Imagine living in a world with no birds and no spring songs to enrich our lives and nourish our souls. A world where the fires of industry had burned all the trees and where the only sounds were artificial and anonymous sounds : a chorus of machines, rotating monotonously.
This weekend the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds organised their annual Big Garden Birdwatch, perhaps the biggest such birdwatching event in the world. This event offered many people an opportunity to ‘re-connect’ with their own natural environment.
We take our environment for granted at our peril. By our overuse of chemicals we risk losing not only our spring birds, but poisoning ourselves. This is a lesson that an American scientist and writer taught in her book Silent Spring (1962). Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was a marine biologist working for the US Government. She started investigating the use of pesticides after receiving a letter from the owner of a bird sanctuary that had been sprayed by the US Government.
Rachel Carson wrote about the abuse of chemicals and the perils they posed industrial society. She questioned the received wisdom of science, and faced a barrage of criticism and opposition from publishers, fellow scientists, and in particular, the corporations who profitted from society’s increasing over-reliance on chemicals.
The idea for the book title was taken from the poet John Keat’s La Belle Dame Sans Merci.
O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
In her book Carson was able to communicate an ecology freed from the laboratory and her academic training as a scientist. It was a subversive ecology and her text is a seminal work for the environmental movement.
This brave woman’s voice helped shape a new consciousness as she challenged a materialistic, rational industrial society heading for self-destruction. In her book she concludes :
The “control of nature” is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. . . . It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth. – last paragraph from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962)
May 2007 is the Centenary of Rachel Carson’s birth. In Wales, as we go to the polls in May 2007 for the Welsh Assembly Elections, we may like to consider the legacy of this woman. If we value our environment and all that lives in it, then we should consider what our politicians stand for and vote accordingly.
Once upon a time there was a Welsh MP called Peter Hain who believed in socialism and devolution.
“Devolution must be given real teeth,” wrote Peter Hain, “it must not produce a series of talking shops.”
Peter Hain wrote this in his book The Democratic Alternative (A Socialist Response To Britain’s Crisis) (Penguin, London, 1983).
Peter Hain then discovered a pole lubricated with grease.
This was the largest pole Peter Hain had ever seen.
Peter decided to climb to the top of the pole.
And the higher he climbed the closer he came to the sun.
As Peter Hain spent more and more time in the sun his tan grew brighter, and brighter until he glowed like a juicy fat orange.
Soon Peter forgot he believed in socialism and devolution.
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Plaid Cymru’s Deputy President
Jill Evans MEP has been arrested at the gates of the British Nuclear Weapons Base at Faslane in Scotland today and has been taken to Clydebank Police Station.
Jill Evans was arrested with Plaid Cymru Welsh Assembly Member Leanne Wood. Both were at the base to reaffirm Plaid’s commitment to nuclear disarmament.
Plaid Cymru is contributing to the Faslane 365 continuous blockade of the Trident naval base which includes members of the Westminster, Scottish, Welsh, Dutch and European Parliaments, and local councillors.
Speaking from Faslane Jill Evans said:
“We have taken part in the blockade today to reflect the views of the majority of people in Wales who oppose and have protested against Trident.
“Nuclear weapons make the world a more dangerous place. They will not protect us from global warming or terrorist attacks.
“The Labour government has to make a decision on the future of Trident. This is the opportunity to honour the commitment made by Britain 35 years ago in the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty to disarm its nuclear weapons. In financial, environmental and security terms, the costs are too high.”
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We salute both for their willingess to stand up for their principles and to protest peacefully… to “do and dare what is right”.
Fifteen years ago the Labour Party boldly claimed “New Year – New Government” in their member magazine. They printed a photograph of a confident-looking Neil Kinnock, the would-be Prime Minister.
The Commentary in that magazine exuded promise of better things :
This New Year is Special.
It is the year in which the Tories run out of time. They can dither and delay no longer. 1992 is the year of the General Election. 1992 will be the year in which Britain elects a Labour Government.
The New Year is a time for new ideas.
Time for new people, the energy, the vision, the policies to strengthen and modernise the British economy. Time for a new team with commitment to the values of social justice needed to raise standards of care and opportunity.
Time for a new government.
Three months later and Neil Kinnock would be standing in front of a rally of Labour Party members in Sheffield claiming triumphantly “We’re alright! We’re alright”. A week after that Labour lost the General Election. Kinnock resigned immediately.
As the Welsh Assembly elections approach, Labour First Minister Rhodri Morgan provides a predictably punchy New Year message :
The start of a new year is always a time for reflection, as well as for scanning the horizon. 2006 was a remarkable year for the Welsh economy. There are now 130.000 more jobs than there were when the Assembly came into existence seven and a half years ago.
On behalf of the Labour Party, I make this promise: whatever the results of May’s elections, we will not go into a government with the Tories – only a vote for Labour will keep the Tories out of Welsh Government
My challenge to the other parties is to make the same commitment but I do so knowing that they cannot deliver. A vote for Plaid Cymru or a vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote to return Wales to the dark days of Tory misrule. Only Labour offers a future of hope, confidence and social justice.
The people of Blaenau Gwent rejected Rhodri Morgan’s Labour Party a few months ago because they were, in the words of Trish Law AM, “more Tory than the Tories”. Rhodri Morgan has little to be confident about.
