I give an impassioned speech on what will happen once we let nature go from its bonds and make rewilding a reality in the UK
A beautifully filmed short promo film shot at Wildwood Trust, Kent. Producer: Luke Sutton, D.O.P Vatalii Ciobanu, Camera Op. Jack Cuckson, Edited by Jessica Harms. Watch this space for the fully edited feature coming soon...
Tuesday, 15 December 2015
Tuesday, 1 December 2015
WAR On ISIS & Syria! Let's solve it with a Land Value Tax Not Bombs!
As the UK government is setting us on a path of war tomorrow I thought I would explore how the Syrian war started. Many commentators have speculated how a natural resource disaster may be at its roots.
Many have documented how a drought, high temperatures and very poor regulation of water & grazing rights has led to Syrian desertification, crop failure and the displacement of 1.5Million syrians from relative wealth as farmers to poor urban dwellers and thus formed the social impulse to cause the civil war.
Background Stories on this :
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2871076/overgrazing_and_desertification_in_the_syrian_steppe_are_the_root_causes_of_war.html
http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/syrias-climate-conflict/
The intervention of those seeking to profit from the crisis by getting their hands on the spoils such as Saudi Arabia, France, USA, Russia & now the UK have a keen eye on Oil and natural resources just as we did with Libya, like vultures around the carcass we will pick it clean, given the chance. They have funnelled billions to there chosen proxies in the civil conflict and when that is not working then send in their own forces. This web of murderous self interest is at the root of many such conflicts and it is easy to get side tracked by the dishonesty and duplicity of all the countries indulging in this. I cannot express my contempt at Mr Cameron, like Blair before him, duping the public once again into war.
My heart is broken by what has befallen the Syrian people and I have wept for the victims. But my anger must really be reserved for the stupidity of all of us at preventing war. The anti war movement needs a concrete objective, a remedy, that will remove the causes of warfare such as environmental destruction, loss of lively hood and remove the incentive of those that seek to profit from war. Only a Land Value Tax as a policy objective can fulfill these objectives so why do anti war, anti poverty & environmental campaigners not band together to promote this as a policy?
Land Value Tax is the solution to both macro and micro issues in preventing climate change and mitigating environmental scarcity such as water (at the heart of the syrian issue) so a tax and dividend system to share scarcity equally removes the perverse incentive to exploit. This goes for land (a land Value tax), water use (abstraction tax), carbon tax etc and other natural resources & 'green' taxes. This solves scarcity but also suppresses the use of the fossil fuels and land changes(oxidation of soils) that are causing climate change in the first place.
This solution will suppress those seeking to push our foreign policy to war by removing the perverse incentive to fight over natural resources rents as they will be impossible to monopolise by one group, country or corporation under such as system.
So what the Syrian people really need is a Land Value Tax & not bombs on their heads
My thoughts on War:
But what is the solution to natural resource disasters, climate change and war?
Many have documented how a drought, high temperatures and very poor regulation of water & grazing rights has led to Syrian desertification, crop failure and the displacement of 1.5Million syrians from relative wealth as farmers to poor urban dwellers and thus formed the social impulse to cause the civil war.
Background Stories on this :
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2871076/overgrazing_and_desertification_in_the_syrian_steppe_are_the_root_causes_of_war.html
http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/syrias-climate-conflict/
The intervention of those seeking to profit from the crisis by getting their hands on the spoils such as Saudi Arabia, France, USA, Russia & now the UK have a keen eye on Oil and natural resources just as we did with Libya, like vultures around the carcass we will pick it clean, given the chance. They have funnelled billions to there chosen proxies in the civil conflict and when that is not working then send in their own forces. This web of murderous self interest is at the root of many such conflicts and it is easy to get side tracked by the dishonesty and duplicity of all the countries indulging in this. I cannot express my contempt at Mr Cameron, like Blair before him, duping the public once again into war.
My heart is broken by what has befallen the Syrian people and I have wept for the victims. But my anger must really be reserved for the stupidity of all of us at preventing war. The anti war movement needs a concrete objective, a remedy, that will remove the causes of warfare such as environmental destruction, loss of lively hood and remove the incentive of those that seek to profit from war. Only a Land Value Tax as a policy objective can fulfill these objectives so why do anti war, anti poverty & environmental campaigners not band together to promote this as a policy?
Land Value Tax is the solution to both macro and micro issues in preventing climate change and mitigating environmental scarcity such as water (at the heart of the syrian issue) so a tax and dividend system to share scarcity equally removes the perverse incentive to exploit. This goes for land (a land Value tax), water use (abstraction tax), carbon tax etc and other natural resources & 'green' taxes. This solves scarcity but also suppresses the use of the fossil fuels and land changes(oxidation of soils) that are causing climate change in the first place.
This solution will suppress those seeking to push our foreign policy to war by removing the perverse incentive to fight over natural resources rents as they will be impossible to monopolise by one group, country or corporation under such as system.
So what the Syrian people really need is a Land Value Tax & not bombs on their heads
My thoughts on War:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
How do we stop the Insect Apocalypse?
There have been a number of articles this week on the insect apocalypse, with some studies showing an 80% drop in insect numbers since the l...
-
Interesting the solution to the problems of flooding is the same for many of the problems facing Britain in the economic, housing and enviro... -
An old University friend of mine, who has been a senior financial journalist for many years and is now a newspaper editor, asked this quest...
-
Or why the green movement has trouble accepting the one policy that will guarantee their objectives. Land Value Tax (LVT) in its full...
