John Bunzl writes: When we protest against transnational corporations, politicians and unaccountable global institutions such as the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank; when we protest against those we regard as causing or exacerbating global warming, ecological destruction, pollution or the widening gap between rich and poor, we inevitably blame them. Often, we go further to blame individuals who may shop at supermarkets, or who fail to buy Fair Trade or organic foods and so on. In protesting against them, or in decrying their behaviour, we inevitably point our fingers at them: “YOU are the ones who are destroying our world!” In fact, it’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that the Global Justice Movement’s principal mode of action is protest; a mode which inescapably implies the blaming of one section of society or another, or one institution or another, for our global ills. And to be fair, there’s a lot to protest about and without protest these important issues would never come to wider public attention. But dire as our global problems undoubtedly are, should not the question be asked as to whether, in some sense, we are not all to blame for our present predicament, NGOs and global justice activists included? After all, who amongst us is so utterly de-linked from the global economy as to be able to honestly claim not to be contributing in some way to present problems, be it by driving when we might walk, by buying the products of transnational corporations when something more eco- or socially friendly might be better, or by failing to buy organic food when cheaper non-organic alternatives better suit our budgets - or by flying to holiday or conference destinations and thus contributing disproportionately to global warming emissions? Because for any of us to pretend that we are beyond reproach is not only likely to be untrue, it leads inexorably to a kind of “eco-fascism” whereby self-styled “eco-warriors” vilify and victimise the rest of us who, for one reason or another, apparently fail to live up to their criteria for what is required to “save the planet”. Indeed, the reality is that through our individual and collective choices, lifestyles and socio-economic system, all of us play a part, to a greater or lesser extent, in exacerbating our increasingly dire global predicament. So to pretend otherwise is not only divisive and untrue, it ultimately serves only to divert us from what should be a common effort to find solutions and instead leads us into an endless loop of factional, ‘us and them’ blame and counter-blame. And if we are all to blame, perhaps we should take the further step of asking ourselves whether the corporate executives or market traders we commonly regard as being in positions of power are really in any position to significantly alter their polluting or socially irresponsible behaviour? It should after all be clear that in a competitive global market any corporation single-handedly taking on a greater measure of social or environmental responsibility - and thus increasing its costs in the process - would only lose out to its competitors causing a loss of its profits, a reduction in its share value, a consequent loss of jobs and, ultimately, the prospect of it becoming the target of a hostile takeover. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to conclude that, in a global market, corporations can generally only afford to behave as responsibly as the aggregate behaviour of their major competitors permits and, since they cannot reliably count on them to simultaneously take on higher standards, it is virtually impossible for one or a restricted number of market players to make the first move. So while it’s clear that corporations could take some small steps towards more responsible behaviour and should be encouraged to do so, we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that they have the power to make the really substantive and fundamental changes needed to solve our global problems. Indeed, they manifestly don’t. (12/09/04)
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Davidson Loehr writes: You may wonder why anyone would try to use the word “fascism” in a serious discussion of where America is today. It sounds like cheap name-calling, or melodramatic allusion to a slew of old war movies. But I am serious. I don’t mean it as name-calling at all. I mean to persuade you that the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism, and that the necessary implications of this fact are rightly regarded as terrifying. That’s what I am about here. And even if I don’t persuade you, I hope to raise the level of your thinking about who and where we are now, to add some nuance and perhaps some useful insights. The word comes from the Latin word “Fasces,” denoting a bundle of sticks tied together. The individual sticks represented citizens, and the bundle represented the state. The message of this metaphor was that it was the bundle that was significant, not the individual sticks. If it sounds un-American, it’s worth knowing that the Roman Fasces appear on the wall behind the Speaker’s podium in the chamber of the US House of Representatives. Still, it’s an unlikely word. When most people hear the word “fascism” they may think of the racism and anti-Semitism of Mussolini and Hitler. It is true that the use of force and the scapegoating of fringe groups are part of every fascism. But there was also an economic dimension of fascism, known in Europe during the 1920s and ’30s as “corporatism,” which was an essential ingredient of Mussolini’s and Hitler’s tyrannies. So-called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a model by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe. As I mentioned a few weeks ago (in “The Corporation Will Eat Your Soul”), Fortune magazine ran a cover story on Mussolini in 1934, praising his fascism for its ability to break worker unions, disempower workers and transfer huge sums of money to those who controlled the money rather than those who earned it. Few Americans are aware of or can recall how so many Americans and Europeans viewed economic fascism as the wave of the future during the 1930s. Yet reviewing our past may help shed light on our present, and point the way to a better future. So I want to begin by looking back to the last time fascism posed a serious threat to America. (12/09/04)
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Discover Magazine – A new kind of movie hits theaters this month. Sure to please family audiences with its blast of holiday cheer, The Polar Express also holds out some appeal to cinemaphiles and technogeeks who usually steer clear of seasonal sentiment: This movie makes computer graphics history.  The film, directed by Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away, Forrest Gump), stars Tom Hanks in five digital roles, including the doe-eyed main character, a young boy who’s lost his faith in Santa only to regain it after a midnight ride to the North Pole aboard a magic train. Far from the familiar cartoon line drawings and voice-overs of most animated features, this film used real actors in a process called performance capture, which lets any actor play any role, regardless of age or sex. Hanks plays not just the boy but Santa Claus, a train conductor, and a ghostly hobo too, each having a different voice and look tweaked to perfection during production. The technique also releases filmmakers from the constraints of location shooting.  Motion capture, as the approach is more commonly called, is not new.  It has been around since the 1980s and is frequently used in the sciences and in medicine to study locomotion. What is new is using this method to make an entire movie, a completely computer-generated end product, but with an all-human cast. Instead of donning fancy costumes, these actors slipped on wet suit-like outfits equipped with hundreds of light-reflecting beads. Dozens of infrared sensors on propless stages digitally recorded the movements of the actors as they performed their scenes. … Wherever you see it, the result of the $150-million-plus budget and three-year production schedule is stunning. The faces of the characters look breathtakingly lifelike, from freckles to hair follicles to facial twitches, and you may believe you are seeing real actors—for an instant. The movie perfectly recreates the icy blue-and-white tones of the original book’s oil and pastel drawings as well as its warm glows and dreamy sense of nighttime hyperrealism. (12/09/04)
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BBC Health – More research has been published linking smoking to health risks - with a study suggesting the habit affects IQ Researchers from the Universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh looked at how the cognitive abilities of smokers and non-smokers changed over time. They found smokers performed significantly worse in five separate tests. The research, part of the Scottish Mental Health Survey, is published in New Scientist magazine. Around 465 people were tested on their mental abilities in 1947 when they were aged 11. They were then tested a second time between 2002 and 2002, when they reached the age of 64. On this occasion they underwent tests to evaluate their non-verbal reasoning, memory and learning, how quickly they processed information, decisions about how to act in particular circumstances and construction tasks. Current or former smokers were found to perform less well in the tests even after factors such as childhood IQ, education, occupation and alcohol consumption were taken into account. The effect appeared to be stronger in current smokers according to the study, which was also published in the journal Addictive Behaviors. … Amanda Sandford, of the group Action on Smoking and Health said: “It would appear that the well-worn clichÈ that ’smoking stunts your growth’ may be true when it comes to intellectual development. “Contrary to what many people commonly believe - that smoking may help brain function, it is in fact more likely to wreak havoc with brain cells and IQ.” (12/09/04) 
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BBC Environment – Twenty years ago scientists from the British Antarctic Survey made one of the most significant environmental discoveries of recent times. Studying data gathered in hostile and difficult conditions over many decades, they stumbled on the fact that a huge hole had appeared in the layer of ozone protecting the Earth from the harmful UV radiation of the Sun. Dr Jonathan Shanklin of the BAS, the scientist whose calculations produced the revelation, puts the breakthrough down to a combination of luck and diligence. “We were in the right place at the right time with the right data,” he told me. The shock of the discovery - and its later confirmation by scientists in the US - led to prompt international action to curb the greenhouse gases known as CFCs believed to be damaging the ozone. Although the Montreal Protocol banned CFCs, the effects of these highly stable and long-lasting gases will be felt for at least another 40 years. Once a year, in the springtime in the southern hemisphere, a combination of atmospheric conditions and the CFC chemicals starts to erode the ozone layer. From September through to November, the hole forms over a vast area above Antarctica. Tracked by satellite, scientists can monitor its spread as it rotates with the weather systems, and occasionally stretches over the southern part of South America. Several times a year, one of the world’s southernmost cities, Punta Arenas in Chile, falls under the hole and its inhabitants suffer the worst effects of the solar radiation - including a massively raised risk of skin cancer. The city’s leading skin specialist, Dr Jaime Abaca, has studied the rates of skin cancer and has concluded that of all reported cases, the worst kind, malignant melanoma, is found in three times as many people as in other parts of the world. “There is no doubt we are seeing the effects of the ozone problem,” he told me. (12/09/04)
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