Category: Columns

Geoff has written for publications as diverse as PC User and The Northern Star His weekly columns have been a source of humour and inspiration for tens of thousands of readers and his mailbox is always full.
Here you can find his more recent contributions.

  • The John James Newsletter 151

    The John James Newsletter 151

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    Anyone who has surplus funds should be holding gold and silver because the dollar should be priced as toilet paper. The Fed’s massive increase in supply of money is not matched by goods and services. We don’t have hyperinflation because most of that money went into financial assets and bid up stock and real estate prices. If the world turns on the dollar, the Fed is not able to sustain it. Gold and silver have always been money – Craig Roberts
    What is it we are trying to sustain? A living planet, or industrial civilization? Because we can’t have both – Kim Hill
    The world’s total nuclear arsenal 15,375 enough to destroy all advanced life several time by accident or design – http://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report
    Climate Change and the Coming ‘Humanitarian Crisis of Epic Proportions’
    Military and national security experts are sounding the alarm about tens of millions of climate refugees. Without radical action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, “we will grieve over the avoidable human tragedy, Climate change could lead to a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. We’re already seeing migration of large numbers of people around the world because of food scarcity, water insecurity, and extreme weather, and this is set to become the new normal.
    Farmers believe in climate change, so why don’t the politicans
    Nine in 10 of the farmers surveyed being concerned about damage to the climate.  They are experiencing rapid change on their land, and in regional weather patterns. Two-thirds of those surveyed had observed changes in rainfall patterns during their lifetime, and almost one in two reported more frequent or intense droughts; rain events or flooding; or heatwaves.
    Scientists have long feared this ‘feedback’ to the climate system. Now they say it’s happening
    By the year 2050, the planet could see 55 billion tons of carbon (which converts to 200 billion tons of carbon dioxide, were it all to be in this form) released from soils. It has taken us 200 years to release this amount from industrialisation.
    Climate change escalating so fast it is ‘beyond point of no return’

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/donald-trump-climate-change-policy-global-warming-expert-thomas-crowther-a7450236.html

    Trump could face the ‘biggest trial of the century’ — over climate change
    The case, brought by 21 youths aged 9 to 20, claims that the federal government isn’t doing enough to address the problem of climate change to protect their planet’s future — and that, they charge, is a violation of their constitutional rights on the most basic level. the planet is on the docket, it would be hard to imagine a more consequential trial, because the fossil fuel policies of the entire United States of America are going to confront the climate science put forth by the world’s best scientists. And never before has that happened. By declining to dismiss the lawsuit, the court was indicating that the plaintiffs do indeed have a right to sue the government over their constitutional right to a healthy environment in the context of the climate change threat — something that has never been done before.
    Adani’s solar shift puts Carmichael in the shade
    Adani is central to a profound energy transition in India, which is on track to achieve a national 40% renewable energy target by 2030, equivalent to 350GW, or around seven times Australia’s total electricity sector.
    Future temperatures could exceed livable limits
    The researchers calculated that humans and most mammals, which have internal body temperatures near 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, will experience a potentially lethal level of heat stress at wet-bulb temperature above 95 degrees sustained for six hours or more,
    Does the US have, at the present time, a Middle East policy?
    Not really, unless haphazardly responding to disorder in hopes of preventing things from getting worse still qualifies as a policy. Sadly, US efforts to “fix” the region have served only to make matters worse. Even more sadly, members of the policy world refuse to acknowledge that fundamental fact. So we just blunder on. There is no evidence — none, zero, zilch — that the continued US military assertiveness in that region will lead to a positive outcome. There is an abundance of evidence pointing in precisely the opposite direction.
    How climate change is affecting the wine we drink
    “We are working with shorter time frames. Once upon a time a vintage would have taken 100 days but we do the bulk of it within 60 days,”
    and
    Italian banks tumble as investors eye contagion risk
    Shares in Italy’s beleaguered banks tumbled by up to 6% as investors took fright at the decisive ‘no’ vote in the country’s constitutional referendum. With prime minister Matteo Renzi (pictured)  promising to resign after securing just 40% of votes for his plans to streamline Italy’s electoral system, the country is set for a period of further political uncertainty that will hamper the banks’ efforts to recapitalise.
    ‘I rigged parliament votes for President Poroshenko’ – fugitive Ukrainian MP
    The president of Ukraine is personally involved in large-scale corruption, alleges a fugitive MP who claims to have rigged votes in the parliament by bribing fellow lawmakers with bags-full of cash on behalf of Petro Poroshenko. The money used to buy votes had been embezzled from the state coffers and even includes funds provided to Ukraine by the International Money Fund,
    ACT aims for zero carbon transport sector, with launch of EV plan
    Having led the country on renewable energy policy and ambition, the ACT is shifting its focus to its transport sector, the decarbonisation of which it says will be crucial to achieving the Territory’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
    Life On Earth Is Dying
    The human onslaught to destroy life on Earth is unprecedented in Earth’s history. Planet Earth is now experiencing its sixth mass extinction event and Homo sapiens sapiens is the cause. Moreover, this mass extinction event is accelerating and is so comprehensive in its impact that the piecemeal measures being taken by the United Nations, international agencies and governments constitute a tokenism that is breathtaking in the extreme.
    For 2016, Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations are Rising at the Fastest Rate Ever Seen
    “The Middle Miocene Climate Optimum was ushered in by CO2 levels jumping abruptly from around 400ppm to 500 ppm, with global temperatures warming by about 4°C  and sea levels rising about 40m as the Antarctic ice sheet declined substantially and suddenly. “
    Palynomorphs reveal a sudden remarkably warm Antarctica during the middle Miocene
    Laughs, cries and deception: birds’ emotional lives are just as complicated as ours
    Reason, thinking and making judgements were stubbornly thought to be outside the capacity of animals. For a long time it was not believed that animals were even capable of feeling pain, let alone complex emotions. We now know that is far from the truth.
    On Top Of Demonetisation India Scraps Wheat Import Duties
    The aim is to replace current structures with a system of chemical-intensive, industrial-scale agriculture suited to the needs of Western agribusiness, food processing and retail concerns. This is to be facilitated by the World Bank’s ‘Enabling the Business of Agriculture’ strategy, which entails opening up markets to Western agribusiness and their fertilisers, pesticides, weedicides and patented seeds. What we are seeing is the further commercialisation of rural India designed to entrench the forces of capitalist agriculture under US leadership and its transnational agribusiness corporations.
    West Antarctic Ice Shelf Could Collapse Within 100 Years = 3m slr.
    Looking at satellite images taken before the 2015 fracture, the scientists discovered that the rift spread upward for two years before breaking through the ice surface. The iceberg was then set adrift over 12 days in late July and early August 2015. “This kind of rifting behavior provides another mechanism for rapid retreat of these glaciers, adding to the probability that we may see significant collapse of West Antarctica in our lifetimes. The really troubling thing is that there are many of these valleys further up-glacier,” Howat said. “If they are actually sites of weakness that are prone to rifting, we could potentially see more accelerated ice loss in Antarctica.”

    Arctic and Antarctic sea ice reaches record lows after section the size of India melts

    and

    President Duterte – Fighting for his Life & his Country 
    “I support Duterte! Now children get free education and ‘medical missions’ provide basic medical care. We also receive allowances, and the government provides jobs. We are still lacking electricity, but at least the municipality is providing free drinking water.” The number of people killed in this country is actually decreasing. Before, under Aquino, those murdered were mainly poor farmers, indigenous people, and urban poor; people fighting for their basic human rights. Under Gloria Arroyo, the foreign mining companies were even given permission to kill protesters. All this is over now.
    Rendered Uninhabitable by Heat
    Heatwaves so hot that it’s impossible to perform any activity outdoors without threat of injury or worse. Raging dust storms that make the very air unbreathable. Massive droughts that wreck agricultural productivity and biodiversity altogether. Sections of Africa and the Middle East are currently getting a taste of these new, dangerous climate conditions. But their frequency could increase by five fold or more over the next 30-40 years is threatening government collapse, and the forced dislocation of millions.
    Climate Emergency Declaration Petition*
    Call on the Australian Parliament to declare a climate emergency and initiate a massive society-wide climate action mobilisation.
  • Monbiot hardens views on Corporate Feudalism

    Monbiot hardens views on Corporate Feudalism

    Gangs of America outlines the deliberate undermining of legislatures by corporations

    Gangs of America outlines
    the deliberate undermining
    of legislatures by corporations

    Guardian columnist George Monbiot hardened his view on Corporate Feudalism on December 6th, writing that under the onslaught of the placeless, transnational capital McDonald’s exemplifies, democracy as a living system withers and dies.

    Monbiot joins the ranks of Ted Nace, Noam Chomsky and other thinkers who have recognised that corporate subversion of the democratic process is at the heart of our modern malaise.

    Where as most commentators study events of the last decade or so in an attempt to identify the source of citizen dissatisfaction with democracy, Ted Nace, points to the deliberate campaigns waged by Corporations in the nineteenth century to harness the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution to grant themselves power to cross state boundaries without approval of state governments. As a result of this campaign the railway barons were born creating the financial institutions of the twentieth century and the underpinnings of the unsustainable financial system that drains the pockets of ordinary citizens and the state that should represent them.

    None of this is news to socialists who have followed Marx’ analysis of capitalism over roughly the same period. Ironically, the mantra of neoliberalism, that capital should be free, is the very concept at the heart of the nineteenth century critiques of capital, Marx included.

    French economist Thomas Picketty became the rock star of his industry with his book Capital,  that irrefutably proved that wealth trickles upwards and the gap between rich and poor increases in the absence of intervention by governments.

    An analysis of Picketty’s book and rise to fame is available from The Economist.

    Monbiot’s piece can be found at the Guardian where he writes weekly.

    Other articles on Corporate Feudalism from The Cage, The Generator and Monbiot are available at TheGenerator.News

  • Snow White in the Cage

    Snow White in the Cage

    Following up on our publication of Geoff Ebbs’ review of Snow White at La Boite, we a pleased to link to the soundfile of that interview on Cage.Live

    https://soundcloud.com/geoff-ebbs/snow-white-at-la-boite

  • Snow White reflects cultural depths

    Snow White reflects cultural depths

    Dylan Evan's photo of Kanen Breen as the mirror
    The mirror listens intently to the Queen

    Brisbane Festival sets out to nurture and celebrate Brisbane’s cultural life. If international respect is a sign of our cultural depth, then the inclusion of two independent performances of Snow White, mark a milestone in that celebration.

    The choice of Brisbane as the exclusive Australian destination for Ballet Preljocaj’s Snow White is one measure of such success. It is partly due to the oft-stated aim of Queensland Ballet director, Li Cun Xing, to make Brisbane a global centre of excellence for ballet. He has achieved this with a mix of classics and new works, the best international dancers inspiring and pushing brilliant local talent under his direction.

    This French ballet features a score by Gustav Mahler, costumes by Jean Paul Galtier and choreography from the brilliant creative mind of Angelin Preljocaj. The fact that it completely sold out and left audiences screaming for more is a testament to its popular as well as its critical appeal.

    International works at the highest pinnacle of official culture, though, are only one part of the equation. True culture comes from the ground up, percolated from the society which it reflects and which produces it. Brisbane’s rich heritage of grass-roots performance and production is nurtured in the dynamic Anywhere Festival, the incredibly rich music scene and the variety and unofficial performance spaces that spawn it.

    It is one thing to observe and comment on a nascent upwelling of culture, it is another to see it bear fruit with internationally acclaimed works that connect those grass roots to the stars. The world premiere performance of a musical rendition of Snow White at La Boite epitomizes that upwelling.

    Snow White at la Boite
    Snow White at la Boite until September 24th

    Brilliant, challenging, visceral, powerful, haunting, real, soaringly imaginative … I would run out of space before epithets. The audiences attending La Boite to see the spectacle this month need no critics to tell them what they have seen, though. The deepest parts of our humanity are reflected back to us in the raw. We cannot help to feel directly affected as power, sex, beauty and age are exposed at their most vigorous in acts of seduction, betrayal, murder and rape.

    This show pulls no punches. Rather than sexual references we are confronted with simulated sex. The complex and brutal act of hiring an assassin of begging that assassin for your life and of murdering your own child when that hired assassin are dealt with directly rather than allegorically. This is not a show that relies on innuendo, sub-text and implication to deliver its message, the brutality of the tale is real, visceral and in your face.

    That is not to say that it lacks depth. The full frontal confrontation of these deep dark themes simply holds them up more clearly for inspection. The reflective nature of the mirror and its ability to lead us to express naked ambition and desire is a treatise in its own right that is a new element of this oft-told tale.

    The stunning elevation of the mirror to a central character reminding us all of the narcissistic society in which we live and the degree to which we worship success through the wiles of the mirror is a brilliant twist, brilliantly delivered.

    That all this is presented to us by four singing actors and four musicians positioned in one corner of the stage is even more remarkable. The sets and the costumes are stunning, the work itself is destined to become a classic reference point in the constant retelling of this classic tale.

    Anyone who thinks that a musical version of Snow White should involve dwarves noisily celebrating wage slavery will be severely disappointed, this is about what happens when you murder your children because you resent them – or, worse, try to do so and fail.

    La Boite is a lot cheaper than QPAC, too, though $49 for a concession ticket is still beyond the reach of many. If you can possibly afford that between now and September 24th, spend it. It is an investment in your cultural heritage.

  • Australians take to solar despite government discouragement

    Australians take to solar despite government discouragement

    Climate Chaos is here now
    Subscribe to John James newsletter now.

    The John James newsletter this week collated a number of statistics about the Australian take up of solar energy

    Australians have invested $8 billion of their own money in rooftop solar over the last 8 years, and they now save around $1 billion in electricity bills each year [1]

    Rooftop solar systems will prevent over 6.3 million tonnes of carbon pollution in 2016 [2]

    There are now 19,000 people employed in the solar industry, far more than in coal and gas electricity generation [3]

    If we transition to 100% renewable energy by 2050 we’d actually save $90 billion [5]

    Editor, John James commented, “Seems like solar is working pretty well”

    [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/22/australians-have-spent-almost-8bn-on-rooftop-solar-since-2007-says-report

    [2] Solar Citizens, p.13-14; http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/come-cuppa-craig-kelly-lets-talk-solar-58000

    [3] Solar Citizens, July 2016; http://www.thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spinifex/follow-the-money-australias-solar-gold-rush-is-unstoppable/83019

    [4] Guardian, 19 April 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/19/modelling-shows-move-to-100-renewable-energy-would-save-australia-money

    To subscribe to the John James Newsletter, email John James.

  • Pope Francis names climate action as a sacred duty

    Pope Francis names climate action as a sacred duty

    Pope Francis
    Pope Francis is unpopular with the institutional hierarchy

    Pope Francis this week named pollution as ‘sinful’ and fighting Climate Change a ‘sacred duty’.

    He called urgently for people to actively work to save the environment, proposing that the Catholic Church add such a duty to the list of “seven mercies,” which includes feeding the hungry and visiting the sick, which Catholics are required to perform.

    “Humans are turning the planet into a polluted wasteland full of debris, desolation and filth,” the Pontiff said. Building on Laudato Si his Encyclical last year, he added that “The world’s poor, though least responsible for climate change, are most vulnerable and already suffering its impact.”

    http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/09/01/deeming-pollution-earth-sinful-pope-proposes-climate-action-sacred-duty

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/natural-resource-use-tripled_us_57a05c3ae4b0693164c273a8