Day 609 – On Shell

Here’s the story.

Right. Let’s just get my position out in the open at the start, shall we?

1. I appreciate the need to move away from fossil fuels.
2. I would love to have a simple, straightforward, economically viable way to not use fossil fuels anymore.
3. I would rather that Shell (or anyone else) were not doing seismic testing in the waters around South Africa.

BUT...

We all use fossil fuels every day here in SA.
Our electricity here comes (when it comes) – overwhelmingly – from coal, diesel and gas.
Our cars use petrol, and if they did use electricity, then that electricity would come – overwhelmingly – from coal, diesel and gas.
Eskom chucks out about 18 million tons of CO2 each and every month.

We need to understand that the vast majority of this country has no choice but to use dirty fuels to live their lives. It would be great to change, but we can’t just switch that off: our power grid doesn’t work full stop, let alone work with clean or renewable sources of energy.
And we should certainly be trying to step away from fossil fuels, but as you are flinging around your hashtags and basking in the righteousness of your slacktivism, please remember that we need to get our energy and electricity from somewhere: someone has to provide it.

And why shouldn’t that be Shell? How do their seismic surveys and oil drilling habits differ from whoever’s powering your car today, as you “#BoycottShell” and go to Engen or Sasol or BP?

Do you know? Do you care? Or is it just about jumping on a conveniently passing (hopefully hybrid-powered?) bandwagon?

And if you are going to pop online and tell us how to live our lives, and which dirty oil company we should use over which other (I love the “tip the pump attendants” idea, by the way, lol!), then at least think before you post.

After all, nothing quite says “Leave our oceans alone” or #SaveOurOceans like a “cleverly” altered corporate logo and is that a picture of… er… a local sewage outflow…

Right.

Presumably you are boycotting your toilet as well, then? How’s that going for you?

Look, I’m not saying that a seismic survey off the East Coast is a good thing – I’d much rather it wasn’t happening, but as I noted above, that’s not really a tenable option right now.

But I have to say that this exceptionalism, hyperbole and misinformation around this one issue when numerous such surveys have happened around SA before and we’re all still here? Well, it’s weird, it’s misplaced, and it’s rather hypocritical given that we are all using products and services that rely on oil and gas each and every day.

Day 207 – ABoC put in his place by internet commenter

If you’re a regular reader here, then you know about me and religion.

I don’t do it.

I don’t do it, but I happily accept that some people do do it and that’s just fine. Really, as long as it’s not affecting my life and it’s not doing anyone any harm, then as far as I’m concerned, you can pray away to whichever deity you so desire. It’s really none of my business.

Talking of none of my business though, the top five guys in the Anglican church in the UK (presumably, they’re actually second in commands after you-know-who) decided to write a letter to the Financial Times today – about the UK Internal Market Bill.

Now, I recognise that they’re absolutely entitled to do that. So I’m not saying that they shouldn’t do it. I’m saying that I’d rather that they didn’t do it. My feeling is that they should have their views noted and then we should move on. Whatever their standing within the church, publicly criticising political and economic decisions is surely not their job.

I know I said that, in my mind, religious individuals should be allowed to do whatever they want within their own circles (notwithstanding the couple of points I made above), but this intrusion out of their lane irritated me. More so because there would be righteous outrage if the tables were turned and politicians started remarking upon and apparently trying to sway decisions made by the church.

This individual on twitter has put that very succinctly in his second sentence, I feel.

Indeed. Let the elected politicians get on with their work and you get on with yours. It’s not like you don’t have problems of your own that you really need to be working on.

Like:

and:

or:

and:

and not forgetting:

Thus, without want to ironically cross those same boundaries, might I just quote Matthew 7:3-5?

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

OK, there’s plenty of time and opportunity to remove both plank and speck, I know.

But yeah, like Matthew says, maybe start with the plank.

Tweets I thought I’d get in more trouble for than I actually did

Number 1 in a series of… well… probably quite a few, to be honest.

This ended up on my timeline yesterday evening:

Local “musical” act “The Kiffness” is referring to the Afrikaburn festival, which took place in the Tankwa Karoo this past weekend. It’s the South African equivalent of Nevada’s infamous Burning Man festival, and the final acts of the event involve the burning of some of the large artworks.

“The Kiffness” makes the point that the materials used in those installations that are burned could be put to better use to help rebuild shacks in townships which are regularly affected by fires.

And he’s right. Perhaps they could be.

But…

If we’re going to choose to police what people can do with their private property and money, if we’re going to choose to police free thought and art – however destructive it may be or seem to be – then let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

Because it wasn’t so long ago that “The Kiffness” voluntarily posted this on one of its social media feeds:

Yep. There’s our protagonist outside one of Cape Town’s more salubrious venues, with a fistful of dollars and a hashtagged promise to #makeitrain*.

An image which I included in my reply to his original tweet:

Yep. Surely, if there are better things to do with the materials used in the construction of flammable artwork, then there were also better things to do with that that R600 – especially in Cape Town’s CBD in the middle of winter?

Some would argue that even if there were no local poverty or homelessness, there would always be many better things that you could do with R600 than spend it at Mavericks.

But I’d say that what “The Kiffness” chooses to do with his money is his choice. Just that his Afrikaburn thoughts might gain better traction were he to practice what he preaches. I’m reliably informed that “The Kiffness” does “jazzy dance and electronic music”, but apparently it doesn’t draw the line at delving into HipHopcrisy.

Sorry, not sorry.

I thought his legion of fan would come after me for pointing this out, but evidently, it was busy doing other stuff yesterday.

Oh, and it’s worth noting that the Afrikaburn organisers do support a number of local charities, including:

The Bergie Bag Project
Bags of food, clothes and medical supplies to homeless people in Cape Town.

I’m sure R600 would go a long way to supporting the cause of those sleeping rough near Mavericks on Barrack Street, and beyond.

 

[For the record: I have no affiliation with Afrikaburn, “The Kiffness” or Mavericks, and have happily, repeatedly and successfully avoided all three during my time in South Africa.]

 

* I am of the opinion that this should likely read “make it rain” – a popular culture reference described thus: “When you’re in da club with a stack, and you throw the money up in the air at the strippers. The effect is that it seems to be raining money”, and not “makei train”, which is the railway route between Minsk and Kalinkavichy, funded under Department of Transport and Infrastructure Minister (now Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs), Vladimir Makei.

I hope this clears things up for you readers. 

Mixed messages from PnP et al

A lot has already been said about the allegedly “proposed” Media Appeals Tribunal (MAT) and the despicable Protection of Information Bill (PIB), not least in that post last week on here.
And so it continues with Gareth Ackerman, chairman of local retail giant Pick n Pay weighing in with his opinion:

Pick n Pay recognises there is a close link between economic and political freedom. The economic freedom on which business depends flourishes best when citizens are able to rely on an unfettered flow of information that is free from excessive government control and regulation.

And since so far, 99% of the criticism of these proposals has come solely from “the media”, creating an “us versus them” scenario, they leapt upon his words with gay abandon, obviously delighted to have an ally outside their close-knit ranks and quoting his ever so luscious soundbites one after another.
In the Times:

The business sector should not believe itself exempt from this duty of responsible citizenship, and we thus have no hesitation in adding our voices to those who have expressed their misgivings about the consequences of the governing party’s proposals.

And with cautious optimism in the Daily Maverick:

“Any erosion of our open society, now that we have achieved it, will only impede economic growth and national prosperity,” he said.
In airing these views… Ackerman may have opened the door for others of a similar persuasion to do the same, which may finally move the debate beyond an increasingly acrimonious to-and-fro between the ANC and political bodies on the one hand, and the media itself on the other… Ackerman has effectively called on the business community to stand up and be counted.

Of course, these words come from the same company that recently banned certain newspapers from its shelves, which had at least one columnist from er… The Daily Maverick up in arms:

After a couple of pesky complaints about “nudity” and bad language in the Afrikaans newspapers, Sondag and Die Son, Pick ’n Pay decided to no longer carry these papers on its shelves. This was despite the fact that the Sunday weekly is sold in supermarkets in sealed plastic bags.
Speaking to the Saturday Star, Ingo Capraro, Sondag’s editor, said the decision was disturbing: “The constitution enshrines freedom of choice, freedom of association and media freedom. Pick ’n Pay’s decision to decide on behalf of its customer what they are allowed to read flies directly in the face of freedom of choice.”

Pick ’n Pay appears to have taken the decision unilaterally, without any consultations with media or civic or watchdog organisations. The company acted as judge, jury and executioner… this would be a very bad time for Pick ’n Pay to start playing media censor.

Local tabloid the Daily Voice was also withdrawn from sale , although apparently it is now available “in selected Pick n Pay stores”.  So presumably T&A are not ubiquitously offensive. I’m not sure how one would go about deciding exactly which stores would have open-minded enough shoppers allow sale of such publications, but I’d be willing to be surveyed if it involved commenting on a series of pictures.

And yes, this is entirely different from “freedom of the press”, but then as Gareth has told us, all these freedoms – media, press, freedom of expression, political freedom, economic freedom, freedom of choice – are interlinked. Right?

But then, this isn’t the first time that PnP have made unilateral decisions and statements over the freedom of expression. Who could forget the whole 2009 “blasphemous” (or “unneccessarily offensive” as I thought), SAX Appeal magazine debacle, when PnP pulled the magazine off the shelves after receiving “several complaints”:

Pick n Pay spokesperson Tamra Veley said that “students putting the magazine together should be extra careful while documenting, reporting and cartooning their work to avoid blatant disrespect of any faith, culture and race. We therefore made the decision to remove Sax Appeal from sale in Pick n Pay stores.”

But Freedom of Expression Institute executive director, Jane Duncan, said last night that blasphemy was no longer a recognised ground for restriction of publications: “So arguments to restrict the publication on this basis do not hold water”.

Look, I’m not stupid (no, really, I’m not). I recognise that Pick n Pay is a business and a business needs customers to keep going. And to keep the customers spending money, you must keep the customers happy. That’s obviously why they chose not to sell those newspapers and to withdraw the SAX Appeal magazine from sale. And yes, Ivo Vegter is correct in his assertion that one must:

…distinguish between the legal right to publish, and the right to sell what you want.

But I fail to see how the media can suddenly flip-flop and conveniently accept the support of Gareth Ackerman and Pick n Pay in their vigorous campaign against the MAT and PIB. It seems hugely hypocritical to me and has a more than faint smell of desperation about it: it seems that when you’re struggling, you’ll accept help from any quarter – even one that has blatantly stood against the same principles you’re fighting for on several occasions previously.

To me, that devalues your message, your campaign and with it, your chances of success.

Playing with fire

Fox hunting, hare coursing, seal culling and bull fighting. A range of trendily unpopular pastimes which I actually don’t have a huge problem with. And before you stop reading in simulated and dramatic disgust, if you eat meat, if you wear leather – in fact, unless you’re a total  and absolute vegan – then you’re being hypocritical in wanting any bloodsport banned. Animals live, animals die.
I’m not saying that watching a greyhound taking down a hare is particularly pleasant to see. It certainly doesn’t ring my bell.
But if you find that equally unappealing, then you shouldn’t enjoy your bacon sandwich just because the chop chop squeal squeal goes on behind closed doors.

And just occasionally, nature gets one back – it might just be the bovine equivalent of a 90th minute goal when you’re already 5-0 down – but it’s still one back.

That same hypocrisy is running through the ranks of the greenies who are aghast at the extent of the damage caused by the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Again, an environmental disaster is not something I want to see – who does? – but unless those whining greenies are 100% self-sufficient, then they rely in some way on oil. So while their complaints that BP should (could?) have done more to prevent this from happening may be justified to some extent, their insistence that we should boycott BP because of the Deepwater Horizon incident is frankly laughable.

This could have happened to any oil company, anywhere in the world, at any time. Any company producing oil for everyone on the planet.
While watching Sky News earlier, the irony of the video taken from the Greenpeace plane flying over “Ground Zero” as they called it, wasn’t lost on me. While the commentary lamented (in a hugely annoying voice) that big business was ruining our oceans with its constant thirst for oil, I was left wondering if the plane they were in was powered by. Fresh air? Fairy dust? Or some fraction of the crude oil that was spilling out of the seabed below them? I wonder.

You’ve used more aircraft fuel than I have this year, Greenpeace, so stop trying to lecture me on the moral rights and wrongs of my drive to work. Bugger off.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
And those greenies are full of shit.