Dear List Manager,
Can you please add  "[log in to unmask]"  thank you.

For Freedom
Saiks



>From: abdoukarim sanneh <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New statesman-Our greed for energy will be our downfall
>Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 14:00:59 -0800
>
>             Leader
>                 Please note: this page displays the most recent New
>Statesman leader. If you wish to link to this specific article, please link
>to this article's permanent page: http://www.newstatesman.com/200512050001.
>               Our greed for energy will be our downfall
>                   The question is not: can we sustain our energy supply
>without learning to love nuclear? It is, or at least should be: can Britain
>and similar countries sustain present levels of energy consumption without
>causing economic instability and environmental disaster? Politicians look
>at this issue from the wrong end of the telescope. The public is equally
>culpable.
>
>The six-month energy review initiated by Tony Blair is welcome. It will
>raise the quality of the debate about a subject on which views are
>polarised but often ill-informed. Both sides employ widely divergent
>statistics on the economic efficiency and the ecological effects of nuclear
>power. The industry - one of the most sophisticated lobbyists in the
>corporate world - claims that new-generation nuclear stations provide
>"clean" energy and that they perform enviably, producing few carbon
>emissions. Fact or fiction? Meanwhile, advocates of renewable energy,
>particularly wind turbines, argue that only a combination of government
>lethargy and local nimbyism is preventing rapid expansion of surely the
>least unlovable form of energy production. They point out that the
>government is withholding a £50m investment in wave power - a tiny sum,
>given the predicted tens of billions that will be required for eventual
>storing of nuclear waste.
>
>The debate raises inevitable suspicions about the Prime Minister's
>approach. Such is the government's track record of launching commissions,
>only to prejudge, distort or ignore their findings, that it seems hard to
>imagine that Blair has not already made up his mind. He has dropped enough
>hints to suggest that, whatever else it says, he wants the review to
>conclude that nuclear power continues to have a foothold in our energy
>policy.
>
>Atomic power provides a fifth of Britain's electricity. The projection is
>that, by 2020, when just one of the country's ageing reactors is scheduled
>to be operational, that share will fall to roughly 5 per cent. Cost remains
>the biggest obstacle. Not a single new reactor will be built without heavy
>state subsidies. Leaving aside the other issues, is this the best use of
>public funds? Even if a mass building programme were to take place, the
>role of nuclear in energy provision would still remain small. So what, one
>might say, would be the point?
>
>While coal continues to stave off its eventual demise, we rely ever more on
>gas - and as North Sea fields dwindle, that means relying on Russia and
>other parts of the former Soviet Union. Gas already produces roughly 40 per
>cent of our electricity, a figure that is expected to climb to 60 per cent
>by 2020. The problem with this is less economic and environmental than one
>of security, and international politics.
>
>The world is still learning the lessons of its dependence on oppressive
>Middle Eastern regimes, particularly Saudi Arabia, for oil supplies during
>the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. President Vladimir Putin now uses oil and gas
>deals - involving companies that are state monopolies in all but name - as
>his means of projecting Russian power. That power is growing, as a recent
>agreement with Germany attests. In one of his last major decisions as
>chancellor, Gerhard Schroder cut a deal with Moscow for a pipeline under
>the Baltic Sea which circumvents neighbouring states. The Kremlin was eager
>to portray this as a reward to a friendly state and a punishment to the
>likes of Poland. The EU has so far failed lamentably to construct a
>pan-European energy policy based on diversity, reliability of supply and
>environmental concern and which is also co-ordinated, preventing a
>divide-and-rule that will become ever more acute as demand around the world
>exceeds supply.
>
>For all the focus on supply, ultimately it is demand that will determine
>our security. It is all too easy for citizens and politicians of the UK and
>the rest of the EU to make defeatist noises about China, India and other
>new mega-consumers of energy. There is much we can do on a governmental and
>individual level to cut consumption, but precious little of that is being
>done. In his powerful book The Long Emergency, an extract of which was
>published in the New Statesman in August, James Howard Kunstler pointed to
>the impending energy crisis, arguing that the remaining fossil-fuel
>reserves tend to be concentrated in areas of greatest tension. Nuclear or
>no nuclear, we will not solve the problem of supply, but we can begin to
>deal with our own increasingly precarious needs.
>
>
>
>Welcome to the granny state
>
>People of all ages are feeling the squeeze. Adair Turner says we will have
>to work until we are 68 or older. Supposedly enlightened newspapers trot
>out more fatuous claims about women no longer wanting to "have it all" (as
>if they ever did). Just when thirtysomethings want to develop careers, they
>are told they shouldn't for fear of damaging their young offspring (the
>jury is out on that one). Meanwhile, those in their sixties and seventies
>who want to mix paid employment with recreation and family time are warned
>that it is about to get harder.
>
>Perhaps the UK should turn to the Continent, in particular Russia, for
>guidance? There it has long been the norm - under communism and capitalism
>- for the oldest generation to look after the youngest, perhaps handing
>them back to the parents at weekends. Boost grandparents' pensions as an
>incentive, then the problems are solved. Easy.
>                     To read comments on this week's vote click here
>
>                        [input]   [input]   [input]   [input]
>        Respond
>
>
>
>
>
>---------------------------------
>Yahoo! Shopping
>  Find Great Deals on Gifts at Yahoo! Shopping
>
>¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
>To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
>Web interface
>at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
>
>To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to:
>http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
>To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
>[log in to unmask]
>¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN Search Toolbar now includes Desktop search!
http://toolbar.msn.co.uk/

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤