Pornography and global climate change

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The streaming of online pornography produces the same amount of carbon dioxide as the whole of Belgium, according to a new report by the French think tank The Shift Project. Its researchers found that the energy required to stream online videos is responsible for the emission of 300 million tonnes of CO2 a year – almost 1% of total global emissions – and that a third of that comes from videos with pornographic content.

From being an immense boon to mankind, a lot of what happens on the internet has become either bogus misinformation, silly self-promotion, or just plain boring.  Pornography is in the latter category, in my opinion, but someone, somewhere is making money out of it.  I don’t think in principle that it should be banned, just ignored.  On the other hand, unless we stop some of the activities that are increasing temperatures and threatening the future of the planet and the human race, the effects on future generations are going to be catastrophic.  So maybe pornography should, after all, be banned – it’s hard enough to get politicians to do anything at all about the climate crisis, so this just might find public favour.  Watchers of the stuff on the web will just have to get a life.

The death penalty

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The American Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday that it will resume capital punishment for the first time in nearly two decades.

Only three federal executions have taken place since 1988, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. All five of the death-row inmates named in Thursday’s release were convicted for the murders of children.  The number of executions in the United States has declined over the last decade amid concerns about whether capital punishment disproportionately impacts African Americans.

Some states have put a moratorium on the practice or have suspended it.  Wrongful convictions have been spotlighted by groups such as the Innocence Project, which have secured the release of a number of death-row inmates in recent years.  Colorado, Oregon, Pennsylvania and California are among  those states with moratoriums, while it has fallen out of general use in other states.  Only in Texas and Alabama is the death penalty common practice.

Worldwide, the death penalty has been abolished in about 70 percent of countries, particularly democratic nations similar to the U.S.  ( Edited version of an article from The Hill, 25 July 2019)

My comment:  for any elected, democratic government to deliberately take the lives of anyone, convicted criminals or not, is immoral as a matter of principle. Secondly, the verdicts in all too many of these death penalty cases have eventually been proved unsafe.  But, more pragmatically, the death penalty is absolutely no deterrent to a killer, who, almost by definition, is mentally deranged.

Red meat for the Trump base, whose defining characteristics are resentment, hatred of the “elite”, fear and disdain for non-whites of all kinds, and curious religious beliefs, unique to red American states.  The fear is that these people, delighted with Trump’s style of “governing”, will ensure him a second four years.

Exasperating!

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To The Times

Nick King is right to point out that “small and family businesses make up 99% of the UK’s business population and create over three-quarters of new jobs”. Moreover, most of these businesses are also domestic-only and therefore do not trade with the EU, yet are still bound by its restrictive regulatory regime.

To listen to the apocalyptic siren calls of the Confederation of British Industry, the Bank of England, the Treasury and other usual Remain suspects about Brexit, one could be misled into assuming that our trade with the EU accounts for the majority of our GDP. In fact, the true figure is about 8%, and it continues to decline fast. It would be nice to have more honesty from the Remain lobby about the modest contribution of our EU-focused trade to our economic well-being. But this is probably too much to ask.

Nigel Henson, Farningham, Kent. (The Week, 27 Apr 2019)

In answer, this is part of a Research Briefing  from the UK Parliament library

  • The EU, taken as a whole is the UK’s largest trading partner. In 2017, UK exports to the EU were £274 billion (44% of all UK exports). UK imports from the EU were £341 billion (53% of all UK imports).
  • The share of UK exports accounted for by the EU has fallen over time from 55% in 2006 to 43% in 2016, increasing slightly to 44% in 2017.
  • The share of UK imports accounted for by the EU fell from 58% in 2002 to 51% in 2011 before increasing to 53% in 2017.
  • The UK had an overall trade deficit of -£67 billion with the EU in 2017. A surplus of £28 billion on trade in services was outweighed by a deficit of £95 billion on trade in goods.
  • The UK had a trade surplus of £41 billion with non-EU countries. A surplus of £83 billion on trade in services outweighed a deficit of -£42 billion on trade in goods.
  • Services accounted for 40% of the UK’s exports to the EU in 2017. Financial services and other business services (a category which includes legal, accounting, advertising, research and development, architectural, engineering and other professional and technical services) are important categories of services exports to the EU – in 2017 these two service categories made up 52% of UK service exports to the EU.

My comment:  the British people have had to put up with years of bogus “ facts” and straightforward misinformation. Everything that has gone wrong has been blamed on the EU, which doesn’t have the manpower to do half the things they have been blamed for by trouble-makers like our new Prime Minister.  Ignored, for instance, are regional EU funds that have helped poor areas which the Tory party has cared nothing about.  The effects and influences of the EU for good in terms of food safety, air pollution and scores of other things that make life safer are of equal importance to money and  trade.  And that is without reducing the dangers of European wars that have bedevilled Europe for so many centuries and have always dragged in the British.  To focus just on trade is petty and illustrates the amazing effect that persistent lies in the media have had.

 

A poem for old-timers

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I remember the cheese of my childhood and the bread that we cut with a knife, 

When the children helped with the housework, and the men went to work, not the wife.

 

The cheese never needed a fridge and the bread was all crusty and hot.

The children were seldom unhappy and the wife was content with her lot.

 

I remember the milk from the bottle, with the thick double  cream on the top.

Our dinner came hot from the oven, and not from the fridge in the shop. 

 

The kids were a lot more contented, they didn’t need money for kicks.

Just a game with their mates in the road and sometimes the Saturday flicks.

 

I remember the shop on the corner, where a pen’orth of sweets was sold.

Do you think I’m a bit too nostalgic?  Or is it….I’m just getting old?

 

I remember the ‘loo’ was the lavvy and the bogey man came in the night.

It wasn’t the least bit funny going “out back” with no light.

 

Hung on a peg in that loo, were interesting items to view,

from newspapers cut into squares. It took little to keep us amused.

 

Dirty clothes were boiled in the copper, with plenty of rich foamy suds.

But the ironing seemed never ending as Mum pressed everyone’s ‘duds’.

 

I remember the slap on my backside and the taste of soap if I swore.

Anorexia and diets weren’t heard of and we hadn’t much choice what we wore.

 

Do you think that bruised our ego? Or our initiative was destroyed?

We ate what was put on the table and I think life was better enjoyed.

 

But a huge fact not hereto mentioned in this tale of nostalgic rejoice,

Is the reason we all “enjoyed” our lot: we had no bloody choice!

(Anon.)

Almost too ridiculous

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From The Times. 12 July 2019:

“Please beware. There may be nudity. Or loud noises. Or cigarette smoking” 

“Theatre productions issue all sorts of health warnings to ticket buyers these days.  But London’s Donmar Warehouse has gone a step further: it is protecting audiences from any possible distress by giving detailed information in advance about scenes that may be emotionally challenging. Of its play “Europe”, written by David Greig, it had this to say on its website:

“In the first half of the play, a man repeatedly places his hand on a woman’s leg, to her discomfort. In the second half, a man beats up another man due to his status as a migrant. A man describes a violent attack on a woman.”

“This isn’t pandering to the over-sensitive, insists the theatre’s executive producer, Henny Finch: it’s “about being considerate to all audiences and ensuring everybody feels comfortable”. Really? Since when has drama been about making people feel comfortable? The aim of good theatre is often to shock, disturb or discomfit them. But remove any element of surprise or possibility of offence and you can say goodbye to that.  (Jawad Iqbal, The Times. 12 July 2019)

If you just want to feel good and have a harmless laugh go to a British pantomime (which doesn’t exist in America).  There you get camp acting and weak jokes.  I agree with the writer – theatre should deal with human motivations and illuminate raw emotion.  My wife and I have written two musicals, in the course of which we received advice from a drama-writing expert.  The basis of drama, he told us is a single principle: “who wants what from whom”.   Motivations are often hidden and not very nice.  In the theatre we learn about raw human needs and emotion.  Babying an audience is patronizing.  If you object to being shocked stay at home and watch TV.