Archives: February 2008

  • To go nuclear or not to go nuclear, that's the hot topic

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    Rating: 2.9/5 with 7 votes

    Published Friday, February 29, 2008 at 15:44
    by frederic.vareillas Join PES activists (896 views and 4 comments)

    All right, my friend,

    You are concerned about the waste. So, all I can tell you is: What do you suggest we do?

    We have two years left before oil and gas cost ten times more than today; solar energy and wind turbines can supply maximum 7 percent of our total consumption of energy; oceans are littered with plastic bags, wrappings, and are 80 percent DEAD; the sun is getting hotter; we are killing the great forests to get wood to burn (and transform into paper); Earth's temperature is rising 2 degrees Celsius (which is huge) due to CO2 and methane.

    What would you say if we could recycle and reutilize nuke waste and nuke plants?

    Think again: We have two years in front of us before the great depression.

    What do you suggest we do?

    Friendly,
    Fred

    Tags: climate change, CO2, electricity, energy, environment, fossil fuels, nuclear energy, oil, sustainable energy

  • Making Europe more local

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    Rating: 3.8/5 with 8 votes

    Published Friday, February 29, 2008 at 09:38
    by davidshoare Join PES activists (788 views and 2 comments)

    I went to the debate "Unity or Diversity? What Europe do we want?" in London earlier this week. The topic was the PES manifesto and democracy and diversity and there was a lot of discussion about democracy in Europe and how we can make it much closer to the people, and more relevant to them. I would like to suggest one of the ways we can do this is by giving the people concerned more of a say in how EU initiatives, particularly regional and social ones, are conducted and where the money goes.



    We have had particular success in doing this at the South Bristol Urban 2 Programme, of which I am proud to have been involved in and also chaired for two years, where the ultimate decision making committee that decided what projects to support was made up of local residents, representatives of community organisations and particularly young people, of which the programme's main aim was to support. We also structured it's meetings so that young people could better access it - the meetings certainly are not boring and if there was any jargon that anyone did not understand then you could show a red card and shame the person into explaining it... » read more ...

    Tags: democracy, diversity, EU, transparency

  • A Noah's ark for seeds in the Spitzberg

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    Rating: 3.8/5 with 5 votes

    Published Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 17:20
    by Gwendoline (806 views and 4 comments)

    The Svalbard Global Seed Vault has been officially inaugurated on 26 February. A big vault has been hollowed in the Spitzberg (Norway): 4,000,000 seeds are now stored by -18°C! Researchers of all over the world have been working hard on this huge project. The aim is to “provide and ultimate safety net to conserve a capacity to feed the planet in the event of a disaster”. This safe deposit system has a refrigerating device to lower the temperature of the mountain that sometimes reaches -3ºC (in case the global warming were to reach peaks). The plant databank is made of edible seeds that would enable humanity to survive and recover from a global catastrophy.

    See a video on the project:




    This type of projects makes one believes in humankind. Of course the very reason why we are building such a place is rather sad! Are we going to witness a Noah's ark for animals? For human beings? At the end of the day, every so-called superior species has vanished from... » read more ...

    Tags: climate change, environment

  • Green cities: in Rhône-Alpes there's one single ticket for all public transport

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    Rating: 5/5 with 4 votes

    Published Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 14:23
    by Editor (736 views and 0 comments)

    How can you encourage people to use public transport instead of cars? This is a challenge that many local and regional politicians struggle with. Bernard Soulage from the region of Rhône-Alpes, France, and Member of the PES Group in the Committee of the Regions presents a solution: one single ticket for the entire transport network, including bicycle rental!

    Green cities
    On 15 May 2008 the PES Group in the Committee of the Regions will host a conference on ‘Save our Planet’ in Torino, Italy. Leading up to the event Yourspace invites local and regional politicians to give their view on what the PES manifesto should say about the environment. This article is the second in the ‘Green cities’ series, offering a local perspective on global challenges.

    Tags: green cities, transport

  • Victor Negrescu: Back to reality

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    Rating: 4.3/5 with 6 votes

    Published Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 13:51
    by negrescuvictor Join PES activists (809 views and 1 comments)

    Today I faced a horrible event – one colleague of mine got beaten in the street because he looked at the wrong car. Victim of an assault, he couldn’t react or call the police because he was too scared that the guy could get his home address – he seemed very dangerous and with a lot of money.

    How can you face brutality? How can you fight what’s illogical with logic? This is today’s main problem. This event brought me back to reality and unfortunately don’t have a perfect answer to this problem. What’s the solution for violence? If I take the example of violence in suburbia I can explain it by the lack of integration and the social exclusion. The home violence is explained by psychological reasons that we all know and even the hooligan violence is explainable by the group feeling and mentality. But this… free and hard violence is unexplainable.

    I’m tempted to say education is the answer, but he surely didn’t learn this at school. I’m also tempted to say that the solution is to put cameras everywhere and to be more radical but this only scares not stops violence. One thing is for certain – Romania is not a dangerous country, not at all, but unfortunately today’s Romanian society is too... » read more ...

    Tags: blogger of the week, citizens, justice

  • manifesto2009 barometer: Save our planet

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    Rating: 5/5 with 2 votes

    Published Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 12:26
    by Editor (1033 views and 1 comments)

    We have seen a very lively debate about a number of relevant topics in the 'Save our planet' section of Yourspace. The contributions from bloggers and PES activists demonstrate a growing interest in climate change issues, and they offered important ideas for the PES to work on. Here are the highlights:

    Biofuels
    The pro’s and con’s of EU support for biofuels have been a hot topic with a big number of comments from our participants. Migeru, taipale and other users were sceptical whether the current generation of biofuels are really an answer to energy scarcity. Clearly, participants want a sustainable answer and not one, which threatens to add to environmental problems.

    Encouraging greener life styles
    What is your individual answer to climate change? The idea to calculate our individual contribution to climate change, the so-called carbon footprint, has been received with interest. Nanne from Berlin added an important point: this user called for political support and advice for a green life style. One option is the the so-called » read more ...

    Tags: barometer, biofuels, climate change, CO2, consumer, energy, environment

  • Hello Hungary!

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    Rating: 3.3/5 with 6 votes

    Published Wednesday, February 27, 2008 at 15:34
    by Editor (1008 views and 1 comments)

    Good news from Hungary! MSZP, the Hungarian Socialist Party, has launched their own consultation website and invite their members to discuss the PES manifesto in Hungarian. The site looks great and there's already debates going on. If you're a Hungarian speaker don't hesitate to visit the new website!

    Tags: blogosphere, manifesto, political parties

  • Victor Negrescu: Bureaucratic populism affects left-wing ideas

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    Rating: 4.7/5 with 3 votes

    Published Wednesday, February 27, 2008 at 10:05
    by negrescuvictor Join PES activists (857 views and 3 comments)

    Yesterday I participated in a conference on populism. The participants, mostly from Germany and Romania talked about the definitions of populism and the dangers of populism in the new world context. The speakers talked also about the neoliberalism populism and the danger of wanting to beat populism through populism.

    Nevertheless, I noticed that all seemed to ignore an important issue – at least for me. It refers to the transformation of social claims into image-like demagogical issues. I’m talking here about the image that the public opinion tends to have on several social issues like social protection, public service, etc. Because people are more and more disappointed by politics they tend to look at the parties and the politicians that talk about this social issues as populists. For instance we tend to see recently in the media phrases like: “the trade union demands AGAIN a new raise even if the economical situation is bad”, “the socialist party wants to rise up the amount of the retreats even know that the economy can’t support it” or “environmental projects cost too much”.   The same kind of image also concerns the big infrastructure projects that are more and more criticized even though progress can’t come unless you work for it or towards it.

    So how can you beat populism without being populist?... » read more ...

    Tags: blogger of the week, globalization, political parties, public services, wages

  • Nuclear energy is not the answer!

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    Rating: 4/5 with 5 votes

    Published Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 14:47
    by reimannsdavid Join PES activists (932 views and 2 comments)

    Hey!

    I don´t believe that nuclear power is a suitable solution for mankind´s energy shortness. It is not reasonable to build up new nuclear power plants. We should not accept nuclear technology without criticism, how Frederic does in a certain way.

    We all have to accept that uranium is a fossile energy resource, too. When we keep using it in the amount of today, the world´s reservoir of it will end in about 50 to 60 years, just like coal, gas, oil (source: German governmental department of economy).

    Everybody can imagine how each new nuclear energy plant fastens these developments. The hunger for uranium will increase, it´s reservoir will empty faster. So we should try to find alternatives to it as fast as possible instead of wasting money on this dying sort of energy. Every Cent that is used to support nuclear technology is an investment in the past, not in the future.

    All our efforts must be concentrated on the development of modifications that make existing power plants more efficient. We must focus on renewable energy sources such as wind and water energy. Particularly the possibilities of solar energy are amazing:... » read more ...

    Tags: energy, fossil fuels, nuclear energy, renewable energy

  • Victor Negrescu: Religion in schools - a Romanian debate

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    Rating: 5/5 with 3 votes

    Published Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 13:31
    by negrescuvictor Join PES activists (1049 views and 7 comments)

    These days Romania is facing a new debate, this time on religion. More exactly several parties and NGO’s want to introduce religion as a mandatory course in high school. This means that all students have to learn about their own religion.

     Problems: 90 percent are orthodox - the minority religious believers are going to have less access to their own believes and are surely going to face a feeling of exclusion; no laic course is going to be taught …

    For those that don't know the reality in     Romania – the country has a powerful orthodox church and a high level of religious believers. Actually a recent study showed that more than 80 percent of students believe God created the world. My question is actually to the rest of the socialist Europeans: what should we do?

    Tags: blogger of the week, diversity, multiculturalism

  • Victor Negrescu: Development cooperation in the EU

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    Rating: 3.4/5 with 5 votes

    Published Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 13:05
    by negrescuvictor Join PES activists (969 views and 1 comments)

    The EU member nations invest several million euros into the development cooperation and education cooperation all over the world. The main countries that benefit from these are those facing transition to democracy and third world countries.

    But does this work?

    Actually, on some levels it works and on others is far from happening. For instance, these investments are good for the countries where they go, but unfortunately the lack of a true EU common foreign policy and strategy are deterring the effects that these funds could have in those societies. For instance, the new European member countries have to invest several millions euros into the cooperation projects but the lack of information, mostly on the citizens’ level, creates several problem like how and in which direction they should invest these funds.

    Romania for instance is financing with around 30 millions euros per year projects involving these kinds of cooperation projects. The countries which benefit from these funds, thanks to the NGO’s which have developed their activity there, are countries from the region like Moldavia, Georgia, Ukraine, Serbia … Shouldn’t we think at a common policy on the EU international cooperation? Shouldn’t we try to build up a common cooperation strategy that is in the benefit of all the European countries and NGO’s and most of all in the benefit of... » read more ...

    Tags: blogger of the week, development, solidarity

  • Electron filmed!

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    Rating: 4.8/5 with 4 votes

    Published Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 10:24
    by frederic.vareillas Join PES activists (888 views and 3 comments)

    Hi,

    American scientists have just filmed an electron in motion. Watch it on Yahoo News. It is time for us, Europeans, to pay our scientists a decent wage, and pay them well. It is time for us to fund correctly our science universities.

    Who's going to find the next source of energy?

    Yours friend,
    Frederic

    Tags: energy, investment, wages

  • “Revenge of Gaia” - just two more pieces of advice, if I may

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    Rating: 5/5 with 2 votes

    Published Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 10:16
    by frederic.vareillas Join PES activists (803 views and 2 comments)

    Dear friends,

    I would like to share two other readings with you so as we're able to think Europe's near future through:

    First: There's a very interesting issue of "L'Ecologiste" #24; Oct-Dec 2007 (French version of the original "The Ecologist", London, UK) about the biofuel hoax and slowing our cars' speed.

    Also look at the present issue of "The Ecologist": "The end of food as we know it" (London, 2008). You should also have a look at the website: www.theecologist.org – it’s interesting (English and French versions available).

    Second: A French essay by Eric Orsenna and Le Cercle des Economistes: "Un monde de ressources rares" (2008, paperback, French only). They offer some economical and political ways to deal with scarcity.

    Your friend,
    Frederic (Paris)

    Tags: biofuels, climate change, CO2, electricity, energy, environment, nuclear energy, oil, transport

  • A motion for a tax on financial transactions

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    Rating: 5/5 with 2 votes

    Published Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 09:59
    by amandinecrespy Join PES activists (698 views and 1 comments)

    For the French Socialist activists in Brussels, the latest news about the global financial markets remind the necessity to master international financial flows. The product of this law could be used to make globalization more social.

    By means of a motion submitted to activists’ signature, they want to mobilize socialist leaders on this issue. They welcome the commitment of some French figures as well as of PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen on this matter. The European Parliament itself had shown some will to explore the question.

    As the campaign for the 2009 European elections is coming, it is now time to take action in order to include the tax on financial flows into the PES 2009 manifesto.

    The motion was signed by French and European activists amongst whom Michel Rocard. You can post a comment if you want to sign the motion as well and your name will be added to the list.

    Tags: globalization, tax

    File: Motion taxation des transactions financières.doc

  • More about "Revenge of Gaia"

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    Rating: 5/5 with 2 votes

    Published Monday, February 25, 2008 at 17:22
    by frederic.vareillas Join PES activists (932 views and 2 comments)

    Dear friends,

    I have read your remarks about my post.

    True. Nuclear power is not 100 percent safe but which energy is? Coalmines ? Gas? Forget it: To many deaths. And oil is the poison, our lethal addiction. I remember Chernobyl but, compared to a French reactor, Chernobyl 3 was a poor piece of junk. Risk zero doesn't exist.

    Do we really have a choice? For the generation to come (25 years), nuclear power is the only possible choice unless we want to be in a new dark age (back to middle ages). Do you want this regression? Again, do we have a choice? We should have changed and adapted 25 years ago when the oil prices quadrupled. We didn't. Europe needs power - Europe needs electricity to avoid wars and to keep civilized.

    As to the disposal of nuclear WASTE I recommend again you read Sir Jim Lovelock's book "Revenge of Gaia". This book is a project to save civilization from the dark age. While you're at it, you should also read "Vers un monde de ressources rares" by Eric Orsenna and Le Cercle des Economistes" (2007, paperback).

    Then you'll understand the urgency of the present Europe's (and Earth's) situation. Good luck, keep it up!

    Your friend,
    Frederic (Paris)

    Tags: climate change, CO2, electricity, energy, environment, oil