stop cambo

WFH. It seems incredibly difficult to get actual work done. Various meetings in the morning and sorting out bits and bobs. I did eventually manage to get some actual, real programming done in the afternoon. Walk into town for some essentials provided today's blip (as always).

I am reading a very interesting book Crude Britannia by James Marriott and Terry Macalister on how oil changed the UK. It is very readable and connects various things that had occurred to me. Apart from the current Covid19 pandemic, we are in the middle of a number of connected crises: pollution, collapse of biodiversity, climate change and a social catastrophe coming from the unequal distribution of wealth. All these are connected via oil. After the second world war oil replaced coal as handy source of energy and basic ingredient of modern life (plastics, fertilisers, pesticides, flights, motor traffic). The world of the global North totally depends on oil. I guess our slums were cleared in the 50ies and people moved into modern housing with easy clean plastic surfaces and detergents to go with it. I also suppose there was enough surplus to fund this new world for many people in the global North. It also made some people stinking rich and, maybe more importantly, incredibly powerful. This modern world came at a huge cost which is paid in blood and environmental destruction in the global South (mostly). It also paid for the deindustrialisation and privatisation of the UK during the 80ies. 

The two questions that particularly occupy me are: 1) how much of the modern world depends on the exploitation? Is it possible to keep some of the modern comforts without destroying our world? What would a society based on solidarity look like? and 2) how much of our world is controlled by a small number of people? I am not thinking conspiracies but the influence global companies and in particular oil companies have must be massive given that wars are fought over it and governments replaced. 

Anyway, massively reducing our dependence on oil would be a very good thing in many respects and will go some way towards solving the multiple crises we are facing. So yes, Stop Cambo.