When I'm asked for my opinion (and also when I'm not), I advocate reading the Financial Times and the Morning Star alongside each other. They don't cover all the same stories, but they give you a nice broad coverage between them, with predictable- and therefore compensate-able slants. There's lots of intriguing facts buried in the articles.
Anyway, yesterday, Sat 13th December, I practised what I preach for once. From the Morning Star we learn (on a climate perspective)
a) New Zealand 'dismantling climate friendly policies'
“Former New Zealand climate change minister David Parker slammed the new right-wing government yesterday for dismantling the country's fledgling sustainable energy industry.”
Apparently the new lot are repealing the obligation for oil companies to sell 0.5 per cent biofuels (from animal fat) in their petrol. They're also ending the ban on new carbon fuel power generation stations and suspending the emissions trading scheme. Charming.
b) Lord O'Neill, a member of the Lords science and technology committee, “attacked ministers for ending the ring-fencing of landfill tax revenue to fund waste reduction schemes.”
c) some good news- “Airport operator BAA admitted yesterday that combined passenger numbers for its seven British airports had plunged almost 9 per cent last month."
d) There's another good piece from Tom Sharman at the Poznan climate negotiations on money for an “adaptation fund.”
Separately, they reprint a John Pilger piece from the New Statesman about Obama's appointments that “already signal that his White House won't be for turning.” Well, yes, but did anyone expect he'd sing the Internationale and declare the US an anarcho-syndicalist commune?
And there's a very good letter about their coverage of the Plane Stupid action earlier this week, which I'm copying below-
Emphasis should've been on the cause
When did our paper stop supporting direct action?
Your headline and story about the Plane Stupid protest at Stansted (M Star, December 9) gvies much more space and emphasis to concerns about the security of the airport's perimeter fence ad the inconvenience caused to airline passengers than it does to the aims of the protesters.
They were trying to stop the expansion of the airport, which would greatly increase greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere and speed up global warming.
Does the Morning Star not support them?
Chris Birch
London SW6
It would have been nice for the editors not just to run a critical letter (though that's good) but to reply.
Oh, and a name from my past- Chris Searle- who wrote a good book about Mozambique, among many others, is the Morning Star's jazz critic, and has written a book called “Forward Groove.”
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