Arms to windmills

Donnachadh McCarthy

February's climate change protest march in London brought back my memories of the huge protest march to Hyde Park after the recent third western invasion of Iraq in under a century.
As the then Deputy Chair ofthe Liberal Democrats it fell to me to address the lar gest war-time peace protest ever on behalf of the party in CharlesKennedy's absence. I had been urging Kennedy to tackle theissue of oil driven wars for some time but here I had an opportu -nity to address the issue myself. That morning I felt nervous as,instead of going out and using the expected crowd-pleasingBush-bashing rhetoric, I wanted to speak about renewable energyand about the protesters' own responsibility for the creation ofthese oil wars. I believe passionately that the environment andworld peace are completely intertwined issues in the 21stcentury.
One only has to read thewords of the neo-conservatives who are driving the currentAmerican military expansion ism to realise this. Paul W ol-fowitz wrote as US Under -Secretary of Defence that militaryintervention in Iraq was neces sary to ensure "access to vitalraw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil". The defeated USPresidential candidate John Kerry said that America wouldbe more secure if it produced "renewable sources of ener gythat no terrorist can sabotage and no foreign government canseize". Even members of the UK cabinet have said providingour own renewable ener gy would be cheaper than repeatedMiddle-Eastern oil wars.
Yet the Bush administrationcontinues to try to sabotage the modest Kyoto climate changetreaty which was the reason for this February's march. However,as the protesters gathered out side the US embassy , theyshould have realised that just as the Blair government stood bythe US in the illegal Iraqi inva sion, so is it also guilty on glob -al warming.

Disposable society

Whilst stating publicly that global warming is the mosturgent crisis facing our planet, Tony Blair at Davos refused tocondemn US intransigence and instead tried to persuade theother major Kyoto signatories to dilute their commitments tosuit the Americans. Similarly , in the EU, the UK governmenthas been trying to renege on its carbon dioxide reduction com mitments. Under Blair , Britainalready emits over double the world average of global warm -ing gases per capita and they are rising again, despite havingfallen in the last years of the Tory government.
However, it is important not to simply blame governments if we have not put our own house in order. Peace campaigners have long linked Britain's political hypocrisy over arms exports with our inability to campaign internationally with integrity for peace. It is equally important however to link our own environmental lifestyles with the military actions in oil-producing countries. As long as the US public remains a gas guzzling 4x4-loving disposable society and the UK population also fails to reform their destructive lifestyles then our governments will feel forced to militarily ensure our oil supplies.

Reduce your participation

Just as it is important that environmentalists ensure their pension funds and savings are not invested in the arms industry, so it is essential that peace cam paigners ensure that theirlifestyles are as environmentally benign as possible. I deeplybelieve in the power of politics by example. Thus my ownhome was the first private house in London to export solar electricity from my roof in Peckham, the loo-water is supplied from a rain-harvester on the roof and my rubbish is now down to just over half a wheelie bin per year! There are a myriad small but significant things you can do to reduce your participation in the Bush/Blair petro /nuclear economy. Three really effective ones are:

Switch the electricity supplier for your home or business to a renewable ener gy supplier.FOE recommend Good Ener gy (www.goodenergy.com) You canswitch on line if you have your electricity bill to hand. It onlyroughly costs the equivalent of a can of coke per week.
Cut down your meat con -sumption to once or twice a week. The meat industry is amassive environmental destroy er ranging from rainforestdestruction to global warming emissions of methane. [Editorialnote: never mind "cutting down"--go vegan!]
Use a bicycle for the shortjourneys under 2km around your home.As long as you remain part of the petro-economy you remaina supporter of the Bush/Blair military regime. Continue yourcrucial pro-peace and anti-arms industry campaigning butensure that your own environ mental lifestyle is also part ofthe solution to tackling the brutality that caused such deathand carnage in Iraq and is cur rently threatening Iran.

Donnachadh McCarthy is author of Saving the Planet Without Costing the Earth - 500 Simple Steps to a Greener Lifestyle (Vision Press).