Climate Change and Green Taxes

(Letter to the South Wales Evening Post)

As with most climate change deniers, Gordon Triggs (Have Your Say, Friday 29 June) is very selective with his use of “evidence”.

Dr Chris Landsea is a meteorologist, not a “climatologist” – similar but not the same. The remark quoted by Mr Triggs related specifically to the effect of global warming on hurricane strength. Dr Landsea has argued, “global warming might be enhancing hurricane winds, but only by 1 percent or 2 percent”. This is more an acceptance of global warming than a denial.

Dr Landsea withdrew from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) due to political differences, not because he doesn’t believe in global warming.

Far from being a “faith”, acceptance of global warming is based on solid and overwhelming evidence. Evidence that is accepted by the vast majority of the world scientific community.

In response to the specific challenge in Mr Triggs letter, there are no accurate figures available for the cost of storing nuclear waste in the UK. Some estimate of costs is contained in the annual reports of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), but even they admit to “a significant degree of inherent uncertainty in the future cost estimates”.

Whatever the cost, it will have to be paid for by the taxpayer, and how it that to be done if not through “green” taxes?

Mr Triggs’ estimate of the cost of green taxes comes to around £18 billion a year. Small change when compared with the £70 billion per year lost to the UK economy through illegal tax evasion.

It’s a price worth paying to ensure that future generations have a clean, safe and sustainable world to live in.

Yours,

Keith M Ross
Swansea Green Party

‘The Sky is Pink’ – new film by Josh Fox

THE SKY IS PINK from JFOX on Vimeo.

Positive Money – Meeting in Swansea on Tuesday 3 July

Justin Lilley of the campaign group ‘Positive Money’ will be speaking at a Public Meeting in Swansea on Tuesday 3^rd July.

Positive Money is a not-for-profit research and campaigning organisation formed in May 2010 to raise awareness of the deep flaws in our current monetary system.

They work to identify the links between the current banking and monetary system and the serious social, economic and ecological problems that face the UK and the world today.

Keith M Ross of Swansea Green Party said, “With the international financial system unravelling at the seams it’s obvious that we need a different solution to running our economies.  To return to the very system that got us into trouble in the first place is not a sensible option.

“We are delighted to host this talk by ‘Positive Money’ at a time when people are crying out for alternatives. “

Organised by Swansea Green Party, the meeting will be on Tuesday 3^rd July at 7:30pm in The Environment Centre, Pier Street, Swansea, SA1 1RY.

Entry is free and everyone is welcome.

Swansea University Makes the Grade in Green Exams

The Green Party has welcomed Swansea University’s improvement in its environmental and ethical performance over the past 12 months.

The People and Planet Green League 2012 assessed the performance of 145 universities across the UK, scoring them on their actions and attitudes towards green living. Universities were rated on a variety of measures including: environmental policy, carbon management, fairtrade, sustainable food and ethical investment.

In 2011 Swansea University was awarded a “Fail”, being placed 122^nd out of 142.

But the last year has seen a significant improvement, with the University climbing to 70^th place overall (4^th in Wales) and being awarded an “Upper Second Class” pass.

A Living Wage in Wales

(Letter to the South Wales Evening Post)

Robert Lloyd Griffiths, Director of the Institute of Directors in Wales, says that a living wage “just isn’t realistic in the environment we live in.” (Evening Post, Monday 18 June, page 2).

We are told we need to pay the heads of banking and big business huge salaries and bonuses in order to get the right person for the job.  Yet Mr Griffiths and his ilk expect people to work for less money than they need to live at the same time as the government is cutting tax credits that low paid workers rely on to top up their income.

This is hardly a recipe for getting Wales back to work and off benefit dependency.  Nor is it likely to help with efforts to reduce child poverty in Wales.

The large income disparities that characterise our society are a sign of significant social and economic injustice. The Green Party supports the Living Wage campaign because we believe that working people should be paid a decent, living wage and, like every other citizen, be entitled to a sufficient level of economic security to meet their needs.

Of course small businesses will struggle to pay a living wage, but hopefully the Welsh Government will find a way to support those who are brave enough to put the welfare of their workers first.  In the meantime those who can afford it, the larger employers, should step up to the plate and do the decent thing by their staff.

Our local councils in particular should follow the lead of the Welsh Government and ensure that all their staff are paid a living wage.

If they can do it in Brighton, then why not Swansea?

Yours,

Keith M Ross, Swansea Green Party

Green Energy is the only realistic choice

(Letter to the South Wales Evening Post)

Gordon Triggs’ assertion that “our children and grandchildren will pay the cost (of green taxes) over the next 50 years” (Have Your Say, Monday 11 June) looks like a good deal when you compare it with the 25 centuries that our children and their descendents are going to have to pay for the storage of nuclear waste.

50 years is about the time it takes to decommission a nuclear power station and make the land safe for use again.  It’s probably the time it will take the Gulf of Mexico to recover from the oil spill; or for Nigeria to recover from the damage caused by the oil industry.  And the children of the area around Fukushima will be lucky to get their homes back within that time.

Here in Wales many people are still paying the cost of the coal industry decades after the mines closed.

I quite agree with Mr Triggs that our politicians need to be “replaced with independent thinkers who can implement new realistic policies”.  But the operative word is “realistic”.

With energy supplies dwindling and demand, and consequently prices, rising, to follow the path of China, India, Brazil and others would be both economic and environmental folly.

Far better to attack our economic and environmental problems by exploiting the free and abundant sources of energy that we have all around us.  This will not only give us energy security, but also tens of thousands of clean, safe and sustainable jobs.

Future generations will consider a few “wind farm monstrosities” a small price to pay.

Yours,

Keith M Ross, Swansea Green Party

Cabinet System for Swansea Council

(Letter to the South Wales Evening Post)

Most of what Swansea Labour Leader David Phillips says in his interview is to be welcomed (Swansea Council leader: ‘Hard work starts now for a better future‘, Wednesday 16 May).  But it is disappointing to note that the new Labour administration will be continuing with the Cabinet system.

Public debates, regular leader and cabinet question times, meetings in towns and communities across the county, use of new technology such as Facebook and the live streaming of proceedings are all very well, but they amount to nothing more than window dressing if the important decisions are going to be made by a small, single party group out of the public gaze.

Single party cabinets are not in the best interests of local democracy. They take decision-making powers away from councils as a whole and place them in the hands of a few individuals, leading to the disenfranchisement of those councillors who are not in the ruling party and the citizens they represent.

Having won most of the seats on Swansea Council through the ‘first past the post’ system, Labour may now think they have a free hand in Swansea.  However, with less than one-third of the electorate having voted, and with the majority of those that did voting for other parties or independents, the result should be viewed as a licence to manage rather than a mandate to rule.

If David Phillips and his Labour colleagues truly want to make Swansea Council more open and accountable, they should recognise this, scrap the Cabinet system and return to the Committee system that provides wider member involvement in decision-making.

That would be a significant first step in healing the divisions that have riven Swansea Council for the past decade.

Yours,

Keith M Ross, Swansea Green Party