FEASTA Quarterly Bulletin, Autumn 2002

Contents

1. Introduction - Interesting Times by David O'Kelly
2. Energy Money and Power by Richard Douthwaite
3. Ireland's Transition to Renewable Energy
4. The Feasta Lecture 2002
5. Introducing Stan Thekaekara by James Bruges
6. So that was Johannesburg - Now What?
7. Housing / Land
8. Education
9. Democracy
10. Feasta on-line
11. Books Available from the Feasta Office
12. Feasta Membership

(1) Introduction

Interesting Times by David O'Kelly

Feasta is maturing as an organisation. Many very worthy charities never get beyond the first flush of enthusiasm because they fail to adopt the systems that are essential to run an effective organisation. We believe our work is far too important for us to make this mistake. Therefore we have put a lot of energy into consolidating our financial systems and ensuring we get best use from the money we raise in subscriptions and donations.

It is apparent, that the global economic system that has been dominant for more than 100 years is seriously flawed. Yet our most prominent media commentators and analysts confess themselves bewildered by the volatility of the financial markets.

Feasta's members have long recognised that economic growth is a meaningless indicator of human progress if it means we have less time for our families and our environment is being degraded. In a finite world limitless growth and consumption of the Earth's resources is a flawed model. This fact is becoming increasingly clear to the wider society as the basic instability of the economic system is exposed.

Therefore the relevance of Feasta's work grows daily. Our mission statement is: To identify the characteristics that society needs in order to be economically, environmentally and culturally sustainable and to share this analysis with the widest possible audience.

Consistent with this mission statement we are planning a range of events and activities for the coming year whereby we can develop our vision of a sustainable economy and share it with as many people as possible. To this end we are targeting ordinary people who believe there must be an alternative as well as the communicators and policy makers who can influence the way we live.

We have already organised a major event this year, the Energy Conference in the Tipperary Institute in Thurles. For this we brought together some of the world's most respected experts on energy and fossil fuels to debate Ireland's transition to renewable energy use. One fact is very clear, as an island nation, we must reduce our exposure to the imminent depletion of the Earth's oil supplies.

We are also planning a number of other events such as our annual lecture in December and a briefing for our political leaders on the real outlook for the global economy in general and its implications for the Irish economy in the medium to long term.

We truly live in interesting times.

(2) Energy Money and Power

By Richard Douthwaite

If you have money, you've potentially got power. By that, I mean that you can use your cash to make things happen. You can buy human, animal, renewable or fossil energy and use that to bring about some sort of change. In most cases, you won't actually buy energy directly. Instead, you'll buy some product into which energy has already been incorporated during its manufacture and you will use that to make the change instead. But the point is the same money is valuable to the extent to which it can buy energy regardless of whether that energy is in a raw or in a manufactured form.

So, although we often think otherwise, money is not power. It just gives access to power.

The rate at which it does so is highly variable. For example, the respected Brookings Institute in the US has forecast that if the current crisis led Moslem countries to halt all their oil exports to the rest of the world, the price would rise to $161 per barrel. Five or six times its level today (October 2002) and ten or twelve times what it was two years or so ago.

Moreover, two major elements of the true price of oil are concealed. One is the military cost of ensuring its supply. As long ago as 1989, it was estimated that the United States spent between $15 billion and $54 billion each year safeguarding oil supplies in the Middle East. The Gulf War in 1991 cost at least $30 billion on top of that. Earlier this year, the current figure was put at $50 billion, 2.5 times larger than the cost of the oil itself. And a war against Iraq would cost much, much more.

Other countries have similar costs. Dan Plesch, a strategic analyst and a speaker at this year's Feasta energy conference, points out that Britain has 20,000 troops in the Gulf at present and that these consume a large part of the country's £20bn defence budget.

There is the moral and human cost too. The UK and other Western states support dictatorships and absolute monarchs in the Middle East because of the 'stability' that they bring to oil supply.

And then there's the environmental cost. Another speaker at the energy conference, Olaf Hohmeyer once calculated that the environmental damage done by burning a gallon of petrol was around 20 euros. A kilowatt hour of electricity from a coal-fired power station like Moneypoint which we buy at around 10 cents could be receiving an environmental subsidy of ten or fifteen times that amount, he found. And a tonne of coal ought to cost around 4,000 euros to cover the damage it does.

Overall, because of this sloppy pricing, the world economy is getting a environmental subsidy from the planet worth perhaps a fifth or a quarter of the value of every product and service sold. Purchasers should have to pay the full monetary cost of damage they are doing to the climate by their use of fossil fuels. If they did, it would be a major step towards pricing the various sources of power correctly and thus towards sustainability.

But that's continuing to look at the money and power the wrong way around. Energy is the real money. Energy is the stuff that makes things happen. Our current form of money is just a proxy for it, and, as we've seen, a rather poor one at that. So shouldn't energy, or, better, the right to use fossil energy, actually become our money? That would be a truly radical reform.

Feasta believes that a radical monetary reform is one of the keys to sustainability and has a number of members working in the area. For details on the FEASTA Money Systems group see www.feasta.org

(3) Ireland's Transition to Renewable Energy

Tipperary Institute, Thurles, Co Tipperary,
30-31st October and 1-2nd November, 2002

Jointly organised by Feasta, the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, the Tipperary Institute, and the Sustainable Energy Ireland with the support of the Green Group in the European Parliament, Comhar, ESB Independent Energy, Airtricity and GE Wind.

What is almost certainly the most far-reaching conference on Ireland's future energy supplies opens in Thurles, Co. Tipperary, on Thursday the 31st of October and runs for three days.

"Perhaps we gave it the wrong title when we called it "Ireland's Transition to Renewable Energy"" says Richard Douthwaite, one of the organisers. "That gives the impression that it's largely about renewables such as biomass and wind whereas we be looking at the prospects for every type of power source, including coal and nuclear."

A highlight of the event is likely to be the expected clash in the opening session between Dr. Colin Campbell, a petro-geologist, and David Frowd, one of Shell International's chief planners.

Campbell believes that just less than half of the world's total endowment of oil has been extracted already and that output will begin to decline within the next five years, pushing prices up sharply. In 1008, he and a French colleague convinced the International Energy Agency in Paris that their figures were correct and now the IEA shows the world's increasing appetite for oil being met from unconventional sources such as tar sands.

Frowd, on the other hand, rejects Campbell's analysis entirely. He says that the world has perhaps three times as much conventional oil left as Campbell claims but he won't say where it is for reasons of commercial confidentiality.

"We don't want them to get into a sterile wrangle over figures that bewilders everyone in the audience" Douthwaite says. "We've asked them to explain why they differ and leave it at that. Mr. Frowd has been asked to concentrate on the tar sands' potential. He says that extraction methods have improved a lot recently, making it less polluting and more economic."

Another controversial paper is being presented by Ian Hore-Lacy of the World Nuclear Association. This argues that nuclear energy should be considered as part of Ireland's future energy supply mix as it gives a very favourable return in energy terms. In other words, in contrast to what has been claimed in the past, a nuclear power plant delivers many times the energy required to build and operate it and then to care for its waste for hundreds of years afterwards.

"It seems that wind energy and nuclear are rivals in terms of the amount of energy you get out for the energy you put into building a wind farm or power station" Douthwaite comments. "What lets wind down is that the power supply from it is highly variable whereas the supply from a nuclear station is constant."

Accordingly, the conference will hear two papers on the technologies that are being developed to store wind energy. One of these will be by Dr. Werner Zittel from L-B-Systemtechnik GmbH, in Munich, a small consulting company focussed on sustainable energy and transport strategies, who will speak on the infrastructural requirements of a hydrogen-based energy economy.

In Zittel's scenario, electricity from the wind would be used to produce hydrogen from water. The hydrogen could be stored and then burned when required to produce heat and electricity, possibly in individual homes, or to power road vehicles. Zittel is currently advising a number of car manufacturing firms.

The conference is being jointly organised by three organisations - a government agency, Sustainable Energy Ireland, the Tipperary Institute where it is being held, and by Feasta, the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, an NGO based in Dublin. Full details of the programme and speakers are on the Feasta website, www.feasta.org.

"Many businesses are going blindly along assuming that there will be plenty of cheap energy in the future. The country as a whole made that assumption a few years ago too when it decided to start building an extensive road network. But the validity of the assumption needs to be checked. This is what the conference is all about. Commercial and economic survival could depend on it" Douthwaite says.

How to Book

Bookings are being handled by the Courthouse Centre, Tinahely, Co. Wicklow, Tel. +353 (0)402 38529. You can pay by credit card over the phone or, if you want to pay by cheque, an invoice will be posted out to you. There are special rates for Feasta members. Early booking is advisable because numbers are limited by the capacity of the hall.

Full details on www.feasta.org

(4) The Feasta Lecture 2002

Stan Thekaekara from Kerala, South India will give the 4th annual FEASTA lecture in Dublin on Monday the 9th of December in the Davis Theatre of Trinity College Dublin at 7.30pm. It is hoped that there will also be lectures in Cork and Galway.

For full details of this lecture contact the FEASTA office. For an article on Stan's work see http://www.newint.org/issue322/dream.htm

(5) Introducing Stan Thekaekara by James Bruges

Stan Thekaekara grew up on the family farm near Bangalore. As social activists he and his wife, Mari (a writer frequently appearing in New Internationalist; her latest book is about latrine workers in Gujarat), were fascinated by adivasi attitudes and have been working with five tribes in the Nilgiri Hills, south India. Adivasis are indigenous people outside the Hindu cast system and represent about six per cent of the Indian population. They have suffered largely because they lacked any concept of land ownership so, as the forests were cleared, they were displaced. To start with Stan helped them establish land rights but this proved to be counterproductive since it led to some families becoming independent of their tribe. He then used his charismatic powers of persuasion (which you will no doubt enjoy at the lecture) to obtain a soft loan from a charity for the purchase of a tea plantation. This provides the tribes with a joint venture. The plantation is owned by 2,500 families, has been successful, and the adivasis have established a school and a hospital.

Adivasis have a cooperative, not competitive, approach to life. From this has risen a trading system involving the tea plantation, dhal (lentil) growers, fishing groups and textile makers, where each receives a proper wage for input and profit is distributed, not proportionally, but on the basis of need. Tea is their currency. Women's groups are joining the cooperative as an outlet for their products on the same basis. A first consignment of tea has come to Britain and will be marketed from housing estates - the poor in India are creating jobs for the unemployed here. This project is called Just Change.

Stan's interest in tribal attitudes may have wider applications than trade. Over three or four million years, humans evolved in tribes just as other animals evolved with distinct social patterns (wolves in packs, bees in hives, fish in shoals). Perhaps 10,000 years of hierarchical 'civilisation', fighting against our genetic inheritance, is at the heart of our problems. An understanding of how tribes deal with problems and how we might apply their attitudes to modern life is an important line of research.

I believe that Stan is the first trustee of Oxfam from a developing country, and Oxfam seems to find him quite a challenge. His radical ideas on economics arise out of experience among the poor, particularly the adivsis, in India. He may reinforce our attitude to free trade - the relentless drop in the price the adivasis get for tea and coffee has hit them hard. But he may also challenge some of our preconceptions about fair trade and micro-credit. Stan is a great communicator. Whenever he tells a story I find it cropping up in my thoughts for weeks with new nuances that are increasingly significant. I can guarantee it will be full of fascinating new avenues of thought.

(6) So that was Johannesburg - Now What?

Emer O'Siochru attended the World Summit on Sustainable Development at Johannesburg as part of the Irish Delegation paid for by Comhar the National Sustainable Development Partnership, on which she represents Feasta. She was also joined by Mags Liddy from Gluaiseacht, Patrick Finnegan from Grian, Frank Corcoran from an Taisce, Jaqui Hodgson of the Cork Environmental Alliance and Sean Regan from Community Workers Co-operative. Developmental NGOs with whom we soon found common cause were Oisin Coughlan from Christian Aid, Michael O'Brien from Trocaire and Sean Ryan from KADE. Christian Volkmann made his own way to the WSSD under accreditation with the Friends of the Earth. Mags, Patrick, Frank, Christian and Emer were part of the ESI, Earth Summit Ireland subcommittee which prepared and published the report: 'Telling It Like It Is: 10 years of unsustainable development in Ireland.' A full report by Emer on her trip to Johannesburg is available on www.feasta.org and Earth Summit Ireland can be found on the world wide web at http://www.earthsummit-ireland.org

On Saturday 21st September, Feasta, with the support of Trocaire, NCDE and the Irish Doctors Environmental Association, ran a one day conference in TCD entitled "So that was Johannesburg, Now What?: A conference to plan the way forward after the World Summit on Sustainable Development"

The conference aimed to assess and analyse the outcomes of the recent Summit held in Johannesburg; to create awareness and understanding of the importance of Indicators in measuring progress on sustainable development; and to collate material for the publication of a book on Indicators in early 2003. The morning session examined in detail two key examples, or indicators, of the current global sustainability crisis, namely the rapid decline in world fish stocks and the problems with the use of persistent chemicals. Dr. Paul Connolly of the Marine Institute kicked off the proceedings with an overview of the current crisis in global and EU fish stocks. Brian O'Riordan of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers outlined the negative consequences of EU fishing policies for West African fisheries and the livelihoods of local fisher-folk, while Joe Maddock of Irish Fishermen's Organisation provided the Irish perspective. After coffee we heard from Professor James Heffron of UCC who gave a clear explanation of the problems associated with the use of persistent chemicals, particularly those based on chlorine. The morning session ended with Peter Hurst from the Geneva headquarters of the International Union of Farm Workers who dealt with the role of agricultural labourers in sustainable agriculture and in particular the problems faced by farm workers in developing countries using pesticides and other chemicals.

In the afternoon there was an opportunity to further assess and analyse the outcomes of the WSSD and here directly from several members of the Irish NGO delegation who were in Johannesburg, including Patrick Finnegan of GRIAN, Michael O'Brien of Trocaire and Emer O'Siochru of Feasta, as well as two youth delegates from the Irish branch of Eco-Unesco. Not surprisingly, there was deep scepticism by most of the NGO delegates that any real progress had been made in Jo'berg - that too much emphasis had been put on 'Type 2 outcomes' (public private partnerships) with little, if any, real breakthrough in terms of sustainable development implementation actions and targets. Nevertheless, it was acknowledged that there has been a few positive outcomes of the WSSD negotiations, namely the inclusion in the final text that governments must 'actively promote greater corporate responsibility and accountability', the acceptance that WTO trade rules can not supersede multilateral environmental agreements and development concerns, the commitments to restore fish stocks and to phase out certain dangerous chemicals.

In the final session of the day Richard Douthwaite of Feasta presented proposals on how sustainable development indicators can be decisively acted on and the need for radical reform of the global financial architecture.

Although the numbers attending were not quite as high as we had originally hoped for (possibly due to the fact that it was a beautiful sunny day outside!), many of the participants commented on the high quality of the speakers and the very focused and stimulating inputs. There were also numerous questions and contributions from the floor. The day (as well as the more informal networking session that took place in the evening in the Central Hotel) will also have proved very useful in terms of encouraging greater collaboration between Irish environmental and development NGOs around issues which are increasingly of common concern. Material from the conference will prove invaluable to Feasta as it prepares a publication on the subject of Sustainable Development Indicators for early 2003 which we hope will reach a wider audience and crucially, be another reminder to policy makers to move beyond the rhetoric of sustainability into taking real action.

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