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Benjamin McKeown

Food, energy and water: the politics of the nexus | Jeremy Allouche | Science | The Gua... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...od-energy-water-politics-nexus

water food energy Nexus

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 06 Nov 18 - No Cached
  • Jeremy Allouche
  • In a paradoxical way, this was the first time that the business community came to realise the limits to growth.
  • modellers, farmers, and civil engineers have known about these inter-relationships for a long time.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • systems approach, where the interactions between different sectors are modelled as global and regional flows, ignoring day-to day realities, local priorities and needs; • A decision-making tool based on these interactions, which provides an economic valuation of these resources and a market mechanism to efficiently allocate them.
  • It treats the trade-offs between human needs for water, energy and food as a perfect equilibrium model, in which resource allocation can be decided.
  • This can encourage the commodification of resources, downplaying environmental externalities, such as biodiversity and climate change, as well as poverty alleviation needs.
  • The villagers affected by the Rasi Salai Dam are now experiencing water scarcity after losing these wetlands.
  • Originally, the government claimed that the dam would provide water for 5,500 hectares of land
  • look
  • This example highlights how elements of the nexus, whether food, water or energy security, take on different meanings at different levels of analysis, from the global to the local.
  • optimisation;
  • A different framing of the nexus is required: one which recognises that global priorities may not reflect local concerns; and that resource allocations are political decisions, which need to be decided through more open and transparent decision making. The nexus must become more inclusive, so that its interrelationships can be grounded in local realities and human needs.
Benjamin McKeown

Advertising and Global Culture | Cultural Survival - 0 views

www.culturalsurvival.org/...advertising-and-global-culture

culture HL TNC

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 26 Feb 19 - No Cached
  • of
  • Author Janus Noreen No one can travel to Africa, Asia, or Latin America and not be struck by the Western elements of urban life. The symbols of transnational culture - automobiles, advertising, supermarkets, shopping centers, hotels, fast food chains, credit cards, and Hollywood movies - give the, feeling of being at home. Behind these tangible symbols are a corresponding set of values and attitudes about time, consumption, work relations, etc. Some believe global culture has resulted from gradual spontaneous processes that depended solely on technological innovations - increased international trade, global mass communications, jet travel. Recent studies show that the processes are anything but spontaneous; that they are the result of tremendous investments of time, energy and money by transnational corporations. This "transnational culture" is a direct outcome of the internationalization of production and accumulation promoted through standardized development models and cultural forms.
  • The common theme of transnational culture is consumption. Advertising expresses this ideology of consumption in its most synthetic and visual form.
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  • Advertisers rely on few themes: happiness, youth, success, status, luxury, fashion, and beauty. In advertising, social contradictions and class differences are masked and workplace conflicts are not shown. Advertising campaigns suggest that solutions to human problems are to be found in individual consumption, presented as an ideal outlet for mass energies...a socially acceptable form of action and participation which can be used to defuse potential political unrest. "Consumer democracy" is held out to the poor around the world as a substitute for political democracy.
  • Transnational advertising is one of the major reasons both for the spread of transnational culture and the breakdown of traditional cultures.
  • Transnational culture strives to eliminate local cultural variations. Barnett and Muller discuss the social impact of this process:
  • What are the long range social effects of advertising on people who earn less than $200 a year? (Peasants, domestic workers, and laborers) learn of the outside world through the images and slogans of advertising. One message that comes through clearly is that happiness, achievement, and being white have something to do with one another
  • In mestizo countries (sic) such as Mexico and Venezuela where most of the population still bear strong traces of their Indian origin, billboards depicting the good life for sale invariably feature blond, blue-eyed American-looking men and women. One effect of such "white is beautiful" advertising is to reinforce feelings of inferiority which are the essence of a politically immobilizing colonial mentality...The subtle message of the global advertiser in poor countries is "Neither you nor what you create are worth very much, we will sell you a civilization (emphasis added).
  • Transnational firms and global advertising agencies are clearly aware of the role of advertising in the creation of a new consumer culture in Third World countries
  • Television antennas are gradually taking the plac
  • tom-tom drums across the vast stretches of Africa. Catchy jingles are replacing tribal calls in the Andes of Latin America. Spic-and-span supermarkets stand, on the grounds where colorful wares of an Oriental Bazaar were once spread throughout Asia. Across vast continents hundreds of millions of people are awakening to the beat of modern times.
  • Increasingly advertising campaigns are aimed at the vast numbers of poor in Third World countries
  • As one U.S. advertising executive observes about the Mexican consumer market, even poor families, when living together and pooling their incomes, can add up to a household income of more than $10,000 per year
  • The use of television to spread transnational culture is especially effective with illiterates
  • By consuming Coca-Cola, Nestle products, Marlboro, Maggi, Colgate or Revlon, Ivorians are not only fulfilling unnecessary needs but also progressively relinquishing their authentic world outlook in favor of the transnational way of life.
  • In trying to be as white as possible, that is to say, in becoming ashamed of their traditional being, the Ivorians are at the same time relinquishing one of the most powerful weapons at their disposal for safeguarding their dignity as human beings: their racial identify. And advertising is not neutral in such a state of affairs.
  • Yet, the advertising of Coca-Cola and Heinekens portrays drinking as an individual act rather than a collective one.
  • Santoro concluded that these stereotypes held by children were largely the same ones to be found in typical Venezuelan television and advertising contents.
  • These results, while very tentative, suggest that the impact of transnational culture is greater among the poor - the very people who cannot afford to buy the lifestyle it represents. The poor are more likely to associate consumption with happiness and feel that industrialized products are better than the locally made ones. But at the same time they are painfully aware that only the rich have access to the lifestyle portrayed.
  • Virtually every child showed an acute awareness of the different access to these products by class.
  • Again, poor children more often answered that Nescafe is coffee, and Tang is orange juice
  • poorer children were significantly more likely to associate the luxury possessions with happiness than the rich children.
  • What political impact does the spread of transnational culture have on the poor for whom luxury lifestyles are not possible? How do they deal with the daily contradictions that this awareness implies? How much will they accept and how much will they reject? How can they maintain their own identities in the face of transnational culture
  • Benjamin McKeown on 26 Feb 19
     
    "of"
Benjamin McKeown

THE POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE EXPLAINED - Lawrence Anthony Earth Organization - 0 views

www.earthorganization.org/cs-of-climate-change-explained

climate change kyoto

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 08 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • More than 150 nations signed it back in December 1997 at a meeting in Kyoto.
  • eorge W. Bush was installed as President soon afterwards, and announced that he was pulling the US out of the deal altogether. Since the US is the source of a quarter of emissions of greenhouse gases that was a big blow, but the other nations decided to carry on and they finally reached agreement in Marrakech in November 2001.
  • ndustrialised nations have committed themselves to a range of targets to reduce emissions between 1990
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • he base year, and 2010.
  • an average 8 per cent cut for most of Europe to a maximum 10 per cent increase for Iceland and an 8 per cent increase for Australia.
  • European Union have agreed to share out their entitlement
  • atification of the treaty in national legislatures.
  • “flexibility mechanisms”
  • meet some targets by encouraging the natural environment to soak up more CO2 rather than by cutting emissions.
  • carbon sinks”
  • qualify for carbon credits by planting forests that soaked up CO2.
  • It was finally agreed that countries will be able to claim some carbon credits for planting forests in developing countries. And they will also be able to allow countries to claim credit for activities such as soil conservation, which will allow more carbon to be soaked up in soils.
  • carbon trading
  • But the fear is that some countries may find themselves with spare credits to sell just because their economies have slowed down, which would undermine the whole purpose of the protocol.
  • hot air”. Japan, Canada and perhaps others would like to buy up Russia’s spare permits.
  • But sceptics still see hot-air trading as a Trojan Horse for undermining the protocol.
  • lean Development Mechanism. This allows industrialised countries to claim credit for various activities in developing countries. It could become a major engine for getting clean energy technologies into poorer countries, so heading them off the dirty path to industrialisation that the rich nations took.
  • And the rules are biased towards small energy projects – solar cell systems, for exampl
  • he protocol allows industrialised countries to plant “carbon sink” forests in the tropics, for instance, where they will grow faster. They can also invest in clean energy technologies in the developing world, and claim carbon credits for doing so.
  • The US has demanded, both before and after Kyoto, that developing countries should accept their own specific emissions targets
  • it was intended to cut emissions by industrialised countries by an average of slightly over 5 per cent by the year 2010
  • hard to police, particularly the clauses on carbon sinks.
  • at perhaps 1.5 per cen
  • Will the Kyoto measures solve the problem of global warming? They will hardly scratch the surface. T
  • say it will buy us 10 years at most
  • . A reasonable target might be twice pre-industrial levels, which works out at 50 per cent above today’s levels.
  • Cutting emissions by 60 per cent is a suggested figure.
  • The Kyoto Protocol was drawn up with the long term as the primary focus. In essence, the protocol assumes that what we really need to worry about is the climate in a century’s time, not today.
  • CO2 sticks around for about a century. Methane, the second most important greenhouse gas, generally lasts in the atmosphere for about a decade. But while it’s there it is many times more potent.
  • This “hundred-year rule” has the effect of downgrading the importance of methane, and giving only small credit to countries that try to cut methane emissions.
  • the protocol gives a country that reduces its methane emissions by a tonne 20 times as much credit as for reducing CO2 emissions by a tonne.
  • Cows can be given less gas-inducing feed. Leaks in gas pipelines can be plugged. And so on.
  • Technically, we are going to have to find many more ways of producing energy without burning fossil fuels – the so-called carbon-free economy. Politically, we are going to have to find a way of doing so which doesn’t affect the growing economies of the developing nations, whose responsibility for the build-up of greenhouse gases so far has been minimal. Some people think this will require moving towards equal pollution rights for every citizen on the planet, a policy endorsed by Britain’s Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution earlier this year.
Benjamin McKeown

The Brussels attack is giving way to a terrible isolationist sentiment. - 0 views

www.slate.com/...le_isolationist_sentiment.html

anti-globalization HL nationalism

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 22 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • nstead of calling for solidarity against a common threat, a spokesman for the anti-European U.K. Independence Party declared that the open borders of Europe “are a threat to our security,” even though the U.K. is not part of Europe’s Schengen border treaty.  A columnist for the Daily Telegraph declared Brussels the “jihadist capital of Europe,” and mocked those who call for staying in the EU on the grounds of safety. Meanwhile, American news organizations fell over themselves to get instant reactions from Donald Trump, who had just told the Washington Post that he didn’t see the point of NATO, which “is costing us a fortune.” He didn’t disappoint: “[W]e have to be very careful and very vigilant as to who we allow in this country.”
  • “my country will be safer” if it pulls out of its international alliances is growing.
  • the illogical idea
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  • Every terrorist attack on U.K. soil in recent memory was carried out by British (or Irish) citizens and not foreigners; nuclear deterrence requires allies and coordinated responses; barbed wire cannot stop a cyberattack. The small-minded, short-sighted isolationists ignore reason and logic, instead substituting panic and fear.
  • Of course there are reasons for this change: German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s disastrous decision to apparently “invite” Syrian immigrants into Europe last summer has left many Europeans feeling queasy and out of control.
  • The only way to fight jihadism is through our existing military, economic, and political alliances
  • And the only way to ensure that we have international support in the future, when a tragedy takes place on our soil—and it will—is to offer our support for a tragedy unfolding on allied soil right now. 
Benjamin McKeown

Global M&A: Shifting the global chemical industry balance | KPMG | GLOBAL - 0 views

www.kpmg.com/...-global-chemical-industry.aspx

HL pollution

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 19 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • This assessment certainly holds true for the chemical industry. Many chemical companies now have strong balance sheets as the result of increased sales in 2010 and lower overhead due to cost-cutting measures taken during the recession. With volumes still below 2008 levels, further sales growth is expected in 2011.
  • In addition, political instability in the Middle East and North Africa have the potential of generating a significant and long-term impact on oil prices and hence the global economy. As a result, many chemical companies are adopting a wait-and-see attitude for deal making in the region.
  • BICME countries (Brazil, India, China, Middle East) will increasingly dominate chemical industry M&A activity in the years ahead, supported by growth in end markets, government policies and access to funding. Already, M&A in BICME countries have increased from 5 percent of deal value and 17 percent of deal volume in 2007 to 30 percent of deal value and 28 percent of deal volume in 2010.
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  • Recent KPMG research suggests that over US$100 billion in deals could be transacted for global chemicals in the next two years. Much of this activity will have a deeply transformative effect on the industry.
  • Possible new majors by 2020
  • The world's chemical producing regions are starting from different positions in the race to capture this downstream demand. The established companies in the West will continue to leverage their traditional strengths in technology and expertise. Asian and Middle Eastern companies will take advantage of their relatively strong cash positions, government funding and proximity to feedstocks and high-growth markets. At the same time, competition between emerging market companies is likely to increase as players in both areas seek to acquire the same assets.
  • Benjamin McKeown on 19 Mar 13
     
    "Global M&A: Shifting the global chemical industry balance"
Benjamin McKeown

China to end one-child policy and allow two - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-34665539

china one child policy

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 02 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • as demographers and sociologists raised concerns about rising social costs and falling worker numbers.
  • "to improve the balanced development of population'' and to deal with an aging population, according to the statement from the Community Party's Central Committee carried by the official Xinhua News Agency (in Chinese) on Thursday.
  • about 30% of China's population is over the age of 50. The total population of the country is around 1.36 billion.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The Communist Party began formally relaxing national rules two years ago, allowing couples in which at least one of the pair is an only child to have a second child.
  • Critics say that even a two-child policy will not boost the birth rate enough, the BBC's John Sudworth reports.
  • that despite the relaxation of the rules, many couples may opt to only have one child, as one-child families have become the social norm.
  • And for those women who want more than two children, nor will it end the state's insistence on the right to control their fertility, he adds.
  • "As long as the quotas and system of surveillance remains, women still do not enjoy reproductive rights,"
Benjamin McKeown

Non-UK born residents likely to exceed 8 million in latest figures, thinktank says | UK... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-latest-figures-thinktank-says

migration population HL

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 26 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • he number of people living in Britain who were born abroad is likely to exceed 8 million for the first time when the latest official figures are published this week, according to an Oxford University thinktank.
  • latest estimate of net migration – the flow of migrants in and out of the UK – could break the previous record of 320,000 set in 2005, shortly after eight eastern European countries, including Poland, joined the EU.
  • migration was estimated to stand at 318,000 – just 2,000 below the highest level previously recorded in 2005
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  • A better yardstick to watch for on Thursday could be the number of people who live in Britain but who retain a non-British nationality.
  • The number of non-UK born residents gives only a partial picture of recent migration and integration trends, because it is a cumulative figure stretching back over decades.
  • “The prevalence of migration to the UK is therefore by no means unprecedented by European standards,”
  • From an economic perspective immigration brings both costs and benefits and affects different people in different ways, leaving no objective method of deciding what the ‘right number’ of migrants is. Different demographic, economic and political arguments can be marshalled in favour of either increasing or reducing immigration, and reasonable people will disagree,” it says.
Benjamin McKeown

The U.S. Immigration Debate - Council on Foreign Relations - 0 views

www.cfr.org/...p11149

HL magration response anti-globalization

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 17 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • President Barack Obama's immigration policies have drawn ire from immigration advocates and opponents alike. Though he pledged to tackle comprehensive immigration reform in his first year in office, Obama did not make the issue a priority until his second term. His administration has deported more than two million undocumented immigrants, more than former President George W. Bush did in his two terms, though some of this reflects the rise in border arrests of migrants from countries other than Mexico,
  • Obama has tried to grant a reprieve to as many as five million undocumented immigrants in the United States
  • the majority of Americans support various elements that would comprise comprehensive immigration reform, including creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (88 percent), requiring employers to check immigration status of workers (84 percent), tightening border security (83 percent), and expanding short-term visas for skilled workers (76 percent).
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  • Many tech-industry leaders have become prominent supporters of immigration reform,
  • They argue that if skilled workers—many of whom are educated in U.S. universities—are not permitted to work in the United States, some tech companies may be forced to move their operations offshore.
  • early one third of undocumented immigrants in the United States are the parents of U.S.-born children, according to the Pew Research Center.
  • "[The United States' undocumented immigrant] population is not growing—it's more settled,"
  • Increasingly, people who are coming are Central Americans fleeing violence and seeking asylum—not Mexicans seeking work—and that's a very different policy problem. But I don’t think Congress has caught up with that. The debate and the approaches still reflect the world of a decade ago."
  • Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote in the 2012 presidential elections and many Republican strategists said that their party would need to strike a more conciliatory tone on migration following the party's loss that year.
  • Comprehensive immigration reform refers to proposed legislation that would change U.S. immigration laws to address demand for high-skilled and low-skilled labor, legalize most undocumented immigrants already in the country, and toughen border and interior enforcement.
  • Immigration Innovation Act: A bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate in January 2015 that would nearly double the number of visas for temporary high-skilled workers, from 65,000 to 115,000, and eliminate annual per-country limits for employment-based green cards. Start-Up Act: A bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate in January 2015 (three prior versions had been introduced) that proposed creating an entrepreneurs’ visa for immigrants and a STEM visa for U.S.-educated workers with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, and eliminating per-country caps on employment-based immigration visas. Secure Our Borders First Act: A Republican bill that threatens penalties against senior Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials whose departments fail to intercept a targeted number of crossings. The proposal would allow the Border Patrol to operate on all federal lands, provide funding for the National Guard to participate in securing the border, and authorize expanded use of surveillance drones along the border.
  • Obama's immigration announcement emphasized his administration's efforts to secure the U.S. border, and in FY 2014, nearly twenty thousand U.S. Border Patrol agents (PDF) operated along the southwestern border—the largest deployment in U.S. history.
Benjamin McKeown

BBC News - Halving of malaria deaths 'tremendous achievement' - 1 views

www.bbc.com/health-30375202

disease malaria

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 09 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Global efforts have halved the number of people dying from malaria -
  • In 2004, 3% of those at risk had access to mosquito nets, but now 50% do.
  • scaling up of diagnostic testing, and more people now are able to receive medicines to treat the parasitic infection, which is spread by the bites of infected mosquitoes.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • An increasing number of countries are moving towards malaria elimination.
  • 2013, two countries - Azerbaijan and Sri Lanka - reported zero indigenous cases for the first time, and 11 others (Argentina, Armenia, Egypt, Georgia, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Oman, Paraguay, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) succeeded in maintaining zero cases
  • Africa, where 90% of all malaria deaths occur, infections have decreased significantly.
  • Here, the number of people infected has fallen by a quarter
  • despite a 43% increase in the African population
  • "These tremendous achievements are the result of improved tools, increased political commitment, the burgeoning of regional initiatives, and a major increase in international and domestic financing.
  • Most malaria-endemic countries are still far from achieving universal coverage with life-saving malaria interventions
  • Emerging drug- and insecticide-resistance continued to pose a major threat, and if left unaddressed, could trigger an upsurge in deaths,
  • There are also fears that the ongoing Ebola crisis in West Africa may set back the malaria fight.
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