Alberta. These sands are the Earth’s last great remaining oil field. Because the oil is in the form of bitumen its extraction is far more environmentally damaging than conventional drilling. But Alberta has become the richest of the Canadian provinces, and, it seems, profit outweighs all other considerations.

Now a passionate and forcefully argued book, Tar Sands by Andrew Nikiforuk has been published which reveals the scale of the enterprise.

Nikiforuk’s book begins with a “Declaration of a political emergency” – twenty two points that lead to the conclusion that our dependence on fossil fuel must be transformed. The chapters that follow cover the environmental, social and political effects of the tar sands development.

The scale of the operation is huge. Virtually every major oil company has a stake in it and investment now totals about $200 billion. The zone now being exploited is 54,000 square miles, a quarter of the land mass of Alberta. Many countries have an interest in the operation, but 60 per cent of the cash comes from south of the Canadian border. The US, of course, is keen to exploit a source of oil close to home and to minimise their dependence on the Middle East.

“HELLISH”:
Nikiforuk paints a chilling picture of the landscape of the tar sands operation – “more hellish than an Appalachian coal field.” Thousands of trees are felled, acres of soil removed and wetlands drained. The impact on wild life can be imagined.

This is just the start of the environmental cost. Huge amounts of water are needed to wash the dirty sands, and this is taken from the Athabasca River, resulting in widespread pollution. In fact the whole Mackenzie River basin, which protects and produces one fifth of Canada’s fresh water, is affected. Nikiforuk reckons that the Alberta Government has failed completely to deal with the water issue. A monitoring programme, RAMP, was set up by the industry and government in 1997. It receives funding from no less than ten oil companies, so not surprisingly the reports it produces suggest no cause for concern. Independent experts who reviewed RAMP’s work had serious concerns about the quality of its monitoring.

TOXIC DUMPS:
Another result of the oil extraction is the construction of huge toxic ponds along the Athabasca River. They are made from earth stripped from the top of open-pit mines and rise 270 feet above the forest floor. Of a size which can be seen by astronauts in space, they now hold four decades worth of contaminated water, sand and bitumen. These tar ponds cover 23 square miles of forest, and are responsible for the deaths of thousands of ducks, geese and other water birds as well as moose, deer and beaver. And they leak!

Fort McMurray was a mining community of 25,000 in the 1970s. It sits at the confluence of the Athabasca and Clearwater rivers, just south of the main tar sands. The town used to be surrounded by forest but tar sand leases will soon surround its neighbourhoods. Its population is now swelled by temporary workers from China, Mexico and Croatia. Half the general workforce hails from Newfoundland and the maritime provinces, the poorest parts of Canada.

SOCIAL WRECKAGE:
Fort McMurray’s infrastructure – medical care, education, social services – struggles to cope with this huge influx. On a more mundane level, it takes 40 minutes to get a cut of coffee in Tim Horton’s and queues at banks on pay day can be sixty people long. The term “Gillette Syndrome” has been coined to describe the social wreckage caused by this sort of boom development.

It leaves a legacy of disaffection, drunkenness, divorce and social breakdown. Nikiforuk quotes at length one resident of Calgary who has watched the “human eco-system wastage” escalate year by year. “Each day,” he says, “on my way to work I pass another homeless man ruined by crack cocaine or bad bitumen luck… Avarice fills the Calgary air and most people run like hamsters on a treadmill.”

In case this books generates a despondent air, Nikiforuk’s final chapter lists “twelve steps to Energy Sanity”, to get us headed in the right direction. The first is to recognise that cheap oil is a relic of the past. Nikiforuk leads us through economic and political reforms that would regulate and slow down oil extraction. An important step is to re-localise food production. Taxpayers’ money should be directed towards funding new railways, and instead of building more highways, money should be spent on planning walkable communities.

In short we should use what oil remains sparingly, all the while working towards the development of renewable energy sourcs.

Nikiforuk’s final point is that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) should be re-negotiated. Canada should not be beholden to the demands of its greedy neighbour to the south.

Tar Sands is a hard-hitting and readable book, with plenty of mind-blowing statistics. All who are concerned about our oil-dependent society should read it. This megaproject which is growing year by year has not received the publicity it should in the wider world.

IBSN 978-1-55365-407-0 – published in Canada by Greystone Books in association with the David Suzuki Foundation