Where do we go from here: 5

Political leadership

I have held forth, in the previous three posts, about the problems facing human societies in terms of conflict, our economic systems, human populations and food supplies, condensing into a few paragraphs discussion of issues that fill books and newspapers and magazine articles and blogs and endless media hours. Virtually every point I have made could be (and no doubt is) elaborated, developed and argued in all those media, but hopefully my condensed version will provide the basis for some constructive thoughts. But, whatever the arguments, the solution to all the problems considered must lie in political action, in decisions made by governments with the capacity to influence – or determine - the way societies function and the resources of countries are used.

Politics is the business of politicians who, in democracies, are elected by the people. There are all sorts of other political systems, some of which are not particularly salubrious, but let’s confine our attention to democracies and the role of democratically elected leaders. These people are vital to the success of their societies, by which I mean success in terms of the well-being of the whole population, and in terms of the natural environment. If that is destroyed, or even significantly degraded, the society can’t be considered successful and amount of economic effort and activity will serve to maintain living standards.

Most people in western countries are convinced that our systems of democratic government are as good as it gets – the apogee of political evolution.  But a vanishingly small number of our elected politicians are real leaders; for the most part they are public relations puppets, driven by polls that indicate to them what their constituencies want, regardless of the fact that most of the people who make up those constituencies are themselves driven by self-interest and the standard delusions about economics. A majority of people want ‘the good life’ – the houses and cars and consumer goods and holidays and entertainment – without wanting to consider the real costs. So society gets ever more ‘precious’, with endless whingeing about minor inconveniences, about price rises or the unavailability of things that there’s no good reason we should have, with controversies about trivia and the expenditure of huge amounts of effort and emotion arguing about things like the behaviour celebrities or matters that shouldn’t be in the public domain at all – like whether homosexual couples should be allowed to marry. And the brand of ugly adversarial politics that we currently have in western countries doesn’t help.

So we probably get the political leaders we deserve. It would be wonderful if, at least occasionally, we got people standing for election who have clear and definite (and constructive) vision and who are prepared to pursue that vision regardless of the opinion polls and focus group findings and the pressure and bribes of lobbyists funded by powerful interest groups. Of course the way the political game is played now, people of vision and high principle probably wouldn’t get elected or, if they did, in a system like Australia’s where politics and parliament are dominated by political parties, the party machines would make sure they were kept under control, so they wouldn’t get much done. There is also the  problem that, quite frequently, people with vision and ‘fire in the belly’ are nutcases – think of the great leaders of the 20^th century, like Hitler or Mao Tse Tung or Stalin (hardly democratic leaders!). Even Churchill had some pretty peculiar ideas. In Australia Whitlam had ‘fire in the belly’ – and didn’t last long, but Bob Hawke, though a politician to his bootstraps, was undoubtedly a leader with convictions, and he did last. In Canada Pierre Trudeau, who led that country from 1968 to 1984 (with a brief interlude when he was out of power) was, by all reports, a man of vision and principle. But looking across the political landscape of the world right now, I don’t see anyone, in any country, who inspires much genuine respect and admiration. Obama looked hopeful – I think he is a person of high principles – but he hasn’t managed to struggle free of the constraints imposed by a completely negative, indeed destructive, Republican party that exploits the prejudices and ignorance of large chunks of the American electorate, and by the financial crisis brought on by the greed of the Wall Street traders etc. etc. The world is awash with words about it all.  All we can do is live in hope, but I’m not holding my breath.

I set out, when I started to write these things, to try to imagine how the world’s problems might be fixed, but I have ended with the conclusion, basically, that it’s not going to happen. Life in the rich, developed countries will go on apparently much as before for some time to come. Money and power and technology will (probably) insulate the populations of those countries from a great deal of unpleasantness for years to come. There will wars and rumours of wars and gradually accumulating environmental problems (I haven’t even mentioned climate change) and some nasty famines in faraway places. Well-meaning, and in many cases extraordinarily admirable, people will work hard to alleviate the problems, and in some cases and some places they will make progress, but overall we will not change our ways. Humanity is in trouble: the world we leave to our grandchildren is going to be a lot less pleasant than the one we live in now, unless they have so much money that they can totally insulate themselves from it all. All that isn’t very cheerful, but maybe my prognostications will be as wide of the mark as those of Nostradamus. Good luck; enjoy your life.

Where do we go from here: 4

People and food

No danger of starving here: Christmas in Australia

 
































My third major point (in the first of these posts) was concern about the rapidly-growing human population of the world and whether it was going to be able to feed itself. There are a couple of points in relation to this that need to be kept in mind: one is that most of the population growth is happening in poor countries that are already over-crowded; the other is that most people in the western countries eat too much. The major food problem in these is obesity. In general, they produce ample food for themselves, with enough for export. The difficulties at the moment arise from the logistics of distribution, and the economics of paying for and transporting large amounts of food from areas of plenty to areas of shortage. Right now, for the world as a whole, if food could be distributed rapidly and effectively from the high producing areas to those in need, there would be enough for everyone, not to eat as the privileged do, but to eat adequately, at least pro tem. But it’s unlikely that this will remain the case as populations continue to soar. In the not-too-distant future there is not going to be enough food to feed everyone.

There are blinkered technofreaks who maintain that, since Malthus warned in the late 18^th century of the problems that would be caused by ever-increasing human populations, technical solutions have always been found that have resulted in enough food being produced. This has been true up to now, but there are now new factors in the equation which mean that the argument is not going to hold for the future. One of these – which I wont go on about but which is very important for millions of people – is the world-wide crash in the populations of ocean fish, hunted to near extinction in many areas. But most food still comes from the land, and not only is virtually all the land suitable for arable agriculture already in use but, as I noted earlier, much of that land has been degraded: soil fertility is falling as a result of unsustainable farming practices, and soil erosion is taking a terrible toll. Maintaining high crop yields in modern, extensive agricultural systems involves the use of huge amounts of oil for the manufacture of herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers as well as directly for tractor power. We could make great progress if we were prepared to accept much more labour-intensive production systems, and eat a great deal less meat – producing livestock is a highly  inefficient way of converting plant material into food for humans. But as countries like China and India develop, their people are demanding better diets with increasing amounts of meat, so significantly changing market demand for food. And, of course, those countries have burgeoning human populations.

There are solutions – or partial solutions – which, if they can’t entirely solve the problems could improve matters enormously, particularly for the poor of the world. These involve technology, which includes better fertilization, the recycling of plant nutrients, more efficient use of water and animal manures, huge reductions in waste of food and the losses that affect peasant farmers so badly, pest control and plant breeding. Soil erosion and degradation are major problems across Africa, much of Asia and South America; these must be addressed. (There are also serious soil erosion problems in the United States.) The big problem in relation to the poorer, high population countries where the food problem is frequently severe and likely to get worse, is getting the knowledge and technology to the people who need them – a matter of education and resources. And who will pay for the resources needed? In the western countries, where there is no sign of food shortages, there could be huge environmental benefits from waste reduction. Heavy subsidies that encourage the conversion of maize into biofuels cause major distortions in production patterns and food prices and should be abandoned. It would also be good to see moves away from the horrible high-intensity systems of producing chickens and eggs, beef and pork. These are driven more by economics than fundamental necessity.

Is all this going to happen? Well, I don’t think so. Globally, food shortages are going to get worse and will contribute to the increasing pressures on the people of high population countries to emigrate to those where they can expect a better standard of living. There are already serious problems in this respect – every time there’s some sort of crisis they get worse – and they are not going to go away. They may not lead directly to war, but they will lead to ever-stronger calls for restrictive border policies, over-riding humanitarian considerations. The only way to avoid that would seem to be for the rich countries to put ever-increasing effort and resources into improving life in the poor ones in all the obvious areas like education, sanitation and hygiene, food production and (sustainable) transport systems. Whether they will do that is doubtful. Developed countries say they aim to allocate 0.7% of their Gross Domestic Product to aid to underdeveloped countries, but very few do so. There is a strong human tendency to postpone action on inconvenient matters as long as possible, particularly if there is significant uncertainty about the problem facing us and if we ourselves are somewhat insulated against the consequences of the postponement. The rich countries, in general can insulate themselves against food shortages, tighten border controls against the indigent masses and maintain reasonable standards of living. But in the poor, high population countries life will get progressively worse and there will be increasing starvation over the next 25 years. And in the process the natural environment will be destroyed.

Where do we go from here: 3

Economics

This is post number 3 in my little series; you need to read the first two for the background to this one.

Turning to economics, I made the comment that, at least in the so-called advanced western countries, continuous economic growth is assumed to be the normal and necessary condition for modern societies if they are to thrive. There are some incipient problems in terms of the stability of financial systems because of trade imbalances and of the stability of our economic system because of its dependence on oil, which is starting to run short and will get progressively more expensive.

Whether the financial market system is stable is arguable. I said (going boldly where angels fear to tread!) that there has to be a high probability that it’s not. There are innumerable articles, and a number of erudite and economically sophisticated books about the 2008 market crash, and I have no intention of getting into any detail about all that, except to say that the point that emerges most strongly is that the crash was caused by the greed and hubris of Wall Street traders and bankers, and the lack of any effective regulation of the market. All that is still there, but my assertion is based on general considerations, like the increasing prices of oil and food, the trade imbalances between China and the United States and the fundamentally fragile nature of our economic systems dependent, as they are, on continual growth, fuelled by the manufacture and marketing of endless junk and by service industries that, in many cases, depend heavily on tourism. (What happens to them when the oil runs out?)

At the level of the economics of individual countries, the principle of non-interference that I mentioned earlier can be extended to the use of economic as well as military power by strong nations or large multinational companies. Economic power could, conceptually, be used by powerful countries or companies to the benefit of the weak, rather than as a tool of exploitation. There is a history of commercial exploitation of weak or undeveloped nations by such companies, for example exploitation of oilfields in Nigeria and (until their nationalisation by President Chávez), Venezuela. Demand by rich countries causes distortions in the production patterns and economies of small ones which, desperate to earn foreign exchange, may focus their agriculture on cash crops, often produced by foreign companies using extensive production methods so that the benefits to local societies are minimal. We may also see the destruction of ecosystems brought about, for example, by destructive logging of tropical forests for hardwoods by countries like Japan and South Korea, with no interest in the forests themselves, or the conversion of large tracts of tropical forest into soy-bean (in the Amazon) or oil palm (in Indonesia) production.

Not the kind of house most of us want? A 'hotel' in Ecuadorian cloud forest

Both diplomacy and business should be guided by principles analogous to the philosophical idea of utilitarianism: every action must be assessed in terms of its impact on those affected by it. So, in an ideal world, countries should negotiate not only to maximize their own benefits, but also those of others involved. Business should take account of the well-being of anyone affected by its activities, and organize itself to optimize that well-being, as far as possible, taking into account the capacity of the people concerned to benefit from the projected actions. The principles that should be followed are obvious and could clearly be developed at length. The problem is implementation of those principles.

It’s easy to make disparaging remarks about economics and the boring focus on it that we have to endure in the news media and from the commentariat. But even the greenest, ‘back-to-nature’ ideology has to accept that economics are very important. They reflect, and provide a measure of, our material well-being so we’re bound to be interested in them. The problem is partly one of emphasis: the news media – certainly in Australia, which is notorious for this – focus obsessively on economic news, so that almost every event is interpreted in terms of what it will cost, or be worth. Our obsession with economics has the result that decisions are frequently made, or at least assessed, in economic terms, which can distort real values. For example, state governments will, almost invariably, yield to pressure from miners and developers to allow things like open cut coal mining, or underground gas  extraction in agricultural areas, regardless of the environmental damage that may result; they put resources into ever-more roads – with ever-more big trucks – and shut down rail routes that are ‘uneconomic’; they bow to the wishes of the off-shore fishing industry not to declare ‘no catch’ zones in the sea to allow fish populations to recover.  Current attempts to solve the urgent and serious problems afflicting Australia’s major water catchments – the Murray-Darling Basin – are being undermined by hysterical assertions that reduction in water allocations for irrigation will destroy communities. They won’t, but rational, science-based debate isn’t getting much of a hearing. And the idea of a (federal) tax on carbon to ensure that the polluter pays generates such screams of protest that you would think the businesses affected were going to be destroyed. All anyone has to do is cry ‘jobs’ and/or ‘the bottom line’ and the pollies fall over themselves to implement the short-term fixes, generally ignoring long-term  environmental implications. Of course people need jobs, and of course human societies are not going to tolerate focus on the environment to their own detriment and disadvantage, but we need some balance. In the long term, if humans are going to survive and live decent, pleasant lives, we have to do better than we are now.

To actually fix things in our societies we have to accept some short-term pain: we have to pay for the research needed to bring alternative energy sources on-line;  we have to pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; we have to walk away from our love affair with petrol or diesel-driven cars, and move over to electric vehicles or vehicles powered by fuel cells (still electricity, but different from batteries); we have to subsidise solar panels on roofs to provide some part of household power requirements, and legislate to ensure power savings and efficiency in buildings. We have to develop efficient water distribution infrastructure and accept the need to use water more efficiently. In Australia we have to get over our irrational paranoia about nuclear power, and get started building the reactors. We also have to cut back enormously on our profligate waste of resources and energy, and massively increase recycling and re-use of paper, plastics, glass, domestic waste and water (there was all sorts of hysterical nonsense about that a few years ago, and we don’t do much of it). All this – and all the other stuff of the same type that I haven’t mentioned – might cost in the short-term, but in the long term it will contribute to a more sustainable life style and reduced resource use. And, heresy of heresies, we will have to reduce our standards of living. That doesn’t mean we all revert to the level that millions of poor people have to tolerate because they have no option, but it does mean some quite radical changes.

We have to do something about the paradox caused by increasing automation of all sorts of activities and processes. Technical developments increasingly reduce the need for labour, but we have increasing numbers of people who need jobs to provide the money they need to live. So it’s difficult to see that things can go on as they are now. People in developed countries are addicted to stuff, things – a huge range of goods of every description, most of which are of limited use or real value. But the manufacture and marketing of all that stuff keeps people in jobs and provides them with incomes; those activities keep economies growing, and without growth the system grinds to a halt. We frequently hear the health of the economy assessed in terms of consumer spending. This is bizarre, but what’s the answer? If we all buy less stuff, the economy slows, businesses close, people lose their jobs, and the whole process triggers a downward (in economic terms) cycle. But that’s what is going to happen. Somewhere along the line the economic structure of societies has to change, but how this will happen, and what form it will take, is impossible (for me anyway) to say.

One thing seems certain: the blind irrational faith in untrammeled free markets as the solution to all problems has to be abandoned. Markets fail, as the recent financial crisis demonstrated, and will continue to fail in the absence of regulation to control greed and the exploitation of the weak and vulnerable. The consequences of this can be seen in the large and growing disparity between the incomes of bankers and financiers, successful stock market speculators and the CEOs of big business, and most of the rest of the population. These disparities are particularly marked in the US but are developing in rapidly in Britain, Australia and (although I have not seen data), probably Canada. The solution to the problem must lie, at least conceptually, with more regulation, although this is anathema to the free market fundamentalists. In America free markets are equated to individual freedom: government intervention is totally unacceptable. But we need regulation by enlightened governments to control the greed, exploitation of people and the environment and all the other excesses of capitalism. We need, dare I say it, more socialistic systems.

I can hear the screams of protest and abuse: this is back to communism (which failed); it will inhibit initiative, and (guess what) financial growth. And so on. There’s no point here in digressing into details of how it might work, or drafting answers to the arguments and protests that would follow if this idea was taken up by anyone in a position of influence. The point is that change is necessary. It may not take the form of systems that have been used in the past but it could, in principle, be achieved by enlightened political leadership and government, coupled to good will in the community. There’s no way the whole system could be changed immediately; change would have to be a step-by-step evolutionary process aimed at optimising the lives of people AND outcomes for the environment. Optimisation in terms of the well-being of people and the environment will mean having evaluation systems in place to assess how policies are working, and being prepared to change when necessary. Economic change can’t be divorced from political change; politicians would have to be driven less by ideology and more by pragmatism. The guiding principle would have to be the need to get the system right in terms of the well-being of people and the environment. Unfortunately, at the present time, the whole world is  hooked on western life-styles and economic paradigms there doesn’t seem to be much chance that radical changes are likely to happen any time soon.

There’s not much point in going on about all this. None of it’s new; people like David Suzuki have been saying these things, eloquently and in detail, for years. Books have been written, impassioned speeches made. But the human race has a high inertia and a strong tendency to self-indulgence. We also have, in most countries (I’m tempted to say ‘all countries’, but hopefully that would not be true), pretty low-grade politicians, which matters because a lot of what needs to happen has to happen at the political level. We need visionary, open-minded leadership and constructive legislation.

Where do we go from here: 2

Could we solve our problems?

In the first blog of this series I made a quick assessment of some of the problems facing the modern world: can we live in peace; will our economic systems keep working in the foreseeable future, and will the world be able to feed its exploding populations? My idea is to assess whether the answers to these questions are likely to be positive. Is there cause for optimism?

Living in peace

Peaceful togetherness. Marine iguanas in the Galapogos

Taking them in order, the first is the matter of living in peace. If we look at humanity as a whole we have to admit that this is an unattainable goal. Humans are aggressive, argumentative and very prone to violence. But we could do better (that’s what I used to get on my school reports). Article 2 of the charter of the United Nations says  that ‘All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.’ If all nations adhered to that, in good faith, it would be a good start. In that respect  we have to note that one of the worst offenders is the United States, where there is a persistent belief that, in the long term, democracy is the only viable political system and a ‘uniquely American realism’ teaches that ‘it is America’s job to change the world, and in it’s own image’[1]. This breathtaking arrogance, based in neo-conservative rhetoric and evangelical Protestant beliefs, has been behind US military interventions in various countries (the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama (they pick their victims!) Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan – and  perhaps Pakistan. Vietnam was slightly different: the rationale in that case was to prevent its take-over by Communism, a position fuelled by Cold War paranoia and the idea that Communism was a homogeneous monster intent on world domination.

Military interventions, far from introducing the American version of democracy, have frequently generated strong local resistance, in some cases dragging the US into drawn-out conflicts in which there is no prospect of victory in any conventional sense. This was certainly the case in Vietnam, whatever the reason for intervention there, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan – where they’re still involved. The tendency to attack other countries has been reinforced by the idea that violence is a reasonable solution to anything that is contrary (or appears to be contrary) to perceived interests of the US. So we have the ill-advised and poorly conceived ‘war on terror’  in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks which led, for highly dubious reasons, to the second Iraq war and the current war in Afghanistan.

Picking on the US isn’t a matter of bias; the size and importance of that nation makes it’s behaviour central to the problem. For the world as a whole there’s not much chance of any sort of progress towards real and lasting peace unless nations genuinely respect the charter of the UN, and refrain from interfering with, or exploiting, each other. In other words, mind their own business. In the case of the US, this means that the country should abandon the idea of military intervention in countries that are not particularly friendly to them; it should dismantle the world-wide system of military bases that it maintains and make a serious move towards nuclear disarmament, which would entail a willingness to destroy – or at least radically reduce – its own nuclear arsenal. In the case of China, the question has to be asked: ‘What is your current massive military build up for?” The country would be regarded with much less suspicion if it wasn’t doing that. And so we could go on. Other threats to peace are Israel and the Arabs, Iran, North Korea… and then, of course, there’s the possibility that fundamentalist Muslims, fanatically committed to jihad and the destruction of the infidel west, might get hold of a nuclear weapon.

Questions also arise about interventions in countries experiencing civil unrest. There are UN rules that govern these interventions; they don’t work very well (note the failure in Rwanda, the mess in the Congo and Darfur), but one would have to argue that it would be better to work on and through these procedures and get them right, which would require more enthusiastic and  unbiased support from countries like the US, China and Russia than they give now. Not much chance, I guess. As I write this Libya is  in a state of upheaval and Gaddafi is killing Libyans by the thousand in his determination to hold onto power. It’s going to end in tears.

So, taken overall, I don’t expect harmony, altruism and peace to break out all over. My guess (for the little it’s worth) is that domestic upheavals in various countries will go on and Israel will probably have another go at Hizbollah in Lebanon which, since that organization is  strongly supported by Iran may turn out even uglier than usual. There will be wars and violent upheavals triggered by terrorism, disputes over water, or oil or living space, but we will probably be spared another major war – one that will have large, direct effects on the western countries – for the foreseeable future (let’s say, the next 25 years). Most of us will be able to ignore those and go about our lives – as we like to do.

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[1] Condoleezza Rice. ‘Rethinking the national interest’. Foreign Affairs. July- Aug. 2008.

Where do we go from here: 1

This is the first of five posts; the others follow on with some ideas about where we (i.e. the human race – nothing small about this!) are heading.

Some thoughts on the state of the world

It’s possible to get quite depressed about the state of the world and it’s prospects, if you let it get to you, although I recognise that’s pretty stupid as there’s nothing I – or any individual – can do about it. Nevertheless, although undoubtedly an exercise in futility, I thought it might be interesting to try to imagine how things might be fixed – or at least how they might be stabilised. (You have to be seriously unwise to venture into this kind of futurism, but people take the junk associated with Nostradamus seriously, so what the hell!) Unfortunately, the first step in this process has to be an assessment of where we are now, which is a recipe for getting depressed, but let’s proceed.

I’ll start with the fairly basic question of whether we’re likely to live in peace or get obliterated by war. There has been no war that has directly affected the populations of the developed western countries[1] since World War II; whole generations have grown up with the idea that peace is normal and material prosperity is all that matters, that this is how things are, and will remain. In fact there has never been complete peace in the world; in recent times there have been wars in Korea, in Vietnam, between Britain and Argentina, between the Israelis and Arabs, in Iraq (twice), ugly conflicts in the Balkans, as well as civil wars and upheavals in various African (e.g. the Congo, Sudan, Sierra Leone), South American and Asian countries, and of course the long-running war in Afghanistan. (The United Nations recognised 49 major conflicts around the world in the 1990s, in which more than four million people died.)

Anyone who is at all aware of what’s going on in the world as a whole will know about all those disturbances, but for most people they’re not events that impinge on them in any direct way. Of course there have been a few terrorist attacks (the so-called 9/11 attack on the twin towers in New York, bombs on trains in Madrid and London, a few smaller bombs here and there) but, although these generate a great deal of fuss and hand-wringing, they directly affect only a very small proportion of the population. So peace seems to be a permanent state of affairs in our societies and we are able, generally, to ignore violent conflicts that don’t affect us directly and go our merry way, with ever increasing standards of living and ever more focus on our own comfort and individual satisfaction.

Sunset in the Pacific - conventional peaceful scene but it doesn't reflect human behaviour

Western societies have also got used to the idea that continual economic growth is normal and can be expected to continue. In general we’re convinced that the world is driven by economics and that economics provide the ultimate measure of all values and a valid basis for most decisions. We’re obsessed with the price fluctuations on the stock exchanges, with short-term economic growth (measured by GDP - an irrational parameter that distorts assessment of the real well-being of people), with demand for and consumption of goods and services, with the housing market, balance of trade, incomes and jobs, and so on and on.

But we have to ask whether our modern system of global trade and economics is rock solid stable. The market crash and financial crisis of late 2008 suggest that it’s not and, for reasons I’ll outline further on, there has to be a very high probability of future hiccups that will de-rail the whole edifice, with unforeseeable results. (For starters, just think about the fact that China owns a huge amount of the escalating debt of the United States: trillions of dollars. Now imagine China and the US getting into a serious argument!)

The way we in the ‘west’ have been living in the last 100 years (particularly the last 50) has resulted in the utilization of more than half the (known and suspected) oil reserves of the earth, so we are in the era of peak oil; from now on the fossil fuel that drives our societies will become increasingly scarce and expensive. That obviously has huge economic implications. And in the course of using the oil we have pumped into the atmosphere vast quantities of CO₂ and other gases that trap the long-wave radiation emitted by the earth, so that temperatures must gradually rise. Burning huge quantities of coal – which is not going to run out – contributes substantially to this. We have also destroyed – and continue to destroy – wonderful ecosystems, and we have degraded vast tracts of land, where soil fertility is declining because of the agricultural practices we have used and continue to follow. This has implications for food production.

A very big problem that’s going to affect our prospects of living in peace, of stable economic systems and of energy supplies, is human population growth. Our numbers are exploding! The actual and projected numbers of humans don’t matter all that much – they are big numbers: about 6.5 billion (six and a half thousand million) alive now, expected to reach more than 9 billion in mid-century.  A great many of these people live in the mega-cities round the world (Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Bombay (Mumbai), New York City….) with their traffic congestion, pollution and slums. I think big cities are truly horrible places, but I have been privileged to spend most of my life with lots of space around me, away from high concentrations of people and seething traffic. Most of the millions (billions?) of people who live in big cities have never known anything else and don’t know what it would be like to live more relaxed and pleasant lives – a sad reflection on the present state of the human race, but there’s nothing that can be done about that.

Not only do these multitudes of people have to be fed but, increasingly, a high proportion of them aspires to the standards of living and eating enjoyed by those in the profligate and privileged ‘west’. Well, those aspirations aren’t going to be fulfilled. There are already food shortages in the world, ameliorated in desperate areas by food aid shipped in at considerable expense from areas of plenty, with the expenditure of yet more fossil fuel, but the supply and transport of this food depends on donations, which don’t keep pace with needs. Countries that have to buy food – which includes most north African and Middle Eastern countries – are finding that prices are going up. This is already contributing to social instability, and people keep reproducing enthusiastically so the problem keeps getting worse.

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[1] By ‘western’ societies I mean those of the so-called western countries: Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Many - in fact most – other countries are (to varying degrees) highly westernised, in the sense that they contain modern institutions that are apparently consistent with western practice and materialist approaches. The differences lie in the assumptions about basic philosophy and approach to government that underlie their political and social systems.