ZAPORIZHZHIA UPDATE: nuclear power in
war
by Malcolm Bailey *
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP)
in Ukraine is the first instance of a nuclear power site located in the midst
of an armed conflict. Events at ZNPP have implications for the future of
nuclear power worldwide.
It is the largest nuclear power site in
Europe, supplying 20% of Ukraine’s total electricity before the war. The risks
are enormous. There are no precedents or protocols for avoiding a potentially
catastrophic nuclear disaster. During the two and a half years of war raging
around ZNPP nuclear safety has often been on a knife edge.
The fog of war descended. There has been
scant information reported in the media about the fate of ZNPP since the war
began in February 2022. Within a month, Russian soldiers were in control of
Zaporizhzhia with its six nuclear reactors, near the city of Enerhodar.
Under the auspices of the United
Nations, after protracted negotiations, an International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) monitoring team first gained access to ZNPP in September 2022. Despite
many obstacles and numerous rotations of staff the IAEA presence has been
continuously maintained. IAEA has since issued regular detailed weekly updates
of the work of the monitoring teams which are accessible in the public
domain,
In May 2023 at the UN Security Council
the Director General of IAEA Rafael Mariano Grossi established five ‘concrete
principles’ for the protection of ZNPP:
·
There
should be no attack of any kind from or against the plant, in particular
targeting the reactors, spent fuel storage, other critical infrastructure, or
personnel.
·
ZNPP
should not be used as storage or a base for heavy weapons ie multiple rocket
launchers, artillery systems, munitions, or tanks, or military personnel that
could be used for an attack from the plant.
·
Off-site
power to the plant should not be put at risk. To that effect, all efforts
should be made to ensure that off-site power always remains available and
secure.
·
All
structures, systems and components essential to the safe and secure operation
of ZNPP should be protected from acts of sabotage.
·
No action
should be taken that undermines these principles.
However, in clear violation of the
principles, in early April 2024, for the first time since November 2022, ZNPP
was targeted in military action, by three drone strikes, endangering nuclear
safety.
Following the drone strikes Director
General Grossi said “I firmly appeal to military decision makers to abstain
from any action violating the IAEA’s five concrete principles to prevent a
nuclear accident and ensure the integrity of the plant and I urge the
international community actively to work towards a de-escalation of what is a
very serious situation.” He stressed
that “no one can conceivably benefit or gain any military or political
advantage by attacking a nuclear power plant.”
All six reactors are currently in ‘cold
shutdown’ ie generating no power, which whilst minimising risks still requires
cooling functions. The reports from the regular walkdowns around ZNPP by the
monitoring teams record many instances of access denial to various areas
without explanation. The visits include the main control rooms of the reactors,
the radiation monitoring laboratory, and the radioactive waste storage
facility. There is the frequent sound of military action near the site.
On 6 June 2023 the nearby Kakhovka Dam
failed, probably deliberate action by Russia to frustrate an expected
counter-offensive, causing widespread flooding. There was apparently no
immediate risk to ZNPP but concerns about potential problems with water supply
for cooling purposes.
There are recurring references by the
monitoring teams to problems with the loss of off-site power lines, essential
for nuclear safety. It seems Europe’s largest nuclear power facility sometimes
depends on only one or two power lines. There are frequent power cuts. Since
August 2022 there have been eight instances of complete loss of off-site power
at ZNPP
In August 2024 intense forest fires in
the vicinity of ZNPP and surrounding villages have increased the risks to
off-site power supplies. Fires have also been reported at the cooling towers
located a short distance from the reactors.
The overwhelming impression from the
IAEA monitoring reports over two years is one of an incredibly precarious state
of nuclear safety and security at Zaporizhzhia. There are also major concerns
at the other nuclear power sites in Ukraine away from the front, and lately in
the adjacent Kursk region of Russia. Fortunately, there has been no major
nuclear disaster to date. But the sheer number of incidents and problems must
be of great concern for the future. Certainly, the continuing meticulous work
of the monitoring teams, in difficult and often frustrating circumstances, is
vitally important.
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-241
* Malcolm Bailey is a member of Green
Left, formerly a radiation physicist working in the NHS.
WATCH OUT KIDS - IT'S A CORPORATE
TAKEOVER
Early on a May morning there is a chill
in the air in a quiet suburb of London, front gardens are full of blooms and
blossom. An occasional early riser starts on the journey to work but otherwise
all is still You are suddenly aware of shouting and chanting and turning the
corner you see a crowd outside a school holding up placards and waving
flags. They chant ‘Save Our School’,
‘Byron Court Not for Sale’, ‘Whose school? Our School!’ and ‘Kids NOT Quids’.
This is the first strike day of what
turns out to be 16 against the forced academisation of a popular community
primary school because of an Inadequate rating by Ofsted in an inspection that
took place in November 2023 but not published until February 2024. Government
legislation means that an academy chain will take over the school on the
assumption that they are more capable of improving schools than local
authorities.
Staff and parents were shocked at the
Inspection outcome although they were aware that there had been problems in
terms of turnover of senior management. Nevertheless, they felt that the
inspection report did not reflect the true strengths of a school valued by its
community. There were complaints about the way the inspection had been carried
out and poor communication from the inspection team.
Problems of communication were also
cited between the school (including the governing body) and parents as well as
the local authority. Better communication it was claimed would have meant that
the Inadequate rating would not have come as such a shock.
In such circumstances staff and parents
flee but some Byron Court parents, staff and local community members decided to
stand by the school, fighting for its retention as a community school and
opposing forced academisation. Save Byron Court was born.
As it developed the campaign began
asking questions about the actions of the local authority. The LA had
recognised the school had problems well before the inspection and had set up a
Rapid Improvement Group (RIG). Why were parents in the dark about this and more
importantly, why had it not succeeded in its improvement role? This was a
weakness when later staff and parents called for the school to be given a
chance to work with the LA on an improvement strategy to make academisation
unnecessary.
Questions were asked about the role of
Ofsted, especially after a headteacher’s suicide was attributed to the stress
of inspection. Ofsted’s increasingly politicised role in furthering the
academisation agenda of the Conservative Government, its personnel’s links with
academy chains and how it contributed to the narrowing of the primary
curriculum through an emphasis on test results, became a subject of debate.
Research was undertaken on the Harris
Federation, earmarked by the DfE regional office to take over Byron Court.
Campaigners were not impressed by the CEO’s enormous salary, the corporate
approach to school management and the narrowing of curriculum in pursuit of
test results. The NEU reported on the
many disputes with Harris that they were involved with over pay and conditions.
The campaign argued that staff working conditions were children’s learning
conditions.
Staff, parents, and pupils support for a
broad and creative curriculum with many learning opportunities came up time and
again as one of the main reasons to oppose academisation. Harris was seen as
the ‘worse fit’ for Byron Court in terms of its philosophy.
I have already mentioned communication
as an issue and partly this was blamed on the Governing Body’s reduction of
parent governors from four to just one.
This is a school with 872 pupils.
The school had been expanded by the LA despite opposition and that
expansion had created its own problems in terms of management.
In a speech on one of the many picket
lines I expressed Green Party support for the campaign and talked about our
policies for the abolition of Ofsted, against academisation and for the return
of academies and free schools to the local authority family of schools, an end
to high stakes testing in primary schools, and for an entitlement to a broad
and enriching curriculum including the arts.
Save Byron Court worked on several
fronts. The NEU approved strike action against forced academisation based on
wages and conditions. Political support was gained from Barry Gardiner, the
local MP and from several local councillors. The Brent Trades Council got
behind the campaign and spoke on picket lines. Retired NEU members leafleted
parents at the end of the school day to explain the strike action. Parent members of the Campaign spoke at both
Brent Cabinet and Scrutiny Committee. The Lead Member for Schools became bolder
after initially seeming to accept the forced academisation as inevitable and
wrote to the Secretary of State calling for its suspension while the school
worked on improvement to be followed by a reinspection. At Scrutiny Committee
she called the process ‘illogical and punitive’.
The campaign collected more than 2,000
signatures on a petition calling for the same thing and this was presented to
the DfE.t was a challenge to maintain the optimum level of support for the
strike from parents as they faced childcare problems and worried about their
children getting behind. Some also questioned campaigner’s faith in the local authority.
However, campaigners were buoyed when Key Stage 2 SAT results showed a huge
recovery, above national levels in some areas, demonstrating improvement was in
progress.
When an early General Election was
called the campaign met with the Shadow Secretary of State, Bridget Phillipson,
to put their case. Shortly after the election they met with her again, now as
Secretary of State, in the hope that the change in political climate.
Campaigners were hopeful but they were faced Labour’s failure to take a clear
stance on the issues involved and eventually received a letter, not from
Phillipson but from the Regional Schools Commissioner:
In a letter to the Chair of Governors,
Claire Burton, the DfE Regional Director, stated that the Secretary of State,
had confirmed the takeover by Harris from September 1st. She rejected the
campaigners' call for a pause in the process to enable the school to show its
progress through a re-inspection.
Many local stakeholders have voiced
their desire for certainty, for the pupils, the parents, the staff and the
wider community. This is particularly acute given how close we are now to the
start of a new academic year. Pausing the process now will bring further
uncertainty without a clear alternative. In all likelihood, it would lead to a
longer period of upheaval, which is not in the best interests of the children
at the school.
Staff and pupils were left unsure at the
end of Spring term of whether Labour would halt academisation so only heard
officially when the Harris Federation wrote to them on July 31st,
2024 Harris announced that from September 1st 2024 the school would
be called Harris South Kenton Academy, it would have a new uniform and a new
principal from within the Federation. That of course is not ‘upheaval’.
'CLIMATE JOBS - BUILDING A WORKFORCE FOR THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY' (https://greenerjobsalliance.co.uk/)
GJA Statement on the abuse of the law to imprison JUST STOP OIL
activists
Jul 20, 2024
The Greener Jobs Alliance is appalled at the record prison
sentences handed out to five Just Stop Oil activists by a judge. We
believe this is a miscarriage of justice and represents an assault on civil
liberties and the right to protest that is fundamental to a democratic society.
The ‘direct action’ tactics of JSO, XR and others
are very different to the area in which GJA seeks to fight the climate struggle
– in the workplace, through unions, and collective action by workers.
Opinions inevitably differ about the nature and value of JSO actions.
But what we are clear about is that (a) we are all engaged in a common
struggle in the face of catastrophic climate change, and (b) there is a place
for a range of different approaches and that these complement not contradict
one another.
The four-year prison sentences given to four JSO activists (five
years in the case of Roger Hallam) for ‘conspiracy to cause a public
nuisance’ by holding a Zoom call to discuss direct action, is a
travesty of justice. The average prison sentence for violent crime is 1.7
years, for criminal damage 2.4 years (1) – the activists ‘crime’ contained
neither of these elements.
Equally disturbing is a comment by the presiding judge – ‘each
of you some time ago crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic’ –
which is not just highly subjective, but hardly justifiable given the gravity
of the climate situation and the ineffective government ‘actions’ taken
thus far to address it. The general public, whether inconvenienced by JSO
actions or not, are highly supportive of the idea that much more needs to be
done to combat climate change.
And yet, these activists and many others are told not to mention
the words ‘climate change’ during their trial, while any
evidence of climate impact is excluded from proceedings. Michel Forst,
the UN special rapporteur for environmental defenders, also condemned the
sentences handed down to the five defendants and stated that these may be in
contravention of international law (2).
What this sentencing says about the future of peaceful protest
in this country, and how the powers that be will act to preserve a status quo
that is driving us to the brink of catastrophe, is too sinister to contemplate.
We join other campaign and activist groups in seeking not only to have
these sentences reversed but also in calling on the new government to repeal
the awful, repressive legislation perpetrated by their Conservative
predecessors.
We wish to acknowledge that information in this statement
is drawn from:
(1) Novara Media Just Stop Oil Receive Longest Jail Sentences
For Peaceful Protest In British History youtu.be
(2) The Guardian You may find Just Stop Oil annoying. You
may dislike their tactics. But they do not belong in prison | Chris Packham and
Dale Vince
WHAT CIVIL LIBERTIES WOULD A TRUMP
AMERICA OR REFORM UK AGENDA SACRIFICE TO RESTORE A NATION’S ‘GREATNESS’?
By
Alan Wheatley
Decades before White Europeans deployed
machine guns against one another in WW1, colonising Western Europeans and
Americans deployed machine guns against indigenous populations toward
implementing ‘Western civilisation’ around the globe. I first read that fact in
Anthony Samson’s 1977 publication ‘The Arms Bazaar: A Study of the
International Arms Trade’. That book expanded my understanding of the impact of
Western colonisation way beyond what had entered the UK state schools
educational curriculum in 1964. Nonetheless, I would say that in the wake, too,
of the Windrush generation’s arrival in Britain, I was blessed with a more
comprehensive view of the humanity of ‘immigrants’ than that afforded to
earlier generations of White Britons, particularly in those Reform UK voting
hotspots that include the North and South Herefordshire,
Perceptions differ regarding what is
‘racist’ and what is ‘normal’ of course through time, space and individual
backgrounds, and it can be incisive to classify racism as a form of xenophobia
or ‘othering’ – which I link to what I’d call ‘the faux unity of the collective
pointing finger’. Illustrating my point, I note that a former pupil of my
secondary school whose father was white European and mother of
African-Caribbean descent joined the Parachute Regiment and at a subsequent
‘lads’ night out’ spoke a lot about his hatred of ‘Pakis’ [sic]. I liken that
behaviour to my mid-1970s to mid-1980s behavioural transition. In the mid-1970s
I recited homophobic jokes when those were very common and I had experienced
various forms of scapegoating based on my disability, in my secondary schooling
and early work experience; then, in the 1980s –I began to recognise a shared
humanity with gays and lesbians through getting to know some as people to
converse with. In reflection, I came to recognise that the vehemence of my
previous ‘finger-pointing’ was an attempted means of being seen as ‘part of the
clan’, I would also point out that, of course, the fact that the educational
curriculum under the Wilson Government began to recognise the harms done under
colonisation did not automatically promote increasingly anti-racist
generations. Much would depend upon the skills of the teachers, attitudes of
parents, local demographies, etc.
There has also been the influence of
mainstream mass media over the decades. In 1977 I had been given notice by my
bed and breakfast landlady that I needed to move as her family were going on
summer holiday as was their wont, and they only took lodgers on board annually.
Thus, while my brother-in-law managed to find accommodation for me in
Handsworth, Birmingham, I was getting very fearful regarding what reception I
might receive there, as the Birmingham Post & Evening Mail front page news
items stereotyped Handsworth as a hostile environment for Whites, as regularly
attacked by African-Caribbeans. Yet when I got there, I found that the local
youths would wave ‘Hello’ to me from the steps of their terraced houses on the
occasions that I returned late at night.
Yet move the calendar forward to 2024 and consider the impact in a
predominantly White enclave such as Herefordshire, of, say, a Daily Mail front
page courtroom sketch depicting a Non-White person. Mercifully, in Herefordshire the Hereford Times is much more egalitarian,
hosting many of my letters.
What price greatness?
Reform UK owner Nigel Farage MP’s pal
Donald Trump, referring to America’s murderous annexation of the Philippines
involving a genocide of Muslims, claimed that General John J Pershing, “a rough
guy … caught fifty terrorists who did tremendous damage . and he took the fifty
terrorists, and he took fifty men, and he dipped fifty bullets in pig’s blood …
and he lined up the fifty people, and they shot forty-nine of those people, and
the fiftieth person he said you go back to your people and you tell them what
happened. And for twenty-five years there wasn’t a problem’.”(1)
Now it has emerged, Fred Trump III just revealed what Donald Trump said about
Americans with disabilities like his son: “Those people . . . ” Donald said,
trailing off. “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of
people should just die.” (2)
Against such a backdrop, a Revd David Hewlett wrote Hereford Times that the
Green Party is “on the far left of UK politics,” and I note that Reform’s
manifesto did little to spell out what they regard as “government waste.”
Notes
1 https://www.the-tls.co.uk/history/twentieth-century-onwards-history/massacre-in-the-clouds-kim-a-wagner-book-review-adam-hochschild/
2 https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jul/24/trump-nephew-book-disabled-son-die
We should recognize the positive contributions of degrowth
proponents: Rethinking of economic growth under capitalism, critiquing its
measure, the GNP/GDP. Recognizing capitalism’s unsustainable use of natural
resources, in particular fossil fuels in its production of commodities
regardless of their impact on the health of people and the environment, along
with a growing ecosocialist perspective. Pointing to the negative impacts of
“green” extractivism in the creation of renewable energy supplies
My main critique of the Degrowth Agenda
“Walter Hollitscher, an Austrian materialist philosopher
maintained, in discussions occurring in the late 1970s, that the only thing
which should definitely grow is the satisfaction of needs. Basically, from a
socio-ecological point of view the question of growth or de-growth is simple:
there cannot be a yes or no answer. Some flows, stock, and activities should
grow; others should not grow but decrease, for example, the production of
weapons. It does not seem useful to use “de-growth” without indicating what
should decrease, because the general use of the notion “de-growth” easily can
easily also be understood as an undifferentiated attack on the standard of
living and livelihood of many groups of people, especially broad low-income
sectors of society.” (1). I submit a
better slogan is “Grow the good, degrow the bad”. Grow: renewable energy
supplies, green cities, electrified public transport, provision of health and
education Degrow: wasteful consumption of global elites, but most of all,
degrow and terminate the Military Industrial Fossil Fuel Nuclear State Terror
Complex (MIC)
Global energy capacity should grow in the form of renewable
energy to confront the challenges of energy poverty in the global South (e.g.,
India) and climate adaptation/mitigation. Degrow global North energy
consumption, grow the global South capacity, but redistribution alone is not
sufficient. Now global capacity in power units is 20 TW, 2.8 kW/person x 8
billion people = 22.4 TW, 2.8 kW/person being the rough present minimum to
achieve the highest life expectancy.
But leading degrowthers advocate a global reduction in energy
consumption (2). This is a terrible
prescription for most of humanity, because it would condemn them to a state of
energy poverty even worse than present as well as prevent the creation of the
wind/solar power capacity necessary for climate adaptation, especially for
extreme heat stress, and mitigation, making it impossible to meet the 1.5 deg C
global warming target, increasing the potential for climate catastrophe with
horrors much worse than we now witness.
Degrowthers advocate for the goal of a “satisfactory” quality of
life for most of humanity living in the global South, in contrast to a higher
standard for many in the global North (3), instead of demanding and mapping out
a path to the highest state-of-the-science life expectancy/quality of life
achievable for all children in their lifetime.
Finally, degrowthers claim that the “global material and energy
has to degrow, starting with those nations that are ecologically indebted to
the rest…because the materials extracted from the earth cause huge damage to
ecosystems and to the people that depend on them” (4). Degrowth theorists argue
that GDP must contract along with material throughput, and that a contraction
of the latter is necessary for achieving a good life for all within ecological
boundaries.
With respect to material throughput, we argue that it should
increase globally in an ecosocialist transition as a culmination of a Green New
Deal. In this transition, as at least we envision it, the plan would not be
simply for degrowth, but for a complete phasing out of the MIC. Its
disappearance would liberate vast quantities of materials, especially metals,
for the creation of a global wind and solar power infrastructure (5). The throughput in closed industrial ecologies
in a fully solarized physical economy will be limited by the level of renewable
energy being supplied to drive it.
There are two extractivist challenges, fossil fuels and mining
of metals used in renewable energy technologies driven by “green” capital.
Recycling rates of the rare earth metals are currently very low.
Increasing these rates, as well as implementing alternative technologies, could
greatly reduce mining for these and other metals used in renewable energy
technologies.
Degrowthers rely their thermodynamics on Georgescu-Roegen’s (GR)
fallacious “4th law” which was rejected over thirty years ago even by leading
ecological economics scholars who recognized that incoming solar radiation
could be the energy supply of global civilization. GR’s fallacy was his conflation of isolated
and closed systems. Informed by GR’s “entropy law” degrowthers fail to
recognize the critical difference between the high efficiency capture of the
solar flux generating wind/solar power and the fossil fuel/nuclear fission
energy supply. Global solar power will pay its ‘‘entropic debt’’ to space as
non-incremental waste heat, without driving us to tipping points towards
catastrophic climate change, while facilitating recycling/industrial ecologies phasing
out extractivism.
Reaching an ecosocialist transition will require organizing a
transnational movement strong enough to defeat the imperial agenda of
militarized fossil capital while implementing a global Green New Deal
increasingly guided by an ecosocialist agenda.
Growth and degrowth of the global economy are necessary to
create a global human civilization which optimizes the lives of its human
inhabitants while preserving biodiversity for future generations. As an alternative, the degrowth program is
problematic because of its failure to analyze the qualitative aspects of
economic growth and its emphasis on the local economy without recognizing the
urgency to address global climate change.
Footnotes
(1) p.33-34, Baum (20 11) pp. 33-45, transform! European Journal
For Alternative Thinking And Political Dialogue, Hamburg.
(2) e.g., Kallis (2019) Capitalism Nature Socialism (CNS) 30
(3): 188–206; Mastini, Kallis and Hickel. (2021) Ecological Economics 179:
106832.
(3) e.g., Millward-Hopkins et al, 2020. Global Environmental
Change, 65: 102168.
(4) p.192, Kallis (2019)
ibid. Likewise LaVenia Jr., and Busk (2024) CNS, DOI:
10.1080/10455752.2024.2380846.
(5) Schwartzman and Engel-Di Mauro (2019) CNS.30 (3): 40-51.
For more see our book website: https://www.theearthisnotforsale.org and https://climateandcapitalism.com/2024/01/08/an-ecosocialist-strategy-that-can-still-make-1-5-possible/;
https://climateandcapitalism.com/2022/01/05/a-critique-of-degrowth/.
Defiant Amazon Workers will continue to fight on for Union
Recognition, A pay rise of £15 hour per and improving workers conditions.
By Roy Sandison member of Coventry Amazon Workers Support Group
(Personal Capacity) Unite Community Member.
Low paid workers at one of the richest companies in the world
(Jeff Bezos the owner is the 2nd richest person in the world with a
net worth of $211 billion dollars) have come very close to a significant
victory over this virulent anti trade union company.
The ballot in July for statutory recognition of GMB union at
Amazon’s BHX4 Coventry site was narrowly lost. 49.5% of the 2,600 workers voted
for GMB to be recognised, short by just 28 votes!
The real struggle started in 2020 when Amazon workers were
offered a paltry pay rise of 35-50p per hour. This was met by spontaneous walk
outs at Amazon sites throughout the country. Contact was made by the handful of
GMB Union members at the Coventry site requesting help from their trade union
and to their credit the GMB region officers put together a plan with them to
fight for a proper pay rise and improved conditions at the site.
Model Struggle
Part of the plan was ballot and rolling strikes amongst members
of the union – with the aim to recruit new members to build up strength. The
local Trade Union was also approached to help leaflet the site and get the word
out. All this was done in the pioneering spirit of the early days of the
workers movement in the UK. Mass pickets took place, and many donations were
made and speaker tours over the past two years. Trade Union membership rose to
over the 1200 mark. Workers also spoke at our Green Party Trade Union Group
about International support for the fight.
Amazon spends £millions to fight back.
Amazon was now running scared with the numbers clearly for the union,
so they had to step up its attacks on unionisation. Workers were bribed with
free meals on strike days. Anti-union messages popped up across the site – from
TV screens to posters in toilet cubicles. Union members reported that managers
were drafted in from other sites just to lurk around the warehouse speaking to
staff about the ‘dangers’ of the union. QR codes were placed across the
canteens with a direct link to cancel GMB union membership. Workers were pushed
into attending multiple anti-union seminars.
Many of the workers at the site were migrants with English not
being the 1st language this was enhanced as Amazon ‘recruited’
thousands of workers from this demographic to dilute the workforce at the site.
The GMB did very well in producing leaflets in different languages as well as
union members from the different communities taking the lead in communication.
Unfortunately, by a very narrow margin the recognition ballot
was lost, some legal action is planned over the activities of Amazon in the
ballot. Under the anti-Trade Union 1992 act the workers cannot be balloted for
3 years.
Green MPs need to work with others on workers’ rights.to repeal
anti trade union laws.
The Green Party policy is for vicious Anti Trade Union
legislation to be scrapped. Workers in the UK have some of the worse rights in
Europe.
Green MPs’ must be putting pressure on the Labour Government to
scrap these laws. Greens need to work with other voices in parliament. The GMB
and Unite sponsor many Labours MP’s and as a matter of urgency a coalition of voices
for change must come together to support workers in struggle.
So many positive lessons to be used in other struggles.
Getting back to the struggle in Coventry, there are so many
lessons and good practice to be learnt from the struggle that you would need a
handbook on how to defend the workers movement in the UK and globally.
WORKERS ARE NOT ROBOTS!
Are we
sleepwalking through the biggest unregulated social experiment in human
history? The Age of Humachines argues that 21st century growth capitalism has
entered a reckless, scientific phase aimed at eliminating the difference
between humans and machines. The AI-enabled humanization of machines and
mechanization of humans involve a vast array of digital, robotic, genetic,
medical, military, and industrial technologies which are rapidly transforming
everyday life. The techno-utopian vision driving this revolution claims it has
solutions to every problem. But is Big Tech more likely to take us to an ecologically
ravaged techno-dystopia which spells the death of democracy and equality? Topics
covered include:
• The philosophy, economics and “post-biological” science of 21st century
ontocapitalism
• AI, superintelligence and “AImageddon”
• Job automation, social inequality and the surveillance state
• How Big Tech business empires threaten sustainability, democracy and human
wellbeing
• The history of technological society
• Automated decision-making in medicine, justice, war and business
• Robot sex, care, parenting and work
• The machine mindset psychology of Silicon Valley’s unelected billionaire
leadership elite and their CIMENT ideology
• Brain-computer interfacing, artificial organs and personal eugenics
This book shows
how degrowth economics, participatory democracy and radical psychology assist the
best possible choices about the future which is rushing towards us.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE how can we regulate AI?
by Malcolm Bailey
The
current furious growth of AI seems like the wild west, where anything goes, a
totally unchecked free-for-all, driven by predatory surveillance capitalism. It
is easy to be confused by where it is all leading: is it a benign power for the
good, or sinister.
The Green Party should take
urgent action to adopt policies regulating artificial intelligence for the
public good. A comprehensive set of detailed policies will be tabled for
debate at the Autumn Conference 2024 in motion E.05. If agreed these policies
will be added to the Science and Technology chapter of Policies for a
Sustainable Society.
Generative
AI and large language models like Chat GPT use enormous quantities of data
trawled from the internet and elsewhere. Academic publishers are even selling
access to research papers to technology firms.
Surveillance
capitalism is an operating model used by big data organisations like Amazon,
Facebook, WhatsApp, Microsoft, Apple, Google, and others. The corporation
provides a service enabling it to retrieve digital data about you; some of this
data is sold and acquired by other companies for advertising and profit. This personal data may be taken
without consent or knowledge. It is often stolen by subterfuge, with or without
click-wrap on-line ‘contracts’ which themselves are a unilateral seizure of
rights without consent. The sources are widespread and
increasing, capable of yielding huge quantities of personal data.
European Union regulations are in place, but
how effective remains to be seen. The tech giants are often a step or two ahead
of the game. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (2018) ensures the right
to be informed when automated decisions are made affecting your life, and to
challenge the outcomes. The recent European Union Artificial Intelligence Act
(2024) establishes a common regulatory and legal framework within the EU.
Organisations must now disclose data on which their AI is being trained.
The proposed Green Party policies on the
regulation of artificial intelligence are comprehensive. They recognise the
potential of AI to be of great benefit, and a positive step towards achieving a
sustainable future for our society. They also address current threats from AI,
and the potential existential risks from artificial general intelligence (AGI)
if and when machine intelligence matches or exceeds human intelligence. Therefore,
the proposed policy insists there should be a comprehensive, legally enforceable
regulation of AI to address ecological, social, and economic harm, and guide
developments to better serve people and the planet.
A regulatory system will be established to
provide oversight and coordination for sectoral regulation of data and AI. The
system will use regulation to effectively drive AI development and usage in
line with the precautionary principle. When risks are well managed, AI has the
potential to make a positive contribution to our society, economy, and
environment.
This policy motion to conference emphasises
securing workers’ rights in the challenging and changing workplace
circumstances due to the introduction of AI. There is concern that AI may lead
to job losses and cut workers’ salaries. Some economists believe that rising
inequality is linked to increasing levels of AI. Whereas previous increases in
automation have displaced low-paid staff, it may be that AI will have a greater
impact on higher paid workers. The motion highlights that workers and other
stakeholders must be actively involved in decisions. Trades Unions must be
fully involved in all aspects and at every stage.
The policy commits support for those whose
livelihoods are disrupted by AI and ensures workers’ rights and interests are
respected when AI leads to significant changes in working conditions. The
introduction of Universal Basic Income is important in this respect and a commitment
is made to create an AI Ombudsman to champion the rights of individuals.
Increased energy and water consumption by AI
systems will become more significant and are often overlooked: this motion
calls for appropriate labelling of AI systems. The motion will also prohibit
certain uses of AI by law, including lethal autonomous weapons systems, AI
systems that use deception to influence democratic elections, and
emotion-recognition systems in workplaces or educational settings. Developers
of AI systems will be required to respect all applicable copyright laws. A
Green Party AI regulatory system will foster international links and encourage
global collaboration.
This policy proposal is comprehensive. If
approved by conference it will establish a sound basis for Green Party
artificial intelligence policy in this rapidly evolving field.
I walked into an ancient computer,
In an echoing suburban sports hall,
I watched its components all working
And they looked back at me.
I watched them processing the data,
Which was my task to see.
Paper data arrived in boxes
It was spilt out onto table tops.
A component checked around carefully
For data missed or dropped.
Human hands sorted the data,
By human eyes each item was seen
Could there be fewer errors
If fed through a digital machine?
Bribery blackmail and prejudice
Can alter what humans do,
Machines are not intelligent enough,
But they can be corrupted as well.
Waged workers sitting at tables
Are the ancient computers parts
They might care about democracy
Since their votes will be counted too,
But a soulless machine
Just rapidly does whatever it’s going to do
Counting votes, dropping bombs
Or playing a stupid tune
Or all of these things at once
And it does not care because it cannot care
About anything that it has done.
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