STANDING ORDER! Just fill in and post to us Although it is commendable that SR (March 2005) carried coverage of the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol (KP) highlighting its severe limitations, it is important to be accurate when presenting facts and figures on
Firstly, facts have political consequences. Secondly, other campaigners on climate change might dismiss as tokenistic an article which contains factual errors.
Thus, the US emits 25% of global greenhouse gases (GH, not 36%. The difference means that the KP exists and its proponents can ague that the US's absence is not that serious. Transport contributes about 1520% of GHGs, not 46%, and it is included in Kyoto targets (air transport is not).
In industrialised countries, transport contributes about 30% and the proportion is rising everywhere. The difference between 20% and 46% is that it highlights the still huge potential for growth of the car industry -especially in the larger third world countries - and of air transport everywhere. This is something that socialists cannot ignore.
The description of carbon If you like what you've read or you want to find out more about Socialist Resistance, get in touch with us by ringing 020 8800 7460, or email [email protected] EDITORS: Terry Conway, John Lister, Liam MacUaid. EDITORIAL BOARD : Mandy Baker, Julia Brandreth, Paul Brown, John Bulaitis, Andrew Burgin, Kathy Lowe, Pauline Roland, Piers Mostyn, Karen O'Toole. DESIGN: John Lister SPONSORED BY: International Socialist Group, Socialist Solidarity Network and individuals including Patrick Baker, Andrew Burgin, Brenda and Brian Bushell, Mathew Caygill, Duncan Chapple, Julian Coppens, Frances Curran, Norma Dowd, Andy Gibbons, Jamie Gough, Catriona Grant, Marcus Greville, Patrick Hall, Rick Hatcher, Wayne Holmes, Nick Lidgett, Frank McMahon, Lesley Mahmood, Alan McCoombes, Martin Milne, Piers Mostyn, Liz Peretz, Sue Phillips, Surykant Raithatha, Norman Traub, Rick Simon, Colin Smith, Murray Smith, Sarah Taversham, Doug Thorpe, Tony Traub, Tessa van Gelderen, Bill Walton, Roger Welch. Published by SOCIALIST RESISTANCE, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU. Printed by Web Press International, London E15. trading is incorrect when it states that multinationals can buy pollution rights of poorer countries when they have met their targets.
Firstly, the targets are not uniformly 5%, but vary between countries and industries. Thus the EU overall has a Kyoto target of 8% cuts. This target should (but wont) be met by making UK cut by 12.5% while Spain and Portugal are allowed rises of 15% and 27% respectively on their 1990 emissions.
Most trading will be between imperialist countries and companies. After all, only in these countries are there targets or the money to buy the "right to pollute". Those countries and companies that have met their target will be in a position to sell any "excess" C02 savings.
This, of course includes Spain and Portugal, if their emissions rise less than the amount they are allowed.
Carbon trading is a classic "market" mechanism, suited to neo-liberal times and can only work with a low target like the Kyoto one.
But it is also a "techno-fix", in that there is no overall government directed plan, such as would exist in a socialised economy. Institutions are left to adapt piecemeal according to the relative costs of clean up technologies vs. carbon credits.
Finally, I'm not sure it is true that Britain could easily meet 50% of its energy needs using renewables.
These technologies are available where they are least needed (windswept coastlines, offshore) or in summer (solar power), posing problems for electricity transport and storage. Also, they are not environmentally benign.
The current objections to the Lewis wind farm seem justified. Too much reliance on renewables is also a techno-fix.
Climate change provides the perfect argument for socialist revolution. A wholesale reorganisation of society is required for us to bring carbon emissions down.
Nothing else can change patterns of car ownership and use, the design of whole cities and countries, the amount of energy used in households, the need for fast holiday travel by air or the energy put into consumer prodVEN.
Phil Ward, Sheffield Membership Standing Order form YOUR BANK DETAILS: Bank Name Address Your account details: Sort Code Account Name Account Number Please pay the sum of (write in words and numbers) On the day of And on the same date every month thereafter, unless cancelled or amended by me in writing. To the account of April 7 My name is Rachel Corrie (ends April 30; MondaySaturday, 7.45pm; Saturday matinees - April 16, 23). New play directed by Alan Rickman. Why did a woman leave her comfortable American life to stand between a bulldozer and a Palestinian home? Royal Court theatre (Jerwood Theatre upstairs). http://www.royalcourttheatre.com April 13 OXFORD 7:30 pm - 9:30pm. Oxford Town Hall, St Aldates, OX1. The World's Water: should it be privatised? Sponsored by Oxford Trade Justice Coalition and the Oxford-Leon Association April 16 West Midlands Protest motorcade against Caterkiller. Hopwood Service Station, junction 2 of M42. Cars, minibuses, coaches welcome. Drive to Caterpillar at Hockley Send us a donation every month - through
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The RMT is launching Rail Against Privatisation, a major national march and campaign for public ownership of the railBEN 1200 ways and an end to the part-privatisation of London Underground. Starting in Glasgow on April 15 and culminating with a rally in London on April 30, there will be events, meetings and rallies along the route, as well as in other towns and cities around Britain, involving every RMT region. Visit rmt.org.uk for details. Monday 18 April LONDON Protest to stop the extradition of Babar Ahmad, 10am to 2pm outside Bow Street Magistrates Court. (Covent Garden tube). www.freebabarahmad.com Co-operative Bank, 78-80 Cheapside London EC3V Please return to RESISTANCE c/o PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU
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- Agitational porcelain The next issue of Socialist Resistance will be produced on May 7-8 and distributed the following week. The deadline for feature articles and for letters (which are welcome on any topic, up to 400 words) will be Monday May 2. Diary items reviews and local news are also welcome. Labour George Galloway, Lindsey German and Abdul Khaliq Mian East Ham Town Hall (corner of Barking Road/ High Street South) April 23 BRIGHTON 11:00 am - 3:30 pm Brighthelm Centre 'Hands Off' anti-war conference. With SAMI RAMADANI, DAVID CHANDLER, HAIFA ZANGANA, ANA LEKAJ, NICHOLAS GILBY, HOWARD DAVIES Phone Contact 01273 706820 Saturday 21 May Free Palestine national demonstration, 1pm, central London. Called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Go to www.palestinecampaign.org Saturday 2-9 July GLENEAGLES Protest at G8 summit,, Scotland Monday 04 July Faslane Blockade: disrupt Faslane nuclear submarine base as much as possible. Faslane, Scotland (75 miles from Edinburgh and 30 miles from Glasgow) More information: www.tridentploughshares.org and www.banthebomb.org Circling the square: avant garde porcelain from revolutionary Russia. Reviewed by Piers Mostyn The story of this exquisite china - currently on show at London's Somerset House -is the story of the Russian revolution.
The Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersberg, founded in 1744, serviced the court of the Tsars and their entourage. Many of the workers were serfs and generations of the same families worked there.
Following the October 1917 Bolshevik revolution, it was nationalised and renamed the State Porcelain Factory. Closed borders due to years of war and revolution meant that materials and fuel were in short supply. Working conditions were often desperate there is no light. Starvation and typhus cut swathes through [the workers] ranks".
But a new generation of young innovators inspired by the revolution, led by Sergei Chekhonin, became involved. They included leftwing artists like Malevich, Suretin, Tatlin and Kandinsky.
Malevich was the leader of a group called the Suprematists. Established during the First World War, Meet your old china: "Red rectangles' (left) and 'Suprematist plate' revolution and... of all the intelligensia, the most responsive to it".
The Suprematist symbol was Malevich's painting "Black Square". Their newspaper UNOVIS appeared under the slogan: "Carry the black square as a symbol of the world economy. In your workshops draw the red square as the symbol of world revolution in the arts".
Their exquisite modernist designs centring on bold red and black squares and lines duction - distorting and breaking up perspective and crossing boundaries of form, for instance in creating deconstructed teapots, jugs and half-cups.
But the labour-intensive process made the artefacts too expensive for ordinary workers, a problem that even concerned Lenin. So they produced china as gifts to celebrate large gatherings, hoping that in the longer term the economy would (Communist) International. And they were used for propaganda, with Kalinin commissioning "agitational porcelain" for the agit-train "October Revolution" in 1920.
Although 90 percent of sales were to foreign collectors, these brought in sorely needed foreign currency at a time of blockade and war by the West. And a special edition was produced to raise money for famine relief in the Volga. International exhibitions were held - the porcelain acting as a cultural envoy for the revolution to break the isolation - with showings in London, Paris, Berlin and Venice in 1922. At an exhibition in Brussels a group of white Russian émigrés tried to smash a case of porcelain.
But more traditional design and colouring based on romantic themes began re-asserting itself. And in 1932 a decree from Stalin's government established Socialist Realism as the sole acceptable means of artistic