Thoughts of the day that I turn 23
Ladies and gentlemen, I turned 23 years of age today.
Two days ago, Serbia had an early Parliamentary election. This resulted in the Serbian Progressive Party, which is centre-right and pro-European, gaining a majority of seats in Serbia's legislative assembly (158 out of 250), with many of its newer voters coming from the former voters of the centrist Democratic Party of Serbia. The Socialist Party of Serbia, meanwhile, retained the 44 seats it had in 2012. One positive note about this early election was that the Serbian Greens entered the assembly with 18 seats, thanks to help from the New Democratic Party which it merged with and which commits to green politics.
Also, it has recently been noted by Oxfam that just five extraordinarily wealthy families are alone worth more than the poorest 20% of Britain's population, in yet another revelation about the growing and shocking inequality in the UK-one of the top 10 wealthiest nations on Earth. I hope this and other news will inspire you to come out to Downing Street tomorrow evening (if you can) at 6 pm and march against George Osborne's latest, worst yet austerity budget.
Finally, a United Nations Climate Change report that is due to be published soon reveals that the global warming that could happen unless we act to halt artificial climate change could seriously damage food and water security, could cause serious economic damage (2% reduction in the global economy at least), and could end up destroying unique landscapes which will end up flooded by sea level rises- and the scales they predict are rather optimistic (a global temperature rise of 2.5 degrees Celsius or more will do more damage than the report expects). I worry that this in turn will lead to feared 'water wars' which could potentially claim the lives of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Alan.
Two days ago, Serbia had an early Parliamentary election. This resulted in the Serbian Progressive Party, which is centre-right and pro-European, gaining a majority of seats in Serbia's legislative assembly (158 out of 250), with many of its newer voters coming from the former voters of the centrist Democratic Party of Serbia. The Socialist Party of Serbia, meanwhile, retained the 44 seats it had in 2012. One positive note about this early election was that the Serbian Greens entered the assembly with 18 seats, thanks to help from the New Democratic Party which it merged with and which commits to green politics.
Also, it has recently been noted by Oxfam that just five extraordinarily wealthy families are alone worth more than the poorest 20% of Britain's population, in yet another revelation about the growing and shocking inequality in the UK-one of the top 10 wealthiest nations on Earth. I hope this and other news will inspire you to come out to Downing Street tomorrow evening (if you can) at 6 pm and march against George Osborne's latest, worst yet austerity budget.
Finally, a United Nations Climate Change report that is due to be published soon reveals that the global warming that could happen unless we act to halt artificial climate change could seriously damage food and water security, could cause serious economic damage (2% reduction in the global economy at least), and could end up destroying unique landscapes which will end up flooded by sea level rises- and the scales they predict are rather optimistic (a global temperature rise of 2.5 degrees Celsius or more will do more damage than the report expects). I worry that this in turn will lead to feared 'water wars' which could potentially claim the lives of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Alan.
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