Gordon Brown had a wheeze of off balance sheet accounting, the PFI scam. It made public spending look low, a prudent Chancellor. Infrastructure, hospitals, schools, incinerators, built by the private sector, leased by the public sector, for which the tax payer is paying ten times the original cost.
Incinerators have to be fed. Local authorities sign contract for minimum waste. If fall below, they pay penalties. There is thus a disincentive to reduce waste.
Government needs to step in and annul these contracts.
Incinerators emit CO2. They should be forced to buy carbon credits for their emissions, and be hit with a carbon tax.
Incinerators emit carcinogens and other toxins.
Mass is not created or destroyed by incinerators. What is left residual waste, plus what goes up the chimney.
The residual waste is heavily contaminated with heavy metals.
A scandal several years ago, residual waste spread on an allotment in the North East, the Byker ash scandal in Newcastle – in which the city council was prosecuted after 2,000 tonnes of ash from the old Byker incinerator was found to contain potentially cancer-causing dioxins.
Incineration is not green energy, it is dirty energy. It is also destroying valuable resources which should be recycled, or placed in an industrial biodegrader.
All these measures in place, many incinerators would no longer be viable, and those in the planning stage shelved.
The figures published by local councils for recycling, are for that collected, it does not mean that collected is recycled. it is going to incineration.
Local councils need to do more to encourage recycling, some do, most do not.
We all should do our part, reduce, recycle, reuse.
We should also tackle the worst offenders, Waitrose and M&S obscene levels of plastic packaging. Is it really necessary bananas in a plastic bag, a coconut shell hacked off, then wrapped in plastic shrink wrap?
Mindful Chef, owned by Nestle, deliver recipe boxes, overpackaging, obscene use of plastic. Their frozen food boxes, a card sleeve, plastic film over what appears to be a paper tray, a plastic-lined paper tray.
Waste does not exist in the natural world either in time or space, the output of one process is the input to another, a closed loop system. We should emulate the natural world.
In Lincolnshire, the official green agenda carbon neutral by 2050, two decades too late, opposition to on-shore wind turbines, support for oil and gas exploration.
Putting one of the ideas in Another Now into action, last week Black Friday, one day of action against Amazon, buy nothing from Amazon, do not visit their website, Make Amazon Pay.
During the pandemic Jeff Bezos has increased his wealth by $85 billion. Wealth begets wealth. Jeff Bezos can afford to take risks, have a long range vison, fund loss making projects, within Amazon can leverage projects to benefit all aspects of the business, we see this with artificial intelligence, when Amazon recommends a book it will be possible worth reading.
Facebook abuses its position, as we saw with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook knows more about us than we know ourselves, we are commodities to be used and abused and sold, it can target and manipulate us.
On reading Another Now I thought when do we fight back, when do we start the guerrilla tech war against the tech giants, against the banks, against dirty industries?
We need financial engineers, software engineers, leading researchers in artificial intelligence, who know where to hit vulnerable fragile systems with coordinated attacks.
The fight has begun with Make Amazon Pay, one day of targeted action against Amazon, buy nothing on Black Friday do not even visit their website on that day.
One week on from Black Friday, over 400 parliamentarians from across the world including Yanis Varoufakis and Jeremy Corbyn join in the call to Make Amazon Pay.
1/ NewRiver Retail swallows 200 pubs to turn into convenience stores; Retail property group NewRiver Retail has bought 202 pubs from Marston’s for £90mln, which it plans to convert into convenience stores and restaurantshttps://t.co/HrVloi4ulN
A tweet by Mark Dodds suggests a target for the UK, pubcos, a day when we do not drink in any tied pub or corporate pub chains.
Pubcos are zombie companies mired in debt. When they tire of relieving fools of their money they sell off their pubs for redevelopment.
There is action we can all take.
Support local indy businesses, buy coffee from a speciality coffee shop where they care about coffee, you will quite literally taste the difference.
During the first lockdown, I visited little independent shops, the local butcher, baker, fishmonger, fruit and vegetable market stall, not once did I visit a supermarket. And it was safer to shop in these little shops, limited numbers, I was in and out within a couple of minutes.
We do not have to use WhatsApp or Instagram, there are alternatives, post pictures to twitter not Instagram, use Skype not WhatsApp.
Facebook must be broken up, stripped of WhatsApp and Instagram.
We should overwrite all personal information on Facebook with false information, allow a couple of days to propagate through the system then delete. Never ever quiz, game or survey on Facebook, these are scams to harvest your data, as Cambridge Analytica used very effectively. Never tag friends.
Hi Keith. If you search via my site then you get results from many alternatives to Amazon (including but not limited to Bookshop) so will see which ones have it in stock and from which one it is cheapest: https://t.co/4OXJETFr2B
Amazon provides a platform for third party vendors and these account for around half the sales through Amazon. A somewhat crappy website Bookshop.org does the same, except demands a larger discount from indie publishers than they give Amazon and for bookshops they make less on a book sale than if you walked through their door and bought a book and the sale is not fulfilled by the bookshop.
Writers can do their bit, stop directing to Amazon, support local bookshops, ask your publisher to offer Amazon discounts to local bookshops, at the very least as special offer when books are published.
Tech giants should be taxed on revenue where that revenue is generated. The same should also apply to tax dodging corporations for example Starbucks.
Is there anyone working on regulation protecting Ethical AI researchers, similar to whistleblower protection? Because with the amount of censorship & intimidation that goes on towards people in specific groups, how does anyone trust any real research in this area can take place?
Apparently my manager’s manager sent an email my direct reports saying she accepted my resignation. I hadn’t resigned—I had asked for simple conditions first and said I would respond when I’m back from vacation. But I guess she decided for me 🙂 that’s the lawyer speak.
Timnit Gebru’s work on AI bias is necessary and pathbreaking.
The prospect that she’d simply be instructed by her employer to withdraw her academic work-in-progress — with no discussion — implicates all the church/state issues of corporations hosting academic research units. pic.twitter.com/zpU2xQPpXW
For my followers who haven't seen this, it's a HUGE deal. @timnitGebru, one of the foremost scholars of AI ethics, was fired from Google after they tried to censor her research. Their former motto "don't be evil" gets more ironic every dayhttps://t.co/t7rUyXUa9S
📣JOIN ME IN SIGNING a statement of solidarity with Dr. Timnit Gebru.
Timnit, her colleagues, friends, and allies are demanding that Google provide transparency around their research censorship, and commit to meaningful research integrity in the future https://t.co/lXkfMH2YPg
Our lives are controlled by algorithms, Big Tech owns the algorithms. The world of We, a world controlled by numbers.
Amazons suggests what I may wish to read, YouTube what I may wish to watch.
Big Tech has monopolised research on AI. To whose benefit, who has oversight?
Those who speak out are fired.
The treatment of employees by Big Tech who dare challenge their lack of ethics is not restricted to Amazon, as we see with the treatment of Timnit Gebru by Google.
Google fired the technical co-lead of the Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team Timnit Gebru for raising issues of ethics.
A day of action against Google in support of Timnit Gebru. What form should it take? For example a coordinated walk out by Google staff on the same day of no use of Google Chrome or YouTube.
Support and use open source software.
Download and install Brave, a faster alternative to Chrome that cuts out the crap.
Brave is a free open-source web browser. It blocks ads and website trackers, and provides a way for users to send cryptocurrency contributions in the form of Basic Attention Tokens to websites and content creators.
The coffee plant is closely related to qat (there are many variations of spelling for example khat) often referred to as coffee’s evil sister. Qat is highly addictive and as a more profitable crop has replaced coffee in Yemen where for generations coffee grew on terraces and the port of Mokka grew rich on the export of coffee beans. WHO has a separate category for qat, US classifies as dangerous as heroin. Qat contains the alkaloid cathinone. The leaves are chewed or used as an infusion to produce qat tea.
Unlike it’s evil sister qat, coffee is a legal psychoactive drug.
I am bombarded every day with offers of coffee and coffee equipment I do not want.
No, I do not want Nespresso. Coffee from a Nespresso machines is vile undrinkable coffee. That is not to say the machine cannot make decent coffee, it can, just do not use Nespresso pods. A €60 Nespresso machine will make excellent espresso, but only if use third party pods.
I used to be bombarded daily by CoffeeJack, but since highlighting the many flaws, gone very quiet. They blocked me and deleted my critical questions. Er, blocked me, it was they trolling me with their promotions.
Nor do I wish to buy coffee from roasteries I have never heard of, that not once have I ever encountered in a coffee shop as guest coffee.
For me coffee is a drink to be enjoyed as would a good wine. To be enjoyed at leisure served in glass or ceramic.
Good coffee does not need sugar or syrups or to be carpet bombed with chocolate. The over-roasted cheap commodity coffee served up by corporate chains does require to mask the vile taste of what would otherwise be undrinkable.
Fair Trade is a marketing scam to make middle class feel good and to never delve deeper into the exploitation surrounding coffee.
Fair Trade pays a tiny premium above the commodity price. There is no incentive for farmers to improve as they will not get a higher price for quality.
Talk to your barista, buy coffee that is Direct Trade, where farmers get a higher price for quality, where there is traceability back to origin.
And of course we never mention tax dodging that we structure our company across borders to avoid paying tax where we make money.
Imagine honest advertising for what masquerades as a bar of ‘chocolate’.
‘Chocolate’, a bar of fat and sugar, it would not be every palatable, nor sound too good in our marketing, so we add a little cocoa powder, though if we wish to be real cheapskates it will be flavouring, then we add palm oil or soy but keep quiet about the environmental damage, may be listed as emulsifiers, added to improve the texture, we could use coca butter but the alternatives are far cheaper and we have to have margins to pay for the advertising for you suckers, then additives as it kinda does not taste too good a bar of fat and sugar.
Next time you buy what you think is a bar of ‘chocolate’ please check the list of ingredients. If it ain’t cocoa solids, sugar, cocoa butter, maybe vanilla, but nothing else, then it ain’t chocolate.
Will indie coffee shops survive covid-19 pandemic?
I will roughly divide thoughts, observations and conversations before lockdown, during lockdown and what will happen next.
Maybe ten days before lockdown, a visit to Nottingham a large city, not deserted but few people about. One coffee shop closing early few customers. Next coffee shop, few customers, less than half their usual number of customers, numbers dropping daily.
A couple of days before lockdown, visiting Sheffield a large city, station deserted, a kiosk on my way into the city centre told me I would find the city centre deserted, few people about, little open, restaurants I passed by, the few that were open, the few that had customers maybe a couple of diners. I ate and had coffee at Marmadukes, a coffee shop usually very busy, I was the only person there. Business down by at least 80%. Coffee shops were closing at three. In part no customers, in part to let staff home before rush hour, not that there was a rush hour. Talking to the owner of another coffee shop, the question on his mind, how was he to survive?
Before lockdown, measures were already in place, hand sanitiser by the entrance, compostable coffee cups, contactless cards, no reusable cups.
The kiosk in Sheffield I passed by earlier, after I talked to them, a sign no reusable cups.
Lockdown a mixed blessing, at least cost of staff covered by furlough, rents deferred.
Lincoln a city during lockdown. The chains stayed open for a few days then closed. Indie coffee shops closed immediately. A few weeks ago, one large coffee shop a small chain opened for takeaway. A slow trickle of customers but I doubt it will cover the cost of two staff. The only advantage, they are open before the corporate chains, maybe they will attract and retain some of their clientele.
Many coffee shops have no future. Too small to manage social distancing. A kiosk can survive on takeaway only, a coffee shop with higher overheads cannot. The large coffee shop, once rents and business rates kick back in, would not survive.
We had sunniest May on record, Mediterranean climate. The tragedy indie coffee shops and restaurants not able to spread their tables into the street. Win win for everyone. Kick starts the local economy, maintains social distancing, helps local businesses back on their feet, improves city centre ambience.
One coffee shop asked. They received an emphatic no. They currently employ eight staff on furlough. When furlough ends six will lose their jobs leaving two for takeaway coffee, but not a viable businesses.
Unfortunately we will not agree to you increasing the number of tables and chairs you use or the size of the area that you have at the current time (your enclosure needs to still be only outside the frontage of your premises).
Not even the courtesy of an explanation.
Looking at Guildford, the corporate coffee chains that litter our town centres, cafes pretending to be coffee shops, three coffee shops. Of the three I cannot see Canopy Coffee or Surrey Hills surviving as they do not have the option to expand into the street. Krema yes, if allowed to expand into Tunsgate, if not no. When first open, Krema did have its tables in the street and was ordered to remove them.
It is not only coffee shops at risk it is the entire supply chain. There are the coffee roasteries that supply the coffee shops, the growers who supply the coffee beans.
We can hear bird song, streets are traffic free, cities pollution free. We have been jolted into another now. There can be no going back to normal as normal was not normal.
In Athens in the evening the streets turn into restaurants. Athens is expanding its network of pedestrianised streets.
Sheffield has plans to expand pedestrianised streets.
North Laine in Brighton the restaurants, coffee shops and other shops are in the street. There are plans to expand the pedestrianised streets.
Soho has plans to pedestrianise the area, turn into one large open air coffee shop and restaurant. Currently awaiting approval from Westminster Council.
We all have to act. If not, we lose our coffee shops.
Talk to local councils and councillors, change the mindset that allows traffic into city centres, pedestrianise the city centre, allow indie coffee shops and restaurants to spread their tables into the street, no chains no pubs No Smoking.
Find and locate your local indie coffee shops. Support them.
If anyone wishes to follow me on social media, I will try and post every day indie coffee shops worth visiting and supporting. No guarantee they are open or when they will open.
Government has to extend furlough for local businesses if they are unable to open. Reducing social distancing from two metres to one metre does not help as it greatly increases the risk for staff and customers.
”Milan is to introduce one of Europe’s most ambitious schemes reallocating street space from cars to cycling and walking, in response to the coronavirus crisis.” https://t.co/crSIMT5G5G
We have been jolted into another now. We must maintain our city centres car and pollution free.
The first businesses to reopen coffee shops, tables outside, social distancing maintained, dwell time relatively short.
To achieve this, coffee shops need to be able to spread out into the streets, out into the squares, the norm in Athens, indeed the norm across Europe, when one coffee shop in Lincoln requested this they received an emphatic no from Lincolnshire County Council, not even the courtesy of an explanation.
Unfortunately we will not agree to you increasing the number of tables and chairs you use or the size of the area that you have at the current time (your enclosure needs to still be only outside the frontage of your premises).
Kick starting the local economy, improving the ambience, worthless council jobsworths don’t give a damn.
Our High Streets were dying before the covid-19 pandemic. The loss of Big Business, corporate chains, from the High Street is no great loss, it was destroying the High Street. If we are to recover it will be through small local independent businesses. That is why we must allow indie coffee shops, and only indie coffee shops not chains, next restaurants, to expand into the streets. Not pubs and bars as we do not want drunks on the streets.
Local businesses spreading into public space helps everyone, safeguarding staff and clientele through social distancing, improves the ambience of the locality, especially if No Smoking, and for many local businesses it will mean life or death, the difference whether they survive or not.
UK plans £250m boost for cycle lanes and fast-track e-scooter trials https://t.co/sZBj9YuBPc
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has recognised people are going to be reluctant to use public transport therefore we have to encourage walking and cycling if we do not wish traffic levels to rise. But if wishes to improve cycling and walking, must also make our city centres more attractive by encouraging local councils to facilitate indie coffee shops and restaurants to spread out into our streets.
Deliveries to the pedestrianised areas, park on the periphery and deliver by handcart or trolley.
Sheffield, an unusual city in that prior to the covid-19 pandemic a city on the up, a marked contrast to most decaying cities. And why? Independent businesses everywhere.
Mention also needs to be made of Now Then, an indie magazine that features local culture and indie businesses, interesting articles and art, well worth seeking out.
Through reclaiming the streets, we are operating at the interface between business, environment and society, a component part of Doughnut Economics, where the local economy is designed to be regenerative and distributive, with people and the environment at its heart. We kick cars out of our town centres, we plant trees, we improve the ambience, we create a space where local businesses and communities can thrive, breathe clean air, or simply relax with a good coffee, read a book, sit and watch the world go by.
One of my favourite places to sit and relax, Little Tree, a bohemian bookshop cum coffee shop, not far from The Acropolis.
In Exarchia, an anarchist district of Athens, they set up road blocks, boxes with plants, created traffic free zones. The city authorities also act, they are extending the pedestrianised areas around The Acropolis.
All the signs are there with tui, huge debts, before covid-19 a debt of €2 billion, losses of €845.8 million for the first half of the year.
There are though big differences between the two companies, Thomas Cook did not have the poor reputation of tui, people were actually going on holiday.
Were it not for a €1.8 billion bailout from Germany in the form of a loan (which must be repaid by 2022) tui would have already collapsed.
Tui plans to cut 8,000 jobs and cut fixed costs by 30%. Chief executive Friedrich Joussen said tui was burning through cash at a rate of €250 million a month, despite recently cutting costs by 70%.
Tui has been offering non-existent holidays which are then cancelled. Fools and their money easily parted. Hassle to then obtain a refund.
Anyone thinking of booking a holiday with tui should think again.
Major problem for hoteliers especially those who signed exclusive contracts with tui.
Hotels must move way from reliance on tour companies, limit to less than 20% of occupancy, no one tour company more than 10%, payment end of every month.
It is now so easy to book direct. Everyone has a smart phone, tablet, baby laptop, laptop, computer, connected to the internet 24 hours a day.
Hotels should be seeking direct bookings, offering good deals to their regulars. Hotel associations together with government tourism bodies establishing open source open coop platforms to facilitate direct bookings, charge a nominal fee to maintain the platform, any surplus used to fund environmental projects.
Mass tourism has trashed the planet, spread covid-19 around the world.
We must move away from mass tourism, ban all-inclusive hotels which are killing local economies, fewer tourists, longer stay, quality tourists, not the dregs that companies like tui deliver to hotels.
Tourism has to be sustainable, benefit all of society.
Any recovery programme has to be distributive and regenerative.
Collapse of tui would be good news for the industry.
There used to be four big tour companies operating in the UK which dominated the industry, Thomas Cook, Airtours, Thompson and First Choice. Then there were two, Thomas Cook and Airtours merged, Thompson and First Choice merged. Then there was one, Thomas Cook collapsed leaving only tui. Tui now controls not only tourists from the UK, from the whole of northern Europe, which is not a healthy position for the industry to be in.
Travellers and hoteliers need to move rapidly to direct booking to safeguard against and hasten the inevitable collapse of tui.
VE Day, UK was broke, Europe was broke. Had useless prat George Osborne been Chancellor, we would have had austerity for 75 years. Instead we invested, rebuilt UK, rebuilt Europe.
Following the euphoria and celebrations of VE Day, VJ Day was yet to come, a more low key event, life was tough, rationing did not end until 1954. And we should not forget the role played by the Commonwealth. Nevertheless what followed, creation of the Welfare State, NHS, free secondary schools, school leaving age raised to 15, nationalisation of key industries, coal, steel, railways.
The desire was to create a fainer more just society.
During WWII we knew who the enemy was, we had weapons to fight. With covid-19, we know who the enemy is, but the enemy is invisible, a silent killer, we have no weapons with which to fight.
Post-Pandemic we are heading for the worst collapse since the South Sea Bubble burst.
We therefore do the same, we rebuild, not by going backwards. After VE Day, we did not go back to the 1930s, we moved forward.
We therefore must do the same. We do not bailout out dirty industries, we do not bail out tax dodging conman like Richard Branson.
We bail out people, local indie businesses, not global corporations, we fund a Green New Deal.
Strategic sectors we bail out through acquisition of a controlling share. Minimum conditions: no use of offshore tax havens, zero carbon by 2035.
Denmark, Hungary, France and Canada will not bailout tax dodgers.
There can be no return to normal as normal was not normal.
We hear birdsong, our streets are traffic free, cities centres pollution free. We have learnt we do not have to engage in pointless consumerism, visit ghastly shopping malls.
As we slowly relax lockdown, indie coffee shops first, we allow them to spread out into the street, improve the ambience of the street, the norm in Athens, they then can social distance, safeguarding staff and customers.
But it needs worthless council jobsworths to engage their brains, act on behalf of local businesses, the local community. When a coffee shop in Lincoln asked of their local county council they were met with an emphatic no. That is how much they care about the local environment and helping local businesses back on their feet.
We need to develop Doughnut Economics for every city, every sector. Amsterdam working with Kate Raworth has developed Doughnut Economics Amsterdam. A rough draft has been drawn up for Cyprus, Doughnut Economics Cyprus, focusing on the tourist sector.
Airlines, airports and travel industry in general live in a different world to everyone else. They talk of back to business as usual, airports expanding.
Covid-19 has opened up another now. There is no return to normal as normal was not normal, mass tourism was killing the planet. People have become used to bird song, streets traffic free, cities pollution free. They are not going to give this up without a fight.
Aviation a major contributor to global warming, has spread covid-19 around the world, therefore within this context the comments by director general of Easyjet in Portugal José Lopes objecting to quarantine for arrivals into the country beggars belief.
The director general of Easyjet in Portugal José Lopes has said that the resumption of the company’s activity in Portugal is very dependent on the elimination of the quarantine imposed on passengers arriving in Madeira and therefore suggested “the elimination of these barriers to connectivity ”.
Portugal, together with Greece, one of the few countries in Europe to have acted promptly and contained coronavirus. José Lopes wishes to throw this all away.
Covid: UK airlines warn quarantine will 'kill air travel' – and they want the UK to risk a return to Covid infections, so they can carry on with their business of flying people around.https://t.co/a61E9KO0yt Countries will have to decide how much air travel they can tolerate
José Lopes is not alone in expressing these sentiments, UK Airlines has come out with similar comments. Objecting to quarantine, claiming aviation vital to the UK economy.
What has been the economic cost of coronavirus pandemic, of wild fires in Australia, of floods in England?
Airlines, tour companies, and tourism industry, live in a different reality to the rest of us.
Not satisfied with trashing the planet then spread covid-19 around the world, they are now objecting to quarantine for arrivals into a country.
When other countries closed borders, closed airports, and where open were screening passengers, UK did not. Inbound flights from coronavirus hotspots from around the world, no screening, hop straight onto public transport. Very late in the day, consideration of quarantine, though in reality not quarantine, self-isolation.
At the weekend a friend travelled from Spain to Cyprus via Germany. On arrival at Larnaca she was taken into quarantine. She did not object, even though she has gone from lock down in Spain to quarantine in Cyprus, as she sees that it is necessary to stop the spread of coronavirus.
Covid-19 may have arisen in China, airlines spread it around the world.
Airlines are the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.
There is no going back to normal as normal was not normal.
We cannot have a third runway at Heathrow, a second runway at Gatwick, airport expansion.
We have to live within the limits of the planet, one of those limits is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. We have to reach zero carbon by 2035.
In the future we will have pandemics, we have to be prepared, stop them spreading rapidly around the world.
Aviation contributes little to the economy. We have seen how fragile our supply chains, how easily pandemics are spread around the world.
We have to relocate manufacturing within our own borders, grow our own food.
A couple of weeks ago the Cyprus finance minister opened himself up to ridicule when he claimed the Cyprus economy was going to shrink by about five percent.
The following week the figure had been revised to ten per cent, which was at best wishful thinking.
With loss of the Cyprus tourist sector, and anyone who thinks Cyprus is going to see any tourists before the end of the season is living in la la land, the economic downturn is going to be far greater than ten per cent.
The world is heading into economic meltdown far worse than the Great Depression, international trade already down by 30%. IMF has warned the global recession is likely to be worse than the Great Depression, and has urged countries to spend, spend, then spend some more, which is an amazing about turn for the IMF.
To put the Cypriot figures in context, the UK economy is expected to shrink by anywhere between 13 per cent and 30 per cent depending on which model, the assumptions fed into the model. The Treasury has forecast April May June the economy may shrink by 30 per cent.
We can not go back to normal as normal was not normal, it was destroying the planet.
We have been able to hear birdsong, our streets traffic free, our cites pollution free, the skies free of planes. A world few of us will have seen in our lifetimes. https://t.co/GLZTXNw4CE
“You wonder if people will want to go back to what it was like before…The pandemic has shown people will change their behavior if it’s for the health of their families."
We can not go back to normal as normal was not normal, it was destroying the planet.
We have been able to hear birdsong, our streets traffic free, our cites pollution free, the skies free of planes. A world few of us will have seen in our lifetimes. In India they are able to see in the far distance the snow covered Himalayas, a sight last seen over thirty years ago,
We were told we could not cut carbon emissions within the timescale required for zero carbon 2035, it was impossible, impractical, and yet we have achieved massive reductions overnight.
Politics is not a race, two or more corrupt political parties in a race as to decide who gets the opportunity to do the bidding of oligarchs.
Politics is who does what to whom.
We have seen capitalism put into suspended animation. We are in a postcapitalist world, we have been since 2008. Who decides what the future will look look like once we are through the coronavirus pandemic?
If we look to the UK, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has made billions of pounds available, to furlough workers with the government providing 80% of salary, a week later for the self employed, grants, soft loans to small businesses, all to keep businesses in hibernation, ready to be woken up.
In the covid-19 pandemic we are living in another now. What we have to do is create our own another now, an alternative reality, a vision of how we wish the world to be. We failed in 2008, we cannot fail again in 2020, we cannot return to what was the norm, as the norm was not normal.
Varoufakis has really nailed the eurobonds debate with this piece: it is not about EU solidarity, it is about the self-interest of all the parties involved to have a functional and efficient Single Market/EU, which is not possible without EU fiscal action. https://t.co/1pJamx9dxb
What should Europe do? (As opposed to the comedy of errors coming out of Brussels, Frankfurt & Berlin) Here is DiEM25's videoed answer: https://t.co/9Ha7dY2UbK And here it is in text form: https://t.co/3vDPFDyI66
EU failed to deliver on eurobonds, offered loans that put the southern vassal states in debt bondage with austerity to follow.
We have seen post-WWII relentless rise in GDP, or at least up to the 2008, but this rise is not normal, it has been at huge environmental cost, and the increase in GDP has not been fairly distributed, it has been shared with the rich.
If I ask a bank for $100,000 to safeguard an ancient forest, I will probably not get very far. If I ask for $1 million to cut down the forest sell the timber they will happily give me the money.
If I ask a bank for 100 million euros to destroy pristine coastline for a hotel development, bring in dredged sand to create a beach, destroy bamboo groves habitat of a rare endangered snail, show I will have guaranteed contracts with a big tour company to bring in all-inclusive guests, I will of course not tell them no benefit to the local economy, the bank will hand me the money, or at least they would have pre-coronavirus pandemic.
Destruction of a forest, of a pristine coastline, is not without costs, soil erosion, floods, loss of a carbon sink, species loss, degradation of water supply, loss of inshore fishing and fish breading grounds, which then feeds into ocean acidification, warming climate, rising sea levels, forest degradation, loss of coastline, further loss of fisheries. These costs are dismissed as externalities (a polite way of saying someone else problem).
The standard economic model showing monetary flows between households and businesses, together with flows of capital and goods and services, sometimes expanded to include the role of banks and government, is too simplified, it takes no account of the economy is embedded within society, which in turn is embedded within Gaia.
Never confuse a model with reality, even worse distort reality to reflect the model.
Kate Raworth has drawn a model, that incorporates what went before, but also includes the commons, the flow of energy, flow of materials, and thus more accurately reflects reality.
We therefore have to devise a new economic system, one that sees the poor are not left behind, are not reliant on food banks, homeless are not living on our streets, whilst at the same time we do not exceed our planetary limits and what we do produce is fair and equitable.
One such system is doughnut economics. How do we apply it to Cyprus, to the island, to municipalities, to sectors?
Look to Amsterdam, where the city is working with Kate Raworth to devise doughnut economics for the city, a 21st century economic system.
A 2018 study published in Nature Climate Change showed that emissions from tourism add up to 8% of the global total, with flying making up the largest share of this. “By far, the biggest action we can take is to stop flying or to fly less,”
One of the largest sectors in Cyprus is tourism, it cannot be a return to mass tourism which not only is destroying the planet is destroying Cyprus, it brings in the dregs of the tourist industry, all-inclusive hotels with no benefit for the local economy.
Does Cyprus need an easyJet flight every day, sometimes two a day, would not two or three a week suffice, assuming easyJet is in business and will not run out of money by August?
A proposal for a doughnut economy for Cyprus, a broad brush to be expanded upon.
Doughnut economics was developed by Oxford economist Kate Raworth as an antidote to conventional economics which does not reflect the real world and has not served us well.
What is the economy for? Until we can answer that question, how do we know what to measure, how do we measure success?
Economies need to be distributive, regenerative.
#DoughnutEconomics is a book full of ideas for 21st century economies, but now it's time for action.
That's why we're creating Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL): a collaborative platform for changemakers to connect, share, inspire and get inspired.
— Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) (@DoughnutEcon) April 15, 2020
Visualise a doughnut. In the centre nothing, this is where resides abuse of human rights, poverty, malnutrition, homelessness, food banks, it is where we should not be. The body of the doughnut is where we wish to be, a circular economy, everyone’s needs met, living within the limits of the planet. Beyond the doughnut, again where we should not be, global warming, species loss, habitat destruction, acidification of our oceans, pollution, rising sea levels.
Kate Raworth has developed a doughnut economics model for Amsterdam, working with the city. Something that should be studied, adapted to Cyprus, but no two places are the same.
For Cyprus we need a doughnut model for the island and for each and every municipality and sector, and the people involved in developing it.
The largest sector in Cyprus is tourism, but it is not in a healthy state, has not been for years, and looking at crude tourist numbers is about as helpful as focusing on GDP to measure economic well being.
One only had to wander through Protaras last year at the height of the tourist season to see all was not well. During the day, mid-afternoon, empty sunbeds, watersports siting idle. At night, during the evening, bars and restaurants empty.
The last few years many local businesses have gone bust. They finished last season in very poor shape, and many more would not have survived another season.
Tourism has to benefit society with minimum impact on the environment.
Mass tourism is bad for the planet, bad for Cyprus, it is not sustainable.
There is an over-reliance on tour companies, on mass tourism, on all-inclusive hotels.
Cyprus has become the dustbin for the dregs of the tourist industry, all-inclusive attracts the dregs, little if any money flows into the local economy.
Cyprus is not going to see tourists this year, therefore time to reflect, seize the opportunity for radical change and innovation.
Rewind the tourist sector to thirty years ago when Cyprus was a quality destination, attracted quality tourists, when hoteliers took a pride in their hotels, restaurateurs in their restaurants.
Cyprus needs far fewer tourists, quality tourists. There should be no all-inclusive hotels, tour companies should be no more than 20% of hotel bookings (no single tour operator more than 10%), pay promptly at the end of the month (with penalty for late payment).
Encourage long stay, fourteen days and longer, discourage short stay, short breaks, seven days and shorter. Fewer flights for the same hotel occupancy.
The noisy bars bulldoze to the ground. Restaurants in an attempt to compete with all-inclusive hotels are in a race to the bottom, a race to the bottom no one can win.
What passes as coffee shops is laughable, Cyprus is infamous for bad coffee, coffee shops serving drinkable coffee could count on one hand.
Replace noisy bars with traditional tavernas and coffee shops. It would be difficult to find good examples without visiting Plaka in Athens. Paul’s Coffee Roasters and Lazaris (though not for coffee) near St Lazarus Church in the back streets of Larnaca set high standards, take a pride in what they do, as does Nick’s Coffee Bike outside Larnaca Marina, but these are the rare exceptions, not the norm, oasis amidst the dross. Once the norm in Cyprus, until a race to the bottom to attract custom from all-inclusive hotels, a race no one can win.
For restaurants slow food not fast food, local cuisine using fresh local seasonal produce. Sea food restaurants overlooking the sea, fresh caught fish, for example Spartiatis overlooking Konnos Bay and Demetrion beside Liopetri River overlooking the sea.
Tourism is more than hotels, it is bars, coffee shops, restaurants, car hire, boat trips, water sports. All of which have suffered in recent years thanks to all-inclusive hotels.
There is a need to improve standards within the tourist sector, hotels, restaurants, bars, coffee shops. How to measure standards?
TripAdvisor is worthless, fake reviews and trolls. Google Maps marginally better. Proposal to tender a contract to assess standards seriously flawed in a country where everyone knows everyone, someones cousin friend went to school with.
Create an open source open coop collaborate commons platform Booking Cyprus. Charge a small fee to generate a surplus to maintain and improve the platform and fund local community green projects.
There is a need to diversify within the tourist sector.
Diversify away from tourism based on a handful of coastal resorts.
It takes two to tango… You and Grecian Park Hotel Cyprus! On October 25-28, join us for the 6th Cyprus Tango Meeting and enjoy the dance of passionate love in our dreamy ambience.
An example would be a week of tango at Grecian Park, not organised by the hotel, they host a week organised by two dancers well known within the world of tango.
A green new deal, use it to kick start the economy.
Look to what DiEM25 is proposing for Europe. EU needs to issue eurobonds, €500 billion a year to finance a Green New Deal for Europe.
Implement a tree planting programme. Start by planting trees at bus stops for the 101 / 102 bus service Paralimni Protaras Ayia Napa to provide much needed shade.
”Milan is to introduce one of Europe’s most ambitious schemes reallocating street space from cars to cycling and walking, in response to the coronavirus crisis.” https://t.co/crSIMT5G5G
Pedestrianise the sea front at Larnaca and extend the pedestrianised area into the back streets around St Lazaris Church. Provide an electric shuttle bus service from, Larnaca Marina to Mackenzie Beach.
Cyprus is over-reliant on oil imports, which is crazy in a country with abundant sunshine. Install roof top solar, feed into local community owned and controlled local grids, paid a fair price, consumers pay a fair price, surplus generation fed to other local grids via a publicly owned national grid, any ‘profit’ fed back into the local grid or used to fund local community projects.
The proposed Paphos Marina with facilities for cruise ships should be scrapped. Cruise ships are floating environmental disasters. Floating all-inclusive hotels that bring no benefits to local economies.
The project in Paphos to create a marina for 1,000 boats plus cruise ships is an example of the insanity that is destroying Cyprus. It should be scrapped.
Cruise ships are nothing more than glorified floating all-inclusive hotels, that cause horrendous damage wherever they dock, with little benefit to the local economy.
The streets of Athens, especially areas like Plaka and Acropli, are clogged whenever a cruse ship docks, causing a problem for both locals and visitors, and they do not spend any money. The tour buses ferrying them around, traffic congestion, noise and pollution.
Venice is being destroyed by cruise ships.
Cruise shop are major greenhouse gas emitters, plus passenger fly to start and end of trip. Cruise ships dump their sewerage and garbage overboard, including plastic.
Will there even be cruise ships? As we have seen floating hell when covid-19 spreads through the ship and nowhere will permit a plague ship to dock.
These floating all-inclusive hotels are now all rapidly returning to port, discharging their passengers and being mothballed. The industry has not just been devastated, it has ceased to function altogether. For it, coronavirus has been the perfect storm. It has gone from being an industry worth $46 billion (£37 billion) a year, with 26 million passengers per annum, to an almost total standstill overnight. The only destination for cruise ships, the scrap yard.
Art and culture would seem an oxymoron when said in the same breath as Ayia Napa, and yet Ayia Napa has an excellent International Sculpture Park on a hillside overlooking the sea and hosts an excellent Medieval Festival.
How many visitors are aware of the open air theatre during the summer in the grounds of Larnaca Castle?
Cyprus has a democratic deficit which should be addressed. Not only open municipalities to the public, open to public participation, live stream all meetings.
A doughnut may appear to be a simple concept, but appearances can be deceptive. Its power lies in its simplicity.
A lower social bound bellow which we should not fall. An upper planetary bound which we should not exceed. It is also circular, symbolises not only money flowing around the economy, but also symbolises mutual cooperation, collaborative commons.
A simple example will suffice. On changing money in a car hire, we are recommended to take a boat trip. The boat trip recommends a restaurant. The restaurant recommends a vineyard from where they source their wine. To visit the vineyard, we return to the car hire to hire a car. We pass through a lovely little village, learn of a house available through fairbnb should we be tempted to return. At the vineyard, we learn they are renting out a beautiful studio apartment with incredible views of the sea. We find a coffee shop which we have been recommended, and as is the nature of coffee shops, interesting conversations ensue with the owner and barista and fellow coffee drinkers, we learn of many cultural events, an out of the way fish restaurant overlooking the sea and of a taverna overlooking the sea. We learn Cyprus has much to offer, which we would never have learnt of from tour guides at an all-inclusive hotel. And the local economy has benefited. And maybe we will return one day to explore further.
Salient points of a doughnut economy:
GDP is not a useful measure. We cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. Obsession with GDP has destroyed the planet whilst at the same time creating obscene levels of inequality. The top richest 1% have accrued more wealth than the poorest 99%. Uncontrolled growth has a name, cancer.
Create, innovate, value human development. With rare exceptions there is a lack of innovation in Cyprus. One bar owner opens a bar with white seats, overpriced drinks, moronic music thudding out. Then more bars open with white seats, overpriced drinks, moronic music thudding out. Those that follow, do not bother to check the first bar always empty.
Understand the power of networks, how feedback systems operate.
An economic system must be distributive. All must share in the wealth created.
Transactions within an economy are not simply financial, nor are the players only government and private sector. The economy also has to include open coops, collaborate commons, each working in loose partnership with each other.
Economy has to be regenerative. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition to merely protect the natural world from harm.
The Cypriot economy is moribund if not in free fall, no tourists anytime soon. The time should be put to productive use to implement a doughnut economy.
It is important public information, in Greek and English, to keep everyone informed, not only locals but also visitors. Then network and share with other municipalities, not only across Cyprus, across Europe.
It beggars belief greedy grasping tax-dodging billionaire conman Richard Branson has his hand out for £500 million bailout of his ailing Virgin airline.
£500 million is only from British taxpayer, Branson is also seeking £700 million from the Australian government to bailout Virgin Australia.
Recently he shifted a billion dollars from American Virgin Islands to British Virgin Islands.
A couple of years ago Branson sued NHS for millions. How many lives has that cost, how many ventilators for patients, protective equipment for front-line staff?
His running of the East Coast Mainline was a disaster. The rail franchise has now reverted back to public ownership, much to the relief of train crew and passengers.
In his call for a bailout Branson is backed by Airbus, which makes the planes, and Rolls-Royce, which makes the jet engines for the planes. He is also backed by Manchester Airport and Heathow Airport which wish to see a return to businesses as usual.
No bailout for airlines, no return to businesses as usual. We should not bailout out industries which are trashing the planet, which delivered covid-19 around the world.
Bailout people not airlines, bailout local indie businesses not global corporations, then fund a Green New Deal. Any bailout should be of strategic sectors by acquiring a controlling stake.
The rottenness is at two levels, rottenness of billionaires who think the role of the taxpayer to bail them out, whilst calling for the strivers to return to work and make them more money, and the rottenness of the travel industry who think they can return to businesses as usual trashing the planet with the the help of the taxpayer.
Rich football clubs owned by billionaires, have laid off their workers, expected the taxpayer to pay 80% of salaries of the lowest paid, whilst overpaid footballers remain on full salary sitting on their arse doing nothing.
Philip Greed expects the taxpayer to bail out his ailing Arcadia group.
Mike Ashley tried to open Sports Direct during lockdown claiming it was an essential business.
Vulture capitalist owners of Waterstone’s forced their workers into work, refused to implement social distancing, refused to allow workers to wear face masks or gloves.
“We should use this as a moment to reflect on what transport methods we should prioritise when this crisis is over.” https://t.co/XPyGemUMZX
We face two global crisis, global pandemics spread by airlines and cruise ships and climate emergency.
We were told could not reach zero carbon by 2035, impossible, unrealistic within the time scale. We have shut down polluting industries overnight, we have seen what is possible, we hear bird song not traffic noise, our skies are free of aircraft, our streets traffic free, our cities pollution free. We cannot return to businesses as usual.
Covid-19 has jolted us into another now, a different trajectory. We have a glimpse of what is possible, what could be. We must now create and maintain another now, our future and that of the planet depends upon it.
