Immigration. Immigration. Immigration. The central issue of our times. It’s been a neuralgic stopping point in conversations for as long as we can remember. Now, as unprecedented waves of people travel globe in search of a better life, it has become acute. Its almost mystic power to provoke the most passionate feelings, its ability to divide, to elicit fear, rage and compassion in equal measures is like nothing else, not economics, not football…certainly not our pet peeves about climate change and antibiotic resistance!

But don’t worry, you are not reading the wrong blog. Because at least we have always recognised the issue. What’s more, we have even urged that the causes of it are addressed. And what are those causes? That people will move from places from where life is unpleasant to where it is more pleasant. Obeying economic laws the way charged ions in an electric field obey the laws of physics.

Tonight Channel 4 will take six people with strong views and try to suggest the causes of the problem. That is quite something. It runs the gauntlet of two well-entrenched and aggressive mind sets. On the one hand an odd alliance of Free Market Fundamentalists and Left wing bien-pensants who try to pretend that all is well, and there can be no problem. On the other, a group of existentially frightened people who take refuge in facile nostrums like sending tiny planeloads of undesirables to Rwanda, or Rouen or Rutland, or wherever it was. We do not pretend this programme will solve everything overnight. We do not expect sudden overflows of compassion or understanding, for we always distrust strong emotions and sudden conversions. However we do expect that the problem has for the first time entered public discourse in a dispassionate and rational way. That we think is a beginning. Support them by watching, please.

#channel 4 #go back to where you came from #immigation #economics

In this series we’ve discussed the possibility that a World Government might somehow form on this tiny planet. And of the advantages it might bring to current and future generations. We also mentioned the possible dangers, which are very real.

Readers have suggested two ways this might come about. Firstly through the gradual fusion of larger and larger economic and territorial blocks until only one remains in authority, Nice if it happened, but given our view of human nature, unlikely. History suggests that a single authority imposes itself only after military victory over rivals. This was certainly the case in China when the Qin Dynasty finally triumphed over the other warring states. It was so in the Mediterranean basin as the Roman Republic achieved hegemony. It would be interesting to speculate which the current warring states could yet emerge as the single sovereign. We would suggest the USA, The Peoples Republic of China, India and Russia as the principle contenders, with Nigeria as a possible long shot candidate. But all of this supposes the current economic and political framework remains intact. Current trends in climate, pollution and epidemiology make this unlikely.

For we live in a time of rapid ecological collapse. This is not unprecedented. The Classical world was ruined by a series of major epidemics and climate change, as Professor Harper has shown [1] There is good reason to suspect similar factors were at work behind the Late Bronze Age Collapse of the second millennium. [2] In both cases, what followed was not a single superpower. But rather an anarchy of warring little kingdoms, where trade was minimal and learning extinguished. In both cases it took several centuries for populations to claw their way back up to even a minimum level of Civilisation. And remember-they had one advantage which we do not. Humanity was then the only intelligent species in existence. Now there may be others waiting in the wings. We’ll look at that next time.

[1]Kyle Harper The Fate of Rome Princeton University Press 2018

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse

#world government #global warming # ecology #pollution #world war #china #usa #india #russian federation #nigeria

The news that China’s new nuclear fusion record cannot come a moment too soon. The Experimental Advanced Tokamak has achieved a record “burn” of 1066 seconds. Way , way beyond anything which they or anyone else had achieved so far. Seventeen minutes of artificial sun, here on this planet. The prospect of abundant, cheap and above all clean energy just got a little closer.[1]

God knows we could all do with some good news at the moment. With America deliberately marching backwards to the twentieth century by going back to oil and coal, China has clearly set itself on the path to leadership on the transition to a safe planet. But will that be the only issue they have to resolve?

[1]https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/nuclear-energy/chinas-artificial-sun-shatters-nuclear-fusion-record-by-generating-steady-loop-of-plasma-for-1-000-seconds

#nuclear fusion #clean energy #global warming #china #usa

“Kills 99% of all known bacteria!” “The Cleanest Clean it’s ever been! “The half-remembered advertising slogans of our youth, from companies promoting the bewildering variety of household cleaning products with which we scour and sparkle our homes. And for once, we think they have been doing a good job. No one, absolutely no one wishes to go back to the squalid homes of the pre-industrial world. A glance at a few Renaissance or Baroque masters will reveal the filthy disorder of ancient lives. And remember-the Della Francescas and Brueghels were paid to produce sanitised, rather orderly versions of what must have been an unpleasant reality indeed.

But what if we have been paying a hidden price for all this progress? What happens when all those bleaches, soaps and detergents go down the drain and out into the rivers, seas and lakes? According to Anastasia Theodosiou and Chrissie Jones, writing for the Conversation, there might be a problem. Two problems actually. The first is damage to the microbiome of the skin, that marvellous ecology of bacteria which covers us all and keeps us safe from things like asthma, obesity and cancer. The second, rather more pertinent to LSS and our raison d’etre, is that this outpouring may be unleashing antibiotic resistance among microbes in the environment. Which process will one day come back to bite us very badly indeed. And our crops. And our herds. Is that Biblical, or what?

Our thoughts? We know you like ’em. Well we don’t think we should give up things like washing and cleaning homes any time soon, as the mortality will be measured in hecatombs. But these ladies have a point, as does Baroness Natalie Bennett who is sponsoring a Bill on the whole matter through the UK House of Lords. As ever getting this right is a matter of balance, of careful navigation between the interests of all concerned parties. Another chance to show the angry partisanship of binary thinking is a very bad method indeed.

Incidentally, will Americans ever learn that last lesson?

https://theconversation.com/antibacterials-are-everywhere-for-the-sake-of-our-microbiome-we-need-to-control-their-use-247723?utm_

#microbial resistance #antibiotics #pollution #environment #progress

To all our readers, contributors, followers and those who dive in just for a quick look. Above all, those who take the trouble to send us likes and comments. Particularly new chums on the BLUE SKY site, which we have recently joined.

As you can see we have restored the picture function. It was our fault. Some of the Ape creatures of the High Himalayas have better IT skills than we do. But we got there in the end.

We look forward to providing you with continued coverage of matters scietific, educational and economic for a while

THE BOARD