'With Banners Held High' ends in Green Mush!

by Dave Douglass

WITH Banners Held High over the few years of its existence has been an increasingly contradictory event. At first it had a strong focus on the Miners and the NUM and the struggles of the mining communities. Miners’ banners predominated. Miners and their families turned out to celebrate our identity and heritage and use it as an excuse for a canny drink and meet old comrades. Alongside this came the ‘left’ which had over the last couple of decades become more and more infused with a middle class largely southern based liberal agenda, the Identity Politics obsession, and an adoption of the politics of climate alarmism. Climate hysteria for those who are rapidly consumed by it until it becomes an unchallengeable article of faith, simply assume their acceptance of the whole panic and ‘emergency’ agenda is commonly accepted, it isn’t of course. The political demands of Climate Extinction and the Green Party, Green Peace etc confront the very idea of an industrial proletariat, traditional British industry is fighting for life against a war of extermination. That Yorkshire and Humberside TUC have gone over wholesale to their politics and changed the Banners platform into a carnival of green mush and anti-industry propaganda. So, we found in previous years while miners banners and miners proclaimed the fight against pit closures in defence of coal, coal does not dole, and the whole pro mining struggles of the period 83-93 and down to the last three mines. At the same time stalls at the event everywhere called for an end to coal, and much of industry.

This current proposed event marks really an end to the miners connection and its wholesale adaptation to the politics of ‘Climate Emergency’. Where in this ‘virtual event’, which one presumes will be a zoom rally, is the case for coal? Where are the speakers to DEBATE and CHALLENGE the assumption of ‘Climate Emergency’ the degree of ‘Man Made Climate Change’ against an ongoing natural process? Where are speakers from NUM or UNITE to talk in defence of Steel, and coal which is vital to make it? Where are the speakers from the Cement industry who rely on coal for cement and concrete the building industry, including Turbine installation? Where are speakers on the absolute necessity of coal and steel for Boris’s ‘Green Deal’ or Labour’s version of it? Nobody from the NUM invited to speak on the struggle to develop our new mine in Whitehaven, bringing with it 2500 new jobs, and the prospect of mining our own coal again and supplying a steel industry making for example our own wind turbines and our own electric cars or solar frames. None of us from coal, steel, construction, cement, car manufacture etc have been invited to speak on the necessity of fossil fuel in any green manufacturing programme. Where is the workshop on Clean Coal Technology, Carbon Capture and Storage etc? It does not feature.

One thing which made my blood run cold is the session on Labour’s plan to bring in compulsory climate panic lessons into every classroom, with lectures on ‘climate change’ which I for one doubt in the extreme will be an objective assessment of climate change over the last 4.6 billion years before we got here. The dramatic changes in atmospheric composition and weather and temperature and extinctions before we arrived and the context for current changes, mild by comparison and only partially due to our presence. Objectivity, debate, discussion and different points of view and science are not being encouraged here.

I am frankly disgusted at this platform and programme which ignores everything we fought for as miners and steelworkers and our unions. It shows how deeply the climate panic propaganda has entered into the ideology and leadership of even the Trade Union Movement and more shockingly the Northern industry-based Trade Union Movement, one wonders who is running this show and just what are their credentials?

All of that being the case, I don’t think there is any room for miners’ banners on this event, as we have been treated with gross contempt.

I would urge the organisers whoever they are, to think long and hard before next years event, to allow a proper debate and discussion around the question of what is ‘green’ and how does coal and steel meet any challenge of climate concerns. What is the role of clean coal technologies and carbon capture and most importantly the hypocrisy of exporting OUR carbon emissions abroad, our coal and steel requirements abroad, in order that we can use the imported produce here but claim to be emissions free ourselves? Any Labour Movement body let alone Yorkshire and Humberside TUC worthy of its manufacturing traditions would be debating these real issues and facts rather than joining the anti-industry middle class green liberal chorus.

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Extremists And Deniers by Les May

JUST as I don’t think it is would be particularly helpful to refer to the author of the recent article about the proposed new coal mine in Cumbria as a ‘climate change denier’, I don’t think it is helpful for him to refer to people who have opposed this new mine as ‘climate change extremists’.

Unfortunately the one substantive issue here, the fact that coal is needed as a source of carbon in the production of steel, is lost in this use of emotive language and the desire to turn this into an attack on the Labour party, along with a passing reference to Margaret Thatcher.

Providing jobs does not trump every other consideration. We would think it absurd to argue that we should not reduce the number of plastic bags being used because it will mean fewer jobs manufacturing them or that we should still be burning coal to heat our homes to keep miners in work. In both cases we recognise that there are wider issues to be taken into consideration Ditto the production of coking coal.

At present there is no viable alternative to the use of coal as a source of carbon to combine with the oxygen which is chemically bound to

iron in ores and liberate the free metal. The manufacture of iron and steel is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions and the dumping of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is the major cause of the increase in global temperatures. A warmer atmosphere and warmer oceans means more energy in the global weather system which is the driver of climate change. Nor is it just about weather; an increase in ocean temperature will cause the water of the oceans to expand resulting in a rise in sea level.

But the present lack of a viable alternative does not mean that we should not be doing all we can to mitigate the effects of this.

Producing coke from coal for use in blast furnaces is a very dirty process with a high potential for producing pollution. It is also wasteful compared with iron smelting by means of, for example, direct gasification of coal. This and similar processes would reduce the demand for coal in the production of iron, and as a consequence reduce both the amount of carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere and the number of mining jobs.

We live in a liberal democracy so anyone who wants to attack the Labour party is free to do so. But I don’t think it is a good idea to gloss over the long term effects of carrying on dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from burning coal when doing so.

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Press Baron's news outlets blocked

Boris Johnson condemns Extinction Rebellion protesters

YESTERDAY it was reported that Boris Johnson had condemned the Extinction Rebellion protesters for trying to silence free speech after they blocked access to three printing presses owned by Rupert Murdoch. The blockade affected the distribution of several national newspapers – including The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Times and The Telegraph – which arrived late on newsstands on Saturday. Mr Johnson labelled the protests ‘unacceptable’ and pointed out that a free press was ‘vital’ for holding his Government to account for its actions on climate change. He tweeted: ‘A free press is vital in holding the government and other powerful institutions to account on issues critical for the future of our country, including the fight against climate change. It is completely unacceptable to seek to limit the public’s access to news in this way.’

More than 100 protesters – who accused the papers of failing to report on climate change – used vehicles and bamboo structures to block roads outside three press sites in Hertfordshire, Merseyside and North Lanarkshire. Police said 72 people have now been arrested. Home Secretary Priti Patel accused the protesters of carrying out an ‘attack on democracy’. She wrote: ‘This morning people across the country will be prevented from reading their newspaper because of the actions of Extinction Rebellion. This attack on our free press, society and democracy is completely unacceptable.’

Yet do we have a free press?

In his book 'THE PREVENTION of LITERATURE' [Polemic, No.2 January 1946] George Orwell wrote: 'In our age, the idea of intellectual liberty is under attack from two directions. On the one side are its theoretical enemies, the apologists of totalitarianism, and on the other its immediate, practical enemies, monopoly and bureacracy. Any wrter or journalist who wants to retain his integrity finds himself thwarted by the general drift of society rather than active persecution. The sort of things that are working against him are the concentration of the press in the hands of a few rich men, the grip of monopoly on radio anf the films, the unwillingness of the public to spend money on books, making it necessary for nearly for nearly every writer to earn part of his living by hack work, the encroachment of official bodies like the M.O.I. [Ministry of Information] and the British Council, which help the writer to keep alive but also waste his time and dictate his opinions...'

Orwell was writing in a time of war, but can the typical journalist today claim to be free and independent of the press barons like Murdock etc?

Boris Johnson has condemned Extinction Rebellion protesters for trying to silence free speech after they blocked access to three printing presses owned by Rupert Murdoch. The blockade affected the distribution of several national newspapers – including The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Times and The Telegraph – which arrived late on newsstands on Saturday. Mr Johnson labelled the protests ‘unacceptable’ and pointed out that a free press was ‘vital’ for holding his Government to account for its actions on climate change. He tweeted: ‘A free press is vital in holding the government and other powerful institutions to account on issues critical for the future of our country, including the fight against climate change. ‘It is completely unacceptable to seek to limit the public’s access to news in this way.’ More than 100 protesters – who accused the papers of failing to report on climate change – used vehicles and bamboo structures to block roads outside three press sites in Hertfordshire, Merseyside and North Lanarkshire. Police said 72 people have now been arrested. Home Secretary Priti Patel accused the protesters of carrying out an ‘attack on democracy’. She wrote: ‘This morning people across the country will be prevented from reading their newspaper because of the actions of Extinction Rebellion. This attack on our free press, society and democracy is completely unacceptable.’

Shadow International Trade Secretary Emily Thornberry told Times Radio she was concerned for older readers who may have missed out on their daily dose of news. She said: ‘I don’t really know what it is that is expected to be achieved and I know that for many older listeners it’s very much part of their daily life, getting their paper delivered in the morning and I just think it’s wrong.’ A free press is vital in holding the government and other powerful institutions to account on issues critical for the future of our country, including the fight against climate change. It is completely unacceptable to seek to limit the public’s access to news in this way.— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) September 5, 2020 This morning people across the country will be prevented from reading their newspaper because of the actions of Extinction Rebellion.This attack on our free press, society and democracy is completely unacceptable. https://t.co/3DfasjD6sS— Priti Patel (@pritipatel) September 5, 2020 The Sun accused the protesters of carrying out an ‘attack on all the free press’. Today’s Sun carried an opinion piece by Sir David Attenborough calling on Brits to do more to tackle climate change. The piece was commended by Carrie Symonds, Mr Johnson’s fiancé, who said the protest was an own goal. She wrote: ‘I care about climate change and biodiversity a massive amount but preventing a free press to spread this message further is just wrong. Not to mention all those small businesses that rely on being able to sell newspapers.’

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/05/boris-johnson-blasts-extinction-rebellion-for-unacceptable-protest-against-newspapers-13227269/?ito=cbshare

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

While owned by News Corp, the presses also print other titles such as the Evening Standard. Extinction Rebellion co-founder Gail Bradbrook wrote an opinion piece for the Standard the day of the protests, leading some to accuse the organisation of hypocrisy. The co-founder of XR actually wrote a column for the standard yesterday before hurrying over to blockade their printing presses https://t.co/SsiqohUYUN— Martha Gill (@Martha_Gill) September 5, 2020 A good day to #buyanewspaper A free press matters to all of us who value a free society. They mustn’t be silenced by an intolerant minority. pic.twitter.com/r3r3ksGkbN— Robert Jenrick (@RobertJenrick) September 5, 2020 Extinction Rebellion defended the blockade by accusing the papers of not paying enough attention to climate change. A spokesman said: ‘We are in an emergency of unprecedented scale and the papers we have targeted are not reflecting the scale and urgency of what is happening to our planet. ‘To any small businesses disrupted by the action this morning we say, “We’re sorry. We hope that our actions seem commensurate with the severity of the crisis we face and that this day of disruption successfully raises the alarm about the greater disruption that is coming”.’

A Northern Spin Town!

by  Andrew Wastling

THIS year's Empty Homes Week (23rd September 2019 - 29th September 2019) has raised national awareness of the latest Government data showing that over 216,000 homes in England have been empty for over six months. In all, over 600,000 homes are currently vacant. We of course all know that we live in the midst of a local and national affordable housing and homelessness crisis. The report ‘Empty Homes in England’ the 2019 edition was published on Monday September 23rd without a solitary mention in our local media outlets.   That in itself tells it's own story of the Mainstream Medias reluctance to speak truth to power or even to maintain the pretence of investigative journalism free of editorial compromise or content filtering at the behest of their advertisers corporate sponsors & invested vested interests.   I could go on but am sure I don't need to especially to readers of Northern Voices.

For those who might have missed it in the local Press the  latest public statistics for Rochdale showing  that there were in 2017 858 long term empty properties.

In 2018 there were 854 long term empty properties , a reduction of just six in twelve months out of a total of available 93,986 properties .

I would just like to ask Rochdale Council how long these properties are likely to remain empty before they are brought back into use to meet the chronic housing need for local families waiting to be re-housed but feel almost certain a reply will not be sent anytime soon. In fact in Rochdale there is not even a mandatory time period for local councillors to reply to a question from their constituents. This tells you all that is needed about local democratic accountability  - There isn't any!

The local housing crisis has got steadily worse and yet those councillors tasked with standing up for their constituents have never been held to account for their serial failures to address the chronic housing shortage . This despite , most reasonable people would think have thought, having a roof over ones head, being a basic expectation from the voters of their council representatives ?

Currently if all of the people currently on Rochdale Councils waiting lists stood one person per step on St.Chads 122 stone steps they would now go up and down our towns historic landmark almost 54 times! That's a total failure of housing policy in my book.

Where precisely are Rochdale Councils priorities in spending over £250 million on town centre regeneration which is supposed to produce a 'magic trickle' down effect to our local citizens many of whom are reliant on food banks to simply ward of malnutrition or becoming increasingly dependent on GP prescribed opiates disparagingly referred to in some quarters as ' hillbilly heroin to numb the pain and blur them into a sense of false well-being?

We are seeing all around us the collapsing failed experiment of Neo Liberalism begun in the 1980's under Thatcher & Regan & transformed under Cameron, May , & Johnson into the kind insane Kamikaze turbo charged disaster capitalism of the present.

Proof, if proof be needed that this spectacularly and repeatedly spun fake regeneration is little more than insidious creeping regeneration is found in the latest publication this week of the indices of deprivation which placed Rochdale as the twentieth in the UK for poverty. It is no accident surely that a staggering 19 out of 20 of local authorities with the highest proportion of neighbourhoods among the most deprived in England are based in the north of the country. Little was made in out local media of the fact that despite millions spent on Rochdale by succeeding councils that The English Indices of Deprivation report, compiled by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, assessed the level to which local authorities lack income, employment, education, and adequate housing, as well as the level of crime and services in across the UK and found Rochdale sadly languishing behind once again.

Were Rochdale a state and not a town it would be difficult not to describe it as a 'Failed State' using Chomsky's definition: they suffer from a serious 'democratic deficit' that deprives their formal democratic institutions of real substance. One of the hardest tasks that anyone can undertake, and among the most important, is to look honestly in the mirror.  If we allow ourselves to do so, we should have little difficulty in finding the characteristics of 'failed states' right at home.'

Sound familiar? It does to me. This is a town where many things  people and institutions are quite simply broken.

Fot the official recorded the top twenty areas with the most deprived neighbourhoods in England are:

1. Middlesbrough 2. Liverpool 3. Knowsley 4. Kingston upon Hull 5. Manchester 6. Blackpool 7. Birmingham 8. Burnley 9. Blackburn with Darwen 10. Hartlepool 11. Bradford 12. Stoke-on-Trent 13. Halton 14. Pendle 15. Nottingham 16. Oldham 17. North East Lincolnshire 18. Hastings 19. Salford

20. Rochdale.

These are deeply inconvenient facts for our councillors who would much rather they were discreetly wept under the carpet along with the beggars on our streets who are a glaring testimony to their abject failure as policy makers in our town each and every time one of them engages in conversation with a local voter or shopper.  They all of course as do we all have background stories.  Stories which when you trouble to listen do not paint our council who implemented Tory Austerity though the back door of our Town Hall without even token resistance or our councillors who capitulated without dissent, then voted through cuts to essential front line services  without any real understanding of how those closed local services would eventually impact on community cohesion.  They after all would in most cases not be personally dependent on such public services, be on the receiving end of such hatchet jobs to the social infrastructure and were in any case financially cushioned from penury by over the odds publicly subsidised councillor expenses.  Indeed whilst voting in harsh cuts for the rest of us one  of their first steps to protect themselves in the hard times they knew were coming was to feather their own nests and vote in an inflation busting pay rise in their councillor expenses for themselves. Nice work if you can get it comrades !

Many of our street beggars however were on  the receiving end of over a decade of tory austerity.  Its no surprise they are there on our pavements to anyone who has been follow political and economic events since the corporate elites crashed the economy and then paid off their cocaine bills and balanced their accounts on the backs of the poor .

Whilst  vital Public Services being butchered we simultaneously witness  expensively financed utopian shopping units intrude into the Rochdale skyline ad nauseum across the town centre  clearly someone has found a magic Money tree?  We also see  or more accurately those who bother to look can see  , dystopian near Victorian poverty & homelessness levels increase locally and people in despair frozen like zombies on the new psychoactive substances  (or 'Spice' ) hidden away in the  ginnels alleyways and shadows where the Council spin merchants never go or more to the point don't even know exist . 

A  Freedom of Information Request showed that in 2017 know Rochdale Council recorded 945 homelessness presentations ,205 homelessness advice presentations from people age 16-25yrs for the same period. Whilst in the last quarter the Council recorded 65 homelessness presentations from people aged 16-25yrs. 

We also know that the number of people waiting on the current waiting list for Social Housing is in 2017 now 6,374 households  - this is a crisis that is getting steadily worse , not better. It can not be logical , morally justifiable , or economically viable to have so many properties remain unused for so long,  or to have highly controversial proposals to demolish at least four of the College Bank Tower Blocks whilst we still have so many local families waiting to be housed languishing on waiting list for years.   This simply does not make any kind of sense.

It does however make economic  and environmental sense to bring empty properties into public use since creating homes from empty properties saves substantial amounts of material compared to building new homes, minimises the amount of land used for development and avoids wasting embedded carbon; helping to combat climate change and providing a proactive step our council can take immediately to give some credibility to their recent declaration of a Climate Emergency at the Town Hall. 

Another immediate proactive step our Council could take could take would be  to restore the Council Environmental Sustainability Team they axed due to Austerity measures , retain some of the largest solar panels in the North of England currently on top of the Seven Sisters instead of demolition them and finally recognise and admit publicly that one of the worlds largest & most toxic asbestos dumps in the world on our doorstep should  have alone merited the calling of an environmental emergency in Rochdale several decades ago.

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Jigsaw II by Louis Macneice

IN April 2004, someone had posted a request on a blog asking

for poems on the Influences of Technology.  I already knew 

about the Louis Macneice Jigsaw II from A level in the 1960.

It strikes me that this is relevant to our time now with Greta  

 Thunberg addressing the UK today.  People are so easily dazzled

by technology.   In the 19th century, John Ruskin and William 
Morris wanted us to bring nature into our homes.  
And yet, people today prefer to inflict technology upon themselves. 

**************

Posted by: Johnny (---.nasd.k12.pa.us)

Date: April 22, 2004  Hi,
I'm looking for poems reflecting on the influences of technology on culture.
 *****************
How about Jigsaw II by Louis Macneice?

Property! Property! Let us extend
Soul and body without end:
A box to live in, with airs and graces,
A box on wheels that shows its paces,
A box that talks or that makes faces,
And curtains and fences as good as the neighbours'
To keep out the neighbours and keep us immured
Enjoying the cold canned fruit of our labours
In a sterilised cell, unshaved, insured.

Property! Property! When will it end
When will the poltergeist ascend
Out of the sewer with chopper and squib
To burn the mink and the baby's bib
And cut the tattling wire to town
And smash all the plastics, clowning and clouting
And stop all the boxes shouting and pouting
And wreck the house from the aerial down
And give these ingrown souls an outing?

*********

Youth speaks out on climate change

 Sent to NV by John Wilkins (BOLD group)
ON Friday, 20 th. September thousands of young people gathered around the world to protest for climate justice.  Inspired by Greta Thunberg but powerful in their own right and in their collective unity, this movement is part of wider circles that ripple out in ways we can not imagine...


In Manchester, many of of us shared our voices in speeches, poems and songs.  It was an inspiring space to be and spurred Bridget Holtom, a poet and storyteller from Yorkshire living in Scotland, to stand and share a piece of spoken word written in response to burn out in activism.  To find out more, you can listen to Bridget Holtom speak to other activists about what sustains them in their fight for basic rights or while in solidarity in social and environmental justice movements at www.sustenanceradio.com and most podcast platforms. 


Only when...
Only when climate justice is done,
Only when all of the battles are won,
Only when freedom is for everyone,
Only then will all of our work be done.
Only when...
Borders are open,
Children have spoken,
New leaders are chosen,
Racist myths are broken
...only then
Only when women can say what they wish,
Say it without being burned as a witch,
Say it without being blamed as a bitch,
Only then will we be able to switch...
Off our brains and find peace, without losing sleep, 
while we worry that there's something we might have all missed.
It was only when...
Broader trauma
Border drama
Only then did I ask to take a break,
...survival was at stake.
Only when...
I took a year
Far far away from here
Finally to face my fears

Only then...
Did I realise why I felt so defeated,
***************

The Problems of Consuming Less

by Les May

CLIMATE CHANGE is nothing new.  Where I am sitting now was covered by about a kilometre of ice at the height of the glacial maximum 18,000 years ago. Ultimately the Earth’s climate is controlled by the slight ‘wobble’ in the inclination of its orbit, the elliptical nature of its orbit and the way these interact with the seasons.  Together these allow the Earth to absorb sometimes more and sometimes less of the energy reaching us from the sun.  What is new is that human activity is bringing about changes in the climate on a time scale measured in tens of years not thousands.  We do this by burning so called ‘fossil’ fuels and releasing the carbon they contain back into the atmosphere as Carbon Dioxide. Although this gas is present in the atmosphere at concentrations of a few parts in 10,000 it is this gas which traps heat radiation leaving the Earths surface which would normally be lost to space.  The trapped heat radiation causes the temperature of the atmosphere to rise.  As the sea/atmosphere system act like a kind of ‘steam engine’ and putting more heat energy into it makes our weather systems more energetic, they become more extreme.

The above paragraph sets out the problem, but it also sets out the solution.  To halt climate change we need to stop pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and if possible reduce the amount already there.

We burn fossil fuels to move things from one place to another, e.g. planes, cars, trains, buses, and to change one thing into another e.g. iron ore into cars, oil into plastic.  Changing one thing into another also includes the reclamation of recycled materials e.g. plastic bottles, aluminium drinks cans.  If we are to pump less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere these are the things we need to do less of.

In other words WE need to CONSUME LESS.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49499521

The problem is that we live in a ‘consumer society’ and we need to keep on consuming to keep that society functioning. And it’s OUR problem which we cannot shift onto anyone else.   It’s no use blaming politicians or capitalism which is really only one way of satisfying OUR demand for material goods or new experiences.

Are you willing to consume less?  Three possible scenarios are offered below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy

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Guardsman Tony Downes House letter

Greater Manchester Pension Fund under attack

Editorial note:  The letter below was sent on

the 18th, July 1919 by a group of people 

concerned about the investments of the Greater

Manchester Fund which they consider are heavily

held in dirty fossil fuel companies.  Since the group

 took part in a joint meeting with the fund there has 

been a protest demonstration in Droyslden on Friday, 

July 19th.  Since then Cllr. Brenda Warrington and other Labour

councillors on Tameside Council, Greater Manchester have tried

to use the family of Tony Downes to distract attention from 
the claim of the protesters that the pension fund's 
investments are the 'dirtiest in in the country'.

********************

18 July 2019

Councillor Brenda Warrington

Chair: Greater Manchester Pension Fund

Guardsman Tony Downes House,

5 Manchester Road

Droylsden,

M43 6SF

Dear Councillor Warrington,

Meeting between GMPF and Fossil Free Greater Manchester

Thank you for arranging the meeting with us on 10 July. We are writing to summarise the key points of the discussion from our perspective and to clarify our understanding of the issues and our ongoing position.

Although the meeting had been mooted for over a year, we received short notice about the meeting. We note that a briefing note was produced and this has since been shared with one of our members, but this was not tabled either before or during the meeting. We appreciated the presence of your senior managers, your deputy chair and your advisors from PIRC at the meeting.

1. Decarbonisation plans and time line

The Fund confirmed that it plans to become carbon neutral by 2050. No rationale was given for selecting a date 31 years from now. We note that Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the City of Manchester have set science-based, Paris compliant carbon budgets with projected net zero date of 2038 and both have said they will review the possibility of bringing that target date forward. The IPCC has noted that the world has no more than 11 years to make radical reductions to greenhouse gas emissions, the majority of which come from burning fossil fuels. The Fund did say that they anticipated decarbonising their investments before 2050 but claimed that the strategy needs time. The Fund also put emphasis on becoming carbon neutral rather than carbon free which could mean you would still be investing in fossil fuels if the emisisons could in some way be neutralized. However there is no technology available for doing this at the requred scale.

The Fund is using Investing in the Just Transition Initiative and Truecost in an advisory capacity to make changes. We pointed out that Truecost is not Paris compliant.

The Fund confirmed that it is moving £2.3Bn from passive tracker funds to a low carbon actively managed fund. This coincides with a change in Fund manager. While you emphasised that this has taken a lot of work to achieve given the need for robust risk assessment, no detail was given as to what that risk assessment entials, nor what its results have been.

It was pointed out that the policy environment set by central government makes it very difficult to plan for decarbonisation. We acknowledge the unhelpful policy context (discouragement of renewable energy, continuing subsidies for fossil fuels, promotion of unconventional hydrocarbons in the face of scientific evidence). However, we do not believe that this significantly impedes the switching of investments out of the fossil fuel industry. After all, other investors are doing just that.

2. Rationale for continued investment in Fossil Fuels and perceived risk of divestment.

It was pointed out to us that financial performance is paramount since this enables pensions to be paid without a cost to the employers. We do not disagree with this reality.

We argued that the evidence was that fossil stocks did no better over time than other stocks, citing the Grantham, Trinks et al studies¹ and the two major Ex-Fossil Fuel indexes¹. The Fund countered that they had calculated that the funds in fossil fuel gained them an additional £400 thousand (we don't recall a time period being identified), which they would not have achieved had they divested. We note that this differential does not represent a large difference in dividend returns, given the huge value of your fossil fuel holdings. You argued that this was based on real data rather than modelling. However, we said that a) this likely reflected the higher volatility of fossil fuel stocks (so it could easily go the other way and b) these stocks are vulnerable to passing the peak in demand leading to stranding and a sudden drop in values and returns. This point was acknowledged by Sandra Stewart. GMPF seem to believe that active fund management will allow you to assess when fossil fuels have peaked. Yet we know that these peaks can cause sudden and precipitous declines in stock values and returns, so in our view that confidence seems misplaced. We would add that there are other investments that yield comparably higher returns and a balanced portfolio would inevitably have higher and lower performing holdings with corresponding spreads of risk. On reflection we conclude that the £400k argument is no more than a post-hoc rationalisation for an unethical investment portfolio.

3. Impact of divestment

GMPF challenged the idea that divestment would lead to good outcomes do since other, less ethical investors (e.g. Blackrock) would buy your shares and it would be business as usual and maybe those companies would not be challenging the boards of oil and gas companies. We pointed out that divestment is meant to a) remove the social license for continued fossil fuel extraction, b) it will eventually harm stock valuation and profits which in turn makes capital investment in exploration and new extraction harder for the fossil majors. As we noted, this seems to be the view of Shell's CEO and also the Head of OPEC, both of whom have recently cited the divestment movement as a major threat¹. There is also evidence that divestment decisions are harming stock values. While this has been largely a transient effect, it now seems likely that the impacts are becoming more sustained as the divestment movement builds up².

It was argued that tobacco divestment had been shown to be ineffective since tobacco firms simply switched markets to the global South. However the two cases are not comparable. Fossil fuel majors do not have significant new markets to exploit in the same way that tobacco firms could. A better comparison is that of apartheid South Africa, where sanctions and divestment meant firms there being starved of funds that went to other economies: that is what we are already beginning to see with fossil fuels.

It was claimed that many supposed divestment commitments were unreal – divestment has not followed. This is true in some cases but it does not alter the picture: a growing movement is taking money out of the fossil fuel industry and, together with other trends and pressures, beginning to harm that industry, reducing its capacity for the capital expenditure that directly causes ecosystem destruction.

4. Engagement

We pointed out that engagement, while relevant in many sectors has demonstrably not impacted on the carbon emissions from fossil fuel companies, only impacting on non-core areas suchas disclosure and R and D, and that unevenly. Against all the evidence, your advisors still feel that it is relevant, inexplicably citing resolutions made at Exxon and Chevron, both along with your biggest holdings, Shell and BP, still spending tens of millions each year lobbying against climate action², as examples of successful engagement. We pointed to the National Trust as a body that has chosen to divest because engagement has not worked.

PIRC did take on board the need for objective setting, timelines and sanctions, so there can be transparency about engagement with companies. They said they were working on a framework for this. This is long overdue and would provide objective criteria to assess the effectiveness of engagement and help make the decision to exit from a company when it failed to respond. But we reiterate, engagement will not change a company whose core business is fossil fuel extraction and marketing into something entirely different. It's a bit like talking to a leopard in the hoe that it will change its spots.

5. Alternative Investments

It was stated that the Fund is constantly looking to source other investments but that it is difficult to find enough with decent yields and there is also strong and increasing competition (including Chinese investment that is “willing to pay anything”) so that your investment managers get outbid. You cited Clyde Wind Farm and Albion Community Renewables as successful investments in renewables. When we argued that the alternatives to fossil fuels do not have to be renewables you again cited the £400K gain made in oil/gas over the rest of the portfolio (but see our critique, above)

You stated that you are actively developing the renewables market / industry through their partnership with other Pension Funds in GLIL Infrastructure LLP: however, this is not exclusively investing in renewables².

6. Comparison with other funds and transparency

It was claimed that other pension funds are not doing as much to divest as is suggested in their publicity and communication³. GMPF was said to be actually taking a lead in ‘doing something‘ but it was claimed that you do not have the time to relay this information to interested parties. We pointed out that despite being a leader among LGPF's, you are seen as being on the back foot on the climate issue and it would help to provide more information, especially to members and beneficiaries. In this light we are concerned to find that members are now to be excluded from the Fund's AGM (now retitled the employer update meeting) which we see as a rather clumsy and counterproductive attempt to avoid public scrutiny.

We requested more frequent updates on their holdings. This was refused this on the basis of commercial sensitivity. The claim is that because GMPF is so successful as a pension fund (though benchmark comparisons seem to suggest poorer recent comparative performance) you cannot divulge their strategy and companies regularly as other funds and private investors would copy them. This frankly seems implausible. Being tracked is hardly likely to impair the yield from your investments: we will seek a second opinion on the validity of this argument.

7. Comments about the fossil free campaign

PIRC took isue with our leaflet and website claims about your profile as the “largest and dirtiest in the country”.  Unfortunately the claim is accurate. We explained that this was on the basis of the study by a group of NGOS coordinated by Platform London in 2017⁴. Interestingly PIRC seemed unaware of this work, though Tom Harrington was aware of it.

PIRC's Alan MacDougall also queried what our priorities for GMPF would be: we reiterated that it is the reduction of complicity with continued exploration and extraction of “unburnable” carbon.

8. Further contact

We thanked you for your time (over an hour) and a constructive discussion, although we will continue to differ on a number of issues as outlined above. We do appreciate the compexities of decarbonising your investment portfoolio and moving to a position where pensions are not dependent on an industry that has taken humanity to the edge of a precipice. We accept that you are moving in the right direction but we continue to assert, with evidence, that the speed of your decarbonisation is inadequate to the scale and urgency of the climate crisis, which as you all know is very much here and getting worse by the month.

You suggested inviting us to your next meeting for stakeholders with (we think) the Investing in a Just Transition Initiative. We confirm that we would like to receive an invitation, although we would appreciate more room for discussion and the presentation of critically constructive perspectives.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Mark Burton

for the Fossil Free Greater Manchester organising group

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Climate Change Strike

Dear Trades Council,

There are now less than 3 weeks to go to the Global Climate Strike on 20 September.  School students in the UK and across the world are going out on the streets to call for urgent climate action and have asked that adults join and support them.

You may have already met and passed a motion/are part of the local organisation/working with the local authority or are planning something exciting for the day.   We would love to hear what you are doing so please let us know of any actions so we can share these with fellow trade unionists.

But if you haven't yet had time to get involved there many ways to support.  There are over 100 events already on the UK Student Climate Network website and many more still being added so check what's happening in your area. If there's not one set up yet, you can still mobilise, using the ideas below.

There are some resources on our website including flyers and a template motion to adapt.
Please show your support for the UCU motion to September TUC Congress, asking the TUC for a 30 minute workday stoppage in solidarity with the global student strike. Sign up here

Young people understand that we are desperately short of time to tackle climate change, and that we need radical action. Workers can stand by them by:
- Holding local workplace or branch meetings to raise awareness - invite a school student to speak if possible - and plan action up to and including walkouts.
- If and where there is any legal industrial action scheduling if possible to coincide with 20th September.
- Lobbying employers for time off to take part in local rallies organised by school students, bringing campaign messages, flags and banners. Or even organising a lunchtime rally outside the workplace.
- Linking existing campaigns with the climate strike. Young people see the climate crisis as a social justice issue. Trade unions can highlight the connections campaigns such as energy democracy, fuel poverty, public ownership of an integrated public transport system, housing and many more.
- Demanding employers act on the climate emergency, with a clear plan to cut their emissions. Other actions can include divesting pensions, adapting employees’ terms and conditions to the changing world (e.g. including an upper limit for work temperatures, and additional holiday for sustainable travel).
- Lobbying our local authorities to act and participate especially where they have called a climate emergency.

In solidarity

Fliss Premru

Secretary

Campaign against Climate Change Trade Union Group

climatetradeunion@gmail.com

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Stop Blaming the Politicians

by Les May

ANTROPOGENIC climate change, it’s the story with everything; aged gurus issuing warnings of an imminent ecological disaster, self righteous protesters gluing themselves to garden fences, kiddies ‘going on strike’, teenagers meeting party leaders and best of all, the blame can be dumped on the usual suspects, people like Trump ‘the climate change denier’ and the politicians who should ‘do something’, but don’t.

But if you want to know who is really responsible go to the nearest mirror and the face you see in it is the person responsible.  The uncomfortable truth is, It’s you, or to be strictly accurate, it’s us.  And if the politicians were persuaded to ‘do something’ we would not like it one little bit.

Doing something about climate change, which requires us to drastically reduce the amount of carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere, can only be brought about by reducing the amount of energy we consume.

We need to be listening not just to those who style themselves ‘greens’ or ‘ecologists’ and are very good at telling us what the problems brought on by climate change are, but to physicists who will point out the problems of doing something about it.  Not the physics of Einstein, black-holes or the Higgs boson, but the old fashioned 19^th century physics developed to explain the limits on the efficiency of the steam engine.

In all these discussions about climate change and how to do something about it there are two very large ‘elephants in the room’.  They are called the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics.  You may not like what they say and what it means for your future lifestyle, but if you think you can ignore them you are peeing in the same pot as Trump and his ilk.

The First law says in essence ‘The Universe Does Not Provide Free Lunches’. What this means in practice is that if you want to move something or change something from one form to another, there is a price which you pay in the form of energy. Whether you fly, take the car, get the bus, cycle or walk to the shop it requires the expenditure of energy to get you there. Flying, taking the car or getting the bus means burning an energy rich fuel which pumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  Walking or cycling means burning the energy stored in our food. This does not add any additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere because the plants we ate have removed this much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere already whilst they were busy making the carbohydrate which stores the energy derived from sunlight.

The Second Law says in essence ‘Heat Energy Moves From Places With A Higher Temperature To Places With A Lower Temperature’. If you want to make energy move the other way you have to pay a cost in the form of energy. (You almost certainly have something in your kitchen doing exactly this. It’s called a refrigerator.) This law shows itself as an ‘energy tax’ when we turn one substance into another.   That means that recycling of materials also carries a cost which has to be paid In the form of energy.

So if you read in the papers that the solution to global warming is to heat our houses with electricity, travel in electric cars or to move to a hydrogen economy, don’t believe it. Just ask yourself where the energy is to come from to generate the electricity and where is the energy to come from to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen so that the hydrogen can later be burned (cleanly) to produce the energy to drive the engine of the plane/bus/car.

The solution to human induced climate change is to be found in our consuming less energy, whether that be for transport, heating, making new things or recycling old things.   It will mean changing what and how much we eat, how we package things, how we transport our food and other goods, substituting natural (i.e. plant and animal derived materials) for synthetic materials based on oil, what we wear, where and how often we holiday and what our built and natural landscapes look like.   In turn this will mean a shift in the jobs we do and the nature of employment.

If after reading this you still have a massive sense of entitlement and a belief that you have a right to consume as much energy and materials as you can afford you will see why none of the political parties, be they Greens, Tiggers, Kippers, Farage-ophiles, LibDems, Tories or Labour want to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about what needs to be done to halt climate change.

But if you do, don’t blame the politicians. Blame yourself.

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