The excessive carbon footprint of the European Parliament

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Oct 282008
 

The European Parliament -EP- is unique. It is the only directly elected supranational parliament in the world. It is also quite especial for having two meeting places; Brussels and Strasbourg.

The recently released study on the carbon footprint of the EP confirms the fact that commuting between the two seats is not only stupid but also envirnmentally harmful.

If we look at the distribution of Green House Gas (GHG) per source at world level we see that transport causes 13,5% of GHG, whilst electricity and heat represent 25%. It is quite shocking that the EP is close to producing 30% of its GHG from transport costs (home to work commuting, duty travel between and outside the three main working sites and transport using official and hired cars). This is more than twice as much than the average!!

The study doesn’t reveal how much of this 30% of GHG is caused by commuting from Brussels to Strasbourg. What is clear is that whatever these emissions could be easily saved just by stopping the commuting.

The Resolution of the Parliament of 24 April 2007 decided to cut the EP carbon emissions by 30% by 2020.  Stopping the commuting between Brussels and Strasbourg is something feasible, sensible, necessary and it even has a political majority in the house, among the governments and among the citizens.

The step number one to reduce the carbon footprint of the EP has to be stopping this travelling circus!

Who would die for free? Who would die for Freedom?

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Oct 202008
 

Today I visited the american cementery at Omaha Beach, Normandie, where 3000 american soldiers died on the 6th of June 1944 whilst trying to gain the shore in the first step to free Europe from Nazi occupation.

Everywhere in this memorial we are reminded that these soldiers died for our Freedom.

I walk around these many crosses wondering, once again, about the limits of human stupidity whilst I read amazing stories of courage and sacrifice of these soldiers in their twenties coming from the other side of the ocean to give their lives for us. By “us” I mean “us” in the broadest sense.

Could a scene of sacrifice like this be repeated today? I remember reading of a soldier from Illinois, 18 years old, who lied about his age to be enroled as volunteer and who was among the first to be killed in Omaha beach… Would a white, middle-class, 18 year old american of today be capable of a similar sacrifice? Would a 18 year-old, middle-class european bother enrolling in an army to go defend freedom in the other side of the ocean?

More amazing even is the fact that these people died “for free”.  They were not a professional army, they were not getting paid -as we understand a “pay” today-, yet they gave their lives when its country requested them to do so.

Currently, the armies have been professionalised and middle-class boys -an girls- can easily avoid getting killed in wars. Wars are fought by “latinos”, afro-americans, arabs… and they don’t fight for “freedom” in general but for the ticket for their families to a better world. They don’t fight for general ideas or countries but for papers and money to bring their families out of poverty. In this sense, modern soldiers put a price to their lifes. Yet, I don’t think they would dare to jump on the beaches of Normandy like these soldiers of the second world war did. The price is “too” high.

We definitely live in a different world where “freedom” doesn’t mean what it meant to those youngsters in the 1940s. We can say that the pursue of freedom has been individualised in the same way as the consumist society has turned the “people” into a “consumer”. We are all different individuals having our individual freedom as one of our main assets. The concept of collective freedom has been diluted and prostituted to an extend that it is only use by clowns such as G. Bush to justify forcing ilegal wars upon empoversihed countries.

This is not the freedom the american, british, polish, french, russian soldiers died for during the WWII. However, the need for this “collective freedom” tends to be rediscovered in times of economic, political and moral crisis. The current systemic crisis has the capacity to rally the youngsters of the world to save the destruction of the planet resources, to bring them together to ask for their right to freedom and consequently build structures and institutions that make war impossible but also that control the financial markets, the fiscal paradises, the food markets, etc…

The question is: will the new generation be ready to jump in the Omaha beach of the 21st century exposing themselves to the enemy fire?

Would they be willing to do it “for free”?

Looking for a president for the European Commission

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Oct 172008
 

After two failed referendums in France and Netherlands the European Commission had the chance to intervene in favour of the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland. Very little was done. After the results were known does the president of the EC go to Ireland? No. The political price has to be paid by Vice-President Margot Wallstrom.

Lately we have had the financial crisis. In the past the European Commission was good at anticipating crisis and former EC presidents took an active stand on the issue. The current Commission did not anticipate the crisis and during the last two weeks the protagonism was taken by UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, wellknown for his leadership skills…

Although it is true that the economic governance is not an EU competence, a visionary president of the EUropean Commission would have taken advantage of the opportunity to bring the EU forward.

This crisis is only starting and more opportunities will come to set up the right structure in order to better regulate the anarchy in financial markets. Can we trust the current president Barrosso to properly represent the European interest or should we rather start looking for a new president of the European Commission?

The forthcoming European Parliament Elections are an opportunity we should use to this effect.

The Economist – “The magazine irrationalis”

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Oct 082008
 


I’m perplexed by the ideological coherence of this widely read -and
respected- magazine that preaches logic, rationalism and economic liberalism.

Not too long ago -one month- it was still preaching free market, no regulations, no intervention of the state and that the government should work only in those areas where it is not profitable for the private sector to operate.

This same magazine has always preached globalisation without regulations, without institutions responsible to monitor anything and has been actively campaigning against any political integration in Europe because that could “undermine” economic competitiveness in the continent…

For them, democracy is only valid as colonialist tool when the western countries intervene in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, but they will never advocate for democracy at supranational level, putting the economic powers under democratic scrutiny is “nonsense” according to the prestigious magazine.

The big laugh about all this comes in times of crisis like the times where we are now. The financial crisis has changed all the ideological rational of this very theoretical magazine: from asking the state to stay away from private sector is now applauding the big bailouts and nationalisation of private banks.

The time to privatise profits is over, now it is time to nationalise debts and make the people, the “consumers” as they call them, pay the price of private businesses mismanagements.

Now it is time to promote fiscal authority intervention, meaning the finances ministries will use taxpayer money to nationalise the banks. Beyond that they are proposing that it would be good to have the possibility to act as financial authority at European level, in other words, the need to collect
takes at European level and “de facto” launch an European economic policy which is something that they have always opposed based on ideological grants.

In a rational world, once this crisis is over, the magazine would learn from its mistakes and move to ask for a minimum regulation at supranational level on the financial markets and for the EU to have economic governance.

Unfortunately this magazine is as rational as human beings.