The other budget of the Royal Household of Spain

Today, on 28th December 2011, the Royal Household of Spain has brought its budget into the open. Although it had been often claimed, and contrary to most European monarchies, since 1979 the Royal Household of Spain would not reveal it.
But this is not enough. It is a good gesture, necessary for a real democracy, favouring transparency and allowing citizens to learn how public money is spent by the royal household. But nonetheless, a significant percentage of this budget remains concealed. As we said in a previous post, in the General State Budgets of Spain, there is a clearly assigned item for the Royal Family (8,434,280 euros), but in total the monarchy receives 25 million euros. And this is so because there are other hidden items in other budgets besides the Royal Budget. The government has never revealed the amount of these hidden items, so the total budget remains an unravelled mystery. Just to get an idea, the following list includes some items not included in the 8-million-euro Royal Family Budget, compiled by Iñaki Anasagasti, member of the Spanish Senate:

- Safety (item within the budget of Home Affairs)
- Travelling expenses (item within the budget of Home Affairs)
- Flights (item within the budget of Defence)
- Escorts for Prince and Princesses (item within the budget of Defence)
- Cars: Rolls, Mercedes, Audis, etc. (item within the budget of Public Works)
- Chauffeurs (item within the budget of Public Works)
- Palaces: Zarzuela, Oriente, la Granja de San Ildefonso, Marivent, the prince’s palace, etc. + maintenance, electricity, gas, water, telephone, gardeners, servants and maids, etc. (item within the budget of Patrimony)
- Official and non-official trips abroad (item within the budget of Foreign Affairs)
- Staff of the General Secretariat of the Royal Household (item within the budget of Presidency)

The document issued by the Royal Household talks about transparency and austerity. But the budget is still not transparent at all, and needless to say, not very austere. It’s high time the king should practice what he preaches.

Sources:

1. The Royal Budget of 2011: http://imagenes.publico-estaticos.es/resources/archivos/2011/12/28/1325074553154Desglose%20presupuestario.pdf
2. Previous post at Delivering Data about the hidden items: http://www.deliveringdata.com/2010/08/wich-is-budget-of-royal-household-of.html
3. The list compiled by Iñaki Anasagasti has been taken from the book Una monarquía protegida por la censura (“A monarchy protected by censorship”), published by Foca: http://ianasagasti.blogs.com/mi_blog/2009/06/la-censura-al-libro.html    

Concentration camps in North Korea

In July 1977 Kang Chol Hwan, a nine-year old kid, was arrested with his family because his grandfather was not enthusiastic enough with Kim Il Sung’s regime, the dictator of North Korea for life. His grandfather was not an opponent to the regime. He had returned from Japan to North Korea with his family to witness the revolution and he had given all his fortune to the party, but it seems that it was not enough.
Kang and his family spent ten years in Yodok concentration camps as “relatives of an offender”. Later on, when he managed to flee the country, he eventually settled down in South Korea, after his long voyage around China. He is the author of The Aquariums of Pyongyang, an account of his life in Yodok camp, the first book published in Europe to bear witness of North Korea concentration camps. It is a good example of this horror literature exposing life in concentration camps, be them Nazi, Soviet gulags or in Francoist Spain, among many others. Life at Yodok is worthless. The writer suffers starvation and cold, he survives by eating rats and bugs and he is made to view public executions. He witnessed how a teacher killed another child because the latter dared to answer him back. And most discouraging: Yodok is not the worst concentration camp in North Korea. When Kang talks about other concentration camps in his country (Amnesty International located six camps, but no-one knows how many camps there are), he states: "I feel almost guilty complaining publicly about the life I led at Yodok. Yes, guilty for Yodok is by no means the toughest camp in North Korea. Far worse exist, and they are shrouded in such secrecy that for a long time it was impossible to talk about them with any precision".
Moreover, there is a substantial difference between North Korea camps and soviet gulags or Nazi concentration camps: North Korea camps are still crowded. It is estimated that in North Korea, with about 24 million inhabitants, there are between 150,000 and 200,000 people imprisoned in concentration camps for political reasons. Some of them are dissidents, some others are not, as it was the case of Kang’s family, although the regime considers them opponents too. Most of them are only guilty of being relatives of an offender.
Such organisations as Amnesty International has been fighting for years to publicize this situations and put pressure on Kim Jong Un (Kim Il Sung’s grandson and Kim Jong Il’s son, who died last December 17th) to close down these camps and release prisoners. If you want to help this advocacy campaign, sign this appeal for action. As human beings, we should all be ashamed of such camps as Yodok, Senghori or Guantánamo.

Sources:

1. Kang Chol Hwan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kang_Chol-Hwan
2. The Aquariums of Pyongyang, Kang Chol Hwan’s account about his life at Yodok: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aquariums_of_Pyongyang
3. Campaign to take action against Yodok concentration camp: http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/north-korean-political-prison-camps

    
    
    
   

A ship to explore the confines of ethics

The history of ocean conquest and exploration is the history of many famous ships. But not all ships had the same importance. Many a ship is known worldwide and honoured in its country of origin, but it did not mean any advance for humanity. We are talking about ships used to conquer, plunder and colonize new territories. Just ask the Caribbean Indians about the Santa María ship, the New England natives about the Mayflower ship or, not so long ago, the fishermen of the Red Sea about the Spanish fishing vessel Alakrana. However, in the list of famous ships there are some others which deserve greater honour for their contribution to human progress: the Beagle with Charles Darwin on board, the Fram carrying the polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen or the Calypso operated by Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
Today, as it is the 40th anniversary of Greenpeace, we would like to talk about another famous ship, the Rainbow Warrior. Greenpeace named three ships the same to sail the seas and the oceans of the world with the aim to study the impact of human beings on the environment. But contrary to other vessels for scientific research, the Rainbow Warrior not only reports environmental crimes, but also gets involved and tries to stop some atrocities performed in our oceans. Its most well-known actions include the protest against whale hunting, which is indiscriminate and can cause animal extinction, as well as reporting oil spilling or dumping, and the boycott attempts against nuclear testing in the ocean. However, the Rainbow Warrior also performs other actions with less media coverage but nonetheless important, like studying the impact of trawling in New Zealand or the glacier retreat in Norway, playing a very significant role in the fight to protect our ecosystems.
As we said before, the Rainbow Warrior is not one ship, but three, which were not contemporary thanks to the French government. The story is sadly notorious. In 1978, Greenpeace purchased its first ship, a former UK research vessel built in 1995 which was used as a trawler in the Northern Sea. Greenpeace named this first ship Rainbow Warrior after a legend of north-American natives, quite well-known among eco-friendly activists. This ship took part in many environmental actions around the world. In 1985, the first Rainbow Warrior intended to enter French waters to prevent nuclear tests in the Mururoa Atoll, in the French Polynesia. It was anchored in New Zealand, but it could not weigh anchor: agents of the French intelligence service (the so-called General Directorate for External Security) put a bomb on the ship to sink it. A photographer of the Greenpeace expedition, Fernando Pereira, died in this terrorist attack, the first ever recorded in New Zealand. The responsibility for the attack is not a conspiratorial paranoia: the agents of the French intelligence service were judged and sentenced in New Zealand and their names are written down in history.
The wreck of the Rainbow Warrior was refloated, but it was impossible to repair, so Greenpeace decided to scuttle it in Cavalli Islands to serve as an artificial reef of marine life. Four years later, in 1989, Greenpeace bought another ship named Rainbow Warrior II and in 2011 it was given to the NGO Friendship to become a hospital ship. Today, the Rainbow Warrior III has set sail in a presentation tour to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Greenpeace. If you want to meet it, from December 14th to 19th it will be anchored in Barcelona. If you are not living in Barcelona, check the next stopovers at Greenpeace website. And if you see it, you will realise that it is not a huge, spectacular ship, but it is huge for its meaning: it is a symbol of the next step forward of our species. We cannot resign ourselves to knowing what’s going on around the world, we should take action.

Sources
Santa María: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Mar%C3%ADa_%28ship%29
Mayflower: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower
Alakrana: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/english/Pirates/trial/reveals/Alakrana/payoff/was/made/elpepueng/20110503elpeng_11/Ten
Beagle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Beagle
Fram: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fram
Calypso: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RV_Calypso
Greenpeace 40th anniversary: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/about/
Rainbow Warrior:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Warrior
Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior I: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior
Fernando Pereira, the Greenpeace photographer killed by the French intelligence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pereira
   
    
   

Light pollution

Light pollution is the emission of artificial light at night with unnecessary intensity, direction, hours and spectral ranges. In other words: illuminating more than necessary. It may seem a minor problem if compared to other types of pollution, but just take a look at this picture of northern Italy taken from the International Space Station (ISS) to realise that it is an issue. If you still have some doubts, take a look at this spectacular video taken from the ISS again showing our planet by night.
What’s the problem with light pollution? After thousands of years living in the dark, electricity allows us to have as much light as we need, and even more, to the point that some people complain of the poorer lighting in some cities, especially in newly-rich countries like Spain. Lately, letters to the editor of most newspapers in Barcelona are about the “poor lighting” in the streets, revealing that we are not aware of the consequences of over-illumination. Let’s analyse this problem in depth.
First, night ecosystems are harmed: light pollution disturbs the night rest of diurnal animals, hinders camouflage and reproduction of nocturnal animals, and disrupts hunter-prey relationships. Secondly, excessive light reduces the visibility of stars to the point that the UNESCO is thinking to declare starlight as World Heritage in order to preserve it. If you have ever seen the night sky in the desert, you know what we mean: it has nothing to do with the night skies you have seen so far. There is an international campaign advocating for the right to see the stars called Starlight Initiative 2007 with the support of some governments and international organisations.
If you are not convinced with such environmental arguments, there are other mundane yet forceful arguments. Artificial light is also directed upwards, towards the sky, which is pointless, and it costs a fortune. Catalonia, for instance, with just 1 out of every 1,000 inhabitants in the world and only one urban area of more than one million inhabitants, spends 30 million euros every year to light the clouds. Do your sums worldwide. In times of social budget cuts, let’s put this figure in context: 30 million euros is more than the cut for international cooperation in Catalonia (from 49 million euros in 2010 to 22 million euros in 2011).
Anyway, we are not only wasting money, but also energy. In 1998, Germans calculated that the energy wasted to light clouds was equivalent to the energy produced by a small nuclear reactor. And bear in mind that Germany is one of the most efficiently-lit countries in the western world! If calculated in terms of fossil fuel, the figures are staggering: according to the Department of the Environment of the government of Catalonia, the amount of wasted light means burning 14,000 tons of fuel and emitting 50,000 tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. It’s worth considering, isn’t it?
How can we end up with such a waste of money and energy and, incidentally, make nocturnal animals, astronomers and poets happy? Basically, we should give priority to lighting downwards (we do not need to see the clouds while driving or walking down the street), use energy-saving lights and be common-sensed to understand that we do not need to have a daylight night. 

Sources

1. Image of northern Italy from the International Space Station showing light pollution: http://twitpic.com/76n28p
2. A spectacular video of our planet as seen from outer space, showing light pollution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqicgKpqVUk
3. International Dark-Sky Association web site:  http://www.darksky.org/
4. Starlight Initiative web site: http://www.starlight2007.net/
5. International cooperation cuts: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/cooperacion/causa/perdida/elpepisoc/20111122elpepisoc_1/Tes

   
   
   
    

On elves, gnomes, dragons and fairies

Paracelsus was one of the pioneers of the scientific method in medicine and one of the promoters to abandon the Hippocratic and scholastic theory of the four humours to introduce chemical remedies and surgery as the base of modern medicine. But not all his ideas were so “scientific”. Paracelsus authored many books about magic and alchemy, in a time when these disciplines went hand in hand with chemistry and other natural sciences. One of his most curios books published in 1566 (25 years after his death) is A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies and Salamanders and on Other Spirits, describing all kinds of magic and hidden creatures which are supposed to live in our planet. “Nobody should wonder that there are such creatures. For God is miraculous in his works which he often lets appear miraculously." These are his words in the first chapter of this book.
Therefore, believing in impossible creatures is not exclusive to pre-scientific or anti-logic thought, as some of the most significant scientists believed in such creatures to a major or lesser extend. Just to give an example, Isaac Newton, one of the undoubtedly greatest scientists of all times, urged the Royal Society to sponsor an expedition to the Swiss Alps to study dragons, which were supposed to inhabit those mountains by that time. It was not an eccentricity: since Johann Jakob Scheuchzer published his study about his expeditions in the Alps, many scientists around Europe did believe that dragons and other prehistoric creatures existed.
We all seem to know pretty well where to set the limits between reality and superstition. Believing in creatures is all in the past, when these ideas were so widespread that even wise men believed. Today, we may think that there are just some gullible or uncultured people who believe in those things, especially in far-away cultures. But this is not true: today there are many people defending the existence of magic beings. For instance, a 1995 survey in Iceland revealed that 70% of Icelanders believed in the existence of “hidden people”, that is elves, gnomes and other mythological creatures of Iceland. The other 30% stood for 23% who was not sure, 1% who would not answer and only 6% who denied the existence of hidden elves in Iceland. There are many other similar surveys with similar results in this country because elves are a significant element of Icelandic folklore. To the point that the Ministry of Transports in Iceland appointed a person in charge to check that the layout of new roads would not disturb elves, avoiding their traditional inhabiting spots… as if the US government had a department on Bigfoot.
Therefore, it is not easy to see the limits between real and superstition, especially if you do believe in unreal things. But how can you realise that you believe in unreal things? The Spanish writer Fernando Arrabal, when talking about dragons in the Alps, exposed this dilemma: "If Newton, the most privileged brain of all human beings, believed in dragons, I may well believe in other kinds of dragons unconsciously".

Sources:

1. Paracelsus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus
2. The Four Temperaments theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Temperaments
3. Paracelsus’ Four Treaties, including A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and on the Other Spirits: http://books.google.fr/books?id=YIKLKqwsEc0C&printsec=frontcover&hl=ca&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
4. Scheuchzer’s trips in the Alps searching for dragons: http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2009/08/dragons-of-swiss-alps.html
5. Surveys about elves in Iceland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulduf%C3%B3lk#Surveys
6. A research documentary film about the invisible world of Jean Michel Roux, who spent some years studying Icelanders’ believe in elves and other supernatural creatures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRjatXe5bis
7. About the Spanish writer Fernando Arrabal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Arrabal

   
   
   
   

Voting against your own interests

In times of elections, many people wonder why parties traditionally advocating for the rights of a minority get so many votes. It is a recurrent topic of conversation among analysts and even in bars and cafés. Just google "why people vote X", making X the political party which, for you, favours the interests of the affluent minority, and you will realise that many other people have asked the same question. And the answers are also miscellaneous, but they can be divided into two groups basically.
On the one hand, some appeal to the voters’ ignorance of political issues, including soft answers (such as “you need to be really cultured to have a clear picture of politics, history and economy, and this is not easy for everybody”) and not so polite answers (to put it bluntly, “people are stupid”). But more or less, all these answers get to the same point: those who vote a party defending different interests means that they are unaware of the political agenda of this party or the most favourable policies for their own interests.
On the other hand, there are some answers saying that voters, especially in those democracies in which a two-party system seems to rule, react according to the pendulum principle --that is, punishing those who have long been ruling the country because they are to be blamed for all the problems, and the other party is the only available alternative. Some times the pendulum swings towards the party favouring the interests of a majority, whereas some other times it swings towards the party favouring the interests of just a few.
So, which answer is correct? Both types of answers may be right (and they are: just check on the news to identify different cases in which either one of them can be applied). But even if these answers are based on our reality, this is not all. Maybe those who vote against their interests are not ignorant fools or misinformed or cast a punishing vote. Or at least not all of them. Maybe it is just that they wish to vote that party. And this is the argument of John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the greatest economists of the 20th century, in his book The Culture of Contentment. We will try to provide you with a short explanation.
For centuries, the ruling minority passed the rules. The rest of the population, despite being a majority, had no saying in the political and economical matters. With the conquest of the parliamentary democracy, things are different in many countries and most people can take part in decision-making. But do not be misled: even if a majority can influence the public life, it does not include everybody. This is what Galbraith calls the contended voting majority --that is, the socially and financially lucky ones.  Anyway, this majority does not include all citizens but just those who really vote --it does not include those citizens who decide not to vote and those who do not have a right to vote (like immigrants). This contended majority votes for favourable parties, those who give priority to their interests above other people’s interests. When these people talk about cutting the Government’s expenditure, they talk about cutting social assistance, cheap housing, public health services, public education or the needs of immigrants, but   never about cutting other provisions like the financial support to ensure bank deposits in case of bankruptcy (which is an astronomical expenditure) or the subventions to large agrarian corporations exporting to Third World countries. According to this contended majority, such expenditure is not a burden for governments (but poor people’s health expenses and unemployment benefits are). On the contrary, this expenditure is the pillar of citizens’ welfare and safety. In other words, it is like in the ancient regime, when nobles justified their privileges as necessary for the good performance of economy and the country’s stability. Currently, the contended majority justify their privileges with the same arguments. Needless to say, there are always economists and political scientists ready to give a more intellectual nuance to this justification.
Defending your own privileges is not always monolithic. There are more and more privileged people who are also concerned for the rights of those who do not enjoy general welfare, going beyond their own personal contentment, and this is one of the best-known forms of social discourse. But in practice, when the contended majority goes to the polls, they give priority to their own welfare rather than to social justice.
When we say “privileged people”, nobody feels included. But privileged does not only include those who live in luxury, have yachts and celebrate parties on a tropical island. Privileged also includes those who have a job, a house and no major problems to make ends meet. These are privileged too, if compared to those who are not financially sound enough. And not wanting to help the underclass seems to be working: just keep what you have and do not lose privileges. The voters of parties who defend these privileges are in fact supporting the end of the welfare state because they ultimately consider that paying less taxes (hence, ending up with the welfare state) benefits them. And they even justify the excess of the affluent society: if the contended majority attacks the excesses of the supercontended minority, their own excesses would be too obvious in the eyes of deprived people. Paraphrasing Galbraith’s words, the grand opulence of the affluent people is the price to pay by the contended majority to keep what they have, which is not so much but it is good enough nonetheless.
To sum it up, our (well-grounded) criticism on the unfair privileges of the affluent citizens should also include some self-criticism towards our advocacy of our own privileges, which in the case of excessive consumption or the claims to pay less taxes just condemn millions of people to utter poverty.
Maybe those who vote the parties defending the privileges of the contended majority know what they are doing. But maybe they should start thinking if it is fair to defend your own interests to the detriment of the undefended minority.

Sources:

1. John Kenneth Galbraith: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith
2. The Culture of Contentment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture_of_Contentment

   
   
   
   

Following a cluster bomb

Arms trade is one of the big businesses today. The figures speak for themselves: in 2010 arms sales amounted to 150,000 million dollars. It is such a big business, with so many different actors (manufacturers, buyers, intermediary parties, regular armies, paramilitaries, guerrillas, dealers, etc.) that it is difficult to understand how it works.
To make it easier and better understand how the arms trade works, take an average company (not one of the largest, impersonal corporations) and follow its products, but do not beat about the bush by taking some far-away examples of companies located in a Caribbean Island. We have chosen a Spanish firm because it is close to us and because Spain is the ninth largest arms exporter in the world, which makes this country one of the main actors in arms trade. The chosen company is called Instalaza, with headquarters in Madrid and factory in Saragossa, and it supplies many armies in different countries. Let’s make it clear: we have chosen this company at random and it is not better or worse than many more other weaponry companies. We just wish to check how any random company works in this hideous business.
We have chosen a particular product traded by this company: MAT-120 bombs, better known as cluster bombs. Instalaza manufactured and sold cluster munitions until 2008. A cluster bomb is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that, at a given distance from the surface, releases or ejects dozens of bomblets that are designed to spread over a wide area to cause top destruction and damage. It is very effective to lay waste to an area, so it poses a particular threat to civilians. Such out-of-control devastation capacity urged an international treaty, signed in 2008, by which the 65 signatory countries are banned to use, manufacture, sell, manipulate or store cluster munitions. Spain was the fifth country to ratify this treaty and the first country to dismantle its arsenal consisting of about 6,000 cluster bombs.
Instalaza, which still exhibits MAT-120 bombs in its catalogue (although when it was reported to the press in January 2009, the company decided to clearly specify that cluster bombs were no longer manufactured or sold), complaint to the Spanish government because such treaty would drive the business to the wall and had the gall to ask for 40 million euros as business interruption compensation. Needless to say, the Spanish government did not pay such compensation but, curiously enough, some months ago the factory lands were reclassified in a very profitable way for Instalaza. It may be just a coincidence.
So far so good, but what happened to the cluster munitions manufactured by Instalaza until 2008, which were not dismantled because they were already sold to foreign countries? Only one of the seven countries to which Instalaza allegedly sold these bombs is known: Finland (Instalaza was the winning tender to supply the Finnish army with cluster bombs). No clues about the other six countries… until April 2011, when the NGO Humans Rights Watch discovered some cluster bombs manufactured by Instalaza in Misrata (Libya), used by Gaddafi forces against civilians during the revolution that ended up with Gaddafi’s regime. They are date-stamped 2007. What about the rest of cluster bombs? Should we wait until they are used against civilians to know which countries bought them?
It is not easy to fight against arms trade. For each banned bomb, arms catalogues are filled with many other “legal” weapons. International treaties are slow and limited and we cannot boycott arms trade companies because we are not their target customers. But we can do something about it: put pressure on those who finance these companies. In the 2007 report by Setem, we can check that the bombs sold to Gaddafi in 2007 were manufactured thanks to the financing credits by the following banks: Deutsche Bank, Cajalón, Caja Rural, Caja España, Caja del Mediterráneo, Bankinter, Barclays Bank, Ibercaja, Banco Popular, Banc de Sabadell and La Caixa. 
Is your money banked there? Or in any other Spanish bank financing arms trade? Maybe it’s high time to think about ethical banking, isn’t it?

Sources:

1. World Arms Trade: http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending
2. Post at Delivering Data about arms trade: http://www.deliveringdata.com/2011/05/civil-society-claims-control-over-arms.html
3. World’s largest arm exporters: http://www.sipri.org/databases
4. Article about Instalaza at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instalaza
5. About cluster bombs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_bomb
6. Treaty limiting the use of cluster bombs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munitions
7. Instalaza’s online catalogue (there is an English version): http://www.instalaza.es/
8. Instalaza claims 40 million euros to the Spanish government:  http://www.cincodias.com/articulo/empresas/instalaza-pide-millones-prohibicion-bombas-racimo/20110509cdscdiemp_1/
9. Instalaza land reclassification: http://www.heraldo.es/noticias/zaragoza/urbanismo_recalifica_los_suelos_fabrica_armas_instalaza_para_sacarla_del_casco.html
10. Humans Rights Watch discovers Instalaza cluster bombs in Libya: http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/04/15/libya-cluster-munitions-strike-misrata
11. Instalaza Accounts: http://www.setem.org/setem_ftp/madrid/descargasweb/ANEXO-BANCALIMPIA-SETEM-bombasInstalaza.pdf
12. Setem report about banks financing arms trade: http://finanzaseticas.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Dirty-Business-SETEM1.pdf

  
  
  
   

The recycling game

How about playing a little game this week? We all supposedly know which recycling bank is the most suitable for our rubbish, do we? It seems easy: old newspapers go to the paper recycling container, withered lettuce leaves go to the food recycling container… but what about corks, champagne bottles, tinfoil, thermometers or incandescent light bulbs? Try to finish our game without making any mistakes. It is not so easy, the results may come as something of a surprise!

Sources: 

There are many websites devoted to residue disposal and refuse collection. If you are really interested in this issue or you have some doubts about it, you’d better check it out with the local refuse collection services of your town. This way you can make sure that you are following the correct disposal criteria of your local public services so you make recycling as efficient as possible.

Just as a reference example, here you can check the criteria and recommendations for refuse collection of the Town Council of Barcelona:

http://www.amb.cat/web/emma/residus/recollida_municipal

You can use the following code to embed this game into your website:

<iframe width="400" height="600" src="http://www.alexcanosa.com/Dd/J001ang.swf" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Cyberactivism and the Twitter revolution

In the revolutionary wave occurring in the Maghreb and the Middle East that began in December 2010 following Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation in Tunisia, better known as the Arab Spring, new technologies played a crucial role. Future historians will judge the actual role of new technologies and whether they were a determining factor or not, but in any case it is obvious that most protests and demonstrations were called through Twitter, Facebook and the personal blogs of many activists. It was not by far the first time that the Internet, the social networks and the mobile phones played a role in demonstrations: in the 2009 protests after the presidential elections in Iran or the parliament elections in Moldavia, in the 2009 protests in Xinjiang (western China) or even in the Spanish demonstrations against the information manipulation after the 2004 terrorist attacks in Madrid, which were called and followed through SMS –without SMS, these demonstrations would not have been so massive. However, thanks to the Arab revolutions we have all been aware of the significant role played by new technologies among activists.

Paying to contaminate

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, more than two centuries ago, the emission of greenhouse gases has constantly been on the rise. We know that these gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and the infamous CFC, which destroy the ozone layer) are the ones to be blamed for the global warming, and we all know that either we solve this problem or climate change will reach a tipping point that could destroy all life on our planet. We are also aware that carbon dioxide is ranked number one in terms of its direct contribution to the greenhouse effect due to the amount of the gas rather than it being particularly more harmful than others. Carbon dioxide emissions are mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels but there are other causes too, such as deforestation (releasing great amounts of CO2 and destroying woods which would reabsorb it). Nevertheless, the burning of oil, coal and gas is still by far the main source of CO2 into the atmosphere. 
So far, we know about it, but we do nothing to solve it. With this in mind, in 1997 the UN called an International Convention on climate change, resulting in the approval of a framework known as the Kyoto Protocol. This international treaty aimed at achieving a reduction of emissions from industrialised countries of 8% from 1990 levels -- not an extraordinary percentage but a good start in combating global warming nonetheless. The ratification of the Kyoto Protocol was rather complex because it required the ratifying countries to account for at least 55% of global emissions, but the US and Russia initially opposed it. Eventually, in 2005 Russia signed this protocol, achieving this 55% requirement, in exchange for an EU commitment to funding the Russian restructuring of industry and modernisation of oil plants. When it comes to international treaties, all signatories want something in return. For its part, the US has not signed it yet.

Let's end up with poverty (for our own sake!)

Engraving: Clipart ETC

There are many reasons to end up with poverty. The top one is that poverty is the most unfair situation of our times and fighting against this injustice is (or should be) one of our main priorities. But it is obvious that some people are not interested at all to eradicate poverty, either because they consider that we all have the same chances in life so poor people are just those who do not make the best of these changes (we know this is nonsense, but it is widespread too, way more than expected) or because it is better to go on this way and make the best of it, even if it is not fair.
However, there is a conclusive argument to fight against poverty: eradicating poverty is the best way to increase the welfare and life quality of our society, even for the well-off. In other words: even those who benefit from poverty will benefit even more from the eradication of poverty. In this endeavour, everybody does well out of it.
This is the storyline of the book The Spirit Level: why equality is better for everyone, by the economist Richard Wilkinson and the anthropologist Kate Pickett. The argument of this fascinating book is the following:
There are some social and health problems affecting mainly poor people, so these problems are likely to be found in Third World countries rather than in rich countries: ill-health, violence, mental disorders, alcohol or drug addiction, low life expectancy, high mortality rates, obesity, teenage pregnancy, poor school performance, high homicide rate, high prison population and low social mobility. These problems get more serious in poor countries –just compare El Salvador with France, or Nigeria with Switzerland, to have a clear picture.
So far, nothing new. But these researchers reveal an outstanding fact: in rich countries, these problems are not reduced when wealth increases. The richest countries do not have less social problems, but the most equal countries do. Let’s take a look at this graph to better understand this concept, positioning the richest countries in the world (some European countries plus Canada, US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand):

Source: http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/

The vertical line shows the rate of the above-mentioned social and health problems, with data taken from WHO, UN, OECD, UNICEF and state agencies. At the top of this line you can see the countries with more problems. The horizontal line shows income inequality: countries with the highest income inequality rates are positioned on the right. As you can see, countries with high income inequality (that is, rich people are very rich and poor people are very poor) also have more problems. And these problems do not only affect poor people: if we do not take poor people’s problems into account, the graph remains the same. In other words: the well-off Americans have more problems than rich people in Finland.
Summing up: in those countries with high income inequalities, even the well-off have a shorter life expectancy, ill-health, more violence, more addiction and worse quality of life. The country with the highest rate of social and health problems (among those countries tested) is also the country with the most unequal income rates, despite being one of the richest countries in the world: United States. At the other end of the line we find Japan and Nordic countries, which are the countries with fewer problems and less inequality. Therefore, by reducing income inequality, we will reduce social problems.
And bear in mind that this book does not present a Utopia. It does not compare current societies with an ideal society, but with already existing societies. If distributing wealth fairly does improve the welfare in rich countries, we can apply this premise to the whole world: for instance, fighting against poverty in Bolivia will not only benefit Bolivian people but also the rest of the countries in the world.

Sources:

1. The Spirit Level: why equality is better for everyone, by Richard WILKINSON and Kate PICKETT: http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141921150,00.html

     

Delivering Data Documents

From now on, the top right button "Dd Documents" includes all the documents which complement our posts and they can be used to widespread the ideas we advocate. 
To start with, here you have some little cards with the arguments of the post about tipping. You can print and cut them out and then leave one of these cards on the bill tray in bars and restaurants.
All these documents have Creative Commons license --that is, you can use, customise and spread them as much as you want!

Legislating homosexuality

At the beginning of 2011, about one hundred pictures of Ugandan activists known to be homosexual were published in a local tabloid. These pictures included the names and home addresses of these people along with the headline “Hang them”. Some days later, the homosexual activist David Kato was murdered and he was the first of a long list. Some months before that, the international community pressured the Ugandan parliament to modify a new bill about homosexual illegality so that “repeat offenders” were not punished with the death penalty but just sentenced to life imprisonment. Uganda is indeed an extreme case of homosexuality persecution but it is in no way an isolated case. There are many countries in the world with laws somehow condemning homosexuality and there are very few countries with laws putting homosexuality on a level with heterosexuality in terms of legal rights. Let’s take a look at it.
Talking about LGBT rights (that is, the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender persons) was a taboo at the UN Assembly until 2008, when the UN Statement about sexual orientation and gender identity was approved, condemning violence, harassment, discrimination, exclusion and stigmatization because of sexual orientation. But it was just a hollow victory because there were only 66 out of 192 UN countries in favour (including 39 European countries). On top of that, immediately afterwards, there was another statement opposing it, with the signature of 57 countries (plus the Vatican support, which is not a UN member but a permanent observer) on the absurd basis that legislating homosexuality means legitimizing pederasty. Today, neither of those two statements has been officially adopted as resolution and the Assembly is not likely to agree on this issue soon.
Meanwhile, every country has its own rules. In terms of punishments, 7 countries allow the death penalty against homosexuality (Mauritania, Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Arab Emirates, Yemen and Somaliland), plus the 12 states in Nigeria which have adopted the Islamic law. However, this does not mean that the rest of countries put homosexuality on a level with heterosexuality: only 11 countries do, at least legally speaking (and only 8 put homosexual matrimony on a level with heterosexual matrimony). In the rest of the countries, homosexuals can be sentenced to imprisonment or fined or they are denied access to military forces or public administrations. Only 56 countries (that is, a quarter of the total) have laws in place against homophobia.
Moreover, many countries with favourable or at least non discriminatory laws turn a blind eye when the LGBT community is subject to some kind of abuse. And this is so because such favourable laws are not supported by the whole society. Even in quite an open country such as Spain, homophobes and opponents to equality laws are many, as seen during the demonstrations against gay marriage. In the US, where there have been strong fights for recognition of LGBT rights, 18 states still have laws against homosexuality and some of them are quite recent: 13 states explicitly banned homosexual matrimony or civil union during 2004 primary campaign and, at present, homosexual matrimony is only allowed in 6 of the 50 US states.
One of the major obstacles to be faced by the LGBT community is that many people (often on the grounds of their religion) consider that homosexuality is unnatural so it should not be accepted or promoted. Needless to say, this argument is utterly senseless because flying or sailing are truly unnatural in humans but we all accept it and even protect it by law, as we have exclusive regulations for aviation and navigation.
If we want to end up with discrimination, first we should end up with this absurd idea of natural and unnatural acts. Ethologists estimate that about 1,500 animal species exhibit homosexual behaviour, but only one species (humans) exhibit homophobic behaviour, so the question is obvious: what is more unnatural?

Sources:

1. David Kato’s murder, an activist who was pushed to the fore together with 100 people by a Ugandan homophobic tabloid: http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/01/27/uganda-promptly-investigate-killing-prominent-lgbt-activist
2. Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Bill
3. LGBT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT
4. UN Statement about sexual orientation and gender identity: http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/1211
5. All the information about regulations is taken from SodomyLaws website, from the LGBT international association ILGA and from some newspapers: http://www.sodomylaws.org  and http://ilga.org/ilga/en/index.html
6. Post about animal homosexuality: http://www.news-medical.net/news/2006/10/23/20718.aspx

 

Plastic islands

In 1907 Bakelite, the first synthetic polymer, was developed: this is the beginning of the plastic age. Since then, and mainly after World War II, plastic is an omnipresent material because it is cheap, waterproof, insulating, resistant and easy to work with. Although there are natural plastics, like natural rubber or cellulose derivatives (celluloid or cellophane, just to name a few), most plastics we use are synthetic, developed from oil. At present, every year 115 billion kilograms of plastic are manufactured in the form of nurdles, small colour plastic pellets from which plastic objects are manufactured (yes, you got it right: 115 billion kilograms are more than 250 billion pounds! Can you imagine the huge amount of plastic it represents?).
Most synthetic plastic can be recycled, but precisely because plastic is cheap and easy to get, it is not always recycled. In fact, most plastic never gets recycled but it ends up in dumps or in the sea, where it starts to break down. However, plastic is not biodegradable, so it just breaks in smaller pieces which can last for a very long time. As it is such a new material, no-one knows how many years it lasts, but scientists estimate that plastic can have a life of about 10,000 years when it is exposed to sun light and air erosion, which is not the case in dumps or in the sea.
Moreover, plastics in the sea pose very serious risks. The amount of plastic dumped into the sea is increasing exponentially. Some of it (20%) is dumped by ships deliberately, but the rest comes from inland. Winds sweep along bags or small bits and pieces of plastic into rivers, sewers and eventually the sea, and all this debris is found to accumulate in sea areas taken by currents. You may think it is a minor problem, but it is not: plastic pollution in the sea is one of the most serious environmental problems we have to face nowadays.
Ocean currents create weak spots where there is almost no drifting, and it is precisely there where most marine debris accumulates, creating plastic islands with a size of hundreds of miles of diameter and hundreds of miles deep. For the moment, there are 11 big plastic islands located in the five oceans. The greatest is found in the North Pacific Ocean, with an area the size of about Texas. These islands, besides the visual impact, are a threat for marine fauna and flora. Many fish eat nurdles and plastic pieces thinking that they are eggs, plankton or krill, which eventually kills them. Moreover, the plastic layer prevents sun light from getting into the water, thus preventing the growth of weeds and phytoplankton, which are the base of marine food chain. And you can image the ending of the story.
At present, some associations like Algalita Foundation or Plastic Pollution Coalition fight to make a positive change, but the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) report reveals that it is not easy to fight against plastic accumulation. Trying to fish this plastic with very thick nets is self-defeating because thick nets also fish all kinds of living beings. For the moment, no-one knows how to get rid of the tons of plastic floating in the sea.
However, even if there is no solution so far, we can do something about it. To start with, we can reduce the amount of plastic we use to prevent plastic islands from becoming even bigger. The easiest way is to reduce the number of plastic containers and bags: when you go shopping, use products with little plastic and never use disposable plastic bags. Also, dispose plastic containers into the corresponding plastic bins. Look into your dustbin and check whether there is any plastic in there: it may end up in the sea, including the garbage bag itself.
But you can also do something else to avoid this catastrophe. As stated at the beginning of this post, not all plastics come from oil. Some of them are natural plastics, so they are biodegradable. These are called EDP plastics (meaning Environmentally Degradable Polymers and plastics), coming directly from biomass (like starch or cellulose), developed by chemical synthesis of biological monomers from renewable sources or by micro-organisms and bacteria, like PHAS plastics. Currently, this type of polymer represents only a tiny percentage of plastic available in the market, but consumers can put pressure so that biodegradable pastic becomes a majority. It is just a question of willingness.

Sources:

1. Image of a bunch of nurdles: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Nurdles_01_gentlemanrook.jpg
2. Plastic Island in the North Pacific Ocean: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/oceans/pollution/trash-vortex/
3. Marine Research Foundation Algalita: http://www.algalita.org/index.php
4. Plastic Pollution Coalition: http://plasticpollutioncoalition.org
5. 2005 report by the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) about marine debris: http://www.unep.org/regionalseas/marinelitter/publications/docs/anl_oview.pdf
6. Biodegradable plastic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic

Working like a slave

When millions of people (children and adults alike) are told to be living like slaves in the 21st century, it is not just rhetorical to refer to harsh work conditions in some parts of our planet. It is literal. Despite so many UN treaties and conventions (the last was UN 1956 Convention) banning slavery, there are still many cases of slavery practice. Millions of people are sold as objects and forced to work for extremely low salaries or no salary at all, living at the mercy of their “owners”. This is constantly reported by such associations as Anti-Slavery International, fighting against slavery since 1839, in any of its forms: from traditional slavery, in which people literally belong to an owner, to forced labour or sexual exploitation of children.
Contrary to other issues such as environmental problems, we all feel that we are not to blame for slavery because it happens very far from our home and we can do little about it. But we do not need to have slaves at home to be an accessory to slavery. Just by consuming products manufactured or grown by slaves, we are made accomplice in this savagery, we do our bit to keep things the way they are. If you are against slavery, you should first get to know where and how your purchases are produced, and you should make sure that your shopping is not part of this act of injustice. To make things easier, Anti-Slavery provides you with a useful tool: the Products of Slavery campaign. In its website, you can find a world map with the countries where slavery is still present and the products affected by this practice. Then, you will realise that a large majority of labourers in Brazil’s pineapple plantations are children aged 10 to 12 and 20% of them get no financial remuneration. Or that some factories in China manufacturing sport shoes use forced labour in prisons, without being paid. Or that, due to poverty, in Burkina Faso some children are sold by their parents as slaves to work in cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast. Or that India holds the world record of products manufactured by slaves (18 products) and it is one of the countries where bonded labour (forced labour to repay a loan) is most widespread.
As consumers, we should be aware that we do not live in a bubble: our every little action has an effect, for better or worse, on thousands of people. Our pocket money is a very powerful weapon and we should use it conscientiously.

Sources:

1. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slavery Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/slavetrade.htm
2. Anti-slavery web site: http://www.antislavery.org/english/
3. “Products of slavery” campaign: http://www.productsofslavery.org/
4. Slavery Footprint, another very interesting web site on this issue: http://www.slaveryfootprint.org/

Some bits and pieces of antinuclear economics

Antinuclear awareness increases as we get a fright: the latest in France! After Fukushima catastrophe, the French authorities maintained that this could not happen in French nuclear plants because they are safer, but now the debate is open again. And, as always, whenever there is a nuclear accident, more supporters of antinuclear power appear. 

This debate is always based on the danger posed by nuclear plants and nuclear residues, which are dangerous for thousands of years. However, those who advocate in favour of nuclear energy use economic arguments: nuclear energy is reported to be cheaper, to create many job posts and, unlike oil, there is no dependency on other countries. Therefore, the debate seems to be focused on what should prevail: environmental and safety arguments (and thus, nuclear plants should be shut down) or economic arguments (and thus, promoting atomic energy). 

However, this debate is nonsense, because all these economic arguments are false, as nuclear energy cannot be defended from any point of view. Let’s take a look at all these economic arguments to check whether they are true or false.

1.- First, we have been told that nuclear energy is the cheapest available energy at present, so in times of crises we cannot afford getting rid of it. The figures reported by nuclear lobbies truly prove that nuclear plants generate energy at really low costs, but they do not take into account the whole process. They calculate the cost of energy without taking into account the cost of building a plant, maintaining the premises and managing residues. In this sense, the MIT report of 2003 revealed the investment cost, the building time and the useful life of a nuclear plant, concluding that nuclear energy cannot be competitive because it is far too expensive. And this study does not include the costs of residue management –nuclear residues should be stored in a safe place for thousands of years until they are no longer dangerous. According to ENRESA (the public company in charge of the safe management, storage and disposal of radioactive wastes produced in Spain), residue management will amount to more than 13 thousand million euros only until 2070 in Spain. Therefore, nuclear energy is not as cheap as allegedly reported. 

2.- Secondly, it is reported that nuclear plants generate job posts. This is irrefutable, but the question should be if nuclear energy generates more job posts that any other energy model. According to a report of 2008 by the Spanish trade union CCOO, renewable energies generated 89,000 direct job posts and 99,000 indirect job posts in 2007 in Spain, whereas nuclear energy did not get up to 10% of these figures. 

3.- And thirdly, nuclear power is alleged to allow energy independence because countries do not need to import oil, gas or coal, as nuclear energy can be produced in situ. However, this is not the case of Spain (and many more countries), at least since the year 2000, when the mine in Saelices el Chico (Salamanca) shut down, being the last uranium mine in the country. At present, Spain imports 100% of the necessary uranium from such countries as Niger, which makes us dependent of international countries in the same way as with oil. Sure, but at least Nigerien people can be energetically independent, can’t they? Well, not exactly, because building nuclear plants (unlike most renewable energies) requires high technologies only available in developed countries. Moreover, the high costs of maintaining nuclear plants cannot be afforded by Third World countries. In short, in a nuclear world, poor countries should buy energy from rich countries. 

Do you need more arguments? How many nuclear accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima do we need to be convinced that nuclear plants should be shut down? Our future prospects are clean, renewable energies, accessible to everybody.

For further information, read this Greenpeace report about the lies of nuclear industry. 

Sources:

1. Sarkozy defends nuclear power after Fukushima catastrophe: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14913133,00.html
2. Massachussetts Institute of Technology: http://web.mit.edu/
3. List of the most significant nuclear accidents:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nuclear_accidents
4. Greenpeace report The economics of nuclear power:
   http://www.greenpeace.org/international/PageFiles/24160/the-economics-of-nuclear-power.pdf