Greening Newcastle Welcome to issue 15 of the magazine of Newcastle Green Party, January 2012 Protest Core against battle council plans

Mass ramble from Heathery Lane (near Nature Reserve) along the ‘wildlife corridor’ builds up to the ‘Cluny’ for late lunch

Up and down the country, battles are breaking out over greenfield 11.00 a.m. Sunday, February 12th. sites threatened by a tide of new construction. Even the famous ‘Watership Down’ in Berkshire is at risk. This offensive is being Details will be circulated but keep looking at: driven by the attempt by the government to ‘get the economy going’ by means of infrastructural projects such as new roads and http://www.savegosforthwildlife.com/ high-speed train lines as well as speculative housing, retail and office developments. Far from addressing the real needs of ordinary empty shops and vacant office premises that already dot several people and coping with ecological threats such as adverse climate towns and cities. The housing construction at the heart of many change and post-peak oil, these plans are actually a desperate bid to such development will, most likely, create another speculative revive the ‘business-as-usual’. property bubble destined to burst, as has been seen across in Eire. The means by which such plans can be bulldozed through is the government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). Even The few benefit… again pro-Conservative papers like the Daily Telegraph have been calling Even if new-build does not go ahead, given the state of the it a “developers’ charter”. The NPPF is still only a draft yet planning property market, the very threat of large-scale construction work inspectors in places like Rutland and Nuneaton have been citing it will nonetheless blight many communities. But the big building to rule in favour of some very damaging housing developments. contractors such as Persimmons and Bellway will still profit. The fact that the NPPF favours “sustainable development” just Changes in land use designations, removing protection from shows how worthless that term has become. development, will inflate the value of the large amounts of urban Here in Newcastle the council argues that it has no alternative fringe land they own or on which they have acquired options. In but to produce a plan like the One Core Strategy (1CS) since, turn, such inflated assets would improve company balances, even otherwise, the government will impose a free-for-all. That is indeed though there has been no actual growth in real wealth. a possibility but the developments threatened by 1CS are all too At the same time, those now unemployed or whose jobs are at real. Indeed the council has gone and tempted developers with the risk will derive little benefit. Any economic expansion is likely to be thought of big profits on sites like Salters Lane (next to Gosforth comparatively ‘jobless’, with profits used to fund more automation. Nature Reserve). It is going to be hard to get the genie back into the Of course, construction work does create some employment but it bottle as a result of this rash plan. is often temporary and does not necessarily help locals. Some new jobs in supermarkets hardly match those now haemorrhaging from Unsustainable bubble the public sector and from the closure of so many local stores. Given what is now known about adverse climate change, ‘peak oil’ and many other growing ecological constraints, this attempt to Trouble in Toon bring back the ‘old economy’ is doomed in the long run, but, in TheOne Core Strategy of both Newcastle and councils is the short-term, it will do immense damage. This will, in turn, make accompanied by an economic programme imaginatively called The it harder to cope with the challenges ahead. One Plan. The latter can be found in glossy brochures picturing Thus global food prices are steadily rising yet what will be ‘high-tech.’ research facilities and ‘creative hubs’. Given the current priceless farmland in future decades is being buried under brick, state of the university sector, it is hard to see that it will provide concrete and tarmac. Many of the development will simply add to strong employment possibilities. Even if the envisaged ‘cutting the already unsustainable levels of CO2 emissions. Generally these edge’ companies do come into sustained existence (and look what developments just cover more of the country under urban sprawl. happened to lots of dot.com companies) they are unlikely to offer Meanwhile such development will worsen traffic congestion. jobs for the average unemployed person. Given the current economic climate, they will just add to the TheOne Core Strategy plan threatens to fatally cripple Gosforth 1 Nature Reserve with nearby housing developments (Persimmons claim their constructions will improve biodiversity!). Other planned developments will smother local neighbourhoods to the north-west and west of Newcastle. Meanwhile, old urban areas like Scotswood and Walker, where locals want regeneration projects and where there is plenty of genuine brownfield land, will be marginalised. Across in Gateshead, large numbers of fit housing will be demolished, instead of being refurbished, in the manner of the now widely discredited ‘Pathfinder Programme’ (see Anna Minton’s excellent book Ground Control) Local councillors and planners of course like to claim that they too do want to use brownfield sites. Yet, if given the choice as Picture: Gemma Marriner under the Strategy, developers will prioritise executive-style housing on greenfield sites. The government’s withdrawal of subsidies for Protest at Civic Centre last December brownfield development will accentuate this bias just as much as against threat to local Green Belt its slashing of support for solar installations will hinder the switch [No badgers were harmed in the making of this demo,] to renewable energy sources. The exclusion of ‘windfall’ brownfield sites (e.g. ones where, say, a factory has suddenly closed) from the threat from human numbers. But the two councils actually call strategic housing land availability assessment will accentuate this for an increased population as a strategic goal, an aim that is quite unsustainable bias to greenfield sites. irresponsible in what ‘steady-state’ economist Herman Daly rightly Many LibDem councillors who oppose the draft Strategy have calls a “full world”. called for a policy of ‘brownfield sites first’. Yet they also support In reality what they really want a return of well-off council the broad plan for economic growth. In the context of on-going tax payers who have moved out of the area to move back within physical expansion, the time would soon come where development the boundaries of Newcastle and Gateshead. But the numbers would use up all such options, leading inexorably to more and more themselves are used to justify a housing construction whose scale destruction of farmland, wildlife habitat and other open spaces. would be far higher than the best rate of the ‘boom years’, clearly a fantasy. Their dodgy projections for more and more house starts are Green alternative based on other unsound premises. Thus rival councils in the area, Only local Greens have posed the sustainable alternative: no more all with basically the same plan, are counting the same people more sprawl but better use of the existing built-up area, all within a than once, exploiting the imprecision relationship between resident vision of not overall growth but a ‘steady-state economy’. Instead and travel-to-work populations. of duplicating the excellent work of bodies such as the CPRE, local They also base their case on the fact of an ageing population, Greens decided to produce a broad critique, questioning the basic though the kind of housing that would be built offers little to assumptions, some unspoken, beneath the Strategy. senior citizens seeking to downsize. They further inflate their There has been widespread and growing public opposition. figures by counting the big influx of students, economic migrants Greens have played an important part. At the 420 strong public and refugees into the city. But such growth is unstable and could meeting at Gosforth Civic Hall last November to protest against be easily reversed. In any case, both local universities are building the threat against the local nature, Gateshead Green Party member more halls of residence. Indeed recovery of terraced house property Dave Byrne, a Durham University professor, was the main now rented to students could provide ideal homes for those at platform speaker and the event was co-chaired by a member from lower ends of the housing market. Recently groups like Poles have the Newcastle branch. begun to leave the area seeking better opportunities closer to home. It is very clear just how important political leadership is in such campaigns. At the last two council meetings, large numbers of Faulty projections protestors attended but it was obvious that many were uncertain Local Greens have also argued that ‘evidence-based policy-making’ what promises made by council leaders actually meant (usually is not all that it is cracked up to be. Extrapolations from past little!). The same has been true of public meetings which the circumstances which seem destined to disappear are far from sound. planners have organised. Some members of the public seemed to Thus many plans assumes that people could and should be able to be taken in by the honeyed phrases being bandied about. Claims, drive their cars more or less as they did before (hence provision for example that “people have to live somewhere” (… so this or of houses with twin garages). Yet it seems evident that the end of that green field has to be built on) can sway the undecided. It is large-scale private motoring could soon be in sight. In the past the vital, then, that a different, well-argued and comprehensive view UK was able to import lots of food. In the future that seems far less is articulated. certain. Thus the conservation of farmland will be vital while plans A number of false perspective and specific argument need to for more ‘urban agriculture’ ought to be formulated. It is similarly be challenged in such battles. The first is that the such plans rest a unlikely that past growth in university provision will continue in proper ‘evidence base’ (Planning Inspectors will check whether it the future. is ‘sound’). Local Greens argue that the evidence for the Strategy In any case, there are often unspoken values and other is more like a “dodgy dossier”, with out-of-date statistics, unsound assumptions beneath such policy-making with belief about desired assumptions and poor reasoning. goals also affected the way ‘facts’ are sought and used. Moreover, information can be ‘fixed’. Thus planners like to claim that they Numbers count have come to their conclusions objectively. Often they will say The related issues of population, housing need and strategic land that they have sieved possible sites in terms of their suitability availability are critical. The birth rate has gone on Tyneside as is development using various criteria. Yet a site that scores high (and the case in most parts of Britain. Clearly that presents long-term ought therefore to be protected) can be marked down if the value of problems which is why Greens have always warned about the neighbouring site is altered or sites amalgamated so that, together, 2 they then score ‘better’ in the site selection criteria. Copies of the Green Party objection to the Sometimes a particular site can simply be called a ‘neighbourhood One Core Strategy are posted here: growth area’ even though there is, at present, nothing there that http://neengland.greenparty.org.uk/assets/ meaningful constitutes any sort of functioning neighbourhood. But it still sounds good (as does the promiscuous prefixing of the files/northeastfiles/Newcastle/%20Green%20 word ‘sustainable’). Party%20response%20CS.pdf Land abuse Greens argue that there are quite big brownfield sites in poorer More background can be found here: parts of the city. Developers should be directed there. They also http://neengland.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/ point to the sheer scale of empty property on Tyneside as well as northeastfiles/Newcastle%20NL%2014.pd the scope for accommodation developments above shops. They also ask why, if the situation is as critical as the two councils claim, is investment being sought for flagship store and flashy office Picture: Keith Cochrane developments (several local ‘business parks’ now stand half-empty). The councils also confuse ‘demand’ (only the top-end of the property market, that for executive style housing, is currently buoyant) with ‘need’. In such a situation, those waiting for even a basic starter home will be ignored by reliance on so-called ‘market forces’. Indeed the evidence can be seen on the last big Green Belt grab to the north of Newcastle at the laughingly titled ‘Great Park’. There, only expensive houses have been thrown up and even so large bits remain empty such is the weakness in demand amongst even the better-off. The Greens argue that many of the harmful impacts of such developments cannot be mitigated by developers’ money. Once wildlife jewels such as Gosforth Park Nature Reserve are gone, they are gone for good. Built over farmland is extremely hard to restore to full productivity should the need arise. In other cases, attempts Much anger on Tyneside has been stirred by the threat to the local to offset problems like traffic congestion or water pollution will nature reserve (above). James Littlewood, director of the Natural be cripplingly expensive. Promises to leave ‘wildlife corridors’ have History Society of Northumbria, which manages the reserve told largely proved absolutely worthless in the past. Greening Newcastle: Greens have also to be fully aware of council machinations. In the case of Newcastle and Gateshead, the ruling Labour group tried “Gosforth Nature Reserve is a SSSI, local wildlife site and to get the Strategy through ‘under the radar’. Few had even heard Newcastle’s most important wildlife area. It is unique in of it until a mass protest at the November council meeting forced the city and cannot be replaced. Indeed there are few the council to extend the consultation period. Only then was more such important wildlife sites in the UK’s major cities and publicity given to the plan. Before then the council freesheet, City Newcastle should be proud of this natural asset, which Life, had failed to launch a proper dialogue. is one of the country’s oldest nature reserves. In the past Of course councillors and planners prey on public apathy and 12 months it has featured on the BBC’s Springwatch and resignation in the face of threatened developments. Supporters of as one of the reasons for Newcastle’s title of Sustainable the One Core Strategy like to imply that it is rather pointless to City. It is one of the city’s best natural assets and the resist. Local Greens have been calling this the ‘Vogon Argument’, jewel in the crown of an emerging green infrastructure after the Vogons’ battlecry “Resistance is useless” in The Hitch- network. There are currently 3 Bittern at the reserve and Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The Vogons, it may be remembered, we are hoping that they will breed in the near future - the were a race of constructors and developers. first time in the north-east since the 1950’s. We should Fortunately, as the Objection also highlights, there has been be looking forwards to celebrating a rare conservation growing public opposition. Andrew Grey, the local ‘lead’ Green success story not mourning one.” Party candidate in South Heaton ward, made the following comment: “The Councils wrongly claim that there is no alternative Keep up the oppostion to when, in fact, there are plenty of examples of better initiatives in several other cities and towns. We draw attention to many in our Objection. The two councils the ‘Core Strategy’. are using the forthcoming National Planning Policy Framework to justify a bad plan. It is the same old mix of wishful thinking and bad policy we saw in the now See page 4. discredited ‘Going for Growth’ programme. We Greens think that the current Core Strategy is so flawed that it would be better to go back to the drawing board. Join the mass ramble: Otherwise a Planning Inspector might just throw it out and we’ll be left with the nightmare of a developers’ free- for-all.” bring family and friends. 3 Opposing the Core Strategy

Local groups are mobilising on the west side of the city Nick Glover explains why we must fight to protect against the threat of massive developments on their doorstep. Gosforth Nature Reserve Adam Vaughan of Newcastle West Green Belt Protection Campaign explains why: The Reserveis an oasis of calm in the urban area but also a place of richness and diversity in terms of the wildlife it supports. Two Like most people in Newcastle, we first heard of the Council’s outstanding experiences that I have had at the Reserve in recent proposals indirectly. Somebody had read an article somewhere months underline its value for me. that mentioned house building plans for the West of the City. It One summer evening I was there as part of a bat watch; we were didn’t take much digging to find out the scale of the proposed stationed by a known roost tree and, as dusk fell, a few individual developments and everybody I met seemed genuinely outraged bats emerged. Suddenly the few turned into a stream, too many that such significant plans could be put forward without notice. and too quick to count, as we were supposed to do. To see perhaps From our very first public meeting held in Callerton, it was 80 noctule bats emerge so dramatically in the space of a couple of obvious that we were going to have to step in where the Council minutes illustrated the largely hidden and unappreciated life that had failed and urgently bring this to people’s attention. We inhabits the Reserve. soon gathered support from across all the affected areas, from The other occasion was on an early winter afternoon. I noticed , Kenton Bank Foot and in the North, small flocks of starlings starting to circle over the Reserve. Over down to Wallbottle, Abbey Farm and in the South, and the next ten minutes more and more groups joined the main covering numerous villages and suburbs that will all bear the brunt body until we had a wheeling, circling flock, several hundred in of the plans. number, giving a wildlife “performance” that would remain in the We’ve spent a lot of time going through the One Core Strategy memory for a long time. in detail, attending consultation events and speaking to officers. These are not unique experiences, but they illustrate the rich However hard we try, we just can’t accept that these decisions are biodiversity that exists in, and depends upon the Reserve and the being made in the best interests of the City. This is Newcastle’s open land surrounding it. This is an area that we cannot afford to Back Yard, and the green belt has prevented urban sprawl and lose if we are to live in a sustainable 21st century urban region. villages from merging for generations. Now, the proposals, not least the Callerton Park Strategic Growth Area, are an assault on our countryside and green spaces. WALK ON THE The plans are based on questionable housing numbers to meet questionable forecasts of population and growth. They will result WILD SIDE in an unsustainable sprawl giving rise to traffic congestion on all the arteries into the city, and an unnecessary burden on local services. They must be stopped! See: www.nwgreenbelt.org.uk

The extent of the relationship between Persimmon Homes and planners has been revealed by a Freedom of Information request, released to ‘Save Gosforth

Wildlife’ just before Christmas As early as October 2010, Peter Jordan, regional projects director of Persimmon Homes, wrote Join the walk along the wildlife corridor from Gosforth Nature Reserve to the to Newcastle City Council urging it to include the site next to th River Tyne, Sunday Feb 12 . Gosforth Nature Reserve for development. He claimed that “the site is in an extremely sustainable location”. Subsequently, this Protest the outrageous proposal to build 600 houses next to Gosforth Nature site was included in the City’s preferred options for development. Reserve, which would destroy buffer zones and block off the wildlife corridor through Dene, along the line of the .

Muster at 11 a.m. at the west end of Heathery Lane (see map). Additional starting points: Gosforth Nature Reserve and Melton Park (10.30 a.m.) and West Moor Community Centre (10.15 a.m.). The walk, following the line of the Ouseburn, will take approximately two hours, and we will stop at The Cluny for refreshments, then continue towards the Tyne, and Millennium Bridge.

For more information, tel. 0191 213 6063 or e-mail [email protected].

www.SaveGosforthWildlife.com

4 No Way Bellway

The leaders of neighbouring North Tyuneside Council and their been started. (Indeed, at nearby Newcastle Great Park, only 600 of friends amongst the big development companies act as if it is the the planned 2,500 properties have been completed) divine mission to destroy every last blade of grass in the area. The Of course the White House Farm is near Gosforth Park and tide of sprawl has spread across more land there than anywhere else so developers entertain greater hopes of making a killing there. on Tyneside. The costs are the same though: loss of vital farmland It certainly will help to kill off Gosforth Nature Reserve already and wildlife habitat, more cars on the road and longer journeys, menaced from the south by Persimmons. The White House the smothering of healthy ocal communities, loss of recreational development site constitutes 33% of farmland within a 2km radius space, greater greenhouse gas emissions and general environmental from the centre of the nature reserve. This is vital foraging land. damage… Meanwhile once shiny new office developments stand New roundabout construction will be needed on Salters Lne and, half empty and genuinley derelct brownfield sites are left to rot. overall, a tide of new traffic from these developments thereaten A particularly bad example – though far from the only one – choke areas such as Haddrick’s Mill en route to Newcasle. can be seen at West Moor where Bellway is seeking to dump some The local action group deserves maximum support: 366 houses and flats on the White House Farm site. 8 previous See http://www.westmooractiongroup.co.uk/Home.html applications have been turned down but now the developers are back So too do other groups fighting the development monster, not again, wanting to throw up even more speculative housing than the least: 267 they sought the last time. Yet, of existing sites that already have http://www.holystoneag.co.uk/article. planning permission for new housing, an incredible 67% have not php?start=5&tag=Whitehouse%20Farm Please contact them and voice your support for their struggles.

The White House farm development (left) is only one of several proposed for , some of which can be seen below

5 Left, Twyford Down, destroyed by new road Right, part of the proposed route of the London-Birmingham high-speed train route

Tyne Green Talk a series of discussion meetings organised by Newcastle & Gateshead Green Parties All welcome!

19.30, Wednesday, Feb. 15th, Topic: Transport

The Central (upstair room), Gateshead end of Tyne Bridge

(Metro: Gateshead) Transport is a sector where society seems to be reaching the limits to growth most rapidly. At a time when the European Union, for example, is proclaiming strategies for what it calls ‘sustainable’ mobility, the reality may be that we have to start planning now for less movement. Mass mobility, both in terms of sheer volume, speed and specific modes of transport has already meant colossal levels of environmental, economic and social damage Furthermore, the present transport system has been heavily subsidised directly and indirectly by government policy while alternatives have been strangled. The bias towards cars is grossly inequitable, discriminating against the needs of those who, for reasons of income, age or disability, cannot drive or who simply prefer to walk, cycle or travel by bus and train. All kinds of technological ‘fixes’ have been pursued; the substitution of diesel for petrol engines, catalytic converters, more fuel-efficient vehicles, electric cars, car pooling schemes, bus priority lanes, road pricing, traffic-calming road alterations… However, continued growth in the number of vehicles must eventually cancel out possible gains. Some measures like road pricing are also highly inequitable since the rich could afford to pay up but not the poor. Already some bus and train networks are badly congested; some cities are even suffering from a surfeit of cycles. Small- scale traffic calming measures like blocking off selective streets may merely transfer displaced cars and lorries to other thoroughfares. Some schemes like ‘high occupancy only lanes’ may need costly bureaucratic enforcement. What is the best route to a sustainable transport system? The first of the new Green Party disucssion meetings will explore the options. Join the debate. 6 Occupy? The so-called ‘Occupy’ camp has now disappeared from the Monument. Tony Waterston visited it and wonders about what the protestors had to say.

The protest movement calls themselves ‘the 99%’. They consider that they adopt the majority view in the country on the banking an economic crisis. True? Maybe – or maybe not. There are certainly very many in the country who agree that:

• The bankers who caused the crisis should not be rewarded; • There should be much greater regulation of the bank; • The current level of income and wealth inequalities is scandalous and should be remedied; • The political system is corrupting and is not working to the benefit of the majority

However, we may wonder how many agree that

• There should be voting reform towards a system of proportional representation; • There should be higher taxation for all to fund the health service and education; • There should be lower consumption; 99%? • Capitalism is the cause of our economic problems; • Increased growth is unsustainable and fuels global warming. It is a good slogan: 1% versus the 99%. But income and wealth distribution is, of course, rather more complicated that the figures …I suspect not the majority. suggest. The poorest tenth of the population now have, between them, 1.3% of the country’s total income and the second poorest How do they plan to tackle their aims? As far as I can understand, tenth have 4%. In contrast, the richest tenth have 31% and the this is simply through their presence and their actions. They intend second richest tenth have 15%. The income of the richest tenth is to be a visible (though non-violent) assault on the centres of more than the income of all those on below-average incomes (i.e. corporate greed, thereby increasing political pressure for change. the bottom five tenths) combined. They wish to enable a dialogue with members of the public, the The proportion of total income going to the richest tenth is church and the bankers themselves on the harm being done by the noticeably higher than a decade ago: 31% in 2008/09 compared present system. And they mean to demonstrate (at least in the St with 28% in 1998/99. The rest of the income distribution changed Paul’s demo) that democracy can work in a different way, through little over the last decade. Clearly there are good few more than a daily assembly and a system of organisation which values all skills just 1% who have major stakes in the current social and economic and personalities. system and live, as the Americans say, ‘high on the hog’. Does this mean becoming political? I’m not sure whether they want to, even though the Green Party is clearly the one to join. As a graduate of the CND marches, the Iraq war march and the climate change demonstration, and as a frequent visitor to Palestine, I have The on-going Euro-crisis, in particular the imposition of bail- seen that numbers count. The huge London demonstrations had an outs with stringent austerity terms, not least in Greece, has a effect on public opinion owing to their sheer mass, and in Egypt’s political side which is being rather hidden by the furore over Tahrir square (which was an influence on the UK occupations), the the cuts themselves. However elite groups in countries like numbers increased week by week. Greenpeace demonstrations have Germany and France are exploiting the situation to pursue been effective through the sheer bravery and eye-catching insolence greater political centralisation across the EU. It would create of their actions. structures that are far less democratic and far less responsive However I am anxious that in London and Newcastle, the to the needs of local communities and environments. Instead numbers aren’t going to increase and the public will soon get the rule of the ‘Few’ would be much more deeply entrenched. bored – unless the strategy changes. Should this be towards non- On the danger of a new ‘Euro-Despotism’, see: this video: violent direct action? To me, the urgency of the situation and the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxMOW94V6xQ lack of any cohesive political action by government demands this approach.

7 Word Game There seems to be increased interest in alternatives to the inequality, waste and destruction inherent in the today’s social order. In the next issue we will discuss the extremely well attended presentation by Richard Wilkinson, co-author of the ‘Spirit Level’ who argued that fairer societies are also happier and more secure ones. Here, we focus on the recent lecture by Professor Tim Jackson whose book ‘Prosperity Without Growth’ has also received considerable praise.

Professor Jackson’s lecture at Newcastle University was unusually erudite and engaging. Fortunately the big Curtis Auditorium was packed so many people got to hear his words of wisdom. Above all, he conclusively demonstrated that what he called the ‘old economy’ was finished, even though politicians, civil servant and business leaders run around helplessly trying to find some means of reviving it. He outlined the contours of a new economy that can satisfy genuine human needs whilst not trashing the ecological base on which any form of economy inescapably depends. Debate about these critical matters is, however, often befogged by the language with which it is conducted. Thus Newcastle- Gateshead councils’ Core Strategy uses much of the language employed by Jackson (prosperity, sustainability …) to justify a concerted attempt to revive the ‘old economy’. The government’s changes to the National Planning Policy Framework have also been presented by ministers as a step towards more ‘sustainable development’. Elsewhere there are individual commentators like Mark Lynas and Stewart Brand who are using ‘sustainability’ to justify a radical strangle solar rivals). We cannot ‘work together’ (as ‘reformists’ so expansion of both genetic engineering and nuclear power. Others often advocate) with people who, deep down, have no intention of like Amory Lovins argue that ‘smart growth’ can do the trick, co-operating with us. avoiding any need for more radical change. So there is a battle over the very meaning of such language. Gigantism Perhaps the biggest word missing from Professor Jackson’s talk was Nice one a small five letter one: ‘scale’. It was absent in several ways. One of Professor Jackson could not possibly cover even a fraction of what his slides, for example, featured the conventional economic model needs to be said in his allotted time but, hopefully, it may not be centred on the circular interaction between firms and households. too churlish to note one or two absences, ones to do with words But Jackson did not directly address the issue of the very size of not said. First, however, a certain politeness in Jackson’s approach some of those firms, something that can make them “too big to might be noted. Perhaps this stems from his personality, perhaps fail” (at our collective cost… to their further profit) and which from too much time Jackson has spent in academia and the (outer) gives them such political ‘clout’ that mainstream politicians quail corridors of power (the recently chopped Sustainable Development before them. Commission etc). Then there is still more important matter of the ‘scale’ of all those However, a bit more anger might be in order, not least to households and the people they contain. But human numbers did mobilise ordinary people. It might help to denounce more full- not get a proper emphasis. It is not just a matter of their pressure on bloodedly the rottenness of our socio-economic order: the physical space and resources. The ‘weight’ of each voter in society’s sheer stench of the present economic structures, the greed and ‘household’, for instance, inevitably goes down with a growing irresponsibility, the breadth and depth of human suffering, the number of voters, not an argument against democracy per se, but repression of protest, the violence against other forms of life… still something to be taken into account, not least in gargantuan Indeed a TV show like the Tamara Ecclestone: Billion $$ Girl or excrescences like the EU. It might also be noted that some of the the exposés of the ‘City’ in Private Eye might perhaps do more world’s worst violence is happening in lands with the most rapidly to open eyes about individual profligacy or corporate abuses than growing populations: it is no mere coincidence. the most technically correct economic graph. Certainly we need Then there is the scale of the total human economy (numbers to pack emotional punches as well as sharpen rational arguments. x. per capita consumption x. type of technology used) in relation to What did not come through forcefully enough from Jackson’s the total ecosystem as well as equivalent local and regional carrying lecture was the way certain individuals and groups gain profit capacities. There must be some proportion or else ruin must follow, and power from ‘business-as-usual’. They systematically deny as surely as night follows day. Obviously if we have fewer people, problems, witch-hunt those who raise alarm (witness the story of the ecosystem could cope with greater consumption per person (not Rachel Carson), disown their responsibilities (remember Bhopal), just goods and services but comparative intangibles like ‘privacy’). drag their feet when action becomes unavoidable (crawling pace But it is total pressures that tell. So we need ways of regulating over global warming) and sabotage alternatives that threaten their the quality and quantity of human interactions with the rest of exalted position (look at how the nuclear industry has tried to nature. Jackson tended to focus more on the need for new indicators 8 and targets within the human economy (all necessary) rather than of unsustainable and unworthy things. The grossly over-praised measures advocated by the likes of ‘steady-state’ economist Herman Brundtland Report thus advocated an expansion of nuclear power, Daly to set limits to those total impacts. Daly also stresses the need the putting of more land under the plough and a big growth in for limits on economic differentials within society. If we must bake world trade. Another words is sometimes added: ‘quality’ (as in a smaller cake, it is even more urgent to share it out fairly. ‘quality of life’) or ‘qualitative’ (as opposed to quantitative) growth. Jackson effectively demolished one assumption after another of Then ‘choice’ is also used promiscuously. the ‘old economy’ loyalists, the growth boosters and the snake oil It might be wondered if all those heads nodding in agreement salesmen. Yet, at the end of his talk, the audience was not left with with Professor Jackson at the Curtis Auditorium event were a crystal-clear presentation of the fundamental ‘paradigm’ choice: actually agreeing with quite different things. In any case, the whole growth (of any shape or form) or the steady-state. [The latter is not ‘old economy’ was denounced in generalities and, like sin, no-one some fixed point: rather it is more like the dynamic balance that a was likely to stand up and publicly demand more of it. Of course, successful cyclist has to maintain] John Stuart Mill recognised this where it comes down to reducing, let alone banning of, specific back in the 1840s so it is scarcely a modern insight. But it is still activities and products, that unanimity might rapidly disintegrate. one that needs to be loudly voiced midst all today’s clamour “to get Thus calls for a lowered motorway speed limit, desirable on many the economy growing again”. grounds, trigger virulent opposition. Yet one more word was not heard loud and clear at this point: But there are also deeper problems. ‘Personal development’ overshoot. There are, of course, dangers in voicing an excess of may be very worthwhile for the individual, while most of us ‘bad news’ and, in any case, it must be presented sensitively. But welcome some choice in our lives. Yet all these things do not facts are facts. Indeed, it only compounds the crisis if the reality exist in a vacuum. They depend on physical things. One might is not faced that humankind – in toto – has already transgressed develop ‘musically’, for example, but it might help to have musical several ecological safety margins. Pursuit of growth of any kind at instruments, hi-fi systems and concert halls, all of which come that point is like shovelling coal into the boiler of a runaway train with ecological price tags. Furthermore, individuals can only do heading for a cliff.1 so much; usually one (worthy) option comes at the expense of The proliferation of all sorts of social ills suggests that, beyond a another, if only for reason of time constraints. Limits-to-growth certain point, pursuit of more growth triggers parallel breakdowns and trade-offs apply again… and again, it is something lost in the within the purely human community too. Both individuals and verbal fog of ‘personal development’, ‘quality’ and ‘choice’. whole communities can only be ‘stretched’ so far, before the social fabric begins to tear. Here Jackson did indeed make some excellent Wreckers’ Ball points about the absence of any linear correlation between economic Professor Jackson’s picture of the world tended to be somewhat growth and increased consumption, on the one hand, and, on the lacking in flesh and blood. Real people and real organisations were other, personal and social well-being. It is indeed possible to have absent. It sometimes seemed as if the ills he so deftly described too much of a good thing, let alone bad ones. were happening of their own accord or were simply due to misunderstandings and misinformation. But forces like so-called Befogged Big Tobacco, Big Sugar, the Fossil Fuel Barons and their ilk know Discussion of these matters particularly suffers because of a veritable exactly what they are doing and how much they stand to gain from fog created by vague words like ‘growth’ and ‘development’. doing more of it. Have we forgotten names like Monsanto, Enron, Those two in particular have come to mean whatever their users Halliburton, BP, Cargill, Dow, BAE, Goldman Sachs… ? want them to mean. Indeed, they can be used to justify all sorts And we haven’t started on assorted religious fanatics, political crazies (Peru’s Shining Path’, etc.)… and Jeremy Clarkson. 1. Some of those margins – or, rather, ‘minefields’ – are listed here: http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/researchnews/ Governments too play their malign part (Trident, foreign wars, tippingtowardstheunknown/thenineplanetaryboundaries.4.1fe8f3312357 new nuclear power programmes, support for genetic engineering, a 2b59ab80007039.html wealth of ‘perverse’ subsidies, tax cuts for the super-rich, blind eyes to tax havens, etc… and, in some countries, economic incentives for large families). Then there are the assorted kleptocrats (Suharto, Marcos, Duvalier and so forth, though it seems unfair to leave out the likes of Warren Buffett, the Koch Brothers, the Duke of Westminster and their kind too), ‘mafia states’ (Russia, etc.), non- states (Somalia and co.) plus a weird and not wonderful variety of ‘rogue states’: Syria, Iran, Israel, North Korea… oh yes, and the USA So we need to be frank and forthright about all those vested interests. That includes full recognition of those large sections of the general public who, either as workers or consumers, support, in one way or another, destruction-as-usual (Jackson’s work is very perceptive about the psychology of consumerism). Many ordinary citizens play a willing, indeed wilful part of the waste and despoliation around us (from ‘litter louts’ to SUV enthusiasts). There is indeed a vast anti-sustainability army with many generals and many, many more foot soldiers. There are plenty of examples of this mass zeal for consumerism. The average wedding cost is expected to be around £18,600 in 2011. It is not just a conspiracy by retailers to flog more stuff (an average bride’s outfit now costing £1500, for example) but something in which millions enthusiastically participate. The list 9 This diagram is taken from the excellent study ‘The Conserver Society’ by Kimon Valaskakis et al (Harper and Row, 1979)

QOL = Quality of life

could go on and on. The point is to be honest about the breadth The very title of Professor Jackson’s book Prosperity Without and depth of opposition to what Professor Jackson called the ‘new Growth rightly draws attention to the need to curb growth and economy’. It is certainly discouraging. But naïveté will lead to even strive for greater ‘service’ (fulfilment, contentment and so forth) greater discouragement. from lowered impacts on the Earth’s life-support systems. But there It is all very well to call for a ‘national conversation’, a ‘great does come a point beyond which we cannot keep on squeezing debate’, and ‘dialogue’. But what if they – the massed ranks more satisfaction from fewer things. Indeed the disruptive impacts assaulting the Earth – are not prepared to listen and will not talk. of Peak Oil and so forth suggest that the landing might be a hell Look how long it took to take lead out of petrol even though of a lot bumpier than the common narrative of a comparatively the hard evidence was overwhelming. How many died quite painless readjustment suggest unnecessarily in the meantime? Look at the failure to stop the No mention has been so far of that other variable: information. hunters, trappers, poachers, poisoners, forest clear-cutters, ‘wall of But it too depends on physical ‘holders’ (books, computers and death’ commercial fishers, factory farmers … and the consumers of so forth) and is therefore constrained. Human brains and sensory their products who – together – are wiping out biodiversity. Will organs too suffer, beyond a certain point, from ‘overload’, i.e. excess sweet words of reason stop them? If not, what? We certainly need throughput. Anyone who attends committees will be painfully to talk about that. aware of the counter-productive nature of excess throughput in terms of overladen agendas. Similarly, excessive throughput Blocked passages of data, targets, instructions and general co-ordination activity Another word might help disperse the fog created by the language bedevils planning processes. of ‘growth’ and ‘development’. It is throughput: in other words, So all claims about smart growth, better planning, more the physical space, energy and raw material passing through the research, the unleashing of human creativity, the construction human economy, whatever its actual form, capitalist or otherwise. of a ‘knowledge economy’ (a.k.a. the ‘weightless economy’), A comparison might be drawn with the ‘throughput’ of food in the ‘dematerialisation’ and so forth do contain some wisdom but ‘economy’ of the human body: it has to come from somewhere, it ultimately it all comes back to the ground: the Earth and the creates side-effects as it passes through, and, of course, it has to go ‘rules’ that have enabled it to sustain life. It might not be a popular somewhere. An excess of even the healthiest foodstuffs does more thought but perhaps the real challenge is not ‘prosperity without harm than good. growth’ but ‘sustainable contraction’. The actual economy too depends on certain sources (limited by nature) and sinks (their number and assimilative capacities At your service similarly limited) while the use of the actual good and services thus The ‘new economy’, as presented by Professor Jackson, seemed to obtained can be disruptive beyond a certain level (e.g. more cars > depend a great deal on an expansion of the so-called service sector, more congestion > demand for more roads…). including health, social care and education as well as opportunities 10 for leisure and what he called ‘creativity’. Now many of these things claiming that GMOs are vital to feed the world (they never say are very useful. The collective and individual costs of sickness, anything about the number of mouths nor the hugely wasteful neglect and ignorance need no underlining. Most of us welcome diets but that is another matter) the chance to go walking, do some gardening and in all sorts of Such language must be contested. Perhaps Professor Jackson other ways pursue what might be seen as ‘re-creation’. might have tried to find time in his admittedly short presentation But this whole sector of society does not necessarily carry to stress the central question of weighing output against total costs a lower ‘footprint’ than the dark satanic mills of yesteryear. For (cost of all inputs, side-effects and all other costs). Thus the ‘success’ a start, as noted above, these activities all come with price tags. of high output farming has to be set against not just the energy Nature’s accounts do not distinguish the energy and matter and raw materials it needs but also the nutrient depletion, soil embodied in armoured cars or ambulances, for example. Generally compaction, aquifer depletion, water pollution, the destruction of the service sector still depends on extractive and manufacturing biodiversity and so forth. It ought to include other costs like the industries for the buildings and equipment it uses, even if some of nutritional decline of many foodstuffs yielded by the system. Full those items might now be made out of sight, in faraway places like accounting would also include the break-up of rural communities China (and thus charged to their, not our, ecological bills). Large- due to the loss of local jobs due to intensive farm mechanisation. scale transportation, with all its impacts, is central to much ‘service Proper ‘book-keeping’ would also adopt a long-term time work’ (look at all the car journeys by care workers, for example). frame. Modern farming systems might be yielding much produce. These activities also have their own direct impacts. Hospitals, for But they are fast undermining their own foundations. The impact example, generate considerable amounts of toxic waste. Education of ‘Peak Oil’ alone will doom this way of producing food. So in buildings have covered large areas of land with brick, concrete and many respects what seem to be lower yield systems actually will tarmac. [Professor Jackson’s lecture took place in a building that produce more and more of better quality, albeit only over the long typifies the hideous carbuncles that many universities have thrown run. up; indeed much of the central campus at Newcastle University In reality, genuinely sustainable production systems and was carved out by destroying working class housing] associated technologies will be slower and smaller than today’s Communication systems, not least the banks of servers superficially productive farms and factories. The sustainable cake underpinning the Internet, consume large amounts of electricity will cater only for greatly reduced demand. The reason is simple. and, in some cases, scarce minerals (a cause of war in places like Any stable system has to use a lot of what it produces simply to the Congo). Indeed the scale of so-called ‘e-waste’ is now becoming protect, repair and generally maintain itself: there is less left over quite unsustainable. Surely little needs be added about the costs for other uses. of sport and tourism, be it the ‘green cancer’ of golf courses, So an agriculture based on the cultivation of perennials (as the environments gouged out by all terrain vehicles of one sort advocated by the Kansas Land Institute, for example) would be or another, the waters polluted by leisure craft2… An increasing much more ecologically sustainable than one that cultivates annual number of footpaths have been eaten away simply by the sheer crops but its yearly food yield would be lower. It is true that there are number of walkers. areas where there is avoidable waste such as planned obsolescence Limits-to-growth apply to the service sector in other ways. which offer scope for a better use of the existing throughput. Many of its institutions have grown so big and become so Beyond that, increased productivity is possible only at the cost an bureaucratised that they frustrate the goals they were created to increase in overall entropy within a system. serve. Well documented cases of abuse, neglect and incompetence This is the absolutely critical point that many ‘anti-austerity’ in hospitals and social services abound, suggesting that the problem campaigners seem unwilling or unable to grasp. One may is not just under-investment and poor training. critcise the gross unfairness of current austerity programmes The incidence of iatrogenesis, for example, should discourage and the things they target. But any government committeed simplistic thinking that more ‘health care’, ipso facto, means more to sustainability would have to make deep cuts, ones that health. Schools, college and universities also suffer from a gigantism dramatically lower the overall ‘throughput’ in the human that make the whole experience more like a factory production line economy. Those cuts would, in turn, mean less wherewithal for (one, with hugely rewarded managers at the top, as in the NHS,) many current goods and services. than a rigorous and rich education. The inequalities inherent in private health provision, private schooling, private sports facilities Resources running out? and so on need no comment. In his frequent – and obviously important – references to the finite So perhaps we ought to be a bit cautious about Professor planet on which we all live, Professor Jackson tended to stress Jackson’s bright ideas about a new economy resting on an expansion resources per se. In doing so, he did not give due attention to of the service sector. It also has to be stressed that no new economy the other side of the coin: the side-effects of resource extraction, can be considered truly sustainable if the goods and services on manufacture, consumption and disposal. To be sure, he certainly which it rests could not be sustainably generalised across the planet. was making a critical point. As the ‘low hanging fruit’ model In other words, we have to keep asking what would happen suggests (most accessible and finest fruit picked first), there is an if the 1.3 billion inhabitants of China had, say, the same number inevitable shift, in a growing economy, from the best resources of computers, hospital beds, or golf gear in equivalent per capita to lower grade, more distant and less secure sources of supplies as terms as, say, the UK. high quality ones are depleted. So the peak of high grade coal is not far away, even if total reserves of that substance might seem Yield voluminous. In any discussion of economics, words like ‘productivity’ and Furthermore, some resources possess special qualities, ones that ‘efficiency’ soon pop up. Again it is vital not to take them at face make the traditional practice of substitution far from sustainable. value. Thus mainstream economists, agribusiness representatives To be sure, the old ‘biofuel’ economy (wood-burning) was replaced and many others will, for example, extol what they claim to be the by fossil fuels. Similarly, horses were replaced by powered vehicles. high output from modern farming. Genetic engineers go further, Uses were found for substances like uranium that were previously 2. See: http://www.stopthrillcraft.org/definition.htm ignored. 11 But past practices may not be replicable in the future as we begin of general degradation and simplification. In other words, many to deplete the cheap and ready availability of all sorts of resources destructive activities are comparatively ‘clean’. One only needs to at more or less the same time. Then society becomes locked into a look at hydro-electricity which has arguably done more harm than deadly game of musical chairs. We will need to do things differently nuclear power (to date!). In some areas it is eve thought to have in the future. increased seismic activity due to the sheer weight of impounded So, often, the problem is not supply per se. Rather it is waters. But there are many such ‘clean-but-unsustainable’ activities ‘collateral damage’. There might be mountains of coal: what is such as overfishing, poaching, wetland drainage, aquifer depletion, more unsustainable is the wreckage wrought by extraction and the salinisation, dredging, river engineering (e.g. replacement of equally harmful impacts of burning the coal once it has been mined vegetation with concrete embankments), tree felling, monocultural and transported to the point of use. Indeed, the human economy planting, importation of alien plants and animals, and the paving mobilises all sorts of minerals such as uranium, lead and mercury, over of land. ones present ‘naturally’ but not in the locations and concentrations A ‘low carbon economy’ would defuse none of these timebombs. that their extraction, use and disposal create. Take the ‘green car, for instance. To be sure electric engines have a Even the most carefully controlled mining, processing, milling number of advantages over petrol and diesel ones. But the problem and all the other processing will degrade and pollute as well as cause is not just the question of where the electricity comes from. ‘Green direct harm to people (silicosis, pneumoconiosis, cancers, direct cars’ would still consumes vast acres of space for roads and parking injuries etc.). All such activities deplete wildlife habitat, regardless as well as infrastructure such as traffic controls and street light. of the abundance or otherwise of the resource itself. So to do Pedestrians and other forms of life would still be killed and injured monocultures of any kind. Just look at the biological deserts that in big numbers. ‘Green cars’ would still drive urban sprawl further are coniferous plantations, compared to unmodified old-growth out into the countryside. There might be a case for some electric woodland. vehicles, e.g. taxis and delivery vehicles, but limits still apply. It has to be stressed that the second law of thermodynamics tell us that there will always be unrecoverable ‘losses’ from use of Economic form energy and matter. Heat loss, material dissipation, wear and tear Another word does not figure prominently in much discourse are unavoidable. Notions of a ‘zero waste economy’ are absurd, about sustainability and prosperity: ‘capitalism’. Of course, it is contradicting everything science teaches us. That is not to say that one where, again, there is much debate about its meaning. Some we should not try to maximise reuse, repair and then recycling. But restrict it to ‘private production for private profit’, others define again there are limits! it more broadly (as in ‘state capitalism’). Certainly the Occupy movement has given the phrase ‘anti-capitalism’ more resonance. Carbon con? Whatever the vagueness of statements from that source, perhaps its Of course Professor Jackson is perfectly aware of much of this. He supporters are closer to the truth than those who propose a ‘caring duly stresses certain instances of such ‘collateral damage’, mostly capitalism’, one with a ’human face’, one operating “as if the world notably global (over)warming. There is a danger, however, of falling matters”, to use Jonathon Porritt’s phrasing. into what has been called the ‘carbon discourse’. In other words, Whatever definition is used, there seem to be fundamental what in reality is a many faceted ecological crisis is reduced largely and irresolvable contradictions between capitalism and long- to one (albeit extremely alarming) manifestation: carbon emissions. term sustainability. The growth imperative is fundamental to the This may can divert attention from other dangers, both within the system: it cannot be reconciled to the finite nature of the Earth. threat from adverse climate change and beyond, as well as cast in a The ‘cash nexus’ and the market mechanism discounts the needs favourable but undeserving light certain policy options, ones that of those who, for one reason or another are able to bid enough in often go under the label of ‘low carbon economy’.3 the market place (the poor, those yet to be born, other species). For a start, greenhouse gases and carbon emissions are discussed Market-based systems also tend to destroy competition as the more so often together that they almost become one and the same thing. powerful players gobble up weaker rivals. As a result, other ‘overwarming agents’ like methane may not get So a radical economic restructuring will be necessary. There will the attention they need. It might be wondered if there may be an still be a role for small and medium size private businesses but they element of self-censorship amongst many critics of the status quo. will have to operate within a framework characterised by strong Gases like methane are intimately linked to basic activities like food public regulations and a strong public sector, with a large number production and therefore the number of mouths to be fed. That, of activities performed by co-ops and other such associations. in turn, leads to that most politically incorrect word ‘population’ There is not the space to go into detail regarding the systemic (or, worse, the unwelcome thought that there may be too many shortcomings of capitalism nor the alternatives to it (on which, to mouths already). be fair, much work still needs to be done). The point here is that At the time, there is not just an excessive growth in greenhouse the ‘plutocrats’ – or whatever one wishes to call them – are a major gases from human sources but also a contraction, again to human menace as are all the structures that create and sustain them. This activity, of balancing ecological ‘sinks’ as well as changes to the needs to be said loud and clear. There should be no truck with the albedo of the Earth’s surfaces. The result is further overwarming like of Will Hutton who seem to think that a few reforms (curbing and an even greater danger of a sudden flip into runaway climate ‘excess’ bonuses, etc) will suffice. Nor should we make the mistake change and resulting catastrophe. Complex and uncertain though of blaming just one sector, finance, or a few rogue traders when the these developments undoubtedly are, it is surely critical to use real problem is a whole system, of which the banks are but a part. every opportunity to challenge widespread public perception that offsetting a few tonnes of carbon will do the trick. The Big Plan? The same goes for the idea of ‘low carbon economy’. To some Of course ‘planning’ is not some cure-all. Frank Dikotter’s latest extent this idea has roots in an older misperception that the book Mao’s Great Famine documents in grisly detail how planned problem is primarily pollution. Instead what humans put ‘into’ economies can go disastrously wrong. That was an extreme example. ecosystems may be less dangerous than what is taken ‘out’, by way But socialist economists like Oscar Lange came to advocate a degree 3. See: http://www.sts.vt.edu/faculty/crist/Beyond_the_Climate_Crisis.pdf of competition because of the very real difficulties encountered in 12 the operation of a planned economy. Clearly Stalinist tyranny and Beyond economics foreign hostility made the problems worse in the case of the Soviet Last but not least, we have to avoid the dangers of economic Bloc. reductionism, of seeing today’s problems only in narrow economic That said, it is hard to create the conditions required for terms. Many problems pre-date capitalism (however defined) and successful planning. Accurate data collection, analysis, projections, indeed have no necessary connection with any kind of economic co-ordination are all easier said than done. Furthermore, planners order. Mention might be made of sexism, racism, bureaucratism, do have a habit of treating, people and places as mere units to be anthropocentrism and what Professor David Orr has called moved around at will or least on their charts. Look at the many ‘biophobia’. disastrous urban redevelopments and big housing projects that now Indeed the conservation of non-human species cannot rest scar modern cities. upon any kind of economic calculation. It depends upon the However, if attempted more modestly and at a human scale, ethics of ‘intrinsic value’. Indeed the allocation of ‘shadow prices’ with full transparency and accountability, planning can really serve to ecological services, including biodiversity, could actually make sustainability. Indeed there have been some remarkable examples things worse since it might show that there could be ‘cost-free’ of planning, though often it seems to require the stimulus of war eliminations of, say, certain flora and fauna. (e.g. D-Day) or national competition (e.g. the Apollo programme). Conversely there is much more to sustainability than just The Victorian public health programmes provide a more benign economic changes (vital preconditions they might be). Professor example of what collective action can achieve. Jackson is to be thanked for pointing out many things that could It might be noted that there is a considerable degree of planning and should be done. But perhaps we need to stop talking so much inside big businesses while the introduction of market mechanisms about targets and indicators, with more effort put into the details has often has been downright harmful. Step forward the NHS! [We of what the carrots (and sticks) that will be needed to ensure that will leave aside notions of ‘popular planning’ since it is far from they are achieved. clear how many can really participate in such processes, as, again Follow-up: limits-to-growth theory warns us] Daly, H. (1992). Steady-Sate Economics. Earthscan. But, regarding issues of ownership and control, we have to Greer J. (2008) The Long Descent.New Society. avoid dogma and judge cases individually. Beer-making might be Heinberg R. (2011) End of Growth’. Clairview Books. best done in private micro-breweries while inherently ‘collective’ McKibben, B. (2011). Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New things like water utilities and the railways should be in public Planet. St Martin’s. hands. At times, some half-way house like Land Trusts or Housing Ophuls, W. (1993) Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity. Freeman Associations might be best. But only the state can attempt an Trainer, T. (1995). The Conserver Society. Zed. overall limit to the size of an economy. Capitalism can never do Also search out the work of Saral Sarkar e.g. that… until it is too late. http://interactivist.autonomedia.org/node/29982 and of course Tim Jackson’s Prosperity and Growth (Routledge, 2011)

We have no idea about the provenance of this cartoon nor the earlier one on education – they arrived with a circular email – but, if anyone can enlighten us, due credit will be given.

13 Picturing Newcastle’s past

Photographer Jimmy Forsyth deserves much more recognition. Alec Ponton explains why.

rom the cave paintings to snaps taken with smart phones, humans of a photographic dealers shop in Newcastle, and somehow he kept Fseem to have had a urge to make pictorial representations of the Jimmy supplied with film, second-hand cameras and probably lives and everyday activities of themselves and their communities. technical advice. The latter was a city librarian and local historian. In the Middle Ages, scenes of ordinary life illustrate the devotional Jimmy loved books of local history. He approached Des to look volumes known as Books of Hours, providing us with an insight after his negatives as he feared they could be cleared out with his into the work and play of those times. Seventeenth century Dutch belongings in the event of his death or even if he was ‘moved on’. and Flemish genre painting give us a rich account of all sections of It was Des Walton who introduced his photos to the public in contemporary society. Newcastle, which led to national recognition and acclaim. The invention of photography in the nineteenth century Whatever technical help he may have had, Jimmy Forsyth’s was was a great leap forward since it enabled a true visual record to a natural talent. His work, in a modest way, reminds one especially be made (although very quickly ways were found to fake reality, of two great American photographers. Firstly, Walker Evans, born confounding the claim that the “camera never lies”). But older in 1903, documented life in the depression years, recording the modes of representation lived on. Ronald Searle, at great risk to his twenties and thirties across the United States just as Forsyth did own life, made drawings of the horrors of Japanese prison camps in the fifties and sixties but on a much smaller scale. Walker’s in the Second World War. Even so it is surprising how often events work often has a conscious socio-political dimension of a middle pass unrecorded. class rebel. With Jimmy, this dimension is only discernible by In the post-war period, Newcastle, like many cities, underwent interpreting the photos themselves, which are produced, as one great changes as attempts were made to clear the slums replacing might say, at the ground level of society. them with, it was hoped, clean, modern dwellings. Whole Secondly, his portraits of the residents of Newcastle’s West communities were demolished and rebuilt. Changes were also End are reminiscent of Diana Arbus, who often sought to portray sweeping the countryside. In Devon, James Ravilious, son of the strange and unusual people. Whilst he was happy to snap the artist Eric, was commissioned to photograph the countryside ‘ordinary’ residents of the West End, somehow he often managed and traditional farming as they were gradually overtaken by to uncover an Arbus-like quirkiness in their character. mechanisation and changed rural communities. However, no-one In his way, Jimmy was one of those people described by George seems to have thought to make an official record of the old West Eliot, whose effect of their being on those around them ‘was End of Newcastle as it disappeared under the bulldozer. But then incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly came Jimmy Forsyth… dependent on unhistoric acts’. Such is the extraordinary first-hand James Forsyth, generally known as Jimmy, was born in the record at the cusp of change and social upheaval, produced by this South Wales coalfield in 1913 and was not expected to live. That little man, with one eye and a second-hand camera. he did was, perhaps, an indication of an inner strength which sustained him through the next ninety-six years. He saw life in The Jimmy Forsyth Archive is stored with the the harsh light of reality: a living had to be earned, work had to Archive Service. be sought. Death was an ever-present part of that reality, whether through illness, industrial accident or the ravages of war. He left school at fourteen to be an apprentice fitter but unemployment led him to go to sea in the merchant navy. His fragile livelihood took him to many places, eventually to Tyneside in 1943 where he was recruited for urgent munitions wproduction. After only four days in the ICI factory, an accident left him blind in one eye. He continued to work there until he was sacked after a dispute with a foreman. On the meagre dole, he trudged round looking for work, only to be told, upon returning to Tyneside, that he was no longer eligible for dole. He cheated death at an ironworks when a crane jib fractured his skull, and in 1955 he even tried self-employment as a general dealer, but without success. However, in the early 1950s, Jimmy acquired a camera. Things carried on as before, working when there was work, but the camera gave his life an added dimension, restoring, in a sense, the eye he had lost. In the fifties and sixties Jimmy was pointing his lens at everyone and everything around him. The old order was fading fast and the brave new post-war world was arising out of the rubble of regeneration. Two people, who might be portrayed as Jimmy’s guardian angels, were Steve Wood and Des Walton. The former was manager 14 Forthcoming events Date & venue Event Organiser

11.00, Sunday, February 12th ‘Walk on the wild side’ big walk: Save Gosforth Wildlife Heathery Lane to the Cluny http://www.savegosforthwildlife.com/http:/www. campaign savegosforthwildlife.com/2012/01/14/wildlife-corridor-route- big-walk-12-feb/

19.30, Wednesday, February 15th ‘Central pub’ (upstairs), Discussion on transport issues Newcastle and Gateshead Gateshead end of Tyne bridge led off by Shirley Ford, NE Green Party organiser Green Parties http://www.theheadofsteam.co.uk/ gateshead/ Weekend of 18th-19th February starting at 10.00 a.m. on the Conference on International Development Newcastle University Saturday in the Curtis Auditorium, http://www.idcnewcastle.com/conference.html International Development Hershel Building, Newcastle Society University 22-24th February Conference on climate change and sustainability Tipping Point and the Hancock Museum http://webstore.ncl.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&m Newcastle Institute for Newcastle. odid=2&prodid=106&deptid=9&catid=27 Research on Sustainability

Greening Newcastle welcomes contributions, including notices of forthcoming meetings that may be of general interest. We are keen to broaden the issues we cover. As can be seen from recent issues, an attempt is being made, for example, to give more coverage to the arts and other cultural matters, albeit, of course, from a green or, at least, ‘greenish\ perspective. We are especially keen to get interviews with individuals involved in particular struggles in the area. It is hard to get visual material so photographs and cartoons will be most welcome. So please send contributions but remember, in the case of articles, to use only paragraph returns to identify paragraphs but, otherwise, do NO other formatting. It only has to be undone before layout in Adobe InDesign, making things a lot harder and slower to do. Back issues can be found here: http://neengland.greenparty.org.uk/region/northeast/ne_downloads.html Thanks The first discussion meeting in the Several people must be particularly thanked for help with this new Tyne Green Talk series issue. James Littlewood and John Urquhart provided invalauble will look at transport issues information about the Newcastle 1 Core Strategy and especially and green policy. the threat to Gosforth Nature Reserve. Nick Lacey and Paul See page 6 for details. Carney similarly gave a great deal of help with material about West Moor (whose Community Centre is well worth a visit: it is really quite inspiring). Nick’s Powerpoint presentation on the issues is a masterpiece. Jonathan Essex of Redhill Green Party has given Branch officers much advice about the new National Planning Policy Framework. The article on Professor Jackson’s thiking about prosperity and Current officers and their contact details are listed below. If you growth owes much to dialogue down the years with a numbe rof know of any opportunities that the local Party might take up or people, not least Ted Trainer, Saral Sarkar and, before their sad want to raise any other matters, get in touch with John or one of deaths, Teddy Goldsmith and Stan Rowe. the other officers. To reduce the number of emails in circulation, please use this magazine to draw attention to any papers you want Please pass Greening Newcastle to any to put forward for discussion. Just send your name, email address person or organisation you like, and and the title of the topic and we’ll try to give it due publicity. they can in turn pass it on themselves, John Pearson, Secretary, Contact and Treasurer: provided it is transmitted at all times [email protected] in its entirety as a PDF file and Sandy Irvine, Chairperson & Newsletter editor: unchanged. Anyone may quote from [email protected] our magazine, provided this is done in Frances Hinton, Membership secretary: context and Newcastle Green Party [email protected] is acknowledged as the source of the Tony Waterston, Media monitor. material. [email protected] Andrew Gray, Election Agent & Lead candidate This is the issue 15 of a regular publication. [email protected] Send material for the next one directly to Sandy Irvine Tim Dowson, Election support (Tel: 0191 2844367 or Email: [email protected]) [email protected] 15