Author Archives: Steve Trevethan

Awareness and lack of effective action concerning global warming are not new. In 1896 Savante Arrenhuis suggested that fossil fuels would raise the World’s temperature. In the 50s and 60s Messrs. Callendar, Plass and Keeling proved this.

We need to grasp and manage the actual and possible causes of this concern and the lack of effective responses. They include:

• Effects of fossil fuels
• Lack of neutral and benign alternatives to fossil fuels
• International conflicts
• Economic and accountancy theory and practices
• Preoccupations with dominance

Fossil fuels pollute the air with the harmful chemicals which their combustion produces. They pollute water in their production and use. Methane and carbon dioxide emissions trap heat in the atmosphere.

Fossil fuels have been the main energy source due to their relatively low price, the existence of an infrastructure based upon them and habit. Replacing this infrastructure is money, effort, attitude and time expensive but reduces pollution. It may increase local employment, greater locality independence and initiatives. Whisky is one of them!

In the shorter term, fossil fuels are cheaper in money and easier to use, but in the longer term they are fatally expensive in resources.

All costings are flawed without considerations of opportunity costs. Opportunity cost is the lost benefit derived from an option not chosen. In which avoidable ways have we spent money which could have been better spent correcting global warming?

The last thing we need is electoral reform because we need to think and work in a sequence which results in genuine electoral reform.

The word “genuine” is included because Neo-Liberals, their fellow travellers and their “useful ill-informeds” use the word to describe financial and economic changes which are to the detriment of the general public.

To quote economist Michael Hudson:

The IMF (International Monetary Fund) and kindred Washington consensus bodies demand labour market “reforms” that would reverse the 20th century workplace reforms. The word “reform” is now attached to any policy as an advertising slogan.

In December 2017, a report entitled “The Million Dollar Be-Question” by Laura Gardiner was published by the Resolution Foundation . It is a report worth examining and heeding by both individual citizens and political parties.

Below is the site from which you can download this report which takes less than 25 pages of A4 paper. 10 sides will give you the introduction and “Executive Summary” from which all quotations are taken and paraphrases, questions and comments derived.

Mathematics seems to be the most objective, least easily manipulated form of human knowledge. Consequently it can be considered an essential tool for the assessment of political performance.

Here are some mathematical metrics applied to Mr Obama’s presidential performance in military aspects of what is usually labelled Foreign Policy.

However, it is always needful to bear in mind the inevitable effects of military Foreign Policy on domestic policies. Security and spending, including debt charges, are always affected.

Mr Obama has spent annual average of $653.6 billion on US military spending. This beats the previous post war record of Mr GW Bush by an average of $18.7 billion per annum in 2016 dollars.