The Dominion - 7

North America in the Dark: the Blackout in Context

Fri, 12 Sep 2003 14:12:44 +0000

On August 15th, 50 million people in the United States and Ontario found themselves in the dark, but many argue that North Americans have been 'in the dark' about the global context of their energy consumption for far too long. The 'biggest blackout in history' can shed some light on the inequalities of global energy consumption. The course that policy makers chart in the future must stretch beyond blackouts to looming problems that face all societies across the globe.

"America, welcome to Kenya, see what we go through," said Alex Mwaura, a logistics officer with an aid agency in Nairobi, according to Reuters. "I'm happy -- let them experience how bushmen live without power, even for just one minute," added Emma Nzau, a 28 year-old receptionist. "Americans are so used to electricity, they should be like the Chinese and ride bicycles to work."

Figures from the International Energy Agency illustrate the global inequities of access to electricity. The power that wasn't consumed as a result of the recent blackout could have satisfied all the power requirements of India's nearly one billion people for twenty four hours. Or Africa's 760 million people for a day and a half. Or Burma's 44 million residents for a year.

North American's energy gluttony goes beyond the issue of inequities in energy consumption; the pollution from the burning of fossil fuels in the US and Canada is causing disproportionate harm to communities around the world. The United States has five percent of the world's population but accounts for twenty five percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions are altering the climate around the planet, causing extreme weather events such as storms and droughts. The development charity Christain Aid reports "The burden of dealing with such enormous disruption will fall on countries where many already lead subsistence lives. The most affected will be people with the least access to adequate health systems, alternative housing and other social safety nets. These are countries which already survive with little room for error when growing food. Small amounts of disrupted production due to changed weather patterns, drought and flooding, could wipe out marginal agricultural surpluses".

Because there are major costs associated with climate change, in particular for poor countries, yet the benefits of using the fossil fuels were primarily incurred by wealthy nations, the idea of a carbon debt has become a significant discussion point at climate negotiotiations. Christain Aid is unequivical. "The rich countries' carbon debt is now the clearest argument for conventional debt cancellation, but should also be linked to a better deal on trade, aid, greater technology transfer from rich to poor and, vitally, a commitment to tackling climate change built on the foundations of equity".

"There must be limits on all greenhouse gases if the danger to our climate is to be averted... A globally agreed ceiling of greenhouse gas emissions can only be achieved by adopting the principle of per capita emissions rights...," declared the Africa group of nations at the climate negotiations in Berlin, five years ago. The proposed policy framework for stabilizing the climate in an equitable manner is titled contraction and convergance. The industrialised countries must contract their emissions and all countries converge at a safe emissions level of 0.4 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per capita. North Americans currently emit around 20 tonnes.

This is the context that policy makers face when they are devising a system to fix North America's energy network.

The first step is to save energy. The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) is headquartered at an elevation of 7000 feet in the moutains of Colorado. Home to banana trees and an iguana, the Institute is heated by the passive thermal power of the sun and electricty is generated by solar panels. Amory Lovins is one of the founders and has been a prominent analyst on energy issues for twenty years. He originated the idea of a negawatt, a unit electricity which is simply not used.

In the Globe and Mail Lovins wrote "The cheapest, fastest way to save energy dollars and pollution is to use energy efficiently. My household electric bill is $7 a month for a 372 square-metre living space, before counting my larger solar production, which I sell back to the local electricity power co-operative at the same price -- now allowed in 38 states."

The Centre for the New American Dream proposes a voluntary blackout, not only as a means to curb energy consumption, but as a socially beneficial exercise. "At 7pm on June 21, turn off your lights and unplug whatever you can unplug in your house. Light a candle, take a stroll in the dark, tell ghost stories, get together with your neighbors, anything that's not electronic. This isn't about shivering in the dark, knitting sweaters out of mopheads. It's about taking some time to reflect on the role of fossil fuel in our lives and its impact on our ecological life support systems... and to take some time to just have fun in the dark!"

Next is the matter of choosing the appropriate technology. Solar energy is toted as a solution both to a changing climate and problems with the grid, as it is decentralised and can be installed in a variety of locations. Jeremy Leggett, CEO of solarcentury and Associate Fellow at Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute doesn't mince words on the lack of widespread use of solar: "I literally seethe with frustration that the solutions to global warming are ready for mass deployment - technologies like solar power which ironically needs nothing like this amount of sun to work, just a bit of light. It is bewildering to me that governments are not galvanised into action by what is happening to the world's weather."

Solar power has the added benefit of addressing global energy inequities. The Worldwatch Institute reports "Already the cheapest source of power in many remote, off-grid locations, solar cells can help meet the power needs of some of the 2 billion people who now lack access to modern energy services. Having rejected new coal plants for environmental reasons, Thailand will soon host Southeast Asia's largest solar installation and plans to expand capacity in the vicinity to 4.7 MW over the next several years. The Indian government aims to electrify 18,000 villages by 2012, most with solar power".

Technology will play a major role in addressing the issue of climate change but it must be in a framework of equality to satisfy political insecurities. "We cannot lecture developing countries about the importance of protecting then environment from behind the luxury of our own high living standards," said former British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook in an interview with United Nations Environment Program.

- by Yuill Herbert -

New Brain Machine Improves Musical Creativity

Fri, 12 Sep 2003 14:09:36 +0000

Image: Ftrain.com

Yes, you read the headline correctly, and no, I can't believe it either, but apparently scientists have invented a brain machine that dramatically enhances musical performance, thus paving the way for a new race of highly skilled super-musicians. According to the BBC, "the system - called neurofeedback - trains musicians to clear their minds and produce more creative brain waves. Research, to be published in the journal Neuroreport, indicates the technique helps musicians to improve by an average of 17% - the equivalent of one grade or class of honours. Some improved by as much as 50%."

The brain machine was tested on 97 students at the Royal College of Music in London, UK, and the percentage scores refer to examinations conducted by professional adjudicators. Anyone who has ever taken piano lessons as a child and gone through the trials of Royal Conservatory exams will understand that a 17% grade boost represents an incredible increase in musical proficiency (enough to send even the crankiest of teachers into fits of joy). But the student wouldn't be able to take the credit - thank the brain machine instead.

Most musicians feel that their best performances are the ones where the music just pours out naturally, and such moments of effortless vitality are usually rooted in a clear state of mind. Teachers will try to describe this state of awareness to students, but it's very difficult to put such a thing into words. As it turns out, its not so difficult to put it on a video screen.

The brain activity of a healthy human being can be understood as a collection of brain waves which scientists have learned to identify and isolate. With no musical instruments in sight, the technique consists of attaching sensors to your scalp so the machine can identify three main patterns - dubbed the alpha, beta, and theta waves - and display your own brain waves on a video screen in front of you. From there, as if playing a video game controlled by her mind, a musician can learn to concentrate and hone in on certain brain waves while the machine happily chimes a bell as she successfully learns to isolate one from the other. By teaching patients to increase their theta wave activity, scientists at Imperial College London and Charing Cross Hospital have effectively used the machine to help patients with epilepsy, alcoholism, attention deficit and post-traumatic stress disorders. The new development is that scientists have discovered that increased theta wave activity also enhances performance skills including musical understanding, imagination, and communication with the audience.

And so it is that machines have become far more effective than traditional human teachers in helping us to clear our minds and enhance our creative side. If such technology manages to spread beyond the limits of the experiment and grow in availability it will surely provoke no end of debate between the technophiles and luddites of the arts community. Since it so dramatically boosts performance skills, should musicians who use the machine be banned from competition with those who never had a chance to get hooked up? And from a philosophical standpoint, will this discovery come to be seen as the moment when all of our creative impulses were reduced to waves on a screen, shattering the mystery of the muse and sucking the wonder out of grace and inspiration?

I hope not. I can envision professional musicians who might chastise students for using such a machine, but what I cannot see is a good reason for their scorn. In its time, the invention of the metronome was no doubt met with similar resistance based on similar, unfounded reasons. The machine is not a performance-enhancing drug; it is a teaching tool. Its availability is prohibitive, of course, but so are the costs of tuition and of owning a professional musical instrument. Nor does the machine eliminate the need for practice; instead, if the technology becomes more widely available, it will simply raise expected performance standards for the next generation of musicians.

The philosophical implications may be another source for apprehension, but those who dismiss the discovery are probably the same people who want to cling to the notion of creative talent as being reserved for a chosen few, something you have to be anointed with at birth. But such views are as ignorant as they are selfish - musical talent is something that can be developed, and in a few cases, revealed dramatically by a special teacher. Perhaps this technology will be able to open up creative potential in those who were discouraged from pursuing music but have always secretly wished to be able to strum a chord. Which has to be a good thing.

Matt Brennan is studying media and culture at Stirling University.

-by Matt Brennan -

OCAP Highlights Poverty in Toronto

Fri, 12 Sep 2003 13:59:52 +0000

Demonstrators at an August 23 OCAP protest: "It's overwhelming, in a country with such wealth, to see people lining up for soup kitchens." More photos from Indymedia Ontario

With hard-line campaign promises boasting a strike ban for teachers and more tough talk for homeless people and immigrant families, Ontario's Conservative Premier, Ernie Eves, called an election for October 2.

Eves' announcement came a little over a week after the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) hosted its latest protest against the Tory government, now in its ninth year of provincial rule.

Over 500 poor and homeless people, social activists and trade unionists gathered in Toronto's prestigious Yorkville shopping district on August 23 to share a free meal and draw attention to the economic disparity in Canada's largest city.

"It's overwhelming, in a country with such wealth, to see people lining up for soup kitchens," said Kelly O'Sullivan, an inner city community worker and President of CUPE Local 4308. "These are things we saw and heard about in the 30's during the Depression. It happens everyday and there's no justification for it. It's a direct outcome of this government's policies and agenda."

The Conservative government's first act in power was to cut welfare rates by 21 per cent. Since then, they have legislated a 60 hour work week, clawed back the National Child Benefit and kept the minimum wage frozen at $6.85 ($6.40 for students). Tax cuts remain a staple of Tory policy in Ontario.

"Those tax cuts were financed by cutting social housing, by cutting welfare, by cutting people's basic entitlements," said John Clarke, an OCAP organizer, during the feast in Yorkville. "You have such injustice going on in this province that it needs to be challenged massively and with a force that can actually defeat it and defeat the political forces that are responsible for it."

The Walkerton tragedy, the killing of (unarmed) First Nations activist Dudley George by provincial police and an escalating housing crisis in Toronto are among the issues expected to haunt the Conservative campaign.

For their part, OCAP members promise to confront the candidates over the next month, pressing for an end to what they call "an attack on the people".

"There's no plans to back off on the Tories until they're good and gone," OCAP organizer, Mike Desroche, told the Dominion on the day Eves called the election. "And we certainly have no intention of backing off on the Liberals as long as this (political) climate exists across the country."

Eve's predecessor, Conservative Premiere Mike Harris, resigned from office on the morning of an OCAP demonstration that shut down the Bay Street financial district for several hours in Toronto in October, 2001.

--Daron Letts

Int'l News: Software Patents, Immigrant Warriors, Arms in Africa

Fri, 12 Sep 2003 13:51:53 +0000

Fight over Software Patents Rekindled in Europe

Programmers protest software patents in Brussels. Photo: Indymedia Belgium

Around 400 programmers took to the streets in Brussels last week to protest proposed software patent legislation in the European Union. During the week, over 2,700 web sites replaced their front pages with a message protesting software patents.

Companies like IBM and Microsoft, which support software patent legislation, argue that patents are necessary to encourage innovation. In the US, large corporations make extensive use of software patents to protect their interests.
Critics, however, argue that software patents hinder innovation by making certain ideas off limits to small software developers. British Telecom, for example, holds a patent on the use of links in conjunction with a dialup network connection. If the patent were enforced, the company would have the right to demand a licensing fee from any company that wrote software to access the world wide web, or provided access to the web via a dialup connection.

There are currently over 30,000 software patents filed in Europe; many small software companies and independent programmers are claiming that they will be obligated to look through the entire list of patents before engaging in any new projects, effectively stifling innovation.

But according to well-known programmer and Free Software advocate Richard Stallman, large corporations have the resources and clout to avoid paying licensing fees. Companies like IBM, he argues, have a large number of patents, and can use these as leverage to avoid having to pay licensing fees for access to other patents. (Indymedia UK, Indymedia Belgium) --Dru Oja Jay

» Richard Stallman: Software patents – Obstacles to software development

» Indymedia UK: Netwide Protests against EU Software Patents Bring Temporary Victory

* * *

Thousands of Non-citizens Serving in US Armed Forces

Many of the soldiers serving in the US armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq are not US citizens. According to the Pentagon, 37,401 non-citizens are currently serving as active duty soldiers. A US Department of Defence spokesperson said that "the military services have processes and programs in place to help service members expedite their citizenship". Since September 11th, 2001, it has become increasingly difficult for many immigrants to apply for US citizenship.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, British MP George Galloway accused the US of continuing a "long tradition of using its underclass as cannon fodder." During Vietnam "the proportion of blacks in the army was 40%, while in the US population the number of blacks was a quarter of that... nothing has changed," he said. (Al Jazeera) --Dru Oja Jay

» Al Jazeera: US attacked over green card soldiers

* * *

Reporters Sans Frontières Releases Press Freedom Index

Jourralist advocacy group Reporters sans Frontières (Reporters without Borders) recently released the first systematic index of press freedoms. Canada ranked a close fifth behind Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands.
Based on a questionnaire distributed to foreign and local journalists worldwide, the index granted each country a score based on several criteria, including violence against journalists, state interventions and censorship practices. The index does not take professional standards or ethical practices into account. (Reporters Sans Frontières) --Dru Oja Jay

» Reporters Sans Frontières: Reporters Without Borders publishes the first worldwide press freedom index

* * *

Venezuela to Stage "Fight" at WTO

Victor Alvarez, Venezuela's Chief trade negotiator, says that Venezuela will propose that "no new commitments be adopted" at World Trade Organization negotiations next week in Cancún. "It makes no sense for countries like ours to add new points to the WTO agenda when there's such a long list of issues that haven't been satisfied," said Alvarez.

Along with many other developing countries, Venezuela is insisting that Europe and the United States remove the estimated $300 billion in subsidies that their governments give farmers annually before other negotiations can be considered. Poor countries say that these subsidies make it impossible for them to compete in international markets. (Reuters) --Dru Oja Jay

» Reuters: Say no at WTO, Venezuela tells developing nations

* * *

British Arms Exports to Africa Double

According to a report released by the Campaign Against Arms Trade, a British activist group, arms exports from British countries to Africa have doubled over the last three years. (Observer) --Dru Oja Jay

» Observer: British arms sales to Africa soar

September 10

Wed, 10 Sep 2003 17:37:16 +0000

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