Thursday, 14 January 2010
Stamp Duty horror for millions!!!
Monday, 23 November 2009
Air Quality Plans Omit Basic Solutions


BANES has started a consultation on Baths air quality action plan have your say by looking at the proposals and making a comment. http://tinyurl.com/yjsgsd3; www.bathnes.gov.uk/airquality.
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Action not words!

Monday, 9 November 2009
Rates to Rise because its Fair
To add to the woes of struggling businesses in Bath the valuation office has sent out revised rateable valuations to all Business in Bath. You would have thought that since commercial rates are related to commercial rents and these are falling, that rateable values would also fall. No I am afraid this would be too sensible, commercial rates are going up between 15% and 40% for most Bath businesses. The explaining letter clarifies the matter by saying that the rates are in fact not going up, its just that they are being redistributed in the name of fairness. All the businesses I have spoken to have large rate rises, so where is this money being redistributed too? Perhaps to this Conservative "business friendly" administrations surplus budgets, which they will use to bring down Council tax bills in 2011 in the vain hope of being re-elected. Meanwhile its just a shame about supporting small businesses and local employment but you have to understand its all in the name of fairness. Bath Centre Pact Meeting
No Wet Room for street drinkers in Victoria Park.Thursday, 29 October 2009
350 CAMPAIGN IN BATH

Full text of Jay Risbridger's address to the 350 climate diner:
Most people see environmental issues as a series of technical problems with technical solutions.This view is reinforced by the media ande environmental campaigners that focus on newsworthy environment stories. So we have had problems like dwindling energy resources, road building, acid rain, de-forestation, intensive farming, full landfill sites, GM and Global warming. But the definition of these problems is often in dispute, some groups have an interest in highlighting one problem over another. Why are there climate camps outside airports and not farms? Methane release due to the increase of meat eating in the developing world is adding much larger amounts of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere than any increase in air travel.
The solutions are also not just technical; some are much more in the interests of some people th than others. Bald middle managers can say they have a low impact life style compared to long haired Eco warriors because they do not use hair dryers or shampoo. Environmental issues issues are political questions that impact above all on our individual economic interests. Gr Goucho Marx summed up the problem of individual interests he said “Why should I care about future generations? What have they ever done for me?"
When you look at these environmental issues closely it soon becomes clear that they are just the s symptoms of an underlying illness. That disease is called economic growth and this is the engine engine that drives the degradation of our global environment. During the last 10 years
F For most Greens and Ecologists our global economic system is fundamentally flawed because it does not recognize that we live on a planet with finite resources. Economics also t treats the environment as an external factor, when in reality the human economy produces n not hing it just converts what nature provides. Because the world is finite nature works in s sustainable cycles, like the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, oxygen and water cycles. The modern economy on the other hand uses up the earths capital resources of oil, gas, minerals, m metals and soil and then discards anything without an economic value as waste and pollution.
B because western market economies do not put a cost value on the consumption of the earth's n natural resources or to the effects of pollution, individuals and companies are able to exploit these resources for free, enabling them to make massive private profits.
R Ralph Nader pointed out, “The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun”
An economic model like this cannot grow forever on a finite planet; this is the real problem of sustainability. Not whether Pepsi Co and Standard oil can offset their carbon emissions and claim to be Sustainable business. Keneth Boulding the pioneering process philosopher said
"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."
At present 1/3rd of the world in the developed economies use 2/3rds of the world’s resources. If the other 2/3rds of the global population develop using our economic model then we will need 2 planets. Everyone knows that no mater what Climate Change targets the worlds leaders agree, Co2 levels will continue to rise, if
If we are going to achieve Co2 emission reductions we have to deal with the inadequacies of our present economic system and move towards a steady state economy. We need an economy that is based on the quality of life rather than just the quantity of output. Simon Hughes the Lib Dem Energy and Climate Change spokesperson recently said: “The Economic polices heralded by the likes of Reagan and Thatcher left behind a legacy of unbridled greed within business and industry. This legacy must now be brought to an end. We need a new economic order which is based on indices of sustainability rather than indices of simple economic expansion.”
What does this mean in practice, certainly not the recent car scrapage scheme that was heralded as a green policy? Making new cars is not good for the environment repairing old ones is. So why didn’t the government come up with a repair or make your old car more fuel e fficient scheme. This would have supported thousands of local small garages instead of global car corporations. Why do governments always support big multinational businesses and not the small businesses that employ more than half of their citizens?
Y You may think this view of economic growth is an extreme position only held by the anti globalist campaigners. But here is something written by an activist who was bought up in Indonesia, he is pointing out that the benefits of economic growth bought about by the arrival o of multinational businesses can be short lived and cause more harm to local communities that good. He writes:
“ For how long could we go stitching a culture back together once it was torn? Longer than it took a culture to unravel, I suspected. I tried to imagine the Indonesian workers who were now making their way to the sort of factories that once provided employment in the
Barak Obama, The President of the
Nationally and internationally societies must assert their rights to the earth’s resources against those who would use them for private profit. This is ultimately a question of extending democratic rights to all the people of this planet. The worst examples of environmental damage are happening in dictatorial states where human rights do not exist.
Locally we need to care for and nurture our local economies. We need to stop pursuing the short term economic expansion of our cities and towns and pursue a better quality of life for t the people in them. We don’t need more supermarkets, we do not need high rise developments we don’t need more pub and restaurant chains on our high streets and we don’t need to tarmac over our green spaces for car parks. Too often local people and the local environment ar are paying for the costs of economic expansion that only benefit outside interests. Local o government should support local markets and businesses with social rents and grants for local entrepreneurs. The farmer’s market initiative is typical of the type of economic activity that should be encouraged.
I It is only this type of national and local resistance to economic growth that will bring down our CO2 emissions and create a sustainable environment. We all need to be politically active i in our local communities and to resist policies that are just aimed at economic expansion without any regard to the costs of that growth. Local action can keep this planet hospitable for h human life, we are all on this planet together and in the end our only economic interest is to preserve its beauty.
Monday, 19 October 2009
FUNdraiser with LEGENDS!!!

