'Speciesism'
While I can agree with Richard Blumer (GLW 713) about the horrors of intensive capitalist animal farming and the need for reform to prohibit cruel and unnecessary suffering of animals, I cannot agree with his argument that "speciesism ... is as morally indefensible as racism or sexism, and potentially far more harmful". To argue, as Blumer does in his article that "Speciesism is prejudice" is, frankly, absurd.
Blumer defines "speciesism" as "the view that humans, by definition, are of greater moral worth than other species". While it is true that animals have the capacity for conscious and planned action (as Frederick Engels noted in his 1878 article "The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man"), this capacity is limited and nowhere near the level of conscious activity that humans are capable of. Again, as Engels noted, "all the planned action of animals has never succeeded in impressing the stamp of their will upon the Earth".
Furthermore, it is meaningless to talk about animals being oppressed — denied by any humans of the possibility of engaging on an equal basis with humans in the economic, civil and political life of human societies as women and people of colour have been. Non-human animals are not biologically capable of doing so. Nor are they capable of organising to struggle to liberate themselves from oppressive social relations. This is not "prejudice" (an unreasonable opinion not based on demonstrated facts), but a biological reality.
Kim Bullimore
Rammallah, Occupied Palestine
Global warming
By screening the Great Global Warming Swindle, ABC TV breached its own editorial policy, which states that "every reasonable effort must be made to ensure that factual content is accurate and in context".
The film's central tenet is that global warming is caused not by human greenhouse pollution (which has boosted atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping carbon dioxide by more than 35%), but by cosmic rays from the Sun. The problem is that this hypothesis has been comprehensively debunked in several peer-reviewed science journals.
Other arguments in the film have been similarly dealt with and put to rest. As such, the film's makers had to rely on faulty science by faulty scientists.
And on deception — one scientist in the film whose ideas have not been proven misplaced is Carl Wunsch from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since the release of the film, Wunsch has filed a formal complaint with British regulators, complaining that the film's director deliberately misled and misrepresented him.
Like every peer-reviewed climate scientist, Wunsch agrees that human greenhouse pollution is warming the planet, and was dismayed to see his words twisted into supporting the marginal Flat-Earth arguments put forward in the Great Global Warming Swindle.
The director, Martin Durkin, has form for this sort of thing too. In 1998, a British commission found him guilty of misleading interviewees in another of his films, and of misrepresenting their statements through selective editing.
All this has been brought to the ABC's attention, but it insisted on running the film regardless. The fact that the screening was followed up with an "expert panel" including the likes of arch-climate-denialist and soap-box contrarian Michael Duffy, and the head PR spinner for the NSW coal mining industry, Nikki Williams, did nothing to quell my dismay at the ABC's decision to broadcast this horrid film. How these two can be considered "experts" on climate change is far beyond me.
Life on Earth risks calamity the likes of which we can scarcely imagine, and next to nothing is being done about it. When such thoroughly discredited, pernicious drivel as this documentary receives the prestige of a prime-time screening on the national broadcaster, is it any wonder why?
Steve Phillips
Newcastle, NSW [Abridged]
Live Earth
The Live Earth concerts have provoked renewed criticism of people who call for government action to curb greenhouse gas emissions while not making personal sacrifices to benefit the environment. However, such behaviour is understandable.
When a person reduces his/her living standard to limit emissions, the cost is borne entirely by that individual - while the expected environmental gains are spread across billions worldwide.
By contrast, governments can introduce policies, like an emissions tax, that require many millions to help roughly in line with their capacity to pay. This is much fairer.
Mind you, huge numbers of us are foolishly failing to do things which could, over the long term, save us considerable money while also reducing atmospheric pollution. These include insulating our homes, installing solar panels, buying more energy-efficient appliances and dressing to better suit the weather.
Brent Howard
Rydalmere, NSW
@letterhead =
The Howard government has provoked terrorism by both opposing the rights of the Palestinian people, and being part of the illegal invasion of Iraq, and then persuaded Labor premiers to pass "anti-terrorist" legislation that will not stop it.
As our democratic rights are being eroded in the name of fighting terrorism, these restrictions on our civil liberties are not making us safer. Rather, they give more power to repressive government agencies like ASIO.
I call upon all Australians to stand up, like the Pine Gap Four and the Peace Convergence at Shoalwater Bay, to say, loud and clear, that we will not tolerate our democratic freedoms being taken away.
The best way to stop the retaliation of terrorism is by stopping the provocation of terrorism: End the war and support a Palestinian state. My protest on July 5 — interrupting business-as-usual at an academic symposium on law and liberty in the "War on Terror" — was an act of defiance against the abuse of state power.
"The accused stood up after the introduction on Attorney General Philip Ruddock and began to yell out abuse claiming that Mr. Ruddock was a war crimes offender and the accused tried to effect a citizen's arrest of Mr. Ruddock." (NSW Police fact sheet, July 5, 2007). I was arrested and charged with "unlawful entry on inclosed lands"!
Surely Ruddock's abandoning of habeas corpus, as both minister for immigration, and attorney-general, should make him a social pariah, especially with academics and those who believe in the rule of law and human rights. Yet the UNSW and other 150 legal experts from Australia, Canada, Britain and the US, welcomed Ruddock. Yes, in order for evil to triumph, it is enough for good people to do nothing.
Peter McGregor
Newcastle, NSW
Petrol price
After crying crocodile tears about the price of petrol, our gallant prime minister and treasurer have tossed the ball to a Mr Samuels to investigate and report back, after the federal elections!
But does anyone being ripped off disagree that the federal excise on petrol could be lowered, and/or the GST, with both these taxes being controlled federally, and should be quite possible from the massive surpluses now being chalked up?
Ken O'Hara
Gerringong, NSW