This time next year we shall be looking back on 1999, as we look forward into the new millennium. Will the Pinochet affair and US/UK military intervention in Iraq in the last weeks of 1998 have strengthened US and European power to intervene unilaterally in world affairs, or will they have strengthened demands for a more democratic and effective world system of law and order and human rights? Will the impact of the euro, disruption by the millennium computer bug (Y2K), renewed global financial crisis, and growing public distrust of corporate power and new technology, have encouraged people to seek a new direction? 1999 will no doubt offer new opportunities for millennial change.

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The texts of this and previous newsletters are on our website - new address <http://www.ecoplan.org/tp2000>.) Next issue August/September 1999. Annual subscriptions suggested as follows. Personal, voluntary groups, NGOs, etc: UK and Europe £5; worldwide outside Europe £6. Business corporations and government departments £20. Other institutions £10. Free to people who who cannot pay. Cheques to ‘Turning Point’ please. All payments in sterling please.

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NB. The publications below are available from us at special prices. Cheques to James Robertson please. Sterling only. No fax, e-mail or credit card orders. Only orders accompanied by payment will be accepted. Prices (inc p&p) for UK, EU, surface worldwide (SW) and airmail worldwide (AW) are as follows:

Money Matters

In 1999 awareness will grow of the effects of a single monetary policy within Euroland, of the euro’s significance for the UK and the wider world, of progress of the Jubilee 2000 Campaign on Third World Debt, of the acknowledged need to reform the world’s "economic architecture" in response to global financial disorder, and of the continuing spread of local currencies. Public interest in the local, national, European and global workings of money, currencies, debt and finance will rise. The Winter 1998 New Economics (£2.50 from New Economics Foundation, Cinnamon House, 6-8 Cole Street, London SE1 4YH; <http://www.neweconomics.org>) includes articles on "Who wins in the wild international casino?" (Ann Pettifor, director Jubilee 2000 Coalition; <http://www.jubilee2000uk.org>), "What can we do about the financial system?" (Alex Falconer MEP & Dave Smith, 25 Church Street, Inverkeithing, Fife, Scotland; <The_Citizen@compuserve.com>), "No money? We’ve all got a bit of time" (David Boyle - see p.8) and "Will we have one eurocurrency or hundreds?" (Pat Conaty, Aston Reinvestment Trust, The Rectory, 3 Tower Street, Birmingham B19 3UY; <reinvest@gn.apc.org>).

On 5 December the Mayor of Toronto, Mel Lastman, launched the new local currency Toronto Dollars, "Money that Builds Community", supported by over 50 cooperating neighbourhood businesses together with community groups, charitable organisations, churches and individuals. Full information at <http://www.web.net/~tordoll/>.

Triodos Bank (11 The Promenade, Clifton, Bristol BS8 3NN) is now helping to finance over 40 fair trade and microcredit organisations in Central and South America, Africa and Asia. "Jubilee 2000’s campaign to have third world debt written off has stimulated many people to open North South Plan savings accounts" - Triodos News, November 1998 - <mail@triodos.co.uk>.

An aim of Action Plan 1998-2005 (Grameen Bank, Mirpur-Two, Dhaka 1216, Bangladesh; <http://www.grameen.com>) is for at least two thirds of the three million families who will then be members of Grameen to be poverty-free. "Poverty-free" will satisfy 10 indicators: a tin-roof house, beds or cots for all family members, safe drinking water, access to a sanitary latrine, all school-age children at school, sufficient warm clothing, mosquito-nets, a vegetable garden, enough food, and income-earning opportunities for all adults.

Bernard Lietaer <http://www.transaction.net/money/bio/lietaer.html>) reported to the European Commission’s Forward Studies Unit in February 1998 on "The Social Impact of Electronic Money: A Challenge to the European Union?". Four chapters dealing with: (1) trends in electronic payment systems; (2) unemployment in the information age; (3) implications for the euro; and (4) complementary currencies - employment-creating electronic money. Information about the availability of the report from Marc Luyckx <marc.luyckx@.cdp.cec.be>.

Pages 4-5 contain an updated summary of James Robertson’s article on "Compulsion or Choice? Key Questions about the Euro" - published in New European, Vol.98, No.5 (editor John Coleman 14-16 Carroun Road, London SW8 1JT) immediately following an article by Conservative leader William Hague on "The potential for Europe and the limits to Union".

Unless the case for monetary reform is more widely understood and supported, it will remain the preserve of committed amateurs without the support of competent professional colleagues and back-up, "whilst professional economists are paid to manage an increasingly dysfunctional financial system". We warmly recommend Michael Rowbotham’s three new booklets - "A Lasting Jubilee", 44pp; "The Drive behind Globalisation", 43pp; and "Bank-rolling the World into Chaos", 40pp. They are available from him at £3 each inc p&p from Bretts Cottage, Chapel Road, Thurgarton, Norwich NR11 7NP. He convincingly argues for a new debt-free way of supplying money to the economy. Governments should increase the amount of money they supply, and restrict the power of banks to create money and debt.

Offshore Finance Centres, or tax havens, are coming under the spotlight. Other EU countries complain that Britain’s tax havens - Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man - create unfair financial competition. The OECD is examining their role in the international financial system. The banking faults that caused the recent Asian financial crisis included the use of dummy companies in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere to hide illegal bad debts. The need for greater transparency in international financial transactions to curb tax evasion and criminal money laundering is widely accepted. Austin Mitchell MP has raised the issue in Parliament. Information from the Offshire Finance Research Group (Gary Matthews, 83 Hazel Drive, Chesterfield, Derbyshire S40 3EJ; <http://visar.csustan.edu/aaba/aaba.htm>).

"The extensive popular networks that are intruding into the shadowy world of intergovernmental economic institutions - the WTO, IMF, G7, GATT and World Bank - are making a vision of democratic world governance a matter of practical political action (witness, for example, the movement against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment) - Hilary Wainwright, "Money Crisis Holds Promise of Change", in Red Pepper, October 1998 <http://www.redpepper.org.uk>. A good source of information on these issues is Paul Swann (<pswann@easynet.co.uk> - see p.16).

"The process for reforming or revolutionising the global economic architecture should be characterised by transparency, participation and accountability. Instead, the process in place now is exclusive". The US Treasury invited the G7 rich countries and "significant" emerging market economies to constitute a new G22 for the purpose. Notably absent are poor countries and the United Nations system. "Proposals for a New Global Economic Architecture" by Jo Marie Griesgraber is a good 3-page account (Center Focus No.142, December 1998, Center of Concern, 1225 Otis Street NE, Washington, DC 20017, USA).

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(Abridged and updated from New European Vol 98 No 5)

No. As now decided, the peoples of Euroland will have to use the euro as a single currency; their national currencies will no longer exist. By contrast, people in Britain and other countries outside Euroland will be free to continue using their own currencies within their own countries, but also be able to use the euro as a common currency, e.g. for foreign travel and trading.

They will be in the same position as non-Americans who now use the US$ as a common currency for travel and trade outside the US, and as citizens of some countries - e.g. Cuba and Russia - which use the US$ as a parallel currency within their own country. Computerised banking makes it easy for the same person or business to have bank accounts for different currencies.

Most supporters of a single European currency have seen it as a step toward a European super-state, able to put an end to war between Europe’s peoples and stand up to the USA and the former Soviet Union. The urgency of those arguments has weakened over the years, and many British euro-supporters have unsuccessfully tried to deny that a single currency implies a single super-state. In any case, enabling European peoples to use the euro when convenient, rather than compelling them to use it at all times, would probably provide more effective encouragement to closer co-operation than the economic disputes which will stem from a single currency - see Q.5.

Advantages claimed for the single currency are that it will: reduce the transaction costs of currency exchange; eliminate the risks and uncertainties of exchange-rate fluctuations; and make it easier to compare the prices of the same things in different countries, so stimulating competition and reducing prices. But these results can be largely achieved by a common currency. Regular users of the euro and sterling, for example, will be able to limit their exchange costs and risks by using separate bank accounts for each currency.

By contrast, the disadvantages of the compulsory single currency are strong. EU countries have different levels of prosperity, and their economic cycles are out of step - when some are at risk of inflation, others are at risk of recession. So uniform interest rates imposed by a single European monetary authority will be too high for those that need the stimulus of low interest rates, and too low for those that need the restraint of high ones. Euroland accepts that a single monetary policy will widen the gap between rich and poor areas and worsen the problems of "economic crisis regions". It aims to correct this by large financial transfers - confirming that a unified currency must necessarily involve higher levels of centralised public expenditure and taxation.

Q.5. If the USA can prosper with a single currency, why not the EU?

Being more unified politically, economically, socially and culturally, the USA can respond more flexibly to internal economic disparities and fluctuations. There is greater mobility of labour there than between EU countries. Also the US federal government’s spending and taxing is roughly twice the total of all the US states’ - so, as economic prosperity rises and falls in different states, the federal tax and spending systems automatically adjust the amounts of tax and public spending coming from and going to each. By contrast, the EU’s spending and taxing is only a small fraction of its constituent nations’, so it cannot provide that automatic stabilising mechanism. Thus, as Milton Friedman predicts, the euro may create divisive political crises from economic divergences that can no longer be dealt with by exchange-rate adjustments.

Yes, very. Even a single national currency cannot respond flexibly enough to local needs. When people in every locality are compelled to use a single national currency, declining economic success in a locality brings too little money into local circulation to support even purely local activities. Local unemployment then rises, local land and other resources are unused, and local needs are unmet. National monetary policies appropriate for prosperous localities are bound to be wrong for poorer ones. This is why so many local currencies are springing up all over the world. The effects of a single continental currency like the euro are bound to quicken their growth.

Yes. That will be in tune with the increasingly global and increasingly local nature of 21st-century economic life. It will reflect a preference for choice, not compulsion - for an organic rather than a Procrustean, one-size-fits-all approach to monetary evolution. After a single-currency interlude of economic and political turbulence, thoughtful Europhiles will increasingly aim to introduce a range of currencies for European people to use for different purposes. These will include: a common (not single) European currency; national currencies (in countries that still have them or can re-introduce them), local or regional currencies issued by local or regional authorities that so decide; and neighbourhood initiatives like LETS.

Those who already enjoy centralised economic and political power will gain from the euro as a single currency. Others will lose. By contrast, evolving a multi-level system of currencies will enlarge economic freedom for all. Britain and the other euro non-joiners can still take that path. We should insist on doing so. We should learn to use the euro when it suits us. We should encourage local currencies, and learn to use them when it suits us. And we should keep the pound sterling, in order to keep control of our national monetary policy. That way, not only will we help to limit our own vulnerability to financial shocks from Europe and the wider world. We will help to show others how to do so too.

James Robertson, January 1999.

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Proceedings of the 14 May conference on SHARING OUR COMMON HERITAGE: RESOURCE TAXES AND GREEN DIVIDENDS are available from the Oxford Centre for Environment, Ethics and Society (80pp, £7.50 inc p&p from OCEES, Mansfield College, Oxford OX1 3TF; <ocees@mansfield.oxford.ac.uk>; Anne Maclachlan). Included are: papers by James Robertson, Philippe Van Parijs, Fred Harrison, Mason Gaffney, Alanna Hartzok and Tatiana Roskoshnaya; points raised in discussion; concluding remarks by David Marquand; and a follow-up agenda. Some follow-up questions are about: the ethical basis for sharing the value of common resources; matching the right to a citizen’s income with duties of citizenship; and defining and enforcing those duties.

BIEN’s Autumn ‘98 Newsletter (Basic Income European Network, Philippe Van Parijs, Chaire Hoover, 3 Place Montesquieu, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; <vanparijs@etes.ucl.ac.be>) asks if BIEN may become ‘Basic Income Earth Network’. Support for combining basic income and resource taxes is growing. Tony Fitzpatrick (Social Studies, University of Luton, Park Square, Luton LU1 3JU; <tony.fitzpatrick@luton.ac.uk>) explored "the implications of ecological thought for social welfare" in Critical Social Policy, Issue 54, February 1998, and spoke at BIEN’s Amsterdam congress in September. A member of BIEN’s Executive Committee, Steven Quilley (Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition, Precinct Centre, Manchester University, Oxford Road, Manchester M13; <steve.quilley@man.ac.uk>) gave a paper on "Sustainable Funding of Basic Income: Environment, Citizenship & Community".

The Henry George Foundation (new address, 427 London Fruit Exchange, Brushfield Street, London E1 6EL; <HGF_IGU@compuserve.com>; new Director, Tony Vickers) plans a meeting in Edinburgh in March on land reform, land taxation and the new Scottish Parliament’s tax powers. The Autumn 1998 issue of Land & Liberty noted that "tax policy will be at the centre of the campaign to determine who controls Scotland’s new Parliament". The December 1998 Special Russian Issue reports a remarkable change in economic attitude in Moscow following Yevgeny Primakov’s appointment as Prime Minister - "Some of Primakov’s key advisers, in private conversation, say they are searching for a geo-political programme that would ensure that the natural resources of Russia were a legacy for the whole of mankind". Tanya Roskoshnaya (see above) reports her interview with Leonid Abalkin, a former senior adviser to Mikhail Gorbachev and now back in favour, on the possibilities and current political problems of introducing a policy of ‘rent’ as public revenue.

"Jubilee 2000", 20pp booklet, £1.50 inc p&p, from Kenneth Jupp (East Manor House, Welwyn, Herts AL6 9DX) discusses Jubilee’s original meaning in the Torah. It was primarily not about money, but about land - received from God as the nation’s common heritage, to be divided equitably, and to be restored to all families every 49 years, to prevent people taking and keeping more than their fair share in order to enrich themselves and oppress the poor.

Free-market economics is not a natural system ordained by God. It is based on a legal framework that enabled enclosure of land and denial of common rights of access to the means of subsistence by self-reliant peasant farmers (Karl Polanyi). Individual private contributions to wealth creation are small, wealth being largely created cooperatively by drawing on the cultural heritage of skills, processes, materials and knowledge developed by past generations (C.H. Douglas). Frances Hutchinson and Brian Burkitt quote Polanyi and Douglas in the context of ownership and property rights in their article on "Social Credit and Environmental Sustainability" in the Social Crediter, Jan/Feb 1999 (annual sub UK £6, Abroad £9, from KRP Ltd, 16 Forth Street, Edinburgh EH1 3LH). In the Nov/Dec 1998 issue Malcolm Slessor discusses the UNITAX idea of taxing energy at source - which would channel the nature-created value of energy into public revenue rather than private profit. (The Nov/Dec issue also contains, as background to Social Crediter’s proposed CAMPAIGN FOR GLOBAL ECONOMIC REFORM, a good historical summary - 1690s to 1940s - of experiments and proposals for reforming the debt-money system.)

We have sometimes thought the "free-market" approach of the Libertarian Alliance (25 Chapter Chambers, Esterbrooke Street, London SW1P 4NN) was too ready to accept the freedom of big business to diminish the freedom of people. But it’s good to see recent ECONOMIC NOTES opposing private property rights over common resources like land and ideas. In No.82, 1998, Don Riley asks, "What is the nature of the swindle, that rewards me [a landowner] when I do nothing, do not visit the location of my enrichment, or perhaps do not even visit the country where it is located?...Everyone should share in the increase in land value attached to a planning gain". In No.83, 1998, Brian Micklethwait suggests a new "principle of economic organisation...Since the early days of the industrial revolution, the idea that you can own ideas, if only for a few decades, has been regarded as a precondition for technological development...but many, including many libertarians, are uneasy about the concept of ‘intellectual property’. ...A central reason for property is scarcity. But ideas aren’t scarce. An idea can be used by millions simultaneously".

"Biotech companies have been pushing the notion of ‘no patent - no cure’. Yet this is an absolute myth. They claim they need patents to protect the massive investment costs of research. Yet, if you analyse the way they fund the research, you find that most of the costs are paid by you and I as taxpayers... It is a myth that the industry carries all the cost and all the risk and therefore needs to be protected. ... We all have a stake in research funded from the public purse. So why don’t we have a new concept of ‘public patents’ - goods permanently held in public ownership with guaranteed common access rights, and which treat the products, whether crops or cures, quite differently from the process of inventing machines? It would simply define research into our common heritage as part of the global commons". Alan Simpson MP asks "Can democracy cope with biotechnology?" in SPLICE, Dec 1998/Jan 1999 (The Genetics Forum, 94 White Lion Street, London N1 9PF, <http://www.geneticsforum.org.uk>.

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David Boyle: FUNNY MONEY: IN SEARCH OF ALTERNATIVE CASH: Harper Collins, 1999, 224pp, hbk, £14.99. "While we Europeans agonise about launching a single currency, suddenly everybody in the United States is issuing money. There are phone units, subway tokens, affinity cards, cybercurrencies, time dollars, hours, Valley Dollars, Frequent Flyer Hours. Americans don’t wait for the government to do it ...". We warmly recommend David Boyle’s enjoyable, informative and thought-provoking personal account of his journey among the many American ‘new alchemists’ who are creating alternative currencies - like Edgar Cahn (time dollars), Paul Glover (Ithaca hours) and Bob Swann (Berkshires). They, and comparable LETS activists elsewhere, foreshadow "a revolution in the way we understand money. Whether or not we accept European Monetary Union, there will soon be euros circulating in British shops, not to mention air miles, reward cards, loyalty bonuses, Mondex, and all the range of new corporate currencies. Don’t be taken in by the single European currency: we will soon be living in a multi-currency world where DIY money and corporate currencies compete for our attention".

David Begg et al (eds): EMU: PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES FOR THE EURO: Blackwell, 1998, 351pp, pbk, £39.50. From these seven specialist papers we noted two points. First, "research to date suggests that EMU carries very serious risks. The best forecast is that individual EMU countries will go through long periods of recession or overheating, with few tools to affect the outcome". Second, the proposed high-value banknotes of up to 500 euros will raise seignorage revenues for the EU but may also fuel the ‘underground economy’ - good for informal activities that are socially positive, but bad as an encouragement to tax evasion and criminal money laundering.

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 1998: Oxford University Press, 228pp, pbk, £16.99. This annual compendium of statistics on human wellbeing from the UN Development Programme (UNDP) is invaluable. For example, the combined wealth of the world’s 225 richest individuals equals the annual income of the poorest 47% of the world’s population. Less than 4% of it, amounting to roughly $40 billion a year, would cover the cost of achieving and maintaining universal basic education, universal basic health care, reproductive health care for all women, and adequate food, clean water and safe sewers for all. The 1998 theme was Sustainable Consumption. The 7-point Agenda covers: (1) minimum consumption needs for all; (2) environmentally sustainable technologies; (3) subsidies/taxes to encourage consumption promoting human development, not environmental damage; (4) consumer education, information and protection; (5) international institutions to manage global impacts; (6) encourage alliances between consumer rights, environmental protection, poverty eradication, gender equality and children’s rights; and (7) build "on the burgeoning initiatives of people in communities everywhere". Paul Ekins (Forum for the Future, 227a City Road, London EC1V 1JT) chaired the Report’s UK launch by Richard Jolly, its principal co-ordinator for UNDP.

Frank Ackerman, Neva R. Goodwin et al (eds): THE CHANGING NATURE OF WORK: Island Press, 1998, 432pp, pbk, $30. This 4th volume on Frontier Issues in Economic Thought from the Global Development And Environment Institute (Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA; co-director Neva Goodwin) contains summaries of 86 articles by 77 (mostly US) authors on "labor economics, labor market policy, industrial relations, industrial organisation and the sociology of work". Although recognising that "work as an essential human activity and economic process encompasses much more than paid employment", the book is mainly about the changing nature of employment. But it does seek to redefine the goal of the economy as human well-being, and remedy neo-classical economics’ failure to accept the "complex reality, in which not all consumption is good and not all work is bad".

Jeremy Rifkin: THE END OF WORK: Tarcher/Putnam, 1995, 350pp, pbk, £12.99. This book, now 4 years old, provides a useful North American perspective on the challenge confronting all industrialised societies. Again, it is not, in fact, about the end of work; it is about the transformation of work as the information age brings full employment to an end. Rifkin’s proposals to provide tax breaks or a social wage to people who work in the social economy share the aims of the alternative currency proposals discussed by Boyle (see p.8). (He fails to mention that taxing resources instead of employment, and introducing a citizens income (see p.6), would help people both to get jobs and to do useful work in other ways.)

Walter and Dorothy Schwartz: LIVING LIGHTLY: TRAVELS IN POST-CONSUMER SOCIETY: Jon Carpenter (2 The Spendlove Centre, Charlbury, OX7 3PQ), 1998, 386pp, pbk, £15 inc p&p. The authors spent three years "gathering first-hand evidence of resistance to globalisation from the frontlines of change. Their book is a chronicle of hope, a record of practical survival and individual and community improvement, and proof not only that there are real options open to people, but that a significant global counter-movement is developing to challenge the orthodoxy of globalisation. This is not a DIY manual for the millennium or even an alternative lifestyle directory. It is a genuinely inspiring global report..." - John Vidal in his Foreword. The stories of the ‘Living Lightly people’ are told under five headings: More or less radical lifestyles; Better farms, better food; Some answers to globalisation; Living in community; and Connections.

Michael Hyde: CITY FIELDS, COUNTRY GARDENS: Five Leaves Publications (PO Box 81, Nottingham NG5 4ER), 1998, 185pp, pbk, £7.99. David Crouch and Martin Stott (65 Divinity Road, Oxford OX4 1LH) introduce sixty five of Michael Hyde’s Guardian allotment columns written over 25 years. With Martin Stott’s photographs on allotment sites in England and France, they will interest, inform and delight many allotment holders and gardeners like ourselves. As John Loudon (born 1783) put it, "the love of gardens is the only passion that augments with age", and "a poor man will eat better that has a garden of his own than a rich man that has none".

John Pearce: CENTRES FOR CURIOSITY AND IMAGINATION: Gulbenkian Foundation (98 Portland Place, London W1N 4ET; Deputy Director, Paul Curno), 1998, 144pp, pbk, £8. John Pearce, long a leader in community enterprise and community development, asks: when is a museum not a museum? Is a children’s museum a fun place, a centre of interactivity and learning, a centre for families, a community centre, discovery centre, wonder workshop, an imagination station? He surveys the children’s museum scene in USA, Britain, Europe and beyond, identifies and enlarges on the key characteristics which a ‘true’ children’s museum should incorporate, and proposes measures to promote understanding and practical support for children’s museums in Britain. Very interesting - and attractively produced.

Alan Twelvetrees (ed): COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: RHETORIC OR REALITY?: Community Development Foundation (60 Highbury Grove, London N5 2AG), 1998, 370pp, pbk. Issues discussed by thirty nine authors in fifty Chapters grouped in nine Parts include housing-based regeneration, franchising, voluntary sector contracts, ethnic minority businesses, women and self-employment, the role of bankers, government programmes, private sector support, financial systems, capacity building, the role of intermediaries, and lessons from the developing world and from eastern Europe. The editor asks: Should unpaid work and the household economy be counted as economic? Does community economic development actually create jobs or merely redistribute them? Is there a difference between creating wealth and creating jobs? Karl Birkholzer (see below) suggests the initiatives of today’s community development activists may be the kernel of a new economic system.

Karl Birkholzer et al: KEY VALUES AND STRUCTURES OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISES IN WESTERN EUROPE, Publication No. 29, 1997, pbk, 84pp, and THE CONTRIBUTION OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISES TO COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN 6 EUROPEAN COUNTRIES, Publication No. 30, 1998, pbk, 84pp - both from European Network for Economic Self-Help and Local Development and Technologie-Netzwerk Berlin e.V (TU Berlin, Sekr. Fr 4-8, Franklinstr. 28/29, 10587 Berlin, Germany; contact Gunther Lorenz). No. 29 proposes agreement on ten basic values for the social economy, as a foundation for setting quality standards and drafting a Charter for the Social Economy. No. 30 defines four key characteristics common to all social enterprises - specific social aims, not-for-profit, assets held in trust, co-operative organisation - and makes recommendations to governments, to the social economy sector, and to the private sector, about the further development of social enterprises.

Video: LOCAL FUTURES - BEYOND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY is a 23-minute video made by Helena Norberg Hodge to explain the work of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, and give people who have seen her Ancient Futures video a sense that something can be done - £6 + £1 postage from ISEC (Apple Barn, Week, Dartington, Devon TQ9 6JP).

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London 21 Sustainability Network (c/o Sustainable London Trust, 7 Chamberlain Street, London NW1 8XB; <london21@gn.apc.org>) reports progress by various working groups - see newsletter No.1, November 98. And would a new Sustainability Centre help London to make itself sustainable? Who should a Centre cater for? What should it do? URBED (director Nick Falk) has been commissioned by the Corporation of London’s Bridge House Estates Trust Fund to study this in association with Herbert Girardet and others, and to consult Londoners. Details from Francesca King (URBED, Freepost LON8864, London WC1E 7BR; <sustainability@urbed.co.uk>).

Colin Hutchinson’s website at <http://www.netkonect.co.uk/~applysd> on sustainable development includes, among other things, examples of profound past changes in values, attitudes and behaviour - such as the abolition of slavery and the acceptance of Darwin’s theory of evolution - as possible models for the change to sustainable development which is now needed.

See <http://www.ecoplan.org/carshare/>, both as an example of an interactive website and for information about Car-Sharing Schemes. They are beneficial environmentally, financially and socially, especially if members can buy yearly tickets for unlimited public transport - see Per Elvingson, "Egalitarianism and sustainability", Acid News, Dec. 1998 (Box 7005, S-402 31 Goteborg, Sweden; <info@acidrain.org>; editor Christer Agren).

EcoDesign, Vol.5, No.3, 1998 (editor David Pearson, The British School, Slad Road, Stroud, Glos GL5 1QW) is "a celebration of ecodesign around the world". But, of the Sydney Olympics’ claims to be a triumph of green design, Tony Fry concludes that "any notion of greening the Olympics instantly falls in the face of the complete unsustainability of the modern Games concept... As a commodity/consumption machine driven by big-time sponsors and nasty politics, ...the Olympic Games is an absolute icon of the unsustainable".

"The critical task is to create the conditions which improve the capacity of individual consumers, businesses and public authorities to choose, use and dispose of the goods and services they require in a sustainable way; in other words to move the sustainable alternatives from the margins to the mainstream. Since the key institution for changing consumption is the marketplace, reforms are required which ensure that companies are only competitive if they are sustainable". Ask Norwegian Pollution Control Authority (SFT), PO Box 8100 Dep, N-0032 Oslo, Norway for copies of CONSUMPTION IN A SUSTAINABLE WORLD, an excellent 54pp report by Nick Robins and Sarah Roberts (IIED) of a June 1998 workshop - 50 participants from governments, businesses and citizens’ organisations in 28 countries, hosted by the Norwegian government in cooperation with UN and OECD secretariats. [But what about a sustainable limit to meetings, travel, glossy reports and talk about sustainable consumption? ACTION now, please - eds.]

In an 18pp paper (September 1998) on "Autonomy, Sense of Place, and Conscious Caring", Stuart Hill (Foundation Chair of Social Ecology, University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, Richmond, NSW 2753, Australia) suggests that "the process of greening and humanising business, economics, religion, politics and our lifestyles and relationships, while still at an early stage, is making significant progress. This is still all occurring, however, within the context of a dominant culture that is largely resisting all of these initiatives". He believes that to be most effective in bringing about the needed changes we must focus more on "small meaningful actions that individuals or small groups can guarantee to carry through to completion", rather than on global mega-projects. [Yes. But surely the effect of small meaningful actions will be limited, if nobody acts to change the national and global economics, politics, regulations, institutions and laws that discourage and prohibit them - eds.]

In "Environmental Policy in the Age of Genetics" in Issues in Science and Technology, Fall 1998, Wendy Yap and David Rejeski (Executive Office of the President, Council on Environmental Quality, 722 Jackson Place NW, Washington, DC 20503, USA) discuss the environmental, personal, legal, medical and political implications of gene (DNA) chips ( biotechnology plus microprocessors) as "we move from the end-of-the-pipe world of the 1970s to the inside-the-gene world of the next millennium". Closing down the Office of Technology Assessment has "helped ensure that we will continue to drive through the rapidly changing technological landscape with the headlights off. In times like these we need more foresight, not less". David Rejeski in "Mars, Materials and Three Morality Plays: Materials Flows and Environmental Policy" in Journal of Industrial Ecology, Vol.1, No.4, 1998, and the July 1998 Report of the Interagency Workgroup on Industrial Ecology, Material and Energy Flows (<http://www.oit.doe.gov/mattec/img.htm>), explores industrial ecology’s meaning for the federal government’s policies on sustainable development.

"Science, Technology and Democracy" is the theme of Democracy & Nature, Issue 10, 1998, 176pp. (Subscription enquiries to PO Box 637, Littleton, CO 80160, USA; <subs@aigis.com>.) "The technology that created the transistor and then the microchip will decide what the future will be. Or, to be more precise, those who decide the evolution of the present electronics technology will, actually, decide what the future will be". Will satellite technology be used "to saturate the earth with propaganda, disinformation and entertainment garbage as is done today", or to enable people in poor countries to share in knowledge? - Nikos Raptis (pp29, 30, 31). Democratic science and technology imply inclusive democracy: political democracy for effective citizen control of scientific and technological priorities; economic democracy, so that science and technology address the interest of communities, and not of economic elites; ecological democracy to apply science and technology to environmental needs; and social democracy in decision-making about research and technological development - Takis Fotopoulos (pp85-86).

In Red Pepper, Nov.1998 (see p.3), Luke Anderson reports PR company Burson Marsteller advising EuropaBio, the consortium of biotechnology companies, that "public issues of environmental and human health risk are ‘communications killing fields’ for bioindustries in Europe... All the research evidence confirms that the perception of the profit motive fatally undermines industry’s credibility on these questions". Biotech companies should thus avoid public debate, and let politicians and regulators, who are "charged with public trust", assure the public that biotech products are safe!

In its 1997 Annual Review the Gaia Foundation (18 Well Walk, London NW3 1LD; <gaiafund@gn.apc.org>; Liz Hosken and Ed Posey) reports its support for an international coalition of civil society groups opposing the World Trade Organisation’s efforts to compel member countries to let their biological and cultural knowledge be privatised by corporate ‘life patents’ (see p.7) under the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).

In Living Earth, Oct/Dec 1998, The Soil Association (Bristol House, 40-56 Victoria Street, Bristol BS1 6BY; <info@soilassociation.org>; director Patrick Holden) reports progress in putting to public opinion, retailers, farmers and policy-makers the case against genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food and farming. Normal forms of pollution may have a limited impact, but a serious incidence of gene pollution may be impossible to reverse.

After trying to suppress the The Ecologist’s "Monsanto Files", Monsanto - the largest agro-chemical company, second largest seed company, and fourth largest pharmaceutical company in the world - has been heavily involved in controversy about biotechnology, including GMOs in food. A comprehensive 28pp Briefing No.10, October 1998, on "Genetic Engineering and World Hunger" from The Corner House (PO Box 3137, Station Road, Sturminster Newton, Dorset DT10 1YJ; <http:www.icaap.org/Cornerhouse/>), argues that Monsanto’s claims in its "extraordinary public relations campaign" that genetically modified food is key to feeding the world’s increasing numbers of people, restoring a healthy environment, and providing farmers and consumers worldwide with more choices and opportunities, are the reverse of the truth.

Adbusters, Winter 1999 (The Media Foundation, 1243 West 7th Ave, Vancouver, BC V6H 1B7, Canada; <http://www.adbusters.org>) reports the sacking of two journalists by Florida’s Fox 13 TV station (one of Rupert Murdoch’s 22 US television stations) for whistle-blowing on Monsanto activities in Florida.

Enough!, No.5, Fall 1998 (Center for a New American Dream, 6930 Carroll Ave, Suite 900, Takoma Park, MD 20912, USA; <http://www.newdream.org>) accepts that Monsanto "certainly has committed more than its share of environmental atrocities in the recent past", but encourages readers to look at its 1997 Report on Sustainable Development at <http://www.monsanto.com>.

Pacific World, No.51, December 1998 (PO Box 12125, Wellington, New Zealand; <pirmoffice@clear.net.nz>; editor Kay Weir) includes articles on "Monsanto, Terrorism and The Ecologist", "Putting the Toad in the Potato", and "Scientists Call for Ban on Transgenic Soya Products".

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Foresight (see <http://www.camfordpublishing.com>), a new interdisciplinary journal concerned with the study of the future, will be launched in February 1999 to provide guidance for people "looking for a way through the maze" in business, government and elsewhere. The editor is Colin Blackman (Camford Publishing Ltd, Sidney House, Sussex Street, Cambridge CB1 1PA; <crblackman@camford.demon.co.uk>). James is on the editorial board.

FEASTA (Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, Crolly’s Cottage, Kolcroney, Readypenny, Co Louth, Ireland; <feasta@anu.ie>; Peter Dorman) was launched in Dublin on 28 October, to fill the gap left by economists and to seek to establish a basis for sustainable economic systems. Richard Douthwaite and John Jopling are members of the founding committee.

Our 14pp booklet on "Impressions of the New South Africa", April 1996 (see p.1), mentioned the "apparent lack of interest in South Africa’s obvious potential to develop solar energy". Wayne Visser reports in "Money Values" - <http://www.sane.org.za/money_values/> - that solar energy is now beginning to take off. On 11 November SANE (PO Box 44928, 7735 Claremont, Western Cape, South Africa; <sane@iafrica.com>) formally became the South African New Economics Foundation. Congratulations to Wayne and its other founders.

Issue 1997:1-2 of Development Dialogue, 143pp (Dag Hammarskjold Centre, Ovre Slottsgatan 2, SE-753 10 Uppsala, Sweden; <http://www.dhf.uu.se>) is on "The Future of Indigenous Publishing in Africa". It also includes a moving exchange of letters between Hammarskjold and John Steinbeck from 1953 until his death in 1961; and fine obituaries of Goran Ohlin and Erskine Childers.

The Research Group on African Development Perspectives (Prof Dr Karl Wohlmuth, University of Bremen FB7, PO Box 330 440, 28334 Bremen, Germany; <wauschkuhn@uni-bremen.de>) is calling for papers for Volume 6 of the African Development Perspectives Yearbook on the theme "Good Governance and Economic Development". Among the topics to be covered are empowerment strategies and better environmental policy making.

ALL THIS AND UNEMPLOYMENT TOO, 12pp paper by David Griffiths (12 Herisson Close, Pickering, North Yorks YO18 7HB) for the Quaker Network for Economic Change recommends fundamental changes: the introduction of Citizens Income; the encouragement of voluntary work as a satisfying and socially useful alternative to paid work; greater availability of resources for people who wish to develop their own work as an alternative to unemployment; and a re-assessment of the aims of education in our society.

Contact Duane Raymond (<duane@pacific.net.sg>) for details of his "Forward Thinkers" distribution list of good books and articles on the Internet about responsible business and sustainable development.

ELF (Environmental Law Foundation, Suite 309, 16 Baldwins Gardens, Hatton Square London EC1N 7RJ; Tel: 0171-404 1030; director Maria Adebowale) has just been awarded £150,000 from the National Lottery for its nationwide work for community groups needing legal help to protect their local environment.

1999 events and developments planned by THE LAND IS OURS campaign include the launch of an Allotments Coalition Trust. Details from TLIO (Box E, 111 Magdalen Road, Oxford OX4 1RQ; <office@tlio.demon.co.uk>).

WILLIAM MORRIS, E.P. THOMPSON AND THE THIRD WAY, a typically stimulating 10pp booklet from Peter Cadogan (3 Hinchinbrook House, Greville Road, London NW6 5UP), asks "What is the new imperative?". Answer: "The personal is political... We are not numbers, consumers, voters, clients, buyers or sellers, taxpayers or subjects. We are human beings, individuals with hearts and heads, hopes and fears, feelings and relationships.. , and we need a social and political system that provides for them at every level in society".

Jay Gary edits "Let’s Talk 2000" - <http://www.talk2000.org> - and is secretary of the World Network of Religious Futurists - <http://www.wnrf.org>. One item on that website is an 8-page paper on "Religion and Governance" in the 21st century, by Harland Cleveland and Marc Luyckx (see p.2).

A NEW THEORY OF BASIC HUMAN NEEDS, 20pp, is booklet IV of a series on "A Monotheistic Theory of Power". In it Gunnar Adler-Karlsson (Capri Institute for International Social Philosophy, Box 79, 1-80071 Anacapri, Italy; <adler.karlsson@capri.it>; <http://www.capriinstitute.org>) suggests that the economic system is concerned with food and sex needs, while the political system is concerned with power needs. So how should we try to organise ourselves to rise above these needs and our animal nature?

GANDHI PRASAG, a new journal in Hindi and English, aims to communicate Gandhi’s message to the present generation - particularly the youth and academia. Details from Prof J.S. Mathur (Basant Behari Jairani Peace Studies Foundation, ‘Matri Aanchal’, 3 Bank Road, Allahabad 211 002, India).

UNGA-Link UK (UK Network for Civil Society Link with UN General Assembly, 308 Cricklewood Lane, London NW2 2PX; Chair Jeffrey Segall) brings together NGOs and individuals active for peace, sustainable development, economic and social justice, human rights and the rule of law, in support of the proposed People’s Millennium Assembly in the year 2000 and a subsequent annual Civil Society Forum linked with the General Assembly. The Bahai quarterly One Country, July-September 1998 (Suite 120, 866 UN Plaza, New York, NY 10017, USA; <http://www.onecountry.org>) leads with an account of preparations for the "Millennium NGO Forum". Alanna Hartzok (PO Box 328, Scotland, PA 17254, USA; <earthrts@pa.net> - see p.6) is actively involved in its preparations. Also see <http://www.ngo.org/millennium.htm>.

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27 January, ‘UKSIF (UK Social Investment Forum) in the West’ presentation at Triodos Bank, Bristol (see p.2) by Herbert Girardet on urban sustainability. Also 24 February, Alan Gear (Henry Doubleday Research Association). For details call 0500 008 720.

2 February, London. David Boyle (see p.8) on "Alternative Money". One of a series of Tuesday evening Seeds of Change sessions. Details from Titus Alexander, 32 Carisbrooke Road, London E17 7EF; Tel: 0181-521 6977.

15 February, Susan George and 8 March, Helena Norberg-Hodge, "How Corporate Globalisation Destroys Human Rights". First two events in London Human Rights Forum 1999 Spring Series. Details and booking form from Paul Swann, LHRF, 14 Beacon Hill, London N7 9LY; <pswann@easynet.co.uk>.

4-6 March, Netherlands. 1st European Congress on Agricultural & Food Ethics. Details from Mrs Will Bodde, Wageningen Agricultural Univ, Costerweg 50, NL-6701 BH, Wegeningen, Netherlands; <will.bodde@alg.vl.wau.nl>.

14 March, Dorset. Conference at Leeson House Field Studies Centre on "A Curriculum for the 21st century", including education for sustainability, human rights, futures, and moral, social and cultural questions. Details from Peter Barbon; Tel: 01305 224527. (Dorset Education for Sustainability Network is based at Leeson House FSC - Tel: 01929-422126.)

20 March, Liverpool Schumacher Lectures: "Learning from the Earth". Fritjof Capra, Helena Norberg-Hodge and Alastair McIntosh. Details from Helen Pritchard, Institute for Health, Liverpool John Moores University, Tel: 0151-231 4056; <h.pritchard@livjm.ac.uk>. (A full report of last year’s Lectures by Vandana Shiva, Dana Zohar and James Robertson is in the Autumn 1998 Journal of Contemporary Health published by the Institute).

17 April, Manchester Schumacher Lectures: "The New Renaissance: Making Connections". Mae-Wan Ho, Stuart McBurney, Patrick Holden and Theodore Roszak. Details from Chris Lyons, Farway, Wilders Wood, Horwich, Bolton BL6 7ET; Tel: 01204-697411.

16-18 April, London Colney. "Teilhard and Evolutionary Cosmology - Complexity-Consciousness for the New Millennium". Ervin Laszlo, Max Payne, Emily Binns, Paul Malteny, Allerd Stikker. Details from Sion Cowell, Plas Maelog, Beaumaris, LL58 8BH; Tel: 01248-810402.

15-18 June, London. Healthy Planet Forum - NGO parallel to the ‘Third European Conference on Environment and Health’ which will be attended by Environment and Health Ministers from 51 European nations. Details from UNED-UK, 3 Whitehall Court, London SW1A 2EL; Tel: 0171-839 7171.

You complaints and ideas on all these matters electronic can be addressed to our ever diligent WebMistress whom you can easily reach at webmistress@EcoPlan.org, with more detailed contact information available under the main Commons site if you wish. Remember: this cooperative enterprise will be as good as you make it!

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