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The power of a King’s Speech
“King Charles III is a constitutional monarch, meaning that he is Head of State. Although his political and executive powers are limited, the Monarch plays a central role in the life of the nation and has a lot of important responsibilities”. (The Role of the Monarch: https://ndla.no/subject:1:9b93cd9e-a45c-428c-a8fb-b4955169efdf/topic:0b7ab7e5-14c7-4118-b81e-c7d27df3aa6d/resource:ad73b390-5142-49e7-ba86-ef25c74d2e28) But what are these responsibilities? What is this…
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Cut out the middleman
Four traders, suppliers of raw materials supply 90% of food for humans and livestock: Cargill, ADM, Louis Dreyfus Commodities and Bunge. They supply cereals, cocoa, cotton, oil, eggs, flour, meat, peanuts, rubber, salt, wool, chemicals and vitamins. The biggest of these, CARGILL, is the largest private company in the United States and controls a quarter…
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Immigration
The images are frightening. We see caravans of migrants crossing Central America on their way to the United States. We see boats filled to the brim off the coast of Florida or in the Mediterranean. In border towns, we see hordes of young men on the streets, destitute, jumping the barriers of detention centres, living…
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Organic mass production has no future
Over the last three years, Europe has seen crop failures due to drought and invasive species. Farmers can’t beat the price of grain from Ukraine, which is in desperate straits. One hectare of arable land disappears every second in the world, and soil is a non-renewable resource. La disparition des terres agricoles – planetoscope: https://www.planetoscope.com/sols/1175-disparition-de-surfaces-agricoles-dans-le-monde.html…
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Freedom and coexistence
The philosophers of the Enlightenment and the liberals of the French Revolution wanted three things above all: bread, freedom of conscience and the abolition of privileges. The right to a decent life should not be merchandised. Having a roof over your head and bread should not be monetized. Revolutionaries marched for bread. It was the…
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How can we win back trust?
Today, the far right in Europe and in the United States is only gaining ground. But is attacking immigrants, as the police are doing, a solution to the security problems we face? What can we do about the rise of jihadism in particular? Jihadism feeds on the exclusion advocated by the extreme right and applied…
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Zero emission transport
Producing hydrogen by electrolysis of water using various primary sources of carbon-free energy (wind, sun, water) could prove useful for trucks (which contribute 25% of CO2 emissions in the transport sector), public transport and boats. Unlike electric cars, which consume lithium, the use of which is harmful to the environment, hydrogen produced by electrolysis of…
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Humiliated by the Republic
During the industrial revolution, people were forcibly moved from the countryside to cities or industrial estates where there were factories or mines. Karl Marx turned these displaced people into a class, the proletariat. In the 1970s, they were dispossessed of their places of work by moving their sources of income abroad. Companies seeking to increase…
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Decivilisation
Decivilisation is the new buzzword. The French government use it to describe workers who take to the streets, young people in the suburbs or environmental activists. All of Europe’s right-wing parties use the same word to say that Europe is losing its civilisation and is being replaced by barbaric migrants. “By using the term “decivilisation”…
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Fashion
On average, it takes 10,000 litres of water to produce 1 kilo of cotton, or 2,500 to 3,000 litres for a standard T-shirt (250 to 300 grams of cotton). That’s a lot of water consumption for such a small piece of fabric! 4% of the world’s drinking water is used to produce our clothes. The…