Polluting households face green taxes

It is good to see some policy proposals that touch on things that are dear to the heart that motivates this blog; making doing right environmental things part of everyday life and not just a hobby for the rich and or specially interested.

The report was based on research by the Institute of Policy Studies, which warned that consumers were currently "locked in" to wasteful and environmentally damaging behaviour patterns.
It said households needed financial motivation to change their lifestyles.

There are some good proposals.

"People are concerned about the environment but don't know what they can do to help. The government needs to set the framework to take the pain out of being green and the tax system has a crucial role to play in making that happen."

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Polluting households face green taxes:
Filed in: environment, tax, household, recycling, incentives, financial

The only death penalty I will advocate ...

Next time you are tempted to say bad things about 'regulation' without qualification, remember this case and recall that someone else's pursuit of profit is not necessarily good for you. Potentially quite the reverse.

The report quoted BAT researchers and marketers, who stated that the company's aim was to "produce a cigarette which can be machine smoked at a certain tar band, but which in human hands, can exceed this tar banding". Another BAT presentation called for the development of a cigarette that could deliver "100% more" tar and nicotine than detected in the ISO tests.

This is particularly heinous because it is not neglect, but positively pursuing courses of action that would endanger the health of consumers. Making money out of killing people, literally. I hope they are hit hard. If there is a case for the revoking of a corporate charter, this looks like it. Death penalty for corporations that act so evilly. I think that's the only death penalty I advocate.
SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Health | BAT 'exploited flawed test to fool smokers':
Filed in: corporate, smoking, consumer, misleading

Can Islam Cope WIth Pluralism?

Tom Allen (hi Tom, best wishes to Oakworth and Bradford diocese) made an interesting comment in the discussion on Matt Stone's Eclectic Itchings [click on the title of this posting to see it in context].

I think that the key "gap" between Christian perspectives and Islamic perspectives is on the question of blaspemy. In Western Christian culture we have effectively lost any real sense of blasphemy being possible unless you are an adherent. For the vast majority of Muslims it is still a very real experience/attitude - not something whipped up by hot heads or leaders but deeply personally felt. As I have posted about my suprise at the sense of outrage felt by one very British young adult muslim - and I have also posted the response from a young woman Muslim from Bradford who utterley condemns the violence. I think we have to understand these personal feelings before we can move on - it is very "different" despite what we increasingly share in common across the faiths

I think Tom is right to identify the issue of how we think about blasphemy as important. I'd like to add something to that consideration. It does seem to me that in terms of spirituality, 'blasphemy' has to be defined in terms of the intent and understanding of the alleged blasphemer. Otherwise we are merely talking about lack of respect, slander or libel, surely? -And all or any of those could be applicable in the case at the origin of this discussion. To blaspheme is surely to knowingly speak against God or what is Holy? [From an atheist perspective, for example, it is nonsense to disrespect a non-existant being].

On a personal note, I often find myself wincing inside at the casual [mis]use of names and titles I use for God and Christ. I may ask people to be aware that it causes me some pain to hear those words use 'profanely' but I usually have to recognise that for these people these are verbal tics with no more meaning than "I'm [some degree of seriously] dischuffed".

I can't bring myself to think that my being offended is worth a call for beheading of the insensitive person. The appropriate act is to either put up or try to persuade the person to be more mindful of others' sensibilities or, if appropriate, come to share my assesment of the value of God -for which the verbal symbols stand- and so value the symbols differently.

The problem is, it seems to me, that most of the trouble has come from societies that have for a long time presumed that either one is an adherant of Islam or that one has been silenced in public about such things. This means that the shock of someone not toeing the line about what may be said about things held sacred is greater. We are probably dealing with first generation exposure to the 'religious other' where the tools to handle difference of this kind have not been forged or made available.

These are societies that in effect have been insulated from criticism of their central spiritual traditions and precepts and so have not so far developed ways of handling criticisms [even relatively mild ones, let alone 'robust' ones] in a way that recognises the potential bona fides of the critic.

That said, this case is not a good one to argue for the bona fides of critics being respected as a number of them seem to have been aiming to be offensive.

Eclectic Itchings: Can Islam Cope WIth Pluralism?:
Filed in: religion, Islam, Christian, pluralism, blasphemy

'I will Slow something down for Lent 2006' - PledgeBank

"'I will Slow something down for Lent 2006 but only if 20 other people will too.'
The idea is instead of or in addition to a fast for Lent, we should do a slow. How you would do this is up to you: there are some ideas at lentenslow wiki but the basic idea as to come up with something that goes against the spirit and tendency of modern life to speed us up. Someone once characterised westerners as suffering from 'hurry sickness', this is an invitation to make this Lent a period of recuperation and partial recovery."
It's a pledgebank project so I'm looking for people to sign up in the next 3 weeks [ie before Ash Wednesday] to join me. I will come clean and say that I haven't finally decided what or how I will slow down. The current ideas are to eat one meal a day under normal circumstances without distractions like other people, TV, a newspaper, and simply taste my food withouth doing something else. Another possibility is to go for a walk at lunch time, just to enjoy the scenary and notice what's what and get a bit of exercise.
If you would consider joining me [please!?] then visit the link under the title of this posting, you don't even have to let your name be public ...
Deadline to sign up by: 28th February 2006
'I will Slow something down for Lent 2006' - PledgeBank:

Does the right to freedom of speech justify printing the Danish cartoons?

I've been thinking a lot about this issue, unsurprisingly; I bet you have too. Anyway, Matt Stone picked up my earlier posting on the matter, and there was a comment in that pointing out that we should recognise the global power issues and the actual discrimmination against Muslims in the west. This is a fair point, though we should be careful to distinguish between the experience of Muslims in minority situations and those in majority situations. As Philip Hensher and Gary Younge say in the cited article:

The cartoons almost certainly look very different to a Muslim living in a western democracy and to someone in the Muslim world -the map of where pictures have been published and of where the gravest protests have taken place tells an interesting story. It's easy to sympathise with a Muslim living in Denmark, who would feel directly persecuted by these images. The Copenhagen Muslim interviewed in yesterday's Guardian certainly had a point when he compared them to the comments of a Danish MP who apparently called Muslims "a cancer in Denmark". Many people in his situation live difficult lives, and such images won't improve matters much.

But along with the sympathy one has to feel for people in that beleaguered situation, the uses that the Danish cartoons have been put to in the Muslim world must be challenged. Around the world, the anti-Danish campaign is being used by Islamist political groups to rally support for extreme causes. The aim of many such groups is, through pressure, to limit free speech on religious matters in the west, and entirely suppress it at home.

Behind what I was saying in the earlier post, is the experience I have listened to of Christians in majority Islamic countries [mainly Pakistan], where it is Christians who are in the analogous position of discrimination and they are somewhat pessimistic about the the face of Islam they see and the resources for understanding Islam which are made available which tend to supply fuel for discrimination and violent response rather than those which would act the other way and delegitimise the responses that do not promote the common [global] good. Now that is to generalise, but Christians who have lived in majority Muslim countries do seem to me to be very wary of Islam and cagey about protestations of its eirenic and pluralist credentials.

I don't want to get into counter-victimage, I do recognise that the global situation does have a bearing on the matter and I do think that we should be aware of the matter of 'which Muslims are we talking about?'. That said, it is still important for the way that things can develop, to identify whether Islam as a system is an implacable enemy of religious neighbourliness or if it has 'resources' that mean that it can be a good neighbour in global terms and delegitimise violent and repressive reactions.

I hope and think that maybe it does, but I fear that those who control information on such matters may not have agendas that make it easy to bring out the treasure. And some of those who wish to bypas the gatekeepers of such information have an even more extreme agenda...
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Philip Hensher and Gary Younge: Does the right to freedom of speech justify printing the Danish cartoons?:
Filed in: Islam, blasphemy, free-speech
The cartoons can be viewed here, make up your own mind. In providing the link I am not endorsing the cartoons which I think to be a mixed bunch from quite insightful to pretty puerile and offensive.

Harnessing the Energy of Exercise

A few months back I wondered why human exercise machines weren't used for power generation. Well, someone else has been wondering the same thing and made an art project out of it. It turns out that one reason that the idea hasn't taken of may be:

Except in extreme cases of highly fit athletes, the limit for stationary bicyclists seems to be in the range of 75 watts to 150 watts, Wilson said.

Not huge but enough to run your computer and a handful of CFL lightbulbs ... so could pay it's way in a gym, I'd have thought.
See also and here.
Wired News: Harnessing the Energy of Exercise:
Filed in: power, generation, exercise, human

Light bulbs: Not such a bright idea

why not just ban incandescent bulbs - why not make them illegal?
They waste so much energy that if they were invented today, it is highly unlikely they would be allowed onto the market.
Nobody would suffer; every energy-saving bulb would save money and help to curb climate change.
It is truly a win-win solution.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Light bulbs: Not such a bright idea:
Filed in: environment, energy, lighting, efficiency