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