Robots?

I’m just wondering if large numbers of Britons have become like robots, programmed to do whatever we expected to do regardless of anything else.

Two days ago at least the Met Office was warning of atrocious conditions heading for the north of England and Scotland with gale force winds, heavy snow and freezing temperatures. Despite these warnings, today a coach carrying school children on a trip to Alton Towers set off in the early hours into the teeth of this meteorological onslaught and sadly crashed leaving the road and ending up on it’s side in a brook. Several children injured, some seriously. In Leith near Edinburgh huge waves broke through the defences and crashed over a sea wall and onto the road. A video taken shows traffic still trying to go past even when a van trying to reverse back is almost swept onto it’s side. What has happened to the mindset that will risk a life just to make a delivery or get to work?

A secondary thought is that I can understand and applaud a school trip to a museum, an ancient house or to a beach to study rock pools and so on but a trip to Alton Towers!

Here We Go Again!

The housing market is on the move again of that there is little doubt and of course along with it the cost of buying a home is rising albeit slowly at the present time. The highest level of unemployment in my region stands at 6% which of course is not much fun for those without work but it does mean that 94% have jobs. Car production is rising once more and bankers bonus payouts are still obscene.

All this does not mean that the recession is over but points to it at least bottoming out. The massive bill to stave off the worst of the global economy crash will still have to be paid over the next couple of decades and will have some negative impact on most of us. Most of us being the ones who played no part in the disgraceful financial gambling of the past ten to twenty years although most of us were a part of the rampant consumerism that gripped the developed world.

A few minor inconveniences have been put in place to curb some of the excesses of the financial traders but by and large as the recovery gets under way it will be business as usual and so setting us up for a repeat performance in another decade or so down the line. Bankers will be making fortunes out of the future labour of ordinary people not even born yet, houses will be purchased as investments and not as homes to live in, industry will again expand and add to the climatic pollution that is already out of control.

This global catastrophe presented the World and I suggest, the UK in particular, with a golden opportunity for change. That chance has already been squandered and we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past and the next time may not contain within it opportunity for change.

What a great example to us all!

Off he goes again this time with Camilla to Italy, speaking on climate change and about the “slow food” movement of local sourcing and organic production. Charlie, who knows far more more than scientists and climatologists, informed the Italian parliament that the world has ‘just 99 months’ to halt global warming or it will be too late.

Ack. The Sun

He is a fine example to us all, we should all do what we can to reduce emissions and buy local food where possible.

Except that he hired a private jet to get there rather than at least take a scheduled flight, or travel by rail. The private jet was presumably at our expence.

The Caring Prince

We all know how caring is Prince Charles or at least so we are regularly told by his PR Team. He cares about the environment and about sustainable living and he is passionate about alternative  health care isn’t he? He even set up The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health Care.

The ‘charity’   submitted it’s report to the Charity Commission recently and this shows that investments were made to among others :-

• £112,000 in Artemis UK Special Situations, which includes investments in BP, Shell, GlaxoSmithKline and BAE systems
• £92,000 in Investec Global Energy, 26% of which is invested in ‘Oil and Gas Exploration’
• £65,000 in Jupiter Emerging European Opportunities Fund, whose top ten holdings include LUKOIL (Russia’s largest oil company) and Gazprom (the world’s largest gas company)

Need I say more? I don’t think so.

G20 March

Today at the G20 march in London the police estimate 35,000 people braved the cold winds and warnings that there might be ‘trouble’ to make clear what the people want from this meeting. By the way, going from my experience of marching with CND you can probably double that number.

Various groups issued statements and the most impressive for me was the one issued by ‘The British Muslim Initiative’ which I am happy to copy below. It is clear, precise and encompasses all the wishes expressed by the other groups.

“While the world looks with horror at the hundreds of billions of pounds being thrown at shoddy financial establishments to bail them out and to cover for huge executive bonuses, very little mention is made of the hundreds of billions that continue to be pumped into the global war machine that claims thousands of lives every day.

“Unless occupation in all its forms is seen as a repugnant manifestation of human greed and desire to over-power… and unless we see to it that poverty, disease, illiteracy and social injustice are properly and responsibly addressed, we will never be able to resolve the crisis that engulfs the world through the failure of its major financial policies and institutions.”

God Won’t Help Us

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has said that God will not intervene to protect us from global warming and associated disasters even the “ultimate tragedy” of humanity gradually “choked, drowned, or starved by its own stupidity.”

Oh Dear! There was me relying on a divine breath of fresh air to blow away all the carbon dioxide and re-freeze the  arctic and antarctic seas to lower the levels. Better have another think then!