Monthly Archives: January 2018

Tax & Survival

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rough sleepers

Rising numbers of homeless reflect the collapse of the public sphere

The number of people sleeping rough in UK has risen 169% since 2010. The NHS, education and all manner of council services are all in crisis due to chronic underfunding. As the public sphere collapses, excessively rich individuals take an ever greater share of the wealth. Meanwhile the natural world is being trashed at an unprecedented rate. Globally pollution now kills three times as many people as Aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

As I said in a blog in October ‘We need a pollution minimizing way of maximizing the benefits of a modern global economy that can bring prosperity to all humans while allowing biodiversity to flourish.’ That socially inclusive and ecologically sustainable goal can be achieved. The technological options are already available. The missing ingredient has been political will. Since the Thatcherite revolution of 1979 there has been a quasi religious belief in market forces and low taxes. It is time to challenge this.

Now might be the time to bring back big government, but in a radically reinvigorated manner. I would like to see the top rates of income tax raised to 100%, top rates of stamp duty and death duties increased, tax loopholes and tax havens closed. Corporation tax should be increased. The basic rate of income tax could also be raised by a few pence. Taxes on all forms of pollution should be set in order to force whole industries out of existence. All forms of advertising should be heavily taxed. Also many areas of government funding should be cut, from subsidies that promote unsustainable farming practices to oil and gas exploration. Many costly projects such as Trident, Hinkley C and HS2 could all be abandoned.

With this vastly increased revenue a lot of vitally important work should be done. A universal citizen’s income could be introduced. Funding for the NHS and education should probably be doubled. Political power needs decentralizing. Local government funding could be increased perhaps fourfold and many new responsibilities could be transferred from national to local government. Funding for socially and ecologically innovative projects would be available.

The conservative party once had a reputation for sound financial management, yet the national debt has massively increased under this incompetent Tory government. I think we could quickly reduce the national debt while creating a paradigm shift towards a socially fair and ecologically sustainable future. The health, education and wellbeing of people now and in the future needs investing in, and to do that we need to raise a lot more taxes.

Plastic Pollution

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Albatross killed by plastic

Theresa May has declared a ‘war on plastic’, however with the weak and distant goal to ‘eliminate all avoidable plastic waste’ within 25 years. It is another example of politicians claiming to lead while offering too little, too late. There is so much more that we could and should be doing, at all levels, from individual consumers through corporates to councils, national governments and up to the EU and UN.

Many individuals around the world are trying to make changes in their own lives to reduce pollution through our own lifestyle choices and in how we engage as citizens. For decades we’ve supported campaigning groups like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, and voted for the few politicians who seem to take these issues seriously. One of my favourite new initiatives is City to Sea, a grassroots consumer campaign set up by the singer Natalie Fee. Do watch her TED X talk: inspiring stuff!

As Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall shows, corporates can take a lead. He praises the supermarket chain Iceland who have committed to a five year timescale to reduce their use of plastic wrapping, so highlighting the slothful 25 year ambition of Theresa May.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are debates about how we could redesign the macro-economic structures that underpin the global economy. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is one of a number of organisations promoting a global switch from a linear to a circular economy. This means a shift from the current “take, make and dispose” extractive industrial model to an economy that is restorative and regenerative by design. I’ve blogged before about Hugo Spowers and Riversimple, whose whole business model incorporates this philosophy. (See this article in the Guardian.)

One of the biggest ideas is the switch from sale to lease. So Riversimple are a car company that plan never to sell a car, but to lease them, thus reversing the economic pressure to build obsolescence into the product. Can we imagine clothes, toothbrushes and children’s toys which were all designed to be leased and endlessly reused and/or recycled rather than being sold and thrown away?

There are many changes that could be brought about via taxation. The tax on single use plastic bags is a useful small first step. Increasing taxes on all extractive industries from coal mines, oil wells to iron ore mines would incentivize reuse and recycling as well as more efficient design and resource conservation. Governments, like corporations, will only act if they feel under pressure to do so. So please, keep supporting all those great groups like City to Sea and Friends of the Earth, and try wherever possible to elect politicians who will genuinely seek to take a lead on these issues. (See Molly Scott Cato’s response to Theresa May)

Solar & Farming

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solar & farming

Fraunhofer trial of solar panels over arable crops

The number of solar panels in use will keep growing for decades. Some will be on trains, ships, planes and integral with road surfaces. Probably most will be installed on rooftops and in deserts where they are not in competition with other land uses. A lot will be on farmland, where they can detract from agricultural production. Currently in the UK they tend to combine solar and livestock, often with the added goal of increasing biodiversity. Another possibility is to grow fruit, vegetables or arable crops in association with the panels. The Fraunhofer Institute have been running a trial on a third of a hectare plot at Heggelbach near Lake Constance, growing a variety of crops under the solar panels. The panels are more widely spaced than usual to allow sufficient light to reach the crops, and high enough for a combine harvester to work under them. The combined solar and agricultural productivity of the land should allow increased income for farmers. Other trials have taken place in USA, India and Japan. The Japanese project is growing 40 tons of cloud-ear mushrooms per year under a 4MW solar installation, which I would think must be one of the most productive dual uses of land anywhere and produce a good income for the farmer.

It seems to me that the best place to combine solar panels and agriculture is in the hot arid tropics where the shading is likely to help plant growth and reduce transpiration. The vegetation may also help keep the panels from overheating and so aid the efficiency of the solar panels. Doing a web search I’ve only come across a couple of small trial projects in India and USA. I’m sure other projects exist. They ought to. The potential benefits are huge. I would really like to see a large scale project doing both electricity and food production at a commercial scale, and doing proper scientific evaluation. The solar power might in part be used to drive irrigation, perhaps from solar desalinated seawater. The steel structure supporting the solar panels could also be used to hang shade netting, horticultural fleece or be integral to glass or plastic greenhouses, all of which could help increase crop production while reducing water use. Pioneering projects that I’ve blogged about in Somalia and Jordan could be expanded to incorporate solar panels directly over cropping areas. I think this may be one of the most beneficial technological combinations in the fight for food, energy and climate security. If anyone reading this blog knows of such projects perhaps they would send me a link. Thanks.